What is true for A Call to Arms will also be true for Traveller - though we do not yet have a solid release date for the latter.
Planet Mongoose
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
Interesting. Although I personally can't stand Star Trek, it looks to me like you're saying you have a license to do Star Trek as an RPG using the Traveller system and as a miniatures game using the A Call to Arms system. That is 1/4 of a Star Trek space ship isn't it in the Planet Mongoose graphic?
That must have cost a tidy sum so I hope it sells well for you. Congratulations.
Good Lord, I've just imagined Traveller and Star Trek grognards coming together! I better break out the tin foil hat and popcorn now!
That must have cost a tidy sum so I hope it sells well for you. Congratulations.
Good Lord, I've just imagined Traveller and Star Trek grognards coming together! I better break out the tin foil hat and popcorn now!
IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
Traveller + Star Trek = Much larger pool of potential players!
Am so hoping this is an ATU which plays nice with the Core Rule Books I've already bought.
Am so hoping this is an ATU which plays nice with the Core Rule Books I've already bought.
Travellingdave
Banded Mongoose
Wow. That could be huge! And I will say that a Traveller/Star Trek combo might make the most playable Star Trek RPG in recent memory. I'd buy it and I'm not even a major Trek fan. You go!
IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
I wonder how transporters + FTL are going to change adventures.
And will the following daft staples be sidestepped:-
* The bridge crew of a ship doubles up as a squad of marines every time there is a hostile ship or planet to explore.
* The bridge crew also are so well versed in hand to hand combat and it isn't a proper episode unless the Captain of a Galaxy Class starship gets into a brawl with the Captain of an enemy vessel
* Holodeck adventures.
* Time travel. Start an episode by killing characters and then resurrecting them inside 45 minutes.
And will the following daft staples be sidestepped:-
* The bridge crew of a ship doubles up as a squad of marines every time there is a hostile ship or planet to explore.
* The bridge crew also are so well versed in hand to hand combat and it isn't a proper episode unless the Captain of a Galaxy Class starship gets into a brawl with the Captain of an enemy vessel
* Holodeck adventures.
* Time travel. Start an episode by killing characters and then resurrecting them inside 45 minutes.
Mark A. Siefert
Mongoose
By the markings on the model on the Planet Mongoose page (looks like a Fed Battlecruiser), I think what they've really got is the liscense for the Star Fleet Battles Universe rather than Star Trek.
"Beam me up Scotty"
*Scotty Rolls 2*
...
Would definitely attract more prospects! This is a should try opportunity. It meets the 3 Questions:
1. Satisfy Irrational passion? - Oh, you bet
2. Few or no perceived options? - Most likely.
3. Prospect is actively searching - Most likely, although might not expect role-playing game.
*Scotty Rolls 2*
...
Would definitely attract more prospects! This is a should try opportunity. It meets the 3 Questions:
1. Satisfy Irrational passion? - Oh, you bet
2. Few or no perceived options? - Most likely.
3. Prospect is actively searching - Most likely, although might not expect role-playing game.
ITs pretty easy to mod Star Trek into the Traveller rules set. The hardest parts are probably deciding upon how to rewrite certain careers to fit the iconic careers in Star Trek. Like I think Communications is pretty lame. The other big challenge is how to write up the various races that show up in Star Trek.
So yes, it would be sweet if Mongoose got the RPG license and did all of this for us, but it certainly isn't impossible to do your own, especially if you convert it as you need it.
So yes, it would be sweet if Mongoose got the RPG license and did all of this for us, but it certainly isn't impossible to do your own, especially if you convert it as you need it.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
The Starfleet Games forum already has a section for Prime Directive: Traveller.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
http://starfleetgames.com/federation/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=5663aebb4f495bfb496b5b6b976ec5d6
IanBruntlett said:
Those staples aren't "daft", they're Star Trek; like Jedi parrying blasters with a lightsabre in Star Wars, you roll with it or change it if your the GM.
Anyway, since this is going to be the Star Fleet Universe and not Star Trek, some of these issues may not come up. I seem to remember the primary Away Teams in Prime Directive being "Prime Teams" instead of the captain and department heads; sort of like Star Fleet Special Forces.
Sigh. Me too, you know.
One thought - given the tendancy of traveller to have d6 or d66 generators for things, you could have quite a lot of fun building a 'random technological mcguffin generator'.
Deals with
1 Alpha/ Quantum/ Particle/ Shear
2 Beta/ Soliton/ Distortion/ Overload
3 Gamma/ Phasic/ Anomaly/ Leak
4 Delta/ Temporal/ Rift/ Contamination
5 Epsilon/ Graviton/ Field/ Reading
6 Zeta/ Sub-Space/ Wave/ Shockwave
Using
1 A modified emitter node in/ shields
2 Overcharging the EPS feeding/ the deflector dish
3 Realigning the angle of/ the warp nacelles
4 Reversing the polarity of/ the tractor beam
5 Changing the frequency of/ structural integrity fields
6 Diverting warp power to/ transporters
.... and so on.
Easy enough to get around, as you say. One trick from High Guard is to give every player a 'suite' of characters - one bridge officer, one away team guy, one or two others - so in every 'scene' there is normally one PC run by each player.
Prime directive is either an existing Star Trek RPG or a working name for a fan version, I forget. But I can't imagine this didn't have to go through Paramount. Star Trek is not the sort of IP you hand out to other companies without keeping control of it.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
IanBruntlett said:
Warp drive, not much change. no need for huge fuel volumes but otherwise due to the size of the Federation it takes days/weeks to get anywhere. It means the default one week transit time is changed to a point to point time. Plus ships go STL to fight so not much change there.
Tech makes ships less manpower intensive. A small player group can easily crew a multi Kiloton cargo ship on their own.
Transporters. Cannot work through shields or energy fields or ionised atmospheres or dampers etc etc. There are still shuttles. Basically from the ref/adventure point of view if you don't want people beaming in then block the transporters. Otherwise it removes the whole "you take a cutter to the starport, you arrive" bit. Good adventures and refs will not be overturned by transporters.
Prime Directive was and is based on elite multi skill teams that sort of evolved from marine boarding teams. In SFB/Prime Directive games they bring together combat specialists, scientists, engineers, special talents and skills to form a small team able to be dropped in to handle almost any problem. They are there to deal with problems while leaving the bridge crew back on the ship doing bridge crew type things.
The ship is the floating base and source of a few adventures. Otherwise the briefing and planning happens en route and the adventure starts when you step onto the transporter or board the shuttlecraft.
In terms of all bridge officers being masters of combat, you need to watch some more startrek :lol:
Basic combat skills are included in every Starfleet officers training, they also have vast amounts of free time and in the background learn new skills, keep fit etc. Some such as security/fire control officers are very good in combat, others have some skills but not what you would call elite.
I agree its silly to spend decades training a starship captain then let him get killed alongside the marines but its a fantasy game in space. Hornblower on the quarterdeck duelling with the enemy captain. Its heroic adventure fiction :lol:
Re killing and resurrecting people. The biggest thing I have with Star trek and other sci fi games is how often people do die and how little they are resurrected. With replicators than can do DNA and can make new organs in seconds that are exact DNA matches, with transporters that can construct and destruct people on a quantum level, with stasis, with scanners as advanced as Star trek has almost no one who makes it to the med bay should be gone. That is why you keep getting the new incurable disease of the week type stuff.
Klingon’s cut both legs off, beam him to the med bay and he will be fine in a week or two. Unless someone uses a phaser or disrupter on your head most any injury should be survivable. It may kill you there but resuscitation and resurrection should be routine and have few consequences.
Re Holodecks, that is another topic entirely as to why it will be insanely restricted. Otherwise its used for training missions and adventures. Run the group through a mission, then once it’s done tell them the walls fade back to white and they can leave the holodeck, good training mission guys.
Re time travel. Well its fantasy. The script writers were not and are not temperal theoretical students. Many of them would be hard put to uderstand the grandfather paradox. It makes a good episode so its in, startrek is not what you would call a "hard science" game. If you don't want time travel either drop it or use the far more plausable Alternate reality/Dark empire stuff which DS9 and Enterprise did. :twisted:
