Just some random Traveller Hero thoughts

[Steve]

22 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Honestly, the 1e pocket box went pretty quickly if you didnt stop for fist fight breaks....

 

 

 

Whoa. That’s some heated competitive spirit there.

[Old Man]

32 minutes ago, Steve said:

Whoa. That’s some heated competitive spirit there.

 

Having played Car Wars from pocket box all the way through 2nd ed Compendium, I can say that there is something about it that really attracted rules lawyers (and the resulting fistfights).  It somehow sits at just the right point between "abstraction" and "physically accurate" where you can always find some counterintuitive result and some really annoying loopholes and inconsistencies.  Car Wars, SFB, and Pathfinder are my go-to examples for what happens when you keep adding cruft to a system with no underlying rules philosophy to maintain consistency.

 

That said, my metal-armored, gas-powered ram truck sure was fun to play.

[Chris Goodwin]

I've told Duke about this, but I made a play aid that reduces the playing time by a factor of about 3.  It puts all of the data you need to run your car at a particular speed on a 3x5 sized card; when you accelerate or decelerate, you flip to the appropriate card.  It has your speed in big bold numbers and the phases, you can put a paper clip on it to mark your handling status, and slide it left and right as needed.  I would seriously swear that 80% of our table talk was "How fast was X going again?" and this reduces that to near 0.  

 

Using this play aid, with three rusty old hands and three complete noobs, we got through a complete arena duel in two hours.  

[Scott Ruggels]

 The plot sounds like a Decent Idea and I've seen similar on museum ships, as a large plexiglass sheet with the lines and circles painted it.  The only problem I have is how does one account for ship movement  around planets or other debris/objects that one could hide behind? (See: The Expanse).

The Car Wars Idea sounds interesting, though it would be like having a game of Car Wars on the Largeest Walmart parking lot ever.

[Spence]

On 6/26/2022 at 9:04 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

 The plot sounds like a Decent Idea and I've seen similar on museum ships, as a large plexiglass sheet with the lines and circles painted it.  The only problem I have is how does one account for ship movement  around planets or other debris/objects that one could hide behind? (See: The Expanse).

 

 

Think of the "Plot" as the PC ships "radar" screen.  The center is your ship and the targets are things you have detected. 

I usually use the outer most ring for undefined nebulous contacts.  Something may be there or not, perhaps just beyond detection range. "Captain, I have and intermittent contact at 230.  It keeps dropping off the scope."

The next ring in will be firm contacts, but not clearly defined.  "Captain, I have a firm target at 230.  It looks to be somewhere in the 400,000 to 500,000 ton range.  A Klingon D7 would fall in that range, but it could just be a big rock." 

Note: Exactly how much displacement for a D-7 is still argued.  I have seen sources claim 470,000 metric tons and others say 125,000.  So???

The next rings inward would be based on ranges of the game.  For Star Trek Adventures the "ranges" are Contact, Close, Medium, Long, Extreme. 

 

I generally do not use Hero vehicle/ship rules.  I tend to use a simpler system that serves to allow exciting action but focuses on individual PC actions over the vehicle.

Rather than moving the PC's ship around.  I move what they can see around their ship. 

 

About Starfire.

It was and is the only game I have ever played that allowed a game with literally 100+ ships to be played and resolved in 4 to 5 hours. 

A ships control sheet is a string of letters arraigned left to right.  Damage is applied by marking of letters left to right.  Some code are S=Shield, A=Armor, (I)= Ion Engine, H= Cargo Hold, L=Laser and so on.  Some higher tech weapons ignore certain defenses.

 

Here is the entire control sheet for a frigate.  

DISCOVERY-class FG         (AC)       HS 20      TL 1
[2] SSAA(I)HL(I)(I)RMgQsX(I)(I) [7/3]

 

The long and the short is you could put 20 or more ships per regular sheet of paper and mark off damage form a salvo in minutes.  Ships tended to go away fast in fleet actions, even small ships actions didn't take long.  20 points of damage will cripple even a light cruiser and severely limit their maneuvering or weapons.

 

It was a hoot, and when combined with the campaign system was a great game that didn't get buried in rules.  Classic Starfire.  Not the new version that seems to believe incomprehensible complication is a virtue.

[shadowcat1313]

using Car Wars for Space Combat... I could see it... it would just be really long.. that and do catastrophic crits invoke the "Confetti Rule"?

 

[Scott Ruggels]

2 hours ago, shadowcat1313 said:

using Car Wars for Space Combat... I could see it... it would just be really long.. that and do catastrophic crits invoke the "Confetti Rule"?

 

Confetti rule?

[shadowcat1313]

Car Wars rule where if a car took catastrophic damage was destroyed you tore the data sheet into shreds and dropped the pieces on table from a foot up

 

 

[Old Man]

 

31 minutes ago, shadowcat1313 said:

Car Wars rule where if a car took catastrophic damage was destroyed you tore the data sheet into shreds and dropped the pieces on table from a foot up

 

 

 

Never heard of tearing up the data sheet, but we did the drop-a-handful-of-debris-counters version a couple of times.

[Steve]

Aslan have an ability called Tolerance, which is described as them being accustomed to dealing with non-Aslan, and they have learned to ignore lapses in propriety on the part of such persons. It is also used to help determine the degree to which an Aslan is capable of getting along with others outside of the family, pride, clan, and race. An Aslan without Tolerance is unlikely to be found in the company of non-Aslan.

 

In Traveller, it offset the negative DM called for under the reaction rules, which can get up to non-Aslan (+1), discourteous (-2), SOC superior by 3- (-1), discourteous male (-3), or a total of -5 to the roll.

 

I'm wondering, would this simply be a type of Talent like Resistance that gives a bonus to EGO rolls in such situations? Something that could be bought by Aslan characters in a range of 1-5 points?

[pinecone]

On 7/3/2022 at 3:05 PM, Steve said:

Aslan have an ability called Tolerance, which is described as them being accustomed to dealing with non-Aslan, and they have learned to ignore lapses in propriety on the part of such persons. It is also used to help determine the degree to which an Aslan is capable of getting along with others outside of the family, pride, clan, and race. An Aslan without Tolerance is unlikely to be found in the company of non-Aslan.

 

In Traveller, it offset the negative DM called for under the reaction rules, which can get up to non-Aslan (+1), discourteous (-2), SOC superior by 3- (-1), discourteous male (-3), or a total of -5 to the roll.

 

I'm wondering, would this simply be a type of Talent like Resistance that gives a bonus to EGO rolls in such situations? Something that could be bought by Aslan characters in a range of 1-5 points?

I'd just use Enraged, if you want to reduce it, you buy it down till it is gone, then you are "Fully tolerant"...

[Steve]

 

5 hours ago, pinecone said:

I'd just use Enraged, if you want to reduce it, you buy it down till it is gone, then you are "Fully tolerant"...

Traveller Hero didn’t have Enraged as part of the Aslan racial package, so I don’t think they’re quite that hair trigger violent normally.
 

My idea was to set it up as a Talent that would act as a modifier to their EGO rolls if someone offended them significantly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going straight for violence if they fail the roll. In most cases a roll would not be necessary, and it could be used as a sign of how easy-going they are.

[pinecone]

13 hours ago, Steve said:

 

Traveller Hero didn’t have Enraged as part of the Aslan racial package, so I don’t think they’re quite that hair trigger violent normally.
 

My idea was to set it up as a Talent that would act as a modifier to their EGO rolls if someone offended them significantly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going straight for violence if they fail the roll. In most cases a roll would not be necessary, and it could be used as a sign of how easy-going they are.

Fair enough...so something like Psych lim:" Hackles up" easily offended by aliens, then buy it off, if you want to be more easy going.

[Steve]

The racial package does have a Psych called “Aslan Code Of Honor” which probably plays into this.

[Scott Ruggels]

In my experience, if you were polite and slow moving around Aslan there was little problem, as they wanted to sell you stuff as much as you wanted to buy it. just be respectful, to all of them, and let the kids gnaw on you a little, and everything is fine.

 

[shadowcat1313]

I've also heard aslan described as something akin to Samurai Cats, but that woud bring to mind the old Samurai Cat books...

[Steve]

9 hours ago, shadowcat1313 said:

I've also heard aslan described as something akin to Samurai Cats, but that woud bring to mind the old Samurai Cat books...

Yes, that is how I would generally interpret them, kind of like mixing Klingons, samurai and anthropomorphic cats together in a blender.

 

Male Aslan don’t have much understanding of money and leave that to the females to manage, which reminds me of samurai.

[dmjalund]

9 minutes ago, Steve said:

Yes, that is how I would generally interpret them, kind of like mixing Klingons, samurai and anthropomorphic cats together in a blender.

 

Male Aslan don’t have much understanding of money and leave that to the females to manage, which reminds me of samurai.

Vikings also left finances to the women, so I hear

[Ternaugh]

On 6/20/2022 at 9:28 PM, Old Man said:

I got a PDF of Brilliant Lances for $20 and it has most things that one could ask for in a Traveller RPG starship combat system: vector movement, a mechanism to work character skills into the fight, firing arcs, hit locations, damage control, ship design, and a sensor mechanic that greatly lends itself to fog-of-war/double-blind play with a GM.  And it's Traveller so all your lasers, sandcasters, meson guns, fat traders, and nuke dampers are statted out. 

 

The drawbacks are that it's pretty dense and it uses d20s with quite a few modifiers and tables.  Still, it being Traveller, you could run it as written and just convert the Hero skills for any PCs who are involved.

 

The PDF is pretty complete, actually, it includes the reference card, counters, and starmap sheets.  Though I recommend you use someone else's expensive printer toner.

 

My boxed copy of Brilliant Lances is nestled between the boxes for Deluxe Traveller: The New Era and Battle Rider on the bookshelves in my living room. I doubt that they've ever had the counters punched out, as I was much more likely to just run with CT/High Guard or MegaTraveller rules when the urge to play Traveller came up. Nowadays, I'm more likely to look through the PDFs than to break out the boxes anyway. I'm pretty sure that I bought the three boxes from a now-defunct Hobby Town pretty much when they were released, as I was very much a collector of all things Traveller in those days.

 

[AlHazred]

On 7/10/2022 at 5:25 PM, dmjalund said:

Vikings also left finances to the women, so I hear

Of course. The women are stereotypically calculating and cold, the men are stereotypically impulsive and passionate. Which one do you want controlling the purse strings?

[Duke Bushido]

On 7/10/2022 at 5:15 PM, Steve said:

Yes, that is how I would generally interpret them, kind of like mixing Klingons, samurai and anthropomorphic cats together in a blender.

 

 

 

Wow.

 

 

That... Uh...

 

That should certainly take the fight out of them....

 

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

 So, a question about Tech levels.   A low tech level means they can't make stuff above a certain level. However is it a case of knowledge, or resources, or a combination of the two?   Tech Level 8 planet with a class B starport and on the X-Boat Route. They may not have the money or the manufacturing base, or even the population to support any tech level above 8, but... They would definitely have the knowledge of technology, and possibly have items imported from higher tech systems, just no ability to locally repair it, unless they pay for a service call and move the items to the starport to get fixed on board a factory ship.  Otherwise, citizens of  the local planet would have to watch the Imperial Equivalent of "Game of Thrones" in a technologically downgraded format for their local nets?  I would assume that the X-Boats would be carrying  culturally significant items from the Imperial Capital to systems along the route, with the news being up to a year out of date by the time the X-Boat reaches the edge of the Empire.  So the B Starport, Tech 8 System (Probably growing a lot of food for export, or providing resources), would be reasonably well informed, just a bit lean, technologically?   

 

The next version would be a "Disconnected" colony that has slipped back to Tech Level 5, due to war, population decline, or economic collapse, and it's star port has slipped back to an open field with some markers and a Gap Transmitter beacon, and no services and no local expectation of any real traffic, other than the occasional visit by the ISS.  They may not have the knowledge other than vague rumors or how the higher tech stuff worked.  Am I "reading" this correctly?

 

The final one would be a Tech level 3 planet crawling slowly up the ladder, that has no starport, or any groundside industry, other than food production for it's local populace. 

 

For the first example. could we assume some importation of higher tech items, from entertainment systems among the rich, or Military Hardware for enemies both foreign and domestic, or  Higher tech motors, to be assembled into otherwise domestically produced vehicles? (For a premium?)

 

For the second, They would have a reasonable memory of their history, but no ability to create anything past basic radio, and most of their entertainment would be live music, and primitive recordings. But they have huge gaps in their knowledge due to their previous electronic record having evaporated due to EMP or simply time? It's aqll printed material now.  So they know what a grav vehicle is, and that they used to be on a Starship trade route, but have lost the knowledge to maintain, repair, or build a starship or a grav  vehicle.  Their accent, speaking "standard" is quaint".

 

The last example I have no further knowledge of, but How far back would the other races fall? Similar? less, or more?

 

[Duke Bushido]

Just touching on this:

 

Classic Traveller never went into detail about what went into a tech level.  Personally, I never found that odd, as most games of the era either "left it up to you" or figured you could understand the underlying logic well enough that it wasn't worth detailing on their limited budget.

 

I say that to point out to any younger folks (young folks playing HERO!  Ha!  I slay myself!) that this sort of thing was _so incredibly normal_ that the tendency was to assume that there was something already stated that gave you the information you needed to answer your question (word processors, digital documents, and a sharp drop in printing and publishing prices and options have changed all that, though).

 

Anyway, we always assumed that the tech level- much like the law level- could be seen as a result of the other statistics rolled, and didn't really bat an eye at having to use that information to "figure out why" either of these were like they were:

 

High water percentage? Less-than-ideal atmosphere?  High population?

 

Well most likely any and all resources were being pumped into keeping people alive- food production, shelter-- that 20 percent land mass might only be half arable- or habitable at all- and the overpopulation has resulted in a sub-standard educational system, and the higher-tech items are specialized toward farming, building arcologies, and air purification; not starships and weapons.

 

 

Low population, fifty-percent landmass, good air?  Even a High planetary population, with so much land, could be a very frontier-esque world, with no single settlement of more than a thousand people: not the ideal situation for think tanks and large-scale industry.

 

 

Again: I am not saying we were _right_ (and honestly, more recent versions of Traveller may have mandated certain reasons; I couldn't tell you), but it worked well, was kind of fun when you had a tough combination, and we still use it today.

 

 

 

Oh- meant to add:

 

We usually allowed a variance, particulalry on balkanized world's (perhaps a hundred years of warfare has pulled the citizenry away from high-tech pursuits and toward more urgent survival technologies?) that the tech level was the average; there was always a chance to find a place here or there whose tech was one level higher, and perhaps two levels in a very narrow field or via importing items related to a specialized on-planet need.