Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;940248Ester,

In your summations about rules, players, and Referees there isn't anything I disagree with. For what that's worth.

I simply see a difference in the rules. (Which I think we agree on.)

Yes, there is a difference. The question is whether the difference is big enough to make it two different kinds of icecream, or two different kinds of vanilla icecream:).

QuoteI think those differences can matter. (If not, why different rules?)

They can matter, yes. But the comparison should result in the statement that "those rules are very close" when comparing MgT and CT, unlike the case when we're comparing CT to either SWN (Stars Without Numbers) or Eclipse Phase.

QuoteBut I'm also going to guess there's not much further to go here.

I'd agree, FWIW;).

The MgT rules are an evolution of Classic Traveller (specifically - they skipped the other later editions in the original design brief) and have the same relationship one might expect when comparing D&D5 to OD&D. Are the rules different? Sure. Does that mean that someone with a large collection of Classic Traveller material can't make any use of them with the modern rules? No. The fundaments are the same (2D6 rolls, Characteristics & Skills) even if the applications are different. In all though, not something anyone needs to get hot under the collar about.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;940260The MgT rules are an evolution of Classic Traveller (specifically - they skipped the other later editions in the original design brief) and have the same relationship one might expect when comparing D&D5 to OD&D.

And those are two very different games from one another.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;940260Are the rules different? Sure. Does that mean that someone with a large collection of Classic Traveller material can't make any use of them with the modern rules? No.

I made use of Metamorphosis Alpha when I played 1e AD&D - did that make them "super-similar" games? I made use of En Garde! when I played Flashing Blades - does that make them "super-similar" games?

Quote from: TrippyHippy;940260The fundaments are the same (2D6 rolls, Characteristics & Skills) even if the applications are different.

And here's where we get to the heart of this ridiculous tangent: you can describe pretty much every roleplaying game as roll dice, add modifiers, yet the experience can be very different, as with a reaction table based on Charisma or some other personality attribute and a reaction table based on the character's actions in the setting. It's not enough to say, 'well, they're both 2d6 tables with modifiers' - they resolve completely different approaches to playing the game.

'goose Traveller is not 'updated' or 'expanded' or 'modernized' or 'cleaned up' LBB Traveller - it proceeds from a different set of assumptions about how the game is played from the original.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;940304'goose Traveller is not 'updated' or 'expanded' or 'modernized' or 'cleaned up' LBB Traveller - it proceeds from a different set of assumptions about how the game is played from the original.

No it doesn't - I actually use classic Traveller stuff with Mongoose Traveller all the time, and have done since it's release. And yes, I have a pretty wide ranging collection of Classic Traveller, including the original box set and the CD-Rom (which pretty much accounts for everything in effect).

The game is played with 2D6, roll high based on six stats and skills. There is a bunch of little differences, but rather than focus on that I just use what is actually transferable - the most important thing being the stories that are written for it. And for a point of fact, when Garath Hanrahan was writing Mongoose Traveller, his sole source was Classic Traveller.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;940248I think those differences can matter. (If not, why different rules?)

Quote from: Black Vulmea;940304And those are two very different games from one another...they resolve completely different approaches to playing the game...it proceeds from a different set of assumptions about how the game is played from the original.

You two are getting dangerously close to saying "System Matters", which we all know is CrazyTalk.

Crazy as in should be self-evident to anyone who isn't an Embodied Avatar of the Rule Zero Fallacy.

That there are differences is fact.
Whether that difference amounts to a distinction is relative.

Some people can paper over the Grand Canyon and call it good enough.

Quote from: CRKrueger;940308Whether that difference amounts to a distinction is relative.

Without doubt.
For me, the relative distance is great.
But the differences is either relatively large to someone... or it is not.
I would not expect anyone to go on my ride with me. The fact that I think the differences are significant are a reflection of the differences that interest me. And we'll all be interested in different things.

Well, I've seen it argued that the two are meant to answer a different question, but I'm not sure whether the difference changesanything in play.
According to the CT blog I read, CT answers the question "is your solution going to work, given the situation, including character skills".
Anything from MT to MgT1e and T5, according to the same blog, is asking the question "is your character skilled enough to deal with the situation".

Is that the kind of things you are talking about?

I can see this resulting in more of an impact of situational factors, but frankly, I'm not sure it would.

IMO, the difference between CT and MgT1e or T5 is about the same as between OD&D and AD&D, though I might be missing something.

The correct version of Traveler has this on the cover:

This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone...Mayday, Mayday...we are under attack...main drive is gone...turret number one not responding...Mayday...losing cabin pressure fast...calling anyone...please help...This is Free Trader Beowulf...Mayday....

soooo...GURPS Traveller for Groanan then

I started with The Traveller Book but I think saying CT is cheating.  Is that with or without supplements games and so forth.  You could quite easily be using advanced character creation from Books 4-7 (8 is robots and they don't quite work that way) Snap Shot for man to man combat, Striker for vehicle combat, and High Guard for ship to ship combat and still be playing Classic Traveller.

Megatraveller is awfully close to CT but has a unified task system, vehicle combat, and ties directly into the Third Imperium setting.  It's nice in that it brings a lot of material from supplements into a fairly tight core.  I don't really like the combat system but at least if I fire an assault rocket launcher at a g carrier I have some idea of what happens in game terms.

TNE should have been a new iteration of 2300 AD and left Traveller alone.  I liked it in some ways, hated it in others.  I don't mind the basic system but the armor and penetration rules don't really scale up or down all that well.  Fire, Fusion, and Steel is really neat and ambitious and I love it but its a mess of errors and errata that won't be bested until its second edition in T4.

T4 is a disaster but its my favorite version of Traveller.  Character creation is a nice mid way point between advanced an basic.  Characters get nice, fleshed out skill lists and can go to school and get a degree but the system doesn't get bogged down in details.  The task system works better than the T5 task system because it uses half dice.  T5 uses a muddy mix of modifiers and difficulty levels because whole dice are too big to represent everything.  T4 should have gone with points or dice of DR for armor and ditched the combat dice pools but on the whole the system is moving in the right direction and the book has the stuff in it that it should.  The art and editing are a mess but I do like Chris Foss and Larry Elmore's work.  It's certainly better than much of the TNE art.

Personally T5 is closest to what I want in terms of content, I like the design rules in the core because I hate supplement power creep and I want solid, nailed down standards and structures from the very beginning but sadly it's still barely functional.  In many ways 5.09 is a step down from 5.0.  That's not to say it can't be played, it's just you have to house rule things a lot and make some decisions on how things are applied.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;940212Note: I'm not in any way to get into a pissing match on any of this. The original Traveller (Books 1-3) works great in my view, but it is a distinctly different beast in application and play than MgT. But because different people want different things it's awesome both games, offering different application and play, are available to different people.

I still write my apps in both CT and MgT versions because of this.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;940219That I don't think Pundejo knows his ass from a sticky knot-hole when it comes to black box or TTB-era Traveller.

Let's take bribery, frex. In 1e 'goose Traveller, ". . . to make a skill check, a character rolls 2d6 + his Skill Level + his Characteristic DM + any other DMs, and tries to get 8 or more ("Skills & Tasks," p. 48, emphasis in the original). 'goose Traveller doesn't include Bribery as a skill at all - it's folded into the Persuade skill, with no specific examples of offering a bribe as to attribute, difficulty or time ("Persuade," pp. 56-7). In The Traveller Book. Bribery is a skill with resolution based on the law level of the world on which the bribe is offered, skill or its absence, and the reaction roll of the non-player character who is the target of the bribe ("Bribery," p. 22) - as the skill description notes, this means that success varies with how authoritarian the state is, with corruption being most prevalent on worlds with the most stringent laws, which is an incredibly powerful statement on the nature of the implied setting.

Most of 'classic' Traveller's skills work similarly. There is no 'standard target number' until some ten years into its development, and it was introduced through JTAS by DGP, not a core book in the system. LBB skills often have their own discrete resolution systems, and attributes are rarely incorporated except on an ad hoc basis by the referee. The introduction of the DGP Universal Task Profile seriously devalued a number of LBB skills, such as Vacc Suit skill which offers a +4 modifier for each skill level in the LBBs but drops to +1 per level in DGP's system.

Can you FLAILSNAIL this shit together? Sure, but you could do the same thing with 1e AD&D and 2e Boot Hill - hell, it was right there in the DMG ("Sixguns & Sorcery." pp. 112-3). Calling these systems - and the many changes in the combat systems - "super-similar" is just fucking ignorant of the rules and the history behind them.


You wanna know why I'm such an impatient fucker all the time? It's shit like this.

Original, 'classic' Traveller caps the number of skills and skill levels at INT + EDU - frex, if you have INT 5 and EDU 8, you cannot have more than 13 total skills and levels, say Pilot-4, Streetwise-2, Gunnery-2, and Computer-1. The main difference between basic and advanced character generation, then, is that advanced characters are more likely to hit that maximum sooner than basic characters. This means advanced characters tend to leave the service sooner and start the game younger and get fewer mustering out benefits because they serve fewer terms. If you choose to keep your character in the service after hitting your skill max, then you are risking multiple survival rolls per term for nothing more than a chance at attribute bonuses - INT and EDU bonuses are the ones most worth chasing, if they're available - and an extra mustering out roll.

So this isn't a "problem" to anyone who understands what the fuck is going on. It's a gambling strategy, such as going to college or technical school to increase INT and EDU to raise your skill max while giving up a term worth of benefits and getting older.

You play Traveller as a wargame. Lots of players do to this day.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;940219That I don't think Pundejo knows his ass from a sticky knot-hole when it comes to black box or TTB-era Traveller.

Let's take bribery, frex. In 1e 'goose Traveller, ". . . to make a skill check, a character rolls 2d6 + his Skill Level + his Characteristic DM + any other DMs, and tries to get 8 or more ("Skills & Tasks," p. 48, emphasis in the original). 'goose Traveller doesn't include Bribery as a skill at all - it's folded into the Persuade skill, with no specific examples of offering a bribe as to attribute, difficulty or time ("Persuade," pp. 56-7). In The Traveller Book. Bribery is a skill with resolution based on the law level of the world on which the bribe is offered, skill or its absence, and the reaction roll of the non-player character who is the target of the bribe ("Bribery," p. 22) - as the skill description notes, this means that success varies with how authoritarian the state is, with corruption being most prevalent on worlds with the most stringent laws, which is an incredibly powerful statement on the nature of the implied setting.

Most of 'classic' Traveller's skills work similarly. There is no 'standard target number' until some ten years into its development, and it was introduced through JTAS by DGP, not a core book in the system. LBB skills often have their own discrete resolution systems, and attributes are rarely incorporated except on an ad hoc basis by the referee. The introduction of the DGP Universal Task Profile seriously devalued a number of LBB skills, such as Vacc Suit skill which offers a +4 modifier for each skill level in the LBBs but drops to +1 per level in DGP's system.

Can you FLAILSNAIL this shit together? Sure, but you could do the same thing with 1e AD&D and 2e Boot Hill - hell, it was right there in the DMG ("Sixguns & Sorcery." pp. 112-3). Calling these systems - and the many changes in the combat systems - "super-similar" is just fucking ignorant of the rules and the history behind them.


You wanna know why I'm such an impatient fucker all the time? It's shit like this.

Original, 'classic' Traveller caps the number of skills and skill levels at INT + EDU - frex, if you have INT 5 and EDU 8, you cannot have more than 13 total skills and levels, say Pilot-4, Streetwise-2, Gunnery-2, and Computer-1. The main difference between basic and advanced character generation, then, is that advanced characters are more likely to hit that maximum sooner than basic characters. This means advanced characters tend to leave the service sooner and start the game younger and get fewer mustering out benefits because they serve fewer terms. If you choose to keep your character in the service after hitting your skill max, then you are risking multiple survival rolls per term for nothing more than a chance at attribute bonuses - INT and EDU bonuses are the ones most worth chasing, if they're available - and an extra mustering out roll.

So this isn't a "problem" to anyone who understands what the fuck is going on. It's a gambling strategy, such as going to college or technical school to increase INT and EDU to raise your skill max while giving up a term worth of benefits and getting older.

You play Traveller as a wargame. Lots of players do to this day.

Quote from: David Johansen;940339I started with The Traveller Book but I think saying CT is cheating.  Is that with or without supplements games and so forth.  You could quite easily be using advanced character creation from Books 4-7 (8 is robots and they don't quite work that way) Snap Shot for man to man combat, Striker for vehicle combat, and High Guard for ship to ship combat and still be playing Classic Traveller.

Kinda agree. Much like D&D, some of the biggest changes in what the game is like occur within the original edition.

QuotePersonally T5 is closest to what I want in terms of content, I like the design rules in the core because I hate supplement power creep and I want solid, nailed down standards and structures from the very beginning but sadly it's still barely functional.  In many ways 5.09 is a step down from 5.0.  That's not to say it can't be played, it's just you have to house rule things a lot and make some decisions on how things are applied.

T5 I find a lot like GURPS - it is a huge toolbox, perhaps too big to use all of it at once (except perhaps for the challenge of doing so), but then I've never heard of anyone trying to use the whole thing all at once.

Quote from: David Johansen;940339soooo...GURPS Traveller for Groanan then

Word;)!

QuoteMegatraveller is awfully close to CT but has a unified task system, vehicle combat, and ties directly into the Third Imperium setting.

So, exactly like any other version of Traveller since then:D?

QuoteT4 is a disaster but its my favorite version of Traveller.  Character creation is a nice mid way point between advanced an basic.  Characters get nice, fleshed out skill lists and can go to school and get a degree but the system doesn't get bogged down in details.  The task system works better than the T5 task system because it uses half dice.  T5 uses a muddy mix of modifiers and difficulty levels because whole dice are too big to represent everything.  T4 should have gone with points or dice of DR for armor and ditched the combat dice pools but on the whole the system is moving in the right direction and the book has the stuff in it that it should.  The art and editing are a mess but I do like Chris Foss and Larry Elmore's work.  It's certainly better than much of the TNE art.

OK, what makes it "a disaster", then?
That's a practical question, I've been eyeing the different editions that I don't have on the FFE site for a while now, and suspect it's going to end in a purchase of the "special option". T4 is almost definitely going to be one of the four CDs in this case:p.

QuotePersonally T5 is closest to what I want in terms of content, I like the design rules in the core because I hate supplement power creep and I want solid, nailed down standards and structures from the very beginning but sadly it's still barely functional.  In many ways 5.09 is a step down from 5.0.  That's not to say it can't be played, it's just you have to house rule things a lot and make some decisions on how things are applied.

I'm halfway through rewriting it with a different core system, just because I like the same things that you do;).

Gonna weigh in on this before going to bed. Both Black Vulmea and estar are right.

Each version of Traveller plays differently than the next because they are similar but different rule sets, a skill in Classic Traveller will not work the same as one in Mongoose Traveller because while the skills may be word-for-word the same the task resolution system is different. Each version of Traveller is compatible with the other versions because most of the formats used to describe things are the same, like the Universal Planetary Profile is the same in most versions of Traveller so a subsector generated with Classic Traveller can be used in any other version.

T4 is an organizational and editing disaster.  It was an ambitious project but the quality of the supplements is sporadic and the first printing of Milieu Zero had all the UPPs screwed up.

Rules wise, people hated the half dice increments in the task system and hated the nd6 task system.  One complaint I have against nd6 is that it often sets can't fail difficulties which I'm not fond of in combat.  The other is the tendency designers have to mix modifiers and difficulty levels.   This is exacerbated when you take away the half dice increments.

If character creation has a flaw it's that with 4 - 6 skills per term it's pretty easy to get ahead of aging using the Personal Development Table.

The damage system subtracts whole dice from damage ratings which means it's very absolute.  You either can or can't damage a target. A problem T4 shares with Megatraveller.  There are those who will try to defend it but even with the -6 (and shouldn't that just be two steps of difficulty?) for half armor there's the caveat that it only works against unsealed and partial armor.  An easy fix is to roll a number of dice equal to the armor rating.The damage pool is basically the same as the strong and weakened swings from classic Traveller's Book 1 combat chapter.  The tactics pool is similar to tactics pools that appear in later versions.  I think there was another pool, but I can't remember what it did.

Starships are okay in the main book but Supplement One: Starships is a mess.  One thing I liked about starships is that they have a small batch of hit points in addition to the critical hit results.  I think the table was the same as the one from Battle Rider but I'm not sure.  Milieu Zero is a pretty dry setting though I like the way they give out two sets of UPPs and only the Referee has the social data on each world.  I'm sure some people had absolute fits when Marc called Fusion Plus a form of Cold Fusion.

There were plenty of graphic and editing failures and the line really struggled with product quality.  Central Supply catalog was great, Psionic Institutes was pretty good.  Fire Fusion and Steel was great if you could bear wrestling with the 14 pages of errata.  Emperor's Arsenal was good.  Emperor's Vehicles wasn't fit to use as toilet paper.  Emperor's Star Fleets was, well, it was Fifth Frontier war without the Fifth Frontier War.  It was weird, really the last few supplements were weird.  You had Fire, Fusion, and Steel and then you had Emperor's Vehicles that was really abstract and almost the predecessor to T5's Vehicle Maker.

As you may recall I got a decent way in on a Traveller rewrite myself.  In the end I decided it made more sense to work on my own games because I own them.  There's too many things I don't love about Traveller anyhow.  I don't mind UPPs and UPPs but when it starts being USPs and UWPS and QUERBS and URPS and so forth I get tired.