Traveller 5.10 - Book One, Part 1

After reading a few blogs where people go over their RPGs chapter by chapter, I decided to do the same thing. As I've not actually read the Traveller 5.10 books cover to cover, just picked and chose to read various sections. Which may be the best approach for me: I use various rule sets in those rare occasions I run a Traveller game, and there are some really nice mechanics in 5.10. And they finally figured out that the 1st chapter in an RPG book should not be dozens of pages of dice stats...

Plus, this is supposed to be a Traveller blog, though it has definitely branched out in the last 19 years I've been posting. 

Book 1 has 280 pages, a far cry from the original Book1 of, what, 60-odd pages? But as per the original Classic Traveller, Book 1 is titled Book 1: Characters and Combat.

the slip cased 5.10 version

Traveller is a role playing game

Pretty sure that should be self-evident, yet they go into a sample session after the brief concept of what an RPG is. At this point in the world of role-playing games, most of this chapter should be self-evident. But it is short at 2 pages. However, there is something that is of particular interest to Traveller players, and the primary reason it is one of my favorite RPGs. The last paragraph says:

Much (but not all) of Traveller is solitaire: the creation and description of worlds and starships and devices and objects; the definition of histories and backgrounds and cultures. For example, there is a process for designing starships; the player must decide for themselves the details of the ship appropriate for its mission. Another process describes both random and deliberate creation of planets; the referee details worlds that will be encountered. Rules cover mapping of worlds or interstellar sectors; design of weapons or communicators; wild animals or alien races.

I've played a lot more Traveller solo than in any game, playing or running it. I also noted that the PDF copy has some color illustrations that are black and white in the book. The original Kickstarter for Traveller 5 had stretch goals of color prints in the book, and the starships are all in glorious color. However, I am oddly nostalgic about a simple black and white book, with line drawings. For some reason, a line drawing allows me to apply more of my imagination to what is happening. Or it was simply my first contact with Traveller and most RPGs of the day.

color in the PDF, and black & white in the book.

A Brief History of the Universe

The next section covers the Traveller universe, in an homage to Hawkin's a Brief History of Time. Doing this I think says Hey, this is a hard science fiction setting. We use science! It covers the Traveller history from 300,000 BCE and Grandfather's Era to the Third Imperium. There is some mention of other possible civilizations as well. This is a very brief 4-page uber-summary. As such it only gives a very, very broad playground that you can use or not. One thing to note that like the original Traveller, Traveller 5.0 does not have a built-in setting. The Galaxiad gets some mention later, and there is now a supplement by Rob Eaglestone available on Drive-Thru that gives more details on that setting. As I really like the 1105 Golden Era, I have managed to not get it. Eventually I will as he does great work. But I'd prefer a POD option, so holding off to see if that will happen. 

The Foundations of the Traveller Universe

Traveller describes a vast future universe in which mankind has already reached the stars and conquered thousands of worlds, but still faces the never-ending struggle to conquer more worlds and wrest more secrets from the universe. Traveller uses a foundation of hard science, supplemented by the soft sciences to add character and flavor, and driven by characters, to explore the worlds and cultures of the future universe, all in search of  adventure. 

This 4 page chapter (I am sensing a pattern here!) covers the basic functions of the Traveller universe: jump drive, interstellar communications being limited by said jump drive, tech levels. gravity manipulation which really changes a LOT of things once you have that. There is some brief coverage of AI, artificial people, but remains a human-centric universe for game purposes. I will admit I cannot role play an entirely alien character - any motivations and things I have are almost necessarily based on stuff I've experienced or can imagine. And to be able to imagine something truly alien is really hard. 

It also mentions everything is driven by economics. However, just as the original Traveller could not foresee the advances computers went through, I think the authors are missing the concept of a post-scarcity society. Star Trek sort of has this: people are no longer bound by economic limitations and can do what they want to for the most part. And just as with a totally alien point of view, this is also really hard to figure out. But that would also put this game into an almost trans-humanist realm. To keep things grounded for those of us in the early 21st century, we are still following the "follow the money" process for gaming. 

Traveller Uses Dice

Just a lot more dice than Classic: 10 d6 should be enough for the most extreme rolls; double hasty beyond impossible. Though beyond impossible seems, well, impossible. But it is a role-playing game! The basis of various dice mechanics are covered: modifiers, target numbers, flux. There is a short discussion on mods vs DMs but honestly, you are just changing the numbers on one side or the other of the equation. And the biggest difference is that most rolls in Traveller 5 are roll under. Which makes sense when using dice pools. but it is still a mechanic I just cannot seem to reconcile with Traveller. Of course, I also miss programming in COBOL a times! 

With the change to using dice pools, we suddenly have a greatly increased granularity on percentages and chances. A 2d6 system has a pretty short bell-curve for the distribution of rolls. The dice pool system coupled with the other mechanics give us a much wider range of values and the percentage of being able to succeed or fail. But at least they moved the dice percentage tables from the 1st chapter you read to an appendix! The two pages here give you enough to understand where they plan on going later with the dice. 

End of my 1st post covering T5.10

It took longer than I would have expected to cover 19 pages - not even 10% of the 1st book of 3! But as I've only skimmed most of these massive tomes, I feel I really should give them a deeper view. There are people on COTI actually running T5 games, and my group has shown some interesting in playing another Traveller game. Especially as we've added a player I've not played with in a few years, and first met almost 40 years ago! COVID really screwed up our gaming group in many ways. But this player is an old-school Traveller player, so that may help the game out a bit. Though I put the onus on me to present a good game for the players.

I've only about 900 more pages to go. Hopefully I'll be able to cover all of Traveller 5.10 but it will take me a long, long time I fear! But I'll persevere on and we'll see how far I get!

Part 2 Part 3

Return to the dungeon under the well

Having rested a couple of days at Gudaliva's Inn and spending all their recently acquired gold to purchase an enchanted dagger and halberd, our group descends once again down the rickety ladder. Hopefully prepared for the undead they are going to see and kill before leaving our hostess. Who is getting a bit antsy as she saw a wanted poster in town that looks suspiciously like Argon. And mention of a vampire, which makes her put out garlic in her bedroom when she goes to sleep. 

They decide to go down the parallel corridor, passing the rotting remains of the basilisk they killed. Billy noticed it had been chewed on but could not tell by what. Moving on, Tecton manages to trigger another spiked pit trap while Argon leapt backwards fast enough to avoid falling into it. Again, the thick gargoyle skin protects the gargoyle and he received a mere scratch. 

Back in the room of pillars, they search and find nothing else new. The columns are sealed back up without a seam to be seen, and there are piles of splintered bones covering the floor. Checking the door for traps, they are attacked by two green slimes, who both missed. Billy swings his torch but a critical fumble and he drops the torch, and it goes out (he rolled an 18). Tecton in a few blows manages to kill the other slime with his torch while Billy backs away, and manages to retrieve his torch. A couple rounds later, both slimes are smelly charred lumps on the floor. 

All the ruckus raised another creature to attack them. Hearing a rustling, they find that they are getting attacked by a parchment golem made of books! While not looking like the origami monster from the TFT Bestiary, I did use those stats.

Knowing that the door is trapped, Thade and Argon (Tecton? the same guy playing two gargoyles make it hard for me to keep track of them) go back around a corner while Billy and Tecton toss a rock at the door, triggering the whistle and light. Being prepared this time around, no one takes any damage.

The magical specter is visible through the open door, but neither side seems to want to move. Eventually the magical creature darts out to attack Billy, and the others move in. 

No, YOU move first!

Billy cannot do much of anything against this undead mage, and tries to dodge. Unfortunately the undead grabbed Billy and he felt his shoulder grow cold at the touch, taking all of 2 points of damage (I rolled great for the attack, then snake eyes on the damage!). Thade had moved behind the undead wizard and managed a significant blow with his enchanted dagger. Did you know weapon mastery gives an extra 1d6+1 damage (maybe +2...) with an aimed blow at -4DX. And attacking from the read negates that -4. Thade is somewhat overpowered in some ways, but only carries a dagger. The undead wizard pivots to attack Thade as Billy is not a threat. Argon, armed with his halberd, does a pole weapon attack, charging the undead wizard. The next round Thade kills off the undead, and his body dissolves in a coiling black smoke, leaving just his clothes lying crumpled on the floor. They rest 15 minutes, getting the torches replaced and Billy gets one of the points of damage back as it counted as fatigue damage. 

The next room is the Princess' reading room. A nook with a fireplace and bookshelves, a couple of chairs on a fancy rug. The books appear to be mostly children's books but disturbing them brought out another parchment golem! Again, not a single paper cut as the torches did quick work and ignited the paper golem in quick order. Searching the room triggered both doors to slam shut. 

Lighting the fireplace turned out to be an error in judgement: a vapor came from the logs. Somehow Billy was the only one to not avoid breathing in the toxic fumes. The gargoyles battered down the other door, and they escaped into a room full of dresses. That turned out to be an illusion: touching them they disappear. But that also revealed two secret doors. Choosing one, the head down a corridor to fund a circular room with 8 glowing purple columns encircling a kneeling man. 

And this is where we left for the day. A few things to note: the younger player is a lot more cautious now realizing his characters could die a lot easier than the 5e game he is used to. And in reading the rules, I've found two things I've gotten wrong over the years:

• You can use weapons you don't have a skill in, but use 4 dice against your dexterity to hit. A high dexterity character can probably use about any weapon, though you do still have that 16+ automatic miss. and with 4 dice have a better chance of dropping and breaking your weapon. Which actually makes sense from a mechanical perspective.
• You can use weapons that have a higher strength than you have, but at -1 for each strength you are using. If you are a ST 12 user using a ST 15 weapon, you are at a -3 to hit. For a high DX character, you may be able to do more damage this way

Another rule I always have a hard time finding is the injury rule: 5 points or more of damage gives you a -2 on your next to hit roll. For some reason that is not in the attack and damage rules section but a few pages later. I think it should be in both places. I always seem to be flipping pages to find it.

I think they had a good time, though we've only been in 2 dungeons and not much in the way of actual role play. I figure they will finish this next session depending on how cautious they are, then we may hit the road and have more social encounters above ground. I also need to remember that they went to Edge City to find the vampire who turned Thade, so I need to drop some hints in there. Perhaps the inn keeper knows something of this, as she is keeping a lot of garlic in her bedroom!

Fantasy Trip Game Recaps - Two for One Special!

I've started another post for Edge City, more world building similar to what I've done for Windemere Crossing. And that game is on the "down-time" mode: we're always text a lot, but sometimes we do in-game things. I've been accumulating those posts and will also share those here at some point as it is part of a game recap for the part of the game that is not really played but more talked about. I also plan on letting the characters level up one more level as the time period covers most of the winter. 

Anyway - I've got two game recaps to go over here. As this weekend I ran 2 games for 2 groups. We'll start with the Saturday group. To remind you, we meet every 2 weeks but at a different house, so this Fantasy Trip game only gets run once a month. We also gained a new player who has never played the Fantasy Trip but is a veteran RPG player. 

Pretty sure I've not done the introductions yet for the characters. 

• Dauwnaromanadvoratrelunar ("Dawn") an Elf, a bard with sex appeal (which is a talent) so she gets looked at and gets a positive DM on encounters. Along with her charisma skill, she can be quite irresistible.
• Violet Applewing, farmer Halfling. Who has also been trained by the thieves' guild. Small and dangerous with a sling. I do need to make sure we can utilize her skill set more. 
• Deimos, a half Orc/hale Elf magic user. With Noodles, the "staff to snake" snake she can summon. Always covered up head to toe, his is pretty big but Orcs, especially with the half-Elf, get an even more negative reaction. He has the same bear he keeps summoning and he keeps some dried fish handy to see about making friends with the bear. I may allow that if the player adds animal friendship, or I may start reading up on familiars in TFT. 
• Hexis, the Lizardman from the islands. A formidable fighter and often hires on as a bodyguard. His lived in the city off and on for a few years and has area knowledge. 
• Akz, the Goblin rat-catcher. Our newest recruit. He mostly stands back and makes snarky comments from what I can tell. 

From the first session, the group has returned from the sewers with Keg, the enchanted beer barrel. Reunited with Joseph, and some beet in his barrel, Keg comes back to life. "Third time this week those rats have managed to drag the poor thing to the sewers!" laments Joesph as he hands the adventurers their coin for rescuing his friend and server. Dawn bends down to ask if Keg would like to do anything else in life, but the little golem is quite happy serving beer. Just not happy that these rats of unusual size keep tipping him over and taking him to the sewers. 

The guards make a bit of a stink of Hexis's smell as he did wade through the sewers. He quickly doffs his kilt and belt and dives into the river, at least getting himself clean. A coupel children point at the Lizardman, saying "look Mommy - a naked lizard!". Hexis does not worry about what warmbloods think.

Heading into town to the market to pick up some supplies and soap, Violet does not realize she is getting pickpocketed, whereas Dawn and Deimos both do. Deimos tries to grab the hand but the little girl managed to escape, though not with his change purse. Dawn looks down, and starts talking in thieves cant to the surprise of Michael, the street urchin. Streetwise skill I suppose. Though in hindsight, Violet should have had 1 less die to roll to determine if she was getting pick pocketed as she has that skill. And I'd rule she is more likely to notice when it happens. Anyway, Dawn finds that George is Micheal's boss, and Micheal promises he'll let the local thieves know not to bother the group, and he'll get Violet's change purse back to her. 

At Hexis' modest above, they eat and rest up. Early in the morning there is a knock at the door, but no one there when they open it. However, Violet's pouch is there, intact with her money. Though she does not keep the bulk of her money in such an easy to find place, so it was only a few silvers. 

Deciding to return to the sewers to see about that sword, the find young Michael who finds them an opening closer to the crypt entrance. Also, they would not have to get back through the warehouse as that was an office in the back and the owners may not want a bunch of people thinking that was simply a front door to the sewers! Back in the sewers, they see a perplexed Goblin standing in front of the illusion of the wall covering the door. Diemos ends up walking through the illusion, shattering it, and they get back to the crypt with the soldier. Reading up on the scrolls, they find that Sir Briarstake was a paladin of a former age of the city, a hero who killed the undead. Seeing the sword, Hexis gets everyone else back out of the room and carefully lifts it up. The statues turn their heads to watch him, and he asks permission to use the sword. There is a slight nod, and the rest of the group comes through and down into the dungeon they go. Had they tried to take the sword out without fulfilling the quest, the same thing would have happened as per the other group: a fight with the caryatid (from the Old School Monster book): 

A one-hex creature (three hexes for giants). It is completely made of stone, and stops 4 hits per attack. A “caryatid” is a column carved in the form of a nymph. (If a column represents a male, it is called an “atlas.”) The caryatid column described here is an enchanted guardian of finely carved stone. The only way to tell a magical caryatid column from an ordinary carved stone is Analyze Magic. An Architect would get a hint by noticing that the “column” is not actually load-bearing. Caryatid columns will activate when certain conditions are  met – most usually, when holy precincts are invaded or when some item or person is threatened.

Heading down, the 1st thing the see is a wight. Holding a bag of coins in one hand and a silver sword in the other, he is outside a stout wooden door. The sword comes in handy as they fight this undead and come to realize that only that sword is having any effect on the creature. They find a scrap of parchment on Crim's Curse when they kill it. Taking the coins, they head into the crypt of Crim, a wizard who created this crypt and cursed all his treasure so none would take it out.

Moving forward, the pass through a room with 8 corpses propped up on opposite walls. Ignoring the lootable bodies, they head deeper into the crypt. A small put trap fails to hurt anyone as they explore more of the crypt. Sadly no one ever did search for secret doors as there were actually 2 they missed. Though with the curse, in the end it really did not matter. They find two odd rooms, one with a few inches of mud due to a leak from the rivers above, and the other with half an inch of olive oil. Down a long corridor they find Crim's sarcophagus. Surprising the sleeping mummy, Hexis sees it momentarily before it disappears. He does she the scimitar weaving to him as he tries to close the door on the invisible mummy. Sadly, the mummy is stronger and the door is getting pushed open, though the mummy is no longer invisible. [Note: the adventure was written for OSE and its magic is significantly different, so I added a small powerstone but Crim did now want to expand it all, so became visible again]. Holding back the mummy, with his shield extended Hexis keeps the rest of the group safe as he can. Dawn shot it with an arrow which had no effect on the undead creature. Deimos brought Noodles out, and having occult damage she could damage the mummy. However, that bastard sword wielded by the Island Lizardman managed to kill the mummy much faster than I anticipated. So there was no running around the dungeon, trying to track it by footsteps from the mud or oil. Deimos was happy to get an 8-point powerstone. 

Getting back out, they decide to go ahead & check the body. finding some gold, Violet managed to get sprayed by some acid in one of the booby-trapped corpses. Finally, they leave the dungeon. Deimos immediately is 2" shorter. Nothing appears to happen to Violet, the other character carrying out any of the treasures. . Figuring out the curse from the parchment, they toss the treasures back into the crypt. Deimos is back to his regular height, and Violet will no longer turn into an Orc in 30 days. 

Traipsing back up, the caryatids have a faint smile on their stone lips: the undead was killed, the +2-bastard sword is theirs to keep. Sir Briarstake named the sword Scourge, and it is engraved along the blade in an old script of Oggish, a language that died out centuries ago.

And that is where the Saturday ended.

Sunday Recap

The Sunday game was a bit shorter, and having only 2 people instead of 5, a bit less cross-talk. The characters in this games are:

• Tecton, a gargoyle fighter for the most part that cannot speak Common.
• Argon, a magic wielding gargoyle who can speak Common
• Billy Bass, a roguish healer with a sword
• Thanos, the Elf-turned-Vampire. And a weapons master with the dagger (which, if you take a -4DX and hit you do an extra 1d6+2 damage!. Which he has).

At the inn outside of town, they rest up a couple of days before heading down into the dungeon. The entrance is a rickety ladder (one I made from craft sticks years ago. and finally used!). Moving through the first chamber, Billy sees basilisk tracks through the mud and debris. Behind a pile of branches, they see the creature. Who manages to freeze Tecton who failed his 4D vs INT roll. Thanos and Billy ( I think and this was only a few hours ago!) do kill the beast, which frees Tecton from his paralysis. 

I am far behind in painting!

Skeletons from the early 80s. Badly painted with enamel paint

Fight!

Heading down the corridor, Argon managed to step into a pit trap but took no damage due to his stony skin. The next room had six columns. Finding nothing other than a fancy brass door, they attempt the batter it down. Touching the door, they hear the sounds of the columns opening up: 6 guardian skeletons emerge for a fight! Billy realizes that arrows go right through skeletons with his one and only shot. The gargoyles do a fair amount of damage, but it turns out that Thanos, using weapon mastery, manages to pulverize three of the skeletons and help with the last as the gargoyles take out some as well. He had to fly to the skeleton attacking Billy. While Billy knows of Thane's condition, the gargoyles do not yet.  Noticing that the one not destroyed (8+ damage in a single strike to a skeleton destroys it no matter how many HP/STR it has left) seem to be putting themselves back together. The stony and heavy feet of gargoyles soon remedies that situation!

Taking a brief break, they then attempt to open the door again. A flash of light blinds most of the group for the next 10 minutes, and a piercing whistle deafens most of them as well. They start moving back up the crypt. Argon's acute hearing, not damaged in the whistle, hears the door creak open but no other sound. Undead magic users make no noise apparently! Sight and hearing slowly returning, they attempt to fight this thing. Alas none have enchanted weapons and all the blows do no damage. Argon starts using magic fist, but sadly rolls really low and barely hurts it. Thane is using his weapon skill to dodge (meaning the creature uses 4D against its DX to hit. It never landed a blow with all the bobbing and weaving the Elf was doing). The others escape back up the well, and due to some lucky rolls, Thanos manages to escape as well as he can fly and has 2x the MA. The gargoyles were amazed that this Elf could run so fast you can't even see his feet moving!

Locking up the well once more, they make plans with the innkeeper. Using most of their gold they are getting some enchanted weapons to try again in a couple of days. The innkeeper wants them gone soon though as there these wanted posters for the murder getting put up.

Some final thoughts

Both adventures came from Delver and mixed in with one of my location and scenes book. Both were written with OSE in mind so some liberal translation was needed. I could have given Crim an invisibility pendant or something - keeping the magic spell going was too costly for him even though I had a 8-point powerstone added to his treasures. I think I am getting the hang of running pre-written adventures, though I do spend a fair amount of time reading them and trying to translate to the Fantasy Trip. I also have a few Fantasy Trip adventures so need to re-read those to see if we can use those. I think both groups had a good time but it makes these once-a-month weekends at my house busy. 

And I need to figure out how to organize the stuff I do have so I can find it easier. Not just the books (and I need to get back to my library!) but the props and everything. Running games outside the home helps me with this as I have to get everything ready ahead of time and pack it up. Thinking I can do something like that. So far all I have are two small boxes where I keep the 2 adventure party miniatures in between games so I can at elast find them! So that is progress!

Game Aids

Normally I mostly do game aids for the games I run, but I'm playing in a Fate game (I do like the mechanics as they are pretty straightforward. I don't like character generation as it is very open-ended and mostly suggestions). 

Playing in the 1930's New York pulp vigilante world, and my character is a cross between Catwoman and Batman: a gymnast who was orphaned while competing in Berlin Olympics.

Amazing what you can with Google Draw!