I rather used Black Lagoon as my make-or-break model -- any character in the first four episodes (the only eps I've seen so far) should be able to be modelled by the 10 core careers.  It may not be immediately obvious from the description, but I've folded the Other and Bureaucrat careers from Traveller together, with a little smidgin of the Noble career, too.  With the Prior Career tables I'm putting together, it should be possible to replicate Rock by putting the character through a 4-year college, then one term in the Other career and taking at least the skill of Admin-1.

The Other career might be described as consisting of office workers, expatriot temp workers, travel writers, low-profile con men, semi-retired dot-com dilettantes, idle rich, etc.  It all depends on how the rolls land.  I didn't want to make any single career too specific for the more peripheral background possibilities -- as the description says, Other is a catch-all category for just about everyone else.

!i!

I liked this part...

Optional materials
Miniature Figures (people, animals, ships)
Electronic Calculator or Personal Computer

"Electronic Calculator!"

It was just too cute to not include.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaIt's not what I had originally hoped for -- it does not use the "classic" Traveller mechanics -

This could change in future. See Mongoose's announcement.
   After a near 10-year gap in which only reprints of the Traveller game system have been available, Mongoose Publishing becomes the centralised resource for Traveller titles with the publication of their core rule book Traveller: Science-Fiction Adventures in the Far Future, in February 2008.

[...] It is our aim to halt the fragmentation of the Traveller game, and reintroduce one solid system (based on Classic Traveller), with one source for the official Traveller universe.

[...] Once the rules for Traveller appear, we plan to make them available under the Open Gaming License (OGL). At the same time, we will issue a Traveller Logo License (TLL) which makes the Traveller logo and titling available to licensees.

[my emphasis]

Quote from: Kyle AaronThis could change in future. See Mongoose's announcement.
   After a near 10-year gap in which only reprints of the Traveller game system have been available, Mongoose Publishing becomes the centralised resource for Traveller titles with the publication of their core rule book Traveller: Science-Fiction Adventures in the Far Future, in February 2008.

[...] It is our aim to halt the fragmentation of the Traveller game, and reintroduce one solid system (based on Classic Traveller), with one source for the official Traveller universe.

[...] Once the rules for Traveller appear, we plan to make them available under the Open Gaming License (OGL). At the same time, we will issue a Traveller Logo License (TLL) which makes the Traveller logo and titling available to licensees.

[my emphasis]

O.  M.  F.  G.

Uh-oh, JA just had a critical fumble in his pants!

To calm you down, I offer two words from Mongoose's press release: "based on". Who knows how it'll turn out... I am hopeful but not optimistic!

Quote from: Kyle AaronThis could change in future. See Mongoose's announcement.

Yep.  A few weeks ago, Marc Miller intimated as much to me, which got me quite excited.  However, as you point out further on, it's "based on" CT.  It may be significantly different, and the OGL may stipulate that I can't backwards engineer the mechanics to more closely resemble CT.  Furthermore, it's Mongoose, and having to slap their name at the beginning of MARINER pleases me none at all.

At this point, though, it's all speculative.  I intend to wait and see what the OGL looks like, and, if need be, I'm prepared to continue to pursue the actual original CT rules.

!i!

What's the latest on this, Ian?

Have you got any further with the first supplement, South China Seas?

I haven't had any further word on the exact nature of the rules set to which Marc stated I'd have access, but re-reading his last e-mail in the context of the Mongoose announcement strongly suggests that it's the Mongoose OGL that's available for MARINER.

For the time being, I've largely set the project aside until I can have a good look at the official OGL terms (and also while work has heated up for the summer, I've been away on a vacation, and I've begun working on a paying RPG gig). I make notes occasionally, grill certain friends and relatives on traveling conditions in Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, and watch DVDs of Black Lagoon almost incessantly.

!i!

two books of reference which may help, spotted (and browsed) at my library:



http://tinyurl.com/2wnctk for the amazon listing.  
good for travelling info, but more from a civilian perspective.

the other is the reference book for world traders.  the version in my library is a small, 3 vol. set in binders.  every two months we'll get an update on ten or so countries.  you can find a nearby library that has it by going to worldcat ( http://www.worldcat.org ), putting in title, then adjusting the zip code as necessary to show the closest libraries that have it.  there are multiple listings for that title in worldcat--the one i've perused is the first one.  i'm sure the others are similar.

Inspiration/source for Mariner?

Malacca Strait Pirates

BTW Ian, keep at this project! It is an absolutely brilliant idea.

- Q

Here's an abbreviated version of the character generation procedure thus far.  A bit of a formatting problem, but the tables are all there.  If you're at all familiar with classic Traveller or MegaTraveller, run it through the rigors, roll up a handful of characters, and let me know if they seem to be coming out balanced or not.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaHere's an abbreviated version of the character generation procedure thus far.  A bit of a formatting problem, but the tables are all there.  If you're at all familiar with classic Traveller or MegaTraveller, run it through the rigors, roll up a handful of characters, and let me know if they seem to be coming out balanced or not.

!i!

Heven't tried generating a character yet (but will do soon) but just to say it is looking good!

Is there any way to persuade logistics professionals to contribute to a supplement about the trading life for this?

Persuade? I don't know.  Exhort?  Perhaps.  Seeing that there's no money behind the endeavor, I fear that virtue is its own reward.

Rather than a supplement, I've been expecting Book 2: Ships and the Sea to contain simple (but effective) trading rules like unto Traveller's rules from the LBBs.  I'll confess that I haven't even begun to approach those rules, though I have been working on a system for profiling seaports that mirrors the UWP.  The importance of the port profile is two-fold.  On one hand, it's a very simple means of sizing up potential roleplay activity -- how big is the port, who controls it, how strict are the local authorities, etc.  The second feature is the means for sizing it up for trade -- size of the port, access to regionally-produced goods, specific types of goods, legal controls on imports and exports, etc.

Perhaps I should clean up those notes a little and let you play around with them.

!i!