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Classic Traveller concerns

Started by Balbinus, October 09, 2006, 09:05:06 AM

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Ian Absentia

#30
October 10, 2006, 01:10:01 PM
Quote from: BalbinusAnd for that ten minutes of play while you make a few rolls your character will matter.

The rest of the campaign, not so much.
As I was suggesting in my previous post, Vacc Suit-4 is his skill set, but what is his personality like?  When I'm crawling around under semi-abandoned buildings with my workmates or hanging around the office, it's their personalities that I tend to notice more than their technical abilities.  Our skill sets are merely what got us in the door together.

!i!

Hastur T. Fannon

#31
October 10, 2006, 05:40:44 PM
Didn't the Medic in the Travellers comic have Knife Combat-3, Forgery-2 and no actual medical skills?
 

Settembrini

#32
October 10, 2006, 10:48:16 PM
@Hastur: Thats wrong. You only qualify as a medic if you roll at least -1 medicine. Elsewise you are not a medic.

You are what you roll. Must be hard concept to grasp for some point-buy-superheroe-lovers...
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

Dominus Nox

#33
October 10, 2006, 11:16:00 PM
Quote from: BagpussIt was an AI that destroyed the Third Imperium if you follow GDW cannon Traveller. They are very common in the New Era setting.

I think the AI called "Virus" was sort of an accident, not a deliberate creation. Also it wouldn't explain the millennia lack of AI R&D before it came along.
RPGPundit is a fucking fascist asshole and a hypocritial megadouche.

Settembrini

#34
October 10, 2006, 11:17:13 PM
Dominus, get out your book eight, read up on Shudusham Concords, and start taking back your false assumptions.
Trav has AI.
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

droog

#35
October 11, 2006, 01:30:48 AM
Doesn't Vacc-St default for using combat armour?
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Balbinus

#36
October 11, 2006, 05:42:47 AM
Quote from: SettembriniDominus, get out your book eight, read up on Shudusham Concords, and start taking back your false assumptions.
Trav has AI.

Although I think true AI is a TL 16 development, IIRC the Shudusham Concords are more about banning robots with AI but which are not truly sentient.

That said, Traveller originally was intended as a generic SF rpg, the whole sticking to canon thing is actually IMO fairly alien to the spirit of the original little black books.

Settembrini

#37
October 11, 2006, 06:40:13 AM
QuoteThat said, Traveller originally was intended as a generic SF rpg, the whole sticking to canon thing is actually IMO fairly alien to the spirit of the original little black books.

Yes and it regularly creeps out Loren K. Wiseman, but Marc W. Miller seems to gleefully answer "canonical" questions...
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

Balbinus

#38
October 11, 2006, 06:46:36 AM
Quote from: SettembriniYes and it regularly creeps out Loren K. Wiseman, but Marc W. Miller seems to gleefully answer "canonical" questions...

Point taken, that said for me Marc W Miller's ability to determine canon ended when I bought the books.  From that point on, the game is mine.

Mr. Analytical

#39
October 11, 2006, 06:49:37 AM
I've never understood the appeal of canon in gaming (apart from the Hodgekiss repeating canon from Space: 1889).  You buy a book, you use what you want how you want... what extra utility is wrung from the idea that you ran the game in the way the original authors intended?

Settembrini

#40
October 11, 2006, 07:01:04 AM
Quotewhat extra utility is wrung from the idea that you ran the game in the way the original authors intended?

In Traveller, it`s totally different than in most games:

The Gearheads try to make sophisticated systems for all kinds of stuff,like Stock Markets or rules for Deep Meson gun Emplacements, or a complete ruindown for the 3I Military. In order to do that, they have to extrapolate from published sources == canon.
To be able to present a neat subsystem to their fellow gearheads, all have to agree on a baseline of assumption == canon. Elsewise the validity of the subsystem cannot be judged.
Thus it is of utmost import to negotiate what exactly is canon.
If there can\'t be a TPK against the will of the players it\'s not an RPG.- Pierce Inverarity

KenHR

#41
October 11, 2006, 07:49:05 AM
Bah.  There are planet generation and blank subsector grids included with the original books for a reason.  You don't need a canon universe to do any of those things.

The rules already strongly imply a society similiar to 3I; that's all you need for your extrapolation with regard to social matters.  For gearhead-type stuff, the rules and actual physics are referred to more often on the TML than some fluff text about the 3I.  Believe me it's true, as I came up with a lot that I thought was original for my game before even glancing at canon material, and it ended up pretty much matching what GDW did for their setting.  I was able to extrapolate many details on my own, no canon fluff needed.
For fuck\'s sake, these are games, people.

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Mr. Analytical

#42
October 11, 2006, 07:51:19 AM
Sorry, I meant "For those of us who have lives, what extra utility is wrung from the idea that you ran the game in the way the original authors intended?"

Ian Absentia

#43
October 11, 2006, 12:34:21 PM
Quote from: KenHRThe rules already strongly imply a society similiar to 3I; that's all you need for your extrapolation with regard to social matters.
A couple of years back, Paul Elliott (a.k.a. Mithras) proposed developing a variant "canon" based solely on the apparent premises presented in the core three LBBs (one week spent in Jump-space, cold sleep berths and the Cold Sleep Lottery, marines with Cutlass-1 skill, suppressed psionics use, etc.), and having nothing to do with the 3rd Imperium.  I wish I could find my notes on it, but it was a pretty cool setting idea that seemed to fuse a lot of concepts from Dune, WH40K, and Empire of the Petal Throne -- I especially liked the Eternal Legion, an elite unit of battlesuit-armored marines kept in cold sleep berths indefinitely.  Much as I like the springboard that the 3rd Imperium provides, I'm tempted to make a new Traveller setting wholecloth like this.

!i!

Aos

#44
October 11, 2006, 12:39:10 PM
I've never used the cannon setting for Traveller. I use a half realized homebrew, kind of similar to the setting of Andre Norton's SF from the 50's.
You are posting in a troll thread.

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