Questioning common wisdom: Traveller isn't about combat.

[Evil Aardvark]

One of the things that comes up regularly is that Traveller isn't a game about combat. People say you should only engage in combat if you really have to, that you should expect to get messed up unless you're really prepared. People also bring up that this isn't a game about dungeon-romps where you go from fight to fight. Sometimes people mention that the inspirations for Traveller weren't fight-centric.

I don't disagree with any of that, in principle. But...

• Across various products we've got, probably, 1000+ pages of stats for weapons and armor. Why? Why do we have stats for so many guns if we're not supposed to use a lot of guns? We've got orders of magnitudes more weapons than D&D ever did.
• We've got Mercenaries - with detailed rules for micro-managing gun design! Even Shadowrun hasn't take in that far. I know that most people don't use it, but they're there.
• Weapons and armor vary across a huge price-range. We start characters off, relatively, poor and they tend to acquire wealth over time. Everyone knows combat is dangerous, so characters tend to spend their wealth on more dangerous weapons and better armor.
• Stories about parties who want do go everywhere in Battle Dress are silly but are the natural end-point in a game where combat is extremely dangerous but also commonplace. Where walking into an ambush without Battle Dress is a good-way to pick up a TPK. People become attached to their characters and want to keep playing them. They can't do that if they're dead, and they know it.
• We've got adventures that are, basically dungeons - Deathstation, for example. I don't want to play that sort of game all the time, but they have a place.
• Most other adventures contain some combat, often quite a lot.
• The source material for CT may have been EC Tubb, but that hasn't been most people's inspiration since Star Wars came out in 1978. The inspiration for modern players is currently popular and recent Sci-Fi media: The Expanse, Mandalorian, Takeshi Kovacs, Foundation (the show), Killjoys (although that one might just be me), Dune (the films), Rebel Moon. Combat is dangerous and "realistic" in those sources, but also relatively common. That's the stories that people want for themselves.
• We talk about "realism" in combat but we don't have it or even want it. In reality, if someone is close enough to push an assault rifle against my forehead... I'm in very deep trouble. In Traveller they're unable to shoot me because they're holding it with two hands. That isn't about realism, that's trying to create game where melee weapons have a place. That's great. That's using rules to shape a feel for a game.
  

So, what's my point with al this? I don't really know, but here's a few thoughts:

• Traveller is a game about combat. It isn't all about combat, or even mostly about combat, but it is important. We should accept that.
• At the moment it feels like we're lying to ourselves and that makes it hard for the good people at Mongoose to shape a future that gives us what we actually want.
• The new "Battlefield Dev" rules are an example of this. They're aimed at giving us what we've said we want... but I don't know if it is actually true.
• I may be wrong, but looking at the source material, what I think we want is a game where combat may or may not occur, When combat occurs, it should have potential consequences, but should also be fast, cinematic, tactical, and fun. Combat today, is fast, but it isn't cinematic, and - with limited options other than guns and armor - it isn't very tactical or fun.

I don't know if I'm right, but there it is as food-for-thought.

 

[Anstett]

• Traveller is a game about combat. It isn't all about combat, or even mostly about combat, but it is important. We should accept that.

I think that Traveller is a game that has combat in it. It is only a game where combat is important if that is what you want it to be. If you do not then combat takes a deeper back seat.

• I may be wrong, but looking at the source material, what I think we want is a game where combat may or may not occur, When combat occurs, it should have potential consequences, but should also be fast, cinematic, tactical, and fun. Combat today, is fast, but it isn't cinematic, and - with limited options other than guns and armor - it isn't very tactical or fun.

I don't know if I'm right, but there it is as food-for-thought.

I think that combat can be very tactical because of the very nature you mentioned first.
"People say you should only engage in combat if you really have to, that you should expect to get messed up unless you're really prepared."
That is tactics, plan your engagements, overwhelming force or surprise, etc.

You could flip the argument around and say (as someone recently said in a different thread) that Traveller is a game about Trade and the rules for it are scattered about and we have lots of details that people can concentrate on but no overarching comprehensive organization for it.

On the combat side, for game mechanics it is very easy to list out thousands of weapons, armor, vehicles, etc. that may or may not be accurate balanced, etc. But it does fill pages of books for people to gaze over and examine in detail.

Much like the World Builders Handbook did for systems.

 

[Vormaerin]

Traveller isn't "about" combat the way D&D type games are, though combat should be a possibility. However, if you use the 3d6+ weapons (especially with lots of AP options), weapons can and will one shot characters, either rendering them unconscious or outright killing them. Getting one shot is not something that is conducive to regular combat.

People tend to ignore the fact that Traveller is designed to reflect a wide range of operating paradigms, including mercenary tickets and other heavy weapons gear. That's pretty deadly and should be.

But if you are playing normal folks with civilian weapons and civilian concealable armors, combat is not deadly in that fashion. Getting hurt sucks, but you aren't likely to get killed or KOed instantly. So you can have brawls and John Wick shootouts just fine. Or the very common "guys hiding behind cover taking potshots at each other" type fights.

It makes a huge difference whether your fight is with a 1d6+2 or 2d6 combat knife/machete type weapon or a 5d6+2 AP30 arc field sword. If you or your opponents have the latter type weapons, you can't have anything like a traditional fight. It's whomever hits first wins.

 

[metlk]

Combat for us is a fun part of the game. Take for example our most recent expedition (there's only the two of us, so we rely heavily on random chance.) We were delivering a smuggler package to a group on a mostly uninhabited world. All we had was our cloth armor and shotguns. Using some of the rules from JTAS, we had a rough landing about 2 km from the location and received some minor bumps. We didn't have a vehicle and du to our poor luck at rolls, we actually went the wrong direction for a couple of kilometers first. We encountered a nasty carnivore that nearly killed one of us (I use 1st edition animal encounters to generate creatures.) I used a slow-fast drug cocktail combined with a trauma pack and some field surgery to restore a few points and keep my partner awake and alive, but it was still some bad wounds (I'm a skilled medic, what can I say?) We found the location, but the people we were supposed to meet had all been killed by some impressively large (elephant size) roaches. Thankfully they didn't see us and we snuck away.

On returning to the ship (much faster now that we knew which way to go which was good because the trauma pack was running out of time) we ran into a herd of aggressive herbivores that didn't like us. There were 9 total and they had a substantial speed advantage on us. We somehow barely survived and managed to get back to the ship, then hopped over to the nearest station for some much needed medical care. We probably didn't have 7 stat points left between the two of us and precious minutes left before the trauma pack boost was going to wear off. It was a bad night for random encounter rolls but even then we managed to survive without hand waiving rolls (although we will sometimes do that if the random chance god gives us a severely unfair situation.)

You might be wondering why we didn't have any real gear. Because the whole reason we were doing this run was because we encountered a raider ship that had us substantially outgunned. We knew we had no choice but to surrender. In exchange for our freedom and the return of our ship (but not our passengers or cargo) we were thrown into a ship's boat and told to deliver the package. We're convinced it was a setup as a way to test whether we were recruitable, but we ended the night at the station and haven't had the chance to find out yet.

That completely random, emergent escapade that had us fighting to survive all the way back to the boat is why I love Traveller. I trade for money, I play for the excitement of not knowing the outcome when shit hits the fan. While we try to minimize making the game "easy", at the end of the day, if you need to artificially reduce an enemy's deadliness so your players can do what they find fun and have a chance as long as they're smart about it, there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[laughdad]

With respect, I think it's presumptuous to say that Traveller is or isn't about anything other than science fiction role playing. I think it depends upon the referee and the players. Want a pure exploration campaign or adventure? You can do it. Want a merchant campaign. It's there. Colonists? Yep. Bug hunt? Yep. Interstellar war. It's there.

To me, that's the beauty of Marc Miller's concept. You can do any, some. or all of those campaigns.

That's the game side of the thread. Now, let's talk about the human side of this. Humans go to war and fight for all manner of things. Check out the classics of Western lit (e.g. The Odyssey and the Iliad). If you want humanity to look like Star Treks--civil strife has largely ended and interstellar wars are relatively rare, Traveller will let you do that in a universe of your creation. But I think conflict as part of the human condition is something that Miller (and Mongoose) have decided they should deal with.

Also, let's face it, lots of gamers want to do things that they don't, or would not do in real life--like get into a space dogfight.

 

[Vormaerin]

That's exactly why I said it isn't about combat. Combat is a thing you can do in the game. But you can play the game without combat at all and not miss anything, if that's what you like. It is a fully robust system for any style of sci fi that you want. You can play Honor Harrington, Starship Troopers, Polesotechnic League, or Slippery Jim DiGriz equally well.

This is not true of many other RPGs where any activities not related to going places and fighting stuff is vestigial. Not that you can't do it, but the game is not supportive of that.

The perception is that Traveller combat is unusually deadly and so should be strenuously avoided. I do not believe this to be true and that this perception is primarily a result of mixing up the different game styles possible in Traveller. Just because Starship Troopers gear is in the game does not mean that it belongs in your merchant adventurer campaign. Gauss and laser rifles will kill characters very quickly if they are not in combat armor. If that's what you want, that's fine. If I'm going to play a game of Aliens, I don't necessarily expect to survive. If I'm in a Firefly style campaign on the other hand, I don't expect space marines to be shooting at me on the regular. Or to be equipped like space marines.

I get the impression that this split is kind of what Matt's was trying to get at with the AP rules. "These weapons and armor go together in this kind of campaign." "These other weapons and armor go together in this different kind of campaign." If you don't use armor in the same bracket as your weapons, your combats will be either super deadly or totally ineffectual, depending on which one outclasses the other.

 

[ottarrus]

One of the things that comes up regularly is that Traveller isn't a game about combat. People say you should only engage in combat if you really have to, that you should expect to get messed up unless you're really prepared. People also bring up that this isn't a game about dungeon-romps where you go from fight to fight. Sometimes people mention that the inspirations for Traveller weren't fight-centric.

I don't disagree with any of that, in principle. But...

• Across various products we've got, probably, 1000+ pages of stats for weapons and armor. Why? Why do we have stats for so many guns if we're not supposed to use a lot of guns? We've got orders of magnitudes more weapons than D&D ever did.
• We've got Mercenaries - with detailed rules for micro-managing gun design! Even Shadowrun hasn't take in that far. I know that most people don't use it, but they're there.
• Weapons and armor vary across a huge price-range. We start characters off, relatively, poor and they tend to acquire wealth over time. Everyone knows combat is dangerous, so characters tend to spend their wealth on more dangerous weapons and better armor.
• Stories about parties who want do go everywhere in Battle Dress are silly but are the natural end-point in a game where combat is extremely dangerous but also commonplace. Where walking into an ambush without Battle Dress is a good-way to pick up a TPK. People become attached to their characters and want to keep playing them. They can't do that if they're dead, and they know it.
• We've got adventures that are, basically dungeons - Deathstation, for example. I don't want to play that sort of game all the time, but they have a place.
• Most other adventures contain some combat, often quite a lot.
• The source material for CT may have been EC Tubb, but that hasn't been most people's inspiration since Star Wars came out in 1978. The inspiration for modern players is currently popular and recent Sci-Fi media: The Expanse, Mandalorian, Takeshi Kovacs, Foundation (the show), Killjoys (although that one might just be me), Dune (the films), Rebel Moon. Combat is dangerous and "realistic" in those sources, but also relatively common. That's the stories that people want for themselves.
• We talk about "realism" in combat but we don't have it or even want it. In reality, if someone is close enough to push an assault rifle against my forehead... I'm in very deep trouble. In Traveller they're unable to shoot me because they're holding it with two hands. That isn't about realism, that's trying to create game where melee weapons have a place. That's great. That's using rules to shape a feel for a game.

So, what's my point with al this? I don't really know, but here's a few thoughts:

• Traveller is a game about combat. It isn't all about combat, or even mostly about combat, but it is important. We should accept that.
• At the moment it feels like we're lying to ourselves and that makes it hard for the good people at Mongoose to shape a future that gives us what we actually want.
• The new "Battlefield Dev" rules are an example of this. They're aimed at giving us what we've said we want... but I don't know if it is actually true.
• I may be wrong, but looking at the source material, what I think we want is a game where combat may or may not occur, When combat occurs, it should have potential consequences, but should also be fast, cinematic, tactical, and fun. Combat today, is fast, but it isn't cinematic, and - with limited options other than guns and armor - it isn't very tactical or fun.

I don't know if I'm right, but there it is as food-for-thought.

Direct response to the OP here.
You bring up some EXCELLENT and valid points, but there are several reasons for Traveller's attitude about combat. Let me illustrate:

When Traveller was designed many of the authors and fans were Vietnam veterans. What's more, GDW was first a wargame company, so tactical thinking was baked into the Traveller product. Traveller has maintained a *strong* veteran fanbase ever since.

1. You only have STR+DEX+END hit points. Even if you work strenuously on 'keeping fit', you won't gain any more than one or two more points. Ever. There are no 'DING! I leveled up and got more hit points!' moments.
2. Weapons do large amounts of damage in Traveller. ACRs do 3d even without special ammo. Gauss rifles do 4d and lasers do 4 or 5d. If your character only has an END of 7 and gets hit with no armor or cover, those dice of damage will chew through that END and be taking a bite out of the other two characteristics in just one round of combat.
3. There are no 'potions of cure wounds', 'bacta tanks', 'stim packs' or other instant whizz bang wound healing technology. Medic kits and Medical skill can stabilize a wounded person, but to actually heal major wounds you have to get the victim to a hospital. And that's expensive in both time and money. Remember, you can't make ship payments or meet salaries if half the crew is laid up at the Aledon Trust Hospital and Hospice on Regina.
4. Once Book 4 Mercenary came out in '78, Pandora's box was well and truly opened and Traveller would never be the same. The relatively simple combat system in Book 1 went batshit crazy with super-guns [FGMP anyone?], artillery, grenades etc. At that point armors went from optional to necessary and knowing the difference between 'concealment' and 'cover' became a vital player skill. Traveller combat requires that participants think tactically because standing up in the open and blazing away was suicide. Just. Like. In. Real. Life.

All this is why you don't casually get into blaster fights a'la Han Solo. There is no Imperial Stormtrooper School of Non-Marksmanship. The bad guys are just as good as you are and are just as invested in preserving their own lives. Nobody 'shoots to wound' in Traveller.

A couple years ago, I put together a short, very opinionated file called 'Military Life in Games'. I've attached the file if you're interested. Feel free to ignore if you already know this stuff or are not interested.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

One of the things that comes up regularly is that Traveller isn't a game about combat. People say you should only engage in combat if you really have to, that you should expect to get messed up unless you're really prepared. People also bring up that this isn't a game about dungeon-romps where you go from fight to fight. Sometimes people mention that the inspirations for Traveller weren't fight-centric.

It's an RPG, you do whatever you want?


In the very first edition combat was extremely deadly with the right weapons. Some people compensated by restricting combat, others by restricting available weapons. It became tradition...

 

[Sigtrygg]

My favourite rule from LBB:4
Panic Fire: At medium range or less, players may voluntarily chose to use panic
fire, if firing small arms slug throwers. Panic fire uses all rounds in the weapon, and
hits are resolved as if the weapon were being fired at its highest setting (four round
bursts, etc.). The player may take up to three normal fires (or less, depending on
how much ammunition is left in the weapon when panic fire is initiated), all of
which are made at a DM of -2. When firing rifles treat them as assault rifles on
automatic setting Players firing carbines treat them as submachine guns.

 

[Micky]

I wouldn't question it... as I'm about to enter my 5th month of Traveller toddlertude... it is telling that combat is the last part of the rules, the game itself I feel like I've needed to master. This isn't D&D, or Top Secret, T2000, or Boot Hill... perhaps that is why this game has the life it has beyond the internet meme. It probably is the best game of them all for the forgotten art today of what these games really should be about.. role-playing. player interactions in a group and problem solving (without simply running around killing things).

 

[ottarrus]

I wouldn't question it... as I'm about to enter my 5th month of Traveller toddlertude... it is telling that combat is the last part of the rules, the game itself I feel like I've needed to master. This isn't D&D, or Top Secret, T2000, or Boot Hill... perhaps that is why this game has the life it has beyond the internet meme. It probably is the best game of them all for the forgotten art today of what these games really should be about.. role-playing. player interactions in a group and problem solving (without simply running around killing things).

Traveller games *can* about combat if you're playing a mercenary campaign. Those are fun, but get a little tedious after awhile. Traveller can also be a mercantile exercise... buying low, selling high, and keeping the bank happy with on-time payments. That also has its limitations. It's not a whole lot of fun to play 'agents and accountants' when you gotta make mortgage payment in real life
But for most of the fanbase, Traveller is about the mysteries in space be they man- or alien-made or natural. It's about meeting cultures and seeing wonders. Sure, combat is a part of that, but so is Sensors rolls.
A well balanced character, IMHO, has one combat skill, one technical skill, one social skill, and one skill that'll save your life [Medical, Survival, Vacc Suit, etc.]. Sure, you can double up some of those [two kinds of Engineering for example], but that balance allows the maximum number of players at the table to have input and agency in most adventures.
And a well-balanced campaign is designed to let those skills shine, with each type of skill getting some spotlight.

 

[Condottiere]

Critical wounds usually occur depending on what part of the body you hit, and with what.

So, a stitching needle through the eye, and into the brain.

 

[Vormaerin]

Maths wise, the game works out pretty balanced if you keep armor and weapons comparable. Gauss Rifles and laser rifles vs combat armor make for a pretty interesting fight. 19 armor vs 4d6 AP4 or 5d6+2 means you'll usually get to do some pewpew and tactics and not just be auto jibbed. 2d6 or 3d6-3 pistols and melee weapons vs Armor 5-8 civilian concealable armor is the same.

What I've observed over the years is that often groups trick out their weapons far in advance of their armor. Whether that's fancy ammo or just the idea that carrying a gauss rifle is 'reasonable' while tromping around in Combat Armor isn't.

Traveller gives you support for a wealth of different playstyles. Combat is absolutely able to be a factor, even a regular factor, in play. No magical healing or Raise Dead absolutely makes it riskier than fantasy RPGs. Standing in the middle of the street in shorts and a T-shirt blazing away is gonna get you killed pretty quick.

But, imho, there is a vast difference between "be smart and play Traveller combats like you would a cover-based shooter computer game" and "don't get into combats, period. If it's not an ambush massacre, you screwed up.".

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

I don't think I've ever read "Traveller isn't a game about combat."

The game has extensive weapons lists, and rules for making warships as opposed to ships that deliver pizza. I suppose it needn't be combat-focused, but depending on the campaign it could be. Any game with fighting has risk. Traveller combat might be more risky than say, D&D (especially the lame modern versions where everybody-wins and becomes maximum level in no time) , and there are always people with bigger guns than you, so you have to be careful. That's a good thing though, isn't it?

 

[metlk]

I don't think I've ever read "Traveller isn't a game about combat."

The game has extensive weapons lists, and rules for making warships as opposed to ships that deliver pizza. I suppose it needn't be combat-focused, but depending on the campaign it could be. Any game with fighting has risk. Traveller combat might be more risky than say, D&D (especially the lame modern versions where everybody-wins and becomes maximum level in no time) , and there are always people with bigger guns than you, so you have to be careful. That's a good thing though, isn't it?

They only have bigger guns if you have a ref that is of the mindset every fight should be avoided. It is the refs job to facilitate a fun atmosphere for their players. Discourage them where appropriate so they aren't a bunch of murder hobos, but if they want to start a bar brawl they should be able to reasonably survive that provided they don't just have a series a really bad rolls that might require the ref to fudge a bit to keep them from dying (which is perfectly acceptable to do if you would rather they have fun and not worry about having to tiptoe around every person they encounter.) Now if they pick a fight with the authorities when they arrive, that's a different story. Even then, arrest and trial with confiscation of equipment and /or exile is always a viable story choice. There are mechanics which can be reasonably employed on the side of the authorities to justify why a player might not have died (EMT response for one.) Now if they continue to misbehave in a lawful society, an example may have to be made...

 

[agentwigggles]

Combat happens. Though unlike DND, I dont feel the need for every session to have a combat in it. I dont feel any pressure at all to have any combat at all. I can go lots of sessions without it and be fine. I can also offer areas where voilence is a solution, but doesnt need to be a solution.

 

[CordwainerFish]

As Salvor Hardin should have said: violence is the last refuge of the competent.

 

[Condottiere]

It's why we have space lasers, so we can (re)solve issues at a distance.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't think I've ever read "Traveller isn't a game about combat."

What the OP was reacting to is the widespread advice (like was recently thrown out in the discussion of the proposed AP rules) that Traveller combat shouldn't be an actual fight. That combat is so dangerous that if the other guy gets a chance to shoot back, you've screwed up. That the only sensible way to do combat in the rules is "ambush the other guy or run away".

This is mashed up with comments distinguishing Traveller's possibilities from the more narrow range of gameplay types fostered by traditional D&D mindsets. Meaning that Traveller games can include combat, but it isn't the default activity. Which it is the main fantasy games.

Traveller has huge lists of weaponry because it allows folks to play mercenaries. It has always had a big element of playing heavily armed dudes in military settings. Something like 20% of the "patrons" in CT's 76 Patrons were mercenary tickets, as were a fair few of the Amber Zones. It even lets you play naval campaigns like Honor Harrington or Lt. Leary, though it doesn't provide nearly as much support for that as it does for ground pounder mercs.

It also allows you to play merchants, explorers, heist teams, and pretty much every other sci fi story type. Most of which tend to fair poorly when mixed with star mercs and warships. Not that you can't make it work, but it isn't a natural fit.

I can pull thread after thread (here and elsewhere) where people ask about how combat works in Traveller and reaction is like "it's tantamount to suicide, don't do it.". That isn't exactly false, but I personally think it is highly misleading. But it is true that the civilian and military tiers don't mix well at all.

 

[Vormaerin]

Also, unlike most games, Traveller makes 0 effort to ensure that any given PC is competent in combat (at least not in modern editions. CT gave everyone skill 0 in combat by default). Every D&D style character is an effective combatant. This is not true of Traveller at all. Melee & Gun Combat aren't available as Background skills or University skills. Entertainer, Merchant, and Scholar have no way to get Melee or Gun Combat directly (rolling "weapon" more than once during mustering out provides possibilities, of course). Noble and the Wanderer branch of Drifter doesn't provide them in basic, so its not guaranteed for such characters. That's 1/3 of the careers.

Obviously, players can use their Connections and/or Group Package options to ensure they can do something in a fight, should they choose.

There's a difference between "The game isn't about combat" and "The game doesn't involve combat".