Traveller 5

Aglondir · August 17, 2022, 10:35:46 PM

Quote from: BronzeDragon on August 17, 2022, 09:52:12 PM
Mongoose has been doing a masterful job of supporting their Traveller line. The Great Rift boxed set is a wonderful product, and I'm looking at Pirates of Drinax and Deepnight Revelation.

As far as I'm concerned, I see no need to try out T5.

Pirates of Drinax is one of my favorite RPG products of all time.

Omega · August 17, 2022, 11:19:55 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on August 17, 2022, 10:05:43 PM
Mongoose Traveller has D&D style stat bonuses, D&D style initiative, and skill packages that entirely invalidate the mechanical point of random character creation and had Judge Dredd's Lawgiver doing the same damage as a Hammer's Slammers power gun.. It's dead to me. So, it's not just people who hate T4 and T5 who fan rage.

Welcome to the "Nope. Was not impressed with the Mongoose Traveller" Club.

Mishihari · August 18, 2022, 12:17:48 AM

Quote from: Aglondir on August 17, 2022, 09:41:41 PM
Quote from: Omega on August 17, 2022, 07:51:30 PM
Were there ever any Traveller novels? I thought for sure there was at least one. But searches have not turned up any.
Some Traveller-like books I enjoyed:

The Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon. Reminds me of a Traveller merchant campaign. The notable exception is the existence of ansibles (FTL comms) but it didn't make much of a difference in the first two books (all I read.)

The Honor Harrington series by David Weber is good inspiration for a Traveller naval campaign. Granted FTL travel is different.

If you're talking traveller-like novels rather than official one, then there are quite a lot. It's a great game for modelling 1960s-1970s spacefaring SF. LBB Traveller is my go-to game for settings like Poul Anderson's Poleseotechnic League or Andre Norton's Solar Queen, Zero Stone, and Moon of Three Rings books.

rhialto · August 18, 2022, 04:26:43 AM

Quote from: David Johansen on August 17, 2022, 09:34:48 PM
Quote from: rhialto on August 17, 2022, 07:06:31 PM
Quote from: David Johansen on August 17, 2022, 06:59:22 PMT4 is actually my favorite Traveller, and I was very unhappy when it was cancelled.
A version I'm not really familiar with, but the things I've heard...cheers!

An early victim of internet fan rage. But there were some spectacular failures like the first printing of First Survey and the equations in Fire, Fusion, and Steel.

I think the biggest complaints people had were the nd6 roll under task system, the entirely necessary half dice therein, the art, the errors, and perhaps, the huge expectations of promises made and broken. Even so, I really think a cleaned up 2.5 could have dealt with some of that. Personally I was just happy to have Traveller back.

Yes, that all sounds familiar: the only books I had were the core rules and Milieu 0, purchased used off ebay years ago. Gone now, as I must have skimmed them and said "nope, not for me".

rhialto · August 18, 2022, 04:32:31 AM

Quote from: David Johansen on August 17, 2022, 09:38:54 PM
Okay, so the thing about 2d6 >= 8 is that at four skills per term you get totals of 12 pretty easily. It works fine with the CT range...

Yes, it will generate characters more in line with the fictional characters from S1 and S4. Which is a different style of play, but shows how flexible CT is.

Quote from: David Johansen on August 17, 2022, 09:38:54 PMAlso, T5 has rules for Mentats and Face Dancers, which is lovely.

Now *that* is useful to know: I have my beta T5 somewhere, and will now dig it out. Thanks!

rhialto · August 18, 2022, 04:51:18 AM

Quote from: David Johansen on August 17, 2022, 10:05:43 PM
Mongoose Traveller has D&D style stat bonuses, D&D style initiative, and skill packages that entirely invalidate the mechanical point of random character creation and had Judge Dredd's Lawgiver doing the same damage as a Hammer's Slammers power gun.. It's dead to me. So, it's not just people who hate T4 and T5 who fan rage.

MgT 2e is another example of not knowing when to leave well enough alone. There might be useful bits here and there, but as an erstwhile fan of MgT 1e , 2e is an affront. Cepheus Engine and its derivatives are much more useful for fans of CT.

jeff37923 · August 18, 2022, 06:12:01 AM

Quote from: David Johansen on August 17, 2022, 10:05:43 PM
Mongoose Traveller has D&D style stat bonuses, D&D style initiative, and skill packages that entirely invalidate the mechanical point of random character creation and had Judge Dredd's Lawgiver doing the same damage as a Hammer's Slammers power gun.. It's dead to me. So, it's not just people who hate T4 and T5 who fan rage.

I think that Mongoose Traveller 1st edition is masterful - an incredible successor to Classic Traveller. I have bought extra core rulebooks and give them away to interested people - I will advocate for that version of the game.

I am embarrassed by the crippled version of the Babylon 5 game that Mongoose made for Traveller. To call the effort half-assed is to compliment it. My fan rage is there.

Want to see me get violently drunk? Ask me about everything that went wrong with the Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition playtest. I really fan rage about that. The only good thing to come out of it was Cepheus Engine.

zircher · August 18, 2022, 12:12:57 PM

Since I'm not a fan of Traveller's Imperium (or bloat), I tend to roll with Cepheus Engine for my 2d6 sci-fi gaming.

Aglondir · August 18, 2022, 02:53:28 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 18, 2022, 06:12:01 AM
I think that Mongoose Traveller 1st edition is masterful - an incredible successor to Classic Traveller. I have bought extra core rulebooks and give them away to interested people - I will advocate for that version of the game.

I am embarrassed by the crippled version of the Babylon 5 game that Mongoose made for Traveller. To call the effort half-assed is to compliment it. My fan rage is there.

My choice as well. As for B5, Traveller was the wrong game engine for that setting. I've never agreed with the claim that Traveller is a generic sci-fi game; it has baked-in assumptions that make it bad choice for a lot of settings. I took a quick look at the B5 books and quickly moved on.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 18, 2022, 06:12:01 AM
Want to see me get violently drunk? Ask me about everything that went wrong with the Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition playtest. I really fan rage about that. The only good thing to come out of it was Cepheus Engine.

I have Gareth's notes about what he would do for a 2E:

Quote from: GH• Armor values need to be better calibrated against the weapons. Low-level armor is pretty pointless; high-level armor should be better to justify its price.
• Clarify how changing specialty in a career works.
• Clarify Law Level.
• Clarify 'Weapon' and 'Armor' benefits so people aren't running around in Battle Dress with PGMPs from the start.
• Give up on the pretence that the core rulebook is going to be a generic sci-fi system - the careers and skills can easily be used in different settings, but using Traveller's spacecraft assumptions in other settings is absurd.
• Psionics are overpriced.
• Revise the skill list, culling the ones that aren't ever used.
• Space combat and turrets also need fixing because of the changes to that mechanic.
• The computer rules (especially the expert/intellect) material suffers from a lack of space.
• The current Dodging and Initiative rules are both patches over where the Timing/Effect system got ripped out.
• Vehicle damage could be done better; the interaction between spacecraft-scale action and personal scale is clunky.

For 2E, I would have been happy with 1E

+ better font/layout choices
+ better B&W line art
+ flowchart for character creation
- the awful isometric deck plans

Aglondir · August 18, 2022, 03:04:12 PM

Quote from: zircher on August 18, 2022, 12:12:57 PM
Since I'm not a fan of Traveller's Imperium (or bloat), I tend to roll with Cepheus Engine for my 2d6 sci-fi gaming.

I'm glad CE is around, but there's three reasons why I stick with MGT 1E:

Cepheus lacks the event tables. Stuff like "You are approached by a crime lord. He demands that you carry illegal items across the border. If you agree..." I love that stuff.

I can't track all the different versions. Cepheus, Cepheus Light, Cepheus Deluxe... I wish there was a one page grid so I could compare all of them.

The colors/layout for CD Kickstarter is AWFUL. Hot pink fading to orange? Is this a joke?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/482738549/cepheus-deluxe-enhanced-edition?ref=discovery&term=cepheus

jeff37923 · August 18, 2022, 07:09:31 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on August 18, 2022, 02:53:28 PM
Quote from: jeff37923 on August 18, 2022, 06:12:01 AM
I think that Mongoose Traveller 1st edition is masterful - an incredible successor to Classic Traveller. I have bought extra core rulebooks and give them away to interested people - I will advocate for that version of the game.

I am embarrassed by the crippled version of the Babylon 5 game that Mongoose made for Traveller. To call the effort half-assed is to compliment it. My fan rage is there.
My choice as well. As for B5, Traveller was the wrong game engine for that setting. I've never agreed with the claim that Traveller is a generic sci-fi game; it has baked-in assumptions that make it bad choice for a lot of settings. I took a quick look at the B5 books and quickly moved on.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 18, 2022, 06:12:01 AM
Want to see me get violently drunk? Ask me about everything that went wrong with the Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition playtest. I really fan rage about that. The only good thing to come out of it was Cepheus Engine.
I have Gareth's notes about what he would do for a 2E:

Quote from: GH• Armor values need to be better calibrated against the weapons. Low-level armor is pretty pointless; high-level armor should be better to justify its price.
• Clarify how changing specialty in a career works.
• Clarify Law Level.
• Clarify 'Weapon' and 'Armor' benefits so people aren't running around in Battle Dress with PGMPs from the start.
• Give up on the pretence that the core rulebook is going to be a generic sci-fi system - the careers and skills can easily be used in different settings, but using Traveller's spacecraft assumptions in other settings is absurd.
• Psionics are overpriced.
• Revise the skill list, culling the ones that aren't ever used.
• Space combat and turrets also need fixing because of the changes to that mechanic.
• The computer rules (especially the expert/intellect) material suffers from a lack of space.
• The current Dodging and Initiative rules are both patches over where the Timing/Effect system got ripped out.
• Vehicle damage could be done better; the interaction between spacecraft-scale action and personal scale is clunky.

For 2E, I would have been happy with 1E

+ better font/layout choices
+ better B&W line art
+ flowchart for character creation
- the awful isometric deck plans

The saddest thing is that the Mongoose Traveller Core Rules Update 2022 and the Mongoose Traveller High Guard Update 2022 are both what the 2nd edition rules would have been if Mongoose had bothered to listen to the playtesters. Nobody liked the isometric deckplans. The whole fucking game could have been better than what it was.

I gnash my teeth at that because I got the Mongoose Traveller 2e Explorer's Edition and think that it is pretty good. Overpriced as a physical book, but pretty good.

King Tyranno · August 19, 2022, 12:11:25 PM

I like Traveller quite a bit but frankly Traveller 5 is a mess of clunky autism loosely packed into a book format. I use Cepheus or MGT2E because they're clean and easy to understand for both players and GMs.

I just feel like this book is a bunch of ideas without playtesting a physical book where you then find out when you need to find a specific rule you're going through multiple hundreds of pages to find it. Even with an index that'll slow down a game.

jeff37923 · August 19, 2022, 12:23:37 PM

Quote from: King Tyranno on August 19, 2022, 12:11:25 PM
I like Traveller quite a bit but frankly Traveller 5 is a mess of clunky autism loosely packed into a book format. I use Cepheus or MGT2E because they're clean and easy to understand for both players and GMs.

I just feel like this book is a bunch of ideas without playtesting a physical book where you then find out when you need to find a specific rule you're going through multiple hundreds of pages to find it. Even with an index that'll slow down a game.

Traveller 5 is the version you get when you have played every other version of Traveller for the past 40+ years and then you steal ideas from it.

King Tyranno · August 19, 2022, 12:26:50 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 19, 2022, 12:23:37 PM
Quote from: King Tyranno on August 19, 2022, 12:11:25 PM
I like Traveller quite a bit but frankly Traveller 5 is a mess of clunky autism loosely packed into a book format. I use Cepheus or MGT2E because they're clean and easy to understand for both players and GMs.

I just feel like this book is a bunch of ideas without playtesting a physical book where you then find out when you need to find a specific rule you're going through multiple hundreds of pages to find it. Even with an index that'll slow down a game.

Traveller 5 is the version you get when you have played every other version of Traveller for the past 40+ years and then you steal ideas from it.

That's a really good way of seeing it. But then why even make a book of so many pages just so others can use it as glorified errata for other games? I'm the sort of person where when I buy a rulebook I buy it with the intent to use it at some point. If I need to house rule I will but I have a limit where if I'm using loads of house rules why am I even playing this game as I clearly don't like the rules.

Shawn Driscoll · August 25, 2022, 08:17:37 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on August 15, 2022, 12:22:32 PM
Quote from: Aglondir on August 15, 2022, 12:54:47 AMthe task resolution basically works like this:

1. GM determines difficulty (1d6 = hard, 2d6 = normal, 3d6 = Hard)
2. Player rolls Xd6
3. Success if roll <= Att + Skill

Wow. That is an absolutely terrible resolution mechanic. I would have to work hard to make one that is worse.

Why is it terrible?