Traveller General: Gambling with ship shares edition

>Help me understand ship shares.

Don't take the concept of ship shares literally. They're not certificates, coupons, or some sort of physical item. No PC leaving a job has the HR lady say "Don't forget your ship share!" and then hand them some fancy scroll.

Ships shares are a concept or idea. They're a representation of things like savings plans, bonuses, rent-to-own contracts, and the like. They're an artifact of chargen, a game mechanism, and not something which is "real".

No PC is going to say "I have a ship share" anymore than they'll say "I'm a pilot with a skill level of 1".

Can players trade them in chargen? That's up to you. Ship shares are worth a lot, so players should trade them for items of equal worth.

Can patrons reward PCs with ship shares? No, not with ship shares. Patrons can make mortgage payments however and even purchase ships outright. That's the reward in Classic's TTA after all.

TL;DR - Don't be autistic and take the chargen concept of ships shares LITERALLY.

A kind user in an earlier thread wrote and posted this guide to the differences between MgT1e and 2e.

I had a go at making a ship last night with MgT2 highguard and I'm pleased how simple it appears to be.

Now it was only 50 tonnes and I didn't draw it but still.

J-Drive takes up 20% of tonnage alone which makes me chuckle.

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I want to run a game set in the Expanse universe, would Traveller work well for me? What pitfalls would I have to look out for?

How the heck does stuff like AOE work in T5 with their whole range band system?

Pic semi related

I can't think of much off hand. The maneuver drive is already fairly similar to the Epstein drive or whatever it was called. Omit the Jump Drive, maybe throw together a few new chargen tables if you like, and I think you should be good to go.

Since the Expanse started as an RPG setting by one of the authors most definitely. I think there's also a setting book that's set in a single solar system somewhere in the archive.

I've done more reading and found the spot, but the system seems to combine abstract and tactical combat in such a way that I don't find very intuitive. Are there any good example combats anyone could recommend reading/viewing?

I mean fuck, is everyone supposed to move along bands from some arbitrary center point, or is everything relative based on position of each character (In which case the abstraction makes combat less intuitive)?

Help.

I'm designing stuff and I didn't realise how interesting it is and I keep thinking of things to design that I'll never get to use!

Can someone here tell me what this system is all about it? All I know is that its Sci-fi and I think its the originator of the "dying in character creation" meme. Can someone give me a quick pitch/rundown on that this system is good for.

Aye, it's Orbital you're looking for

>All I know is that its Sci-fi and I think its the originator of the "dying in character creation" meme.

That's the one.

Traveller was a science fiction RPG created in 1977, and was one of the earliest SF titles to appear in the nascent RPG market. Its author, Marc Millar, referenced both the original three-book D&D and a wargame called Triplanetary as guidance in creating the system.

Traveller tends to play as a gritty space opera noir, with an emphasis on planet-of-the-week adventures, lethal realistic combat, and ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events, rather than the typical heroic characters seen elsewhere.
It leans a bit towards ex-military characters and there's a lot of wargaming stuff built on and around it, especially in Classic Traveller.
The system itself is pretty simple and straightforward to play, and flexible enough you can do quite a lot of different things in it.
The mechanics of most things in Classic and Mongoose are simple and based around a 2d6 roll. Ship combat gets more complex, though. Most of the system's complexity is on the referee's side, and is in things like tools for generating worlds and the like.
That said, if you want more crunch, Traveller goes to 11 with some editions and supplements, like T5 or TNE.

It has an official universe, based on a host of classic space opera tropes, which is like a patchwork backdrop where you can easily find a space to drop in almost any kind of SF adventure you'd like, from adventure to horror to satire, and it'll still feel like part of the setting. IE its atmospher is not as thick and intrusive as some other SF settings.

The best starting point for noobs is probably to look at Mongoose Traveller's 1e or 2e core books, as they're straightforward all-in-one affairs that are more like what modern RPG consumers are accustomed to. Personally, I'm a Classic guy, as I don't care for some of the changes, but Classic's a huge beast and takes some work to get to grips with.

And about death in chargen: this was originally a standard rule in Classic chargen. At that time, chargen was treated as a minigame before regular play started. You'd roll up a guy and follow him through his career, in four-year terms. After each term you'd have the option to go back in, acquiring more skills and/or upgrading stats, and making the character more powerful. The risk of dying was a counter to this. If you kept going back for "one more skill" you risked losing your character and having to roll a new one.
In its defense, rolling up characters was fast and fun, and to this day a lot of people finish chargen and want to do it again anyway.

Death in chargen became an optional rule later on. Mongoose especially expanded chargen with more options and details, slowing it down a lot, and so death is in the optional "Iron man" rule.
Mongoose instead uses an injury or complication rule, which serves the same general purpose, but without the teeth, it's hard to justify not going back for one more term if you can, unless your referee has set an explicit limit.

Why didn't anyone tell me that the T20 folder had some useful stuff that could be mined for my other games?

Because every folder is like that, user!

Like what kind of stuff?

I discovered The Lord Weird Slough Feg's album about this game like almost 10 years ago but have never known anything about this game. is it fun

Anybody have any premade character sheets? Or know if there are any in the mega folder? Going to run a one shot Traveller game this weekend and I want some sheets for my players, something quick and easy to start off the game faster. Or maybe a quick character generator? It's Mongoose Traveller.

There's a fair bit of stuff in there that's got CT stats as well as T20, and so it's pretty readily used in MGT as well. I've started to label each PDF with the editions it mechanically supports, though a lot of stuff in the Archives isn't marked this way yet.

I'm pretty sure I've seen some premade MGT1 characters in the Archive somewhere, probably in an adventure, but heck if I can remember where.

There's a Classic Traveller generator at devilghost.com/software/travellercharacter/
It seems to use CT's advanced chargen, so skills are higher than with basic, but maybe a bit more in line with MGT, if not a little stronger.

There's an MGT1 generator up at munsondev.com/chargen/ which seems pretty nice.

There's also an MGT2 generator at rpgsuite.com/shop/traveller-character-generator-tcg/ but it's commercial and windows only. You can try it with a human drifter for free, apparently, but I'm not about to try to get that to work in Wine.

There's another one for Megatraveller, and a Java app for Classic - the latter just spat me out this guy:
>64B767 - Scout, 4th Officer, 4 terms, 10kCr
>Bribery-1,Electronics-1,Gun Combat-1, Gunnery-1, Mechanical-1, Steward-1
>Equipment: Gun (2)

It probably should have made the second gun from the benefit tables into a bump up on the Gun Combat skill, but I guess the coder missed that rule. So this guy is a John Woo fan, I guess?

I ought to gather up some of these links and consider working them into the OP, or maybe a pastebin. I'd say the 1d4chan page, but meh.

>is it fun

Well, I can't rightly say for sure, since I once knew a couple of guys who would occasionally entertain themselves with a kick-each-other-in-the-nuts contest. Different people have different ideas on what fun is.
But I think enough people agree with me that Traveller is great that maybe you'll like it, too.

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>is it fun
yes. very much. A varied and capable system that can facilitate much fun and adventure

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This is me. I looked into Traveller via the dump, and I absolutely love it. Bought the 2e Mongoose Core book and the Gear splatbook, that Orbital book, as well as a DM screen. I have a feeling I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of this system.

Engage the jump.

Hell yeah. Always nice to get another person in here.

You know, I get the vague feeling that the words "classic" and "1970s" in the OP tends to drive off new, potentially interested, players. Which, you know, may be what some of our regular posters would like (insert picture of room-size computer here). Still, there's like 20 of us here. That's not a hugely inspiring figure.

Found picture related while reading through the merc supplement for MgT2.

>20mm
>calibre size comparable to autocannons
>7D damage
>light

There isn't even any recoil, if this thing was a higher tech level and thus could have gravitic-dampening recoil-controllers I'd understand but this is a weapon that could exist in real life.

If I ever dared mention this to my players I'd drop the damage and add heavy recoil as well as increase the price.

Assuming that, of course, we are actually in TL8 and not some backwards TL7 world with just a hint of TL8 popping up now and again. That being said, a weapon that heavy should at least have the bulky or even very bulky trait. And a damage range of 7 to 42 is... quite high for TL8.

This is in the heavy weapon (man portable) category, right? I mean, if so, it would be in line, if slightly more powerful, then the TL7 anti-materiel rifle in the CSC.

The mercenary referee briefing has four new weapons at the end and the ''''light'''' assault gun is one of them.

For comparison to the absurd balancing, here is a weapon that is listed right above it.

Welcome to Mongoose.

The moron they tapped to write Mercenary1e thought the term "merchant marine" referred to armed guards on freighters.

Cybernetics and such are way more common and computers aren't defaulted to the late 1970's for one.
For two, no handheld or ship-based laser weapons of gauss weapons; slugthrowers for people, missiles and rail guns for ships.

Well, Mercenary 1e is particularly awful. Hopefully Mercenary 2e doesn't go down that route. It's a shame, the changes in 2e High Guard and the Vehicles Handbook are, for the most part, a step in the right direction.

See, this is fine. It's flechette and gauss, which means it doesn't benefit from CSC ammunition rules, and the damage, pen, and auto are reasonably middling. A 40kg, 7D man portable weapon, on the other hand, needs bigger drawbacks (possibly even a DM penalty to attack).

>Well, Mercenary 1e is particularly awful.

Making things even more confusing, there are two versions of Mercenary for MgT1e. AFAIK, they haven't come out with a Merc splat for MgT2e yet.

Not yet, and Mercenaries for 2e is a long ways away. Even without most smaller publisher's inevitable delays it's at least 6 to 8 months away.

At least, according to Mongoose's own publishing schedule. They're supposedly working now on porting over the actually-not-too-bad-if-a-bit-lightly detailed Pirates of Drinax adventure from 1e, though the adventure names are quite a bit different.

But at least they're putting some of their other stuff out there to see. Better that we can complain about it now rather than be stuck with it in print later.

Are ship shares and credits interchangeable at a fixed rate?

Unless it specifically mentions it, no. It differs by ruleset, but generally ship shares are not actually physical shares in a ship, but the accumulated wealth/affluence to have a share of the profits of a ship. In 2e Mongoose you can exchange non-used ship shares for a few extra thousand credits, which is much, much less than they're worth if they're used to actually pay off a ship's mortgage.

In other words, don't try to game the system for extra credits at chargen. Ship shares are a mechanic to explain why characters may be invested together in a single ship.

The label "Classic Traveller" was originally intended to differentiate the first ten years from what followed. Officially that first edition has no name other than just "Traveller", while all others, until Mongoose came along, sub-branded in some way.

Ah I was just curious if ship credits are a universal sort of currency.

While we're at it, how should I handle ammunition? I'm afraid of my players running out of ammo after a few fire fights with no replacement if there's a slight difference in TL.

Sup Veeky Forums. Me and some friends were planning on learning how to play Mongoose Traveller either this weekend or next Weekend. We've been reading the book and have made characters and everything (which was actually stupid fun) but there's still something I don't really understand.

Do you use a board or anything to play this? I've been googling but I can't find shit on like starting the game after char creation or if we need to use a board or what.

Is this the kind of thing I can play on roll20 or do we only need a chatroom and just imagine everything?

You don't need miniatures, tokens or a grid to play. They can be useful in combat situations, however.
You can definitely play this on roll20.

Any recommendations on an approach? I'll be the referee and I wanna make sure it goes well. Would you just set up some sort of map on r20?

>how should I handle ammunition?
Depends. Which version of Traveller are you using? Some versions (MgT 2e, for example), are pretty explicit about ammo costs for different weapons. Typically I'd just say that if the players are anticipating getting into a fight, they'd probably take along a couple of reloads that wouldn't be too bothersome to carry or weigh them down. Maybe 2 or 3 for your average slug rifle or pistol. Most ships will have a weapons locker for just this sort of thing.

Tactical combat maps are very optional for Traveller.
If you're going to have a very combat heavy game,then you'll want at least a visual aid. At minimum for combat heavy games, the GM should have a rough area map consisting of notes on terrain (such as "loose pile of crates" and "Wall of crates")
For starting the game, go look at
batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-make-traveller-sandbox.html
This gives whoever is the DM a guide to giving you some adventures, and to build a plot from your actions, without getting bogged down in too many details.

Are there any 3D modelling programs out there that you guys would recommend to use for making ships? I want to model out ships for my players in the next campaign I have planned, specifically this ship right here in the pdf. Also where are some good tutorials associated with said programs?

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How viable would it be to design a plane that loitered in the AO holding supplies for squads, to be sent down via drones when requested?

I don't know Traveller all that well (have yet to play a game), but that sounds like something late TL7/early TL8 to me. You might have to stat out the vehicles, I dunno.

Greetings fellow traveller,

I'm more of a 1e man myself, but always nice to see a new face.

>Are ship shares and credits interchangeable at a fixed rate?

Already explained here: Also, seeing as a ship share could be for any one of several ship each of which costs differently, a "share' for a scout/courier wouldn't be the same as a "share" for a free trader if those shares were ACTUAL CURRENCY and not money, influence, & favors built up during chargen.

>>Ah I was just curious if ship credits are a universal sort of currency.

As further explained here: , you're trying to game or hack the system instead of simply using common sense.

Stop taking things literally.

What is the best version of Traveller?

Subjective.

What are the pros and cons of the various versions?

That's impossible to really explain on an image board with a 2000 character limit. Here's an attempt at a TL;DR precis.

The GDW versions are as follows: Classic is the oldest version. It and it's supplements set the tone and introduced the official setting - the OTU. Think OD&D or OSR. MegaTraveller is an updated version of Classic, think AD&D, which introduced a civil war to the OTU. TNE introduced a completely different RPG system and "wiped out" the OTU.

After GDW: T4 was an attempt by the IP holder to resurrect the game. It was set in the OTU's past and suffered from poor execution. T20 is the d20 version. GT is the GURPS version

MgT in the Mongoose version. Like all Mongoose products it suffers from poor design, shoddy products, and shit editing. It is the biggest version currently published and it's system is one that most current players will find familiar. Mongoose has released a 2e.

T5 is the IP holder's latest attempt to resurrect his version of the game. It's more of a game kit than a playable RPG, but more accessible versions are supposedly in the works.

Cepheus Engine (CE) is a OGL release that many 3rd parties are migrating to. Mongoose released Traveller SRDs to OGC a few years back and more recently changed their licensing requirements basically stabbing those 3rd parties releasing products for the OTU. Many 3rd parties are now releasing non-OTU materials using CE like "Orbital" or "Clement Sector".

Which version is best for you and your group will depend entirely on the needs and tastes of you and your group.

All right. Thanks, man.

No problem. Check out COTI, the forum linked in the OP. You can learn a lot about the game there.

I should have added this:

Classic, Mega, T4, MgT1e and 2e, and CE are all 2D6 systems. All are "roll over" and use DMs from skills and stats, albeit it in slightly different ways.

GT is the GURPs system, T20 the d20 system, and T5 uses flux dice. TNE used the GDW "house" system like Twilight:2000, 2300AD, and others. That "house" system uses d6, d10, and d20 dice.

T4 is an Xd6 roll under system as well, but it used half dice for the steps, which really screws up the probabilities. T5 is a direct descendant.

That said, both CAN be played very close to the CT/MT/MGT group as far as dice go by using mods instead of extra dice. T5 even explicitly provides for it, though you'll be sacrificing a surprisingly elegant range vs target size mechanic to do so.

To clarify regarding TNE - it didn't wipe out the OTU as much as it covered a time period where the Imperium had fallen.

It would be like saying the fall of Rome wiped out our universe.

That said, GURPS Traveller takes place in an alternate timeline, where the emperor isn't assassinated