Psionic Career and Basic Training

[Vormaerin]

The Telepathy is automatic rule is, I believe, unique to Mongoose. It is designed to deal with a previous issue where you could be a trained psionic and fail to get any psi talents. It is certainly in line with previous versions of the rules to count it as a roll for purposes of future modifiers.

 

[To Tha Moon!]

I don't like it either.

I understand why they were written as they are, so that is was unlikely that any one psion would get all five talents. However, when it comes to learning talents, after the initial five have been rolled for, it becomes virtually impossible to get get them.

If you use the Psionic Enhancement rules from MgT1e's Book 4 Psion, you can be boosted up during Psionic Testing & Training to the point that the negative modifier for each roll is almost ignored.

 

[Sty0pa]

Imagine if Traveller placed so many such barriers between you and the acquisition of an essential mundane skill, such as Athletics or Melee Combat. All these barrier DMs are an artificial mechanism designed to deter the casual player from becoming a psion.
Only, if they didn't want you to play psions, why in the name of Yaskoydray did they put them in the book in the first place? So much easier to say something like "There's no such thing as psionics. Traveller is a setting ruled entirely by Science, INT, and wits alone." That would have been so much easier, and freed up several pages for something like Diplomacy or Research subgames or some such.
Psionics is there, and it should be rare, but seriously the RAW are b0rked.

They put them in there to be backward compatible with LBBs.
The game wasn't designed to be dominated by magic-wielding space wizards. Psionics are both limited by mechanics AND (not insignificantly) by setting and canon.

There's nothing significantly wrong with the RAW except it doesn't match your expectations. If you don't like that, that's perfectly fine! Your Traveller Universe will vary! If you want it, make it easier for your players to acquire.

 

[tytalan]

your first career only, instead of rolling for a skill, you get all the skills listed on the Service Skills table at level 0 as your basic training. For subsequent careers, you may pick any one skill listed in the Service Skills table at level 0 as your basic training."

So any character who gets into a military academy and then takes a difference first career gets two full sets of 'Basic Training' - by RAW.

N.B.

I think the problem is with this “ Graduation allows automatic entry into the military career the academy is tied to”. In real life and my game if you attend and Graduate a military academy you have to take your first post academy term in the associated military branch. That’s the way it is in real life in fact it’s kind of a thing before you start your third year you have to commit to 8 years in the military or transfer to another school

 

[rinku]

Almost every major science fiction franchise has some version of "magic-wielding space wizards". Often it's limited to "alien powers", like Vulcan Telepathy, but it's common enough to still justify the chapter. Whether the time has come to move that chapter out of the core rulebook is another discussion, but setting compatibility is probably enough.

 

[hopsnbaer]

I think the problem is with this “ Graduation allows automatic entry into the military career the academy is tied to”. In real life and my game if you attend and Graduate a military academy you have to take your first post academy term in the associated military branch. That’s the way it is in real life in fact it’s kind of a thing before you start your third year you have to commit to 8 years in the military or transfer to another school

You only get the three extra skill points if you go into the associated military. Otherwise, you just get the basic training.

 

[tytalan]

You only get the three extra skill points if you go into the associated military. Otherwise, you just get the basic training.

That was the point, I’m not a fan of rule lawyering especially want it connected with power gaming. If I want my players to have a ton of extra skills I would change the number of skills they get per term.

 

[Sty0pa]

Almost every major science fiction franchise has some version of "magic-wielding space wizards". Often it's limited to "alien powers", like Vulcan Telepathy, but it's common enough to still justify the chapter. Whether the time has come to move that chapter out of the core rulebook is another discussion, but setting compatibility is probably enough.

"Almost every" is a ridiculous exaggeration. But yes, MANY do, sure.

Nothing is stopping people going ahead and making their game like that. Literally: it's their table.

Traveller has never been about aping Star Wars, Blade Runner, Star Treg, BSG, Avatar, Dune, Foundation, Westworld, nor any other mainstream pop-SciFi. IMHO arc-field weapons were already a little too same-y to lightsabers for my taste.

 

[Endie]

Traveller has never been about aping Star Wars, Blade Runner, Star Treg, BSG, Avatar, Dune, Foundation, Westworld, nor any other mainstream pop-SciFi. IMHO arc-field weapons were already a little too same-y to lightsabers for my taste.

"Aping" is a perjorative term to use, but if we let that slide and look a bit more neutrally at it, Traveller is quite explicit about allowing you to play all of those sorts of universes using the Traveller rules. From the opening of the latest rulebook:

A multitude of universes await players and you will find Traveller is capable of handling almost any kind of science fiction setting, from highly intricate cyberpunk worlds to campaigns spanning entire galaxies wher emighty empires clash and suns explode. If you have a favourite science fiction film or TV show, Traveller will be able to replicate it for you, bringing your best-loved futuristic moments to your tabletop.

Some (although not all) of the other editions were similarly open, whether it be the first (which had no "default" setting) to T5 (which tried to cover everything and was a mess as a result.

If you read back on these forums (and the CotI ones) you will find people running all sorts of homebrew universes using Traveller rules, including quite Dune-like ones, Firefly-esque ones, and ones that would give the LucasArts lawyers heart palpitations.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The original concept for Traveller was for you to rip off the sci fi literature of the last few of decades (40s, 50s and 60s) to make your own setting. Ripping off Star Wars and everything since - Culture, Revelation Space et al - is a natural progression from that.

Let's face it Star Wars was a complete rip off of previous sci fi, there is nothing original in it.

 

[Endie]

The original concept for Traveller was for you to rip off the sci fi literature of the last few of decades (40s, 50s and 60s) to make your own setting. Ripping off Star Wars and everything since - Culture, Revelation Space et al - is a natural progression from that.

Let's face it Star Wars was a complete rip off of previous sci fi, there is nothing original in it.

Well, some sci-fi tropes were used as the vehicle to deliver the story, for sure, but the biggest influence on Star Wars is Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress: nothing else comes close. Lucas said that the Hobbit was also an influence of sorts, particularly inasmuch as it was a good example of the Hero's Journey since another huge influence on Lucas was Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

It's unfair to say that there was "nothing original" in Star Wars. It drew upon pulp serials, samurai films, Westerns, WWII aviation movies, mythic storytelling, and classic science fiction, sure: what art doesn't draw upon inspiration? But his idea of the Used Universe in particular was seen as fresh and became influential, especially in the way that he used it as a vehicle for operatic storytelling.

And you can claim anything was a rip-off: Dune was inspired by Islamic history and story-telling, and took elements from Asimov's Foundation (then twisted them pessimistically), but that doesn't make it useful to dismiss it as derivative.

Bladerunner could, equally, be dismissed as a reworking of classic noir detective stories with a touch of German Expressionism and Metropolis in particular, and a dash of Soylent Green. But it would be unfair to do so!

 

[Condottiere]

Considering that Lucas originally wanted to reboot Flash Gordon, there are some similarities.

 

[Sty0pa]

"Aping" is a perjorative term to use, but if we let that slide and look a bit more neutrally at it, Traveller is quite explicit about allowing you to play all of those sorts of universes using the Traveller rules. From the opening of the latest rulebook:

Well, yes, that's precisely why I used the term 'aping'. Traveller certainly allows for the implementation of any of those settings (as I believe any mechanically consistent, generic, and relatively open system would as well, cf d20) but the original point seemed to implicitly genre-justify more powerful "magic wielding space wizards". But Traveller wasn't BUILT around that idea.

Traveller isn't Star Wars, the RPG; Alien the RPG, Judge Dredd the RPG. Traveller (originally) is/was a mechanism; Traveller (today) largely implies the canonical setting. That some of those other IPs have major magic wielding space wizards isn't particularly salient when the current canon is - as previously mentioned - that the setting isn't dominated by such.

 

[Vormaerin]

So this is a year old thread necro arguing about what a guy no longer on the forums meant. Yeah, he was famously inclined to epic level stuff. Which Traveller can do (see Secrets of the Ancients) but it is not its default state.

However, psionics are extremely common in sci fi. Star Trek, Dune, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Firefly, Foundation, and many more. They are integral to Charted Space (Droyne, Zhodani, etc).

 

[rinku]

There's not really that much pre-1977 science fiction without some form of Psi. John W Campbell is responsible for a lot that, although it definitely predates his infatuation with it.

Barsoom. Lensmen (though later books are part of the Psi craze, I guess). The Pulp era is awash with it, whether you consider the stories to be science fiction or not.

Then even before the Psi craze of the 50's and 60's, we have the golden age of superheroes, which is reinforcing the idea in the public mind. Stage Magicians perhaps as well.

Then we hit the 50's and it goes into overdrive.

I dunno. What DOESN'T have Psionics? Planet of the Apes? Six Million Dollar Man?

2001: A Space Odyssey certainly has mind power stuff in the last part.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I dunno. What DOESN'T have Psionics? Planet of the Apes? Six Million Dollar Man?

I recall at least one 6 million dollar man episode with a psychic.

 

[rinku]

HG Wells wrote a few stories that involved mental powers, for that matter. Ahead of the curve as always.

 

[CordwainerFish]

What DOESN'T have Psionics?

Heinlein used psi very sparingly. "Methuselah's Children" and Starship Troopers (and some others) had sensitives, and I Will Fear No Evil may have... whatever it is it may have, but it's rarely center stage and lots of his opera have none at all. His most important works, the juveniles, are completely psi-free, except for Time for the Stars and whatever let Kip and Peewee understand the Mother Thing.

 

[rinku]

Well, sure. Although outside of the Juveniles, Stranger in a Strange Land has funky mind stuff going on.

And while the real world Psionics fad petered out, it's never really stopped fiction continuing to use it as a plot device. Which is very much the point in regards to Traveller.

A few others (not just pre-traveller, though some are) that may not have been mentioned: Doctor Who, Blake's Seven, My Favourite Martian, Scanners, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Pern.

 

[Condottiere]