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http://dirk.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/dsc01828.jpg (http://dirk.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/dsc01828.jpg)
and would you buy it?

Looks very interesting to me. ;)
=

Yes, and yes.  Yesterday, please.

I think I've seen this before.

Yes it should exist. A magic system other than psionics would be cool. Something to randomly generate fantasy geography. Maybe in this case include a bestiary?

I'd get it. Why wouldn't we?

Seanchai

DO WANT!
Any additional info available?  Google leaves me wanting...

It's just a mockup someone did a long time ago.  I've seen it before.  

There was one guy's livejournal I found once where he did some quickie Trav fantasy rules, but they're unrelated.

I already have one game in this format. I am thinking of going this route with Chevalier. So, what excites you guys about this game? Format? Division of books? Box set?

Bill

Traveller rules in general. Traveller like rules for geography/campaign building. Like the world building rules in Traveller.

You know, I never really felt that I would be interested in a fantasy version of Traveller; and yet, looking at that picture gave me a little rush of geek-joy.

RPGPundit

Quote from: HinterWelt;219289I already have one game in this format. I am thinking of going this route with Chevalier. So, what excites you guys about this game? Format? Division of books? Box set?

Bill

Yes, yes, and yes.  Also, love the idea of Traveller's UPP and World generation rules being ported over to gritty Fantasy.  As Pundit said, i also felt the lil spark of geek-joy just looking at the mock-up.

In an alternate universe, this is the best selling fantasy role-playing game of all time.  Oh sure,  there are newer and hotter games, but Wanderer has cachet that no one can beat.  It has so completely dominated the industry that many people can't even imagine a role-playing game where you can't die during character creation.   Even people who know nothing about gaming recognize references to Wanderer.

Of course, when Sorcerers of the Mountain took over the license, many people felt the new edition had diverged from the previous edition too much.  I mean grid maps instead of range bands?  The new cross-training system that made occupations less relevant.

And latest edition, Wanderer 4E is barely recognizable as Wanderer to people who still remember playing good old Tan Box Wanderer...

Ahh, Tan Box Wanderer...

I still have all my LTBs... 76 Taverns, Denizens of the Empire (Barbarian is kinda overpowered, though), Library Lore A-Z...

The mock-up was done by Dirk, who posts here occasionally. I think on the CotI boards there have been some conversion threads in the past.

BTW, I'm sure that if somebody with a track record in game design would actually shoot Marc Miller an email, the project could take off for real. I can see a rather large number of grognards--and not just Traveller ones--buying it sight unseen.

This is something I've been trying to do on and off for a coupla years now, but I keep getting hung up on magic.  Random monsters, lifepath chargen, a sailing ship system with island and city generators...a whole system built around sandboxing!  I'd love it if someone could pull it off.

I tihnk the easiest way to do magic would be to treat it as any other skill during character creation.  So if you have the right career, the tables could generate skills like Death Magic 3 or Fire Magic 2 or something.

Pair that up with D&D/Rolemaster style spell levels, So at each skill level, you get a set of spells.

that's how I'd do it.

That was kind of the way I was going (magic as skills)...it was more the specific type of effects that were throwing me.  I was trying to shoehorn Trav's psionic system into a magic system and integrate the psi stuff into character generation.  And I wanted to avoid D&D-like fireball magic...but I just didn't know what I wanted in its place.  The psionic disciplines, while interesting and potentially subtle, don't make for the best effects if you have dedicated magic-type guys (but who says you need dedicated magic-type guys).

Trav's combat system works very nicely for fantasy (not surprising when the original game accounts for halberds alongside laserguns), range bands and all, especially if you use a couple minor rules from 1st edition CT (frex, halberds give a huge to-hit bonus on the first round the wielder is engaged, but then get a big penalty afterward to simulate someone getting inside the polearm's reach).

I had a little thrill seeing those books.

I think I'd pick it up..

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;219336BTW, I'm sure that if somebody with a track record in game design would actually shoot Marc Miller an email, the project could take off for real.

No need to contact Marc anymore, depending on how you feel about Mongoose's version of Traveller.  When the SRD comes out, it's free for the picking.  Mimicking the format, as long as one doesn't plagiarise the original text, is fair game.

!i!

Chaosium's old Thieves World(TW) box set had Traveller stats for the TW universe. I think it even had some conversion advice for running the Traveller rules in a fantasy setting.

 I remember that it even gave a few reasons for having the TW planet existing in the Imperium.

 I definately have to take a look at it again when I get home - the Wanderer mock-up was way cool.


.

Quote from: Jaeger;219379Chaosium's old Thieves World(TW) box set had Traveller stats for the TW universe. I think it even had some conversion advice for running the Traveller rules in a fantasy setting.

I had my copy out only a short while ago.  The conversion notes are very brief (replace Wheeled Vehicle with Teamster, that sort of thing), and "magic" was strictly the province of the psionics rules.  It was all very quick and clean, a springboard with just enough information to get you going (like so much of RPGs of the era).

!i!

Somebody just do it. Listen to the voice in your head. It is your calling.

Some one sort of tried, a while back.  Called it Aldreth.  Direct pdf link is here (http://home.btconnect.com/hughfoster/Traveller/AldrethA4.pdf).

EDIT:  And this CotI thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=11081) might be of interest on the topic.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;219367No need to contact Marc anymore, depending on how you feel about Mongoose's version of Traveller.  

Gods, no. I'd rather it didn't happen at all.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;219467Gods, no. I'd rather it didn't happen at all.

Well, this raises an interesting question.  If Marc Miller has licensed Traveller to Mongoose for their own edition, can anyone license the original version of the game?  When I made my own inquiry along similar lines a little over a year ago, Marc pointed me toward the forthcoming Mongoose edition and its SRD with no further explanation.

Now, if'n you don't quite cotton to the Mongoose version, what you can (hopefully!) do is take the SRD and reverse-engineer.  That's the route I'm taking with MARINER.

!i!

Quote from: Jackalope;219327And latest edition, Wanderer 4E is barely recognizable

But fear not!

Because a renegade company is designing Roadspotter , a sort of bridge-gap 3.75 version ;)

It's going to be totally improved yet totally compatible, thanks to an open playtest!  :p

Quote from: Ian Absentia;219473Well, this raises an interesting question.  If Marc Miller has licensed Traveller to Mongoose for their own edition, can anyone license the original version of the game?  

Why not? It's hard to believe that Mong's license is such that it precludes Marc himself from further developing games based on CT, which is what Wanderer would be (and which isn't even a scifi game, isn't set in the Marches, doesn't compete with MongTrav in any way etc. etc.).

That's a thing of beauty - I would most definitely buy at least two copies (you know, for when the first one wore out).

Actually...

Some of you may know about "DAM Risk Dice" that I've been working on, and how I like a character sheet you can fit on an index card. So I developed a system with six attributes, six "features" (for those Dis/Advantage sorts of things), and thirty-six skills. All are on a 2-12 range, you generally add attribute and skill, roll 1-5d6, and if you get under, however many dice you rolled with, that shows either how quickly or how well you did.

Well, I was thinking of what Morrow had once said about how talent should count for a lot in the beginning of developing an ability, but skill should count most later on. So I thought, "hey, maybe if the roll was always 2d6, then the attributes could still be 2d6, if you roll under the attribute it helps and you get +1, but the skills are just 0, 1, 2, 3 and so on, if it's 2d6 to beat 8, then just one or two makes a big difference." And then I was thinking how silly hit points were and maybe it'd be better, instead of losing hit points and then it affects your stats, just lose stats directly.

Then I said, "shit, that's Classic Traveller."

And that's about when I started writing something up, and posted that thread about, we got OSRIC as the "rules with the serial numbers filed off" for old D&D, do we have it for other games?

Now sitting on my hard drive I have the basic rules for SPACER: science-fiction adventure in the near future. (see attachment for cover)

Remembering the UPP, the six-digits running together that define a character's attributes, I'd always had trouble remembering the order in Traveller, so I thought, why not make the game's title a mnemonic for it?

Quote from: kyle Aaron;219511Any Six-letter Fantasy Character Sorts Of Acronyms With No Repeating Letters In Them?

Gnomes?

Quote from: beejazz;219512Gnomes?

Actually, I thought perhaps...

HEROIC!

Quote from: kregmosier;219321Yes, yes, and yes.  Also, love the idea of Traveller's UPP and World generation rules being ported over to gritty Fantasy.  As Pundit said, i also felt the lil spark of geek-joy just looking at the mock-up.

Mazes & Minotaurs has a set of tables for generating cities and islands which might be similar.

It should have, but it should not now, unless it is done extremely well. That is one cool mock-up, though.

Quote from: Greentongue;219249http://dirk.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/dsc01828.jpg (http://dirk.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/dsc01828.jpg)
and would you buy it?

Looks very interesting to me. ;)
=

Yes.

And as Ian Absentia suggested, just use the Mongoose Traveller OGL to do it. I mean, that's what its there for.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;219473Well, this raises an interesting question.  If Marc Miller has licensed Traveller to Mongoose for their own edition, can anyone license the original version of the game?  When I made my own inquiry along similar lines a little over a year ago, Marc pointed me toward the forthcoming Mongoose edition and its SRD with no further explanation.

Since Avenger is ramping up to produce books for Mongoose Traveller, might also want to check with Mongoose / go through them.

Check the announcements for Mongoose Traveller, I suspect Mongoose has an exclusive license for Traveller for x number of years. All other existing licensees, except for GURPS Traveller, are ending Real Soon Now.

FWIW the GDW House System (used to power Twilight 2000 2.2, Traveller: The New Era (TNE), etc.) was available for licensing a few years back, from FFE / MWM. No idea if that's still the case, but MWM's never been unreasonable with licensing from what I've seen.

Pffft, who needs some OGL they could rip up tomorrow when you can just write your own rpg?

See sig...

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;219335Ahh, Tan Box Wanderer...

The mock-up was done by Dirk, who posts here occasionally. I think on the CotI boards there have been some conversion threads in the past.

Yes.

More so, that picture was specifically made for the "Wilderlands. Will I like it? (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=119830&postcount=28)" thread here on the RPGsite!
The picture in the OP is another version than the one in my post here. Someone on CotI had found the thread here, followed the picture link to where I hosted it, found the other shot and posted it on CotI.

In my original post I offered to someday tell the story behind that picture.
Since I already have put it in writing on CotI (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=267229&postcount=14) I might as well repost it here:

---

Years ago I co-owned a game store. One day I started to wonder what effect shelf placement had on sales. I used to bundle thematically equivalent games together, ie, Nephilim and In Nomine next to WoD, Cyberpunk next to Shadowrun, etc. But I couldn't track whether the copy of Nephilim got sold because I had directed the interest of a WoD fan to it or if the buyer has been looking for it specifically.
I figured that I needed a product that made customers wonder and ask me, "hey, what's that?". So I built two dummy boxes, one for the English language shelf, one for the German shelf.

The result was that not one customer came to me with a remark like, "I never knew they did a fantasy version of Traveller," or a similar statement. Simply put, no one discovered it, and I had placed it next to: Traveller, D&D, smaller fantasy games like Palladium and C&C, and the bargain bin, for two weeks each.
(The German dummy triggered the same reactions--that is, none--leading me to the conclusion that gamers browse game store shelves very focused on game lines they know and expect.)

Years later, someone (Dr Rotwang!) explained the old Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign setting as "D&D's Spinward Marches", in this thread on the RPGsite (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6751). That was when I remembered my mock-up. I quickly added a fake back cataloque, answer card, and map, and shot the picture as a visual answer to Dr Rotwang!

---

"Now the circle is complete!"



In Settembrini's forum is a slightly longer version (http://hofrat.rollenspiel-berlin.de/Forum/index.php?topic=1111.msg22635#msg22635) of that tale, but beware, it's German.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;219585Yes.

Years later, someone (Dr Rotwang!) explained the old Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign setting as "D&D's Spinward Marches", in
 (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6751)

Yeah I coined that phrase to help people to comprehend what the Wilderlands was. Despite it greatness it not any where near the original Spinward Marches price. Something I am trying to rectify with Points of Light published by Goodman Games.

I too want  Wanderer. There is so much goodness in that picture.

Rob Conley

My ex-housemate told me that he'd played a game set in medieval Scotland using Traveller rules.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;219572Pffft, who needs some OGL they could rip up tomorrow when you can just write your own rpg?

See sig...

Kyle,

That looks pretty cool!  Thanks for pointing out the link. ;)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;219511Now sitting on my hard drive I have the basic rules for SPACER: science-fiction adventure in the near future. (see attachment for cover)

Remembering the UPP, the six-digits running together that define a character's attributes, I'd always had trouble remembering the order in Traveller, so I thought, why not make the game's title a mnemonic for it?

Stamina-Physique-Agility-Cognisance-Education-Resolve

I like that kind of thing. :)

The Order of Play in my game spells out M.A.C.E. :D

Isn't this just basically D&D? I don't get it.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;219633Isn't this just basically D&D? I don't get it.

Aren't all RPGs just basically D&D? ;)

Quote from: Stuart;219650Aren't all RPGs just basically D&D? ;)

s'right...Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns.
D&D 4th Edition is an MMO with miniatures...
BRP is D&D with percentiles...
Traveller is D&D in space...

aand finally, forums are electronic bathroom walls.

Thanks you, tip your waitresses.:D

I saw the box, and I too thought I would buy this game .... eventually.  It would be a total nostalgia buy. Never would play it. Would put it on my shelf next to my CT box and just go, awwwwwww.  I would probably wait until it hit a discount bin somewhere, or pick it up at Wingnut game's discount game convention booth. Still, I would want it.

Still, the system would work. It would be playable. Just, not something I would do.

****
That aside, this thread has been really interesting. Moreso than the game I expect.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;219585So I built two dummy boxes, one for the English language shelf, one for the German shelf.

What does the text that replaces the "Beowulf" text on the original say?  It's too small to read in that picture.

If you click on the image it might expand.

I think it says

QuoteKnow, O prince,
that between the years
when the oceans drank Atlantis
and the gleaming cities,
and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas,
there was an Age undreamed of,
when shining kingdoms lay spread
across the world
like blue mantles beneath the stars...

Quote from: kregmosier;219663s'right...Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns.
D&D 4th Edition is an MMO with miniatures...
BRP is D&D with percentiles...
Traveller is D&D in space...

aand finally, forums are electronic bathroom walls.

Thanks you, tip your waitresses.:D

Call 555-therpgsite for a good time. :D

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;219633Isn't this just basically D&D? I don't get it.

It mimics the look of the first edition of Traveller (which in reality didn't have a fantasy version).

Quote from: dar;219963If you click on the image it might expand.

Thanks.  I see that now.  I was looking at the other picture where it wasn't so clear.

It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

I'm sure that says something about the evolution of old-school gaming as an after-the-fact construct which has emerged only recently, though I'm not sure exactly what.

Quote from: The_Shadow;220024It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

That there were Traveller stats in the old Thieves' World supplement in 1981 suggests that it wasn't entirely unthinkable or unthought of at that time.

Quote from: The_Shadow;220024It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

I'm sure that says something about the evolution of old-school gaming as an after-the-fact construct which has emerged only recently, though I'm not sure exactly what.

Dude, kitbashing was freakin' everything in those days.  I would be surprised if there weren't tons of groups at the time using the rules to run fantasy games, just as there were countless groups using D&D to run everything from sci-fi to westerns to god knows what.  

Just because there was never a commercial product doesn't mean it was somehow "unthinkable".  There were few commercial products in general outside D&D in the Traveller days.  You're ascribing a modern outlook to a different time period.

In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

(unless it was something less conventional, like floating cities or a world of molten lava with a few outcrops of rock)

Quote from: Age of Fable;220032In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

(unless it was something less conventional, like floating cities or a world of molten lava with a few outcrops of rock)

Or a group of demiplanes floating in an Astral Sea...

Waitaminute...

I thought it would be islands or scattered cities.  Islands would maybe work better because then you have an analogue for starships.  The bits I worked up contained a Buccaneer/Privateer profession, and they would slot into the economic/trade system.

This makes me want to dig out my CT Fantasy notes again.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220032In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

Jason, Odysseus, Sindabad...

!i!

Quote from: The_Shadow;220024It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

In the post where I showed the picture originally it was preceded by the line "I never understood why there wasn't something like this".
Wasn't, not isn't or will be in the future.

GDW had carved themselves a niche in which they blossomed. In a time where everyone and their brother was publishing their stab at D&D they stuck with SF and military themes. They could have done a fantasy Traveller, but the fantasy genre wasn't "their thing".

I do think a fantasy version of the little black books would have sold back then. I don't think it would work today, and I am a bit surprised about the fuss this mock-up generated. In today's gaming market a thing like Wanderer would at best generate sales comparable to those of a typical IPR game (but aimed at a different clientele, though).

Quote from: Age of Fable;220032In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

It depends. Over at CotI they settled on a Mediterranean setting in the thread Traveller Fantasy RPG (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=11081) (though I don't know if you can get past the thread starter without being registered at the forum), with ships and ports and wares being the focus of the design.

Fantasy Traveller Careers (http://doc-mystery.livejournal.com/79484.html) suggests a more D&D-ish type of game.

And this is almost proof to my theory that Wanderer wouldn't work today, as a product. (As a meme it does work very well.)
There are as many conflicting visions of how a Fantasy Traveller would have to look as there are gamers grognards.

I looked at Traveller though a fantasy lens on and off through the years. But when I compare notes I made as early as 1985 (the year Traveller was published in German) to the ones I made after posting the picture last year (as working on the photo rekindled my interest) I see two different games. Neither of which paying attention to the commerce angle that seems so popular among "real" Traveller fans.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220136And this is almost proof to my theory that Wanderer wouldn't work today, as a product. (As a meme it does work very well.)
There are as many conflicting visions of how a Fantasy Traveller would have to look as there are gamers grognards.

Heck, sometimes it seems that there are as many conflicting visions of how Traveller should look as there are Traveller fans, never mind off-beat adaptations of the system.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220136But when I compare notes I made as early as 1985 (the year Traveller was published in German) to the ones I made after posting the picture last year (as working on the photo rekindled my interest) I see two different games. Neither of which paying attention to the commerce angle that seems so popular among "real" Traveller fans.

The commerce angle, along with the gearhead angle, is very popular among internet fans who rarely or never play the game.

When you speak to people who play it or who are running campaigns, the commerce and gearhead stuff is very unimportant.

It doesn't come up in Koltar's GURPS Traveller game, nor is it very important in my Just Speculatin' campaign, though neither of those are Classic Traveller, but with eight or so editions virtually no Traveller games are.

When I was on the Traveller Mailing List, the most gearheaded of all were those who had never played the game, followed by those who hadn't played it or anything else for years. Checking with a player in my group who's been on the TML for the better part of a decade - in fact, I met him there years ago - it is no different now. The one posting most concerned about a "realistic trade system" has not played anything for twenty years.

What is popular about a game in online discussions and what is popular in campaigns in play, are not always the same thing. The older the game, the greater the divergence between the two, I think.

Warthur and Kyle, you may be right. I have to ponder.

Though I have known Traveller gamers IRL who played the game as a solo trading simulation (rolled up a character, built a ship, rolled up a sector, planets, patrons and went from world to world, trading stuff) or as Shadowrun-like commando missions.
But I have also seen players who did nothing but creating subsector after subsector, with hardly any gaming going on.

BTW, Kyle, your Six-Letter-System looks nice, simple and elegant. Now I feel quite stupid for abandoning my notes and struggling with hanging too close to original Traveller vs. being not true enough to the rules/spirit of Traveller.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220136And this is almost proof to my theory that Wanderer wouldn't work today, as a product. (As a meme it does work very well.)
There are as many conflicting visions of how a Fantasy Traveller would have to look as there are gamers grognards.

I think it proves the opposite: the mere idea of Wanderer has people get so worked up about it they go off in all sorts of directions speculating about what it might be like.

I'm betting the farm that if published as photographed the game would sell 5000 copies.* Because it would scratch the itch of both the CotI AND the Dragonsfoot-type grognards. A rare feat.

*3000 sans box, 2000 if 8x11 rather than LTB.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220154I have known Traveller gamers IRL who played the game as a solo trading simulation [...]

But I have also seen players who did nothing but creating subsector after subsector, with hardly any gaming going on.

Absolutely, me too - and I've done it.

But to my mind that is no different from when GMs would spend hours every weekened drawing beautiful maps or writing up obscure deities and cultures which no player would ever see or care about.

It's a way to pass the time and is fun, but is not what roleplaying is really about, which is a group thing. And rpg rules have to appeal most to what happens in a group.

QuoteBTW, Kyle, your Six-Letter-System looks nice, simple and elegant. Now I feel quite stupid for abandoning my notes and struggling with hanging too close to original Traveller vs. being not true enough to the rules/spirit of Traveller.

Thanks! I haven't playtested them yet, but will at the first opportunity.

I'm not sure why you feel stupid. You just respected tradition. I don't :D

Weird, my group actually played CT and loved the hell out of the gearhead-y bits.  The trade system didn't come up often, but it made several appearances in play and the players were very concerned on maximizing profits from seized cargo.  We designed ships and made deckplans that were actually used in the game.  Those little sub-systems were like crack manufacturing for us...make it up then use it all as soon as possible!

That's great! I'm glad you had fun! You should start a thread and talk about it.

But why don't you play it now?

See, to my mind that's the real test of how good a game system and setting are, and how worthy of ripping off - er, I mean, "emulation" - not how nostalgic people are about it, but how much it's still played. I'd rather have written, say, Twilight: 2000 than Tekumel.

Our CT campaign ended many months ago, and we wanted to get back into fantasy.  Though we've been batting about ideas resurrecting our ATU as the wiki still exists with the library data we wrote, the first few session summaries, and everything.

I understand where you're coming from, Kyle, I was just surprised by the idea that people didn't use the economic, starship, etc. systems in play.  I don't really read CotI or TML (despite being subscribed to the latter), so wasn't aware of how widespread this phenomenon is.

Well, it's more that they don't play the games at all, but when they do play, we don't hear anything about commerce or gearhead stuff.

Whereas the people not playing talk about the commerce and gearhead stuff at great length.

I think it's a bit like the discussions you get on the GURPS forums where people discuss the minutae of developing powers to do this or that, or combat subrules, stuff that you know when it comes up in play, it's just not an issue. Like say overland hiking - the GURPS rules tell us that the average unencumbered person travelling on open ground can cover 50 miles a day. So they try to develop better rules for it, all the while forgetting that during play PCs never go more than 10 miles before encountering an adventure or NPC which keeps them busy the rest of the day...

It's not confined to Traveller. I just mentioned Traveller's gearhead appeal to say, well, it's not essential to games to make them popular. If Wanderer were made it could be popular without sailship generation rules.

A supplementry question:

Aren't the rules for spaceships very detailed? Would it be possible to convert them to work for sailing ships?

And another one:

In fantasy, usually the main weapons are hand-to-hand. Whereas in science-fiction they're usually guns. How would you convert that?

The Classic spaceship rules are fairly detailed, but not obsessively so.  You can do everything with pencil and paper if need be.  You could conceivably convert them to sailing ships (and I tried, but needed to do more research).

The only thing you'd miss out on is the nifty computer programs, which I kind of like from a game standpoint.  But, eh, it's not a necessary system, and most of what programs do (weapons control, navigation, etc.) can be done with skills and the like.

The High Guard supplement had a more abstract ship system that would probably work better for conversion, now that I think of it.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220261And another one:

In fantasy, usually the main weapons are hand-to-hand. Whereas in science-fiction they're usually guns. How would you convert that?

Because it had to cover a wide range of tech levels, Trav had a full complement of primitive/Medieval weaponry stats.  Easy enough to use.

Quote from: KenHR;220262The only thing you'd miss out on is the nifty computer programs, which I kind of like from a game standpoint.  But, eh, it's not a necessary system, and most of what programs do (weapons control, navigation, etc.) can be done with skills and the like.

Could they be crew?

Quote from: KenHR;220263Because it had to cover a wide range of tech levels, Trav had a full complement of primitive/Medieval weaponry stats.  Easy enough to use.

Sure, but wouldn't that make whatever stats and skills cover aim less useful, and whatever stats and skills cover hand-to-hand weapons more useful?

Quote from: Age of Fable;220271Could they be crew?

Yes, absolutely.  Wow, that's such an obvious solution...I didn't even think of that....

Quote from: Age of Fable;220272Sure, but wouldn't that make whatever stats and skills cover aim less useful, and whatever stats and skills cover hand-to-hand weapons more useful?

Well, 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.

Quote from: KenHR;220276Well, 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.

The 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.

How does psionics work? Is it a profession?

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 (http://mariner.pbwiki.com/) 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 (http://mariner.pbwiki.com/) 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.

Here are other threads on this topic. Between them, a method comes together.
Original D&D (http://odd74.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=nontsr&action=display&thread=1072&page=1)
RPGnet (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=401772)
=

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.

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

I concur on this entirely.  I think people are being overly literal in the translation here.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220415That was (and still is) exactly my take on it.

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

Thirdeded.

The upcoming FtA!GN! sourcebook will have extensive Random Terrain and Random Settlement generation rules.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Age of Fable;220419Doesn'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.

Dude, when has "someone else did it first" ever been an excuse to not do something in a roleplaying game?

If anything, that seems to be the driving motivation in a vast majority of game design.

Quote from: J Arcane;220495Dude, when has "someone else did it first" ever been an excuse to not do something in a roleplaying game?

If anything, that seems to be the driving motivation in a vast majority of game design.

Not to mention the fact that the RPGs that "did it first" are throwbacks, decades after the fact, to precisely the random gameworld design procedures that were established by a small number of games, very much including Traveller, in the nineteen-seventies.

Sometimes the mind really does boggle.

OK, I did it.

I sent Marc an email alerting him to this and other Wanderer threads and kindly asking him to consider publishing this thing.

I got a kick out of the Robert E. Howard references in the pic.

Quote from: RPGPundit;220490The upcoming FtA!GN! sourcebook will have extensive Random Terrain and Random Settlement generation rules.

Yes, and I'm fuckin' waitin'.... patiently, mind.

Quote from: dar;220562Yes, and I'm fuckin' waitin'.... patiently, mind.

At this point, its all on Clash.  He's the one who will determine when FtA!GN! is released.

Mind you, I really really hope its before (or at) Gencon. Otherwise it'll feel like a missed opportunity.
That, and I hope Clash can figure out a way to sell it (and FtA!) at Gencon.  Cut a deal with Brett or Bill, maybe, if he doesn't want to bother to have his own table?

RPGPundit

Quote from: dar;220562

Quote from: RPGPundit;220490The upcoming FtA!GN! sourcebook will have extensive Random Terrain and Random Settlement generation rules.

Yes, and I'm fuckin' waitin'.... patiently, mind.

Count me in on this one.

That's already two guaranteed sales, twice as much as some Forge games, so better hurry Clash :D


On-topic:
Funnily, I've actually written something like this in a 72h design challenge in April of this year, basically a Darklands (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/darklands) with random terrain rather than an actual map of medieval Europe, and with Risus as engine. I have no translation plans, but if there's really such a demand for such a game, I might consider it as soon as the German version is polished. (With the simple and easy to grok Risus as system base it wouldn't also be too tough to use for other systems.)

Someone has written a web application for this game that uses 1:1 the province generation rules, maybe it is of some use if someone wants to run such a game: Google-translated version (http://translate.google.de/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.e4-info.eu%2Frara%2FprovinzUebersicht.php&hl=de&ie=UTF8&sl=de&tl=en)

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;220533OK, I did it.

I sent Marc an email alerting him to this and other Wanderer threads and kindly asking him to consider publishing this thing.

I'll be very interested to see if/how he responds.  It might take a few follow-up e-mails, so be persistent. :)

!i!

re 'exact translation' vs 'same spirit and similar rules':

I'm not familiar with Traveller, but in general it seems to me that an exact conversion would:

i) be more likely to be generally recognised as having the same features that people like about Traveller.

ii) be more likely to be compatible with existing Traveller adventures and other material.

iii) have a take on fantasy/mythology that Dungeons and Dragons and other games often don't cover (eg pirates, the Odyssey, Vikings etc)

Quote from: Ian Absentia;220659I'll be very interested to see if/how he responds.  It might take a few follow-up e-mails, so be persistent. :)

!i!

Yes, and please keep us in the loop on this one. I would like to watch and see how this develops.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220794re 'exact translation' vs 'same spirit and similar rules':

I'm not familiar with Traveller, but in general it seems to me that an exact conversion would:

i) be more likely to be generally recognised as having the same features that people like about Traveller.

ii) be more likely to be compatible with existing Traveller adventures and other material.

iii) have a take on fantasy/mythology that Dungeons and Dragons and other games often don't cover (eg pirates, the Odyssey, Vikings etc)

What Age of Fable says.  My attempt at making a fantasy Traveller was to do something that fell somewhere between Heroic Greece and Elric...and both milieux feature ships prominently in their narratives.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220794re 'exact translation' vs 'same spirit and similar rules':

I'm not familiar with Traveller, but in general it seems to me that an exact conversion would:

i) be more likely to be generally recognised as having the same features that people like about Traveller.

ii) be more likely to be compatible with existing Traveller adventures and other material.

iii) have a take on fantasy/mythology that Dungeons and Dragons and other games often don't cover (eg pirates, the Odyssey, Vikings etc)

I think you can achieve these goals without making the game a maritime-based thing all about taking goods from port to port. This is overly literal to me. The core of the game can still be clearly Traveller-derived, with life-path character generation the main feature people associate with Traveller. The Dragonsfoot thread had some cool ideas in this regard.

This looks pretty cool!

Quote from: Skyrock;220650Count me in on this one.

That's already two guaranteed sales, twice as much as some Forge games, so better hurry Clash :D


On-topic:
Funnily, I've actually written something like this in a 72h design challenge in April of this year, basically a Darklands (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/darklands) with random terrain rather than an actual map of medieval Europe, and with Risus as engine. I have no translation plans, but if there's really such a demand for such a game, I might consider it as soon as the German version is polished. (With the simple and easy to grok Risus as system base it wouldn't also be too tough to use for other systems.)

Someone has written a web application for this game that uses 1:1 the province generation rules, maybe it is of some use if someone wants to run such a game: Google-translated version (http://translate.google.de/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.e4-info.eu%2Frara%2FprovinzUebersicht.php&hl=de&ie=UTF8&sl=de&tl=en)

Having looked again at the books...man, the skills are so wargamey.

The concept of the careers seems to translate easily into fantasy (Army -> Warrior, Marines -> Pirate, Navy -> Sailor, Scouts -> Explorer, Merchant -> Merchant, Other -> Thief) - but the skills you get are very narrow in focus.

I'd also probably want to make the process of finding a psionic institute and testing your psionic talent part of of character creation (it seems to be effectively an extra attribute and an extra career).

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;219518Actually, I thought perhaps...

HEROIC!

Health-Energy-Reflexes-Observation-Intellect-Confidence

Courage?

Quote from: Age of Fable;221044Courage?

Six letters we want. Six.

We actually rolled some characters up with GAMERS last night. Boy were the players unhappy about random character generation! I let them rearrange their attribute rolls to suit them, and choose lifepaths which hgave them random skills within careers, but they still complained! What a bunch of pussies!

They went to Old School and someone beat them up and stole their lunch money.

I meant instead of Confidence.

I wonder if Runequest's system of Barbarians, Peasants, Townsfolk and Nobles would be useful?

Quote from: Age of Fable;221099I wonder if Runequest's system of Barbarians, Peasants, Townsfolk and Nobles would be useful?

No, no it wouldn't.

RPGPundit

So has this concept just bled out?  



And yes, this is just another thread to help dillute the number of 4e threads on the front page.

Quote from: MoonHunter;221970So has this concept just bled out?  

I guess it just needs one motivated individual to make it happen.

Won't be me though. Too lazy.

Here's a start:

DRIFTER
Low cunning on the high seas.

1) There are seven attributes. The first six are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Social Class. Each of these are generated by rolling 2 dice (all dice used are d6s). The seventh attribute is Power. This measures a character's magical ability. This attribute isn't generated at the start of the game - instead, the character should note it as 'unknown'. This is because magical ability can only be revealed by those already learned in magic. The procedure for doing this will be noted later.

2) True Name: Characters in Wanderer are precisely defined by writing their True Name, which expresses their six attributes, in the order rolled, in the alphabet of the celestial realm. A change in attributes will mean a change in the character's True Name (which is why numbers outside the range 2-12 are listed):

1   א
2   ב
3   ה
4   ט
5   ך
6   ל
7   ם
8   ס
9   ע
10   ף
11   פ
12   ק
13   ש
14   ת
15   ױ

3) Titles

A characters' origin is defined by their Social Class, as follows:

2-5 Barbarian
6-8 Peasant
9 or 10 Townsfolk
11 or 12 Noble.

Thus characters with a Social Class of 11 or higher will have a title, as follows:

11 Sir or Dame
12 Baron or Baroness
13 Marquis, or Marquesa or Marchioness
14 Count or Countess
15 Duke or Duchess

3a) Scholarly Titles.

Characters with a Wisdom of 11 or higher, and a Social Class of 9 or higher, will likewise have a title, as follows (based on their Wisdom):

11 Scholar
12 Scribe
13 Scrivener
14 Doctor
15 Magister

4) A character then chooses one of six classes, and attempts to join.

The player rolls two dice, and adds any bonuses listed for the class.

If the total is equal to or higher than the classes' Apprentice Number, then they've successfully joined that class.

If not, they should roll 1 dice, and join the class with the relevant number. It's possible that a character will get the class they tried to join and failed.


The six classes, with their relevant statistics, are

1 Sailor

Apprentice number 8
Bonus of 1 if Intelligence of at least 8.
Bonus of 2 if Townsfolk or Noble.

2 Pirate

Apprentice number 9
Bonus of 1 if Intelligence of at least 8.
Bonus of 2 if Strength of at least 8.

3 Warrior

Apprentice number 5
Bonus of 1 if Intelligence of Dexterity of at least 6.
Bonus of Constitution of at least 5.

4 Explorer

Apprentice number 7
Bonus of 1 if Intelligence of at least 6.
Bonus of 2 if Strength of at least 8.

5 Merchant

Apprentice number 7
Bonus of 1 if Strength of at least 7.
Bonus of 2 if Intelligence of at least 6.

6 Traveller

Apprentice number 3.
No bonuses.

Not bad Age of Fable.

Pirate and Sailor?  Isn't Sailor really just a type of Pirate?

What about a Scholar career?  You have scholarly titles after all, I'm aware Classic Trav didn't have that but it would cover sages, magi, people like that perhaps.

I'd rename Thief back to Other personally.

The Mongoose Traveller SRD is out (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=11059).

Quote from: Balbinus;222036I'd rename Thief back to Other personally.

I'd change Thief to Outlaw. :)

Quote from: Stuart;222074I'd change Thief to Outlaw. :)

Good call.

Quote from: Balbinus;222036What about a Scholar career?  You have scholarly titles after all, I'm aware Classic Trav didn't have that but it would cover sages, magi, people like that perhaps.

I was going to 'translate' psi into magic.

Quote from: Age of Fable;222093I was going to 'translate' psi into magic.

Which makes sense, to be honest for a sword and sorcery style game you don't actually need to make any changes, beyond renaming it.

Should this be moved to the 'Game Development' section?

Quote from: Casey777;222055The Mongoose Traveller SRD is out (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=11059).

I think their copyright declaration in the OGL is incorrect.  From what I understand, "(C)" is not a legal replacement for "©" or the word "Copyright".  I'm also not sure why there are two Traveller copyright lines, both with the "(C)".

Yes, its exactly the sort of thing I want from that section.

RPGPundit

Character creation continued...

5) Age and Skills

The player then rolls 1 dice and adds 1 (giving a result of 2 to 7). This is the character's starting Experience.

Experience multiplied by 4, plus 14, gives the character's age (giving a starting age of 22,26,30,34,38 or 42).

Experience is used to decide what skills, resources, and injuries the character has picked up during their career, as well as the effect of aging on their attributes (if any).

5a) Injuries

Again, the player should roll two dice once for each point of Experience the character has.

Each career has its own 'Survival Number'. If the character's roll is less than the Survival Number for their career, they've gained one injury.

Each career also has an attribute which, if it's at a certain level, allows the character to add two to each survival roll.

Sailor:
Survival Number 5
add 2 to roll if Intelligence of at least 7.

Pirate:
Survival Number 6
add 2 to roll if Constitution of at least 8.

Warrior:
Survival Number 5
add 2 to roll if Wisdom of at least 6.

Explorer:
Survival Number 7
add 2 to roll if Intelligence of at least 7.

Merchant:
Survival Number 5
add 2 to roll if Intelligence of at least 7.

Traveller:
Survival Number 5
add 2 to roll if Intelligence of at least 9.


For each injury, roll 2 dice for its effects:

2-4 scarred or disfigured: -2 on any roll involving an attempt to be likeable, charming etc.

5 * deafened in one ear. -4 to attempts to hear noise, -1 to attempts to move silently, and the character is easier to ambush (as described in 'combat').

6-7 serious illness: -3 to Constitution. If this would take Constitution below 2, -3 to Strength instead.

8-9 head injury: -2 Intelligence, to a minimum of 2, and gain 1 less skill than the result indicated in 6b.

10-11 * crushed or severed arm: the character loses the use of their arm - they're entitled to assume it's their 'off' arm (their left, for right-handers). They can't use a 2-handed weapon, or a weapon and a shield at the same time, and they get -3 on activities which require the use of 2 hands. Note that this includes keeping balance.

12 * missing eye. The character has -1 on any attempt to be likeable, charming etc, and -2 on any roll involving a task that requires depth perception. This includes ranged combat, but not hand-to-hand combat.

If a result is marked with an asterisk, this means that characters can only get that result once. If they get it twice, they should ignore the result and roll again.

5b) Skills

Each character has two levels in the skill which covers the customs and culture of their particular background. Thus a Barbarian automatically starts with two levels of 'Culture (Barbarian)'.

Each background gives one extra skill, as follows:

Barbarian
roll 1 dice:
1 Intimidate
2-3 A randomly determined weapon
3-4 Wilderness Lore
5-6 Riding

Peasant
roll 1 dice:
1-2 Haggle
3-4 Wilderness Lore
5-6 Gather Information

Townsfolk
If the character has a scholarly title, they gain the skill Literacy. Otherwise roll 1 dice:
1-2 Craft (of the players' choice)
3-4 Gather Information
5-6 Roll once on the table for Travellers, but re-roll any result of 'Wilderness Lore'

Noble
roll 1 dice:
1-2 Literacy
3-4 Riding
5-6 A randomly determined hand-to-hand weapon

Each career gives one automatic level in one skill, as follows:

Sailor:
roll 1 dice:
1-3 Helsman/woman
4-6 Navigator

Pirate:
roll 1 dice:
1-3 Helsman/woman
4-6 Navigator

Warrior:
A randomly determined weapon.

Explorer:
Wilderness Lore.

Merchant:
Haggle.

Traveller:
Roll one more time than usual for extra skills.

Finally, the character rolls on the table related to their profession. They roll a number of times equal to their Experience.

Sailor:
roll 1 dice:
1 Gambling
2 Helsman/woman
3 Navigator
4 Culture (Barbarian)
5 Brawling
6 roll again: 1-3 no skill, but +1 Wisdom 4-6 * Marooned! Refer to the Marooned Table below.

Pirate:
roll 1 dice:
1 Gambling
2 Helsman/woman
3 Navigator
4 Roll again: 1-3 A randomly determined hand-to-hand weapon 4-6 * Marooned! Refer to the Marooned Table below.
5 Brawling
6 Intimidate

Warrior:
roll 1 dice:
1 Gambling
2 A randomly determined weapon. Roll again: 1-3 hand-to-hand 4-6 ranged.
3 Intimidate
4 Culture (Barbarian)
5 Brawling
6 Haggle

Explorer:
roll 1 dice:
1 Wilderness Lore
2 Culture (Barbarian)
3 * Marooned! Refer to the 'Marooned Table' below
4 no skill, but +1 Constitution
5 no skill, but +1 Wisdom
6 roll again: 1-3 Helsman/woman, 4-6 Navigator

Merchant:
1 Wilderness Lore
2 Culture (Barbarian)
3 Culture (Peasant)
4 Culture (Noble)
5 Culture (Townsfolk)
6 Haggle

Traveller:
1 One of the Culture skills - roll again (1-2 Peasant 3-4 Townsfolk, 5 Barbarian, 6 Noble)
2 roll again: 1-3 A randomly determined weapon (roll again, 1-3 hand-to-hand, 4-6 ranged) 4-6 Intimidate
3 roll again: 1-3 Gather Information 4-6 Pick Locks
4 roll again: 1-3 Helsman/woman, 4-6 Navigator
5 no skill, but +1 Wisdom, -1 Constitution (ignore and re-roll if this would take Constitution under 2).
6 * Marooned! Refer to the Marooned Table below.

Marooned Table.

Roll 1 dice:

1 * Go a little mad: -2 on any roll involving an attempt to be likeable, charming etc.
2 * Injured: an extra roll on the injury table.
3 Wilderness Lore.
4 no skill, but +1 Wisdom.
5 no skill, but +1 Constitution.
6 no skill, but +1 Strength.

Then roll to see if you're rescued: on a 1-3 you are, on a 4-6 you aren't, and the next roll is made on the Marooned Table rather than on the table for your profession.

If you're still marooned after making all your experience rolls, you can assume that the character was finally rescued.

Results that start with an asterisk are 'free rolls' - they don't count towards the total number of rolls the character should make. The roll to see if a marooned character is rescued is also 'free'.

Characters might seem to get marooned unrealistically often. However this covers possibilities other than shipwreck. For example small islands can be used as jails, with the criminal being left and then picked up years later. On the other hand a criminal might hide out to escape a death sentence. An explorer might deliberately live on a small island in order to study it. The losers of a feud on board ship might be deliberately left, and so on.


5c) Resources

Characters will end their careers with some resources, for example money. They should roll on the table for their career - again, they should roll as many times as they have Experience.

If a character gets the result 'extra roll on the money table' more than twice, they should ignore any such result past the second, and re-roll them.

Membership in the Brotherhood of the Coasts can only be gained once. Any subsequent results should be ignored and re-rolled. The same is true for a ship.

Sailor:
roll 1 dice:
1 Low Passage
2 High Passage
3 membership in the Brotherhood of the Coasts
4 membership in the Brotherhood of the Coasts
5 +1 Wisdom
6 ship

Pirate:
roll 1 dice:
1 Low Passage
2 High Passage
3 membership in the Brotherhood of the Coasts
4 membership in the Brotherhood of the Coasts
5 ship
6 extra roll on the money table

Warrior:
roll 1 dice:
1 extra level in whatever weapon the character has the most skill in (randomise ties).
2 extra level of Culture (Barbarian)
3 no skill, but +1 Social Class. If the character's origin would be different had they started with their new Social Class, they also gain a level of the relevant Culture skill.
4 +1 Wisdom - this result can only be gained once. After this, re-roll.
5 extra roll on the money table
6 extra roll on the money table

Explorer:
roll 1 dice:
1 +1 Wisdom
2 membership in the Brotherhood of the Coasts
3 High Passage
4 Low Passage
5 extra level of Culture (Barbarian)
6 extra roll on the money table

Merchant:
1 High Passage
2 Low Passage
3 membership of the Brotherhood of the Coasts
4 extra roll on the money table, and +1 Social Class. If the character's origin would be different had they started with their new Social Class, they also gain a level of the relevant Culture skill.
5 extra roll on the money table
6 extra roll on the money table

Traveller:
1 low passage.
2 membership in the Brotherhood of the Coasts.
3 roll again: extra level in whatever weapon the character has the most skill in (randomise ties).
4 roll again : 1-3 +1 Social Class. 4-6 -1 Social Class (if the character's Social Class is already 4 or less, ignore and roll again).
In both cases, if the character's origin would be different had they started with their new Social Class, they also gain a level of the relevant Culture skill.
In the case of losing a Social Class, if the character doesn't end up with a new level of a Culture skill because of this roll, they gain an extra roll on this table.
5 extra roll on the money table, but also an extra injury.
6 extra roll on the money table.

Money Table:

Characters should roll on this table at least once. They may get up to 2 extra rolls when rolling their resources above.

In addition, a character gets an extra roll if they end up with a Social Class of at least 11.

However if a character has 4 rolls, they should roll that many times but only take the best 3 results to determine their starting money.

The most common unit of exchange is the cowrie shell, usually just called 'shells'. Ten wooden pieces are equal to one shell, and ten shells are equal to one amber piece. All costs in the game are given in shells unless noted otherwise.

Roll 1 dice. Add 1 to the roll if the character has any levels of Gambling (extra levels don't grant extra bonuses)

Sailor:
1 10
2 50
3 50
4 100
5 200
6 500
7 500

Pirate:
1 20
2 50
3 50
4 100
5 200
6 300
7 400

Warrior:
1 20
2 50
3 100
4 100
5 100
6 200
7 300

Explorer:
1 10
2 20
3 50
4 100
5 200
6 300
7 500

Merchant:
1 10
2 50
3 100
4 200
5 200
6 400
7 400

Outlaw:
1 10
2 50
3 100
4 100
5 100
6 500
7 1000

5d) Effects of Aging

If the character starts with Experience of 2 or 3 (an age of 26 or less), then the player can skip this section.

Otherwise the player should roll 2 dice for each of Strength, Dexterity and Constitution.

Strength and Constitution are reduced by 1 if the result is 8 or more.
Dexterity is reduced by 1 if the result is 7 or more.

I don't have much useful to comment, but I'm looking forward to an actually done and complete Wanderer! Good luck with that.

I still struggle with pirate as a career, a pirate is just a sailor who has turned to crime, it seems much narrower than the other careers.

This is excellent! I've been working on formatting the Traveller SRD over the last few days, and reading this actually fills in some of the blanks I had with the missing bits from the SRD.  :)

I'm not sure about the Pirate career either... I wonder if you could make the "Outlaw" careers an inversion of the more respectable ones:

Sailor > Pirate
Soldier (Warrior) > Mercenary
Explorer > Raider
Merchant > Bandit

I'd also change the tables for things like injuries so that there's more progression from Bad to Worse such that the player knows if rolling high is a good thing or not.  Personally I'd make the worst rolls always at the bottom (2) and the better results at the top (12).

Quote from: Balbinus;222390I still struggle with pirate as a career, a pirate is just a sailor who has turned to crime, it seems much narrower than the other careers.

In real life yes, but in fiction pirate is a 'bigger' role than just sailor.

What if 'Outlaw' was 'Drifter' instead (as in the new version)?

Quote from: Stuart;222405This is excellent! I've been working on formatting the Traveller SRD over the last few days, and reading this actually fills in some of the blanks I had with the missing bits from the SRD.  :)

I'm not sure about the Pirate career either... I wonder if you could make the "Outlaw" careers an inversion of the more respectable ones:

Sailor > Pirate
Soldier (Warrior) > Mercenary
Explorer > Raider
Merchant > Bandit

I'd also change the tables for things like injuries so that there's more progression from Bad to Worse such that the player knows if rolling high is a good thing or not.  Personally I'd make the worst rolls always at the bottom (2) and the better results at the top (12).

Quote from: Age of Fable;222494What if 'Outlaw' was 'Drifter' instead (as in the new version)?

Let's see... you need 6 professions, and you want them to each have a distinct thematic area.  I think that puts Pirate and Sailor too close -- unless you're really going for a strong nautical theme to the game (which you might be -- and if so I'd rename it Voyager instead of Wanderer).

As for drifter, in a medieval type game might have been an outlaw, beggar, mercenary, barbarian or an entertainer.  That's the one I'd use -- Entertainer: Minstrel, Jester, Juggler, Acrobat, Actor.

I like Outlaw as a catch-all for Robber, Pick-pocket, Bandit, Highwayman, and Pirate

Hmm...

Sailor
Warrior
Merchant
Explorer
Entertainer
Outlaw

?

I actually was going for a nautical theme - so that there's an analogy to space.

I like your other profession ideas though.

Quote from: Stuart;222666Let's see... you need 6 professions, and you want them to each have a distinct thematic area.  I think that puts Pirate and Sailor too close -- unless you're really going for a strong nautical theme to the game (which you might be -- and if so I'd rename it Voyager instead of Wanderer).

Hand-to-hand Weapons:

Each hand-to-hand weapon can be used at below average, average, or above average skill (explained further in 'combat'). This is based on the Strength of the character using it.

For example, a character with 9 Strength would use a cudgel at 'above average' level. A character with a Strength of 6 would use a broadsword at 'below average' level.

Hand-to-hand weapons also have a weight, cost, and damage.

example
	another example

Dagger

Blade

Foil

Sword

Cutlass

Broadsword

Bayonet

Spear

Halberd

Pike

Cudgel

Hand-to-hand Weapons:

Each hand-to-hand weapon can be used at below average, average, or above average skill (explained further in 'combat'). This is based on the Strength of the character using it.

For example, a character with 9 Strength would use a cudgel at 'above average' level. A character with a Strength of 6 would use a broadsword at 'below average' level.

The only exceptions are the rapier and tigers' claws, which use Dexterity instead of Strength.

Knife

• below average (2-3)
• average (4-6)
• above average (8-12)
• damage 2

Tiger's Claws

• below average (2-4)
• average (5-8)
• above average (9-12)
• damage 2

Rapier

• below average (2-4)
• average (5-9)
• above average (10-12)
• damage 1

Shortsword

• below average (2-5)
• average (6-9)
• above average (10-12)
• damage 2

Cutlass

• below average (2-7)
• average (8-10)
• above average (11-12)
• damage 3

Greatsword (must be used with 2 hands)

• below average (2-7)
• average (8-11)
• above average (12)
• damage 4

Machete

• below average (2-4)
• average (5-8)
• above average (9-12)
• damage 3

Spear (can be used with 1 hand or 2)

• below average (2-4)
• average (5-8)
• above average (9-12)
• damage 2 if used with 1 hand, 3 if used with 2 hands.

Longsword (can be used with 2 hands by anyone, or with 1 by anyone with Strength of at least 6)

• below average if used with 2 hands. Can't be used with 1 hand (2-5)
• average if used with 2 hands. Below average with 1 hand (6-9)
• above average if used with 2 hands. Average if used with 1 hand (10-12)
• damage 3

Broadsword

• below average (2-6)
• average (7-9)
• above average (10-12)
• damage 3

Cudgel

• below average (2-4)
• average (5-7)
• above average (8-12)
• damage 2

If a character is told to generate a level in a randomly-chosen hand-to-hand weapon, they should roll a dice:

1 - cudgel

2 - roll again: 1-3 machete 4-6 shortsword

3 - roll again. 1-3 knife 4-6 tigers' claws

4 - roll again. 1-3 cutlass 4-6 greatsword

5 - roll again. 1-3 spear 4-6 longsword

6 - roll again. 1-3 broadsword 4-6 rapier

Nice. :)

Consider making Spear damage 3 if it's used with 2 hands.

Bushido had a good method of identifying City Levels. It may expand well for use here.
Not sure if you would use it like Starport or Planet Type.
I was thinking Starport as the entire map would be "walkable" not just something that was used more as a measure of distance.
=

I quite liked Drifter I'm afraid.

Quote from: Balbinus;223032I quite liked Drifter I'm afraid.

In a nautical themed game, Drifter gets extra points. :)

I'd be inclined to look at events like "Cast Away" so you can have a character spend a term on a deserted island.  Hmm.  Prisoner might be an interesting option as well - particularly if you spent a term as a pirate.

OK, I've changed 'Outlaw' to 'Drifter'.

Would it make sense to combine the 'Skills' and 'Resources' tables?

Quote from: Age of Fable;223078Would it make sense to combine the 'Skills' and 'Resources' tables?

I like them separately... but I could see how they'd work well together as well.

Not to drag other discussions over here (seriously) but I think if you want to use Helmsman/woman instead of just Helmsman, then I'd switch to another term like Pilot (or "Ship's Pilot") instead.

Armour:

There are three types of armour that characters may buy:

Shields cost 50 shells.

Helmets cost 100 shells.

A pair of greaves (armour which protects the lower leg) costs 100 shells.

A character's Armour is a number from 0 to 3, and represents the number of items of armour they're wearing (greaves count as 1, not 2).

Note that if a character is attacked from behind, neither a shield nor greaves will be of any use.

There's also provision in the rules for 'military armour'. This consists of a much higher-quality version of the shields, helmets and greaves available to player characters, as well as a breastplate. Players aren't able to buy military armour before play. If they do manage to find anyone selling it (almost always illegally), it should cost at least 2,000 shells. Wearing this armour will have a severe effect on the reception a character gets in more settled places - much like a person carrying a rocket launcher through a suburban shopping centre.

[note that this doesn't look much like Traveller, but it is actually a close translation: 1 piece of armour = Jack, 2 pieces = Mesh, 3 pieces = Cloth, military armour = Combat Armour. The three types of armour are from Mazes & Minotaurs]

Places, Cities:
===
Class A - City
Population: 2D2 x 100,000
Castle:
Temples: 2D6+6
Shrines: 2D6+6
Schools: 2D10+5
Gambling Halls: 2D10
Tax Revenue: 10D10 x 100 Koku

===
Class B - City
Population: 2D3 x 50,000
Castle: Level 1+2d3
Temples: 2D6
Shrines: 2D6
Schools: 2D10
Gambling Halls: 3D6
Tax Revenue: 6D10 x 100 Koku

===
Class C - City
Population: 2D6 x 5,000
Castle: Level 2D3
Temples: 2D3
Shrines: 2D3
Schools: 2D6
Gambling Halls: 2D6
Tax Revenue: 6D10 x 10 Koku

===
Class D - City
Population: 2D6 x 1,000
Castle: Level 1D3+1
Temples: 1D3+1
Shrines: 1D3+1
Schools: 1D6+1
Gambling Halls: 1D6
Tax Revenue: 6D10 x 10 Koku

===
Class E - Village
Population: 2D3 x 75
Castle: 10% chance of Level 1
Temples: 20% chance of 1
Shrines: 20% chance of 1
Schools: 5% chance of 1
Gambling Halls: 60% chance of gambling at an Inn
Tea Houses: 20% chance of 1
Tax Revenue:

===
Class F - Village
Population: 1D6 x 30
Castle: none
Temples: 5% chance of 1
Shrines: 5% chance of 1
Schools: none
Gambling Halls: 2D10
Tea Houses: if an Inn is present
Tax Revenue:

*from Bushido
=

Thanks for this.

There seems to be quite a jump between cities and villages?

Quote from: Greentongue;223182Places, Cities:
===
Class A - City
Population: 2D2 x 100,000
Castle:
Temples: 2D6+6
Shrines: 2D6+6
Schools: 2D10+5
Gambling Halls: 2D10
Tax Revenue: 10D10 x 100 Koku...

Quote

What if the 'Drifter/Outlaw/Other' was called the 'Traveller'?

Quote from: Age of Fable;223412There seems to be quite a jump between cities and villages?

Looks like.
I believe there would be far more villages than cities. High population cities are very difficult to support in the low tech setting.
Can't see how there would be a lot of them.

The Bushido rules have breakdowns for temples, shrines, schools, etc... and their distrubition.
Not sure how much direct uploading of rule specifics is a good idea / needed.
=

Here's another system - mostly for novelty/recognition value, although it seems actually workable if a bit long-winded.

1) Generate nearby resources.

For any given area, first roll to see what natural resources are in the area.

There are four types of land that can produce various resources: grasslands, hills, mountains, and forests.

Roll 2 dice and subtract 2 for each of them, except for grasslands - for grasslands, roll 4 dice and subtract 4.

2) Is the area suitable for settlement?

Roll 1 dice, and compare the result to both the forests and hills scores. If the dice roll is higher than either score, the area isn't suitable for settlement (it's too expensive to get the bricks and wood required to build a road).

This means that there will be no more than isolated homes, nomads etc in the area. Forests, hills and mountains might be home to bandits.

If the area is suitable for settlement, subtract the number you rolled from both the forests and hills score, and move on to step 3.

3) Port?

There is at least a village in the area.

If you already know whether or not the village is near the sea or a major river, assign a value. Otherwise, roll 1 dice. A 1-3 indicates that the village is indeed suitably situated to be a port.

If the village is a port, roll to see what the people who come to trade will be after:

1-3 they will trade all commodities

4-6 they're mainly after one commodity - roll again: (1- corn, 2- wool, 3- bricks, 4 - ore, 5 - wood 6 - roll again).

Regardless of the results in this step, move on to step 4.

4) Land Use?

Roll 1 dice, and split up the 'grasslands' score as follows:

1 the entire score is turned into a 'sheep' score.
2- one-third of the score goes to a 'corn' score, the other two-thirds to a 'sheep' score.
3-4 the score is divided evenly between 'sheep' and 'corn'.
5 - one-third to 'sheep', two-thirds to 'corn'.
6 - the entire score is turned into a 'corn' score.

This may result in one or both scores being fractions.

Then go to step 5.

5) Town?

You now roll to see if the village grows into a town.

Roll one dice.

Compare the result to all scores except 'ore' - that is, sheep, corn, hills and forests.

If the result is less than or equal to all these scores, the village grows to a town without the need for trade. Reduce all four scores by the amount you rolled, and go to step 6.

If the result is higher than any of these scores, the village isn't able to grow into a town without trade. Go to step 5a.

5a) Trade?

The village can 're-arrange' its scores - this represents trade.

Any village, regardless of whether it has a port, can trade any of its resources at 4:1 - that is, it can lose x points in one score to gain x/4 points in another.

In addition, a port will allow trade at a better price:

If the people who come to the port are interested in any commodity, the village can trade as above, but using a 3:1 ratio instead of 4:1.

If the people who come to the port are interested in a specific commodity, the village can trade that commodity only, but at a 2:1 ratio.

(Bricks are extracted from hills, wood from forests, and wool from sheep)

Remember that the 'mountains' score can also be 'traded' (representing the result of mining), but the village at this stage will only trade to increase the other four scores.

If there's more than one way to get high enough scores to become a town, choose the one with the most advantageous trade ratio. If there's still a tie, trade away the resource with the highest score. If there's still a tie, randomise.

If the village can trade its way into becoming a town, go to step 6. If not, go to step 7.

6) City?

Roll two dice. This is the necessary 'corn' score. Roll a single dice, and add it to this score. This is the necessary 'mountain' score.

This works exactly as for becoming a town - if the settlement doesn't have enough raw resources, it will trade using the ratios listed in step 5a.

Once this step is resolved, go to step 6.

6) Further Development?

Roll 1 dice. Compare this result to all of the 'sheep', 'corn', and 'mountains' scores.

Again, settlements will maximise their scores through trade. However this time, if further development does result, compare the scores again, and again until the settlement can't gain any further development.

For each 'lot' of further development (if any), roll on the table below.

1-2 soldiers.
3 chapel.
4 school.
5 government centre.
6 market.

Results 3-6 can only be gained once. 'Soldiers' can be gained any number of times, which further results indicating a larger and more important military base.


What sorts of people are likely to be encountered in the settlement will depend on the ORIGINAL rolls for resources, whether any trade occured during this process, and any 'development' features.

A high roll for forests will increase the number of hunters, woodcutters, foresters etc.

A high roll for 'grasslands' will increase the number of farmers (the split between 'corn' and 'sheep' will indicate what kinds).

A high roll for hills and mountains will increase the number of miners.

Trade, and/or a market, will indicate merchants and craftsmen (the nature of their craft will depend on the original resource rolls).

Ports will likewise indicate merchants, as well as fishermen and sailors.

Merchants, soldiers and sailors will indicate various forms of 'vice' - gambling, prostitution, theft, and so on. This will be more common in towns than in villages, and more common still in cities.

Finally a university, chapel or government centre will indicate scholars and students, priests, and government officials respectively.

Very Travellerish! :D

Do you roll to determine if it's a water hex, or do you draw in all the oceans, lakes and rivers ahead of time?

Quote from: Stuart;223527Very Travellerish! :D

Do you roll to determine if it's a water hex, or do you draw in all the oceans, lakes and rivers ahead of time?

You roll if you want to, or you can assign a value if you already know.

It's based on Settlers of Catan - but yeah, it does have a 'lifepath' kind of feel to it.

Well, looking over the Mongoose Traveller SRD, even a cursory inspection reveals that writing a free-standing game based on the old Traveller will prove problematic.  Specifically, the rules for generating characteristic stats and the table for characteistic modifiers have been left out of the open content.  So, Wanderer: Book 1 (or, in my case, Mariner: Book 1) seemingly needs to refer to the Mongoose Trav core book for basic character creation rules.  You can make your own career tables and all, though.

Hmph.  I'm less than satisfied with this.  Anyone see a work-around in the making?

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;224377Well, looking over the Mongoose Traveller SRD, even a cursory inspection reveals that writing a free-standing game based on the old Traveller will prove problematic.  Specifically, the rules for generating characteristic stats and the table for characteistic modifiers have been left out of the open content.  So, Wanderer: Book 1 (or, in my case, Mariner: Book 1) seemingly needs to refer to the Mongoose Trav core book for basic character creation rules.  You can make your own career tables and all, though.

Hmph.  I'm less than satisfied with this.  Anyone see a work-around in the making?

!i!

That is the same situation as the d20 OGL.  The OGL technically contains no character creation process, but it's still perfectly acceptable to add rules to the exiting template, unless you were going with the logo license.  

The MngTrav license setup seems to emulate the d20 pretty much mirror image, standard OGL for the SRD material, much more limited "Logo license".

So you could do a complete game just fine, you just wouldn't have that official Traveller logo on the back.

I didn't see anything that said you couldn't make up your own rules for a character creation system -- I didn't look too closely at the legal stuff, but I didn't see anything like what you had in the d20 license (which said you couldn't include a character generation).  It looked more like the 3.x OGL stuff - - which did lead to the creation of new games.

I'll have a look tonight.

Edit:  What J Arcane said. :D

The problem that I see with writing character creation rules that mirror the original, "classic" Traveller is that all stats were rolled using 2d6.  That's exactly the method used in Mongoose Trav.  So, am I correct in assuming that neither Wanderer nor Mariner can instruct players to roll 2D for each characteristic, lest they violate closed content?

I have little problem with the lack of "open" characteristic modifiers.  I had already developed a similar list of mods that differed noticeably, so no foul there.  In fact, I'd be happy to share them with Wanderer if anyone wants a simple variant as a work-around.

!i!

[Edit:  Hey, just off the top of my head, how's this sound?  Roll 12D, assign 2D to each characteristic, resulting in a number ranging from 2 to 12.  It's the same, but different, and probably makes for better balanced Trav-like characters. :) ]

Quote from: Ian Absentia;224394The problem that I see with writing character creation rules that mirror the original, "classic" Traveller is that all stats were rolled using 2d6.  That's exactly the method used in Mongoose Trav.  So, am I correct in assuming that neither Wanderer nor Mariner can instruct players to roll 2D for each characteristic, lest they violate closed content?

I have little problem with the lack of "open" characteristic modifiers.  I had already developed a similar list of mods that differed noticeably, so no foul there.  In fact, I'd be happy to share them with Wanderer if anyone wants a simple variant as a work-around.

!i!

A number of OGL D20 games use pretty much exact copies of the D&D chargen, so I odn't see that as a problem at all, given the licenses present are nearly identical.

Again, just skip the logo license, stick with the standard OGL, and you're in the clear.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;224394The problem that I see with writing character creation rules that mirror the original, "classic" Traveller is that all stats were rolled using 2d6.  That's exactly the method used in Mongoose Trav.  So, am I correct in assuming that neither Wanderer nor Mariner can instruct players to roll 2D for each characteristic, lest they violate closed content?

I'm very confident that you can't copyright a concept / game mechanic like "roll 2D for each characteristic".

The actual text from the book that includes a description of those game mechanics is still copyrighted though.

I was never intending to use the Traveller SRD or OGL, or refer to the core books of any version of Traveller.

You can't copyright rules (http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html), so unless a lawyer says otherwise I see no problem with having a game which is a conversion of the original Traveller rules into fantasy, as long as it doesn't copy wording, artwork, etc.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;224377Well, looking over the Mongoose Traveller SRD, even a cursory inspection reveals that writing a free-standing game based on the old Traveller will prove problematic.  Specifically, the rules for generating characteristic stats and the table for characteistic modifiers have been left out of the open content.  So, Wanderer: Book 1 (or, in my case, Mariner: Book 1) seemingly needs to refer to the Mongoose Trav core book for basic character creation rules.  You can make your own career tables and all, though.

Hmph.  I'm less than satisfied with this.  Anyone see a work-around in the making?

!i!

Quote from: Stuart;224399I'm very confident that you can't copyright a concept / game mechanic like "roll 2D for each characteristic".

The actual text from the book that includes a description of those game mechanics is still copyrighted though.

Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted. They can be patented, though - but only Magic cards have ever patented a game method, it's just not worth the trouble.

But the text involved in them is copyrighted.

Put another way, how you do things can be protected by patent, but in the case of games almost never is.

The description of how you do things is automatically protected by copyright.

In copyright law there's also a thing called "doctrine of merger", where if there are only so many ways of expressing a particularly common idea, you can't claim a copyright violation. So for example you can't protect the words "and then play proceeds around the table" because this has been in a zillion games since homo neanderthalis first tossed some knucklebones.

You can tell people to roll 2d6 for things without fear of lawsuits. You just can't copy and paste significant chunks of someone else's writing without their permission.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;224394The problem that I see with writing character creation rules that mirror the original, "classic" Traveller is that all stats were rolled using 2d6.  That's exactly the method used in Mongoose Trav.  So, am I correct in assuming that neither Wanderer nor Mariner can instruct players to roll 2D for each characteristic, lest they violate closed content?

I've been quite silent in this thread but I am following it closely.

After this...

Quote from: Aos;220481

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220415(So maybe I should get back to my scribbled notes?)

Thirdeded.

...I started looking at my notes and began to consolidate them. I can't add much to the current discussion as I don't have anything presentable yet (I can only work very sporadically at it). After Warthur's and Kyle's encouragement to not stick too closely to CT procedures for the wrong reasons I chose my method of rolling characteristics to be "roll 3D, ignore the worst". Somehow that feels right for a fantasy game.
(Ian's method I already used in my class & level heartbreaker, In Memoriam.)

Apart from that I can only say that Age of Fable's approach, Kyle's Six Letters and my approach are all refreshingly different. Or, as they said on the Original D&D board (http://odd74.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=traveller&action=display&thread=1131):

Quote from: pjork

Quote from: thorulfrLooking at the supplied links to the RPGSite, and seeing that there are now several different people running off in their own directions, it seems that as a game, "Wanderer" has become this vague idea, out of which are spawning numerous "house-ruled" versions (for lack of a better term)...

...can there be anything more 'Old School' than that? ;)

My thoughts exactly. As OD&D is a toolkit for making your own fantasy RPG, Wanderer has become the same, without ever having existed! :)

I like that...

You could JUST sell the mockups. It´d be even an artistic statement. Buying an empty Wanderer box...I´d do it!

Quote from: Age of Fable;224479I was never intending to use the Traveller SRD or OGL...

Ah, my apologies.  For some reason I thought that it was under consideration.  It was mentioned here and there early on in the thread.

Quote...or refer to the core books of any version of Traveller.

Are you sure about that?  The Books 1-3 format is a bit of a giveaway, or are you abandoning that, too?

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;224680Ah, my apologies.  For some reason I thought that it was under consideration.  It was mentioned here and there early on in the thread.Are you sure about that?  The Books 1-3 format is a bit of a giveaway, or are you abandoning that, too?

!i!

I think you might be confusing me with the person who made the original mockup.

I think I lost track of who was doing exactly what and with what particular intent somewhere deep into the thread.  Never mind.

!i!

What's a better slogan:

"Wanderer: Heroes of the Wine-Faced Sea", or

"Wanderer: Low Cunning on the High Seas", or

"Wanderer: A Game of High Adventure and Low Cunning"?

Also, apparently a couple of other people are working on a fantasy Traveller, but no one's posted their ideas here :(

Quote from: Age of Fable;225719"Wanderer: Heroes of the Wine-Faced Sea"

I get the reference... but still.

:emot-cheers: :DRUNKANI: :drunk:

:D

I like the low cunning on the high seas one best, by some way.

Quote from: Balbinus;225766I like the low cunning on the high seas one best, by some way.

Me too.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;224886I think I lost track of who was doing exactly what and with what particular intent somewhere deep into the thread.  Never mind.

!i!

I'm one of the ones who are doing this on the Citizens of the Imperium site.


The guy who was running the playtest game seems to have lost interest in continuing though...

Quote from: Age of Fable;225719What's a better slogan:

"Wanderer: Heroes of the Wine-Faced Sea"

Also, apparently a couple of other people are working on a fantasy Traveller, but no one's posted their ideas here :(

Picked the proper one I think.

I've heard of "Wine-Dark Sea" but never "Wine-Faced Sea" ...
It does imply nautical adventures specificliy.
Something "Dusty Roads and Golden Treasure" wouldn't.
=

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.

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

Actually, that first bit makes for a good non-maritime campaign (though IMNHO there should really be a way to have a maritime portion for those who want such things).

Aldreth is good as a D&D port but I think he goes a bit overboard with the non-humans. The elves, for example, live WAY too long.

Quote from: Balbinus;222390I still struggle with pirate as a career, a pirate is just a sailor who has turned to crime, it seems much narrower than the other careers.

I would suggest removing Pirate entirely and putting in Scholar.

Quote from: Greentongue;226002I've heard of "Wine-Dark Sea" but never "Wine-Faced Sea" ...
It does imply nautical adventures specificliy.
Something "Dusty Roads and Golden Treasure" wouldn't.
=

'Wine-faced' is the literal translation.

Ranged Weapons:

As with hand-to-hand weapons, ranged weapons can be used at below average, average, or above average skill (explained further in 'combat'). However with ranged weapons this is based on the Dexterity of the character using it, not Strength.

The exceptions are the greatbow and longbow, which also use Strength, as noted below.

Spears:
Note that spears appear in the hand-to-hand weapon list, not the ranged weapon list. This isn't a mistake - these spears are only designed to be used hand-to-hand. Spears that are designed to be thrown are listed here, with the name 'javelin'.


These weapons are used with 1 hand:

Assassin's Throwing Knife

• below average (1)
• average (2-11)
• above average (12)
• damage 2

Note: the great advantage of the Assassin's Throwing Knife is that it's been blessed by a priestess of Hecate, such that it will thwart magical attempts to discover it hidden on someone's person.

Sling

• below average (2-6)
• average (7-9)
• above average (10-12)
• damage 3

Javelin

• below average (2-6)
• average (7-8)
• above average (9-12)
• damage 3

These weapons need 2 hands:

Shortbow

• below average (2-4)
• average (7-8)
• above average (9-12)
• damage 3

Flatbow (medium bow)

• below average (2-5)
• average (6-7)
• above average (8-12)
• damage 3

Longbow

• below average (2-6)
• average (7-9)
• above average (10-12)
• damage 3

Note that a character with Strength of 6 or less, and a Dexterity of 10 or more, will only use a longbow with average skill.

Greatbow (Yumi)

• below average (2-3)
• average (7-8)
• above average (9-12)
• damage 4

Note that a character using a greatbow uses the lower of their Strength and Dexterity to determine their skill.

Light Crossbow

• below average (2-6)
• average (7-8)
• above average (9-12)
• damage 3

Medium Crossbow

• below average (2-5)
• average (6-9)
• above average (10-12)
• damage 4

Heavy Crossbow

• below average (2-6)
• average (7-10)
• above average (11-12)
• damage 5

If a character is told to generate a level in a randomly-chosen ranged weapon, they should roll a dice:

1 - throwing knife

2 - javelin

3 - roll again: 1-3 chakram 4-6 shortbow

4 - roll again: 1-3 flatbow 4-6 longbow

5 - roll again: 1-3 greatbow 4-6 light crossbow

6 - roll again: 1-3 medium crossbow 4-6 heavy crossbow

Quote from: Age of Fable;225719Also, apparently a couple of other people are working on a fantasy Traveller, but no one's posted their ideas here :(

I have been poking and prodding Fantasy Traveller ideas for about a decade and I ran a short campaign and a few convention demos at the turn of the century, but I was never happy with the balance of combat and non-combat characters.  Anyone with Weapon-4 was a god.  

It was great fun to roll characters (yes, you could die in chargen) and "multi-classing" was dead simple.   The combat was vicious because it was "miss / miss / brutalize" because 2D6 swords vs. avg 7 stat was not nice.  One hit and most people were wounded and suffering penalties.  Two hits and they were unconscious.  Three hits and they died.  

But hey, I am currently in a Tech 13 Trav game and everyone wearing Combat Armor or Battle Dress and carrying a PGMP or a Gauss Rifle so "wounding" isn't an option.   It's all penetrate armor = autokill at that tech.  One autofire shot from the gauss can kill a fire team in battle dress.  BTW, for you non-Travellers, battle dress = powered armor like 40k Terminator armor.

Wanderer is a good title and the format of the LBB (little biege books) is a terrific visual.  I have two other projects I want to launch first, but if a Wanderer style game doesn't exist in 2010, I may relook at my notes.

My problem is that while I have not found a sci-fi game that does hardish sci-fi as well or as easy as Classic Traveller, I have other fantasy RPGs that do their job quite well.  I did not find a way to make the Fantasy Trav idea work in such a way that made it do something so much cooler than other fantasy games on the market.  

And Pirate is a required career.  It's in Traveller as separate from the sailor and certainly the Pirate/Buccaneer has a strong history in S&S literature.

Quote from: Age of Fable;226576Chakram

What's that about? :confused:

Quote from: Stuart;226640What's that about? :confused:

That's Xena's favourite weapon.

(http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kda1/chakram.jpg)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;226642That's Xena's favourite weapon.

Yeah, I know.

Seems out of place to me...

Quote from: Stuart;226643Yeah, I know.

Seems out of place to me...

Changed it to sling.

Prices for hand-to-hand weapons:

Tigers' Claws - 1 shell
Knife - 5
Rapier - 10
Shortsword - 7 shells and 5 wooden pieces.
Cutlass - 10
Greatsword - 30
Machete - 1
Spear - 1
Longsword - 15
Broadsword - 10
Cudgel - 1

Assassin's Throwing Knife - 5

Sling - 20
    Sling stones - 1 shell for 15 stones

Javelin - 1 shell and 5 wooden pieces.

Shortbow - 20
Flatbow (medium bow) - 20
Longbow - 100
Greatbow (Yumi) - 15
    Arrows - 1 wooden piece each (ie 10 arrows for 1 shell).


Light Crossbow - 50
    Light Bolts - 1 shell for 15 bolts.

Medium Crossbow - 350
    Medium Bolts - 2 shells for 5 bolts (ie 4 wooden pieces each)

Heavy Crossbow - 500
    Heavy Bolts - 3 shells for 10 shots (ie 3 wooden pieces each)

Medium crossbows come with 50 crossbow bolts, heavy crossbows come with 100.

Every kind of bow uses the same arrows. However the different kinds of crossbow use different lengths of 'bolt'.

Light Crossbows and Longbows have a much higher rate of fire than other bows and crossbows, as explained in 'combat'.

In addition, the character can choose to have any bow or crossbow blessed by a priestess of Athena, goddess of the hunt. The effects of this are noted in 'combat' below.

A donation of 20 shells will earn a blessing from a minor priestess, and a donation of 200 shells will earn a blessing from a senior priestess.

[note 1 - two of the ranged weapons are 'single-shot' weapons in Wanderer, but converted from multiple-shot weapons in Traveller (the body pistol/throwing knife, and the revolver/javelin). For these weapons I've used the Traveller price for the weapon divided by 100, rather than the usual rate of dividing by 10

note 2 - in Wanderer, there's only 1 type of arrow. In Traveller, each of these weapons has a different kind of ammunition, although they're all the same price per shot

note 3 - the price for medium and heavy crossbows (laser rifle and laser carbine) are worked out using the price for laser weapons with a power pack]

Quote from: Age of Fable;226796Prices for hand-to-hand weapons:

Tigers' Claws - 1 shell
Knife - 5
Rapier - 10
Shortsword - 15
Cutlass - 10
Greatsword - 30
Machete - 1
Spear - 1
Longsword - 7 shells and 5 wooden pieces.
Broadsword - 4
Cudgel - 1

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but...

Why are Tiger's Claws much cheaper than a knife? The latter is a simple and ubiquitous household implement, made by village blacksmiths all around the world. The tiger's claw (assuming you mean something like a bagh nakh), in comparison:
- requires more skill to make, therefore fewer people would be able to craft one
-has a much, much, much narrower use, therefore there would be much fewer of them around
- it's sole use is combat, possibly shady activities like murder and the like. Most blacksmiths wouldn't want to have anything to do with it.

It seems to me it should be much rarer, and therefore more expensive.

On a similar note, why is a shortsword twice as expensive as a long one? The latter requires more raw materials, and a considerably higher level of technical knowledge.

And finally, what do you mean by a "broadsword" - especially one that's cheaper than a knife? AFAIK, the word is always used either as a catch-all phrase to describe anything broader than a rapier, or a certain kind of 17th century cavalry sword, or as a "ooh, well I don't know what it actually IS, but it was in D&D so I guess it should be in my game"-kind of undefined fantasy weapon.

I've swapped the Tiger's Claws and Knife.

Quote from: Premier;227336On a similar note, why is a shortsword twice as expensive as a long one? The latter requires more raw materials, and a considerably higher level of technical knowledge.

Because (unless I'm reading it wrong) Traveller has really under-priced halberds and pikes compared to their effectiveness. I've changed the costs, and also the cost of the broadsword.

What about changing the name of the game to 'Drifter', and the 6th class to 'Traveller'?

Quote from: Age of Fable;227567What about changing the name of the game to 'Drifter', and the 6th class to 'Traveller'?

I like it.

Quote from: Jame Rowe;225885I'm one of the ones who are doing this on the Citizens of the Imperium site.


The guy who was running the playtest game seems to have lost interest in continuing though...

Has it been put into a single document? Any chance of it being posted here?

I've seen Aldereth, and it's not quite what I'm trying to do.

Quote from: Age of Fable;227967Has it been put into a single document? Any chance of it being posted here?

I've seen Aldereth, and it's not quite what I'm trying to do.

Well... Since that post, I've been helping to work on a publication version, and they've asked me not to give out anything. So hopefully you'll see it eventually.

On the other hand, I did have an idea for a setting from here, and I do plan to have it put in (think giant archipelago).

Quote from: Jame Rowe;228195Well... Since that post, I've been helping to work on a publication version, and they've asked me not to give out anything. So hopefully you'll see it eventually.

I wonder if it's worth me continuing with my version in that case.

Hmmm... Let me see if the others want any more help.

I've had a look at this thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=11081) on the travellerrpg.com site, and it doesn't seem like there's a finished or near-finished product.

Is the document you're working on seperate to this thread? If so, how near to complete is it?

I'm also going to post these questions on the other site.

I don't want to work on something only to find that another group has already done it. But I don't want to hold off because someone's 'gonna do it'.

FWIW, your stuff is pretty nifty.

I think you should keep working on this anyway.  Even if someone else is doing a "Fantasy Traveller" game, it won't be exactly the same as thing as what you have in mind.

Quote from: Age of Fable;230309I've had a look at this thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=11081) on the travellerrpg.com site, and it doesn't seem like there's a finished or near-finished product.

Is the document you're working on seperate to this thread? If so, how near to complete is it?

I'm also going to post these questions on the other site.

I don't want to work on something only to find that another group has already done it. But I don't want to hold off because someone's 'gonna do it'.

What I and the others are doing is separate from that. It's also different from what you're doing.

Perhaps you can do a setting book for it?

Bumping this up as I finally come to finish off my fantasy version of GAMERS.

I've one or two issues.

The first is combat and armour. The CT rules had a straight "roll 2d6, add skill, get 8+" as the to-hit system; if you hit, you did some damage, eroding their Strength/Endurance/etc.

To my mind, you want more agile characters to be harder to hit, and so instead of 8+, I have them roll against the character's Reflexes.* Seem fair?

I also have encumbrance reducing physical attributes. Whatever your Strength is, each multiple of that in kilograms carried drops all three physical attributes by 1. For example a 878868 character carrying 8kg would be 878757, carrying 24kg they'd be 878535, and carrying 48kg they'd be 878202 - they could lift that much, but couldn't move at all with Reflexes 0. And of course, as they're loaded down, they become easier to hit.

So you can wear heavy armour but it'd make you easier to hit if you weren't quite strong. Big strong clumsy guys will wear heavy armour, small weak deft guys won't.

So far so good. However, there are two basic approaches to armour in game systems. The first is armour makes you harder to hit, but when the hit does go through, it does full damage; D&D and CT both do this. The second is armour absorbs damage; GURPS and many other games do this.

Now, I've found some issues in play. One is the damage system. In principle there should be no difference between "suffer wound to hit location like head or leg, suffer malus to attribute" and "suffer wound to attribute." But in practice players feel it's different. Players like to say, "I kick him in the groin", they don't like to say, "I kick him in the Endurance."

And when players are being creative with their attacks, like throwing sacks on top of the cameras of warbots, you don't want to take the wind out of their sails by saying, "um, just roll an attack." And "okay, so you're attacking his Awareness" is a bit lame, too.

The second is the armour. When the roll to hit is affected by armour worn, players tend to get annoyed. But it has the advantage of simplicity compared to
roll to hit - roll for damage - subtract armour from damage - inflict damage.

These are bigger issues in games with more melee than ranged combat.

Thoughts on these things?  

* The attributes are Grit Awareness Mind Endurance Reflexes Strength

I just had a look at Mongoose Traveller, and it seems like it'd be easier to turn into fantasy than the original version, since it includes careers like pirate, barbarian, and noble as well as an optional, wizard-like, 'psionic' career. It also has details of the various major aliens, who all seem convertable (centaurs, lion-men, werewolves, an eastern kingdom ruled by wizards...)

Indeed, it does. And the skills are a bit more flexible, too, I think. In the usage, at least.

Super thread necro.

Don't know if there have been any more recent threads than this one, but I thought I'd add my two cents:  I'm currently working on adapting the Traveller trading rules to fantasy campaigns.  (I could swear I had seen someone working on this very thing, on a blog somewhere, but I can't seem to find it now, soooooo...)  I'm taking the Book 2 tables and swapping out inappropriate items with fantasy-appropriate ones, and also integrating some stuff from Judges Guild (specifically the "Trade Guide" from Ready Ref Sheets and the "Seatrade Guidelines" from Pegasus #6).  

Real quick, am I needlessly duplicating work, here?  Has someone already done a bang-up job of this that I missed?

Would I buy it? No, not straight away.

I've have to go and get my credit card, which is downstairs, and it would take a good thirty seconds for me to get back upstairs.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;533721Real quick, am I needlessly duplicating work, here?  Has someone already done a bang-up job of this that I missed?

http://docgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/adventurer

http://wanderinggamist.blogspot.com/search/label/Fantasy%20Traveller

Quote from: Age of Fable;534021http://docgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/adventurer

http://wanderinggamist.blogspot.com/search/label/Fantasy%20Traveller

Cool, thanks.

Does anyone know what font Herr Remmecke used when he created that 'Wanderer' mockup?  I love it, but can't find anything that looks like it.  Thanks!

Just found this on Lulu . . .Worlds Apart (http://www.lulu.com/shop/joseph-browning/worlds-apart/paperback/product-20714918.html) by Joseph Browning. Wonder if that's the same guy who does Sorcery & Super Science?