MongooseAlisha
Banded Mongoose
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Dalton Calford
Banded Mongoose
The companion has rules for new attributes (charm, luck, etc) but no details about how they integrate into character creation.
It has a point based system for character creation, but does not accomodate the new attributes.
Has any thought been given to an "Advanced Traveller" which brings all the material into an updated document set - it does not have to be a physical book, but more a SRD bible that is part of the upcoming ORC/OGL replacement.
It has a point based system for character creation, but does not accomodate the new attributes.
Has any thought been given to an "Advanced Traveller" which brings all the material into an updated document set - it does not have to be a physical book, but more a SRD bible that is part of the upcoming ORC/OGL replacement.
I'll see what we can do!
ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
@MongooseMatt, can you shed any light on the new direction for Traveller from your meeting of the minds with Marc M. and Chris G?
Not at this time, absolutely not
All will be revealed though. In due course. In the fullness of time.
Charm generally just straight replaces SOC. Wealth, Sanity, and Luck don't have any roll in chargen, unless you are doing point buy and need to pay for them. I would just increase the budget for points proportional to the number of additional stats you are using.
If you are using Charm instead of SOC in normal chargen (which I do), for the Noble career I just have them make the admission roll. No automatic admission because of high Charm. Everywhere else, Charm is a reasonable substitute for status.
Dalton Calford
Banded Mongoose
Not really, you can have a charming scoundrel from the slums or a stuck up ignorant slob who happened to be born into wealth and status.
Likewise you can have a rich criminal with a low SOC but high wealth or a poor nobleman, so Wealth is very different from Charm or SOC.
Sanity can be affected by life events and can be improved with treatment. So it should be affected by chargen. Luck could also be used DURING chargen to get a reroll or some other factor in order to retry a poor roll, but that should cost luck - ie pushing your luck may cost you in the long run. Life events may improve it.
So there is justification for each of the optional stats to be used, they bring far more detail to the characters and game.
They should have some sort of allowance made for in the other game rules other than just being on the updated character sheet.
Yes, Charm and Social Status are different. But there is little room for both in the Traveller game mechanics. It would be difficult to find enough situations where you'd use SOC as a die roll modifier for Travellers when you strip out general social acumen as you would when using Charm. Unless your PC happens to be a noble, social status of a wandering adventurer is going to come down to apparent wealth in most cases, if it's not just "wandering vagabond" by default. Which would either be their lifestyle expenditures (if tracking credits) or Wealth stat (if not).
For character generation purposes, though, there are no situations other than the automatic noble enlistment that you couldn't justify using Charm stat instead of SOC. And Charm is simply superior (imho) to SOC as a stat for modifying the vast majority of social die rolls once play starts. Because, as you pointed out, being a noble doesn't mean you are good in social situations and being a gutterpunk doesn't mean you are bad at them. Classic Traveller had SOC be a stat where sometimes you benefit from having a high value and sometimes from a low value. That's not how the rules work now.
Regarding Wealth, Sanity, and Luck, you could completely rework the chargen system to account for those things. That would be a large page count to do right, imho. My point above was that there is no particular application for them in the rules as written. They are designed to reflect factors in play, not in chargen.
For character generation purposes, though, there are no situations other than the automatic noble enlistment that you couldn't justify using Charm stat instead of SOC. And Charm is simply superior (imho) to SOC as a stat for modifying the vast majority of social die rolls once play starts. Because, as you pointed out, being a noble doesn't mean you are good in social situations and being a gutterpunk doesn't mean you are bad at them. Classic Traveller had SOC be a stat where sometimes you benefit from having a high value and sometimes from a low value. That's not how the rules work now.
Regarding Wealth, Sanity, and Luck, you could completely rework the chargen system to account for those things. That would be a large page count to do right, imho. My point above was that there is no particular application for them in the rules as written. They are designed to reflect factors in play, not in chargen.
Dalton Calford
Banded Mongoose
I actually still use differences in social class as modifiers - a socialite in a lower class area, regardless of charm, may encounter resentment and bias against them, whereas, no matter how charming, wealthy, and/or educated a lower born person may be, they may never be accepted into a higher society. I use the difference between the two and the situation. For a difference of 3, a modifier of 1; 5 a modifier of 2 whereas 7 or more, becomes a modifier of 3. Whether the modifier is positive or negative depends on the situation. It is effectively a chained result based on characteristics, not a roll.
Social status has always affected society regardless of the time period, with a perceived (unearned) bias being placed upon those of greater means and, conversely, a bias against those who are poorer, based on the incorrect notion that those who are wealthier are "better" in a moral or evolutionary manner. This is rarely the case but does occur time and again, even in societies that deny social classes.
From a story-telling and game affecting perspective, such things, in the hands of good players and referees, bring elements to the stories that in many cases are lacking.
While I agree with you in regards to the core books not needing the extra details, the companion, which is designed for such things, should include it and, the core book text should be more flexible in its writeup.
For example, instead of "+1 Dexterity" or "+1 Strength" it would read "+1 Physical" and give a single bonus to one attribute in regards to Str, Dex or End.
Mental Characteristics such as Intelligence, Sanity or Charm would be "+1 Mental" would likewise affect one mental attribute.
Social Attributes, like Social Class, Wealth and Education would also be grouped, as would special attributes like Luck, Psionics and Racial Attributes.
By being less specific and using groups (physical, mental, social, and special), it would allow a referee to add attributes into the mix without much work and without altering the text of the core books in any major way.
Overall, it would not take much to add the possibility of more attributes to the core rules, keeping a low page count, by grouping the use of attributes, and if/when adding new attributes, you simply say which group it applies to in character creation.
That's the approach that T5 takes. And that's super easy to do right now with the existing rules. It is essentially what my first post suggested. It only becomes complicated when you are adding more stats rather than substituting them. If you use Charm or Wealth instead of SOC, then easy peasy. If you are using Charm AND Wealth AND Social Status, then the chargen process becomes a mess.
But I don't see much purpose in having three Social stats on the same character. And if it is just that different characters use different stats for a category (like how Vargr use Charisma instead of SOC) then that's just a substitution with or without some modifier for the differences.
Personally, I think that Social Status is 98% irrelevant once the PCs become vagabond adventurers. Obviously, if you have a more localized campaign where the characters and their history are actually well known, then what people know about their past matters. But free trader is pretty much a social class of its own and folks on random planet X are not going to know whether the PC was a former street urchin or the son of a wealthy magnate. They are just going to see "Free Trader" and the level of wealth they are displaying. (The exception, of course, is if the PCs have an Imperial title of some sort).
But I don't see much purpose in having three Social stats on the same character. And if it is just that different characters use different stats for a category (like how Vargr use Charisma instead of SOC) then that's just a substitution with or without some modifier for the differences.
Personally, I think that Social Status is 98% irrelevant once the PCs become vagabond adventurers. Obviously, if you have a more localized campaign where the characters and their history are actually well known, then what people know about their past matters. But free trader is pretty much a social class of its own and folks on random planet X are not going to know whether the PC was a former street urchin or the son of a wealthy magnate. They are just going to see "Free Trader" and the level of wealth they are displaying. (The exception, of course, is if the PCs have an Imperial title of some sort).
Dalton Calford
Banded Mongoose
I actually have non-nobles alter their social class based upon their living expenditure, as well as having social class affected by where they are and how they are travelling. It affects how they are treated both within and outside the polity they are in for example, an imperial noble is not going get the same greeting in the solomi rim vs the zhodoni or sword worlders.
Likewise, smaller groups may be more deferential due to wanting to be on good terms with the larger political groups. Likewise, wealth is a modifier for many actions - like a credit rating but I rarely use it as presented in the companion. So, yes, in my games and with my players, wealth has a great deal of affect upon game play. In fact, the social and mental groups have far more game play than the physical group.
What I am proposing is simply an allowance in the text of the core books to take into consideration, other attributes, not by listing them all or insisting upon the use of them, but, for the text of the books to acknowledge that other attributes are possible and have the text/mechanics support them. In this way, it is easier for the referee to use them, easier for the players to accept them, without needing to specify the need to use them.
I personally do not like the T5 method for other characteristics - I really dislike how they are described, and the c1/c2 etc notation is a mess. The idea that each attribute is not just a swap out of another attribute but is it's own thing, that happens to be grouped together based upon how life events may affect them, is a far more elegant method and has the further benefit of not needing all the attributes to be defined in the core rules.
T5, although I have bought it, backed the kickstarters and generally did my best to support it, is not what I want to play. If it did not have the Traveller name, I doubt it would have sold at all as earlier editions of Traveller as well as MGT2 has approached its content in a far better manner.
But, if some people like it, I am glad they find joy in it. But when describing a mechanic or method from traveller, I never include anything from T5.
Oh, T5's nomenclature is a mess and the game isn't a playable thing. I just don't know what more you need besides: "If you use X instead of Y in your game, sub it in Chargen also". I guess that sentence isn't explicit in the companion, but it seems like common sense to me. It seems strange to me that you'd need permission to houserule your game, but its not like it would hurt anything to add one sentence.
Luck, Morale, and Sanity are different kettles of fish altogether, since neither really sub for anything clearly, nor are they designed to do so. I find it hard to imagine folks are going to use Sanity as the stat to determine how well you do in University or Morale for END in survival, but I guess you could
Otherwise, incorporating them into Chargen would require redoing the event tables so you have events using them. I have no idea how popular any of those stats are to know if that's worth the effort. It would be a giant mess because you wouldn't use those three interchangeably, so you'd have to have some way of modifying the tables for each different stat that campaign intends to use. I could be wrong, but I think that's a low return on investment for Mongoose.
Luck, Morale, and Sanity are different kettles of fish altogether, since neither really sub for anything clearly, nor are they designed to do so. I find it hard to imagine folks are going to use Sanity as the stat to determine how well you do in University or Morale for END in survival, but I guess you could
Otherwise, incorporating them into Chargen would require redoing the event tables so you have events using them. I have no idea how popular any of those stats are to know if that's worth the effort. It would be a giant mess because you wouldn't use those three interchangeably, so you'd have to have some way of modifying the tables for each different stat that campaign intends to use. I could be wrong, but I think that's a low return on investment for Mongoose.
Drop us a line at sales@mongoosepublishing.com and we will get you sorted!
Dalton Calford
Banded Mongoose
After the whole issue with Wizards, the OGL, etc., I thought I had read that Mongoose was going to migrate their materials to the ORC license. Is this happening? How far along has the work progressed? How will this affect TAS?
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
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