Traveller 5E

[Sigtrygg]

I think the penny has finally dropped as to what you are saying, upon running the numbers I have to conceed that 3d keep 2 and 2d then reroll one is mathmatically the same. There are still issues with how you presented it which is what lead to my confusion, but that is likely down to my misunderstanding, if we were face to face andsshowing the numbers I think we would actually reach similar conclusions.

I apologise for the misunderstanding and I regret any sleight I have caused.

On the fundamentals we agree, a multi dice mechanic has many more possible uses than the limited 1d20.

Still it was fun to look at the numbers and have the discussion.

 

[swordtart]

I think the penny has finally dropped as to what you are saying, upon running the numbers I have to conceed that 3d keep 2 and 2d then reroll one is mathmatically the same. There are still issues with how you presented it which is what lead to my confusion, but that is likely down to my misunderstanding, if we were face to face andsshowing the numbers I think we would actually reach similar conclusions.

I apologise for the misunderstanding and I regret any sleight I have caused.

On the fundamentals we agree, a multi dice mechanic has many more possible uses than the limited 1d20.

Still it was fun to look at the numbers and have the discussion.

Thank you for your courtesy in acknowledging the misunderstanding. Not everyone will front up when they realise they have misunderstood a point and just leave a response hanging.

I felt sure it was some miscommunication as your thought processes generally align with mine even when we disagree about the conclusion and you are clearly an old hand at this. The ability to keep whatever result is also not usual in the roll 2 and reroll mechanism and I suspected you had overlooked it. I am sometimes not as concise as I would prefer.

I welcome challenge as I only know the game from my own perspective and many "obvious" conclusions I have previously come to have turned out to be flawed due to some aspect that had slipped my attention (or was explored in more depth in one of the more obscure supplements). A supported argument is always beneficial.

 

[swordtart]

Well, your anecdotes and bad faith ad hominems are fine

Where did I attack the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument? Where did I show Bad Faith?

Where did I

...literally describe why you believe the game doesn’t work as written in your own attempt to claim otherwise!

I have set out my stall. It is you that started with the bad faith misrepresenting arguments and putting inflammatory words into people mouths.

“oh but don’t let your players have cyberware or advanced medical equipment you incompetent excuse for a GM!”

 

[Endie]

Where did I attack the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument? Where did I show Bad Faith?

Where did I


I have set out my stall. It is you that started with the bad faith misrepresenting arguments and putting inflammatory words into people mouths.

Oh sure, you've been snide rather than open about it. To quote you: "Your argument seems to be that we should change the rules because they break your game." It is very hard to spin that as a good faith statement.

I'm an experienced referee and I know how to work around the broken elements of a system in several ways (after all, I ran long and enjoyable Vampire: the Masquerade and Shadowrun campaigns, in the 1st edition of each! I confidently expect and entirely understand that you don't read the overly-wordy blogs from either of the very successful Traveller campaigns I run (I'm amazed that even the 30 or so regular blog visitors that I do get reading each site do so!) but if you did you'd be aware that we have great fun, despite it taking some sleight-of-hand from me.

But we are debating in a thread that is talking about a 5e version that is needed because Traveller has a very small player base. This is despite decades of existence, one of the widely-accepted top-10 campaigns in the industry, and arguably one of the top three best and most detailed settings of any RPG. And there is another large thread dedicated in a less concrete fashion to how we do that, too.

The fact is that 2D6 is not a popular system in the way d20, PbtA or BRP are, to list a few examples. It is just not seen as a positive aspect of the game. It has great aspects, but either you have extremely limited progression (no xp, limited gear etc) as in the early days (which modern players hate) or you have progression and an exciting array of gear (all of which modern players love) but the maths of 2D6 simply don't support it. The 2d6 systems that lack the Charted Space setting are utterly insignificant, commercially.

I'll say again: the RAW are broken when parties progress in skills and wealth. You clearly tacitly accept this and say "just don't use the equipment in the rules" but even then you cannot bring yourself to accept your own, clearly and repeatedly stated position. I get that: everyone is prone to be defensive of the things that they love. We define ourselves by our tastes and interests.

 

[swordtart]

Oh sure, you've been snide rather than open about it. To quote you: "Your argument seems to be that we should change the rules because they break your game." It is very hard to spin that as a good faith statement.

If you say so. Sounds like a request for clarification for you to confirm or refute that statement. Clearly we have different ideas of what good faith means. I haven't deliberately misrepresented anyone's position or my own to create an effect.

I'm an experienced referee and I know how to work around the broken elements of a system in several ways (after all, I ran long and enjoyable Vampire: the Masquerade and Shadowrun campaigns, in the 1st edition of each! I confidently expect and entirely understand that you don't read the overly-wordy blogs from either of the very successful Traveller campaigns I run (I'm amazed that even the 30 or so regular blog visitors that I do get reading each site do so!) but if you did you'd be aware that we have great fun, despite it taking some sleight-of-hand from me.

I didn't know you had a blog. I too played Vampire and Shadowrun when they first came out and ran long running campaigns in various systems (3 version of D&D, Paranoia, CoC, Traveller (2 editions), Vampire, Car Wars, plus a number of one-offs in some pretty obscure systems, so I have experience of other systems. I don't doubt you have great fun and have come up with work arounds to what you perceive as flaws in the systems. I have done the same, but the more I got into it the more I realised that the more you change the worse the system hangs together and the harder it is for players to understands the game and the harder it is for them to retain agency.

But we are debating in a thread that is talking about a 5e version that is needed because Traveller has a very small player base. This is despite decades of existence, one of the widely-accepted top-10 campaigns in the industry, and arguably one of the top three best and most detailed settings of any RPG. And there is another large thread dedicated in a less concrete fashion to how we do that, too.

I am not convinced that a 5th Edition will significantly increase the player base. I suspect a lot of sales will be made to completists who will never even run it (though they may read it for the ideas). A die-hard Traveller referee might be able to convince a 5th edition D&D group to have a spin in another setting but the game mechanics may not be the issue. Most players (vs referees) do not tend to dwell on the system, they tend to want to play the scenario and let the referee sort that out. If the issue is that space games are not as popular then the game system will be irrelevant.

The fact is that 2D6 is not a popular system in the way d20, PbtA or BRP are, to list a few examples. It is just not seen as a positive aspect of the game. It has great aspects, but either you have extremely limited progression (no xp, limited gear etc) as in the early days (which modern players hate) or you have progression and an exciting array of gear (all of which modern players love) but the maths of 2D6 simply don't support it. The 2d6 systems that lack the Charted Space setting are utterly insignificant, commercially.

Are any of the other non-2d6 systems that are not D&D any more significant commercially or non D&D D20 systems for that matter. It seems to me that D&D has the market share but then it has had a massive PR campaign (and a movie).

I'll say again: the RAW are broken when parties progress in skills and wealth. You clearly tacitly accept this and say "just don't use the equipment in the rules" but even then you cannot bring yourself to accept your own, clearly and repeatedly stated position. I get that: everyone is prone to be defensive of the things that they love. We define ourselves by our tastes and interests.

I have never said don't use the equipment in the rules. That is a blatant straw man. I said the referee needs to consider the consequences of providing equipment that gives too much of an advantage.
Lots of cyber wear will make your game a cyberpunk game. That isn't the traditional Traveller model (or chartered space). I am fine with it. Very little affordable cyber wear provides an excessive benefit that isn't situational.
If you all have +5 on every skill check then there is no need to make any Routine skill checks. Accept that the characters are that good that they can do this stuff in their sleep. You will need be more creative with challenges.
I use more robots than Chartered Space seems to consider normal. They allow me to give the party specific skills that the players don't have. I still require the players to command the robots so they still control what happens.
I have been an advocate on these forums for cheap Level 1 Expert systems these are an ideal way to grant +1 to a skill without unbalancing things as they cannot be used for the more complex tasks.
My groups get the stats they roll. No-one has +2 and there as many -1 as +1 in the stats.

I use the full range of skills and stats in my adventures. Characters cannot be +1 for every stat, they cannot have every skill at level 2. They do not own every item of equipment and carry it with them at all times. They tend to choose a role and equip themselves accordingly. If it makes sense I will provide equipment as necessary. Most of the time it will be to offset a negative modifier.

I don't need to limit choices as I am not running an over powered campaign. By the time the characters are getting +5 on their rolls they will be moving in a larger universe and won't be running routine maintenance, they'll have staff to do that for them.

 

[Endie]

Are any of the other non-2d6 systems that are not D&D any more significant commercially or non D&D D20 systems for that matter. It seems to me that D&D has the market share but then it has had a massive PR campaign (and a movie).

On this factual question, yes: there are several systems which are considerably more commercially significant than 2d6, if you want to restrict influence to that narrow definition.

I'm keen not to rehash this discussion again, only a short time after a bunch of us went through it in detail, but on non-D&D D20 systems, yes: you can find non D&D d20 systems that are massively more commercially successful than Traveller. Pathfinder (and its adjunct, Starfinder) would be the glaring and dominant example, here: it never beat D&D (despite rumours during 4e to the contrary, which were later disproved) but it was a genuine competitor for a long time, and continues to outsell Traveller by a vast margin. This is tier 1.5.

The next tier down would be BRP, and especially Call of Cthulhu (Runequest has faded). CoC sold 200,000 copies in Japan alone, and has sold in the millions worldwide over its life. Leaving aside the commercial criteria, it has also been phenomenally influential on the wider hobby, and has contributed hugely to the growth of interest in Lovecraft's work. While Traveller has faded since its glory days, CoC thrives (despite some very bad business decisions made under the influence of vast quantities of medical-grade mary-hoo-hoo by certain managers of the product, as Sandy Petersen has discussed since).

Then you have systems which have faded for various reasons, but whose historical sales remain larger than 2D6 Traveller. Dice pool systems like Vampire, the Masquerade jump out here.

I don't know sales figures for PbtA games, although they are clearly influential in non-commercial terms, judging by the range of successful games released using them in recent years. Not my thing at all but meh.

Then you have Traveller and similar games. Thus the thread about "how do we make Traveller more attractive?"

If you want more specific data, there was a long discussion a while back where I posted several charts on sales figures, usage on various VTTs etc which search can help you find. It may even have been in this thread vOv 2D6 and Traveller consistently came quite a long way down each list.

 

[Sigtrygg]

There are now over 1.400 signed up following the pre-launch, that is higher than the most successful Mongoose Traveller kickstarter to date - unless there was a campaign I was not part of and didn't back.

With 28 days to go I think there is a high chance of this campaign getting almost doubel the average Mongoose Kickstarter.

They can't all be collectors and completionists.

 

[swordtart]

There are now over 1.400 signed up following the pre-launch, that is higher than the most successful Mongoose Traveller kickstarter to date - unless there was a campaign I was not part of and didn't back.

With 28 days to go I think there is a high chance of this campaign getting almost doubel the average Mongoose Kickstarter.

They can't all be collectors and completionists.

Well, I hope it brings more players to the game (and the discussion).

 

[AKAramis]

I wonder how similar this will be to T20 when it came out? It was similar to D&D in that you started at level 1 and went from there and kind of got rid of the character creation mini-game that Traveller always had. Also, by the time you got to level 20, you were very powerful, just like in D&D.

You don't know what you're talking about. T20 had the character creation minigame quite prominently.

 

[AKAramis]

I haven't checked this claim, so maybe it is true -- but I thought the most popular RPG around the world was 'Call of Cthulhu' by Chaosium. They already have a non-CoC version of their ruleset called 'Basic Role Playing'. Having no classes or levels, and being entirely skill-based, it seems like a far better match for Traveller than anything derived from 'Chainmail'. Call me a grognard, but if I was compelled, under extreme duress, to include 'class and level' into Traveller, then I would be looking for a team up with Iron Crown Enterprises, the same folks who brought us 'SpaceMaster'.

Spacemaster Companion (1986) from SpaceMaster (SpaM) 1st edition included a life path optional ruleset... sadly, it didn't give a full set of them ready to use, just an exemplar. Section 24.1⋯24.2, pp 77⋯80.
SpaM is a bit more complicated than CT, MT, MGT1, or MGT2, and the current edition lacks that option...

Then why the collective apoplexy among the TTRPG community when they thought WotC were coming for them? Mongoose took a lot of flack from the C.E. crowd and there are some of them that will have nothing to do with Mongoose ever again.

All a misunderstanding?

No. The WOGL 1.0a license text is copyright WotC, and WotC can, in theory, withdraw permission to use it. In so doing, any license requiring its inclusion then becomes unfollowable and thus unusuable. By sticking to the Wizards license, they were very rightly concerned that Wizards could effectively end the legality of the Traveller Compatibility Licenses... And it wasn't just the Traveller/CE community facing that... any of the various d20 and 5e derivative works using the Wizards Open Gaming License 1.0a were facing that same potential doom.

The CE community is skittish about CotI even being owned my Mongoose because Mongoose wasn't decisive nor quick in response, and (from what I've seen as an admin on COTI) not providing an alternate license for MgT 1e SRD.

In Re T⁵ vs T5E

The T5 vs T5e issue is totally different - it's trademark, not copyright, which is a wholly different kettle of IP laws. Note that US Trademark laws are quite directly cribbed from the era of King George Ⅲ of England, And it's a case where, since Marc sold the Trademark last year, the brand confusion is entirely Mongoose's issue to deal with; besides T5 isn't the actual Trademark, IIRC... those are T⁵ and Traveller⁵ ... but I can see ill informed newbs «bleep»ing up the distinction... not like T⁵ has a terrible large body of works to confuse.
"T5" is an informal fan term, but it is a point of confusion already.

Building one's own setting is a fairly advanced activity that takes a lot of preparation. Play Charted Space, or detail hundreds of worlds, governments, political conflicts, trade systems, and wars yourself. Play Dune, or figure out centuries of scifi history and culture yourself. Some people, including me, like to do that. ]

A quite playable setting can be a subsector or two in size. At least a half dozen groups (only one of them mine) have use my Elestrial Concordat setting, at least that I'm aware of - yes, 5 people have told me they have used it...
The setting itself took about 20 hours of work of mine outside the two prep sessions, plus the 7 players & I some 5 hours (1 session) for setting, and 1 for campaign PC/NPC generation. It helps that we capped TL at 10, used MGT1 alternate world gen, and the basic writeups of the concordat systems were player done.
http://aramis.hostman.us/ec/body.html if you want to look. Or use. I don't have the deckplans of the one ship class with them... The TP-BX Patrol Corvette.

 

[AKAramis]

Traveller doesn't work with a system that has class levels. I don't see how Trav5E is going to be any good.

Worked fine in T20. My name is in the credits... one of the lead playtesters - which was a bit of a miscredit. Several of us were essentially doing additional development.

I disagree that it is a main criticism of the game. It is certainly not everyone's favorite though and has been optional since Megatraveller.

And not dying in CGen was optional in CT-81.

2D6 isn’t really broken but it is limited. GURPS did 3d6 but 4D6 with Average TN=16 is interesting… you’re really wanting that +1 or +2 DM when you’re lacking decent gear but then Formidable 20+ and Impossible 22+ are exactly what they say without the proper gear for the job. And that’s probably a very exciting story.

The original DGP Task System is labeled based upon the odds for a stat 7 skill 1 PC, who gets +2, and an additional +4 for extra time.
Simple 3+ Cannot fail
Routine 7+ Cannot fail with extra time., has a 1/6 chance of fail and 1/36 chance of exceptional fail without extra time.
Difficult 11+ Needs 9+ without extra time; 13/18 chance of fail, 7/12 of exceptional fail, 5+ with extra time
Formidable 15+ Needs 9+ with extra time, cannot be done without extra time
Impossible 19+ even that +6 cannot be done by Joe Average UPP 777777 skill 1.

Refs - use the Difficulty scale! Not everything is nor should be 8+ !!!

Agreed