Traveller update?
- Thread starter danbuter
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Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
Currently, I'm semi-happy with how chargen and ranged combat are working. We just had our first space combat using a vague sketch of the RTT rules combined with the CT rules, which was... illuminating (i.e. the funky ground combat rules with dodging and cover and very flexible initiative sucks in space, so space combat may look rather different to personal combat).
Trade rules are being merrily broken by one of my players, so they're next on my agenda to revise.
Trade rules are being merrily broken by one of my players, so they're next on my agenda to revise.
Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
The trick for the trade rules will be balancing two different styles of play:
1) The ordinary tramp trader who just wants to make enough cash to pay his bills. For this group, you need a set of rules that gives just enough money to keep flying, but not enough to become ultra-rich after two or three runs.
2) The player character group who want to stick triple beam turrets and military-grade electronics on their ship as soon as possible. They need to made a lot more cash from trading - and they'll do it by taking on more dangerous and illegal cargoes.
1) The ordinary tramp trader who just wants to make enough cash to pay his bills. For this group, you need a set of rules that gives just enough money to keep flying, but not enough to become ultra-rich after two or three runs.
2) The player character group who want to stick triple beam turrets and military-grade electronics on their ship as soon as possible. They need to made a lot more cash from trading - and they'll do it by taking on more dangerous and illegal cargoes.
far-trader
Mongoose
Is that implying rules for "small package" trade?
It'd be interesting I guess* but really I always lumped that in the Adventure realm. Either a published adventure or a ref invented one. While simple trade (the day to day commerce stuff) was the bog standard boring barely make ends meet stuff.
* and needed for/by newer players and refs I suppose
It'd be interesting I guess* but really I always lumped that in the Adventure realm. Either a published adventure or a ref invented one. While simple trade (the day to day commerce stuff) was the bog standard boring barely make ends meet stuff.
* and needed for/by newer players and refs I suppose
Mongoose Gar said:
So this means altering either the cargo/passenger hauling rules or the ship construction rules? Leaving aside today's real-life sub-prime and NINJA mortgages, in CT I see no reason why a bank would give you a mortgage on anything other than a Type A Free Trader, as that was the only ship that could be shown to make a profit from regular cargo hauling. You fix that problem by either making more money for hauling cargo and passengers or making starships cheaper.
Mongoose Gar said:
This would be the speculative traders and the, ermm, afformentioned small package trade. The last time I was involved in such a game the LBB 2 spec trading rules worked well. It was nice to finally make enough money to be able to buy the expensive trade goods so you could make even more money. Forget the whole Merchant Prince rubbish where the base price is the same for diamonds and manure!
Gar:
Just remember that any Traveller trade system needs to provide for all of the following outcomes:
1) Go bust on a bad deal and wind up barrating one's own ship (or turning it back to the bank)
2) Get a good score by a combination of luck and skill, and make a heap.
3) Make enough to keep operating in the black with a stock freighter on a decent route
4) provide a need for subsidy liners
It would be nice if:
5) it could fill something larger than a Type R
6) Takes into account variable styles of TU (High Traffic and Low Traffic, Bigh Ship and Small Ship)
7) Makes trade goods available linked to trade codes.
8) Has different base prices for different trade goods.
Bk 2 or T20 both use a good methodology for handling spec trade (t20 does it much better).
Bk7 MP only does #3 and #4
Bk 2 is a little too generous with the actual value table (this is easily remedied by using a 3d table instead of a 2d table). But the methodology is so sound it's been mirrored in many other (later) SciFi games... including the WEG d6 Star Wars...
Any ship with a broker aboard should be able to turn consistent income.
Just remember that any Traveller trade system needs to provide for all of the following outcomes:
1) Go bust on a bad deal and wind up barrating one's own ship (or turning it back to the bank)
2) Get a good score by a combination of luck and skill, and make a heap.
3) Make enough to keep operating in the black with a stock freighter on a decent route
4) provide a need for subsidy liners
It would be nice if:
5) it could fill something larger than a Type R
6) Takes into account variable styles of TU (High Traffic and Low Traffic, Bigh Ship and Small Ship)
7) Makes trade goods available linked to trade codes.
8) Has different base prices for different trade goods.
Bk 2 or T20 both use a good methodology for handling spec trade (t20 does it much better).
Bk7 MP only does #3 and #4
Bk 2 is a little too generous with the actual value table (this is easily remedied by using a 3d table instead of a 2d table). But the methodology is so sound it's been mirrored in many other (later) SciFi games... including the WEG d6 Star Wars...
Any ship with a broker aboard should be able to turn consistent income.
Shane_Mclean
Mongoose
Mongoose Gar said:
Gar, can I ask how you are doing skills per term? The one real game-breaking problem I had with CT was that you get only one skill per term, so you can end up with a 30-odd year old character with two skills that are very unlikely to be useful in a wide range of areas. The later rulesets ideas of one skill per year improved this a lot.
Any chance of a hint as to which way you are going with numbers of skills? I ask, as I am not sure that modern RPGers who are used to competent, developed characters would accept the good-old days of ATV-2 and Steward-1 as all you can do.
Thanks in advance for any answer,
Shane
Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
Currently, it's
* 1 skill per term automatically.
* If you get promoted (which you can do in any career), you get another skill roll.
* You get all the basic skills for a career at level 0 (no benefit when you roll, but you don't get the big Unskilled penalty)
* When you roll an event, there's a chance you'll pick up another skill, although usually only at level 1.
It's roughly 2 and a bit skills per term, plus lots of 0s, and it's easier to get lots of low-level skills than a few high-level skills.
Finally, there are two other ways to get skills that I'm fiddling with, but I'll save for the blog post on friday.
* 1 skill per term automatically.
* If you get promoted (which you can do in any career), you get another skill roll.
* You get all the basic skills for a career at level 0 (no benefit when you roll, but you don't get the big Unskilled penalty)
* When you roll an event, there's a chance you'll pick up another skill, although usually only at level 1.
It's roughly 2 and a bit skills per term, plus lots of 0s, and it's easier to get lots of low-level skills than a few high-level skills.
Finally, there are two other ways to get skills that I'm fiddling with, but I'll save for the blog post on friday.
far-trader
Mongoose
Just a couple friendly points of contention 
Even Book 2 could easily overload a Type R with an average freight roll of over 250 tons. Most people seem to forget the step between cargo lots and actual tons. The cargo table generates cargo lots, not tons. Each cargo lot is then subject to another d6 roll and a multiplication of that depending on the type of cargo (major x10, minor x5, incidental x1). It is possible to generate over 1200 tons of freight in Book 2.
I don't believe a broker aboard to be worth anything. Brokers need to intimately know their market and have solid local contacts. You can't do that if every port is new to you every other week.
Now a "trader" sure, that should be a skill and worth something in wheeling and dealing on the small cargo lots typical of PCs.
Save "broker" for the local NPCs and big lines with a local office. Make them available for hire by the PCs. Never should a travelling broker be an asset. I don't even see it as a useful Traveller PC skill, the key being "Traveller" of course. If the game is set on a planet with only rare trips then broker becomes a useful skill.
AKAramis said:
Even Book 2 could easily overload a Type R with an average freight roll of over 250 tons. Most people seem to forget the step between cargo lots and actual tons. The cargo table generates cargo lots, not tons. Each cargo lot is then subject to another d6 roll and a multiplication of that depending on the type of cargo (major x10, minor x5, incidental x1). It is possible to generate over 1200 tons of freight in Book 2.
AKAramis said:
I don't believe a broker aboard to be worth anything. Brokers need to intimately know their market and have solid local contacts. You can't do that if every port is new to you every other week.
Now a "trader" sure, that should be a skill and worth something in wheeling and dealing on the small cargo lots typical of PCs.
Save "broker" for the local NPCs and big lines with a local office. Make them available for hire by the PCs. Never should a travelling broker be an asset. I don't even see it as a useful Traveller PC skill, the key being "Traveller" of course. If the game is set on a planet with only rare trips then broker becomes a useful skill.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
If the skills are going to be 2-2.5 per term, then the number of skills needs to be pretty small and the uses of those skills pretty broad after all each skill will represent a couple of YEARS of work.
Revolver and AutoPistol should not be separate skills in this case.
Weapons skills seems to be the hardest to balance with the 2 years to learn a level of skill idea you are going with. In 2 years a person can become pretty good with a weapon.
Revolver and AutoPistol should not be separate skills in this case.
Weapons skills seems to be the hardest to balance with the 2 years to learn a level of skill idea you are going with. In 2 years a person can become pretty good with a weapon.
far-trader
Mongoose
Mongoose Gar said:
Depending on how that "two other ways" impacts things I think this looks like a good level of skill advancement. Of course that will depend on the strengths and number of skills a bit. The "basic skills for a career at level 0" is an old house rule option that is a good fit imo.
Shane_Mclean
Mongoose
Mongoose Gar said:
I have to say I got as far as "1 skill per term" and thought "ugh". That said, my ugh lessened when I read on. The basic skills at 0 is a really good move, as long as it covers all the skills a career would use regularly and not just a few skills. Frex: Army would not just get Gun Combat-0 but would get a few other appropriate skills that represent what they do, and Agents would need to get 0's in a few skills that cover the basics of their job, not just Stealth-0.
I'll be honest and say that I am still concerned about characters not having enough skills, but less concerned than when I had read the rumour it was basically CT again. It all depends on what freebie skilsl you get on the way in to a career, and from background.
The problem won't come from old school trav players, who are more likely to accept low-skill-breadth CT-esque characters, but from gamers who are buying in to Mongoose's generic ruleset and might feel that the characters aren't developed enough compared to other Sci-Fi rules, which is a fairly common criticism of CT on the various Traveller boards these days (and is the reason my group used to use T4 char gen (for better developed characters) and play with CT.
I hope you don't take these comments as bashing. I'm a long time Traveller fan (on the roll some dice and blow stuff up side, as opposed to gearheading) who wants to see Mongoose do the true definitive ruleset for generic sci-fi as well as Traveller.
Shane
Shane_Mclean
Mongoose
far-trader said:
Hi Dan, nice to see you over this side of the 'net!
Can I ask, on your house rules what skills did you give at 0 for, say Agents and Merchants? I'd be interested to see what skills other would give at 0 for a career.
Shane
far-trader
Mongoose
Shane_Mclean said:Hi Dan, nice to see you over this side of the 'net!
Hi Shane, ditto, and don't ya know, I'm everywhere
Shane_Mclean said:
It depended on the rule set. CT Book 1 example, whatever was in the career tables was a zero level skill for that career (exception, advanced Edu skills table 2 were only zero level if Edu was 8+).
It was just a simple rule and widely fudged. I was never too happy with the "all weapon skills at zero level" for all characters rule from Book 1. I always see rules as more guidelines for the ref, it's only a rule once it's put in front of the player
I also typically came up with a "basic training" set in most rule sets. A replacement for the Rank and Service freebie skills. Something more appropriate skill wise than some of the options and in the first term rather than some other point.
Monteblanco
Mongoose
Mongoose Gar said:
This sounds pretty good. I am glad to see you're a following a path close to the original game.
I was referring to spec. Which, depending upon your read of "Trader", is either one roll per person seeking same, or one roll per ship seeking. There are fewer than 6 results that can fill the hold of the 36 possible, and then only on exceptional results.far-trader said:Just a couple friendly points of contention
AKAramis said:
Even Book 2 could easily overload a Type R with an average freight roll of over 250 tons. Most people seem to forget the step between cargo lots and actual tons. The cargo table generates cargo lots, not tons. Each cargo lot is then subject to another d6 roll and a multiplication of that depending on the type of cargo (major x10, minor x5, incidental x1). It is possible to generate over 1200 tons of freight in Book 2.
Since spec in Bk3 is not the same sizes as freight...
(THe average freight allotment would be about 250 tons)
That being said, the next hull up in CT was the 600Td... and that generally didn't fill when made into a merchie J1... or even J2.
Which brings up another issue for Gar:
PLEASE, when you do the ships, include the worksheets for all the standard designs... MT has rounding errors, TNE was written using a draft, ibid t4.... I can't speak to GT, but T20 woud have benefitted from the designs being on worksheets as exemplars.
Mongoose Gar
Mongoose
AKAramis said:
I don't know if they'll all be in the printed book, but that's a good point - I'll keep track of the worksheets and we can put them in a S&P article or free download or something.
