My Mongoose traveller game took a nasty turn a couple weeks ago as I decided to give the group a taste of space combat. We've been playing the wandering merchant type of game and they struck gold the week before after capturing a shuttle (who was pretending to be in distress and tried to pirate them when they investigated it) that was worth something like $30 million. They took that money, sold off their free trader and bankrolled a fat trader with some serious weaponry (mainly particle beams) and sensors. So I figured they were ready for some ship to ship stuff....
It turns out if you fight something in Traveller that is roughly your equal, you're fucked pretty much no matter what. If you lose, you die - everybody dies and that's what happened (it was very close though). If you win, you're probably still fucked- you might not have any fuel left, your engines might be destroyed, you might have so much radiation damage that your stats go down, and in any case- your ship will have sustained tens of millions of credits in damage. So at best, you'll go bankrupt trying to get it fixed, but more likely you'll die alone and cold in space as your ship has been disabled.
Oh, and we also learned that only the suicidal would ever fly a fighter in Traveller. They blow up at the slightest hit.
Aaah...I love Traveller space combat!
It's horribly brutal and slugfests are to be avoided whenever you can. A fat trader - even with Particle Beams - should be running and jumping if anything comes their way.
When you get into the 400 ton range with a few skilled gunners aboard, then you can play pirate against the merchantmen. And even then, you run from system defense boats which are scary.
I play CT and our house rule was that first hit on a system was disabling damage (which could be repaired) and the second hit was destruction of that system. I kept the million credit repair bills down to tens of thousands instead...except for the scary critical hits!
That sounds like space combat in any version of Traveller, all right.
To make it a bit less lethal for Mongoose Traveller, try only allowing lasers and sandcasters as weapons. Only include missiles into the mix if you allow for sandcasters to fire defensively against them. Or just allow sandcasters on civilian ships, a duel between civilian ships armed only with sandcasters might be OK.
Well, this is an old beef with space combat in almost any system. It works if you play it as a separate wargame, not so much as an RPG component.
I'd suggest that you can go two ways from here:
1) Decide space combat needs to be fixed and come up with something that, essentially, fudges things in favor of the players/nonlethality.
2) Incorporate what you've learned about space combat as part of the setting. IOW, players ought to be very circumspect about engaging in combat, or continuing a combat that's taken a bad turn, even to the point of considering surrender the best option. Of course opponents ought to view things the same way. And GMs shouldn't force combat on the players.
Option (2) does raise the question of whether you really need much detail, since combat will probably end up being a pretty small part of the game. Potentially the entire system could be ripped out in favor of just a few dimensions (speed, attack value, defense value) and some sort of intimidation chart that looks at the correlation of forces and tells you how an opponent reacts during each turn of combat.
The only way to "win" a space combat is to stack the deck in your favor.
My players in the Maggie Thatcher campaign were pretty good at that . Tho after they hired a part time crewman that was Zhodani capable of teleporting - things got pretty interesting.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Spinachcat;285778Aaah...I love Traveller space combat!
It was a lot of fun to play. Maybe it would be better to restrict space combat to a campaign set up for it. Say a Honor Harrington type naval campaign where it's ok to get your ships blown all to hell as you don't have to pay for them.
Quote from: jeff37923;285780Only include missiles into the mix if you allow for sandcasters to fire defensively against them.
They were using their lasers for point defense. They just didn't have enough. Of course, their real problem was the enemy's PA bay weapon. :)
Even so they were winning up until a hit took out their sensors. Without sensors, you're doomed. That's when we learned that every ship built for fighting should have backup sensors.
Quote from: jeff37923;285780Or just allow sandcasters on civilian ships, a duel between civilian ships armed only with sandcasters might be OK.
Nah, that's a pillow fight. ;)
Quote from: Koltar;285784The only way to "win" a space combat is to stack the deck in your favor.
My players in the Maggie Thatcher campaign were pretty good at that . Tho after they hired a part time crewman that was Zhodani capable of teleporting - things got pretty interesting.
- Ed C.
What's the Maggie Thatcher campaign?
I've never played any of the many Traveller incarnations, but what you've described about Space Combat in this thread sounds pretty damn cool! Where your players aware of how deadly space combat is?
Quote from: mhensley;285776My Mongoose traveller game took a nasty turn a couple weeks ago as I decided to give the group a taste of space combat. We've been playing the wandering merchant type of game and they struck gold the week before after capturing a shuttle (who was pretending to be in distress and tried to pirate them when they investigated it) that was worth something like $30 million. They took that money, sold off their free trader and bankrolled a fat trader with some serious weaponry (mainly particle beams) and sensors. So I figured they were ready for some ship to ship stuff....
It turns out if you fight something in Traveller that is roughly your equal, you're fucked pretty much no matter what. If you lose, you die - everybody dies and that's what happened (it was very close though). If you win, you're probably still fucked- you might not have any fuel left, your engines might be destroyed, you might have so much radiation damage that your stats go down, and in any case- your ship will have sustained tens of millions of credits in damage. So at best, you'll go bankrupt trying to get it fixed, but more likely you'll die alone and cold in space as your ship has been disabled.
Oh, and we also learned that only the suicidal would ever fly a fighter in Traveller. They blow up at the slightest hit.
Traveller: There are No Special Snowflakes in the Dead-Cold of Space.
Quote from: vomitbrown;285795What's the Maggie Thatcher campaign?
I've never played any of the many Traveller incarnations, but what you've described about Space Combat in this thread sounds pretty damn cool! Where your players aware of how deadly space combat is?
My players were the crew and co-owners of an
Empress Marava-class freighter name the
IMS Margaret Thatcher.
....if youre not familiar with
GURPS:TRAVELLER - the 'present year' of the setting is the year 5638 A.D. SO, all the political baggage that Thtcher's name might have would be gone that far in the futrure. Their history books just note that she was a Prime Minister of a country in the 20th century...and
Marava class ships are normally named after female political leaders and rulers.
The campaign went for about 4 years - til just recently. Our various work schedules changed and two of the most active players are now expecting their first child in real life. SO, definitely can't get together like we used to .
We have talked about having a concluding session or two with those characters and setting. I've been kind of in GM withdrawl since the fall because of that.
- Ed C.
Quote from: vomitbrown;285795I've never played any of the many Traveller incarnations, but what you've described about Space Combat in this thread sounds pretty damn cool! Where your players aware of how deadly space combat is?
I wasn't sure how deadly it would be and my players had no idea. My vague memories of CT ship combat was that ships were very hard to blow up (at least in the core 3 book rules).
Quote from: Koltar;285803My players were the crew and co-owners of an Empress Marava-class freighter name the IMS Margaret Thatcher
Great name for a Marava. Is the "IMS" ship prefix canon? I was just trying to figure out what a far trader prefix would be.
Quote from: Garnfellow;285841Great name for a Marava. Is the "IMS" ship prefix canon? I was just trying to figure out what a far trader prefix would be.
Officially it was suypposed to be "
Imperial
Merchant
Ship"....However a member of the former crew secretly wrote on the back of the name plaque :
INDEPENDANT Merchant Ship!! ...with the word Damnit !! scrawled in smaller handwriting.
- Ed C.
So you don't know if it is canon or not, right Koltar?
Quote from: jeff37923;285844So you don't know if it is canon or not, right Koltar?
Atually it
IS - sort of.
Look on the cover of SJG's
GURPS: TRAVELLER STARPORTS.
There are starship crewmembers wearing vests that say:
I.M.V. Lucky Credit. Which I know from the artist's biography was the name of a merchant ship that was used in a Classic TRAVELLER campaign that he was in.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;285845Atually it IS - sort of.
G:T is an ATU, so the answer is "no".
Garnfellow, if you like the IMV prefix and want to use it in YTU, then just go for it whether it is canon or not.
I'd think that non-government ships would be registered in whatever way was valid on the planet that the ship was purchased on. Sort of like the many different ways that boats are registered in US states.
Quote from: mhensley;285870I'd think that non-government ships would be registered in whatever way was valid on the planet that the ship was purchased on. Sort of like the many different ways that boats are registered in US states.
A lot of commercial ships are registered or flagged out of ports that have laws and taxes that are less restrictive than the US. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience)
Quote from: jeff37923;285872A lot of commercial ships are registered or flagged out of ports that have laws and taxes that are less restrictive than the US. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience)
Yeah, that too. Most cruise liners are registered in Liberia I think.
Quote from: mhensley;285875Yeah, that too. Most cruise liners are registered in Liberia I think.
Yup. Owned by Swedish corporations with Phillipino engineering staff, a crew who are Norwegian, and waitstaff who is Canadian.
I run science fiction games quite a bit. If the game is going to include space combat, I usually give the party a ship that has a trick that will let them come out on top, like a cloaking device with missiles they can fire while invisible or boarding pods so that they can use their player character abilities up close. I've aso let the party have an obseenly fast ship so they could run blockades as a story element.
In science fiction, the hero's ship is often better, and for good reason. The Enterprize is always the newest ship, unless it is voyager, or DS9 and the Defiant is the newest. In starwars, the heroes could use their normal magical powers no one else had in space combat, or use boarding pods. In the Forever War, they started with the best ship and boarding pods, and then they ran the rest of the time.
If you put the heroes in a pos normal vessle, they will die unless thre is a trick. That is just the nature of normal science fiction.
Quote from: jeff37923;285869G:T is an ATU, so the answer is "no".
Garnfellow, if you like the IMV prefix and want to use it in YTU, then just go for it whether it is canon or not.
SJG has produced
MORE TRAVELLER material over the years than many other publishers.
(Including whats behind me in my current avatar pic) So, yes, it could be considered somewhat official.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;285905SJG has produced MORE TRAVELLER material over the years than many other publishers. (Including whats behind me in my current avatar pic)
So, yes, it could be considered somewhat official.
- Ed C.
You are full of shit, Ed.
The GURPS:Traveller line is an Alternate Traveller Universe and even says so in the Introduction by Loren Wiseman on p4 of the Core Rulebook. This is one of those things that has been brought up many times before and has always been answered that G:T is an ATU.
Quote from: jeff37923;285906You are full of shit, Ed.
I can't wait to see Ed's rebuttal.
To be fair, even though I've never played Traveller, I came to be aware because of Steve Jackson Games' version.So as retarded as it sounds, at first I thought that Traveller was a SJGs invention.
I wonder what's the guidelines for deciding what's canon and what isn't.
Just for the sake of argument: If there's more stuff written for GURPS Traveller and more people have played it, is the original stuff still considered canon?
This forum has enlightened me about Traveller (and many other old school games). I know better now, so please don't fucking flame me for not knowing everything there is to know about Traveller.
Quote from: vomitbrown;285955I wonder what's the guidelines for deciding what's canon and what isn't.
Just for the sake of argument: If there's more stuff written for GURPS Traveller and more people have played it, is the original stuff still considered canon?
Gurps Traveller exists in an alternate timeline where the imperium civil war (occurred in MegaTraveller) and Virus (AI computer virus from hell that destroys damn near everything in Traveller: The New Era) don't happen. So none of it is canon.
Arguably, particularly given the grief everyone gave the Virus idea, that makes the non-canon universe superior.
Of course, as a late comer (T:NE), I came to understand that true, canon, Traveller is 'setting free'.
Which makes all of the canon discussions moot.
Quote from: mhensley;285957Gurps Traveller exists in an alternate timeline where the imperium civil war (occurred in MegaTraveller) and Virus (AI computer virus from hell that destroys damn near everything in Traveller: The New Era) don't happen. So none of it is canon.
That doesn't really answer my question. How are the Civil War and the Virus, which happened in different versions of the game, part of the same canon then?
Some people will argue that only the stuff that's written by the creator of the property is canon, then you would have to ignore every single Batman issue that wasn't written by it's original creator. Same thing with a film series that isn't written by the same writer.
Quote from: vomitbrown;285955I can't wait to see Ed's rebuttal.
To be fair, even though I've never played Traveller, I came to be aware because of Steve Jackson Games' version.So as retarded as it sounds, at first I thought that Traveller was a SJGs invention.
I wonder what's the guidelines for deciding what's canon and what isn't.
Just for the sake of argument: If there's more stuff written for GURPS Traveller and more people have played it, is the original stuff still considered canon?
This forum has enlightened me about Traveller (and many other old school games). I know better now, so please don't fucking flame me for not knowing everything there is to know about Traveller.
I won't flame you. Koltar knows better and is just trying to be cute with his responses and obfuscating the truth so I'm giving him grief on the principle that you always give a straight answer to an honest question (which he isn't).
Canon really only matters to the people who are writing for a setting, it shouldn't matter to anyone else who is just playing in a setting - if you think that an aidea or concept would make your game more enjoyable, then grasp it and attach it to your game.
Deciding what is or isn't canon in a game is usually left up to the owner of the IP rights to the game, in the case of
Traveller that is Marc Miller. Now, canon may be fluid, so what is canon one year may be changed the next year. The ATU of G:T may become canon as time goes on, but that does not look likely at this time.
As for thinking that G:T was the original
Traveller, that isn't retarded. A game system or setting is usually considered to be the version that is currently in print.
Quote from: Spike;285974Arguably, particularly given the grief everyone gave the Virus idea, that makes the non-canon universe superior.
Of course, as a late comer (T:NE), I came to understand that true, canon, Traveller is 'setting free'.
Which makes all of the canon discussions moot.
Power comes from the mouth of a canon.
-clash
Quote from: vomitbrown;285978That doesn't really answer my question. How are the Civil War and the Virus, which happened in different versions of the game, part of the same canon then?
Some people will argue that only the stuff that's written by the creator of the property is canon, then you would have to ignore every single Batman issue that wasn't written by it's original creator. Same thing with a film series that isn't written by the same writer.
In the Traveller metaplot back in the late 80's and early 90's, the Rebellion and the Virus happened and were used as the background for official material written by GDW (the company that originally published
Traveller in three of its incarnations). Many people did not like either the Rebellion (Megatraveller) or Virus (TNE) because of what it did to the setting, but those are both considered canon because they were done by GDW. Megatraveller was actually done by Digest Group and then published through GDW (IIRC), so that comes close to your Batman comic analogy.
The adventure
Annic Nova was de-canonized for the reason that the ship's power plant broke the jump drive usage rules and would have allowed ships to travel almost indefinitely without refueling (IIRC). The adventure
Leviathan was de-canonized because of jump torpedoes (which even if they worked only half of the time, would change the nature of interstellar communications) (again IIRC).
Quote from: jeff37923;285982Canon really only matters to the people who are writing for a setting . . .
. . . and even they don't mind introducing new stuff that violates canon sometimes (
see jump torpedoes).
Quote from: jeff37923. . . it shouldn't matter to anyone else who is just playing in a setting - if you think that an aidea or concept would make your game more enjoyable, then grasp it and attach it to your game.
Absotively posilutely.
Quote from: jeff37923Deciding what is or isn't canon in a game is usually left up to the owner of the IP rights to the game, in the case of Traveller that is Marc Miller. Now, canon may be fluid, so what is canon one year may be changed the next year. The ATU of G:T may become canon as time goes on, but that does not look likely at this time.
I seem to recall hearing that Mongoose is going to introduce the Fifth Frontier War to the Marches setting down the line. I wonder it they're also going to keep to the Rebellion timeline?
Ah, Traveller flamewars...let's start talking about the viability of piracy!
To ME, Real TRAVELLER is classic TRAVELLER (up until Imperial year 1112) and the GURPS: TRAVELLER version.
The whole Assassination/Civil War/ Rebellion/Virus story was the dumbest things they ever did.
The G:T timeline is a better continuation of the original Third Imperium stuff. It also doesn't thrust a meta-story down the throats of player characters. (like the whole assassination/Rebellion crap did)
The GURPS: TRAVELLER corebook reads and feels like True TRAVELLER - the Mega-death/TNE/ Virus silliness never did.
Also the artists and artwork that SJG has used to illustrate their TRAVELLER books is some of the best stuff thats ever been done for the TRAVELLER universe.
- Ed C.
Quote from: KenHR;285987Ah, Traveller flamewars...let's start talking about the viability of piracy!
Or my favorites, Female Aslan In Comfortable Shoes and Near-C Rocks.
Quote from: Koltar;285997To ME,
- Ed C.
Thank you for finally acknowledging that.
Because, in spite of Koltar's obfuscation of the truth and tapdancing around the answer, each game of
Traveller that you play will ultimately be Your Traveller Universe to pick and choose parts as you please that will exist in it. As it should be.
(Just don't start claiming that your particular vision of
Traveller is everyone's True Vision of
Traveller.)
you you guys think Traveller 20 was a bad joke?
....back to the original topic or question.....:
Since someone asked, here is a URl link thing that leads to an after battle report:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=14392&highlight=Battle
Here are some highlights......
When last we left our Heroes...
It had been decided that 6 of their recently hired Mercenaries would be hidden inside the crates on another Empress Marava class freightere. The ship is commanded by their friend Gam...and is known as either the "Dark Princess " or sometimes called the Pope Joan. That ship left for Mewey from Inchin on 043-1118 (MAY 26, 5638 AD)
o46-1118 or May 29, 5638 A.D.
The crew of the Margaret Thatcher has dinner and meeting with the remaining mercenaries and their two New Doctors. Plans for the upcoming battle are discussed.
Angel McCoy and her husband Dliant Discuss a possible weakness of the Leviathan -class design. IF they can get the smallcraft hangar doors open...and get one really good shot off , the structure of the Marcucci may weaken enough to cause massive internal problems for their adversary .
Its decided that Dliantiepr will be back-up damage control for Kilroy Fitzpatrick , the Navigator B.J. Scott and the Mercenaries
The Mercenaries who are staying on the Maggie are:Gunny Castillo (Paladin), Sam Cade (Sam Cade), "Ed the Orbie" /Roland Hamilton (Ed the Coastie), Grace Baker, Pvt. Stefani Jensen, and Kelly Fields.
The MERCS in the Crates are: Private Blynt (Lochemet), K'haurt the Vargr (Six Gun Sam), Private Sam Budak (Sambudak), Sgt. Stonebender (Stonebender), Cpl. S.K. RAY (Sumner Kai), Sgt. Keith FALK (Draknoir2) These are the ones that hope surprise the Marcucci from within.
Ship and crew are all prepared...Cmdr.Anat Nesher wants drills and other preparations to cointinue while they are in JumpSpace.
32 hours to the Jump Point..... then 6 days in Jump space.
The I.M.S. Margaret Thatcher arrives in the Mewey/Five Sisters system on
053-1118 OR JUNE 5, 5638 A.D.
They are now in-system at least 2 days early for the chosen battle date.
The power on the Maggie goes out for 17 minutes. (they expected this - but thats another story) The Mercs are a touch startled... the crew failed to tell them this sometimes happens. Everyone had their VACC suits on - no worries.
Akiri Kazonyi The sensors officer detected 8 ships within range of communications ..when their power blinked out. After power is restored, 4 are revealed to be local Aslan system defense and patrol craft (this was expected - they are acting as "referees")
The crew and Cmdr Nesher decide to head for Mewey itself...and have Kilroy try to make contact with his Aslan friend from the earlier recon mission. As they head there the other ships can be identified. One is the Laughing Dolphin (another Marava class ) , one they think might be the "Pope Joan" another is a 400 ton Merchant ship that their friend Nigel Tsung is the commander of . (The subsidized Merchant type ship) The last one is the Marava class ship "Crystal Doll" commanded by their new aquaintance and friend Capt. Kerry Swatson .
They spend 3 hours in orbit of Mewey, the Aslan tell them that a ship called the Dark Princess was attacked, and there were no survivors. Three dead bodies were found onboard ... and an empty cargo hold. This happened barely two days ago. The other ship was painted almost the same as the Maggie .
The Aslan inform that they will monitor the battle - and if either side uses a dishonorable tactic - they will step in and stop both ships. (the Margaret Thatcher crew agree to this - but not sure what the Aslan consider dishonorable)
While in orbit of Mewey ...Akiri gets a private communication intended only for them There is some kind of Nuclear Device planted underneath Mewey Downport and the main city near the Starport. The message was sent by their Imperial Marine friend Ferguson. There is suspicion that the Marcucci crew and allies may have planted the device and devices.
The crew informs the Aslan authorities .They are of course quyite disturbed by this news ...the search is intensified to find and disable the devices.
Commander Nesher then decides after consulting with Kilroy Fitzpatrick to head for the system's Gas Giant - as that was the Marcucci's favorite place in the past to lay in wait and attack ships.
Its a 20 hour trip from Mewey.
They get within range of the Gas Giant...minutes away.
Kilroy requests range estimates from BJ Scott (The Navigator)..within 15 minutes of the gravity well of the Gas Giant ..they release the Weapons Platforms from their Cargo hold ...they drift /float out , then maneuver into positions.
A Vessel that may be their adversary is detected in the upper clouds of the Gas giant.
Kilroy Suggests Anat start taunting the Marcucci over the radio.
Weapons platfoirms are 1 minute from being within range of the Marcucci
ANAT: "Hey You in the Big Boat there ..you need any help ..you look like you're limping"
The pirate ship fires the first missiles ..the Marcucci is engaged in combat at 0800 hours on :
055-1118 or JUNE 7th, 5638 A.D.
The taunting continues... Anat says her little nephew can shoot a bow and arrow better than they can shoot missiles.
The Pirate ship is not firing within her effective range....
BJ, Maggie and Cassie wonder at once "Should we get closer??"
Cmdr. Nesher orders the Maggie's Pilot to "drift" them closer to the Marcucci...So far the Pirates appear not to have detected the small weapons platforms...
Nesher wants to really tick them off ...and to taunt them so far ... and let them get closer to their weapons....
Gunny Castillo is in charge of firing the remote Missile platforms.
Jason "Kilroy" Fitzpatrick orders that the ship be de-pressurized and everyone to finish donning their VACC suits - if they haven't already.
__ __ __ __
Angel McCoy and Akiri Kazonyi are in the turrets,..they fire! (yay!!) Akiri hits the smallcraft with laser beams from her turret - its a massive hit.
Angel's shot hits as well and singed boidies floating out of the other ship can be seen.
The small craft targets the Margaret Thatcher and blows a hole in the Thatcher's Starboard turret . Akiri is now floating and drifting out into space.
Dliantiepr and two of the Mercenaries pull Akiri back inside the ship and rush her to the sickbay.
Akiri patches the hole in her VACC suit.
Kilroy tells the Gunny to fire 2 of the weapons platforms at the Marcucci ....and then fire off 5 MORE. (Paladin - is having FUN)
The Marcucci is off guard.
"Am I 6!!" Akiri yells this..."MaggieCode" is initiated.
- starts scanning the Marcucci for life forms. FULL-WALL tactical maps in many colors show up all around the interior of the Margaret Thatcher . Every two meters a perfect as you might wish cutaway diagram of the Leviathan -class vessel is displayed..where the crew is and where they are moving around...what weapons are going "hot" and which ones are offline. It also shows that the Smallcraft hangars of the Marcucci are empty ..at the moment.
Gunny Castillo has had a good clear signal with his group of warriors from inside for some time now - at least more than 5 minutes, Private Blynt, the Vargr, and Sgt. Keith FALK were the first 3 out of those crates. Gunny orders them to get control of the deck they are on, take over Engineering - and get those damn Doors open!! (and get them before they GET you. )
The Marcucci crew transmits an image of Doctor MazhurQa as a hostage with a gun pointed at his Virushi head. He appears to be drugged and a few scars are visible on his neck and head. (yep its the original Doctor of our heroes...)
Dliantiepr looks at a tactical map of the Pirate vessel - then he just POPPED OUT!! (imagine a blink he's there ..then he isn't..BAMF!!)
The Hangar Doors of the Marcucci start to open...are now all the way open.... the Chief Engineer of the Margaret Thatcher then orders ...
The cockpit crew of Cassie and B.J. Scott are ordered to RAM the Marcucci ..as soon as the doors open up...
The Margaret Thatcher is now going almost full throttle into the starboard Hangar area of Deck G.
All remaining crew and Mercenaries and Crew are suited up and with their weapons running off the forward cargo ramp of the Marava class freighter.
Angel hears that her husband Dliant is missing ..and she sort of goes into a BERSEK mode while running around the Marcucci . She is armed ...with a PGMP. (!!) Anat Nesher has also boarded the Pirate ship with 3 mercenaries backing her up. One of them is the Gunny.
Okay MUCH beams fire, gun fire and yelling and screaming going on onboard the Marcucci ....meanwhile back on the Thatcher.....
Young Dliant pops back into existence with his arms and one leg wrapped around Dr. MazhurQa. Dliant is NOT Breathing !!Doctor "Sandy" and the Bwap doctor do their best to revive them. (remember ship de-pressurized ..hurry up breathing devices and pulling them inside the sickbay airlock quickly happened here. )
Dliant 'ported back with ...
Quote from: vomitbrown;286007you you guys think Traveller 20 was a bad joke?
I liked it a lot. I was considering giving up on gaming, but that game rekindled my interest and brought me back in to the hobby. I think it is one of the best d20 incarnations out there.
How the company that published it handled things, was pretty bad for a whole host of reasons (only a few of which relate back to the owner).
Quote from: KenHR;285987Ah, Traveller flamewars...let's start talking about the viability of piracy!
Oh, let's not.
I wasn't trying to arouse controversy, only to show that stuff published for
any roleplaying game may have internal inconsistencies.
And nothing should ever detract from what you and the players in your group find fun around the table.
Just playin', Shaman.
IMO, canon schmanon...I honestly dislike the 3I setting and use the world creation systems to generate my own settings.
Speaking of which, I finally finished my subsector generation spreadsheet. Maps, encounter tables, cargo and passenger calcs, and star system generation in one crappily-programmed Excel file! Still working out a few bugs and mis-directed references, but the important stuff works just fine. If anyone wants to take a look, I have posted it here (http://www.youshare.com/KenHR/a28434/DisplayAdvanced).
For those of you interested ...
This is what it looks like on deckplans when a Marava-class trader rams into a Leviathan-classc Merchant Cruiser:
http://www.caddocourt.com/traveller/Marcucci.gif
- Ed C.
...continuing.....
Dliant teleported back with both his arms and one leg wrapped around the Virushi Doctor MazhurQa. Also half a human that was trying to strangle MazhurQa with barbed wire. Dliant is not breathing ..they are rushed into the Sickbay ...airlock quickly opened and closed behind them. Doctor "Sandy" and the Bwap do their best to revive them.
..back onboard the Marcucci ...:
Sgt. Keith FALK runs into Angel McCoy while she is still in full rampage mode with her PGMP...firing away.
He tries to calm her down..and has to duck and grab her...
FALK : "Angel , Calm the HeQ down I've had dinner with you and your crew for Frak's sake!! "
Falk : "Nesher needs that weapon of yours outside of their bridge NOW ...they can't get in. " (the Ship is mostly now controlled by the mercenaries and the Maggie Thatcher crew. )
Angel and Sgt Falk get to the common area just outside the Marcucci Bridge ... Angel blows a hole in the door... They see the Pirate ship cammand crew. Turns out the Marcucci commander is an odd looking blonde haired woman...they both fire weapons..... EXPLOSIONS....
BIG gaping Hole through the front wall of the Marcucci Bridge deck.... and the Pirate commander is now missing HALF of her body. Two of the other Pirate Crewmembers on the Bridge are also killed.
Angel?? she just lost her left leg from just above the knee, and Anat Nesher is now missing her right foot.
Angel & Anat pass out. The nearby Mercenaries jump out through the hole in the Marcucci holding the vacc-suited bodies of McCoy and Nesher. Maneuver their way through the vacuum of Space in their Battlesuits...in through the starboard side cargo hold door of the Margaret Thatcher and quickly into the Maggie's Med Bay.
A THIRD of the Marcucci's 53 crewmembers are left alive or survive after the battle. Half of the Pirate Ship's crew was Vargr.
A captured Piate crewman named Magnus Roricksen Thornum (or "Mags") is babbling to the Mercenaries. The Woman killed on the bridge of the Marcucci was named Camereon ...many of the crew were terrified of her. She used her second in command as a front or "Male voice" for the shoip when it needed one. She had been the REAL power for the past 2 years on the Marcucci
Kilroy asks Akiri to send out a message to the remaning small attack crafts out there. They are to come in and surrender and they won't be killed.... "We have many more missles"
The small craft come in after the Maggie Thatcher attacking...
Aslan ships start approaching.
The smallcraft attack ships are destroyed , but they get one shot off and add another hole into the Maggie . She now has a gaping hole between the Starboard side airlock and the cabin right behind the cockpit. Several chairs abd other items go floating off into space from the ship's primary dining area.
The prisoner "Mags" is placed in a stateroom under guard. Becase he is giving information freely its decided to give him decent meals and a good bed....the other prisoners will be a different story....
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
So - yeah that was the battle I referred to earlier in this thread.
-Ed C.
Quote from: KenHR;286043Just playin', Shaman.
IMO, canon schmanon...I honestly dislike the 3I setting and use the world creation systems to generate my own settings.
I can't say that I dislike it, but I've grown out if it.
I usually just create my own stuff now and use that. I still buy modules to mine for material and ideas, though.
Quote from: KenHR;286043Speaking of which, I finally finished my subsector generation spreadsheet. Maps, encounter tables, cargo and passenger calcs, and star system generation in one crappily-programmed Excel file! Still working out a few bugs and mis-directed references, but the important stuff works just fine. If anyone wants to take a look, I have posted it here (http://www.youshare.com/KenHR/a28434/DisplayAdvanced).
Thank you!
Much more useful than oversized images posted to a thread.
Not a problem! My plan is to complete all of these half-finished (or just plain ugly because I'm the only one using them) Excel generators I've been building over the past couple of years...it's slowly happening.
If you do get to take the subsector sheet for a spin, let me know of any issues that aren't documented on the first tab. Once I straighten all of that out, I'm going to get rid of a lot of the repetitive formulae and make them VBasic subroutines, which I think will make the file smaller and calculate a little more efficiently than it does now.
No problem, as has been shown with the Random City Generator, I can break anything. :D
Did the re-send work on the City program, btw?
The re-send was fine. It is just that if there is a way for me to break some piece of software, I find it.
My old Master Chief used to tell me that I was the only engineer who could fuck things up so badly they worked right. :D
Quote from: KenHR;286043Just playin', Shaman.
:thumbup:
Quote from: KenHRIMO, canon schmanon...I honestly dislike the 3I setting . . .
I really like the 3I setting, but I use the de-canonized Judges Guild Gateway Quadrant version of it, so I guess that could be interpreted in a number of ways.
Quote from: KenHR. . . and use the world creation systems to generate my own settings.
And I like the fact that the Gateway is located next to Fornast Sector (a referee's preserve) and other sectors that've never been detailed beyond star positions, 'cause world creation is one of the things about
Traveller the rocks the absolute hardest.
Quote from: KenHRSpeaking of which, I finally finished my subsector generation spreadsheet. Maps, encounter tables, cargo and passenger calcs, and star system generation in one crappily-programmed Excel file! Still working out a few bugs and mis-directed references, but the important stuff works just fine. If anyone wants to take a look, I have posted it here (http://www.youshare.com/KenHR/a28434/DisplayAdvanced).
Thanks for sharing! My folder of
Traveller resources is about to get larger.
(Wow, Koltar's image even mucked up the "Reply to Topic" page! I have to scroll to read the preview.)
Quote from: The Shaman;286109(Wow, Koltar's image even mucked up the "Reply to Topic" page! I have to scroll to read the preview.)
I know. I guess Koltar just got a little bitter about a thread not catering to him that involved Traveller and decided to let us know who was boss hog.
Spaceship-building and spaceship-combat were two areas of Traveller that never interested me in the least.
RPGPundit
Quote from: vomitbrown;286007you you guys think Traveller 20 was a bad joke?
I have to side with "kinda." I played in a fairly long d20 Traveller campaign, and though we had fun, it was a very weak d20 adaptation especially in terms of the combat rules. We had to houserule a bunch to make things usable. If you don't already know d20, it could verge on unusable - they really make a mess of natural weapons, flat-footedness, and all that stuff that people usually just cut and paste over from the SRD. They didn't, and so it was a bit of a challenge (especially because there were some core things they deliberately changes, like armor and DEX instead of STR for melee attack bonuses) to figure out things tactically. Healing rules, etc. were also quite weak.
And also, it was my first experience in the Traveller universe, and T20 is really really bad for that. If you already know the terminology and tech and how things work, it's OK. But if you don't know anything about the milieu, or what battledress or a grav belt are, this book is not going to help you. Firstly, it has zero setting information, you have to get that somewhere else. (QLI eventually came out with a setting book, but not till years after T20 came out and we were playing it). It has almost zero art/illustrations or even infographics. How to handle equipment between all the different TLs is also very confusing; there's no "that's better or smaller or whatnot at higher TLs" kind of thing so you tend to end up lugging 1980s style walkie talkies and binoculars around.
In the end, T20 had a lot of clever bits I wanted to steal for other SF games, like the prior history system, the world design system, and the design sequences, but as a game unto itself you need a) prior Traveller experience and b) prior d20 experience to make it viable.
D20 Traveller was absolutely excellent for hard SF. Still probably the best "Hard SF" D20 game around. The main book had practically no setting info, and that's good, frankly. The old original Traveller books had no setting info either, the idea was mostly to make your own. It was only in the supplements that an "official" setting was designed and now people seem to think you can't play Traveller if it isn't in the Imperium. Which sucks (edit: its not the imperium that sucks, but that idea that you can only play Traveller there).
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;286431The main book had practically no setting info, and that's good, frankly. The old original Traveller books had no setting info either, the idea was mostly to make your own. It was only in the supplements that an "official" setting was designed and now people seem to think you can't play Traveller if it isn't in the Imperium. Which sucks (edit: its not the imperium that sucks, but that idea that you can only play Traveller there).
RPGPundit
This is something that I hope changes with
Mongoose Traveller. I'd like to see people create their own settings for
Traveller since it is now OGL and have as many settings done with the same variety and creativity that graced D&D 3.x over the last decade or so.
Yes! Imagine a wealth of possible settings, not bound by the conventions of the Imperium!
RPGPundit
This is linked from Freelance Traveller.
A Tribute to the Burgess Shale Period of Traveller
by Ken Pick (http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/othroads/burgess.html)
Quote from: Burgess ShaleKnow, O Travellers, that in the early days of GDW, before the rise of the Third Imperium, there was an age undreamed of, where unknown races and empires and federations strode among the stars, their ships sparkling through Jumpspace between worlds lost to our ken. Once there were many species of Traveller -- other worlds, other races, other galaxies, other times, other roads taken -- only to be eclipsed forever by the Imperium. From many Travellers to one, and when that One shattered and fell, so fell Traveller...
The Burgess Shale Effect
Do you remember when CT
Was only Books 1, 2, and 3
And a homespun setting that you wrote?
-- Doug & Kirsten Berry, "The Traveller Saga" (filk)
The Burgess Shale is a geologic formation in the Canadian Rockies, incredibly rich in fossils from Earth's early Cambrian period -- the earliest known (except possibly for the Edicara) muticellular life on Earth. Over 90% of these fossils are unclassifiable except as "Problematica" (unclassifiable weird ones), matching no known phylum.
Note: A Phylum (plural Phyla) is the next-to-largest step in the Linnaean System of biological classification. For example; all fish, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals -- anything with a spinal cord/backbone -- group into a single phylum: Vertebrates.
Apparently, when multicellular life first appeared (possibly spurred on by the DNA-shuffling effects of sexual reproduction), it exploded into a myriad of "experimental" forms (preserved in the Burgess Shale), followed later by an apparent mass extinction. Only the handful of phyla that survived that extinction left descendants; all life on Earth belongs to one of those remaining phyla -- maybe 10-20% of the phyla that lived at the period of the Burgess Shale.
The same phenomenon happened in FRP gaming. Early Traveller (as was typical in FRP games of the day) was a set of basic character rules, small starships, and basic worldbuilding, without any "official" background. As in D&D of the time, the game master had to make up his universe from scratch, filling in the holes and errata in the original ruleset. (Especially since except for the starships and gravs, early Traveller technology was pretty much contemporary; any "really futuristic" stuff had to be homebrewed.) In those days before the official GDW "Third Imperium" universe, each gamemaster built his Traveller universe differently, leading to a variety of star-spanning civilizations and high-tech that has not been seen since.
Just like the Problematica of the Burgess Shale.
...and that's what it's all about, folks.
Quote from: RPGPundit;286552Yes! Imagine a wealth of possible settings, not bound by the conventions of the Imperium!
RPGPundit
Well, here's the problem. T20 didn't have any setting at all, for quite a while. I don't mind the "traveller as a generic ruleset" approach, though ideally you would at least publish a setting guide to the Imperium (or something else, though why you'd call it Traveller in that case is a bit strange).
But T20 wasn't worth it as a generic ruleset; it was d20, already a generic ruleset, with stuff tacked on.
I feel like T20, and as much as I've read so far of Mongoose Traveller, to be trying to be "generic" to the point where if you do want to play Imperium you have to "be a grognard" and already have all that stuff/an encyclopedic knowledge of the Imperium from some older version. And that's bad, lazy design.
Now, as for as Mongoose goes I haven't read The Spinward Marches yet, maybe it's the sourcebook with enough information to actually play in the Imperium. But none of the others have. There's a lot of "generic sci-fi RPGs" out there already, and one of the things that Traveller has going for it is the rich Imperium setting.
Quote from: mxyzplk;286854There's a lot of "generic sci-fi RPGs" out there already, and one of the things that Traveller has going for it is the rich Imperium setting.
I'm a big fan of the "Golden Age" Third Imperium, before the Rebellion and Virus nonsense.
Some gamers insist that it's boring or restrictive, but I find it's overflowing with opportunities for adventure.
Quote from: The Shaman;286868I'm a big fan of the "Golden Age" Third Imperium, before the Rebellion and Virus nonsense.
Some gamers insist that it's boring or restrictive, but I find it's overflowing with opportunities for adventure.
And
THATS why I prefer
GURPS: TRAVELLER. It continues that "Golden Age" as you refer to it. No damn Rebellion, no damn virus crap.
If there is going to be a 'rebellion' in a
TRAVELLER campoaign or in my campaign - then its because the players decided to start it ,
NOT because its part of some meta-story the game company started and then foisted off on people.
- Ed C.