lordmalachdrim
Mongoose
I really like this setting and am thinking of trying to run it using traveller. I was wondering if anyone else has attempted this yet and if so if they have any suggestions that would help me in my efforts.
Stardrive setting
- Thread starter lordmalachdrim
- Start date
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
The fun will come if you allow a wide PL variation. Some of the high PL toys have rather odd manifestations within the rules they started in (Alternity and later D20M/F).
The alien "PC" races are pretty easy.
The alien "PC" races are pretty easy.
I also like the Stardrive setting, especially the Mechalus; indeed, I wrote up a conversion for them which I could quite easily convert to MGT.
My only problem is that the PL progression is too rapid for me; I've always thought that the higher-tech toys ought to be in more than 4 levels after the modern era (which IIRC was PL5).
My only problem is that the PL progression is too rapid for me; I've always thought that the higher-tech toys ought to be in more than 4 levels after the modern era (which IIRC was PL5).
d.b.gamedesign
Mongoose
Well, from a ships point of view you may want to adjust the Jump drive rules a bit. In Star*Drive (named after the FTL drive) your jump engine can transport a ship from 5 light years to 50 light years. And that's solely based on how much power you can feed the ships FTL drive.
My suggestion is to make it so that a ship only needs a Jump drive and power plant able to grant a performance of J-1. Then for every rating higher that the base power plant needed the ship gains another +5 light years in range.
Also sense star drives can only be powered by a mass reactor you don't need the large fuel tanks to fuel the reactor, nor to fuel a jump. This will save a large amount of ship tonnage.
The only disadvantage is that it takes several days for the stardrive to cycle up again. This could be shortened by a successful Engineering skill check. I suggest rolling a d3+2 for how many days it takes the engine to cycle and then have the ships engineer make an Eng (stardrive) check; on an 8+ subtract 1 day, on 10+ -2 days, on a 12+ -3 days.
Also a jump drive takes 168 hours (1 week) complete a jump, but a stardrive only takes 121 hours (5 days).
My suggestion is to make it so that a ship only needs a Jump drive and power plant able to grant a performance of J-1. Then for every rating higher that the base power plant needed the ship gains another +5 light years in range.
Also sense star drives can only be powered by a mass reactor you don't need the large fuel tanks to fuel the reactor, nor to fuel a jump. This will save a large amount of ship tonnage.
The only disadvantage is that it takes several days for the stardrive to cycle up again. This could be shortened by a successful Engineering skill check. I suggest rolling a d3+2 for how many days it takes the engine to cycle and then have the ships engineer make an Eng (stardrive) check; on an 8+ subtract 1 day, on 10+ -2 days, on a 12+ -3 days.
Also a jump drive takes 168 hours (1 week) complete a jump, but a stardrive only takes 121 hours (5 days).
lordmalachdrim
Mongoose
I guess a little background would help. I've been a big stardrive fan since it first came out and have run several long campaigns of it using Alternity. The problem is I'm not nearly as familiar with Traveller system (any version). I'm thinking of trying to run it using traveller since I've recently entered an area where the players have only experienced d20 and were confused beyond my comprehension with Alternity.
HackMaster, Palladium, Shadowrun 3rd Ed also left them scracting their heads, but they seem to get the basics of traveller so I'd like to use that to break them into the fact that other games exist that are fun.
HackMaster, Palladium, Shadowrun 3rd Ed also left them scracting their heads, but they seem to get the basics of traveller so I'd like to use that to break them into the fact that other games exist that are fun.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Alternity has issues, make no mistake, and some of them are subtle enough that they don't jump out of the rules at you; you have to play for a bit to see them.
Prior to the release of D&D3, my Friday group was bouncing around trying various things (having burnt on D&D2) and we ran Alternity / Star*Drive for a couple months.
Alternity is a class & level system with a heavy skills emphasis that, in retrospect, was a testbed for D&D3.
One of the "features" was an extensive skills list in which each rank cost more than the rank before it to attain. Each level a PC progressed gave an ever-increasing number of points to buy skills with. Looks good on paper, but both the skills AND the level-awarded purchase points were on a linear progression. Furthermore, the buy-in cost for skills was not one point in most cases, but higher. The upshot was that you were typically only able to increase one skill per level. You might get two increases if you were catching up a couple skills that had been left behind, but this wouldn't be until higher levels. So every single rank was hard to come by.
Added to this was the task system, with its supposedly cinematic top end. As difficulty increased, you started adding *dice* to the roll, with your skill + stat producing a "roll under" goal. Not small dice either. So with a steep difficulty curve in the task system and every +1 being hard to come by, the entire skill system gets frustrating pretty quickly.
The damage and armor system also had issues. Good in concept, but the specific weaponry was not a good carry-through of the mechanics. The result, without going into too much detail, was that of the three levels of successful attack, you really wanted either the base level or the highest. The "special" middle level of success was generally pointless due to the way damage and armor interacted.
(As an aside, Hackmaster, Palladium, and Shadowrun are all overly complex, badly presented, and often byzantine. All three take high reading comprehension and eidetic memory to play, much less run.)
Prior to the release of D&D3, my Friday group was bouncing around trying various things (having burnt on D&D2) and we ran Alternity / Star*Drive for a couple months.
Alternity is a class & level system with a heavy skills emphasis that, in retrospect, was a testbed for D&D3.
One of the "features" was an extensive skills list in which each rank cost more than the rank before it to attain. Each level a PC progressed gave an ever-increasing number of points to buy skills with. Looks good on paper, but both the skills AND the level-awarded purchase points were on a linear progression. Furthermore, the buy-in cost for skills was not one point in most cases, but higher. The upshot was that you were typically only able to increase one skill per level. You might get two increases if you were catching up a couple skills that had been left behind, but this wouldn't be until higher levels. So every single rank was hard to come by.
Added to this was the task system, with its supposedly cinematic top end. As difficulty increased, you started adding *dice* to the roll, with your skill + stat producing a "roll under" goal. Not small dice either. So with a steep difficulty curve in the task system and every +1 being hard to come by, the entire skill system gets frustrating pretty quickly.
The damage and armor system also had issues. Good in concept, but the specific weaponry was not a good carry-through of the mechanics. The result, without going into too much detail, was that of the three levels of successful attack, you really wanted either the base level or the highest. The "special" middle level of success was generally pointless due to the way damage and armor interacted.
(As an aside, Hackmaster, Palladium, and Shadowrun are all overly complex, badly presented, and often byzantine. All three take high reading comprehension and eidetic memory to play, much less run.)
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
The short path for adopting the Star*Drive setting to Traveller is to not touch the weapons list or the PL chart at first.
Convert the aliens, using the alien races chapter in the Mongoose Traveller book. Exact is not the concern, given that the two systems the Star*Drive aliens are native to are both higher "detail". Go for feel. The Weren are huge, strong, melee monsters with a strong technophobic bent, for example. Look at the aliens chapter with the stereotypes in mind and build to suit.
Start with a fairly normal set of weaponry from the Traveller book, using the art from Star*Drive. Avoid the weapons that don't fit. Once you have a good grasp of the system, start porting over the high PL oddities.
Convert the aliens, using the alien races chapter in the Mongoose Traveller book. Exact is not the concern, given that the two systems the Star*Drive aliens are native to are both higher "detail". Go for feel. The Weren are huge, strong, melee monsters with a strong technophobic bent, for example. Look at the aliens chapter with the stereotypes in mind and build to suit.
Start with a fairly normal set of weaponry from the Traveller book, using the art from Star*Drive. Avoid the weapons that don't fit. Once you have a good grasp of the system, start porting over the high PL oddities.
My Alternity books are not to hand, but ISTR that most of the S*D seting is at one PL (PL6 IIRC), and so most of the setting should be Traveller TL 10-15...
use 1d+9 for the space TL's of that PL.
Hated that task system. loved the rest. (It was easily enough replaced by a DRM instead of the extra die... ±2 per step works really nice.
use 1d+9 for the space TL's of that PL.
Hated that task system. loved the rest. (It was easily enough replaced by a DRM instead of the extra die... ±2 per step works really nice.
How funny that I should just discuss the stardrive and come upon this thread.
First, hey lordmalachdrim, I recognize you from A.net!
Second, while I don't want to get into a discussion about Alternity mechanics here, I will say that with the appropriate set of "optional" and house rules, Alternity is my group's system-of-choice. I'm still trying to figure out if Traveller (MGT in this case) offers enough of a benefit to try over using Alternity, which we are all very comfortable with. (Regarding the skill cost, I know very few actual players of Alternity who use the basic rules--they are hideously expensive to raise under that scheme and there are some good alternate formulas to make things much better).
Regardless, if I were to convert Star*Drive to Traveller, I think the races would be the easy part. Some of the other items might be a little harder. Star*Drive offered a near Cyberpunkish level of cybernetic enhancements and Traveller is still fairly lite on those kinds of things, though at least the Core book of MGT addresses it. The same goes for the Grid (Internet/Matrix/whatever).
Weapons and armor would be easy enough to convert, though you may need some special range bands for the mass weapons (which are ridiculously powerful but extremely short ranged). Ship design using High Guard and the Core Book would be a matter of figuring out the stardrive itself. After that, the weapons would be easy. (To get approximate S*D accelerations, simply multiply the Traveller figures by 100--if using the free and excellent Warships supplement, 1 Megameter per phase per phase turns out to equal just about 110 gravities.)
First, hey lordmalachdrim, I recognize you from A.net!
Second, while I don't want to get into a discussion about Alternity mechanics here, I will say that with the appropriate set of "optional" and house rules, Alternity is my group's system-of-choice. I'm still trying to figure out if Traveller (MGT in this case) offers enough of a benefit to try over using Alternity, which we are all very comfortable with. (Regarding the skill cost, I know very few actual players of Alternity who use the basic rules--they are hideously expensive to raise under that scheme and there are some good alternate formulas to make things much better).
Regardless, if I were to convert Star*Drive to Traveller, I think the races would be the easy part. Some of the other items might be a little harder. Star*Drive offered a near Cyberpunkish level of cybernetic enhancements and Traveller is still fairly lite on those kinds of things, though at least the Core book of MGT addresses it. The same goes for the Grid (Internet/Matrix/whatever).
Weapons and armor would be easy enough to convert, though you may need some special range bands for the mass weapons (which are ridiculously powerful but extremely short ranged). Ship design using High Guard and the Core Book would be a matter of figuring out the stardrive itself. After that, the weapons would be easy. (To get approximate S*D accelerations, simply multiply the Traveller figures by 100--if using the free and excellent Warships supplement, 1 Megameter per phase per phase turns out to equal just about 110 gravities.)
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
apoc527 said:
Now, sure. In 1999? Not so much.
After advancing through several levels and running through enough fights we felt we had a proper grasp of all the things that were in need of fixing. The list, once we compiled it, was long enough that we decided not to bother, and moved on to Feng Shui (speaking of games with constricting experience systems)...
I had similar problems with Alternity, apart from the fact that its layoutGypsyComet said:
gave me a headache every time I tried to read one of the books.
While I would not call the system broken, it is clumsy enough that it is
almost no fun to play it without so many house rules that one could just
as well write another system.
lordmalachdrim
Mongoose
I'd have to disagree with you about that since it's worked well for several groups I've GM'd for over the years with no house rules except for the skill point cost mod that was posted on TSR's site by the design team shortly after release and that simple changed it so that skill costs don't increase.
But then we've also run Rolemaster, HackMaster, Shadowrun, WFRP and Palladium all with much enjoyment.
But then we've also run Rolemaster, HackMaster, Shadowrun, WFRP and Palladium all with much enjoyment.
lordmalachdrim
Mongoose
Those were all easy. Synnibar...that was a nightmare to run. But back to Traveller.
Any thoughts no organic ships?
Any thoughts no organic ships?
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
For any project like this you have some basic decisions to make. Are you going to play Traveller using Star*Drive setting and backdrop? Or are you going to play Star*Drive using the Traveller rules?
The difference is in the emphasis and adaption of things that do not immediately fit together.
One example here is the Jump-Distance mentioned for Space Ships… you could adapt the Star*Drive setting and make the big ships only have Jump-8 or so… That would mean bending the Star*Drive setting to adapt to Traveller Rules. OR you could change the way Traveller Maps work and throw that stupid hex-grid out the window and go for something more Star*Drive like. (i.e. Distances in Light-years as per the original map).
Depending on how you bend and twist in these situations you will end up with different results. IMHO it’s important to know what result you want before you start.
/wolf
The difference is in the emphasis and adaption of things that do not immediately fit together.
One example here is the Jump-Distance mentioned for Space Ships… you could adapt the Star*Drive setting and make the big ships only have Jump-8 or so… That would mean bending the Star*Drive setting to adapt to Traveller Rules. OR you could change the way Traveller Maps work and throw that stupid hex-grid out the window and go for something more Star*Drive like. (i.e. Distances in Light-years as per the original map).
Depending on how you bend and twist in these situations you will end up with different results. IMHO it’s important to know what result you want before you start.
/wolf
lordmalachdrim
Mongoose
I was planning on keeping the traveller mechanics as much as possible with a few changes where the setting obviously makes changes (example would be space travel).
I really like the existing verge map and the fact that worlds are seperated in 3D. Above and below each other in addition to 'north'/'south'/'east'/'west' type thing you on traveller's hex maps.
I really like the existing verge map and the fact that worlds are seperated in 3D. Above and below each other in addition to 'north'/'south'/'east'/'west' type thing you on traveller's hex maps.
I considered Star Drive as well. In the end, just decided to use the world descriptions and stuff within the MTU.
But... Alternity did ships RIGHT. And Ship Combat RIGHT!
That was what was missing in HG for me. Have you ever looked at the Ships Excel Sheet and Design Sequence? That thing is a work of art and it actually makes ships cool.
I think Mongoose stayed close to the original CT with ship-design. But, man, I was hoping for something along the lines of Alternity's ruleset.
But... Alternity did ships RIGHT. And Ship Combat RIGHT!
That was what was missing in HG for me. Have you ever looked at the Ships Excel Sheet and Design Sequence? That thing is a work of art and it actually makes ships cool.
I think Mongoose stayed close to the original CT with ship-design. But, man, I was hoping for something along the lines of Alternity's ruleset.
lordmalachdrim
Mongoose
Kilgs said:
Granted but I've always had an issue with the lack of ability to do larger craft with the rules from the GMG/Starships, and never liked the rules from warships (complete redsign of the system that lost the feel I loved).
At least with High Guard you have small ship though to massive vessels all using basicly the same mechanics so they can be put against each other (no sane person would attack a capital ship with their scout but then PCs are not sane people)
qstor
Banded Mongoose
lordmalachdrim said:
I'm not familiar with the Alternity rules but you might want to treat them as drones/robots. With the "armor" being living matter...
There's not much to go on for robots apart from the stuff in the main book. You might have to wait for a 3rd party publisher to tackle biotech or robots...
Mike
