Traveller is like D&D, they got it right in the 70s. After that they tried to achieve perfection by addition and things got clunky.

It's like kids' textbooks. I've taken a look at them, they are introducing the same concepts later. We got differentiation and integration of equations in year 9, now they get it in year 11. Yet their books are thicker than ever.

Perhaps it's the internet and the ease of instantaneous communication, but we seem to be using more words to say less.

I always feel T4 got a lot of things right.  They got a lot of things wrong too, but the big positive was a move back to a simpler core game.  Well, and dispensing with advanced super hero creation.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;836715Not enough info given. Are you saying such players are simply role-playing themselves as their character, or are they just metagaming their way through the quests?

I'm saying that one interpretation of their behavior might be that they prefer a system that uses role play without any roll play because that maximizes their power in comparison to that of the other players at the table.

When there are no rules for social power of characters, then the existing social power of the players is what determines the maximum for PC social power and the maximum for some PCs is only limited by the whims of the more socially powerful players. A system of mechanical social combat mitigates to some extent the existing and always present OOC differences in social power of the players at the table.

Actual character social power in game is always based on a combination of OOC social power of the player, player whim as to how much they choose to use their OOC social power, and any system mechanics for PC social power. Adding PC mechanics can and often does lessen the social power of PCs of the most socially adept and influential players. Avoiding such mechanics leaves only player whim as a limit social power of the PC of the socially  adept player.

QuoteSome social mechanics is a must. Keyword being "some".

Although I like some form of social mechanics, they aren't actually a must. For example, if the players are essentially playing avatars of themselves then their PC's social power is reflected perfectly by the player's social power. Now I don't find that entertaining, so I would say that for my enjoyment some social mechanics are a must.

QuoteMakes sense, you want to win the game of course.

I may be misreading you, but this sounds like your are trying to play some version of gotcha by casting my preference as based on some sort of power gaming. It's not. My desire for both threats and tricks to have a mechanical impact on PCs, including my own, is based on valuing playing with or simulating authentic human behavior over some artificially gamey no PvP social construct. It has nothing to do with my character winning. Rather I want the PCs, as much as possible for the genre and play style, to be treated like the NPCs and not to be given some metagame PC glow.

For example, the scene where my combat powerful but socially weak PC got tricked by the NPC he had captured so the NPC could get away was much more entertaining (and a much better simulation of my character's strengths, weaknesses, and personality) than if I had decided that because I knew the NPC was playing a trick that my character knew that the NPC was playing a trick. Relying solely on my whims could have let my character succeed in the scene, but it would have been a worse scene.

I find social rules to prevent PvP disagreements artificial in the extreme and unpalatable. You or anyone is of course free to disagree about what you find palatable in your games. In actual play, I've seldom seen anything beyond debate, argument, or the occasional threat actually occur despite always allowing PvP combat. But the fact that a player/PC could escalate an argument to violence means that other players/PCs have an in game reason for their PCs to take a sincere objection by another character seriously.

I sense a disturbance in the post:D! And lo! Is that a grinding axe I hear?

Snipping the part that was a reply to Bren.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;836715Only in arcade games.

So, does the current mechanics aim make it like an arcade game, or does it need to be changed?

QuoteNot sure if newbies would want social rules, or that they were something they would need to play.

Unlike you, I'm sure about the answer to that.
"Depending on the newbie, it might be the former, the latter, both or neither."
Here. Painting all newbies with the same wide brush means not accounting for the fact that "Citizen - Hobby skill: Roleplaying" is virtually guaranteed not to be our first term even by the T5 rules:p!

QuoteI already mentioned the part about rolling dice when things are interesting.

• You roll dice when things are interesting.
• You stop rolling dice when a non-newbie who doesn't want to "win the game" is in a social situation with conflict potential.

Conclusion, your non-newbies who don't want to win the game learn to make social situations uninteresting. Otherwise you'd be rolling dice.
...I wonder, is it for the same reasons as the thieves in old-school D&D trying to get all the traps without rolling;)?

QuoteYou're the bingo-style gamer. I'm not.

I doubt you have an accurate assessment of my playstyle.
Let us check. What is a bingo-style gamer?
Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not.

QuoteYou just said "it's easy to houserule."

Of course! Doesn't mean I don't want to know what Rules-as-intended were. Hey, maybe Marc Miller is on to something I'm missing! (If I didn't assume that to be possible, I wouldn't have bought the firgging mastodon of a book!)

Quote from: David Johansen;836724The Knowledges are basically the descendant of Pilot giving Ship's Boat-1.

The essential concept is that you learn a specific skill first and then the general skill.  I'm not sure why Marc went with the 6 / 15 split on it but that's what he did.

Yeah, that's what I read in the book, too. But care to elaborate?
(Disclaimer: I began with Mongoose's Traveller and then got the three books of CT. In Mongoose's edition, Pilot (spacecraft) only gives you Pilot 0 for, say, small craft. So maybe there's a mechanic, generally-well-known-to-Traveller-fans, that I'm still missing).

Learning a specific skill first and then the general one is spelled in the book. Does it mean I learn Melee (Blades) and when I get it high enough, it becomes Fighter?
(Blades are one example of specific application of Fighter and I'm going with it, because my first character has that.)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;836725Traveller is like D&D, they got it right in the 70s. After that they tried to achieve perfection by addition and things got clunky.

It's like kids' textbooks. I've taken a look at them, they are introducing the same concepts later. We got differentiation and integration of equations in year 9, now they get it in year 11. Yet their books are thicker than ever.

Perhaps it's the internet and the ease of instantaneous communication, but we seem to be using more words to say less.

Interesting concept. I'd counter with the fact that you need to learn to use many words in order to learn to cut off the unnecessary ones.

Quote from: David Johansen;836727I always feel T4 got a lot of things right.  They got a lot of things wrong too, but the big positive was a move back to a simpler core game.  Well, and dispensing with advanced super hero creation.

Well, Mongoose Traveller also has a simple core. But I was considering gettig T4 instead of T5. (In the end, I got T5 because I like toolboxes, and I don't really need the same core rules over and over).

Quote from: Bren;836728I'm saying that one interpretation of their behavior might be that they prefer a system that uses role play without any roll play because that maximizes their power in comparison to that of the other players at the table.

When there are no rules for social power of characters, then the existing social power of the players is what determines the maximum for PC social power and the maximum for some PCs is only limited by the whims of the more socially powerful players. A system of mechanical social combat mitigates to some extent the existing and always present OOC differences in social power of the players at the table.

Actual character social power in game is always based on a combination of OOC social power of the player, player whim as to how much they choose to use their OOC social power, and any system mechanics for PC social power. Adding PC mechanics can and often does lessen the social power of PCs of the most socially adept and influential players. Avoiding such mechanics leaves only player whim as a limit social power of the PC of the socially  adept player.Although I like some form of social mechanics, they aren't actually a must. For example, if the players are essentially playing avatars of themselves then their PC's social power is reflected perfectly by the player's social power. Now I don't find that entertaining, so I would say that for my enjoyment some social mechanics are a must.

I may be misreading you, but this sounds like your are trying to play some version of gotcha by casting my preference as based on some sort of power gaming. It's not. My desire for both threats and tricks to have a mechanical impact on PCs, including my own, is based on valuing playing with or simulating authentic human behavior over some artificially gamey no PvP social construct. It has nothing to do with my character winning. Rather I want the PCs, as much as possible for the genre and play style, to be treated like the NPCs and not to be given some metagame PC glow.

For example, the scene where my combat powerful but socially weak PC got tricked by the NPC he had captured so the NPC could get away was much more entertaining (and a much better simulation of my character's strengths, weaknesses, and personality) than if I had decided that because I knew the NPC was playing a trick that my character knew that the NPC was playing a trick. Relying solely on my whims could have let my character succeed in the scene, but it would have been a worse scene.

I find social rules to prevent PvP disagreements artificial in the extreme and unpalatable. You or anyone is of course free to disagree about what you find palatable in your games. In actual play, I've seldom seen anything beyond debate, argument, or the occasional threat actually occur despite always allowing PvP combat. But the fact that a player/PC could escalate an argument to violence means that other players/PCs have an in game reason for their PCs to take a sincere objection by another character seriously.

Once again, my limited experience confirms what Bren said. One thing to add for my group, though.
We do rotating GMs, so everyone gets a turn on the GMing seat (although they sometimes conspire to get me there out of order;)).
Some people in our group are obviously better than others at social interactions. The player that's arguably the best also has the strongest desire for social rules.
Why? Because she doesn't trust her "whims", as Bren puts it, to limit her enough, or at least not every time we play;). So she prefers a system to make it fair via dice. Otherwise it's not fun for her.
As always, make of that what you wish.

Quote from: AsenRG;836746Yeah, that's what I read in the book, too. But care to elaborate?
(Disclaimer: I began with Mongoose's Traveller and then got the three books of CT. In Mongoose's edition, Pilot (spacecraft) only gives you Pilot 0 for, say, small craft. So maybe there's a mechanic, generally-well-known-to-Traveller-fans, that I'm still missing).

Learning a specific skill first and then the general one is spelled in the book. Does it mean I learn Melee (Blades) and when I get it high enough, it becomes Fighter?
(Blades are one example of specific application of Fighter and I'm going with it, because my first character has that.)

I am curious about this as well, mainly because it hurts my brain.  I get the Knowledge-Knowledge-Skill thing.  I don't get what the point is.

Fighter, the skill, covers several (subskills) Knowledges.  In earlier iterations, these would be cascade skills that you learned individually.  In T5, is it necessary to have a Knowledge before being able to use the skill (in other words, does the Knowledge equal Cascade skill)?

So, say I have Knowledge: Blades and Knowledge: Beam
Then I have (as my third skill choice/level) Fighter (1?)

Do I apply my Skill:1 to those two weapon types, but no skill to anything else?
Or Skill: 1 to those two weapon types and Skill: 0 to the other weapon types included in the Fighter skill,
Or something else entirely?

Well, even when there aren't social mechanics I roll dice behind the screen and lean towards high is good low is bad.

The relationship between Knowledges and Skills is on page 114 of the 5.09 book.  It goes Knowledge, Knowledge, Skill after which you can pick either or.  Still not as clear as I'd like and I'm not sure it's discussed anywhere else.

Quote from: David Johansen;836770The relationship between Knowledges and Skills is on page 114 of the 5.09 book.

If I understand, from my examples:

End result of the 3 skill picks:

Blade 2 (skill + knowledge stack)
Beam 2 (skill + knowledge stack)
Fighter 1 (skill, no knowledge), covers everything else in the Fighter skill

Raising any of these skills would increase the end skill roll (raising fighter to 2 would raise the other skills to 3) for either the specific skill (Beam) or the entire group (Fighter).

Quote from: David Johansen;836770Well, even when there aren't social mechanics I roll dice behind the screen and lean towards high is good low is bad.

The relationship between Knowledges and Skills is on page 114 of the 5.09 book.  It goes Knowledge, Knowledge, Skill after which you can pick either or.  Still not as clear as I'd like and I'm not sure it's discussed anywhere else.

I've read p.114 and that's what prompeted my questions.
So, if I'm right, Fighter 1+Fighter 1+Melee/Blade gives me one of these:
Fighter: 2 Knowledge, 1 skill
Fighter: 2 Knowledge to everything affected, 1 skill when using a blade, no skill with anything else.
Fighter: 2 knowledge, 0 Skill and Melee/Blade 1 Knowledge, 0 skill.

I can generally find reasons in the text to support each and every of said readings.

And of course, we get to the question "what do we do when we get Fighter 5". BTW, that's far from the limits for either skills or knowledge, and fully doable in chargen.

So, do we now have Knowledge 3, Skill 2? Knowledge 2, Skill 3? Skill and knowledge both at 3? Skill and knowledge 5, so we don't need to wonder what to add:)?

I can choose which readings to apply on all these, but T5 is a toolbox. When I'm getting a toolbox, I'd like at least the tools to be ready to use;).

And this kind of confusion due to the writing is why I think Traveller 5.09 is much improved, but still not ready for Prime Time.

Quote from: jeff37923;836829And this kind of confusion due to the writing is why I think Traveller 5.09 is much improved, but still not ready for Prime Time.

I am prone to agree on that account, but then it is explicitly not a finished product, is it?