TheRPGSite

Not having played any iteration of that game, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on Megatraveller. I'm asking because of the current bundle of holding.

I'm already kicking myself for not buying the Dying Earth bundle, so wondering if I should get this one.

Megatraveller was my favorite version of the game. However, I have not seen T5 or Mongoose Traveller.

I really liked Megatraveller when it first came out, but it's been so long that I don't remember much about it.

We didn't like the system. I never ran it because I was so deep in the LBBs, but I've played in several MegaTraveller games that used the LBBs as the rules and just raided MT for setting stuff. Good stuff - not amazing, but good.

Personally, I feel Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine)'s - Stars Without Numbers RPG is a better overall system and setting for Near Future RPG sci-fi play than MegaTraveller.

Lots of great background material by the folks a Digest Group Publications.  Does the bundle include The Traveller's Digest issues because that's where the gold is.

The task system is okay but the only stats that matter are 5, 10, and 15.

The cleaned up Classic Traveller chargen is more balanced but still not on par with the Advanced Chargen methods.  The combat system works but is very wargamey and a bit weird in places.  Vehicles and starships are a mess that tries to merge Striker and Highguard.  The errata only appears in the final issue of Traveller's Digest.  Really, too much focus on the narrative stuff that DGP loved and not nearly enough on the crunch.

I've had 1st edition CT since it came out, but have never looked at Megatraveller.  I don't really have an opinion, one way or another.

But, I would suggest getting Mongoose Traveller before Megatraveller simply because Mongoose is the current version.  From what I understand over on CoTI, there's not a lot of difference.

I would also point out that you can get the complete Megatraveller books and supplements, etc on CD for about $35 from FFE directly.  CT is also available for the same price.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823326Not having played any iteration of that game, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on Megatraveller. I'm asking because of the current bundle of holding.

I'm already kicking myself for not buying the Dying Earth bundle, so wondering if I should get this one.

It had a lot of potential and good ideas. At first glance an improvement over Classic Traveller. But then came the errata, oh god, the errata. MegaTraveller wasn't quite broken but there were enough mistakes to make it annoying.

Also the design sequence was definitely for gearheads. The system did not have a simple option like the LBBs vs High Guard.

Personally I would just consider the MegaTraveller as a giant supplement and use Mongoose Traveller for the rules.

Quote from: Spinachcat;823334...Personally, I feel Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine)'s - Stars Without Numbers RPG is a better overall system and setting for Near Future RPG sci-fi play than MegaTraveller.

This. SWN is excellent and the expanded PDF is free!

Quote from: estar;823421It had a lot of potential and good ideas. At first glance an improvement over Classic Traveller. But then came the errata, oh god, the errata. MegaTraveller wasn't quite broken but there were enough mistakes to make it annoying...

Personally I would just consider the MegaTraveller as a giant supplement and use Mongoose Traveller for the rules.

Word.  The idea, feel, scope and whatnot of the whole flipping interstellar kingdom going all bugshit balkanizing grabbed me by the short hairs and has never really let go.  The support the game got via the Challenge magazine bits - specifically, the 2-3 page "timeline / what happened this month around the galaxy," stuff - added greatly to the "flavor," of the setting to me.

I also kind of liked the bits at the war(s) end where rogue AI controlled ships prowled the spacelanes and made a grim life that much worse for the poor sods who had managed to make it that far (i.e. the opening episode of the Battlestar Galactica reboot is what I imagined it was like in the twilight of the third imperium and it was glorious).

So far the only books they have are:

MegaTraveller
Rebellion Sourcebook

Referee's Companion
Hard Times
COACC
Arrival Vengeance
Astrogator's Guide to the Diaspora Sector
Assignment: Vigilante

Sounds like I might wait to see if they add the stuff that's on the FFE CD. I guess that if the bundle beats that price for the same content, I'll get it for the setting elements.

There are some things I liked about MegaTraveller (the Universal Task Profile, the DGP supplements), but it is rather a mechanical mess.

I haven't run in about 10 years, and I'm not likely to use it now. It was my first exposure to Traveller back in the 80s, but my warm feelings for it are mostly nostalgia. These days, I'd use it for supplemental material for a CT campaign.

Quote from: Spinachcat;823334Personally, I feel Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine)'s - Stars Without Numbers RPG is a better overall system and setting for Near Future RPG sci-fi play than MegaTraveller.

Setting: yes, definitely. System... meh. Mega-meh.

Quote from: estar;823421Personally I would just consider the MegaTraveller as a giant supplement and use Mongoose Traveller for the rules.

Do you like Mongoose over Classic? I've played both, sort of debating which is better. Compared to T5 or Mega, though, they're miles ahead.

MegaTraveller, to my mind, had a lot of very good ideas but then bungled their implementation:

Good idea: Get the best of the LBB Books and Supplements and put them all together in one revised version of the system.

Implementation: Some of the choices they make in expanding the system are more justifiable than others - for instance, I think expanded Scouts-style system generation really didn't need to be core - and DGP/GDW dropped the ball when it came to actually making this all consistent with each other. This is most evident when you compare the basic and advanced character gen systems - you still have the same problem you had in CT that characters made through the Advanced career systems are substantially mechanically superior to those made through the Basic system in the same careers. Admittedly, coming up with something like the UTP in order to give CT a consistent task resolution system was a really useful step, but Mongoose Traveller does much the same and is a more consistent system all around as well.

Good idea: As part of the above, take the additional character types introduced in Citizens of the Imperium and make them core, so the game isn't necessarily military-focused by default (but can be if the players so choose).

Implementation: Whoops, didn't provide advanced character generation options for any of those careers! (Again, this is something where Mongoose Traveller actually excels.)

Good idea: Get DGP to do a lot of the legwork, since they were the star third party licensees at this point anyway.

Implementation: DGP and GDW's computer systems were mildly incompatible, which meant that a lot of stuff had to be retyped on the fly by busy GDW staffers as it came in from DGP. This means that MegaTraveller is absolutely riddled with errata, some of it very serious indeed.

Good idea: Have an exciting metaplot event happen, like the Fifth Frontier War event during the Classic Traveller time period, so that players can feel that their adventures are making a small but important difference to the wider setting and so that the Third Imperium feels less stodgy and static.

Implementation: Out of all MegaTrav's big ideas, I think the Rebellion is the most successful, but only to a limited extent. The big problem, as I see it, is that it's an event unfolding across the whole of Imperial space, which is unworkably vast. The Fifth Frontier War was a great metaplot event because it took place over a sector-wide scale, which is just about big enough to make your PCs feel like small players on a vast stage whilst at the same time being small enough that the PCs can viably travel between the major focal points of the conflict in a reasonable period of time. That doesn't work on an Imperial-wide scale, so if you want to do a Rebellion campaign I would strongly suggest picking whichever pair of neighbouring factions excite you the most and focus on the conflict between those two rather than giving yourself the headache of trying to take the whole thing in.

Good idea: Get DGP to produce a bunch of canon support material for it to cover subjects GDW don't have time for on their schedule.

Implementation: Fine at the time, but the current owner of DGP is one of these guys who have very inflated ideas about the value of the IP they're holding and consequently demand unrealistic amounts of money of anyone who wants to buy them out or licence the products. As a result, there's a vast swathe of important MegaTraveller supplements which nobody, not even Marc Miller, can touch or put out as PDFs.

The way I see it, if you want a tidied-up version of Classic Traveller with a modernised task resolution system and a wider variety of careers offered in the core rules, MegaTraveller is kind of that... except Mongoose Traveller does all that as well, without being riddled with errata, and to a higher standard than MegaTraveller managed.

I'd say go for the Bundle if you can see yourself using the Rebellion source material with Mongoose Traveller (it really wouldn't be very difficult), and even then only if you are sure you wouldn't prefer the FFE CD-ROM.

Quote from: Brad;823451Do you like Mongoose over Classic? I've played both, sort of debating which is better. Compared to T5 or Mega, though, they're miles ahead.

I consider the core rulebook of Mongoose Traveller a cleaned up Classic Traveller.

The problem with MongTrav is that their supplements are pricey for the quality. That quality can be uneven. I own the core rules of MongTrav and a handful of supplement (Central Supply is one of them) and use the shelf of older editions of Traveller. I prefer to use the classic supplements from GDW, FASA, DGP, and Gamelords over other editions.

What I would say for MongTrav's supplement line is that they've got a few books here and there which are really handy for taking the game in directions that the original GDW run didn't account for.

For example, the Cybernetics supplement does a fantastic job of retooling Traveller to handle cyberpunk campaigns instead of (or in addition to) space opera. (Can you even imagine the impact having that set of rules could have had back in the mid-1980s, when Traveller's assumed room-sized computers started to look really goofy? Just think how GDW might have fared if they'd put out something like MongTrav Cybernetics + relevant core rules as a self-contained cyberpunk RPG back in the day - CP2020 might never have got its foot in the door.)

I agree that MongTrav is patchy whenever it's covering material that was already covered back in the golden age of CT, but it sometimes doessome really neat, exciting stuff whenever it turns its attention to a topic that the original line didn't address. Even then I'd read a review or two before necessarily taking the plunge, but I'd say some of MongTrav's supplements deserve essential status in any Traveller library, and I'd include Cybernetics in that.

MegaTraveller has better editing and less errata than T4.

Also, interesting things actually happened in the OTU during the MT years.

Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;823483Also, interesting things actually happened in the OTU during the MT years.

If a person isn't all that interested in using the OTU setting and plans on using CT/Mongoose for rules... is there anything left to Megatraveller that makes it worth a look? Interesting new aliens or technology... ingenius mechanical bits that would port over easily?

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823326Not having played any iteration of that game, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on Megatraveller. I'm asking because of the current bundle of holding.

I'm already kicking myself for not buying the Dying Earth bundle, so wondering if I should get this one.

MegaTraveller has a lot of problems. The errata is a separate book in itself. As a charity thing, Bundle of Holding is money well spent. If you want Megatraveller on CD-ROM, you can buy all of it from FFE for a roughly equivalent price.

Quote from: Simlasa;823503If a person isn't all that interested in using the OTU setting and plans on using CT/Mongoose for rules... is there anything left to Megatraveller that makes it worth a look? Interesting new aliens or technology... ingenius mechanical bits that would port over easily?

The cinematic nugget system of adventure design is incredible, but it is the only thing I have been able to recover from that version of Traveller as useful.

Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;823483MegaTraveller has better editing and less errata than T4.

Also, interesting things actually happened in the OTU during the MT years.

T4 was shat out in the space of a couple of months by a committee who didn't even talk to each other and cobbled together by an editor rushing to make a deadline. As far as products go, it doesn't exactly set a high bar.

Did Megatrav use the same system as 2300, and T2K9v2)? Or am I thinking of a different game?

Quote from: Ronin;823604Did Megatrav use the same system as 2300, and T2K9v2)? Or am I thinking of a different game?

Different game. You are thinking of Traveller: TNE.

Ahhh.... thank you.:)

I've often wondered how TNE would have done if they'd done a generic sf core and then put out a generic space opera setting rather than hitting Traveller's core assumptions first.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823326Not having played any iteration of that game, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on Megatraveller. I'm asking because of the current bundle of holding.

I'm already kicking myself for not buying the Dying Earth bundle, so wondering if I should get this one.

It's one of the least-played versions of Traveller. The game mechanic started to become troublesome with MegaTraveller. Mongoose Traveller restored the game mechanic to sanity level.

I'd have to agree with you there Shawn.  The attempt to integrate elements from Snap Shot / Ahzanti High Lightning /Striker / High Guard and the failure to rationalize the gap between advanced and basic characters strike me as the core source of problems.

But DGP were always better at fluff than mechanics.

Quote from: David Johansen;824019But DGP were always better at fluff than mechanics.

I dunno, Grand Survey and Grand Census are both worth the $150 I paid for them.

I think DGP's failure with Megatraveller was that they tried to cram it all together into one unified game without taking into account that they were dealing with radically different game mechanics for different types of games.

Yeah, I think megatraveller was generally a misstep (but most other games were making similar ones at the time).  I vastly prefer CT or Mongoose Traveller, which are essentially very similar to each other.

DGP's megatraveller stuff was far less errata-ridden than GDW's as far as i remember.

now if they ever release a cd/download of the DGP stuff, i'd be all over that.  pitched a lot of my GDW megatraveller stuff due to the errata, but kept DGP's. . . still missing a few things from that era.  was my main SF game.  tweaked & combined with CT of course.

I actually decided to pass on this one. I got the indie rpg bundle instead for Spione. I will also likely get the CD for classic traveller instead.

Quote from: David Johansen;823758I've often wondered how TNE would have done if they'd done a generic sf core and then put out a generic space opera setting rather than hitting Traveller's core assumptions first.

For what was a second-edition ruleset after Twilight 2000, the game was another one with multi-hundred page errata.  A lot of cases of "realistic" tables being full of garbage result, or text not being consistent with the game rules.  So the fluff says that you can increase stats during character generation - which was true for one career in the actual rules.

Glitches like the Tech Level 11 Gauss Rifle being an all-round poorer weapon than the TL 10 Combat Rifle.  Plasma and Fusion weapons were seriously nerfed and got a massive boost in a Challenge article soon after release.

Another stat + skill system, but quite heavily biased in favour of stats.  And the multiplier/divider system to determine your final target number was too coarse for me.

PCs were generally too tough to kill unless you used the optional headshot rules... in which case things get messy quickly.  Except pistols are still useless.

A vehicle "wear" system to represent the aged tech you were using was kind of OK.  Except your gear started too high on the scale, so your starship broke down every jump.  There was an advanced rule where your starship broke down every day instead.

Starship combat got the hexes per point of acceleration calculation wrong in the core rulebook and the whole thing felt like a lot of dice rolling for that one killer hit.  Brilliant Lances was worse, although Battle Rider was good at the PC-ship scale of things (not so great rolling buckets of dice for the big ships).

Not a bad game, just very "meh" in its execution.  Lots of nice touches in there though.  Starship combat had some good ideas - the "1D" map for two-ship combat where you're either closing/separating or moving obliquely made life easy.  I appreciated that starships had very few "game only" stats, instead there was a list of features - just as the PCs would see it.

Adding in fuel-burning thrusters rather than "grav-plate magitech" was widely criticised at the time, but it actually fits with the scrabble for resources in a post-apoc setting.

The actual background was pretty cool - the PCs are rats in the walls of a collapsed high-tech civilisation, and the malevolent entities that caused the crash are still out there.  It almost certainly wasn't worth demolishing the Third Imperium universe though.  Maybe as a single collapsed sector or separate universe entirely?

Quote from: beeber;824638DGP's megatraveller stuff was far less errata-ridden than GDW's as far as i remember.

That'll be down to the computer incompatibility which meant GDW had to retranscribe all of DGP's stuff - both the GDW and DGP MegaTraveller material was largely written by DGP, except for the overarching setting stuff.

Quote from: Momotaro;824647For what was a second-edition ruleset after Twilight 2000, the game was another one with multi-hundred page errata.
The actual background was pretty cool - the PCs are rats in the walls of a collapsed high-tech civilisation, and the malevolent entities that caused the crash are still out there.  It almost certainly wasn't worth demolishing the Third Imperium universe though.  Maybe as a single collapsed sector or separate universe entirely?

I think a similar setting without the Traveller / 3rd Imperium features would have worked very well.  Perhaps even a setting where it might be the Third Imperium or it might not.  Which isn't to say Survival Margin and Arrival Vengeance aren't the greatest things ever because they are.

But I think the ideas of TNE had promise, it just needed more work, a cleaned up revision would have been nice.  I think it wound up being rushed out when the Dangerous Journeys legal action sucked all the money out of the company.  The game was borked to be sure but conceptually it was okay.  It was also clearly stated in the rules that PCs were intentionally super durable.  Because they are the main characters, and for no better reason than that.  I think it was forward looking, though I've always hated the initiative rule.

Quote from: David Johansen;824787Which isn't to say Survival Margin and Arrival Vengeance aren't the greatest things ever because they are.

Oh yeah... Path of Tears and World-Tamer's Handbook are also pretty damn great.

All traveller games are a waste of time IMO any more, just go with SWN or another favorite of mine Thousand Suns instead.

I ran a couple MT campaigns back in the late 80's early 90's. My memories were as follows, roughly:

1. It was a hard sell to get players into but once we were playing it they were hooked for a whole campaign (which back then was 1 campaign was timed to last 1 semester, usually 20ish sessions)

2. It felt signficantly more complex than CT. However, I did pick up that Bundle of Holding and was shocked to see that the game still looks more complex than current iterations (MGT and even T4).

3. It had some of the best sourcebooks of all Traveller editions, although iirc it was the first edition with a Fire, Fusion & Steel* sourcebook that was screwed over from severe errata and math errors, a tradition that continued right through T4 and (if some reviews are to be believed) T5, although Mongoose's Traveller sidestepped the entire issue in favor of ease of access.

Anyway, these days its pretty much Mongoose's Traveller for me all the way, although I'd be happy to poach some setting and scenario content from old MT. The core mechanics remain identical as identifiers go, something Traveller is great about in all editions except the Hero and GURPS adaptations, which means using that material with MGT is easy enough.




*That may have been for Traveller: The New Era though now that I think about it.

I always loved the premise of Megatraveller - Empires at war and all that but was never able to get the books. I ended up with TNE instead which had its flaws but some of my best GM memories come from running it. Back then rules were not so important. Not to my group anyway.

Quote from: nitril;824914I always loved the premise of Megatraveller - Empires at war and all that but was never able to get the books. I ended up with TNE instead which had its flaws but some of my best GM memories come from running it. Back then rules were not so important. Not to my group anyway.

Never apologise for having fun :)

Except maybe stuff with knives...

Quote from: flyingcircus;824899All traveller games are a waste of time IMO any more, just go with SWN or another favorite of mine Thousand Suns instead.

Take that, threadcrapper!

(http://roflzoo.com/pics/042010/stick--your-tongue-out-big.jpg)

There is an alternate take on the metaplot events that happened in Megatraveller and Traveller:TNE called The Wounded Colossus by Bill Cameron (http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/othroads/woco.html). In it, the Third Imperium is badly hurt by Civil War, but remains an intact political entity.

The blather about the errata is rather overblown.

The two pieces of errata that matter:
1) The cost table for mercenary weapons is missing.
2) There are some glitches in the design sequence tables.

And #2 only matters if you do design sequences. I imagine that's more of a niche hobby these days, and those who are into that can spot some of the obvious inconsistencies.

I really liked the Unified Task Profile and the cinematic nugget method for building adventures.

I do think Mongoose's character generation sequence is better, though. Megatraveller character generation sequence had lots of detail, but was very uneven and inconsistent. Mongoose's chargen is probably the best of any traveller iteration for my money.

Sadly, I think Mongoose Traveller High Guard is decidedly worse, as it didn't "collapse down" weapons batteries on large starships, really making them unplayable.

Honestly, I love Traveller but I'm getting very tired of waiting.  I don't think they'll ever get there.

Quote from: jeff37923;824959There is an alternate take on the metaplot events that happened in Megatraveller and Traveller:TNE called The Wounded Colossus by Bill Cameron (http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/othroads/woco.html). In it, the Third Imperium is badly hurt by Civil War, but remains an intact political entity.

Awesome thanks for the link!

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;824998The blather about the errata is rather overblown.

The two pieces of errata that matter:
1) The cost table for mercenary weapons is missing.
2) There are some glitches in the design sequence tables.

And #2 only matters if you do design sequences. I imagine that's more of a niche hobby these days, and those who are into that can spot some of the obvious inconsistencies.

Unfortunately, you just about had to use them if you wanted any original ship designs. GDW's attempt to fill that void was a supplement called "Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium." It was basically an entire book of spacecraft built using the design sequences without the errata, so they were all uselessly broken. GDW couldn't even use their own design sequences properly.