Quote from: DavetheLost;856263Also about Traveller, by way of edition wars, I have the itch to play some Traveller now, and am wondering Classic Traveller or plunk down the twenty bucks to check out the new Mongoose Traveller beta?

Classic Traveller is my favourite of the ones I've seen. I liked the setting updates in MegaTraveller, but didn't really like the system, and T3(?) with Virus Fleets and all that didn't really feel like Traveller. I haven't seen T5, and don't remember T4.

I tend to prefer less rules crunch. Especially since I have to both GM and teach the rules.

So which Traveller would you recommend?

addressing the T3(?): It's called Traveller: the New Era.

If you have the books, Classic Traveller is still immenently playable. You can also purchase a CD of all the main books (something like books 1-12) for $20 on the main Traveller site.

Mongoose Traveller 1e is (using D&D terminology) the Mentzer version of the same basic gameplay. It does a lot of standardization--all stats give the same +/-s at the same level, I can't remember if that was true in CT, but that's the kind of stuff that it does). There are specific differences and reasons to like one over the other, but the game really does play very much the same. I don't know much about MgT 2 beta. Given that we don't even have book 1 for it out yet, only go for that if you're taking the long term view.

Really don't go in for T5 unless you are taking the long term view. There's some good stuff in there, but it is still (even in the revised edition, 5.09) buried in a wholey unweildy form inside a ginormous, poorly referenced book. There's some interesting material there, but it's a long way from what I would call a game system. Also, it's kinda neat, but it's not realy Traveller as you played it.

The interesting thing with T5 is that instead of building a simple core game and layering on special case rules, Marc has built a moderately complex game that does just about everything.  It's almost always overkill but it's an interesting approach.  Personally I hate the endless special case rules that most games have these days.  I also like that the design system is integrated from the start, so there shouldn't be stuff that's unworkable or incompatible down the line.

But take Automatic Rifles.  I designed a few last night, for about an hour.

You have very light, light, medium, heavy, and very heavy versions of Prototype, Early, Basic, Standard, Improved, Alternate, Modified, Advanced, and Ultimate Battle Rifles, each with their own stats, advantages, and disadvantages.  There's also carbines.  So that's 80 battle rifle and carbine variants without taking into account different species and various add-ons.  They range from one dice of damage for a light prototype to ten for a very heavy ultimate weapon.  Never mind that there are just as many variants for normal rifles, assault rifles, and combat rifles.

Personally it's a bit much and more like a compression routine than an actual design sequence.  There's issues I have with results it produces, missiles of a similar tech level do less damage than firearms for example.  And you can't build a tank gun that will penetrate the armour of a heavy tank of equal tech level.

Still in game terms it's Traveller V - 8 Quality +2, Ease of Use -2 Bulk +3, Reliability = Flux, Safety +4

The more I hear about T5 the more insane it sounds. I am picking it up... eventually.

Quote from: Bren;856214Other than being used in a couple of Sci-Fi RPGs you mean?

Yes, just like thousands of other common English words.

I prefer Traveller 5.09 over Classic Traveller any day. I was never a fan of Marc Miller's Mojo Jojo writing style, which is found all over Classic Traveller. Loren Wiseman helped with editing some of his other books. T5.09 has most of the Mojo Jojo removed from the text. It's so much easier to read than T5.

Classic Traveller had some "roll under" mechanics in it. T5.09 takes those mechanics, beefs them up, and makes them the core mechanic.

MgT2 Beta chose to use "roll over", but with a floating target number now instead of a static TN of 8+. I like its skill check mechanic the most out of all the Traveller editions.

The whinging that "the computers are too big" is ludicrous since the computers are so trivially plausible compared with the fantastic whoppers the same people typically accept without a peep.

It's an SF adventure game, not a textbook. The point is to have fun. When our
descendants actually travel to the stars, it's not likely to be just like anything we imagine today. The adventure is really about us, our hopes and fears and even our romantic dreams of bygone eras, lost frontiers.

The spaceship design deal anyhow is one of many "games within the game" that Traveller offers, which are not essential to the role-playing game.

A good description in terms of what the characters perceive is worth more than reams of abstract stats.

The defaults are just a starting point you can change for your own milieu.

Maybe computers really have got bigger than they need to be, but nobody notices. AT&T kept answering machine technology from the public because they reckoned some of their profit came from people using telephones to make crank calls or conduct illegal transactions. If computers are strangely large, what purpose is it they're big enough to serve? An imaginative rationale could be a starting point for a really science-fictional adventure.

If almost everything's made of plastic, but there's no known source of appropriate polymers such as petrochemicals in the sector, where does it come from?

If technology X seems obviously to lead to application Y, why does nobody do it?

The future is never what it used to be.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;856475I was never a fan of Marc Miller's Mojo Jojo writing style, which is found all over Classic Traveller.

What does that mean? Mojo Jojo... you mean he sounds like the uplifted ape on Powerpuff Girls?

We are dealing with the Third Imperium and a distant future in the default setting, not to mention a long distance from Earth for most of it. I could be convinced that there is some in universe reason why computers are the way they are. Something that is not readily appearing from a late Twentieth Century Earth view point.

Jump drive and grav technology don't really make a lot of sense either.

In all honesty, I didn't spend a lot of time drawing deck plans so tonnage was really just abstract "stuff points" anyway when it came to starship design. So many points for engines, so many points for fuel, so many points for computers, etc.

I love it when people pull out the "technology/science is so outdated in Traveller" complaint because then I know that they are a fucking idiot and I can quit listening to them.

Quote from: jeff37923;856489I love it when people pull out the "technology/science is so outdated in Traveller" complaint because then I know that they are a fucking idiot and I can quit listening to them.

You got ships that are flying gas tanks...and jump drives.
You got boarding cutlasses...and Battle Dress with shoulder mounted PGMPs.
Tech levels all over the place is half the fun, it's why Traveller is the original Firefly RPG.

The computers though...you can't tell me it's not related to the whole CD-ROM thing.

I think Mark Miller visited Cape Canaveral during the I Dream of Jeannie days and never got over it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;856510You got ships that are flying gas tanks...and jump drives.
You got boarding cutlasses...and Battle Dress with shoulder mounted PGMPs.
Tech levels all over the place is half the fun, it's why Traveller is the original Firefly RPG.

The computers though...you can't tell me it's not related to the whole CD-ROM thing.

All that "fuel" would make sense if the maneuver drives were reaction drives. The weird part is that the jump drive needs it and *not* the maneuver drives.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;856511All that "fuel" would make sense if the maneuver drives were reaction drives. The weird part is that the jump drive needs it and *not* the maneuver drives.

I'm just trolling Jeff, but yeah it's a little odd, plus fucks up the ship maps kind of.

BTW, I don't think anyone who's ever seen those Terran Trade Authority books can get them out of their head.

Quote from: Phillip;856474Yes, just like thousands of other common English words.

Well I haven't seen luxblade used anywhere other than in a Sci-Fi game, but feel free to correct me. Otherwise I really don't see what you are going on about.

Quote from: Phillip;856483The whinging that "the computers are too big" is ludicrous since the computers are so trivially plausible compared with the fantastic whoppers the same people typically accept without a peep.

Yes it is nearly as bad as the string of whinging about the whinging posts. The computer sizes in Traveller were silly within a few years of publication at best. So were boarding cutlasses*. Lots of other things in Traveller are also silly.


* At least the David Drake made his cutlasses "cutting bars" so they have a high-tech gloss to wrap around the Sea Rovers vs. Conquistadors boarding actions that he wanted to include.

Quote from: Phillip;856483The whinging that "the computers are too big" is ludicrous since the computers are so trivially plausible compared with the fantastic whoppers the same people typically accept without a peep.

I just remind players that Traveller is not our future, the times that we do use the Traveller setting.

A couple of points

Original Traveller (1977) did have this on page 17 of Worlds and Adventure

Quote

QuoteHand Calculator

(7) CrlO. Provides basic mathematical calculations. Weighs .I kg.

QuoteHand Computer

(1 1) Cr1000. Provides services of a small computer, plus serves as a computer terminal when linked (by its integral radio, or by other circuit) to a computer. Weighs 0.5 kg.

.5 kg or 1.1 lbs is not bad sci-fi wise although they did have it pegged for Tech Level 11. But hey the hand calculator was TL 7.

As for the starships I personally never had an issue because I was involved with manufacturing computer control metal cutting machines. Yeah the computer part is small but when you talk about all the electronic stuff it amounts to a small chunk of real estate in your machine.

I realize the most common perception was the 'Big Iron" boxes with spinning tape driver. And that what Marc Miller had in mind only sleeker. But in the end the fact you are talking 2% (100 tons Jump 2) of your vessel's volume explicitly devoted to the computer i.e. electronic control it doesn't sound that unreasonable.