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