What parts of the rules do you ignore?

[daddystabz]

I'm reading through the Mongoose Traveller core rulebook for the first time right now, being a n00b to the system and I'm finding a couple parts in the rules that scare me a bit in the fear they may slow the game down a tad. I am about to start reading the spaceship combat rules and have been pre-warned that these rules are a bit clunky.

I've never been a fan of dynamic initiative where certain actions give you penalties to your initiative for the next round. I find it tedious/cumbersome and it just slows everything down. This game has that with recoil/heft and penalties to your initiative you take when you take defensive actions. I prefer static initiative.

I am also not a fan of stat degradation. I am not fond of damage you take coming off your attributes. This is tedious because you have to decide which stat to take the points from each time and your modifiers change. I have to keep checking the stat modifier chart to see what my modifier is now as I'm taking damage and then it changes my rolls accordingly. I'd prefer a health pool mechanic or some other damage track.

What do you all think about all this? Do these kinds of things slow the game down a lot? Did any of you find you needed to modify any of this for your personal games?

 

[revford]

For me, stat degradation and dynamic initiative are two of the great features of Traveller.

You'll get used to the modifiers in no time. Players take combat seriously when wounds make a difference.

I'd skip space combat to start with, get the hang of the basics first.

 

[hdan]

I don't find that stat degradation slows things down too much, but that's mostly because in practice combat is less of a wood-chopping affair than you get in many RPGs. A few good shots, and things are over.

Space combat has quite a huge number of poorly defined areas, and in my case I found that knowledge of "Classic Traveller" actually hindered my understanding of things.

 

[BP]

Hehe - always modify combat rules

Some simple mods addressing your concerns:

Sum physical stats and use as health. Adrenaline and the fact that most combat should be done in moments and DMs arguably shouldn't apply except by injury (i.e. eye wound, vs. leg wound, vs. shattered firing wrist). For abstraction, DM -1 to everything physical for each 1/3 drop in health stat. At DM-3, apply DM-2 to mental skills as well. Health of 2 or less is unconscious. (Though allow unconsciousness as an independent state without health loss for better RP.) Health of 0 is dead unless immediate medical attention (most physical trauma can be handled in a futuristic setting - heck, the RW is almost there).

Initiative - make up your own. (I RP this - no need for a other than opposed roll when needed.)

Space Combat - not too bad, but doesn't really support roleplay much. I've come to use the task mechanic for most everything - why have a bunch of separate mechanics for combat. Of course, this requires custom stats for weapons and armour and I do employ a health/damage stat and injury/damage tracking (ex: broken leg rarely affects shooting; fused turret tracking mechanism doesn't prevent firing, but aiming must be done like fixed turret). Tasks account for targeted damage or intended results - not just random rolls determining success/failure. In combat, one should be able to shoot for strategic reasons (cover fire; herding opponents; distraction; etc.). Note that MgT combat mechanics can support these things - but tracking minor/major actions, initiative, timing, meters of movement, etc. really sucks the RP feel clean away, IMO.

 

[alex_greene]

Depending on what you're aiming for, you could throw out any and all of the mechanics and just use them as suggestions, such as using Events and Mishaps during character generation to shape the character's development by rolling for them first before rolling the skills tables.

For example, a character might have some sort of a life event, such as a relationship with a NPC from a different service, and following that NPC's deployment elsewhere she transfers to that NPC's service to follow him, only to have a mishap the following term when their relationship contravenes regs and they are forced to operate in different branches of the same service.

Suddenly, it brings a whole new dimension to chargen - instead of "Oh, I rolled Gun Combat and Diplomacy last term, and this term I'm getting Stealth and Seafarer - whoops, mishap. Can I transfer to this sub branch because I'd like to stay with this service?"

Instead of just specifying what the rolled event is, you and the Referee can just say "Okay, an event happens this term. Let's have a relationship. That's always cool. Oh, all right, yeah, having him in another Service is a good one. Hey, suppose he gets deployed, and I have my character quit my current job and take off after him? Could that work?" and then. "It's a mishap. Oh, what do you say the Brass find out that me and the NPC are in breach of regs by being in the same unit and sleeping with one another?" Let the character and the Ref work out the story, rather than the dice alone.

Another thing - the psionics rules. If you don't like psionics - don't bother with them. Have your "telepath" Adepts actually have Psychology (cold reading)-4 and Deception-4, with wild Social Standing, Education and Intelligence to back up their claims with wild bluster. Or your "telekinetic" happens to have a remote control to a grav unit planted inside the robot he is "levitating," and as for your "teleporter" - Art (stage magic)-4, anyone?

Also, if you do like the psionics rules, and you don't like the way they play out ... ignore them as they stand. Do something else with them. Do you want your psions to have different scales of ranges depending on their Psionic Strength? Scale it up. Psions with Psi 12+ now use the spacecraft combat range bands instead of the personal range bands. If there'd been a vehicular range band between the personal and space bands, Psi 9 - 11 could use that, instead.

Scaling also works if you want to work with Jump, too. Imagine if your Jump drives used a form of "Jump range bands" system, rather than the system they currently use. "Adjacent" means "within the system, or the next hex;" "Close" means "up to 2 hexes away," and so on.

The game may not have moved on since 1977, but that doesn't mean to say it shouldn't. The core rulebook provides a useful baseline from which to start. But no explorer was ever content to stay forever in the safe harbour.

 

[hdan]

Another house rule I've seen a lot (and which has been institutionalized in some non-OTU settings) is to have the Jump number of a drive be its speed in parsecs per week. So a J-2 ship can make a single parsec in half a week. It still (generally) costs 10% hull size per parsec traveled though.

The extra speed does skew things at the lower levels, but for travelling very long distances, things still work out the same.

 

[IanW]

Cr1000 per jump freight costs.

Cr 250 + Cr750 per parsec rules.

 

[IanW]

Another house rule I've seen a lot (and which has been institutionalized in some non-OTU settings) is to have the Jump number of a drive be its speed in parsecs per week. So a J-2 ship can make a single parsec in half a week. It still (generally) costs 10% hull size per parsec traveled though.

The extra speed does skew things at the lower levels, but for travelling very long distances, things still work out the same.

You can do it if you want, but this completely stuffs the X-boat network.

Nothing moves faster than a ship. Not even a faster ship.

 

[alex_greene]

You can do it if you want, but this completely stuffs the X-boat network.

Nothing moves faster than a ship. Not even a faster ship.

You can always work something out to give X-Boats the continued advantage over commercial and military vessels.

Perhaps they have cracked the J-6 fuel and size requirements, giving them the ability to convey their data more efficiently than commercial vessels or military ships.

Another advantage of X-Boats is not only their ability to convey the data, but its security - not only is that data more securely encrypted than anyone else can manage - it is physically stored in secure drives and a physical vault which could survive the complete and catastrophic evaporation of the vessel surrounding it, whether that data is in electronic format (banks of exabyte-capacity flash drives the size of sugar cubes) or items or physical documents (Imperial Warrants, letters of marque, medals direct from the Capital, certificates of noble entitlement etc, coats of arms).

Even if their speed is no greater than that of other vessels able to make J-6, they should have a reputation akin to the Pony Express from the Old West. That reputation for speed, security and sheer dogged persistence in getting your data through to its destination is what would keep them at the top of the data-conveyance game, and the envy of other organisations who'd have their own versions.