Traveller is a classic science fiction system first released in 1977. In its original release it was a general purpose SF system, but a setting was soon developed called The Third Imperium, based on classic space opera tropes of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, with a slight noir tint. Though it can support a wide range of game types, the classic campaign involves a group of retired veterans tooling around in a spaceship, taking whatever jobs they can find in a desperate bid to stay in business, a la Firefly or Cowboy Bebop.
So I appreciate this was a question someone asked last time but I felt it was still worth repeating.
(In the context of Mongoose Traveller) When it comes to Sci Fi/Space Fairing systems, where does this game stand out, compared to say, Diaspora or Stars Without Number? The lifepath is a given but what else makes it worth taking up?
Cameron Collins
it's simple, in general, with optional rules for more crunchier bits
Kevin Morris
If your players have not made mortal enemies with at least one planetary government, something has gone terribly wrong.
Sebastian Sanchez
>Do you ever play criminal characters anons?
As already explained, one world's criminal is another world's hero.
Classic had the fairly sketchy Other career from the first and I've played PCs from that career and the even more "unsavory" Rogue career in Classic's Supplement 4.
I had one Rogue PC with a seemingly strange assortment skills like medic, forgery, demolition, streetwise, blade, and others. I came up with a backstory about him being a crooked EMT who sold controlled medicines and other substances gained through forged prescriptions and invoices. He also treated criminals for injuries which should have been otherwise reported while his demolition experience was more along the lines of a youthful interest arson.
He left his home world before several warrants were issued and worked as a medic aboard tramp traders. His bedside manner was very poor, but he knew what he was doing and really helped out with any of the shadier deals.
Zachary Young
The various Traveller RPG systems are what makes them stand out to me. While I love SWN's various systems for detailing settings, for example, I dislike it's choice of RGP systems.
Aiden Evans
Traveller was pitched to me by a seemingly reasonable guy at a Free RPG Day event table. I'm interested, but that 1d4chan page does not instill confidence on starting out with the newest edition. What's a good jumping in point to skim the rules?
Alexander Reed
>What's a good jumping in point to skim the rules?
Classic if you want an OSR type vibe. MgT2e if you want something more current.
I don't know what sort of shit there is on 1d4chan, but both are dead simple to learn and easy to modify.
Julian Lewis
Someone needs to photoshop this into that picture
Charles Sanchez
Oh my god, I think I saw half an episode of this once:
anybody know which fanzine had a hive of beepeople? it's driving me insane that I can't find it
Matthew Cox
bump
Jacob Peterson
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Dominic Gutierrez
1d4chan unfortunately has Traveller5 as latest. Mongoose Traveller 2e is the latest now. Much more playable than T5.
Eli Clark
Oh ok, thanks. I'll look for that one to read tonight.
Juan Ross
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Logan Perry
Does anyone have any of the Cepheus Engine Clement Sector/Gypsy Knights material? The more recent ones than the ones in the trove, sorry, in the Library Data Master Archive.
Dylan Allen
High TL Air/Raft
Low TL G-Carrier
Angel Murphy
Just watch out for the fact that Mongoose can't keep a decent editor. You can expect about 1-3 typos or misspellings per page.
Connor Bell
is that from Starbound user?
Jacob Ortiz
IIRC, 1d4chan mentions Mongoose 2e with Mongoose
Isaac Miller
How would people do stats for a child? Keep the same rolls as for a PC so there's the possibility of a child as strong if not stronger than most of the adult characters? Or would you put negative modifiers on the rolls?
Angel Sanchez
1d4chan is about one step above Encyclopedia Dramatica. There are many other sources of information regarding Traveller and other RPGs.
Owen Morris
One of the DGP "Traveller Digest" issues has rules for stating and playing children.
If you go to the Traveller Wiki and look through the TD listings, you can find the issue in question and then download it from the Archives.
Jose Ramirez
Good call.
The flying bubble in looks like something you need to take back to the dealership to get a headlight fixed while the "beater" in looks like something you can completely rebuild in your drive way.
Andrew Thomas
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Michael Richardson
>big ol' spacetitties
Samuel Moore
>How would people do stats for a child? I once played a campaign where we were all 18 year old kids fresh out of whatever we were doing before then.
Point is, we started as 0-term characters with only our starting skills from homeworlds and education.
It was really fun. Forced us all to roleplay a lot harder because we couldn't rely on the dice to fix our problems for us.
Nice pic. Care to invent a backstory for it? 1st thing I noticed was that the city is inside a dome for some reason while the eye candy is showing off her 'skin tights".
That sounds really interesting. What sort of things did the PCs tackle during the campaign?
Alexander Fisher
>we couldn't rely on the dice to fix our problems for us.
how would that incentivize roleplaying?
Isaac Edwards
>how would that incentivize roleplaying?
It incentivized ROLEplaying by minimizing ROLLplaying.
The players had to think about how to best approach problems instead of simply stating "I've got Skill-2..." and sleepwalking through the session.
Nathan Hernandez
Maybe Signal GK?
Benjamin Young
Wait a minute... Was there a piece of fiction that went with the article? Something about a survey group disturbing the hive and all sort of shit going down?
I want to say it was in Dragon magazine and had a title something like "doodlebugs".
Juan Powell
Got it! The story/article is "Skitterbuggers" and was in issue #59, the same issue with the Exonidas Starport setting.
Nolan Turner
no, it was about a minor race, but does the trove have that dragon article, by chance? it sounds cool
Gabriel Ward
I know the Exonidas Starport article in the Archives, I don't know about any other Dragon articles though.
As for the "bee people", I'm sorry that it wasn't Skitterbuggers, but except for that article/story I'm drawing a blank. Hopefully some other user will remember it.
Carson Allen
Have a Leviathan.
Bentley Nguyen
Always loved that design. It was so different than GDW's style. There were a lot of built-in plot hooks too. ForEx: the ship in that picture was captured off Quare/Vilis and has since been spotted in pirate service.
Caleb Thomas
The Leviathan adventure was written by Games Workshop (those UK guys), who were a license house for AD&D, Traveller, RQ, and other American games at the time. The same style appears in their other Traveller stuff, notably the rare IISS Ship Files book and some of the early stuff in WD.
Kevin Walker
>The Leviathan adventure was written by Games Workshop (those UK guys)
Yeah, it was long before they turned to the Dark Side and created WH40K. I often think that if GDW hadn't pulled their early Traveller licenses from FASA, JG, and GW humanity might have been spared WarHammer.
>>notably the rare IISS Ship Files book
That's in the Archive and well worth looking at. The Vargr trade boat is fascinating and contains some asides which make me wish GW had given input to Classic's Vargr AM.
A guy at COTI once tried to explain the difference between GW and GDW designs as being like the difference between aircraft and ships. You look at a GW deckplan and the various components part of the hull while in a GDW deckplan the various components are inside the hull. It's sort of like the difference between having a fuselage and a hull.
Josiah Allen
As I understand it, only the JG license was "pulled". FASA declined to renew when Battletech became a success, and GW dropped Traveller when they dropped all of their external licenses, which was when 40k was starting to take off.
Samuel Collins
>As I understand it, only the JG license was "pulled".
A fellow can dream can't he? An alternate universe where WH40K doesn't exist is nice to contemplate.
John Reed
Would you prefer the GW put all their Grim Darkness into Traveller instead?
Jose Robinson
>Would you prefer the GW put all their Grim Darkness into Traveller instead?
Miller would never allow that. I'd just prefer WH40K never existed.
Angel Parker
Laser or Slug? Why?
Justin Watson
Slug all day every day.
Sure laser weapons are stronger than slug weapons but slug can do so much more than "just" killing. You can maintain your slugthrower at a lower TL and don't run into high cost import replacements, you can shoot different kinds of ammunation like tranquilisier, flechette or armor piercing, you can carry your gun on far more planets than qour energy weapons since law levels are a thing and if you hate recoil, just use an accelerator weapon and do everything above... but while shooting kinetic rockets.
Elijah Williams
Slugs, and for all the reasons cited and more.
You can lay down suppression/covering fire with slug throwers too, a big reason why I never bought Star Trek's "everything is phasers" bullshit.
David Reyes
It's not like energy weapons dont have any upsides, don't get me Wrong. Infinity ammo (if you have a generator around), Strong damage, no recoil and some even can have automatic fire or armor penetration too. But laser weapons need more commitment than a slug weapon.
Nicholas Brooks
What this user said
Nicholas Edwards
>Nice pic. Care to invent a backstory for it? Apparently it's the cover to "Child of Venus" by Pamela Sargent. The story involves the terraforming of the titular planet, which could explain why she's in a zero suit yet the city is domed (atmosphere could be all over the place).
Aaron Brooks
I just watched Astronaut : the Last Push.
It's not a fabulous film by any means but I thought that it's view of long term isolation and jury-rigging made it feel like Orbit or even Traveller. imdb.com/title/tt1541123/
Brayden Cook
laser, just to be a contrarian
but desu, you can never beat the proper BANG of a slugthrower
Julian Taylor
Works for me. Thanks!
Evan Walker
anti-summertroll bump.
Wyatt Thomas
Getting back to the Marcucci. Her entry in Adventure 4 is only three sentences long and yet suggests all sort of plot hooks for a canny GM.
She was owned by Tukera, an Imperial megacorp, and was captured off Quare, an Imperial client state in the "neutral zone" between the 3I and Zhos. There's no jump1 main there, but her jump3 "legs" plus jump2 backup means she can get around easily enough. Just what she was doing off Quare is another question and one wisely left up to the GM.
It's said she's been seen in "pirate operations" since her capture. Even better, one of Marcucci's sister ships was mistaken for her off Zaibon and blown away by an Imperial Korrikak-class dreadnought. Zaibon is 16 parsecs from Quare so it appears Marcucci has been getting around a bit.
The Levithan's don't have much in the way of cargo space, just 70dTons aboard a 1800dTon ship. They do carry a 95 dTon shuttle, a 40dTon pinnace, and two 20dTon lifeboats. There are also 33 staterooms aboard. If your ideas about piracy tend towards raiding settlements, the Leviathans look pretty good!
Austin Watson
why does user hate warhammer?
Connor Young
Are you familiar with the old joke about the Holy Roman Empire? That it wasn't really holy, wasn't really Roman, and wasn't really an empire?
WH40K is a science-fiction wargame that isn't really science-fiction and really isn't a wargame.
Much like how the MtG craze drove FLGS and game publishers out of business. WH40K has had a deleterious effect on miniature wargaming in general - especially concerning rules and what constitutes a good set of rules.
Ayden Martin
There's a reason I carry two handguns, user, and it ain't to play John Woo.
Isaac Hughes
>There's a reason I carry two handguns, user, and it ain't to play John Woo.
That reminds me of a fun topic: What sort of things does your PC always carry in his pockets?
Isaac Barnes
some duct tape
Oliver Rodriguez
Multitool and hull patch/duct tape (in the future, all duct tape can repair a hull and leave as much residue as gaff). Basically what every spacer is trained to carry.
Logan Ross
I found a pdf of Dragon #59 with the Skitterbug/Exonidas articles. How should I upload/share it?
Isaac Ramirez
well...since we lost the archivist a few threads ago...I don't know
Justin Morgan
Utility laser. It's a small flashlight-sized device that generates a little laser used for metal welding and cutting. Not sure which book I found it in, but I talked my ref into letting me buy it and it has come in handy SO MANY TIMES. The only downside is it runs out of batteries fast (faster if the power is boosted to cut though thicker stuff) and it requires a heavy-duty power outlet to recharge it.
Dominic Morales
...
Asher Reyes
Hello anons, first time post here. I was wondering how good would Traveler be for political intrigues? I know it is a skill system and that it builds up a quite impressive background for the players. Are there any mass combat rules for armies and spaceships?
Anthony Torres
>Are there any mass combat rules for armies and spaceships? Pretty sure there are across different editions, I know there was a thing called Pocket Empires for T4 which was all about players controlling planets and fighting against others.
Owen Ortiz
>armies Striker II, in the TNE line, isa larger scale wargame based on Command Decision.
>wpaceships The original High Guard (CT) is a fleet simulator, first and foremost. Battle Rider (TNE) is more of a squadron game but handles the big ships. Ad Astra has announced a Traveller version of Squadron Strike, and distributes the Traveller adaption of Full Thrust, called Power Projection: Fleet.
Asher Reyes
Is the new Moongose 2nd edition good? As in is it better formated than the old ones? I don't like reading old stuff, for it slow as hell.
Anthony Jenkins
Traveller makes my dick so hard. I wish I had a party for it.
Ryder Ortiz
There are many problems with Traveller's larger-scale systems. I mean, fuck, most of the fleet combat, ship combat, and ship design systems utterly fail to produce the fleets, doctrines, and combat results seen in the official setting.
It's an older thread, but travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=31675 came back up recently and it's got a lot of "but these ships are utter trash and literally don't function remotely as described" in it. Bloody 3I.
I just handwave shit, use my own setting, and use my own preferred wargames, none of the official ones.
Hunter Morris
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Kayden Turner
I don't know about the old, but I just read through 2nd ed and it went fine.
Owen Howard
>pic I remember that Alisa Selezneva episode
Ethan Hernandez
Knife, great tool... one way or another and a spayer filled with tear gas solution. Both those things are helpfull and can save your life and can be worn anywhere except the most "no fun allowed" placed.
