Quote from: Age of Fable;220303How does psionics work? Is it a profession?

Sure.  The Zhodani had the Tavrchedle', the "Thought Police", in the Aliens Module 4, though that was based on the expanded career model.  But I've done a Psi-Corps police career that works along a very similar line in the bacis career format.  So, make a "Wizard" career or somesuch, perhaps with an expanded psionics talents table.

!i!

Quote from: Age of Fable;220259Aren't the rules for spaceships very detailed? Would it be possible to convert them to work for sailing ships?

I don't think so. You've got things like engines and sensors there's no analogue for in sail. It'd be easier to convert them to a modern game - see Mariner that Ian Absentia is working on.

I'm sure someone who knew quite a bit about sailing ships could come up with at least half a dozen stats for them, to carry on that Traveller tradition of having them statted out like 8781A1-2 or whatever.

Quote from: Age of FableIn fantasy, usually the main weapons are hand-to-hand. Whereas in science-fiction they're usually guns. How would you convert that?

In Traveller melee weapons are still important. In the original books it's never explained why - basically, like the 2d starmaps and things like that, it's there because it's fun.

Quote from: KenHRWell, you'd want to re-do the lifepath tables for character generation to reflect fantasy archetypes, anyway, so you just replace "Rifle" skills and the like with "Melee Weapon" and such.

In the Six-Letter System, since there are only 36 skills, there are only three combat skills: Brawling, Melee and Fire. If you're at a high tech level, then Fire covers shotguns, machineguns, and so on, but not crossbows and spears and stuff. If you're at a low tech level, vice versa.

This means you can have the same or similar tables for lifepaths of characters at different tech levels.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;220331I don't think so. You've got things like engines and sensors there's no analogue for in sail. It'd be easier to convert them to a modern game - see Mariner that Ian Absentia is working on.

Engine = a bunch of sweaty, beefy rowers, a big guy beating on a drum and a scowling SOB yelling for the rowers to put their backs into it.

Sensors = some guy in the crows nest with a keen eye.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;220331In Traveller melee weapons are still important. In the original books it's never explained why - basically, like the 2d starmaps and things like that, it's there because it's fun.

Indeed it is explained.  Slug-throwers (more common than lasers because they're more efficient) aren't great things to use on spaceships because of the chance of a bullet penetrating a ship's hull and causing a catastrophic decompression.  So swords and melee weapons are used extensively by the Marines, for example.  And again, because you could encounter peoples from any tech level in your travels, it was good to have stats for melee weapons.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220303The ones I can remember reading about are Scouts, Merchants, Navy (could be said to cover any seafaring profession), Army (could be said to include mercenaries, town guards etc)...it'd sounds pretty usable as is, although it'd give a more 'low fantasy' feel than D&D.

Maybe you could have combinations of existing ones, like eg perhaps pirates are halfway between Navy and Army.

My notes had a warrior as analogue to the army; rogue as sort of a scout, sort of an "other"; buccaneer/privateer as merchant/navy guy...it's fairly simple to port.

In the base game, psionics aren't learned at chargen.  You have to find a psionic institute and undergo testing for your potential.  With training, you can learn to use powers from five disciplines: telekinesis, teleportation, awareness, clairvoyance, and telepathy.  A sixth type, "special", covered effects outside those.  As Ian notes, some aliens had psionic professions.

I like the idea of sticking to those five disciplines and their associated skills for magic (I also added a "Channeling" discipline similar in concept to RoleMaster Channelers to round out the list), but I was never sure if it would fly for most.

That'd obviously be very easy to convert. In fact it sounds more fantasy than science-fiction.

Quote from: KenHR;220340In the base game, psionics aren't learned at chargen.  You have to find a psionic institute and undergo testing for your potential.  With training, you can learn to use powers from five disciplines: telekinesis, teleportation, awareness, clairvoyance, and telepathy.  A sixth type, "special", covered effects outside those.  As Ian notes, some aliens had psionic professions.

In Traveller, do you have to pay upkeep on your spaceship? Because if you don't, and ship features become crew, then people might wonder why you don't have to pay or feed your crew.

Maybe ship features could become divine blessings instead. Eg the blessing of Athena = your weapons are more accurate.

In Traveller you're expected to pay an enormous mortgage - forty years, the things cost tens of millions, so you're looking at $100,000 a month or something.

It'd be easy to abstract that as crew salaries.

If I were making Wanderer I'd go with random settlement and terrain generation, in a default Wilderlands-style setting rather than making it into a maritime-themed game. It doesn't have to parallel everything in Traveller, so I don't see commerce as the main focus, just good old sword and sorcery. Best to play to the genre's strengths.

By the way, the Aldreth document someone mentioned earlier is actually quite a good draft of fantasy Traveller, with nifty magic and careers.

Quote from: The_Shadow;220400If I were making Wanderer I'd go with random settlement and terrain generation, in a default Wilderlands-style setting rather than making it into a maritime-themed game. It doesn't have to parallel everything in Traveller, so I don't see commerce as the main focus, just good old sword and sorcery. Best to play to the genre's strengths.

That was (and still is) exactly my take on it.

(So maybe I should get back to my scribbled notes?)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;220397In Traveller you're expected to pay an enormous mortgage - forty years, the things cost tens of millions, so you're looking at $100,000 a month or something.

It'd be easy to abstract that as crew salaries.

Cool. Presumably the features of a spaceship are of no help to you once you're on a planet? So you'd need to specify that the crew won't follow you into danger. They're only hired for the voyage, then you hire a new crew once you get into a safe port.

What do people without spaceships do - they have to pay their way presumably?

Quote from: The_Shadow;220400If I were making Wanderer I'd go with random settlement and terrain generation, in a default Wilderlands-style setting rather than making it into a maritime-themed game. It doesn't have to parallel everything in Traveller, so I don't see commerce as the main focus, just good old sword and sorcery. Best to play to the genre's strengths.

Doesn't 'Forward...to Adventure!' do that already?

Mazes and Minotaurs also has random island and city generation tables.

The board game 'Source of the Nile' has a system for randomly generating terrain as well.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220418What do people without spaceships do - they have to pay their way presumably?

Yes, you can book high, middle or low passage (low passage is cold storage; cheap, but carries risk of death along the way) for a price.  Characters can also come out of generation with a few tickets.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220418Cool. Presumably the features of a spaceship are of no help to you once you're on a planet? So you'd need to specify that the crew won't follow you into danger. They're only hired for the voyage, then you hire a new crew once you get into a safe port.

GM: "Um... they're busy fixing leaks and swabbing the decks."

Quote from: Age of FableWhat do people without spaceships do - they have to pay their way presumably?

Well, they might be agents for some government or corporation and be shipped somewhere. Or else they buy passage... just not "Low Passage", since that's being frozen and an embarrassing portion of Low Passage travellers don't survive the journey. It's all a bit primitive - like when the French sailed to Sevastapol during the Crimean War and crammed 1,500 soldiers onto one ship and 200 died along the way...

About random terrain... was it Unearthed Arcana that had a random terrain generation system? Or was that Rolemaster's Campaign Law? I can't remember...

The 1st edition DMG had random terrain, as did Campaign Law.