New vs Previous Traveller

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why balance is dexterity. It’s intelligence and strength. Dexterity is fine work with the hands. I’d stretch it to catching or throwing a ball but no further.

Watch a weak person try to stand on one leg. They lack the strength to hold their body rigid enough to avoid wobbling.

Edit: where your limbs need to be to effect some change in your attitude is intelligence. You learn it as you practise it.

 

[Old School]

Dexterity in the traveller concept I believe involves the larger sense of the word, beyond fine finger work. Mongoose defines it as:

Dexterity (DEX): Physical co-ordination and agility, reflexes.

From Merriam Webster:

Definition of dexterity
1 : readiness and grace in physical activity
especially : skill and ease in using the hands
manual dexterity
2 : mental skill or quickness : ADROITNESS

Dexterity is obviously applied to larger actions than fine work with the hands, so the larger scale of the dictionary definition is appropriate.

Strength only helps balance up to a limited point, after which it adds no benefit. and balancing on one leg requires much more strength than balancing on a surfboard or a balance beam, although all test one’s sense of balance. Within the three options I would put balance training as closer to Dexterity than to Strength, as it involves physical grace. Strength is obviously not the appropriate test for a keeping or regaining control in zero G. I could see using Athletics (Str) over Athletics (Dex) in certain acrobatic scenarios, but gaining one’s balance wouldn’t be one of them.

But hey, it’s your game. Rule zero and all that.

 

[HalC]

For what it is worth, I finally took the plunge and picked up 2nd edition. Eventually, I'm going to want to compare each of the two books against each other just to see what did or did not change.

ONE thing that I am impressed with (ie "what took so long???!!!") was the fact that incidental freight is now common for ALL worlds instead of just a select few. It is now possible for a ship with 64 dTons of cargo capacity to actively fill the hold up entirely with the 2nd edition rules.

NICE!

In addition, while I'm still not entirely happy with the "jump accuracy" rules in 2nd edition, they're still better than the First edition and can be tweaked with minor house rules.

One house rule that I might make is that accuracy is a function of both the engineer and the astrogator. If the Engineer misses by 1 and the Astrogation roll is also missed by 1, then the affects accumulate. In the event that the navigator makes that stupid error and decides to double check their figures, the astrogator gets to roll against their skill to see if they spot their initial mistake or not (needing a 6+ with die modifiers of -1 per parsec travelled).

Point is? I'm glad now that I did pick up the second edition.

 

[Anonymous]

Strength only helps balance up to a limited point, after which it adds no benefit. and balancing on one leg requires much more strength than balancing on a surfboard or a balance beam, although all test one’s sense of balance. Within the three options I would put balance training as closer to Dexterity than to Strength, as it involves physical grace. Strength is obviously not the appropriate test for a keeping or regaining control in zero G. I could see using Athletics (Str) over Athletics (Dex) in certain acrobatic scenarios, but gaining one’s balance wouldn’t be one of them.

Where you do not require support (perhaps Zero-G or underwater) would consider that to be intelligence + practise i.e. INT + Zero-G skill. Although it's a subconscious intellitence that doesn't require concentration to calculate, it is also in my experience the best performers of such feats are also not stupid. I guess you could say this type of intelligence is what dexterity is measuring, but then it's badly named.

I'd agree that the best thing to do is just play the rules as written and not waste time over it.

 

[Old School]

2nd edition does not have zero-G skill, which is why we are discussion Athletics (Dex). It is the skill used in place on Zero-G.

 

[Old School]

Hal, that is essentially how the rules ork, but only in one direction. Astrogation failed means you start over. On a successful astrogation check, however, the effect carries over to the Engineer check.

Glad you took the plunge. The 2nd edition rules are an improvement overall.

 

[Anonymous]

the rules ork

That needs to be a meme. Red wunz go fasta, use bigga nails etc etc.

 

[Garran]

Re the terminology confusion, RPGs - except for a few that explicitly split them into separate stats - generally roll agility and dexterity (as real-world terms) together under a single stat, which gets game-termed as one of the two. Dexterity is the "traditional" choice, at least among pen-and-paper systems.

 

[Linwood]

2nd edition does not have zero-G skill, which is why we are discussion Athletics (Dex). It is the skill used in place on Zero-G.

One recent change (with the Traveller Companion) is an expanded definition of broad skills. Profession may have benefited the most - sub-skills and specialties are fleshed out quite a bit and the skill is now far more useful.

For example - there is now a Profession (Hostile Environment) skill with a specialty of Low-G. As defined Low-G reduces the penalty for weapons use in Zero-G - with that skill you can use weapons with damage dice up to your skill level with no need to check to retain control. A character with three or four skill levels in this could have a substantial advantage.

 

[Condottiere]

Professions are a cascade of related skills and knowledge, most zero.

Depending on the educational path, it could be broad or narrow.

 

[Old School]

Linwood, good point. I like the expanding profession skills in the Companion a lot.

 

[Jame Rowe]

Does anyone know how close MGT 1e 2300 AD is to 2300 AD2e?
Thanks in advance!