"Getting started with Traveller?" Topic
23 Posts
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DeWolfe | 31 May 2008 1:38 p.m. PST |
I am interested in trying out Traveller. I've wanted a good Sci-Fi rpg for ages but have never found one that really floated my boat. I have heard about Traveller and how great it was since the mid 19990's but I have also heard that some editions were better than others. What edition would you recommend someone new to Traveller get? I don't want something like AD&D that has a rule for everything and a convoluted game system (covoluted game world is great though)! |
Mephistopheles | 31 May 2008 1:47 p.m. PST |
I liked the original rules, though the spaceship stuff was something of a headache, especially the miserable supplement, High Guard. |
ming31 | 31 May 2008 1:51 p.m. PST |
I liked the original black books |
GypsyComet | 31 May 2008 2:07 p.m. PST |
There are three editions of Traveller that use others mechanics, and five that use mechanics distinct to Traveller, in two broad groups. First, the easy ones: -GURPS: Traveller ("GT"; excellent intro to the setting, whether you like GURPS or not) -Traveller 20 ("T20"; using WotC's D20 engine) -Traveller Hero ("TH"; using the Hero 5th edition rules) These are fairly widespread mechanics, so you may already have an opinion one way or other
Then there are the "native" editions: -Classic Traveller (the "little black book" edition, aka "CT") -MegaTraveller ("MT", related to CT, but a lot more rules rigorous, and prone to errata) -Traveller The New Era ("TNE"; uses the GDW House System (d20s, but NOT WotC's "D20"); personal combat works, much above that gets a bit ponderous) -Marc Miller's Traveller ("T4", vaguely related to CT, but rushed by the producing company to the point of destruction) -Mongoose Traveller ("MGT" or "Rikki Tikki Taveller" (RTT); closely related to CT mechanically, just launched in May) For "simple yet complete" from a rules POV, the CT family (CT, MT, T4, MGT) is hard to beat as a group, but you need to cherry pick a bit. Most Traveller players cherry pick the editions to some extent, so you would be in good company. The cleanest rules presentations in the CT group are going to be in T4 and MGT. CT sort of winged it, and MT codified task resolution to an almost fanatic degree. Both remain useful, but you wanted uncluttered. Combat lethality varies quite a bit through the editions. Character generation in the CT family is all fairly similar, and is basically identical in CT and MT. T4 tinkered a bit with the process and MGT throws in a lot more lifepath tags than previous versions in this group. All editions allow for the creation of the play environment and many of the toys within it. Star system generation varies only a little from edition to edition, with GURPS Traveller being the exception. Vehicle and starship construction, by comparison, varies a lot, and is where the cherry picking tends to get the heaviest. You will find as many opinions on the "best" as you find people to ask. There are a lot of web resources for Traveller in all of its editions, however, so some of the stickier parts of the various editions can be avoided or fixed by *someone*. |
GypsyComet | 31 May 2008 2:11 p.m. PST |
"especially the miserable supplement, High Guard" Only if you felt the need to use big ships and do fleet battles. High Guard was not supposed to be, and did not claim to be, a roleplaying ship combat system. One of the mistakes made in MT was that they tried to make High Guard into the default ship combat system. High Guard sucks for small ships. |
GypsyComet | 31 May 2008 2:46 p.m. PST |
From the Favorite SF setting thread:
(none of that Rebellion or Virus crap, either) One of the things to realize about Traveller is that the background starts 300,000 years ago and goes to about 3000 years from now. Several distinct eras within this have been detailed enough to play in. Some of these eras are golden ages, some are times of exploration and war, and some are times of full scale collapse or rebuilding from collapse. To explain the above quote would require a lot more setting, but I can summarize. GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars covers the expansion of Earth into a previously existing human (!) empire. This expansion eventually led to Earth taking over the other empire. Not being truly prepared for this, Earth's control collapsed and took the empire with it, leading to 1700 years of economic, technological, and cultural "darkness". T4 covers the end of that period and the dawn of the 3rd Imperium. A thousand years later after much expansion, the 3rd Imperium is at war with Earth (now called the Solomani). This period is covered by T20. Wars on another front, with yet another human variant race, and the frontier these occur on, is covered by CT. CT is otherwise set in what Traveller players refer to as the Golden Age. The 3rd Imperium is 1100 years old, stable aside from "border skirmishes", and all is generally good. Then a high noble assassinates the Emperor, claims to replace him under questionable precedent, and touches off civil war. Set in the years 1116 through 1130 of the 3rd Imperium, MegaTraveller is about the Rebellion that destroyed the Imperium. The war winds down with no clear victors and billions of losers. In a play for final victory, the original assassin seeks a secret weapon being developed by his primary opponent. Seeking to possess it, he instead releases it. This is the Virus mentioned above, and it is a computer virus that can reproduce in hardware, is frankly insane, and is built to take complete advantage of the ships that ply the stars. Reproducing throughout civilian and military vessels and using those vessels to wreak havok, Virus kills many of the survivors of the War, either directly or by attacking the technologies that keep people alive on hostile worlds. The Imperium and all of her neighbors fall victim, and Known Space goes silent. 70 years later, using ships that cannot be possessed by Virus, a few groups peek out and begin to rebuild. This is covered by TNE. In 1248, with many near-apocalyptic battles behind them, humanity launches the 4th Imperium. This is as far as the timeline goes. A great many fans of Traveller reacted poorly to first the Rebellion of MT and then the Virus of TNE (thus the above quote). One of these was Steve Jackson, author of GURPS. Since, unlike most, he could do something about it, he obtained a license for Traveller and launched GURPS Traveller in a timeline variant setting that did not see the Rebellion or the assassination that started it. For the launch of GURPS 4th edition, he moved to cover a historical era, as already noted. Mongoose Traveller has not yet settled into an era, and I have not yet looked at Traveller Hero, so I'm not sure when it is set. |
mweaver | 31 May 2008 6:34 p.m. PST |
Interesting info, guys. Thanks. I am tempted to pick up the Mongoose version just for fun, even if no one plays it with me (sniff, sniff). |
DeWolfe | 31 May 2008 6:54 p.m. PST |
I have to admit that I am still a bit confused. The background material sounds good and any of the 'periods' within it sound interesting. Ignoring the background material for a moment though; which edition of the rules has the best mechanics? A 2d6 system sounds a bit worrying, I have only encountered that once before and that was in Space 1889 but while I loved the setting I hated the mechanics of the rules. The GDW system I played a lot of with Twilight 2000, I loved the system at the time it came out but these days I think it would anoy me a bit. d20 I don't know because I have only played D&D and AD&D (the rule heavy AD&D rules killed my enthusiasm for any form of D&D). Now all that being said I am open to trying whatever system the majority think is the best of the Traveller systems since I figure the game has been around so long that it must be great. |
Bardolph | 31 May 2008 10:16 p.m. PST |
Always preferred the black books. There is a larger format version of the black books called The Traveller Book or somesuch that had the three basic books all in one. Hard to beat the FFE reprint series since you can get most everything that was ever printed for the original series in a couple larger volumes. |
GypsyComet | 01 Jun 2008 2:57 a.m. PST |
Ask any large group of Traveller fans and the (eventual) consensus will be that Traveller is the setting more than any one set of rules. "Best" set of mechanics is very subjective, and Traveller has always had more of a toolkit approach than most games. It's why I mentioned cherry picking before. The CT family of mechanics use 2d6 for tasks and combat for the most part (T4 used a sliding number of dice based on difficulty), with the simplest incarnation being summarized as "Roll 8+ to succeed, modified by skill, attribute, and circumstance". That still allows for a lot of variation, and Traveller has explored variations extensively. CT alone has four different takes on the armor/damage relationship and tactical movement, with several hybrids and post-CT products being fully compatible as well. There are also several fans out there who love to tinker with rules in a Traveller context. The recommendations of the other posters lean heavily towards CT, and I cannot disagree. The CT Reprints are in distribution from Far Future Enterprise, and you would want to start with "The Books". Mongoose's newly released edition is very much like CT, and has the benefit of being able to use much of CT's material. CT, MT, and MGT use 2d6, TH and GT use 3d6, and T4 uses a sliding dice scale. All are bell curve mechanics. If you prefer flat probabilities vs bell curves, TNE, T20, or the fan adaption of "Spirit of the Century" to Traveller will be the places to start. |
Martin Rapier | 01 Jun 2008 6:14 a.m. PST |
I only played the 'Black Book' version, plus High Guard & Striker. – the latter being ideal fodder for students in the early 80s with far too much time on their hands desgning spaceships and tanks
. Never had any probs with High Guard, depends what sort of campaign you are playing of course. For really big space battles the Imperium/Dark Nebula board games worked a bit better. |
DeWolfe | 01 Jun 2008 8:15 a.m. PST |
Thanks Guys. I just bought T4 because I could get the instant gratification of downloading it as a pdf from Drviethrurpg and of the three eras of back story they offer it sounds like the one I'll like best. Aparantly there is errata for this edition online somewhere, anyone know where? |
pvernon | 01 Jun 2008 8:37 a.m. PST |
DeWolfe, Since you said that you were familer with Twilight, I would pick up TNE. Same combat system ect. |
Valmy92 | 01 Jun 2008 9:54 a.m. PST |
Actually, that depends on which version of Twilight: the black box or yellow book. I think TNE is most closely related to yellow book. Black box twilight everything was based on percents. Phil |
Mephistopheles | 01 Jun 2008 10:28 a.m. PST |
BTW, stay away from T20 unless you really, really, REALLY like lots of rules. It is all the needless complexity of d20 mixed in with all the needless complexity of the worst editions of Traveller. Marc Miller cannot write to save his soul. He lucked out with Classic Traveller and should've stuck with it. |
GypsyComet | 01 Jun 2008 11:22 a.m. PST |
The basic rulebook for T4 is quite useable*. Sadly, many of the other books are not. You may want to visit the Citizens of the Imperium board and sift through their T4 section for advice on further books and directions to the errata. Ah. found it: link Also a later revision of the easy ship design rules (and other goodness): traveller.mu.org/house A good links page to many resources: link * – the one odd bit in T4's basic book is the die progression for tasks, as it uses an odd half-die progression. If that task system proves too weird for you, T4 can easily handle having either the CT, MT, or MGT task systems instead. Yes, they really are that compatible. There are also a couple of homebrew mods to T4 floating around. Also, the book "At Close Quarters" published by BITS was written with T4 in mind, and provides a more rigorous tactical engine. It may have an electronic edition. |
DocFirefly | 01 Jun 2008 11:57 a.m. PST |
I'm going through all of this too. Only I know what system I want to use-Savage Worlds. I have converted a bunch of starships (and are using many found in the SW Gear Toll Kit). What I am haveing a problem getting is a coherent "world book" something I could use as a reference for politics, systems and worlds. |
GypsyComet | 01 Jun 2008 12:40 p.m. PST |
Overview may be found at traveller.wikia.com If starship combat is your interest, the materials around the game Fifth Frontier War may be of use. The setting of Traveller is fairly large, taking years of travel time to traverse in most cases. As such, most campaigns are not going to involve the entire setting, but instead pick a neighborhood (and era, as previously posted) with the desired elements. Good summaries of the overall setting can be found in the main rulebook for GURPS Traveller, in the Imperial Encyclopedia and Rebellion Sourcebook for MegaTraveller, and a few other places. This information has been built up over 30 years of Traveller products, so it can be a bit overwhelming. Local focus can be found in the sector books: the Spinward Marches and Solomani Rim books for CT; Diaspora, Knightfall, and various articles in MT, The Regency Sourcebook and Keepers of the Flame for TNE, and others. |
GypsyComet | 01 Jun 2008 12:52 p.m. PST |
Actually, that depends on which version of Twilight: the black box or yellow book. I think TNE is most closely related to yellow book. Yes, TNE is a close relative to 2nd edition T2k, the same set of mechanics used in Merc:2000, Dark Conspiracy, and Cadillacs & Dinosaurs. The system started out using d10s and switched to d20s to improve granularity. |
GypsyComet | 01 Jun 2008 9:24 p.m. PST |
And yes, TMP has covered this ground before: TMP link |
Bishop Odo | 01 Jun 2008 10:29 p.m. PST |
Good job Gypsy in your synopsis. I wish there was one system that shinned above all the rest, but just as Gypsy eluded too, ask a group of Traveller players what best and you will never get a consensus. Why for the most part there is so much Traveller product out there, that no one really has it all, so everyone makes judgments based on what they have and can afford. Some of the older stuff is very expensive, but worth it, in quality. If you need a start, go for CT the basic rules are cheap on ebay and have been reprinted, that's the best place to start, get comfortable with it and the support material for CT, most of which have been reprinted. Figure out what is out there and then buy the best of the best. All the Traveller editions have something to offer in source books and setting that make them worth getting eventually. Give mongoose a year and there Traveller will some good support material. If you like D20 then use, but most of the Traveller editions has been defined by the historical eras, as Gypsy has written, not what type of dice is used. |
Bob Faust of Strategic Elite | 18 Jun 2008 7:14 p.m. PST |
I've been playing Traveller since 1983 and MegaTraveller is my favorite rules edition, though not my favorite background. I like to play just after the 5th Frontier War in 1111-1112. |
Farstar | 20 Jun 2008 11:56 a.m. PST |
"I like to play just after the 5th Frontier War in 1111-1112." One thing I've noticed is that a lot of Traveller games ostensibly set in the ongoing timeline seem to have no idea how fast time is passing. A game with regular jump travel will chew through a calendar year very, very quickly. Plot a Far Trader from Regina to Rhylanor, keeping in mind that each jump is close to two weeks to complete, even without adventuring distractions. Now block that out on an Imperial Calendar
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