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Someone gifted me with the original boxed set (three little books, I guess that's how everyone was angling after the release of D&D).  Is it any good?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;377358Someone gifted me with the original boxed set (three little books, I guess that's how everyone was angling after the release of D&D).  Is it any good?

It was my first RPG love, and the first game I bought. I bought it in November 1977, after getting D&D as a gift, but before playing it. One of the most innovative roleplaying games ever, IMO. So innovative that it looks cliched today, because so many games took up and incorporated its ideas.

-clash

I'll never forget talking my mom into getting that black box for me (and the Kinunir adventure), rushing home, flopping on the bed in the summer sunlight and reading them front-to-back. Seriously, it is one of the best memories from my youth, and I wish I could recapture that feeling sometime. If I could have back all the hours I spent rolling up random characters and planets, just for fun - I'd do the same all over again.

That said, it fucking rocks, always has, and always will. Once I discovered it, D&D faded to a distant second place for me.

Something to get you started

From my blogpost How make a Traveller Sandbox (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-make-traveller-sandbox.html).

• Roll up two subsectors side by side.
• Note all the high population planets.
• Write a short paragraph on each placing them in the context of your background (Empire, Federation, Free Space, etc)
• Find any high tech plants (the highest ones you rolled )
• Make notes on them.
• Find all class A and B starports
• Make notes on them.
• Scan the remaining planets pick out 4 to 8 that grab your attention.
• Make notes on them.
• Look at your notes and come up with two to four "plots" that ties one or more locales together.
• For each of the planets you have notes make up four "patron" encounters for each. They should start as one sentence each and be self contained in respect to the major plots.
• Come up with 6 to 12 general patron encounters that can be placed anywhere in your subsectors. Make them flexible like (set in a seedy starport, etc)
• Make up a rumor chart with 10 to 20 items that feeds the players into what you prepared.
• Then use the NPC resources that were suggested to make a list of NPCs. Assign them to the various items you created above.
• Look at your notes and decided where recurring NPCs will occurs. (Captain of the subsector Revenue Patrol, Custom Offical, Badger the Broker, etc). Probably need 6 to 12 of them. Give them a paragraph description in addition to their stats.

TRAVELLER - The first Role Playing game that was actually fun for me when I was a teenager in the early '80s!!
  The first game system that I ever Gamemastered.

- Ed C.

I'm new to Traveller goodness, and purchased the Mongoose version, fairly close to the Classic version, as far as I understand it, based on people raving on these boards. I was not disappointed. It indeed is an awesome game.

So. I don't think you'll be disappointed TDD.

I also hopped onto Traveller late, with the Mongoose version.  My impression after 1.5 reads is positive; I want to run it after I have a better grip on some of the subsystems.  But here is a list of impressions, in no particular order:

• Deceptively simple resolution mechanic.  Deceptive insofar as playing the game is simple, but subsystems and setting creation add a lot of cumbersome crunch.


• My core book has everything I want when I start playing and no canon to get in the way.  There is enough on vehicles, psi, computers, planet creation and characters with a single book (and presumably what is in the first three little black books).  I like that.  Most people seem to like the setting but I'd rather master the game before diving into that.


• This might be a personal issue, but I was overwhelmed with what I perceive to be too many skills with too much overlap.  It raises questions for the novice (me) like: I'm using a computer to find treatment for this alien disease...Am I using Computers, Medicine, Research, or Space Science (xenobiology)?  Again, I don't blame Traveller as much as my own prejudice against long skill lists.  I hated this about Alternity too.


• I dig the implied but not assumed or required playstyle that I might state as: Just a gang of washups trying to make a buck in the universe.
  

I so loved those LBBs... and still do.
One thing that particularly stood out for me is that the basic set had very few illustrations or setting... but it still set my imagination on fire.
Great game... though I never did get into the (later) official setting all that much. It seemed much more interesting to just make stuff up as we went along.

Yes it is good.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;377358Someone gifted me with the original boxed set (three little books, I guess that's how everyone was angling after the release of D&D).  Is it any good?

Yes, Traveller is very good.

Any other questions? Something specific? :)

Quote from: winkingbishop;377368

• This might be a personal issue, but I was overwhelmed with what I perceive to be too many skills with too much overlap.  It raises questions for the novice (me) like: I'm using a computer to find treatment for this alien disease...Am I using Computers, Medicine, Research, or Space Science (xenobiology)?  Again, I don't blame Traveller as much as my own prejudice against long skill lists.  I hated this about Alternity too.

I consider this a strength.
It is less likely that nobody will have a skill to continue the game with. More open playing as each adventure does not have to be hand crafted for the specific set of skills the players have.
=

Yes, Classic Traveller is still my favorite space SF game. Easy to learn. Easy to play. Easy to referee. Mongoose Traveller is surprisingly close to Classic, but the price is fairly steep.

Traveller's only major problem is the Third Imperium "canon fans". I had a couple of blog posts on Classic Traveller supplements recently:

Classic Traveller Paranoia Press PDFs Available (http://blog.retroroleplaying.com/2010/04/classic-traveller-paranoia-press-pdfs.html)
Randall's Essential Classic Traveller Supplements (http://blog.retroroleplaying.com/2010/04/randalls-essential-classic-traveller.html)

Traveller is my all-time favorite rpg about 40% of the time (alternating with OD&D which is also about 40%, RQIII about 15%, and for that 5% of the time when I'm feeling really crazy, Dangerous Journeys: Mythus)

Quote from: T. Foster;377450Traveller is my all-time favorite rpg about 40% of the time (alternating with OD&D which is also about 40%, RQIII about 15%, and for that 5% of the time when I'm feeling really crazy, Dangerous Journeys: Mythus)

So no AD&D, huh.

I'm telling.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;377458So no AD&D, huh.

I'm telling.

AD&D is my second favorite rpg :)

Quote from: T. Foster;377465AD&D is my second favorite rpg :)

(http://www.pbpulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/bodysnatchers1.jpg)

(In case you miss it elsewhere)

This might be a personal issue, but I was overwhelmed with what I perceive to be too many skills with too much overlap.  It raises questions for the novice (me) like: I'm using a computer to find treatment for this alien disease...Am I using Computers, Medicine, Research, or Space Science (xenobiology)?  Again, I don't blame Traveller as much as my own prejudice against long skill lists.  I hated this about Alternity too.[/QUOTE]

This is a strength, IMHO. Like in the real world there are multiple ways to do something like finding a treatment for a disease. For example, I personally know next to nothing about medicine, but when my wife was diagnosed with oral cancer, I used my computer and Internet skills to find out all sorts of info on it in medical databases. Someone trained in medicine or biology or library science (research) probably would have gone about things differently than I did, but would have ended up with similar info. I like games that allow for this. It means you don't have to be sure the characters have some specific skill or risk the adventure failing.

Quote from: T. Foster;377465AD&D is my second favorite rpg :)

RuneQuest first? :)

Quote from: Benoist;377491RuneQuest first? :)

It was this morning (in case you couldn't tell from that series of posts I made), but I think this thread may have pushed Traveller back into the #1 slot :hmm:

From what I've seen in the boxed set and what I've heard from you guys I'd love to play Traveller.

I just want someone else to run it.

I'm tired of running games.  When my current AD&D saga ends...I'm putting down the DM's hat for a long time.

This is probably kind of lame, but I think of AD&D as EGG's OD&D- which is great; i just prefer my OD&D- vastly.

Quote from: T. Foster;377502It was this morning (in case you couldn't tell from that series of posts I made), but I think this thread may have pushed Traveller back into the #1 slot :hmm:

LOL We need to talk about RuneQuest some more! :D

Quote from: Aos;377507This is probably kind of lame, but I think of AD&D as EGG's OD&D- which is great; i just prefer my OD&D- vastly.

No, no no. I actually utterly, completely, 100% agree on this. I happen to love what EGG's done with OD&D, and that's AD&D. When I want to run EGG's D&D, I go for it, but if I want something more tailor-made for me and my gaming group, I'll go with OD&D first, and houserule from the ground up. To me, these two games are the paramount of what D&D has to offer. To me, myself, and I concur. ;)

The Traveller Book is my desert island rpg.

Quote from: winkingbishop;377368This might be a personal issue, but I was overwhelmed with what I perceive to be too many skills with too much overlap.  It raises questions for the novice (me) like: I'm using a computer to find treatment for this alien disease...Am I using Computers, Medicine, Research, or Space Science (xenobiology)?  

In GAMERS, I resolved this by simply saying that you decide what approach your character will take, that's the primary skill, and others come in as support of that.

For example, if you say, "I have no idea about treating this disease, I'll just look it up," that's Computers. If you say, "I look through my extensive library and consult with colleagues," that's Research. If you say, "based on my experience, I consider a treatment of..." that's Medicine. Which approach does your character take? Well, probably whichever is their highest skill :)

But I as GM am going to set different difficulties for those skill checks. Someone with Medicine might only need to roll 10+, someone with Research 12+, and someone with just computers 14+. Maybe I'll tell you those difficulties, maybe not, depends on the situation. So you as a player get to weigh it up, which is my character's best skill, which will be the easiest way to do it.

Other skills can come in as "complementary skills." What I say is that if you roll 10+ on your skill check, then that skill complements your primary skill, and gives a DM+1. You can bring in as different many skills as seem relevant. Other PCs can add their skills in, too - but the skills have to be different, my Computers can help your Medicine, but my Medicine can't help your Medicine, there's too much "shut up, I know what I'm doing!"

But as soon as you fail one roll, you have to make that primary roll.

So the doctor with Medicine, Computers and Research will be better off than the doctor with just Medicine. But some doctors will rely more on Research than their own knowledge of Medicine (ie the ones with higher Research skill...)

This comes from my view that most professions are a collection of synergistic skills, and that when teamwork actually works, it's that same synergy.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;377505From what I've seen in the boxed set and what I've heard from you guys I'd love to play Traveller.

I just want someone else to run it.

I'm tired of running games.  When my current AD&D saga ends...I'm putting down the DM's hat for a long time.

Sounds like someone might need to get a Traveller PbP set up over at the Citadel...  :)

The gold in Traveller is character generation. The Career system has been the biggest influence on my homebrewed games.

There are some issues.

Basic characters, just don't stack up next to characters from High Guard, Mercenary or Scouts. so I felt that was a shame as the characters from these games are almost totally superior.
I also felt that there was space for Law-enforcement or crime as careers (and indeed I made them up :) ) and I understand the Mongoose stuff expanded into these areas.

Lastly the dying whist making a character is daft and So i replaced that with a 'tragedy' table. When the chargen system kills you instead roll on the tradegy table and you get some other random thing, ranging from divorce to loosing a limb or developing a mental illness. (as an aside I developed a Blessings table as well so you forgo a promotion and roll on there to get anything from a kid to an inheritance to a lottery win).

But there is no doubt the chargen in Traveller is up there with the Amber auction as one of the most inovative and fun in any system.

It is suited to a certain type of Scifi. So Lensman, the Stainless Steel Rat, Starship Toopers, that era of Scifi works incedibly well.

The stuff on building star systems is excellent for sandbox play. The stuff on Ships for me is a bit too hard-fi. I don't mind the engineering or the complexity of it (put me in good stead when i was building cars in Cars Wars later on) but the ships you end up with are hard-fi ships not space opera ships. It might be accurate that your fuel takes up 80% of your ship but a suitcase sized dilitium crystal or power cells mean you can have more fun and ship combat for me was a bit flat.

Actually the more I think about this the more I feel like running a game of Serenity using Classic traveller or even looking out for the mongoose stuff..... hmmmm

Quote from: MeThis might be a personal issue, but I was overwhelmed with what I perceive to be too many skills with too much overlap...

Quote from: Greentongue;377437I consider this a strength.
It is less likely that nobody will have a skill to continue the game with. More open playing as each adventure does not have to be hand crafted for the specific set of skills the players have.

Quote from: RandallS;377480This is a strength, IMHO. Like in the real world there are multiple ways to do something like finding a treatment for a disease. For example...

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;377615In GAMERS, I resolved this by simply saying that you decide what approach your character will take, that's the primary skill, and others come in as support of that.

These are all fair and useful responses and I appreciate them.  I'm not a stranger to skill-driven games but I think I may be part of the "less is more" school of thought on the issue.  It isn't a problem particular to Traveller and not a deal breaker for me, just something that stood out and shouted at me.

Quote from: jibbajibba;377629Basic characters, just don't stack up next to characters from High Guard, Mercenary or Scouts. so I felt that was a shame as the characters from these games are almost totally superior.
I also felt that there was space for Law-enforcement or crime as careers (and indeed I made them up :) ) and I understand the Mongoose stuff expanded into these areas.

MegaTraveller addressed these. Basic (but not advanced) characters have an extra Special Duty roll added to the procedure which, if you succeed, grants an extra skill for that Term. Also, if a Basic character rolls 4+ more than required on a Commission, Promotion, or Special Duty roll he receives 2 skills instead of 1. This was coupled with revising the skill tables to include all the extra skills that were introduced in the later books (so even Basic characters can get skills like Carousing and Instruction). The combined effect of these changes is that Basic and Advanced characters at least theoretically don't have much disparity in terms of actual skill-points, and which system you use is mostly a matter of how much extra detail you want. They also added Law Enforcer as a career (which had previously, IIRC, appeared in a JTAS issue). Weren't criminals already a career in Supplement 4 (or, for that matter, the "other" career in Book 1)?

I lost my 3 lbbs ages ago. I have the 0-8 reprint, or whatever the fuck it is, and it is no good for reading.
I believe I will have to acquire a copy of the Traveller Book.

Quote from: Aos;377712I believe I will have to acquire a copy of the Traveller Book.

You won't regret that purchase. TTB is probably my single favorite book ever published for an rpg.

One of the bonuses of Traveller is that it has a long running fan base and there is a ton of free material for it.  Classic, Mega, and Mongoose are similar enough that most things made for one will work ok for the other (though the starship creation rules have changed many times which affects things if you try to seriously pit fleets against each other).
 
Like any game with mountains of fan material, 80% of it is utter crap.  But opinions vary on which 80%.

The Traveller Book is great and was my copy of Classic Traveller for a long time. It's companion the Traveller Adventure isn't too bad either.

Here is ship designed using MongTrav however it can be easily adapted to Classic Traveller. The Luminous Nebula a Far Corsair

http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/beta/Luminous%20Nebula.pdf

QuoteOriginally built on a 200 ton hull, this spaceship was designated a Far Yacht. The Luminous Nebula was built for the Duke of Pretoria of the Deneb Sector in 1078. The Duke prized performance and range over comfort. The original crew consisted of a pilot, an engineer, a navigator, a steward or aide, and the duke. In 1083 during the confused fighting of the Fourth Frontier War the Luminous Nebula was lost on the Vargr frontier when it had the misfortune of being captured during a Vargr raid. The Duke and crew were ransomed back but the Luminous Nebula was kept by the Vargr Warlord. It's first use as the warlord’s personal transport. He grew tired of the spartan quarters. In 1093 it was converted into a Jump-5 capable Far Corsair. Space was converted into two turrets, and fuel processing equipment. The most extensive modification was to the fuel tanks. The tanks were divided into two segments. The first segment was made to hold 40 tons of fuel and outfitted with a 3 meter wide hatch connected to the two ton cargo hold. It was outfitted with the piping and purge ports allowing it to be converted into a cargo hold in a day. However conversion back to a fuel tank is more involved and requires a week of labor and supplies equal to the monthly maintenance cost. The second fuel segment allowed for a Jump-3 to be executed. The the Luminous Nebula served a succession of Vargr Warlords until 1100 when it was recaptured by the Imperium and
auctioned off.

Quote from: estar;377722The Traveller Book is great and was my copy of Classic Traveller for a long time. It's companion the Traveller Adventure isn't too bad either.

I ran TTA back in the day and had a great time with it (it was probably the high-point of all our Traveller play). Looking back in retrospect it has some fairly serious railroadiness issues (as is true of anything written by the Brothers Keith that's not "Lords of Thunder") that I'm not sure I'd be willing to stomach given my current preferences in such things, but there's so much material and so much potential in this book that I'm sure if the Referee was willing to invest a bit of effort into tearing up some of the tracks (perhaps converting them into a nice roadway, where there's still a preferred path, but the players always have the option of going offroad) that you could still make a very nice and satisfying 6-12 month campaign out of this one book.

Quote from: jibbajibba;377629The gold in Traveller is character generation. The Career system has been the biggest influence on my homebrewed games.

There are some issues.

Basic characters, just don't stack up next to characters from High Guard, Mercenary or Scouts. so I felt that was a shame as the characters from these games are almost totally superior.
I also felt that there was space for Law-enforcement or crime as careers (and indeed I made them up :) ) and I understand the Mongoose stuff expanded into these areas.

Lastly the dying whist making a character is daft and So i replaced that with a 'tragedy' table. When the chargen system kills you instead roll on the tradegy table and you get some other random thing, ranging from divorce to loosing a limb or developing a mental illness. (as an aside I developed a Blessings table as well so you forgo a promotion and roll on there to get anything from a kid to an inheritance to a lottery win).

But there is no doubt the chargen in Traveller is up there with the Amber auction as one of the most inovative and fun in any system.

It is suited to a certain type of Scifi. So Lensman, the Stainless Steel Rat, Starship Toopers, that era of Scifi works incedibly well.

The stuff on building star systems is excellent for sandbox play. The stuff on Ships for me is a bit too hard-fi. I don't mind the engineering or the complexity of it (put me in good stead when i was building cars in Cars Wars later on) but the ships you end up with are hard-fi ships not space opera ships. It might be accurate that your fuel takes up 80% of your ship but a suitcase sized dilitium crystal or power cells mean you can have more fun and ship combat for me was a bit flat.

Actually the more I think about this the more I feel like running a game of Serenity using Classic traveller or even looking out for the mongoose stuff..... hmmmm

(http://www.uberpix.net/wp-content/main/2009_05/mr-t-on-tv.jpg)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;377358Someone gifted me with the original boxed set (three little books, I guess that's how everyone was angling after the release of D&D).  Is it any good?

I suggest sticking with the basic character generation in the first three books but you also really need Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium (http://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetail.asp_Q_ProductID_E_8397_A_InventoryID_E_2147698407_A_ProductLineID_E_101_A_ManufacturerID_E_6_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_) to complete the game, in my opinion.  The second half of that book contains lists of pregenerated characters (fairly useless even at the time) but the first half of the book adds another 12 (mostly civilian) careers (Pirates, Belters, Sailors, Diplomats, Doctors, Flyers, Barbarians, Bureaucrats, Rogues, Nobles, Scientists, and Hunters), a few more standard ship types, and bow weapons.  The extra character careers really broaden the options available to the players for PCs and to the GM for NPCs.

You can get the entire set of Classic Traveller books from GDW from Far Futures (http://www.farfuture.net/cdroms.html) on CD-ROM and use Acrobat's booklet printing option to print out your own classic-sized booklets (Acrobat's page selection lets you shuffle pages around and print pages twice, so it's generally possible to align the pages as necessary for them to print as a booklet).  If you really like that, then I also recommend the JTAS CD-ROM (Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, the original Classic Traveller magazine from GDW) and the FASA/GameLords supplements CD-ROM, which contains some good stuff from GameLords and FASA.

FYI, the Starter Traveller PDF on RPGnow, which covers much of the material in The Traveller Book, was free a few weeks ago.

Quote from: jibbajibba;377629Basic characters, just don't stack up next to characters from High Guard, Mercenary or Scouts.

With the rule which states that total skills and skill levels may not exceed the character's INT and EDU scores, then the only difference is that expanded generation characters may be a term or two younger than their basic counterparts.

However, there is a balancing factor for that.

Quote from: jibbajibba;377629Lastly the dying whist making a character is daft . . .

Dying during chargen is one of the balancing mechanisms of the game: you wager your character's continuing existence against a gain in skills and mustering out benefits.

Expanded generation characters have more opportunities to die in a term than basic generation characters, so the wager of survival against skills must be made more often.

In my experience, gamers who ignore the death-during-chargen and INT + EDU rules are the ones who end up believing the system needs to be 'fixed.' However, if you just play it as written, it actually tends to work out pretty well.

Finally bought Mongoose Traveller today.  

I've had LBB Trav for a long time, and very much like the game, and have found if nothing else that Chargen is always a fun way to pass the time.

But I've thought something that was more or less in spirit with the LBBs, while fleshing out a few of the systems to something more modern player friendly, would go a long way towards my chances of ever actually playing it in real life.