Traveller 5.10, Book 1 Part 3

 Part 1, Part 2

Benchmarks

Understanding the unfamiliar is easier when players have standards against which it can be compared.

Makes sense - unlike most fantasy games, science fiction games can have all sorts of things that have no context unless you are playing in some IP type of 'verse  such as Firefly, Star Trek, Star Wars. This 8-page chapter has several sections. Starting with money, it has some brief ideas on wages, investments, cost of living. I had not realized until reading this that there is a wage table. Based on your skills and adjusted by a couple of trade codes (rich worlds citizens get a 25% bonus, poor a -25% adjustment. And Hellworlds you sign a 1-year contract). Which is interesting, though the Fantasy Trip also has a wage table for various jobs. This could be useful in a few ways: if you want to bribe someone you should be able to tell how much they make so that it is an appropriate bribe. Or tip for service. Or if you are down and out and take a local job waiting for something to come up. 

We also recap the starship purchasing mechanics, which have stayed the same for 40+ years. You pay your 20% down in cash, they build your ship then you get 40 years to pay it off. What is new is that the bank finally asks you for a financial plan. And we wonder why Traveller is sometimes called Accountants in Space. Hmm, and apparently the ship's steward now handles the ship's accounts. Which is also the conclusion I've come to from a few discussions over on COTI as well. And for me, smaller ships the steward is also the cargo master more often than not. 

There are some fluff paragraphs on shopkeepers, speculators and the like. No rules or mechanics, just an overview of other ways to bring in the almighty credit. We also have some guides to how the land grants work (and hey, I have some for backing T5!)  And for every terrain hex granted, another is also granted on another world in the system. The example given being a RadWorld. So that someday when technology is good enough you could do something with that. 

Then definition of cost (what it takes to make or do something), price (what it is getting sold for), and value (which is an individual assigns to it). And of course, there is a table using some benchmarks to figure pricing. 

Finally, we have size benchmarks. As previously mentioned, sizes have ranges as well. Size 1 is coin-sized, size 5 is person-sized, size 7 starship-sized and size 9 moonlet-sized. The chart matches that with the distance range, so that you know a coin at very short range (5 meters) is the same relative size as a vehicle at distant (5km). So you can say things like you see a size 5 thing on the landing pad, knowing that this is a person-sized thing. Of course, you could as easily say there is a person-sized thing there. And there is a mechanic buried in there (T5 has a LOT of mechanics buried in the text): a size-N item can generally carry and use any object smaller. A size 5 (human-sized) thing can carry a size 4 or smaller thing, such as a rifle. This can apply to vehicles and ships. Though of course ships have to have a cargo hold so not sure if it really applies across the board. But as a benchmark, it is useful.

And of course more tables to adjust the size via a flux roll. Not entirely sure how useful those would be. In a computer game version, sure, to add a bit of variety. For a pen & paper TTRPG, I don't think I can see a use. But someone obviously thought it would be useful. 

The last half of this chapter is all the tables for benchmarks: size, costs, cost of living, noble land grants, value. And values also have bands. Snack is 0, or < 1 credit. A meal is 1 or about Cr10, and ATV is value band 5 at Cr100,000. 

Characters

We finally get to how to generate a character starting on page 46. Well, almost. It covers the basics that have not changed much since the original Classic Traveller: the same 6 stats, using pseudo-hexadecimal for the UPP. It is expanded a bit to handle non-human characteristics, but still restrained to a 6-character UPP. A table has the basic characteristics checks: easy is 1D <= the stat, a regular check is 2D <= the stat, and hard is 3D against the stat. Going with the Classic standard of 8+ to succeed, there is a bit of a match as 2D against a characteristic derived from 2D is sort of similar. Sort of. We are told to check the Tasks chapter for more details. Because the traditional characteristics have been expanded to enable alien characteristics, each position is known by C<position>. For humans, C1 = strength, C2 = dexterity, and so forth. This allows us to use different characteristics based on positional notation. 

Noted are that characters have the 3 physical stats (strength, dexterity, and endurance), 2 mental (intelligence and education) and 1 social (social level). There is a comment about obscure characteristics that may appear as play progresses. 

We then have the encumbrance rules which are based on strength and the burden (which is detailed in the QREBS chapter). There is a lot of look over there for more info which is an issue for me as things get spread out. And from looking through the T5 errata notes in COTI, often the parts disagree with each other. But hey, we now know a character can transfer a Burden up to 5x his strength for C3 (aka endurance) minutes every for endurance. Again, while interesting to have this sort of mechanic in place, this the sort of thing I feel most people will just wing. But we do have mechanics if you want to run it within the actual rules. 

Each of the characteristics goes through the same sort of definitions and examples as the strength above does, This takes a couple of pages, and has several rules and mechanics buried in the text. Such as those who have instinct performing a task that requires education or training takes half the time. And those with instinct get 3 instinctual skills or talents each with a skill level equal to the C5 (aka education in humans) stat. I hope that rule is explained again later when actually generating characters!

And then we start adding the obscure characteristics: sanity and psionics are the ones given. Interesting that they include sanity (the ability to make reasonable, sound use of the mental characteristics). This gets generated at need. Sanity can be reduced due to situations and failures, and San (or CS) at 0 means you are insane. Which translates out to using a flux mod for any check using intelligence or education. It is noted that it may never come up. Though I think running the Death Station adventure could cause checks for sanity (a freezer full of bodies would cause me to have issues!). But now Traveller has some rules for handling sanity (and yes, counseling and drugs can help in the game. Though not sure I want to play a character in therapy. It hits too close to home - I play games to get away from reality!)

Next up is the personal day: how long can you be effective basically. Interestingly, your personal day is going to be 24 hours + a flux roll, so 19-29 hours. And the 1st endurance hours are optimal for you (and there are columns for the other endurance-equivalent characteristics of stamina and vigor). Personally, this works for me as I am a morning person, but I know some night owls who are optimal in the last few hours versus the first. But the table also indicates if you fall asleep when failing a sleepy check. This is a mechanic I can actually see some use for, though it really means you have to have this info on your character sheet to track your personal day and the hours for the optimal, average, tired, and sleepy phases. It is sort of like the OSE rule where you need to rest 10 minutes of every hour or you start to take a hit on reactions and attacks (and I need to look that rule up again to make sure I understand it).

Next are several pages of more charts (T5 loves its charts!). Some of the rules buried in the text are shown again in the context of the appropriate table. And we've a handy d66 table for home worlds if you want to randomly have a home world. Alongside this table is the list of trade codes (which are far more expansive than Classic Traveller) and your home world skills. 

There is a lot going on in this chapter, and other than rolling up your characteristics, we've yet to get into actual character generation. But we'll save that for the next post!