Returning to Traveller - Confused

[LotusBlossom]

Hello all,

I hope you can help with some decisions here.


We used to play Traveller year back, now it seems there are many versions.

What is this T5 I have read about, and how does it relate to what Mongoose have done?

Also, we like games that feature some sort of character advancement over time. Does the new traveller offer something like that?I am aware there are no character levels as such, but are there any experience points systems or similar?



Many thanks for your time.

 

[rust]

We used to play Traveller year back, now it seems there are many versions.

First: Welcome back !

What is this T5 I have read about, and how does it relate to what Mongoose have done?

T5 is the "ultimate version" of Traveller Marc Miller has been working on
for many, many years - and is likely to continue to do so for some more
years.
It was planned to be compatible with Mongoose Traveller, but I do not
know whether this still is the plan.

Does the new traveller offer something like that?

There is no experience point system, but the characters can improve their
skills through training.

 

[LotusBlossom]

Thanks rust for your brilliant reply.

So, this skills training..how does it work? Can people train as they explore for example, or does everyone have to go to school?
:lol:

 

[aspqrz]

T5 is the "ultimate version" of Traveller Marc Miller has been working on for many, many years - and is likely to continue to do so for some more years.

If one believes comments on the CotI forum for suck ... er ... pre-purchasers then Marc is allegedly going to spend the whole of next (?) month doing heavy duty writing on it ... the implication being that it will be out (as they say in the computer vapour ... er ...software industry ... real soon now.

Colour me unconvinced that I will see the CD that was promised for January 30 2008 even by January 30 2009.

But who knows?

Miracles, allegedly, do happen :wink:

Phil

 

[rust]

So, this skills training..how does it work?

Unfortunately I have only the German version of the rules here, and
I do not trust my ability to translate it correctly into the terms of the
English rules.

However, there is a thread somewhere here, titled "Learning New
Skills", and this could help, I think.

 

[LotusBlossom]

Thanks I found that thread.

I always used to love Traveller but we did feel there was something missing..in the sense that you would eventually get killed by a lucky bullet, there seemed rather an inevitable fate of doom just waiting to happen.

Are there any rules in the new versions to perhaps extended characters life expentency, either in terms of luck (i.e. meta gaming hp's), armour/cyber implants /additions - I was thinking if the players could focus on wealth it would be a way for them to "buy" suvivability through various techs.

Sorry I have worded that rather poorly.

 

[rust]

Well, you have the usual science fiction means, for example armour.

But Traveller still is a very deadly game for characters who get invol-
ved in lots of combat. No matter how good their preparations are, and
how much money they spent on them, there will always be a nasty way
to kill them quickly.

If you prefer a less lethal game, you will probably have to introduce so-
me house rule to make the characters less vulnerable.
Right now our group is using a modified version of the Hooks and Action
Points system of the Thousand Suns RPG (by the way, a good source
for Traveller ideas), where characters get action points they can use to
influence the game for the roleplaying of their hooks.

However, there are lots of other approaches, and it is not difficult to in-
troduce any of them into the Traveller system.

 

[iainjcoleman]

the sense that you would eventually get killed by a lucky bullet, there seemed rather an inevitable fate of doom just waiting to happen.

Yeah. It's a lot like life.

 

[iainjcoleman]

OK, being slightly less snarky:

Gareth Thomas, star of the British SF TV series "Blake's 7", describes that show as "real people in an unreal situation". Traveller is much the same. The player characters are real human beings, who happen to be pursuing their careers in an interstellar empire.

Because they are real people, they can be killed by a stray bullet. Because they are real people they can improve their skills - as long as they find time to train, and stick to the programme. But, because they are real people, they are never going to be uber-l33t badasses, and they will alway be vulnerable to people more powerful than themselves.

This, to me, is the essence of Traveller. More than one-week jumps or the lack of strong AI, it is the ordinariness of the player characters that makes Traveller a wonderful science fiction roleplaying game. If you don't like that, if you prefer a game in which player characters are the forces around which the universe shapes itself, that's fine - but you would probably be better off with a different game.

 

[GamerDude]

OK, being slightly less snarky:

Gareth Thomas, star of the British SF TV series "Blake's 7", describes that show as "real people in an unreal situation".

Great series, wish I had it all on DVD.

And yes I agree with the analogy being applied to Traveller. Most people in the Imperium/TU just go on about their lives... then there are the adventurer's... Poor average joes tossed into not-so average situations.

 

[Vile]

Still, you have to admit that Blake (or Avon) and crew did learn new tricks throughout the series, especially as regards starship operation.

While it's true that Traveller is all about 'normal' PCs, there still ought to be a way for a character to improve during the game. I would hate to think I stopped learning any new skills 10 or 20 years ago. In fact, I would expect adventuring characters to improve faster than during character generation - during your working life you are far too busy just keeping things rolling along to spend much time aquiring new skills unless your boss (or officer) specifically decides you need to learn them.

I've always found the original CT character improvement rules too restrictive to be realistic. I'm still waiting for the Pocket Edition, so can anyone with the TMB enlighten us as to how characters improve skills or characteristics in MGT?

 

[DE Traveller]

I've always found the original CT character improvement rules too restrictive to be realistic. I'm still waiting for the Pocket Edition, so can anyone with the TMB enlighten us as to how characters improve skills or characteristics in MGT?

There is a system for learning new skills by training. A calculation is given for determining the length of time required to train, in weeks, and gain skills based on your current skills and the level of the skill you are learning. They leave it up to the referee to determine what is needed as far as time spent training per day, instructional materials, on the job training, classroom training or anything else the referee may dream up - the type of training is not defined in the book.

I'm not aware of any method in the book of improving your characteristics other than with the use of equipment such as implants. Some people believe that characters should be able to improve characteristics and some don't. I think I saw a thread where people talked about their in house rules for doing such.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

The Instruction Skill in Mercenary can also raise skills levels.

A trainer can teach someone any skill he possesses up his skill level or Instruction level -1. It requires a skill check on the part of the instructor and an Int or Edu check on the part of the students.

However, the text suffers a bit from the occasional incoherence found in Mercenary. Ie: it says it takes 1-6 days less than normal, referring to Timing in TMB, but 1d6 days is the maximum there, and it looks like it is possible to learn multiple skills levels at the same time - that the trainer can teach skill 3 to novices in 6 days seems weird.

The standard method, weeks/training, looks ok, but if the character has lots of skills levels (and from my experience more than 10 levels total is extremely common) it's going to take ages. My 'fix' is to award 'bonus weeks' in particular skills as a form of experience point.

eg: Bob has Gun Cbt 2, and 14 skill levels total. To get to 3, he has to train for 17 weeks, which since he's working on a free trader, will actually take 34 weeks (only jump time can be used). However, in the last adventure, which involved an extended siege vs bandits (a la Heart of Gold/Firefly), he did lots of good shooting, so the ref awards him 4 'weeks' towards improving his Gun Cbt. 1-3 points/weeks per 'scene' seems appropriate.

 

[Supergamera]

The training rules do seem to be at a bit of a mismatch with the character generation, though. If a merchant can improve a skill every ~9 months or so, just from studying during time in Jump, they must have been slacking off to only earn 1-2 skill points every 4 years during their prior career.

 

[Shiloh]

The training rules do seem to be at a bit of a mismatch with the character generation, though. If a merchant can improve a skill every ~9 months or so, just from studying during time in Jump, they must have been slacking off to only earn 1-2 skill points every 4 years during their prior career.

There are a number of factors that help explain the difference:

* Most people in a job spend more time *doing their job* than learning new skills or improving their existing ones. Even a Merchie who spends one week in two in J-space has things to do during that apparently "dead" time: looking after passengers; cleaning the decksole; maintaining watch; everything except cargo handling and maintenance on running systems. Organisations that spend their time training, training, training, like elite combat arms, generally spend a large proportion of that time training to work as a team, which isn't necessarily reflected in a character's final stats.

* The resources for efficient training can be expensive and difficult to bring with you on board ship (to maintain the merchie example). Paying a Martial Arts Master to travel around the universe with you to train you is an expensive proposition, outside the scope of standard chargen rules.

* There are distractions in life which are approached in a generic fashion by the chargen rules, and should probably be treated in a more detailed fashion by the Ref when someone wants to utilise the character improvement rules. This means you can't even count on a character spending very much time training in their "leisure" time during chargen.

 

[RojBlake]

Elite units must constantly train just to maintain their current level of expertise.

 

[phild]

Elite units must constantly train just to maintain their current level of expertise.

Which raises an interesting point that is probably pertinent to Traveller - has anyone ever seen an Advancement system that requires you to allocate points against maintaining current skills and attributes, as well as learning new ones. Given the amount of downtime in most Traveller games, I'd make this player decision rather than GM restricted; i.e. the player can spend XPs wherever he wants, so long as he can make a moderately rational case for it (e.g. spent the week in jump brushing up on legal knowledge).

This reflects the current rule that new skill development depends on current skill levels. However, it also means that if the PC who picked up Medical-5 at chargen decides that he's happy to let that drop because his character is more interested in spending time down a firing range, then he is able to make that decision.

You could make this something like 1+Skill Level weeks per year to maintain a skill, given that those weeks don't need to be 100% time but must involve a moderate amount of skill use. Firing a few shots on an alien planet wouldn't count; a full-on fire fight might; 5 days a year down the firing ranges would probably be ok. And then you can build a skill advancement system onto this. Or you could abstract the whole thing into a "skill point" system, which would probably be my preference just for simplicity.

 

[Anonymous]

If you havent already got a copy of the book then taking a look at the Traveller devpack might help explain some of your questions.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/travdevpack.zip

 

[Gee4orce]

As far as skill advancement goes, I really like the way Spirit of the Century does it:- the skills are in a pyramid arrangement, with one peak skill, two at the level below that, 4 below that, etc. Characters can swap a skill with another on a level above or below it, or swap in a new skill by swapping out an old on (at the lowest level).

In this way, characters can indeed get better at certain things, but the trade off is that their other skills start to degrade due to lack of use. Overall the characters don't get any more powerful. To me, this makes sense - if you've given up your life as an accountant to travel the stars, it makes sense that your shipboard skills will improve but your out of use accountancy skill will degrade.

It might be difficult to fit this into Travellers broad and shallow skill system though.

 

[sergeant_x]

The lack of any kind of default advancement ladder (e.g. "experience points") was one of my favorite features in the original game and I'm glad it's been preserved for the most part. I don't want to get into a lame argument about whether such systems are realistic or not, but I find them tedious and distracting from the kind of immersion and roleplaying I enjoy. "Hero building" is one way to roleplay, and I'm not necessarily knocking it. But its not Traveller in my opinion.

As others have noted here, Traveller is about real people. I've not seen Blake 7, but it sounds like something I'd enjoy. I always felt Firefly was the perfect Traveller sci-fi because it matched up with that "regular people struggling to get by" aspect that Traveller nailed. I sometimes wonder if Joss Whedon didn't have a little black box at boarding school...