But I still have some thoughts.
I'll start, though, with why I'm not going to do actual playtesting: I don't think it's good enough. I play RPG's to have fun as does everyone in my group. And I don't think the current Mongoose Traveller rules would make for a fun game. I could houserule it to be fun, of course, but then I wouldn't actually be playtesting the rules actually in the playtest document.
So here's what's keeping me from playtesting this version instead of just breaking out one of the previous editions*:
Character generation:
The problem: Your likelihood of being able to reenlist in a career is inversely proportional to the number of terms already served in said career. What sort of bizarre rule is that? The more experienced you are in a field, the more likely you are to get fired? "I'm sorry, Bob, but we just need someone with less experience, less... ability... you understand that, don't you?"
Constructive criticism: Just dump that rule entirely and either bring back the separate reenistment roll or say that the character will be unable to reenlist if the advancement roll is lower than some static target#.
The problem: Events. I rolled up a few characters, so this is (in a sense) based on some playtesting. The events got tedious instead of interesting after about the first two terms of the first character for two reasons. First, there's very few possible outcomes on the tables and even fewer likely outcomes so instead of being interesting and adding color to the characters, they just become mundane and repetitive. Second, you get too many of them by rolling for one every term. It's a bit like in games with personality traits: Having one or two, maybe even three, adds a bit of color and spice to the character. Having a whole bunch of them just detracts focus from all of them and is a lot like not having any except more confusing.
Constructive criticism: I suggest the following:
- reinstating the Special Duty roll from MegaTraveller and having it work in exactly the same way it does in MT except if you roll doubles on a succesful roll, you also get to roll for a special event. So the events will actually be special - that takes care of events becoming too commonplace and mundane.
- creating a single, unified events table based on rolling two D6's to produce a two-digit number with modifiers based on what type of career you're in and what kind of homeworld you're from. For example, being in a military career could give you a +1 to the tens die so events # 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 and 77 would be specific to military characters. Scholars and entertainers (the "non-adventurous" careers) could get a -1 to the tens digit. And there could be a -1, +0 or +1 to the ones digit based on something else such as, say, homeworld TL so there'd be events specific to low-tech and high-tech characters.
It would most likely take up less space in the book, there'd be less redundancy and you could mix in the life events instead of having separate categories. And there'd be 36 different equally likely events for every career so there'd be more variety.
The problem: OK, a very minor one and not one that would keep me from enjoying the game but one that would be very easy to address: The background skills available depend entirely on qualities of the character's homeworld and not on qualities of the character himself.
Constructive criticism: Let Edu and Soc have some influence on which background skills may be selected. For example, Streetwise should really be available to characters with low Soc even if they're not from high-population worlds and Diplomat and Carouse being available to all high Soc characters.
The problem: Another minor quibble, this problem also existed in previous versions: Learnig from receiving promotions. It seems like putting the cart in front of the horse. Instead of being promoted for their competence, characters gain competence through promotion.
Constructive criticism: Let advancement have a DM based on skill rather than giving skills. Increase the basic number of skills gained per term to compensate.
Task resolution and combat
The problem: Detailed task resolution is too fidly and not really optional if you ever get into combat. The whole use one die for timing and the other for effect is elegant but has the downside of making poorly skilled characters always succeeding really well very quickly when they do succeed and the solution to that (adding the DM's to the effect die) strips away the elegance entirely.
Constructive criticism: Ditch the timing die and let the quality of the success depend on how high the success roll was. That would require a total rewrite of the initiative system, of course, but as I see it that's an added benefit. Perhaps something like: 8-10: Basic Succes, 11-13: Good Success (+1 to damage), 14-16: Great Success (+2 to damage) et.c.
The problem: The initiative system gives me a headache and I wouldn't want to use it if I were running more than one character. As GM, I'll commonly need to do that.
Constructive criticism: Roll 2d6 plus Dex plus Tactics or something for initiative. Everyone acts in initiative order. Rinse and repeat. It's easy, it works and it's as detailed as it needs to be.
The problem: Damage. Again, way more complicated than it needs to be. It's much more complex than, say, CT yet adds precisely nothing to compensate for this extra complexity.
Constructive criticism: Get it a bit closer to CT. I agree that letting armor reduce damage instead of making you harder to hit is a good idea. Add one to the number of damage dice from CT and let quality of success add extra dice (the same number for each weapon rather than a variable multiplier) and subtract dice based on armor (armor values would need to be adjusted too).
I haven't read on after combat, honestly, since if I don't have a character creation and task resolution and combat system I can use, the quality of the rest of the system becomes pretty academic.
*None of which are perfect - this isn't some "I hate all change because the old versions were perfect in every way" rant. I just think they had fewer imperfections.
I'll start, though, with why I'm not going to do actual playtesting: I don't think it's good enough. I play RPG's to have fun as does everyone in my group. And I don't think the current Mongoose Traveller rules would make for a fun game. I could houserule it to be fun, of course, but then I wouldn't actually be playtesting the rules actually in the playtest document.
So here's what's keeping me from playtesting this version instead of just breaking out one of the previous editions*:
Character generation:
The problem: Your likelihood of being able to reenlist in a career is inversely proportional to the number of terms already served in said career. What sort of bizarre rule is that? The more experienced you are in a field, the more likely you are to get fired? "I'm sorry, Bob, but we just need someone with less experience, less... ability... you understand that, don't you?"
Constructive criticism: Just dump that rule entirely and either bring back the separate reenistment roll or say that the character will be unable to reenlist if the advancement roll is lower than some static target#.
The problem: Events. I rolled up a few characters, so this is (in a sense) based on some playtesting. The events got tedious instead of interesting after about the first two terms of the first character for two reasons. First, there's very few possible outcomes on the tables and even fewer likely outcomes so instead of being interesting and adding color to the characters, they just become mundane and repetitive. Second, you get too many of them by rolling for one every term. It's a bit like in games with personality traits: Having one or two, maybe even three, adds a bit of color and spice to the character. Having a whole bunch of them just detracts focus from all of them and is a lot like not having any except more confusing.
Constructive criticism: I suggest the following:
- reinstating the Special Duty roll from MegaTraveller and having it work in exactly the same way it does in MT except if you roll doubles on a succesful roll, you also get to roll for a special event. So the events will actually be special - that takes care of events becoming too commonplace and mundane.
- creating a single, unified events table based on rolling two D6's to produce a two-digit number with modifiers based on what type of career you're in and what kind of homeworld you're from. For example, being in a military career could give you a +1 to the tens die so events # 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76 and 77 would be specific to military characters. Scholars and entertainers (the "non-adventurous" careers) could get a -1 to the tens digit. And there could be a -1, +0 or +1 to the ones digit based on something else such as, say, homeworld TL so there'd be events specific to low-tech and high-tech characters.
It would most likely take up less space in the book, there'd be less redundancy and you could mix in the life events instead of having separate categories. And there'd be 36 different equally likely events for every career so there'd be more variety.
The problem: OK, a very minor one and not one that would keep me from enjoying the game but one that would be very easy to address: The background skills available depend entirely on qualities of the character's homeworld and not on qualities of the character himself.
Constructive criticism: Let Edu and Soc have some influence on which background skills may be selected. For example, Streetwise should really be available to characters with low Soc even if they're not from high-population worlds and Diplomat and Carouse being available to all high Soc characters.
The problem: Another minor quibble, this problem also existed in previous versions: Learnig from receiving promotions. It seems like putting the cart in front of the horse. Instead of being promoted for their competence, characters gain competence through promotion.
Constructive criticism: Let advancement have a DM based on skill rather than giving skills. Increase the basic number of skills gained per term to compensate.
Task resolution and combat
The problem: Detailed task resolution is too fidly and not really optional if you ever get into combat. The whole use one die for timing and the other for effect is elegant but has the downside of making poorly skilled characters always succeeding really well very quickly when they do succeed and the solution to that (adding the DM's to the effect die) strips away the elegance entirely.
Constructive criticism: Ditch the timing die and let the quality of the success depend on how high the success roll was. That would require a total rewrite of the initiative system, of course, but as I see it that's an added benefit. Perhaps something like: 8-10: Basic Succes, 11-13: Good Success (+1 to damage), 14-16: Great Success (+2 to damage) et.c.
The problem: The initiative system gives me a headache and I wouldn't want to use it if I were running more than one character. As GM, I'll commonly need to do that.
Constructive criticism: Roll 2d6 plus Dex plus Tactics or something for initiative. Everyone acts in initiative order. Rinse and repeat. It's easy, it works and it's as detailed as it needs to be.
The problem: Damage. Again, way more complicated than it needs to be. It's much more complex than, say, CT yet adds precisely nothing to compensate for this extra complexity.
Constructive criticism: Get it a bit closer to CT. I agree that letting armor reduce damage instead of making you harder to hit is a good idea. Add one to the number of damage dice from CT and let quality of success add extra dice (the same number for each weapon rather than a variable multiplier) and subtract dice based on armor (armor values would need to be adjusted too).
I haven't read on after combat, honestly, since if I don't have a character creation and task resolution and combat system I can use, the quality of the rest of the system becomes pretty academic.
*None of which are perfect - this isn't some "I hate all change because the old versions were perfect in every way" rant. I just think they had fewer imperfections.
