ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
Did T20 have character leveling in it? Or were characters already experienced with skills at the start of a game?Myrm said:
Which 3 Traveller versions do you like, or want to play?
- Thread starter ShawnDriscoll
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ShawnDriscoll said:
Yes to both. You went through prior history like any other version of Traveller, earning experience points, so you started out with a few levels. After that, you earned experience points and leveled up like normal for d20 games.
Just surviving a term gave 4,000xp, with chances for more from commission, promotion, and other stuff. You started at 1st level, and I think you ended up roughly 7th level or so on average after prior history ended, and the game began.
ShawnDriscoll said:
Both. The way the system worked is you used the Prior Life section which had the usual suspects in terms of Careers and rolls to make but instead of solely and directly generating skills etc a lot of results aimed to provide XPs that you then invested in levelling in a selection of D20 style classes as prior life proceeded (there is a bit more it than that but that is essentially how T20 connected Prior Life to the D20 engine).
Once in game it was standard XP driven levelling. Skills were a lot more important than DnD IMO but at its core gameplay was a D20 modification.
hdan said:
Ah that...OK you seem to be struggling on the exact same point one of my players fell over on (now he had years of Classic Traveller experience as well as plenty of 3E/d20 practise). The identical names really do throw confusion in there, so yes I understands the issue.
My advice is to mentally totally separate anything that is Class from anything that is Career. Ignore the fact they have the same names and file them seaparately. I know there are a few connections in there with Merchant class obviously being a good choice for someone in Mewrchant Career but if you install that procedural separation then it will run a lot easier. The player in question did it by mentally prefixing any operation with either Career or Class so he was thinking the right way and never conflating the two eg CareerMerchant and ClassMerchant (as a techy this worked for him as he did variables that way routinely).
So my experiences match up pretty well with some of the other responses so far.
1. CT
2. MgT
3. T20
The first two are virtually interchangable in my mind so no surprise there. MGT provided the good CharGen and gear built a differewnt TLs (whuch I really liked) but I ran into too many rules issues with actually running a session. I own a decent ammount of GRUPS but never actually played; just stole ideas from the material.
I played plenty of D20 so T20 was a welcome addition to my Traveller collection. It struck me as somewhat funny how soo many of my Merchant Career PCs had a level or two of Rouge Class. I wonder if it was for access to the Sneak Attack feat; nah...must have been somthing directly tied to rich and deep character development. :lol:
1. CT
2. MgT
3. T20
The first two are virtually interchangable in my mind so no surprise there. MGT provided the good CharGen and gear built a differewnt TLs (whuch I really liked) but I ran into too many rules issues with actually running a session. I own a decent ammount of GRUPS but never actually played; just stole ideas from the material.
I played plenty of D20 so T20 was a welcome addition to my Traveller collection. It struck me as somewhat funny how soo many of my Merchant Career PCs had a level or two of Rouge Class. I wonder if it was for access to the Sneak Attack feat; nah...must have been somthing directly tied to rich and deep character development. :lol:
WoodsWalker
Mongoose
I picked Mongoose and Classic Traveller only. I was never partial to GURPS T5 I know nothing about. T4 had tons of issues - to bad really. TNE just didn't grab my imagination I guess I just didn't get it. Mega Traveller nuked the setting and got really rules heavy.
Just my off the cuff opinion. As always play what you like.
Just my off the cuff opinion. As always play what you like.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
WoodsWalker said:
MegaTraveller was the beginning of what started turning me off from Traveller. I wanted a better CT. Not a reprint. Not a re-packaging of the same rules in a different binding. And certainly not a different game, which MT was. TNE was the straw that broke the camel's back. I looked at GURPS Traveller. It was ok. Missed the whole CharGen thing, though. Then Mongoose restored my faith in generic SFRPGing again, years later.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
I read through my GURPS 4e Traveller last week. It was basically all setting and no game really (makes sense since, technically, GURUPS is the rules). The Space and ship rules have changed in 4e. No vehicles yet for 4e. So I rate the game lower than the 3e version.
I would agree with everything you say here. I wanted it to be a reasonable tool in adapting 3e to 4e, but it just doesn't cut it in that regard.ShawnDriscoll said:
I have hopes that 4e Vehicles will be more like 3e Vehicles and less like 4e Spaceships - if so, there's a shot at having a really robust GURPS: Third Imperium game. Without it, there's a whole lot of adaptin' goin' on.
I like both MgT and CT. I often give MgT a hell of a ripping because it couod be so much better. I have only ever played CT but that is because every time I pick up a MgT book I see something I dont like and put it down again. But MgT is far more coherent than CT, if I could get over the annoying stuff I would probably play it out of preference. But there again I love the way CT is an open system for adaption to any game, MgT I find is more heavily rules based and a bit of a chore to get my head around its multiple rules throughout all of the books. But then MgT has more easily remembered basic dice throws and a good task system whereas CT is a nightmare trying to remember all the various dice throws (unless you just make them up which is what I often do). Its a quandry for me that I have never satisfactorily resolved.
tolcreator
Mongoose
Started out in traveller with TNE, love love love Fire, Fusion and Steel, my copy of it is quite dogeared!
Ran 2 campaigns with Gurps Traveller, though I had to restrict it to "Pistols and Shotguns only", for a firefly vibe and also to remove the "smoking boots" dilema, some of those weapons did nasty, nasty damage... you either had enough armour to ignore them, or you were left with 2 smoking boots on the ground...
Ran one campaign with Mongoose and just about to start in on another. Still pine for HePlaR drives and turrets of one gun taking up 3 tons, but my players will be happier, it's a much smoother system
Ran 2 campaigns with Gurps Traveller, though I had to restrict it to "Pistols and Shotguns only", for a firefly vibe and also to remove the "smoking boots" dilema, some of those weapons did nasty, nasty damage... you either had enough armour to ignore them, or you were left with 2 smoking boots on the ground...
Ran one campaign with Mongoose and just about to start in on another. Still pine for HePlaR drives and turrets of one gun taking up 3 tons, but my players will be happier, it's a much smoother system
