Traveller General--Naval Armsman Edition

Did you muster out? That is did you stop chargen after that one term or did you simply change careers?

bumping

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What is the optimum number of players for a group? Three?

worked for me with 5

>What is the optimum number of players for a group? Three?

Depends on the referee & group. For me it was 3 to 5. Two rarely worked as one player and their ideas quickly came to predominate despite my efforts. Two also meant I was handling more "daily" NPCs then I liked.

Anything over 5 and I found it harder to balance the "face time" I think each PC should get. I want each player to have be important. Maybe not every session, but I definitely took care to avoid the group from evolving into A level and B level PCs.

Odd numbers are better for when cliques develop and, if a campaign lasts long enough, cliques ALWAYS develop.

I haven't been able to find any Meetup, or g+ groups for Traveller; it's mostly dnd. If I put up a flyer in my LGS, what should I put on it? This may be counting chickens before they hatch, but what should I do if too many players show up? I'm very young (18), should I just wait until I'm older to try GMing?

No, just KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID, don't overestimate your abilities, but don't underestimate them either, run the game you and your players want to run and everything will be fine

As explained, follow the KISS method (Although I hate the 'stupid" part of that acronym.) Start small, listen to your players, only add stuff when you need, and have fun. It's so simple even I have been able to do it.

Also, age has nothing to do with being a good GM. I first Traveller in 1977 when my friends and I were 16 and 17. We began GMing right away.

As for what to put on your flyer, talk to the guys in your friendly LGS. They'll give you good advice and may be able to point you at a group which is already playing.

>Although I hate the 'stupid" part of that acronym
Keep It Simple Simon was the one I was originally taught
It was a bit of a shock when I first heard the "Stupid" variant

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Does anyone have a good idea for a 'AK-47' like weapon for rebellion purposes? I don't just want to copy an existing stat block. I'm thinking of slapping a seperate failure table to it to reinforce the whole "cheap and illicit" side of arming a rebellion.

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I did muster out, and then did four more terms.

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>Three?
Tree Fiddy.

Sorry about the delay. I had to check my copy to confirm my suspicions. You received a TAS membership in your one term 1st career and thus get the high passage tickets from TAS during the 4 terms of your second career.

Multiple careers is something that wasn't part of Traveller until TNE so the mustering out benefit mechanism followed the old Classic/MT method; you didn't roll for any mustering out bennies until you were done with CHARGEN and not just a CAREER. Rolling after finishing a career makes more sense.

So, your PC can use, keep, or sell all those high passages they received during their subsequent 4 terms.

bumping

That "bubble car" reminds of an entry in DGP's "101 Vehicles". It was a gravitic kiddy chair. You popped junior in it, hit a few buttons, and it flew him to school.

The rest of the book isn't that silly and is well worth a look.. It should be in the MT folder.

It's a more modern usage, but I'm liking Keep it Stupid Simple - categorizing the method and not the person

It just rubs me the wrong way to even indirectly call someone stupid because they're asking for advice. Sure, there are tons of stupid and lazy people and a fair number post in general threads of this type. I just don't want to call someone stupid and/or lazy until they prove themselves to be stupid and/or lazy.

It's like those "X for Dummies" and "Idiot's Guide to X" books. I'm making the effort to get the book to research the topic and yet they're calling me an idiot or dummy?

It's a tiny thing in a grand scheme of things, but it's pet peeve of mine.

Jump-1

It's an assault rifle. Use the assault rifle stats.
This is not a /k/ game.

Must agree with this. Weapon stats in nearly all the rules sets are too granular to handle the "shitty rifle which breaks a lot" mechanism you want.

That being said, GURPS:Traveller has "malf" ratings for it's weapons because that's part of GURPS. You borrow that "malf" system, you could impose a negative DMs on hit throws, or you could impose negative DMs on damage.

It all depends on how much work you want to do during the game.

do gauss weapons get variant ammo?

Thanks for the answer! On a related note, how is the parsec distance for TAS-given high passages determined? Is it rolled (there are 6, after all) or something else?

>On a related note, how is the parsec distance for TAS-given high passages determined? Is it rolled (there are 6, after all) or something else?

With that question you've unwittingly one of Traveller's many "Ancient Can Of Worms"; the (in)famous per parsec versus per jump argument. While that argument mostly concerns freight rates, it occasionally spills over into passenger prices.

In Classic, in Book 2 on Page 4 it is flatly stated that: "Interstellar travel is priced on the basis of accomodations; prices cover a trip from starport to starport, encompassing one jump, regardless of length."

In Classic and nearly all the versions which follow, the high passage ticket you're getting from TAS pays for a ONE jump regardless of length.

MgT changes all that for no other reason than it allows to PC to make more money more easily. Mongoose changed Traveller to be more in line with the "Gimme Free Stuff/Monty Haul" style of play which many current RPGs players prefer. Mongoose thus hands much more stuff in chargen and makes trade much easier by charging per parsec rates for passengers and freight.

I always kept an eye on my players finances as it's a good way for a good game to go bad quikcly. If I were using MgT, I'd say that TAS provides a VOUCHER good for one jump regardless of length instead of a TICKET worth a specific amount in credits. That would mean a PC wouldn't be able to hoard and then sell off 16 years worth of TAS high passages each worth as much as 470K credit apiece.

While allowing your PC to enjoy their TAS membership while still in chargen is legal in MgT, you can also see how it's a fucking horrible idea and wholly typical of Mongoose. Six unused high passages can theoretically bring in nearly 2.820 MIILLION credits a year and "earn" the PC 45.120 MILLION credits during the four terms in question.

Having a PC whose is a multimillionaire right out of chargen is asinine.

They might in TNE. TNE got very "gearheaded", especially with regards to weapons. It was due in part to the use of GDW's House System which had been developed for their "gun pron" RPG Twilight:2000.

bumping

I hear ya, I'm just noticing (and pointing out) that the message changed subtly if you switch the S's

I agree with you, user. Your switch of the S's makes the phrase much better.

Any ideas for this one? I like the hatch in the middle of the giant blue naked robot chick's forehead. Does it mean it's a mech of some type? If so, what do they use it for? Extreme pole dancing?

I checked the TNE core rules and gauss weapons do have different ammo types.

The 4mm rifle has dart and tranq rounds. The 4mm gauss SAW has dart and HEAP rounds. The VRF version has dart and HEAP rounds too.

That's just the core book. FF&S may have more variant rounds. The RCES equipment guide book may have variants too.

I have a question for you guys: mongoose or classic?
I'm hoping to get two people who really aren't into sci-fi or super rules heavy into it (one of them grew up with constantly homeruled ad&d), so T5 is right out, and I'm leaning away from mongoose thanks to all the editing and balance issues I've noticed.

>I have a question for you guys: mongoose or classic?

Classic is old school. Like real bare bones, no task system, limited skills, role more than roll, rulings over rules, old school.

MgT is an update of sorts as it contains stuff that many current players think a RPG should have like uber detailed chargen to replace imagination, task system, dozens and dozens of skills, roll for everything, lots of free stuff, rules for everything.

be aware of mongoose's shit editing though

>MgT is an update of sorts as it contains stuff that many current players think a RPG should have like uber detailed chargen to replace imagination

>uber detailed chargen
>new

Have you even played Traveller before in your life, user?

Another thing to remember is that while the character has years to get tickets, they also have years to spend tickets. If you got a free plane ticket to anywhere on Earth every month you would visit all sorts of interesting places. If you had that opportunity but didn't spend a single ticket over a ten year period then you are definitely unusual as a person.

>hypersonic tranq dart
I'm sure this barely stings.

You won't even notice as it puts you to sleep permanently.

At which speeds do gauss rounds travle again, mach 3 or something ?

>Have you even played Traveller before in your life, user?

I've played it since '77. You?

My post was comparing and contrasting the two rules sets with one another. MgT's chargen is full of table to create contacts, specific life events, backstories, and the like. Even Classic's "advanced" chargen didn't approach that level of detail. MgT is "uber" detailed compared to Classic's Book 1.

>If you got a free plane ticket to anywhere on Earth every month you would visit all sorts of interesting places.

Not quite. You've naturally forgotten travel times leaving your analogy faulty at best. Visiting anyplace on Earth by airplane doesn't require a two week round trip. Far fewer people would be visiting Disneyworld each year if it two weeks just to get there and back.

Anyway allowing a PC to rack up tens of millions of credits in unused high passage tickets while still in chargen is just silly. While I like MgT's multiple careers, just when an awarded mustering out benefit come into force must be done with some common sense. Benefits like a gun, money, skill/stat buffs can be awarded immediately, but what about awards like vehicles or ships shares?

Imagine a PC who starts as a merchant, spends one term there, rolls for a free trader, and then spends the next four terms in another career. What is going on with that ship doing those 16 years? How is the mortgage being paid?

>rules for everything

You are half right and half wrong. Traveller has most thing you might need covered with some rules, but those are mostly guidelines, exspecially when it comes to tasks.

Look at shadowrun 5e for example, they gut rules for treading water, shooting through a bazilion kinds of cover and shooting penaltys and the most hamfisted hacking rules you will ever see.

>MgT is an update of sorts as it contains stuff that many current players think a RPG should have like uber detailed chargen

>you get an officer as enemy over 4 years of service

My god, my entire backsotory was written for me user. Good thing that there isn't any space for variables my non-rules-light brain couldn't handle, like, what did i do, what did he do, where were we when that happened, what was the context, in which line of service did we work ? Really good thing that there are non of these questions when i roll on a piece of paper and recive a super vague line of text.

I bet you also think that the experience system is flawed compared to the ground idea of traveller.

Is right, traveller pretty much startet the whole background generator thing from CT on.

I just opened my Mongoose 2e book, it says "hypersonic". That's mach 5.

>Imagine a PC who starts as a merchant, spends one term there, rolls for a free trader, and then spends the next four terms in another career. What is going on with that ship doing those 16 years? How is the mortgage being paid?
There's something about two players gaining two free traders, it says one gets the ship and the others gets 25000Cr a year, gaining a part of the off-screen ship's profits. Can only assume this applies here too.

Like you ignoring the fact that I was comparing Classic with MgT only and I was highlighting the differences between Classic and MgT only.

asked about Classic and MgT only, so I wrote about Classic and MgT only. That's it. You can rope in all the other RPGs you want to "prove" whatever you want, but that's not what I wrote about. Okay?

>>I bet you also think that the experience system is flawed compared to the ground idea of traveller.

Yes I do but only if it is applied outside of it's rules set. Classic has about 2 dozen skills and relatively "low" skill levels, so a limited experience system works for it. MgT has far more skills and it's system works better with relatively higher skill levels, so it needs the experience system it has.

>There's something about two players gaining two free traders, it says one gets the ship and the others gets 25000Cr a year, gaining a part of the off-screen ship's profits. Can only assume this applies here too.

Which still doesn't answer the question or solve the problem.

Both players get a free trader in the 1st term and then spend 4 more terms in chargen. Do they bank that 25K/year for 16 years only to somehow be reunited with their ship later on? And a ship that, despite earning enough in the way of profits to pay out 25k/year, somehow still has the SAME mortgage amount outstanding 16 years later?

As a referee I'd "park' the award until the PC actually finishes chargen. The ship isn't automatically a physical ship, but instead is an ability to participate in a ship purchase program. In this way it's like the VA home loan programs.

You can apply to join the program, but they aren't going to authorize your participation unless you yourself can act as the owner aboard. You aren't going to be able to say "Gimme the ship now. I'll let someone else run it while and not make any mortgage payments I'm off doing other stuff for the next 16 years."

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what is the rectangular prism?

I'd assume a solomani ship?

It looks like 3 Borg Cubes ducktaped together.

Whatever it is it's damn interesting. Hopefully the user who posted it will tell us more.

I was tidying up my hard drive and found a flowchart for computer hacking a kind user posted several threads ago.

It's for MgT but, looking it over, I don't see any real reason why you couldn't use it with other versions.

The user's question about TAS passage vouchers prodded me to look over MgT2e chargen again. I hadn't realized that someone put together a very helpful chargen flowchart for MgT2e.

Even better, that flowchart is in the archives.

No it's my game and I want something different for my mooks.

I'll have to have a gander at the malfunction stuff, it's mainly for thematic extras so that there will be the occasional explosion when a poor mook gets a bad roll, plus I want to discourage the PCs from just picking stuff up and thinking they got a perfectly serviceable rifle (Though if they want to have it checked and cleared with a gunsmith or something I'd just remove the malfunction downside).

Aye, I dare say it's the sort of thing the Ref can come up with an explanation for.
The only career that gets Free Trader as a benefit is Merchant, so you could say that it represents your character knowing someone from back in the day who has a ship they don't really want any more, and who'd be happy to have you take it off their hands in exchange for paying the rest of the mortgage.
Or, as you say, it could represent credit and good references towards a ship purchase program.

Same with shit like the Yacht, where you could explain it as an older brother upgrading to a newer model (or the Safari ship) and loaning you his old one

It seems like a pretty good opportunity to inject a little imagination into the table fetish-y chargen

>It seems like a pretty good opportunity to inject a little imagination into the table fetish-y chargen

Well put. The earlier user's otherwise normal question about TAS passages simply found a "glitch" in MgT's RAW chargen. Isn't fixing glitches what GMs are for?

Any rules set is going to have "glitches" and, IMHO, the ability to have multiple careers during chargen in MgT is WELL WORTH any "hiccups" that may occur with regards to mustering out benefits.

If an "early" TAS award results in a PC "earning" tens of millions of credits in saved high passages, the GM and player can sit down to find some "fix". Similarly, if an "early" award of a free trader results in a PC getting 25K/yr in profit sharing but no reduction in mortgage length, the GM and player can work that out too.

I'll add another example of a "troublesome" early benefit: the IISS hading out scout/couriers to retired detached duty personnel. Using the earlier anons example of 1 term in Career A followed by 4 terms in Career B, a PC could serve 1 term in the IISS, "earn" a s/c, and go on the serve 4 subsequent terms in the merchants, army, navy, etc. While they're doing those 16 years, what's happening to that s/c the IISS handed them?

A good GM and a good player will recognize that problem and come up with a solution which works for them.

In TNE and T4 gauss weapons could be designed with solid dart, HE, HEAP and tranq ammo. That was all.

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In TNE gear (including weapons) could be given a "wear" value. This had implications for it breaking down or malfunctioning.
The wear value was determined by rolling 1D10 at acquisition. The price of an item was its book value divided by the wear value. The higher the wear value the more worn out was the equipment.

If I remember my physics right, would you not be able to reduce the force exerted on the projectile by reducing the current to the magnets?
So it could be manufactured to allow the user to dial down the gun to less-than-lethal levels for the darts. Hell, if the gun's fancy it could do that automatically when you load the darts into it

Sorta Mass Effect-lite

>Hell, if the gun's fancy it could do that automatically when you load the darts into it

I don't see why any of those things couldn't work.

One of the DGP guys wrote about sitting next to a DARPA researcher during a plane trip and questioning the man at length about the possible capabilities of gauss weapons.

>In TNE gear (including weapons) could be given a "wear" value. This had implications for it breaking down or malfunctioning.

Good catch, user. I'd forgotten about TNE's wear ratings.

It's the cover of a Perry Rhodan book, part of a long-running German scifi series

I've wanted to read those ever since I saw the spherical ships
>tfw don't read german

Thanks user.

There were English translations published of the first 100 or so, I think. Old Forrest Ackerman did a lot to get it brought to the US.

Image search reveals it as a Perry Rhodan cover.

perryrhodan.us/php/displaySummary.php?end=2399&start=2300

Simple, those careers were detached duty, not Retired and detached - for all actual purposes, they were still an active duty scout performing some observation task or shit. Navy? Your survey area was filled with hostile aliens that wouldn't negotiate. Your team was integrated into a warship for that tour. Army? Long term survey of a red zone planet. Marines? Bit of both. Merchant? Either evaluating the industry's newest cargo handling techniques from the crewman's perspective, or attached to a free trader to keep planetary facts up to date. Civilian? Budget problems, go supplement your pay with a second job, but you're still active. Or pick up a social science and get your data from the inside. Agent? Cross training.
They were a special specialist, so every term let them roll for a possible (8+ or more) scout skill in addition to the current career skill. They don't actually retire until the player selects the last term, and then they get their bennies.
Also, if a players gets TAS membership in an early term, they don't get to keep the ticket/vouchers, and should have their next skill automatically be broker or the like - they get free tickets, says the boss, they can reduce the travel budget if I can get them into that training course...

>Simple...

While some of those explanations would work for me, all that really matters is whether they will work for the GM and players involved.

In the end, that is all that really matters.

Not sure if it's allowed here but...

General question:

What would be the reason not to change to the new Paizo's Starfinder?

What is special about Traveller? Why not a more well known and broad system for sci-fi RPG?

I'm currently interested in space fiction lately and I was thinking about Traveller for some time, but I'm not really comfortable with it.

I play Traveller to get away from D&D. I couldn't care less about Starfinder.

it's deeper and (generally) less shit than paizo?

Because that "well known and broad system" is a pile of crap. Their fantasy rules suck and their sci-fi rules will as well. But that is a discussion for another place.

I suppose Starfinder could be mined for interesting bits to use in a Cepheus Engine campaign.

Maybe. I may steal the alien races that are new to Starfinder, but the assumptions built into the preview material they've released so far is a train wreck in the making. If you were one of those 14 year olds in 1978 who was dungeon crawling Star Destroyers and returning to your fantasy worlds with Everloaded +5 Blasters, Starfinder may be for you.

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paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/starfinder
Yeah, no.

>Naval Armsman
Is that like an official version of a Merchant Marine?

>I'll have to have a gander at the malfunction stuff, it's mainly for thematic extras so that there will be the occasional explosion when a poor mook gets a bad roll, plus I want to discourage the PCs from just picking stuff up and thinking they got a perfectly serviceable rifle (Though if they want to have it checked and cleared with a gunsmith or something I'd just remove the malfunction downside).
So you want an AK-47 equivalent, but you want it to be unreliable and prone to exploding?

That's kind of the opposite of the whole popular concept of the AK-47. It's shitty and a bit janky and not the most accurate assault rifle, right, but it doesn't explode or fall apart. It's the memetic weapon you can bury in the desert for twenty years, pull out, and start shooting the next batch of invaders.

Cheeky

The Pillar of Autumn.

Paizo suck dick at pretty much everything.

pretty sure that's bait

It has to be better than T20.

Fuck my brain I read that as Pillar of Autism.

I've been here too long.

T5 Introduces what it calls QREBS (quality, reliability, ease with use, bulk, and safety) giving a profile extension - any item could have the ratings (which could help differentiate an AR-15 from an AK-47), But I know in at least one draft, they talked about those 'standard' ratings to be for a new-from-factory model. A used model would have some variance (by rolling 2d6-7). In order to see if it's 'better', you'd need to have the weapon evaluated.

Now, at the table, that introduces a ton of complexity, but it's one way this has been addressed.

I really don't understand how that system is so popular, it's boring, over complicated and hp sponges in high level games is off puting as fuck.

Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition literally caused brain damage, and Pathfinder just kept on offering that familiar D20 fix when D&D changed.

Dungeons & Dragons is something everyone knows about. Even non-gamers. 3.0 was the first new (not-revised) edition in a decade. A movie came out at roughly the same time, and games such as Balders Gate and Icewind Dale were popular. So a lot of new people were introduced to RPGs through D&D and the d20 system.

When WotC abandoned the system to do 4e, Pathfinder was advertised as a continuance of the rules that generation had started with. That, and a lot of people feeling betrayed by just how much 4e was different from previous editions, made Pathfinder popular.

It has also been long enough now since 3.0 came out (~17 years) that people are feeling nostalgic, and the closest current system to what they played back then is Pathfinder.

I've read enough different RPGs to know that's not true.

>how much 4e was different from previous editions

[grognard grumbling about 3e's differences from TSR D&D]

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Great pic of the Type P from Classic's Supplement 4: Citizens on the Imperium. It's sadly underused IMHO.

It's the same size of the more well known/used Type VP Vargr corsair. It has a LOT more cargo space 160dT vs. 20 dT although at the cost of a lower acceleration, 3g vs. 5g, one less turret, and no small craft or vehicles.

It's got a bunch of "changeable" ID features too like "fins" which extend/retract, phony modules, and ELINT stuff like RF spoofing and a variable transponder.

Better yet, it's cargo bay features huge clam shell doors and it can hold a ship as big as 100dT. Just thing you need when you want to steal scout/couriers and x-boats!