Character Challenge 2023: 11/31 Traveller ex-student

One of the minis from the Zombicide:Invaders expansion packs was a kid I used for the Shadowrun game. He was a drone pilot, which was fun, but the latest edition of those rules is not a particularly well-edited game. And it is hard to play virtual combat and hacking and real stuff. It was also the only mini I painted in that set (so far) and we've yet to use this set. In fact, I've only managed to play this game maybe 4 times. 

For a Traveller game, probably a scientist of sorts would probably work for this mini. First, though, let's see what sort of rolls we get. 953C58. And yes - that 12/C was an actual roll for intelligence, so science it is. However - it is a kid or young adult, and his education is lacking. Thinking one of the pre-career educational rounds and have him just graduating, before actually hitting a career. Could be a contact or NPC the players will meet for information or research. Not all NPCs need to be grizzled ex-Marines. Interestingly, the T5 have what I think are the most detailed college rules. Most of the other versions tend to be fairly simple with varying degrees of increasing education. While T5's mechanics on skills is fairly different than Classic, Mongoose or Cepheus, we can always adjust the skills as necessary depending on the game getting played.

With his EDU 5, university is out but college is an option. Also, with that INT 12, it is pretty much automatic for him to pass each year. Unless he fails getting in to begin with!

Cain Chevok applies to the College of Madrico, a little-known college on his home planet that has an astounding VR department. He actually did not get in: this is a roll-under EDU and an 11 is not less than 5! Applying for a waiver, which uses his SOC 8, I do roll a 4 so get admitted. Year 1 he passes (with the waiver it is possible to not pass if I roll a 12 now - the waiver to get in acts as a negative DM). Rolling a 3 he easily passes, and declares Electronics as his major, gaining Electronics-1. Year 2, a natural success with a 5, gaining Electronic-2 and picking a minor in Programming (which is new in T5 - the old computer skill encompassed both operation and programming, T5 breaks them out. It is a much crunchier system). Year 3, and he actually rolls a 12! Needing a waiver, he fails that as well, and is forced out of college in his 3rd year!

Not what I was expecting or hoping, but our 20-year-old could be a low-level hacker now, making his own equipment and programming it. Or he simply played too many VR games and flunked out despite his high intelligence! Or dropped out to start a huge tech company to become the next Bill Gates or Mark Zukerberg. 

Cain Chevok, ex-student

953C58 age 20

Electronics-2, Programming-1

A college drop-out, Cain is working on creating his own tech company based on his unique version of a holographic VR system.  A tall, gangly man with an early receding hairline, Cain is generally clumsy both in his physical presence as well as socially. While smart, he also harbors a deep resentment to the "system" feeling it betrayed him.

Often found in game cafes, he is also working on a new version of a holographic VR helmet. This allows him to control drones or remote vehicles as if he were driving them directly, if they are configured for autopilot and have various dash cams. 

in the game cafe, wearing his prototype VR helmet

Day 1: Classic Traveller Scientist

Day 2: OSE Gnome Illusionist

Day 3: Mongoose 2e Navy Commander

Day 4: The Fantasy Trip Spy

Day 5: Aslan Outcast

Day 6: Traveller Army Commando

Day 7: OSE 4th Level Cleric

Day 8: Mongoose Traveller Journalist

Day 9: Delve Goblin

Day 10: Space Gits Military Intelligence

And I've been remiss and not linking to the Tardis Captain who started this whole thing!

Of Spaceships and Volume

As I back every one of Ryan Wolf's Kickstarters (I did not do the first, but his second, was the Grendel, which is really the classic Beowulf. And so started one of my few auto-backs! And I did go back & get the 1st one as well I believe) I have quite the stash of starship posters, PDFs and minis. For the longest time I was guessing at the tonnage based on squares. Never a good thing, and it turns out I was usually way off. 

As he supplies the standard tonnage, it is actually a pretty simple calculation to go from his displacement to Traveller displacement tonnage.

First, 1 ton is 100 cubic feet. This is 2.831685 cubic meters, and when dividing by 13.5, gives you .2098 Traveller tons per 1 "standard" ton. So simply multiply his tonnage by .2098 and you get Traveller displacement.

dTons = 0.2098 x tonnage

So looking back at the Cygnus from a few games back, I have to adjust everything as the tonnage went from 1000 tons to 1800 tons. That affects the base cost as well as the monthly costs. I'm going to see if I can still manage to get through Classic High Guard (though it does not have an 1800 ton ship, 2000 is what I'll work the components on), Mongoose 2e High Guard (which I bought and briefly read over but have never deigned a ship with) , Cepheus and T5 which will require quite a bit of page flipping. Though there is this T5 ship builder spreadsheet over on COTI if I can figure that out. Though I really prefer going through the actual printed books.

And the general information based on all versions is this is a TL 13 Lab Ship with jump 3 and maneuver 3 and 8 weeks worth of power plant fuel. With fuel scoops and a fuel purifier this ship can last months without having to be at a port to purchase fuel. At that point, each version has its own layer of things, from various armors to specifically having med and science labs. The hull is probably a close structure which is partially streamlined. 

And after walking through the Mongoose version. I think I'll do the Cepheus and T5 in their own post as well. Cepheus I think is more LBB 2 style, but could be wrong. And I am not entirely sure I have those rules: I did a bunch of PDFs in a bundle and I know the core rules are there as I've used them to play with character generation, but do not recall if ship building rules are part of that.

Classic High Guard

Probably not perfect but good enough for gaming. Minor updates to the tonnage for fuel and all that. The classic High Guard does not really give a lot of options for things like labs and medical bays, but it was for running ship battles more than role playing. I just like making custom ships!

This graphic was done, by the way, via Google Draw. A few tables getting formatted just so. Tried to recreate one of the many classic ship forms. If anyone asks, I could make a blank drawing that I could share so you could fill in the blanks yourself. That was one thing Classic really had going for it: lots of forms. While not for everyone, I really like them and use them often as handouts and chrome while playing. Old school paper!

T5

Using the T5 spreadsheet these are the initial results. What is missing is the armor info which I added in the 2nd paragraph coming from the spreadsheet.
Using a 1800 Dton streamlined hull, it has a J Drive N2, a M Drive C9, and a P Plant N2 giving performance of jump-3 and 3 g acceleration. There is fuel tankage of 583.2 Dton, enough for 8 weeks and 1 jump-3.
Controls consists of eleven control consoles, nine operating consoles, and a m/3 computer with Ergonomics 2.
There are seven sensors: a communicator, a commplus, two EMSs, a scope, a neutrino sensor, and a grav sensor.
Crew accomodations consists of 4 staterooms with a Comfort of 4 and two crew barracks.
There is a carried craft: a Shuttle in a hangar.
Cargo capacity is 722 Dton. The ship requires a crew of 14: a pilot, an astrogator, an engineer, a maintenance, five specialists, and a flight crew. The ship costs MCr 446.65.

Using a charged frame, we have an armor value of 52. Coated with reflec we have 1300 vs Heat/Beam. The outer armor is an anti-radiation layer (AV 26, 260 vs bast, 260 vs H/B, 1300 vs Rad, 0 vs EMP) and we have another anti-EMP layer of armor (AV 26, 260 vs Blast, 260 vs H/B, 0 vs rad and 130 vs EMP). This ship is designed to get up close to potentially hazardous areas. 

Now I may go back through this by the book just to see just how complicated the T5 rules are. There were several discussions as I recall over on COTI (my main source of Traveller outside of the few blogs I do read). T5 uses fill-forms to help. And I want to say there is an iOS ship builder out there. I'll devote another post to the book, step by step, creation of the Cygnus class lab ship.

Mongoose 2e

Having yet another spreadsheet, we get something as below. This spreadsheet does not generate a nice blurb. And I think I broke it, so a quick walkthrough of the 2nd edition High Guard Book.

First, the hull. A close structure hull displacing 1800 tons gives us +10% hull points and a -10% cost. So Cr50K/ton = MCr90 but with our 10% discount, MCr81. Armor is always good as this ship will be exploring strange new worlds. Using the standard Crystaliron armor available at TL 10 it requires 1.25% of our ship or 13.6 tons and costs MCr4.05/armor point. Lets put 2 armor points on there for 27.2 tons and MCr8.1 added to our costs. There are some additional hull options available. The emissions absorption Grid sort of sucks in electronic emissions, and stacks with stealth (and we won't get into the whole giant heat source is sort of hard to hide in space discussion). While not directly something a lab ship needs and interesting, I think we'll pass on that. Heat shielding, on the other hand, would allow us to get the ship closer to stars and other hot phenomena. It also helps us crash land safer if our grav drives go out. Cost is 0.1MCr per ship so MCr180 to add our heat shield. Same for radiation shielding. At MCr.25/ton this is MCr450. This is pretty expensive! The remaining options, stealth, improved stealth and reflect do not seem to apply to our ship mission.

Next, our drives. We want Man3 which will take 3% of our hull or 54dTons and cost MCr104. Our Jump 3 drive takes 7.5% of our ship or 135dTons and costs us MCr202.5. Using a TL12 fusion power plant we will need to have at least the following power points:

• basic ship functioning 20% of tonnage: 360
• maneuver drive is 10%: 180
• jump is 10%: 180

As it is unlikely we'll be using the jump and maneuver drives, that gives us a minimum of 540 energy points. At TL12 we get 15 points per ton, so a 36 ton power plant would cover that. As I want extra for the various sensors and bays (and not sure if they technically take energy points) I'll just round to 40dTons for the power plant at a cost of MCr40. 

The drives of course need fuel. Manuever drive fuel is part of the power plant fuel, so nothing there. Jump is still the classic 10% per jump, so 30% is needed. Power plants need 10% per size for 4 weeks, and as I want 8 weeks that would be 4 tons for 4 weeks and 8 for 8 weeks for a total of 548dTons for fuel. 

Our bridge based on its size requires 40dTons at a cost of MCr20. 

We need a computer for all this, and being a lab ship, it probably has more that are specific to the labs. But our central computer is a TL 13 Computer/25 at a cost of MCr10. It takes no direct tonnage. There are options for a hardened core or one that specializes in jump to coordinate fleet jumps. Neither is required for our lab ship. 

Sensors are next on the list, and this is where our shopping trip may get even more expensive! We'll go whole hog and get the Advanced. Though this is a TL 15 sensor suite, the original story behind the ship is that it is a Navy/Scout joint operation and the Navy runs at TL15 as much as possible. It also requires 6 energy points, which as I bumped up means we can run the full suite while maneuvering about and still have the full ship functions. MCr5.3 and includes densomiter, jammers, Lidar, NAS (Neural Activity Sensors - I've got Grand Census and the portable version is described in there) and radar.

No weapons though we have 2 50 ton bays and several hard points. This is a decommissioned ship released for private use via some high-standing political influence and has no weapons. 

Optional systems. Though not sure how crew is optional! At a minimum, we'll need a pilot, an astrogator, 3 engineers (I like to "over-engineer" and one may be for the shuttle as well). a medic. There are also specialists as this is a lab ship. Our minimal crew is 6 with room for several specialists depending on the mission. The staterooms are defined by the deck plans, and has 6 big staterooms and two barracks-style that can contain 4 each. Plus what looks to be 2 brig cells but could be repurposed as small staterooms. 

All the rest is cargo. So, let's tally up and see what we have.

Cost: MCr 1,100.4. Just over a billion credits!

Tonnage: 1800 - (armor) 27.2 - (man) 54 - (jump) 135 - (power) 40 - (fuel) 548 - (bridge) 40 = 955. 

Now there are several more options left to add. Being a science ship, we'll add a sensor station for MCr0.5 and 1dTon. There will be a cargo crane x2 (one per side) for about 1dTon and MCr1. We have an advanced drone bay for 1Dton and MCr 0.8. Throw in the advanced signal processing that also takes 2 energy points, MCr8 and 2Dtons. Our very Star Trek like Life Scanner Analysis Suite requires 1 EP and takes 1dTon and MCr4. Technically the TL14 version is not available but refer back to the Navy/Scout program above.  The hanger is technically a full hanger so takes 60dTons and costs MCr12, We have 3 labs on board at about 15dTons each by counting the squares, so total of 45dTons and MCr12, The med bay is part of the biology lab. There is also a gym that looks to be about 15dTon but that cost will be minimal. There is actually another 30dTons for common areas at least

So the new tally:

MCr 1,100.4 + MCR40.3 = MCr1,140.7

Remaining displacement = 955 - 154 = 801dTons. Which still seems way too high - looking at the cargo bay areas, we have 7x9 squares so about 30 tons, plus an upper area. We'll just make those 6 meter ceilings and double height, plus there is more cargo area on the platform above. And the shuttle bay is definitely taller than your 3m ceiling. 

Probably more storage areas throughout the ship but this is close enough for us.

Next post or two, I'll see if I can muddle through the T5 process and see if I even have the Cepheus version. 

On Blogs

Just a short note about blogging in general, and who I've linked to over in that side bar.

Web logging, or blogs, are a public facing diary of sorts, at least in my case. While there are all sorts of inspirational, educational and other sorts of blogs, I feel they are more of a shout out to the world that I am doing something that I think others may find interesting. Way back when Google+ was a thing I'd occasionally post my blog there and generally got a favorable and honestly a feel good from the community at large - it was almost addictive.

Anyway, I don't read many blogs honestly, and this one, which started out to track any software I was writing for Traveller, has ended up to include game recaps and game resources for the games I am running. While I could have another blog, I think I', okay with things like this though I may want to change the sub-title of the blog :)

Anyways, over on the right is the list of sites I do go to on occasion. In the alphabetical order they are:

Another Traveller Blog a really fantastic source from an architect that loves Traveller. The geomorphs book PDF I use all the time to craft buildings mostly but also ships and stations. Plu she has really nice ship plans with clean lines that just yell Traveller to me.

Behind The Claw is actually a podcast of a Traveller game. I'll admit I've only listened to part of one so far, but I would like to hear how other people run games. While my players indicate they do enjoy my games, I feel I could do a lot better.

Far Future Enterprises is Marc Miller's home for FFE stuff. We'll just say it is as retro as the original Classic Traveller. He does have a more modern site as well but this one seems to be easier to get around in. Though it does open a new tab on every link. And it is where to get Traveller 5. While I still don't think there is an actual game in there, there are some amazing toolkits that I use to bolt on some extra-crunch. Not that my players really care about crunch sadly.

Mongoose Publishing of course goes to Mongoose's home page. While I do like parts of their take on Traveller, I do not like what they've done to deck plans as they are unusable and nor do I like what I think is the more British way-out-there-hey-this-could-be-like-Warhammer approach. As a personal opinion, they are more miss than hit to me.

My Traveller Universe is a seldom updated blog of a real Traveler - that guys has been all over. He has some really interesting ideas about Traveller, and apparently is into props at least as much as I am. He has not posted in a while there or on COTI, and I hope all is well.

Shawn Driscoll's Traveller Blog is of course by Shawn Driscoll. He does a lot of podcasts that I have not listened to much, and does some amazing 3D works. He has different ideas about some things than I do, and often comes off as very curt or even rude, but that may just be how he is. And the world needs different views.

Sprigg's Scibblings I've just added. He is doing a page by page read & review of classic Traveller '77. I've got the '81 version I think from the Deluxe Boxed Edition (the box is barely there now). It is cool to hear his view of things, not yet being a Traveller player.  Makes me want to run a Classic game again.

The Frank GM is not a Traveller-specific blog. It is more a GM reference and aid to help GMs play better. I just need to read and apply more of the stuff I read.

Trannstar News Network is another Traveller blog with some interesting house rules and musings. I believe I found this originally via the COTI starport, a listing of web sites for Traveller. Huh - wonder if I should ask the mods to add me? though my blog is not 100% Traveller.

Traveller Advetnures seems like it is a guy like me: gets to play sporadically and likes to play with Traveller. He is also doing a solo adventure, which reminds me that I need to restart that sometime. Plus apparently I am linked on his blog - whenever I find that, I add their link as well to my blog. Back to the web rings!

Traveller Jim seemes to have a lot of Traveller equipment and stuff, though now that I am looking at it, my link is actually broken and he has a post from a few years in the future! But he seems to be a crunchy player. I'd really like to know how well that translates into game play.

TravellerRPG is COTI, Citizens of the Imperium. I actually pay a bit each year for this amazing resource. Though the software behind the site is creaking badly, and it is not always as vibrant and active as it was, there are still so many great conversations there.

Zhodani Base is another great resource as well as a link to other great resources. THey are a lot more active than I am with Traveller. Lots of free stuff, rules, ideas and images. I am a sucker for good deck plans.

One site I've not added but will is the Traveller Map. That is such an amazing site I could spend way too much time in there! Plus he has easy to use APIs - all my stellar maps come from there as I can import my own sector data to generate the classic looking maps. I will probably add it as it is such a cool thing - Imperial Maps. I've even done the jump route between systems to generate handouts for players indicating the shortest J2 route between systems. So much coolenss!

Patrol Corvette variations

Found the spreadsheet - not entirely certain about parts of it as it will require a deeper dive into both it and the rules

"Using a 500 Dton streamlined hull, it has a M Drive 3B4, and a P Plant Q2 giving performance of jump-0 and 9 g acceleration. There is fuel tankage of 108 Dton, enough for 8 weeks and 0 jump-0.
The ship has 8 control consoles, 15 operating consoles, and a Gen m/5 computer.
There are six sensors: an Ult DS Surf Commu-14 +4 A+12 PA(Elec), a DS Surf EMS-14 ±0 A+12 PA(Elec), an Adv DS Surf Scope-12 +3 A-- P(Phot), a Mod DS Surf Neutr-14 +2 A-- P(Grav), an Adv G Surf Jamme-14 +3 A+5 A(Elec), and a DS Surf Steal-14 ±0 A-- P(All).
There are four staterooms for the crew with a Comfort of 2.
There is a weapon: an Ult D T3 Mini-14 +4 H:3 Def+3.
There is a carried craft: an ATV-W in an Interior/Hold.
Cargo capacity is 45 Dton. The ship requires a crew of 22: a pilot, three sensor operators, eight engineers, an administrator, two medics, a gunner, and four troops. The ship costs MCr 922.4. "

So pretty darn expensive and it indicates I really need to either play with that spreadsheet some more to figure out how to use, write my own via spreadsheet or software, or, as my group has nary a gearhead among them, don't worry about it other than a presumed threat level if an encounter happens (i.e., your ex-Navy character knows you have no chance to outrun or outgun this to you can easily outrun this ship and it has nothing to attack with). MOAR in ship details as well I suppose.

Krim's Patrol Corvette

Using Ryan Wolf's Jinda Wolf corvette as one of the Space Patrol's system defense boats, I decided to see if I could work my way through the T5 rules for the stats. So far, I'd have to go with no. I believe someone over on COTI has a spreadsheet over in the files section, so I may have to try that. But based on the existing plans and tonnage. the ship is 442 Traveller tons. Rounding up to 500 tons to keep things within the basic rules.

The QSP (Quick Ship Profile) would be PE-ES90, for Patrol Corvette, hull E (500 tons), streamlined, 9G maneuver and 0 jump. This is an in-system ship, and that actually works great with the deck plans. It is a TL14 design and one of the standards in the League of Independent Planets for the Space Patrol and system defense.

The mission is a patrol corvette: PE. It has a streamlined hull (friction / 3, stability +1) with 3 layers of hull plate (aka superdense). There is also a anti-blast layer of armor. It has a type Y drive giving it Man-9, and a power plant type Y as well to power both the drive and the plasma barbettes. It has  wide variety of sensors: communicator, visor, EM, life detector (handy when checking ships), radar, neutrino detector to check for those fusion power plants, radiation sensors. The 6 plasma guns are housed in 3 dual barbettes, the 24 missiles are housed in a triple missile turret, and the 4 fixed forward mass cannons I am translating to 1 triple slug thrower turret. For defenses there is an electronic scrambler, but primarily they rely on speed and maneuverability, as well as a strong offense.

There is a bridge as well as a dedicated CIC. There are 2 double staterooms used as double staterooms, a 3rd double stateroom for the captain and his office, and squad barracks for boarding crew. It is a military crew consisting of 14 total: Captain, 1st officer, pilot, navigator, medical officer, 3 engineers, 2 gunners and a 5 person boarding squad that overlaps duties with the rest of the crew. In general there are at least 2 crew available for every position, except engineering.

I've not worried about the cost - this is a government ship. But I will eventually work that out. I'll probably do this also for Cepheus Engine, and maybe even Classic and Mongoose. Just to see.

And in reviewing the power plant section, I may not be able to get a power plant for 9G in there: looks like at TL14 it only goes to 7...I don't think I am reading that correctly. The design sequence is via a fill-form, that then relates to the tables, than then relate to the sections. So it is not exactly a linear process until you've done it enough times. But it makes sense - it goes from the most compact to the most expanded. The sensors need to be looked at as well, but there does appear to be a good interaction for actual playability in there: the charts indicate the ranges that sensors can sense things. So the ship has both photonic and visor sensors: visor works at 1 better range band effectively: at 5000km photonic can see an ACS (adventure class ship) whereas the visor can see small craft at the same range. And the EMS can detect missiles at that range. The neutrino detector can detect missiles out to 8 light seconds away at range 8.   So then looking at the sensor task roll lets you know how well you can sense things, and it takes into account the tech level (so TL 14 is pretty good to have here!), character skills, size range vs object size. So some interesting mechanics there: a higher TL ship will definitely have a better chance of sensing things. Makes you want to upgrade your TL9 sensors at the next high tech port!

So I really need to read the books a bit more: there does seem to be a lot to look forward to in the T5.10 version.

Solo Session 0.4 - 4th Term

After travelling about the Quadrant and meeting new people, Malik returns to Yllom a more worldly man and decides to stay in the journalism business. He barely survives again, and has yet another chance to bring down yet another political figure. I suppose with 60+ councils there must be a few bad apples despite Yllom's quite passive society. Unfortunately, not so lucky this time (and I also misread the last roll and don't think I took a +1 in one of my skills, so I'll have to look back and adjust one. Even with that it would have missed the roll I think). So, I'm going to assume investigate should not be adjusted as he failed. I think I'll add language 1 from 0. His journeys the last term should have brought him into contact with a lot of cultures and languages. But he gains yet another enemy, another political figure it would seem. And on the mishap table: forced out because of censorship or controversy. Apparently that political leader had some clout with the paper!  It would give Malik a +2 to get into another career, but at 34, and after his pervious term, Malik is now ready to explore a bit more on his own.

The only question I have: would he still get to roll on the advancement table? I am going with no as that is how the flow chart looks to act: mishaps do not let you get promoted.

While he did get through 4 terms, one of those he managed to lose a benefit. So he has all of three rolls on getting out of the journalism career. Rolling a 4, then a 3 on the cash table nets him Cr20,000. Rolling on the benefits table, a 5 yields INT +1. So smarter and wiser, but now unemployed and searching for adventure!

Malik Catillion, age 34, Jounalist, Senior Staff writer
699B96
Art (Writing 2), Carouse 0, Deception 0, Drive 0, Flyer 0, Persuade 0, Steward 0, Language 1, Electronics (Comm 1, Sensors 1), Investigate 1, Streetwise 0.

And wanting to hitch a ride out of the starport and leave his troubles and 2 enemies behind. He does have some contacts with the Antares Ship Builders and Trade Speculators group. Perhaps Lynwood Laux (the ship's captain of No Refunds will hire him on. That is the name of the captain and ship for the T5 book and cards I will be getting. Not really having a merchant character in Traveller, just my old Scout, I just made up some names and will flesh that out later)

Pretty sure I did not add one to any of his skills, so I am granting him another level in writing. That is how he made his living, after all.

The next step is figuring out how to come up with the random stuff. I may have to break down and get that SOLO book on Drive-Thru for some guidance here. But it was fun getting into a bit of a deep dive on a character generation and at least one more planet detailed out. I think I may spend a bit of next weekend thinking about a Class A Starport on a planet with 90 billion people: there are no lack of job applicants so probably little automation, lots of unions perhaps. And a large quantity of high tech imports to keep starship maintenance viable as per Imperial law. Plus it is a 4 day weekend for me, so yay! And happy early 4th of July everyone!

Some Traveller Comparisons

There are quite a number of blog posts out there comparing the various versions of Traveller. This post won't be anywhere near as definitive and is really just my opinion.

I started Traveller in the early 80s, getting the Deluxe Boxed set with the maps of the Imperium and the Spinward Marches, Adventure 0, and the really more important than you would think Book 0. Got these in high school. I was a loner: I knew people who were playing D&D, and even invited me over, but I was not particularly outgoing. So I could barely figure out what Traveller even was as it was my first introduction to RPGs. But I read and enjoyed the books, tried rolling up characters, but that was the extent of it,

Cue college, where I also brought the box along and played more solo types of creation. Someone mentioned that a guy down the hall had those little black books, so I found him, and through him, the college gaming club. There I played all sorts of RPGs for a couple of years, but Traveller was my favorite. We would play at the university until we got kicked out of the building, then go to someone's apartment and play Traveller to 4am or later. Some of the best and most bizarre games as a result of sleep deprivation mixed in with college ingenuity. But I learned how to use those systems, and bought everything I could for Traveller and a few other games. I stopped getting stuff about the time of MegaTraveller, because....

Cue girls, then RPGs took a very backseat. I kept a lot of my gaming stuff but a lot got lost along the way. All the Traveller stuff I kept, and oddly the Metagaming Fantasy Trip stuff, other than the actual role playing book (which I either never had or lost. The old Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard are in my big box of the re-release of that game, and still useful).

Cue divorce, and I found the Asheville gaming club. No Traveller, but older and well-versed gamers. I spent a year or so gaming with that club, then girls again...

Years later, my Traveller stuff still near my desk, I found COTI. And fell back in love with Traveller. I started software again for it (hence this blog), and played with making worlds, characters, and just fun stuff. The T5 Kickstarter was my first Kickstarter, and I was really excited by it. Even though I was still not playing Traveller, I was playing with Traveller. I had kept in touch with one of the guys from the gaming group - we both also liked movies and would see the occasional movie. I got started back into the gaming club, but only in the summer due to a conflict with Scouts. Years later, my son makes Eagle Scout (and I am so proud of him!) and my time is freed up, so back to gaming once a week! Woot!

Somewhere in the middle of that, Mongoose came out with their version of Traveller. I got a lot of the source books, and even plunked down $20 to be part of the early tester for the 2nd edition years later. So I also played with that system a bit which is pretty close to Classic.

So, the comparisons.

First, I still mostly prefer the Classic Traveller: it is a simple system that originally you could do anything with. As the setting got more concrete, if you played in the OTU things, while easier, were not quite as open-ended. But there were, and still are, a huge number of resources and any number of ways to interpret the Imperium and still play in the OTU to take advantage of all those now digital resources (yay TravellerMap!) My issues with the classic version fall into the combat: it is basically a to hit & damage roll all in one and when I first started playing, it was hard to see how a knife could still damage someone in combat armor. When I got Striker, I adjusted to more that combat style, so that the to hit roll was separated from the damage roll. And while I actually prefer the mostly random character generation, a lot of people in my group pretty much hate it. I do modify it so that you have an extra roll to replace any roll in the stats, which are rolled straight and as is. And I also allow you to roll then select the table for skills so that you can shape the character but still have that random generation going on. But character roll ups were easy and pretty fast, although that could be from doing it for years...

Mongoose Traveller is mostly a revised Classic Traveller in my opinion. It uses more of the advanced generation techniques, but not quite as much. The skill levels are between classic and classic advanced I think (and that's just a feeling). And I really do like that connections part: at allows players to connect before they hit the space bar. And if you use the package set of skills, that is also a nice bonus. I've not played much of the 2nd edition, but I think I do like the boon/bane roll. It is a similar pattern to fantasy games when you are blessed or cursed mostly.  What I don't like is how Mongoose is really sensationalizing a lot of things: they bring in things that to me are just not Traveller. Warhammer maybe, or Judge Dread, but not Traveller. Perhaps it is a British thing.

Now T5 was not a playable game. There are a lot of very interesting bits and pieces in it, but it is not a cohesive game book. And I do not like the inversion of the rolls, where you have to roll under and there are dice pools. Like the Fantasy Trip, part of the vibe of the game is the dice mechanics. While a 2D6 roll does not have a lot of curve and granularity, it is simple and a +1 or +2 go a long way. I've used a few pieces in my games that I have run in the last couple of years, but my games also tend to be pretty rules-light.

The 2nd version of T5, T5.10, will be here in a few months. So we will see if that becomes a playable system. My fear is that it will just sit on my gaming shelf, looking pretty.

T5 - Successfully Funded. Again

The 5.1 version for reprinting the T5 book, now 3 slip cased books, completed with "1,273 backers pledged $166,304 to help bring this project to life." So apparently there is some life left in it In reading a lot of the comments over on COTI, it does seem that there are some major improvements to several parts of things. I did break down and bump up to the Captain Level, $150 for something I will get for free. But I do like physical books, and there are cards that I am hoping, if somewhat not too much, to be actually useful during play.


What I wish is that Marc ran the KS and post-KS process more like Steve Jackson games. Somehow they manage to produce the PDFs and get more eyeballs on them and improve the product. While I realize there would be a lot of noise, I believe it would be very beneficial. And the lack, or at least lack of acknowledging, a true editor is also bothersome. For the amount of money raised, both times, an external editor would have been really nice. As I've mentioned all too often: you can't truly proofread your own stuff as you see what you think is there and not what is really there. In the software world I live in, this is code review.


I am looking forward to this, though. I am hoping I'll be able to run another Traveller game at some point. There are at least a couple of people wanting to play. And I'd love to be able to play - there's at least one player with the Classic books and he could run a game as well.

T5 Kickstarter