Weapon Damage Output Balance?

[Fweeba]

A couple points:

No one at any point in this thread said that wearing cloth armor was not something characters should do.

Several lines in Swordtarts response (Which was the last actual response where an argument was made and not just posting images) imply it. For example, the fact that smart rounds would have nothing to lock on to if you're not wearing armour, or the fact that if you are known to wear armor (Cloth specifically mentioned) people will escalate.

If your opponent knows you routinely wear cloth, they will tool up accordingly.

Any society that can produce a particular type of armour will generally be able to recognise that armour as armour

Smart rounds can home in on armour (somehow). If you are not wearing it there is nothing to home in on.

Even in those cities where there is a real chance of being shot most people do not routinely wear body armour even though it is commonly available.

Traveller does not impose this at a game mechanics level as if you really need to wear armour it is comfortable enough when it's protection might be needed. That doesn't mean it is sufficiently comfortable wear it all day and when off-duty etc.

TL10 cloth is already implausibly light for the protection it offers.

So it was mentioned. My apologies for not quoting them specifically.

As for the next point:

Second, regarding your point about combat frequency, that's a game play choice. And, again, the point was made that the table should be deciding what experience they are looking for because Traveller offers a very wide range of options about what kind of game play you can have. If you want to feature a lot of gunplay, you can certainly do that. If you don't, you don't have to.

The topic of the thread was about weapon/armor balance. Traveller has options for weapons and armor that range from fisticuffs and t-shirts to plasma rifles and powered armor. It is very easy to have one side of the weapon vs armor equation get far ahead of the other. And if that happens combat will tend to be unsatisfactory, either because one side can't hurt the other side or because characters will get killed in one shot regularly.

Just because something exists doesn't mean it needs to feature in your game. If you want to play Hammer's Slammers, that's great. If you want to play Leverage, that's also great. But if you are playing the former, you need to have different gear than if you are playing the latter.

Yeah. That's exactly my problem. When I'm GMing a game, I don't want to have to go through every option that exists and stamp it approved or not. If I have to do that, I'll just run something else. Which I do. Then I'll tell people that the game I used to run has poor balance and requires the GM to handle it themselves to avoid very unsatisfactory outcomes; which it does.

The answer may very well be 'A toolkit doesn't have to concern itself with that kind of thing' to which I would say, fair enough, but that doesn't change that it is designed in such a way that requires careful GM attention to get satisfactory outcomes, which makes me less likely to GM it because there are many, many games which don't make me do that work.

Edit: I would also add that I have not seen a single GM handle gear so delicately, out of myself and four others. We all treated the game as "Is it published in a current-era book? Do you have the money? Does it make sense to be able to purchase that in this environment/can you make a broker or streetwise roll? You can get the thing."

If people are supposed to be more carefully deciding what to ban and what to not ban, it isn't clearly advertised. I certainly didn't think to do it at the time.

 

[Condottiere]

I think this goes under risk management.

Check whether body armour is permitted in the jurisdiction.

In either case, be discrete in wearing it.

You know, umbrella shields.

 

[Vormaerin]

The rules have the expected outcome: If you are in paramilitary or military grade armor, civilian weapons are not going to do much. Conversely, if you aren't in high end armor, military weapons are going to end your career quickly. I tend to think that is as much "balance" as necessary, given it isn't a level based combat grind game.

On the larger point, if you want a different game for every experience, that's certainly valid. Traveller is intended to allow you to run pretty much any kind of sci fi game, so it has different needs than a single target game.

You can buy one game to play the Expanse, another game to play Hammer's Slammers, a third game to play Honor Harrington, a fourth to play Aliens, and additional games to play Earth 2, Polesotechnic League Traders, and so on. And, obviously, if the only thing you want to play is a particular kind of sci fi, you can just by the one game that does only that.

Since I can play all those things (and more) with Traveller, it will naturally have rules for things that are not relevant to my campaign. Plus, if my hapless free traders end up in the middle of a shooting war, I can actually break out the already existing rules for that stuff that doesn't normally matter.

 

[Vormaerin]

Edit: I would also add that I have not seen a single GM handle gear so delicately, out of myself and four others. We all treated the game as "Is it published in a current-era book? Do you have the money? Does it make sense to be able to purchase that in this environment/can you make a broker or streetwise roll? You can get the thing."

That's fine. That's just leaving it up to the characters to do what's necessary based on the information provided. If they can afford combat armor and get away with wearing in the current circumstances, they'll either dominate less well equipped people or be able to survive the military grade weaponry of their opponents. I don't think that counts as imbalanced game mechanics. That's what *should* happen.

You don't have to ban any equipment. You just have to be aware that there's two different grades of weapons/armor: civilian and military and military dominates civilian gear. IF you want to have combats AND you want them to be "balanced" (neither of which are automatic expectations), THEN you need to ensure that your scenarios are appropriate to the gear the players have.

 

[Condottiere]

In terms of fairness, if lower tiered weapons are lethal to the unprotected, if all sides are handicapped with being unprotected, no escalation is required.

You don't have to prevent player characters from wearing any form of protection, just point out potential consequences of doing so, in that particular jurisdiction.