Back to Traveller Hero

[Barwickian]

I picked up a copy of Mongoose Traveller (MGT) when I was last in the UK anearly three years ago. After a brief flick through it ("Humph! Doesn't do anything the LBBs didn't do."), I put it on a shelf, and I've only just picked it up to start reading it.

 

And I'm kicking myself for not giving it a proper chance when I bought it. It DOES do things the LBBs didn't do, and it manages to do them while keeping the LBB feel. To be able to modernise such a classic game and keep it thoroughly old school is as close to genius as I've seen in a game for a long time. And its default setting is the CT one: 1105 - whatever variation of Trav I play - LBBs, MT, GT - I always go back to that era, the build-up and actuality of the Fifth Frontier War.

 

I took advantage of the GM's Day discounts at RPG Now to buy up a long list of MGT PDFs. The really cool thing about the system is that you really only need the core book in print for play - everything else is gravy and optional rules for very specific styles of play.

 

And yet... I don't think my players are going to bite. I've spent too long easing them into Hero, and they're now loving the flexibility both in character design and in tactical situations.

 

So, I'm back to toying with the idea of Traveller Hero again. I have the now unavailable Comstar PDFs but (a) they're for 5th edition ( they're ridiculously mechanics heavy, © they add unnecessary and occasionally non-canon stuff (at least, non-canon from the perspective of one who skipped T4) and (d) I feel some of the danger of Trav combat is reduced; I'd add a DC or two onto most of the weapon damage, for instance - not quite enough to make it as lethal as Trav combat, but definitely cranking it up from the usual Hero level.

 

All of those basically amount to starting over, as far as I'm concerned.

 

I think there's a lot I can draw directly from MGT. Trade will work from the box, with a little finesse on things like DMs (I'd rule for characteristics and skills, 11- is +0, 12- is +1 and so on). And if trade works from the box, then prices must come directly from MGT as well.

 

Starship combat may require more thought; Travifying Star Hero ship combat may be the way to go. World design can come straight from MGT. Character design, personal equipment, psionics, etc, will be Hero.

 

I'd be inclined to build things like ships and vehicles in MGT and convert them to Hero 6. That has the advantage of allowing for volume and power requirements, which Hero hand waves (and the fact that Hero hand waves them makes converting things like this into Hero very easy).

 

This is not a project I'm planning to start soon. I've an ongoing, if irregular, Turakian Age game going, which I've committed to writing up as a free Fantasy Hero sandbox in the hopes of attracting new players.

 

But I am interesting in board members' suggestions and ideas for when I am ready to start.

 

I think the FFE fair use licence will allow me to post stuff online. I envisage this material being the kind of stuff you'd need Hero 6, MGT and some form of Classic Trav-compatible setting material to use (CT, MGT and T4 supplements should all work).

 

For instance, if I give my way of using MGT trade and speculation in Hero, you'd need the MGT core book to use the trade and speculation rules in that.

[Ternaugh]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

I usually use MGT or the old High Guard rules for ships and ship combat. Generally, you aren't going to have Starship level weapons used in personal combat, and most personal weapons in Traveller don't normally do enough damage to pierce bulkheads. I also really don't like the starship writeups for Hero--they tend to be rambling and clunky.

 

What I'd suggest is if you really want to do a Traveller style Star Hero game, you could just work up a few appropriate packages (or modify them from SH). Add a few game specific skills to mimic things like Broker and Trader, if you want. Most "standard" Traveller weapons are listed in the weapon lists, and it's possible to extrapolate the rest. I'd just hand the players the standard item lists from Traveller, since it's Heroic and stuff's bought for money you really don't need to convert the equipment.

 

JoeG

[Tasha]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

If you do conversions of starships do yourself a favor and convert from High Guard or Fire Fusion and Steel or equiv. Don't use the deckplans for conversions. The deckplans were notorious for having more floor space than is possible for the ship. ie the LBB version of the Far Trader is the worst of the bunch with the deckplans having like 40% area on them than they are supposed to according to the High Guard (or even the Basic Starship creation rules allow).

 

When I ran I just faked the starship stuff. I kind of used the LBB traveller rules for them.

 

For Character Gen, I had people roll characters using the Mongoose Char Gen rules (inc all of the upgrades to them (High Guard, Mercenary, Scouts etc)). Once their characters were created that way I had them convert their characters to Hero. It was kind of weird at times, but it gave them a background framework to build on. Which given that none of my players were RL Veterans, I thought gave them a better grounding in that Militaristic feeling to their Characters.

 

Publishing stuff for traveller seems to be fraught with uglyness. I guess that doing stuff for Mongoose traveller is better than dealing with Mark Miller directly. I just don't know if it's worth the hassle.

[RexMundi]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

Mongoose's take on Traveller was my primary Demo product for them, and it's Spin Offs (Judge Dredd, Hammers Slammers, and Strontium Dog, even the b5 rework ).

Was my favorite game from back in the day other then Champions and Villains and Vigilantes, and is still my go to game when I need a change. Mighty fine game and I'm actually surprised someone other then myself spotted the good stuff mixed in with the classic stuff that never needed fixing...

Reminds me I need to get a new copy of a couple of books thanks to an open window and some bad weather, but, still got some comp so no biggie....

 

Definitly do your own DeckPlans though. Just something about Traveller, you get great ships, but lousy Deck Plans. Unless it's a Merc Cruiser that things Perfect

 

~Rex

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

oh hells yeah.

Most of our old Star Hero campaign took place around the Broadsword class Mercenary Cruiser "Rapier"

One of my all time favorite Traveller ship desings

[d_ns]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

I'm playing in some PbP games over on Myth-Weavers, and wanted to play Traveller. But I love many game systems, and MgT can be... inconsistent in some areas so I put up a poll for what to play, including Hero as a system, but using their Third Imperium. The vote has been nearly unanimous that we use the MgT rules, but that has not kept me from continuing to work out how I'd do things if I were to use Hero (and others) to do it.

 

I have that same ComStar book, and while it's useful for ideas, I'd never take any of it as done for all of the reasons that you list.

 

It's easy enough to use the gear from MgT, including pricing, and just develop stats for the weapons that mirror the deadliness you want (I have GURPS: Traveller Interstellar Wars, and interestingly the weapons there are actually more deadly than Traveller in some ways). Hero System Equipment Guide is a useful tool for pulling ideas, but I'll still tweak, since that's one of the things that Hero allows with such ease.

 

Ships is proving to be a bit more challenging. I put together stats for some powers I'd include in a basic Free Trader, and found three or four ways to build Jump Drives that you could use. And then stumbled to a stop when I realized there's no hard and fast rules for cargo space or passenger accomodations, or how many weapons can be installed on a ship. As I'm in the midst of combining the ship building rules from MgT Core and MgT High Guard (perhaps with some optional rules from CT High Guard), I suspect I'll just use those to build the ships, then model things using Hero's system after the fact.

 

If you're really interested in this, please start posting ideas here, and I'll do the same, and we can make this a small community effort to integrate Mongoose Traveller into Star Hero.

[RexMundi]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

When I was paring down the Game Collection for some extra room and cash (and it was a nice chunk of change from Nobel Knight too Thanks guys!) I couldn't bring myself to part with any of my Traveller material, even though the idea was to get rid of everything non Universal or Super Hero related.....

 

So now I got to finish writing up some Supers Rules for MgT

 

~Rex...about half way done with it actually.....

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

I tried to read this thread, but it kept killing Google Chrome before it had even finished loading.

[Ternaugh]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

I tried to read this thread' date=' but it kept killing Google Chrome before it had even finished loading.[/quote']

 

Trying the T5 beta test, are you?

 

JoeG

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

been away from the boards for a while guys... especially after a recent heart attack... but you can probably blame me for a lot of the heavy handed mechanics in Traveller Hero...

 

one problem with Starship and vehicle design in the Hero system that has existed since 4E is that there are no rules for space/volume/mass etc for various components... the only system that did have it was in Champions 2, and I was told I couldnt use it

in TH... which I to this day do not agree with. so it becomes up to the GM to determine this.

[Tasha]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

one problem with Starship and vehicle design in the Hero system that has existed since 4E is that there are no rules for space/volume/mass etc for various components... the only system that did have it was in Champions 2, and I was told I couldnt use it

in TH... which I to this day do not agree with. so it becomes up to the GM to determine this.

 

I can understand why the rules don't have rules for Space/Volume/Mass of components. The rules are there to allow someone to create things (in this case vehicles) from any genre. So what would be correct in Traveller for Mass, might not work for Firefly Hero or Star Trek Hero, or Robot Warriors (ie Giant Anime Robot Hero).

[RexMundi]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

*Digs out his Champions 2 to check the Volume/Mass rules* ..... Hmm.....Useful. Gonna use it anyway.

 

~Rex

[Barwickian]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

one problem with Starship and vehicle design in the Hero system that has existed since 4E is that there are no rules for space/volume/mass etc for various components... the only system that did have it was in Champions 2, and I was told I couldnt use it

in TH... which I to this day do not agree with. so it becomes up to the GM to determine this.

 

I think the lack of mass and volume in Hero vehicle design is both a great strength and a weakness.

 

It makes it very easy to model real-world vehicles very simply: you simply look at what they can do and rate them accordingly.

 

For vehicles without clear stats, or for fictional-but-realistic (or fictional-with-verisimilitude) vehicles, it still satisfies in game terms, but it doesn't quite satisfy my need for as solid a base as I can get.

 

What I tend to do in such circumstances is use GURPS Vehicles, with the 2 expansion booklets and the GURPS Vehicle Builder software (designing ehicles under GURPS is an excercise in masochism without some computerised support; a spreadsheet is the absolute minimum requirement).

 

So for instance I have a fairly good idea of the speed and crewing requirements of a 1930s tramp steamer. If my party had a three-island tramp, its not hard to find plans and many of the stats.

 

But when I was putting a pulp game together, we decided something smaller than the three-island design was appropriate. Pumping numbers into GURPS Vehicle Builder gave me a cruise speed close to what I expected (11 knots), gave me rates for burning coal at cruise and maximum speeds, allowed me to work out the size of the hold, etc. I took those numbers and statted the ship in Hero terms. The bits Hero doesn't cover (size of hold etc) go into the background notes.

 

For Traveller, I've been using Megatraveller or GT (back to Vehicles again, or GT Starships), though MGT looks pretty good.

 

For Autoduel Hero, what better than using Car Wars to design vehicles? Well, either that or... yes, GURPS Vehicles again.

 

When I first really started getting into Hero, the freedom from such number-crunching was one of its great appeals for me. Now I tend to do the number-crunching as a preliminary step in designing a Hero vehicle unless I can find out the real-world numbers.

 

Though I thought I wanted to get away from the number-crunching, it turns out I need it.

 

The workflow works for me.

 

And shadowcat, I am truly glad you're recovered after the heart attack. I've missed your posts. It's great to see you back.

[Orion]

Re: Back to Traveller Hero

 

When I was paring down the Game Collection for some extra room and cash (and it was a nice chunk of change from Nobel Knight too Thanks guys!) I couldn't bring myself to part with any of my Traveller material' date=' even though the idea was to get rid of everything non Universal or Super Hero related.....[/quote']

 

I once felt the same way about my old Traveller stuff. Once I a blue moon I'd find something I had missed on sale, and would snap it up. Then I discovered the reprint book, and I just had to have them in order to have complete set of booklets. But I couldn't justify the cost, and so it was part of my birthday wish list each year. Last year I decided to go PDF as much as possible with my gaming stuff in the future, and shortly thereafter found out FFE was making CDs available. That sold me on it. I sent almost all my Traveller stuff to Noble Knight, which allowed me to buy a load of old Hero stuff from them, and used holiday money to buy all the Traveller stuff on CD from FFE. I now have far more Traveller stuff than I ever did before, and am glad I did it. There's something nice about having the old paper books on the shelf, to be sure, but it's even better to know I now have a complete set.