Newbie questions

[Red Bart]

I have just started out with Traveller and am still reading through the books I have. The rules are pretty clear for the most part, but I do have some questions:

1) The core rules on page 8 and 9 say that you can optionally attempt a commission roll if available to your career, and talks about advancement as if it was a separate roll that earns you an additional skill roll if successful. The character generation checklist on page 5 however says that the commission roll is made instead of the advancement roll. Is the checklist right? And if it is, does that mean you forfeit the additional skill roll an advancement would have gotten you?

2) Is my understanding correct that the players can potentially choose any ship they want, however expensive? They of course have to come up with the mortgage at the end of the month, but big ships can generate big profits. How do other referees deal with this?

3) In Book 7, The Merchant Prince there is a chapter about slavery. On page 75, third paragraph, is stated that a medic skill check has to be made once every week. For each success 10 slaves are kept healthy. But what does this mean if the roll is failed? Do the slaves perish? Do they just become unhealthy? And if they do, what are the effects of this? A lower price?

4) Further on on the same page it says "The number of slaves they collectively purchase is determined by rolling the dice shown on the following table, subtracting the local law level from the final total". Does this mean that the local law level is subtracted from the total of each category (unskilled labour, skilled labour, entertainment, etc.)? Or is it subtracted from the total of all categories added together? If it is the first then this makes slave trading all but useless to planets with a high law level, or even an average law level. This might be intentional of course, but I couldn't really make this out from the text.

5) Are the rules for scavenging in book 6, Scoundrel, and the junk dealing rules in Merchant Prince complimenting each other, or are they different rules for the same thing, possibly in conflict?

I'll probably have more questions if I read more or more books, but right now these are it

 

[locarno24]

1) The core rules on page 8 and 9 say that you can optionally attempt a commission roll if available to your career, and talks about advancement as if it was a separate roll that earns you an additional skill roll if successful. The character generation checklist on page 5 however says that the commission roll is made instead of the advancement roll. Is the checklist right? And if it is, does that mean you forfeit the additional skill roll an advancement would have gotten you?

Advancement doesn't give you a skill roll per se. If you look at the rank tables, you'll see that most of them include skill bonuses you receive on reaching a particular rank. Most of the officer 'tracks' get them too.

If you have High Guard, for example, you'll see a crewman starts as an E1 (spacehand recruit).
You can:

Get a commission, which will make you an O1 (ensign), which comes with a free bonus of Melee (Blade)/1

Get a advancement as an enlisted crewman, which will make you an E2 (Spacehand Apprentice), which comes with a free bonus of either +1 Mechanic or +1 Discipline.

Whether you attempt the Commission roll and the Advancement is unclear (as you note). We always play it that you can try for a commission, then try for advancement if you fail - you're not going to get a commission then a promotion immediately but the fact that you're not being made an officer doesn't mean you aren't up to coming 'off probation' as an able spacehand.

2) Is my understanding correct that the players can potentially choose any ship they want, however expensive? They of course have to come up with the mortgage at the end of the month, but big ships can generate big profits. How do other referees deal with this?

In theory, yes. But remember the other problem - ships can generate a big profit if operated correctly. A capital-class superfreighter requires a shedload of qualified crew - i.e. more than the player party, which means crew salaries come into play. More importantly, filling an umpty-ump thousand dTon freighter isn't going to be achieved with a few dicerolls - 'proper' shipping lines have brokers permentantly in place on worlds to secure contracts; if you only leave yourself from the time you re-enter realspace to the time you dock at the highport to find 5 kDtons of cargo all going to the same place, you're going to go bankrupt bloody quickly, but if you wait around idle in orbit, or undock half-empty, the result is the same.

3) In Book 7, The Merchant Prince there is a chapter about slavery. On page 75, third paragraph, is stated that a medic skill check has to be made once every week. For each success 10 slaves are kept healthy. But what does this mean if the roll is failed? Do the slaves perish? Do they just become unhealthy? And if they do, what are the effects of this? A lower price?

Don't have the rulebook to see the context (i.e. the minimum living conditions described). If the medic roll is the only requirement, I can't see it killing them - people don't die of not having weekly medical care. What 'unhealthy' means is for the GM to arbitrate, but I'd agree that it probably means decreased sale price.

If it is the first then this makes slave trading all but useless to planets with a high law level, or even an average law level. This might be intentional of course, but I couldn't really make this out from the text.

Yes. Planets with a decent law level are not going to overlook slave trading. If it's an integral part of the culture, the GM is at liberty, of course, to count the Law Level as lower than the 'base' law level. You'll rarely find a planet with a 'single value' law level, whatever the book says - for example, an Imperial core world with a 'western europe' feel would probably have a LL of 8+ with regards to weapons and psionics, but only 3-4 with regards to technology, and drug/traveller restrictions somewhere between the two.

Are the rules for scavenging in book 6, Scoundrel, and the junk dealing rules in Merchant Prince complimenting each other, or are they different rules for the same thing, possibly in conflict?

Don't have access to those two books but I'll tell you now that Traveller often seems to have multiple rules for the same thing. Just pick the one you like or that seems to work most easily.

 

[Hopeless]

I have just started out with Traveller and am still reading through the books I have. The rules are pretty clear for the most part, but I do have some questions:

1) The core rules on page 8 and 9 say that you can optionally attempt a commission roll if available to your career, and talks about advancement as if it was a separate roll that earns you an additional skill roll if successful. The character generation checklist on page 5 however says that the commission roll is made instead of the advancement roll. Is the checklist right? And if it is, does that mean you forfeit the additional skill roll an advancement would have gotten you?

Those careers that allow a commission mean you have officer and enlisted ranks so you could fail the commission roll but pass advancement and improve your rank as an enlisted (I believe its called something else though) if or when you pass the commission roll it should mean you go to the minimum rank on the officer rank table although that depends on your dm.
During that specific career you can only achieve your commission once whilst there should be options for 6 advancements beside the officer version mentioned above so a navy/marine/army character on their first term could pass their commission and advancement and have 3 skill rolls atop of their basic training and whatever happened on their events roll but following tours in the same career will only have 2, 1 for surviving the tour and making the advancement roll

2) Is my understanding correct that the players can potentially choose any ship they want, however expensive? They of course have to come up with the mortgage at the end of the month, but big ships can generate big profits. How do other referees deal with this?

Usually depends on the career they gained it within but there are options for swapping them out for ship shares so they have a reason to be working together since they share in the profits.

3) In Book 7, The Merchant Prince there is a chapter about slavery. On page 75, third paragraph, is stated that a medic skill check has to be made once every week. For each success 10 slaves are kept healthy. But what does this mean if the roll is failed? Do the slaves perish? Do they just become unhealthy? And if they do, what are the effects of this? A lower price?

4) Further on on the same page it says "The number of slaves they collectively purchase is determined by rolling the dice shown on the following table, subtracting the local law level from the final total". Does this mean that the local law level is subtracted from the total of each category (unskilled labour, skilled labour, entertainment, etc.)? Or is it subtracted from the total of all categories added together? If it is the first then this makes slave trading all but useless to planets with a high law level, or even an average law level. This might be intentional of course, but I couldn't really make this out from the text.

5) Are the rules for scavenging in book 6, Scoundrel, and the junk dealing rules in Merchant Prince complimenting each other, or are they different rules for the same thing, possibly in conflict?

I'll probably have more questions if I read more or more books, but right now these are it [/quote]

 

[Red Bart]

Thanks for your quick reply locarno24!

1) I wasn't referring to the bonus skill or benefit you get when you advance in rank, but to the additional skill roll you get if your advance roll is successful. As the character creation checklist says: "If you succeed [the advancement roll], choose one of the skills and training tables for this career and roll on it. Increase your rank and take any bonus skills from the ranks table for this career."

Your idea of allowing an advancement roll if the commission roll fails sounds like a good idea. And sounds as if it was intended by the writers.

2) Hadn't thought of the operating cost of the larger ship, nor of the larger cargo it requires. So that'll probably put a damper on my players entrepreneurial spirits My guess is that they'll try this first session and will dive headfirst into bankruptcy. And then steal the ship and start becoming pirates. Better read up on those law rules

3) I'll probably rule that the slave's value decreases by 10% for each negative effect. Effect rolls are cumulative each week and a -100% deduction in price means dead slaves.

4) Good point. When rolling for random worlds I felt that a personnel freedom category was a bit missing from the tables. A thing like that could have been used as a slavery law level.

5) Scoundrels is in the mail, so I'll take a long hard look at its consistency with the merchant prince rules when I get it.

 

[Red Bart]

Thanks for your quick reply Hopeless!

Those careers that allow a commission mean you have officer and enlisted ranks so you could fail the commission roll but pass advancement and improve your rank as an enlisted (I believe its called something else though) if or when you pass the commission roll it should mean you go to the minimum rank on the officer rank table although that depends on your dm.

Yes, but if your commission works out, do you still get the additional skill roll that you would have gotten for a successful advancement?

During that specific career you can only achieve your commission once whilst there should be options for 6 advancements beside the officer version mentioned above so a navy/marine/army character on their first term could pass their commission and advancement and have 3 skill rolls atop of their basic training and whatever happened on their events roll but following tours in the same career will only have 2, 1 for surviving the tour and making the advancement roll

But if you already had your commission or if you failed your commission roll, and then succeeded the advancement roll, you'd get that third skill roll anyway, don't you?

 

[Captain Jonah]

2) Is my understanding correct that the players can potentially choose any ship they want, however expensive? They of course have to come up with the mortgage at the end of the month, but big ships can generate big profits. How do other referees deal with this?

Since ship shares are based on a % rather than a fixed value then yes players can take any size of ship that you as a ref allow them to.
However the players have to be able to afford the ship. Unless they are running a funded ship then paying the bills is a big issue.

If you go by the rules and just turn up at a starport looking for cargos on your next stop you have limits on what you can find. With low skills and average rolls you are looking at 14 Low, 11 Mid and 7 high plus 200Dtons plus of cargo. With good skills and rolls you can get 21 Low, 14 Mid and 11 High plus 400 odd Dtons of cargo.

Having a ship that can carry more than this leaves you struggling to fill staterooms or holds. Beyond this you need support organisations, booking agents or offices who can pre arrange your loads etc. This however limits you to a fixed route and timetable meaning all those wander off where you want type tramp crews are unable to do this.

For wandering tramp traders you are limited to under 1000Dtons to have any chance of filling them from a week long wander round a starport or hanging out in the bars (finding cargo honest). At jump 2 a 1000Dton tramp trader with a skilled crew can make a nice profit if you keep to good runs but the costs ramp up very fast if you want to go hunt ancient ruins for a few weeks. 200Dton ships make a lot less money but are cheaper to go off in search of adventure with.

It very much depends on your group and the style of adventure you plan to run. For a wandering style of game, jumping from world to world as deals or adventure leads then a smaller cheaper ship would work if the group can make enough from extra trading activities (legal of course :lol: ) that the reduced income from trade doesn’t matter. For a campaign in a cluster or subsector with good trading worlds then a larger trader covering a smaller area makes decent money and the players can do more charity adventures since they are less dependent of side jobs to pay the bills.

Above this level you can go in a number of directions. A merchant character who operates a 5000Dton ship jumping between 2 or 3 worlds most of the time while his friend the ex navy/star Merc type runs an escort doing convoy security. Then every so often they get together and go Travelling (adventuring, exploring, crime etc) paying the bills on the escort with profit from the traders income with the main ship and its NPC crew.
Player groups with shares spread across several ships can form mini convoys along dangerous border areas or war zones if one of them is an escort.
A series of adventures could take place on a player 10,000Dton ship as it jumps between a set of worlds or during down time on stopovers. The bigger ship will need branch offices on each world it stops at to pre book cargo etc and will fairly quickly pay off its mortgage unless the ref is fudging things. Once the ship is fully owned the players then have access to a large chunk of cash each month in income which leads to new problems.

 

[Captain Jonah]

2) Hadn't thought of the operating cost of the larger ship, nor of the larger cargo it requires. So that'll probably put a damper on my players entrepreneurial spirits My guess is that they'll try this first session and will dive headfirst into bankruptcy. And then steal the ship and start becoming pirates. Better read up on those law rules

Guide them towards either a larger 1000Dton odd cargo hauler with jump 2 and no weapons if you suspect they will go pirate, surrender or I will ram you is a lot less scary that a few P-Beams.

Or go for it whole hog. Let them have a 10,000Dton ship that is old, worn out and has not much of a sale price. Make it a left over from a corporation that went bust and the shares came from moneys the players were owed by the corporation. So they get the ship instead of the money owed to them. Then let them fail as traders and go from there. :twisted:

 

[tneva82]

2) Hadn't thought of the operating cost of the larger ship, nor of the larger cargo it requires. So that'll probably put a damper on my players entrepreneurial spirits My guess is that they'll try this first session and will dive headfirst into bankruptcy. And then steal the ship and start becoming pirates. Better read up on those law rules

If the players don't start up with decent starting cash they will struggle to fill even cargo bay of 200dton ship.

Of course if they DO end up with decent start cash and have character with broker 2-3 and maybe stat bonus to that as well then they will be pretty damn wealthy after few jumps. But then again then you just need to make sure campaign isn't about getting rich

 

[CosmicGamer]

1) The core rules on page 8 and 9 say that you can optionally attempt a commission roll if available to your career, and talks about advancement as if it was a separate roll that earns you an additional skill roll if successful. The character generation checklist on page 5 however says that the commission roll is made instead of the advancement roll. Is the checklist right? And if it is, does that mean you forfeit the additional skill roll an advancement would have gotten you?

I can't say if the checklist on page 5 is "right" but it is what I've gone by from day 1 when creating characters.

Once some discussion, like this one, arose, I could still justify it. Take the two options and two sets of rules.
- Rolling for both commission and advancement does 100% break the very clear page 5 checklist.
- Allowing commission as an optional alternative to advancement is not described on page 8 and 9 but neither does it explicitly go against any rules.

Justification includes
- Game mechanics imbalance. Military careers would have an opportunity to gain an additional skill as compared to other careers: one skill possible for new officer rank and one skill possible for advancement rank too in the same term.
- Also it's not illogical that an enlisted person has limited time to study and prepare and can only do so properly for either commission or advancement but not both.

Don't get me wrong, I can see the possibility of doing both too and won't argue against it if someones decision is that the checklist is not a clarification of the rules and instead is in error.

By the way, you can check out my thread "Mongoose Character Generation for Dummies".

I wasn't referring to the bonus skill or benefit you get when you advance in rank, but to the additional skill roll you get if your advance roll is successful. As the character creation checklist says: "If you succeed [the advancement roll], choose one of the skills and training tables for this career and roll on it. Increase your rank and take any bonus skills from the ranks table for this career."

At first I had some issue with the word increase for when a character changes from, lets say, E2 to O1 but then decided it is not inconceivable for one to think of changing from an enlisted rank, even if higher than 1, to an officer rank of 1 as an increase. Officers certainly outrank enlisted.

Yes, but if your commission works out, do you still get the additional skill roll that you would have gotten for a successful advancement?

So, by the page 5 checklist, my interpretation is that you could roll commission instead of step 8a advancement and if you succeed you still get the same step 8b skill that you would with advancement and you still have the possibility of 8c forcing the character out if the roll is less than the number of terms.

Advancement doesn't give you a skill roll per se.

Rules page 9 "If you make a successful Advancement roll, then you move to the next rank and gain an extra roll on any SKills and Training Tables for this career."

Those careers that allow a commission mean you have officer and enlisted ranks so you could fail the commission roll but pass advancement and improve your rank as an enlisted.

Your idea of allowing an advancement roll if the commission roll fails sounds like a good idea. And sounds as if it was intended by the writers.

And that is something not explained at all anywhere if you ignore the page 5 checklist and instead allow both commissioning and advancement in the same term.
- Should advancement be first before commission?
- Should commission be first and then advancement?
I guess you could just go by the order they fall in the book. The rules for commission come before advancement so this would produce
1) Commission fails and advancement, if successful, would be for the enlisted rank.
2) Commission succeeds and advancement, if successful, would be for the officer rank.

 

[locarno24]

Guide them towards either a larger 1000Dton odd cargo hauler with jump 2 and no weapons if you suspect they will go pirate, surrender or I will ram you is a lot less scary that a few P-Beams.

Or go for it whole hog. Let them have a 10,000Dton ship that is old, worn out and has not much of a sale price. Make it a left over from a corporation that went bust and the shares came from moneys the players were owed by the corporation. So they get the ship instead of the money owed to them. Then let them fail as traders and go from there.

You can still make that a dangerous target. Pack a freighter's hold full of incapacitation drones, CAPTORs and SLAM pods. Makes a freighter capable of some very nasty surprises. And 'wanted by the imperial navy', which is less of a good thing.

I guess you could just go by the order they fall in the book. The rules for commission come before advancement so this would produce
1) Commission fails and advancement, if successful, would be for the enlisted rank.
2) Commission succeeds and advancement, if successful, would be for the officer rank.

Yes with a but. You should not get the possibility of (2) - no-one should jump from Spacehand Recruit (E1) to Sublieutenant (O2) in one term on the basis of two (pretty easy) characteristic checks....

 

[CosmicGamer]

2) Ships. I see two possibilities.

A) The GM has a plan for the campaign and whether the characters have a ship or not and perhaps the general size or even the exact type of ship is known prior to chargen.
B) The characters are free to do what they want and the GM just provides help and hindrance as necessary to keep the game fun.

Under A, the GM may have the deck plans prepared and several adventures outlined. Maybe you are playing out an adventure that is published and has a specific ship as the centerpiece or maybe it's prison planet or some other adventure where there is no ship.

As discussed elsewhere, no need to make those ship shares worthless if the campaign does not need a ship or is providing one. Those ship shares could be determined to be actual shares of stock, an investment in some free trader or other ship.

Under B, let the players get whatever ship they think their characters would obtain but as GM, you can role play financiers requiring a business plan and not backing illogical choices.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

RB,
My suggestion on the ship is to determine what kind of campaign you as the GM want to run.
Most GM's run a sandbox where the players are free to do whatever, but some GM's will tell their players up front. "I'm running a Piracy game" or "I'm running a Mercenary game."

I will give you 2 examples.
1) When I played a game some years ago as a player, the GM simply came out and said, "You will be part of the crew of a mercenary cruiser and it is a licensed privateer." He ran us through “Traveller the New Era” where there were many smaller governments and pocket empires rather than 2 or 3 huge empires. So all 4 of us got to roll up the kind of guys we wanted, but we were simply members of a 600 ton liner converted into a pocket merc. cruiser. One of the players was a retire naval officer and captain of the ship. My character was a pilot and “money/negotiation” guy. The other two players was the chief engineer and gunner/grunt. The 4 of us were in charge of a crew of about 20. The ship DID NOT belong to us. We were paid a salary (based on our career) plus we got a share of the loot (51% of the loot went to the owner and 49% got divided between the crew) As the leaders, our share of the 49% was rather healthy. It was an ok game but only lasted for 3 or 4 small “missions”. In this way, we the players never had to worry about ship payments and upkeep. All that was off the books. We were simply given orders… “Patrol this part of space. You are looking for a ship called “X”. Take ship “X” down at any cost. Any other ship “flying the flag” of the opposing government was all fair game. Another mission was to locate and secure a secret base that the apposing government privateers were using to raid friendly space lanes. We were given the tasks/orders by our owner “The GM” and it was up to us as players to accomplish the task. We had pretty much free reign on how to do it as well, just as long as it got done. So we did do the speculative trading thing hopping planet to planet in route to our mission goals. Anything we made in trade was 100% ours. Anyway, if you want to run that kind of a campaign, it is one of the few ways players can start out with a larger military style ship.
2) When I started running my Mongoose Traveller game more than a year ago, one of the players decided to be a noble. He used the wealth option in dilettante to have a very good monthly income. The ship the players decided on (a 300 ton armed merchant) was in affect the Nobles Company ship. The players got to own, and make payments on, 49% of the ship, while the Nobles monthly income took care of 51% of the ship. So the noble was technically in charge, and he could if he wanted, order the other players what to do, but he never did. Anyway the players had fun, and their costs were much lower than normal simply because they were only paying on half a ship.
3) Traditionally players will struggle to keep up payments on a 200 ton far trader… IF you as a GM simply rely on the complete randomness of trade and passenger charts. As a GM I never let my games get bogged down in “making the house payment”. Depending on how you run your game, you can always create any number of high risk, high reward scenarios that will bring plenty of cash, danger, adventure, and most importantly FUN than simply rolling on the stock charts in the book and taking whatever random rolls you get. I think you will find one of the best all around stock adventure ships is the 200 ton far trader.

Hope some of that helps.

 

[Red Bart]

That's what I like about the system: its sheer versatility. For players who want to trade there is a good set of trade rules, for players that want to fight there's a good set of combat rules, for players who want to have ships duke it out in space there's a good set of rules, and so on. Nice, consistent, and simple rules. You can play any campaign you want with a system like this, but I think that's also the challenge for the GM. If you don't keep a firm grip on events the game might get away from you.

I recently had a WH40k Rogue Trader campaign kind of whimper out on the lack of consistency and simplicity in its rules, which made the campaign bog down and boring. The system is a bit of an opposite to Traveller. Rogue trader has a great background, great art work, but is a mediocre system. Traveller looks like a great system with mediocre artwork and a background that is a bit bland. I have a suspicion that the Dynasty supplement was published to give Traveller GM's some tools to have the Traveller system with the Rogue Trader background.