Book 1: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
QREBS
One of the more interesting things in Traveller 5.10 is QREBS. This system essentially allows us to customize things in terms of quality, reliability, ease-of-use, burden and safety. I see it is "why is that a +2 sword?" and with a mechanism behind it other than enchanted. Some games systems have a bit of this: fine weapons in The Fantasy Trip I think either do more damage or give an edge in your to hit roll as they are balanced so well. Traveller takes that and expands on it in a mechanism that can be used in any game system I think. What's more, it extends even further to give some rules on the working age, chances of breaking down, and so forth.
Of course we are full of tables:
- the explanations of the QREBS terms and a bit of how to use them
- true age gives the age of an item, with current, antique, artifact, surplus and experimental columns. Roll flux to determine how old something is based on what it is. For instance. I go to a pawn shop looking for a communicator, and rolling flux of 3, it is only 6 months old.
- location damaged based on what it is, so sub-tables for things, vehicles and equipment, character
- damage severity to get the difficulty roll - how many dice will we need to roll?
- diagnosis severity to get how hard it is to actually diagnose the issue, as above it gives us the target dice needed to roll.
Let's continue with our 6-month-old communicator. Rolling for QREBS we have (and table definitions are in italics):
- Quality = 7 (2D-2) which is pretty good, as a new one starts at 5 on average. We have found a premium Naasirka communicator in the used market! 7 = better than many
- Reliability = 0 (flux roll). Right on average quality. Neutral reliability
- Ease of Use = 4 (flux) meaning this is very ergonomical and has a great user interface making this easier to use. Easier to Use
- Burden = 0 (flux) so not any better than any other communicator to carry about. Burden neutral.
- Safety = 3 (flux) so a pretty safe communicator - not likely to have the power supply explode suddenly due to bad wiring. Safe to use
- Working Age: a good flux roll of 0 means it was never used as even though it is 6 months old, it was a return and the box never opened.
- Period = Quality, so 7 is 2 years, so every two years of use we reduce the reliability. Better than many
Naasirka C-65 Communicator, used QREBS: 70403.
While not for most things, and for buying something new we have a standard QREBS of 50000. Is this useful? It can be a fun set of rules. Our character bought the used (but new in box!) C-65 communicator. He first uses it, and the controls are simple and easy to use. If there was an emergency and using it became a critical issue for a task roll, I'd probably use the EOU as a modifier making the roll easier. But I would also check the reliability: make a flux roll and if reliability (0) <= a flux roll, there is an issue: the battery died or something. Our character is out in the wild with is companion, who falls down a cliff and breaks a leg. Quick, let's see if the C-65 comm device can make the call. We are still in the 1st 2 years of use, so our reliability is 0. Rolling a flux of 3, we have an issue with the communicator! But it does not happen for 1D6 uses, meaning it will work fine the next 5 times we use it. Are there any indicators it is starting to fail? Flux < Safety, 1 < 3, so we have an indicator that the (roll on the things location table) that the output (speaker and/or screen) is starting to fail. Back at the ship, it is easy to diagnose (1 on the diagnosis table), but unfortunately it will be formidable to repair (a 4D roll, based on the damage severity table). They must have soldered that screen to the power system, speaker and use special screws preventing normal toolkit tools access.
There is a rule to keep things up to date: in the case of our comm device, every 6 months we need to keep it up. This is an average task roll: 2D < Char + skill + Quality Mod + Mod. For this the characteristic is probably Int or Edu: I'd let the player pick the highest. Skill would be electronics, and there is an uncertainty if the skill < 6 of 1D. Which I must have missed in the tasks section. But apparently you need a very competent person to maintain equipment.
And if we keep the device properly stored between use have the reliability postponed. If the character only carries the device planet-side, that week in jump does not count towards the 6-month period. Working life is exactly that: while it is in use. Being stored does not count against the reliability period.
So yes, more accounting. And in most cases not really necessary, but I still think with a bit of practice this gives us some interesting rules to be used in circumstances that are dangerous and depending on that equipment. And as per the Traveller 5.10, extensive rules. Most games I'd probably just make a die roll and base issues on that. The KISS rule. It is sort of like the armor rules in TFT: you can ignore damage and just assume that you are repairing your damaged armor between battles or track the amount of damage it takes. At some point the damage destroys the armor. Or how some games (Apex for instance) just attach a use die to the item: you can keep shooting your gun, but each time roll a die, and if a 1, you switch to the next die down. For instance, a pistol may have a usage die of d8. You can keep shooting but roll that d8 each time. Roll a one, and now you are on a d6. Roll a 1, and now on a d4. Roll a 1 and you are out of ammo. Realistic? No. Easy to use? Yes. Is it worth tracking? Like all things - it depends on the group and how we want to play. Most of the players I play with do not really want to get into the gearhead and nitty gritty details of stuff like that. But they are okay with me telling them the results of those nitty gritty details, they just don't want to deal with it directly. Although I do have the Saturday group and at least two of them are keeping track of their arrows.
What is interesting is that there are rules so that the GM can have a hidden QREBS, and the players can start to discover the various factors when they actually use it.
Is QREBS something to use? I think for an occasional one-off type of item, sure. But for 99% of the time, there is far too much tracking needed to make it work.
Intuitions
We have a single page for intuitions: intuition is the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. It seems a really odd addition to Traveller: players roll, and highest to lowest gets Insight, Curiosity and Luck. The 2D rolls used are their pools for that: they roll another 2D6 to use insight, curiosity or luck, with a -1 DM per each subsequent roll. The explanation of use is, of course, a bit lacking. I feel this is sort of like Fate or Luck points used in other games and seems just sort of tossed in there. The GM decides to use it or not, and the rills are done per session. Would I use this? No, but it does allow for a bit of flexibility in handling things.
Personals
The personals are for handling NPC interactions, but going far beyond the "roll 2D6 for a reaction roll" (which I use in most of my games regardless of the rule set). Anyway, the idea behind this section is, yes, you can role-play the interactions but then it is often the personality of the GM vs the player personality. As a number of gamers (myself included) are not particular adept in social situations, this allows the character to have the interactions more so than the player.
There are details on the 4 types of personal: Carouse, Query, Persuade and Command. Using your skills, social status, and whatever else, you pick your strategy and tactics to get a target roll. I know there was a cheat sheet somewhere over on COTI explaining this a bit better.
While I think it would be clunky the first few times, it could be a useful tool for those players who would rather not have to role-play things at times in situations where they are uncomfortable. Which does seem like an odd thing to say as this is a role-playing game, but not everyone is a thespian or able to really carry the character they are playing in all game play. For instance, in the Fate game I'm playing Grey Cat, a socialite vigilante. I had lunch at a posh restaurant meeting another young lady, daughter of a person of interest. While I can do her action scenes (gymnast acrobat, a combination of Catwoman, Batman and Huntress) I am not good at the social scenes. For me, this type of formalized play would have helped and given it a bit of structure. As I really had no idea what I was looking for, but that is another issue entirely! I am not good at quick responses.
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