Traveller General: Subsidized Liners Do It Regularly Edition

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.

Previously on Traveller General: Library Data: Master Archive:
snip li link:
/Traveller

Galactic Maps:
travellermap.com/
utzig.com/traveller/iai.shtml

Resources:
1d4chan.org/wiki/Traveller
zho.berka.com/
travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/
wiki.travellerrpg.com/Main_Page
freelancetraveller.com/index.html

Traveller General Homebrew:
pastebin.com/G1kb29aT

Music to Explosive Decompression to:
>Old Timey Space music
youtube.com/watch?v=w34fSnJNP-4&list=RD02FH8lvwXx_Y8
youtube.com/watch?v=w0cbkOm9p1k
youtube.com/watch?v=MDXfQTD_rgQ
youtube.com/watch?v=FH8lvwXx_Y8
>Slough Feg
youtube.com/watch?v=ZM7DJqiYonw&list=PL8DEC72A8939762D4
>Goldsmith - Alien Soundtrack
youtube.com/watch?v=3lAsqdFJbRc&list=PLpbcquz0Wk__J5MKi66-kr2MqEjG54_6s
>Herrmann - The Day the Earth Stood Still
youtube.com/watch?v=3ULhiVqeF5U
>Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene
youtube.com/watch?v=nz1cEO01LLc
>Tangerine Dream - Hyberborea
youtube.com/watch?v=9LOZbdsuWSg
>Brian Bennett - Voyage
youtube.com/watch?v=1ZioqPPugEI

Other urls found in this thread:

sendspace.com
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

This is now
>tfw when no space elf gf
edition.

what's the best system to play a unorthodex space setting
something like warhammer in which magic and science mix to create a nice setting

Well, as a Traveller nerd, I gotta say grab either MGT1 or Cepheus Engine (they're the same thing, really) and get Flynn's Guide to Magic in Traveller (from the Mongoose 1e/Third Party Content/Rules and Careers directory) and you're good. That's what I would do, anyway.

But for non-Traveller options, maybe look into White Star, it's popular and I hear it does pulpy raygun SF with an OSR foundation, so you could probably bolt any one of a dozen different magic systems on with no trouble. It might come with one, I dunno.
I do recall there's an explicitly "Science Fiction" magic system in the OSR General's Trove, as well.

We've got some updates for the Master Archive this week! (I had to mangle the new pasta because the spam filter hates snip li. I'll have to see if I can make it less ugly next thread)

We've got Orbital stuff:
Orbital 2100, a newly minted second edition of Orbital for the Cepheus Engine
A Horizon Survey Craft for Orbital 2k1
And Far Horizon, and adventure that's built for Orbital 2100, but can be played with just the Cepheus Engine, using pregens.

For Mongoose Traveller 1e, we've finally got a copy of 13Mann Verlag's Traveller ROBOTS, and wow, it is nice.

Over in Mongoose 2e we've got an Adventures folder going in to clean up the growing list of stuff.
We've got the High Guard: Aslan book, detailing the Aslan naval might.
Pirates of Drinax: Gods of Marduk continues that adventure series.
Reach Adventures 1 and 4 have shown up to fill out the holes.
Spinward Marches: The Bowman Arm and Lunion Shield Worlds add a bit of detail on those parts of the OTU setting
We've got MGT2 Starter edition, which seems to follow the Classic three black books model.
And finally, a new MGT2 Referee screen rounds out this week's updates!

>For Mongoose Traveller 1e, we've finally got a copy of 13Mann Verlag's Traveller ROBOTS, and wow, it is nice.

Said so, best krautmagic at work.
feels good to be german when you play Traveller & Shadowrun

...

Where in the SWN rules is the faction generator? I only have the free edition; is that why I can't find it?

It's in the chapter labeled "Factions", user.

Update! Thanks to an user in the PDF share thread, we've now got the rest of the MGT2 Pirates of Drinax books, in the incoming and MGT2/Adventures folders.

...Verlag's Robots is really good, also, the snip li link isn't working for me...am I just doing it wrong?

>feels good to be german when you play Traveller & Shadowrun

What'd you do for Shadowrun?

Make sure you capitalize the T in Traveller?

that did it, thanks user

bump

Thanks for the updates and thanks to the user in the PDF thread.

I'm on the hunt for a good tabletop RPG that can handle Mobile Suit fights well.

The particular things I'm looking for, aside from tactical grunt unit combat of giant robots, is a militarized use of cybernetics to enhance psychic ability, and a possible set of upgrades for character/vehicle to hand out as the game goes on.

Would Traveler be a good fit?

No. /m/ may have some ideas.

Hi, our gaming group is looking to get into Traveller, but I just don't understand how skill checks work and how heavily do you need to use modifiers. Currently I'm looking at MgT2e. Now let's say I have to do an average skill check (8+), my character is a trained professional with the skill level of 1 and an appropriate characteristic modifier of +1. As far as I understand, I would have to roll 2d6 and add +2. If the result is 8+, my character succeeds. So the probability of success in this case is like 33%? Everyone keeps stressing that in Traveller a skill level of 1 is enough to get hired to do it as a job, but what kind of employer would hire somebody who can perform a task with that success rate? What am I missing? Should there be modifiers? Even if I get a +1, the chance of success increases up to 44%. That is not a lot. So, could any of you give me an example of a typical skill check and clear this up for me? Thanks.

GURPS - 3E - Traveller - Setting Guide (OEF)
sendspace.com
/file/vpd3ri

now if I could only find an OEF copy of Lensman and Planet Krishna my GURPS Quest would be complete

> So the probability of success in this case is like 33%?

No. The probability of 2D6 with a +2DM meeting or exceeding 8 - which is what "8+" means - is slightly more than 72%.

Math isn't your problem however.

>What am I missing?

What you don't understand is that you don't roll the dice EVERY time the the PCs perform ANY action.

Traveller is about ROLEplaying and not ROLLplaying. You don't roll to start up a car, press an elevator button, or tie your shoes.

You only roll when something unique is attempted, not when everyday chores are attempted.

Flying from port to orbit on a sunny day with all your instruments, instructions from the control towers, engines in perfect working order, load balanced, and all the rest? There's no need to roll.

Flying from port to orbit in Hurricane Harvey, with no instruments than your eyes, with half your thrusters out, and an unsecured tank sliding around in the hold? Let's go to the dice.

Take the fucking dice out of your players' hands and make them ROLE instead of ROLL. Your games will be better for it.

>Planet Krishna

Ohhh... that one of my white whales too...

yeah...

and I wouldn't mind finding an OEF version of the Planet of Adventure book either

>/m/ may have some ideas.

Or the board's /awg/ thread or the PDF share thread.

Spare me the ROLE/ROLL meme, friend. I just asked a simple question about game mechanics and I thank you for the answer. I now see where I made my mistake.

>Traveller is about ROLEplaying and not ROLLplaying. You don't roll to start up a car, press an elevator button, or tie your shoes.

That's not really a role/role divide. That's all about the rules.

>I just asked a simple question about game mechanics...

And the game mechanics don't requiring rolling as often as you want to believe.

Believe me, this is a conceptual issue I've dealt with for decades. A player new to Traveller, but not new to RPGs, come to the table thinking they need to roll far more then they do. They need to be "weaned" off their old mindset and they need to "unlearn" what they learned in other games.

>That's not really a role/role divide. That's all about the rules.

The rules determine whether a game emphasizes rolling or role-ing.

And before anyone wants to get huffy, I'm talking about different games being played differently. I'm not saying one game is better. I'm not saying one game is worse. I'm saying different games are played differently. That's all.

>And before anyone wants to get huffy, I'm talking about different games being played differently. I'm not saying one game is better. I'm not saying one game is worse. I'm saying different games are played differently. That's all.

And I'm saying that has nothing to do with 'Roll' or 'Role'. Someone can be just as much or little in role in traveller as anything else.

A medicore fit i would say.
The 13 mann robot and the Vehicle books may or may not have some things that support it. But it's not a system that is vuild around mecha combat like Heavy gear or Mekton.

I did nothing

but germans pegasus verlag improved the editing and has changed some rules in the german editions which make the whole thing more playable.
Also a truckload of kraut gear for german shadowrun in the form of german only supplements.

No. Most versions of Traveller can't handle anything beyond roughly average humans. They have problems with anything better, like robots, cyborgs, and mecha. You can half-ass it, but there are better choices.

How do they have problems with cyborgs?

Do you mean just anyone with augments?

is T5 as bad as people say it is?

No. But it's overwhelming if you expect rules for a sci-fi RPG, and get a RPG system-cum-universe generator instead which tries to be as broad as possible.

Sort of, yeah. Essentially the system's not well suited to handle sci-fi supermen.

...

This is awesome. Where can I find it book-wise? I want the hackers to have to/get to do that.

It's not in any books, it's a homebrew somebody did here in /travgen/ a couple of years back.

>I wonder what sector the Ghost Planet is in

>Maybe Moltar would know

It's more of an all inclusive build-your-game-and-setting-kit than a play-this-game-right-now thing.

Like Traveller canon, you can DROWN in T5 without even knowing it.

A players' handbook is allegedly in the works but, seeing how long it took T5 to be finally released and seeing how many of Miller's inner circle have died over the last few years, I wouldn't hold my breath.

It is great, isn't it? I've used it a couple of time since that kind user shared it and my players enjoyed it very much. It has just enough detail for us and our games plus I've been able to use the example to sketch out much larger systems for the players to explore.

While we don't want to play Cyperpunk, adding a little cyber intrigue can't help but make any game more fun.

Is there any sort of spreadsheet or something for Mongoose 1e Ship Creation?

Nothing official, not that something Mongoose released wouldn't be buggy to the point of unworkable.

You can ask at the Mongoose section of COTI. The Freelancetraveller page keeps track of Traveller freeware too.

I wonder what TL the Phantom Cruiser and Space Ghost's armor is

>FTL
>fast M-drive
>some sort of blasters, probably Plasma-based

The real kicker is the invisibility cloak. That's probably TL16 or 17. Maybe a prototype or an alien artifact, too, because there are only two of them, the ship's and the personal one on his belt.
Those wrist blasters are pretty snazzy, too, like a mini plasma gun, in a near microscopic size, which gets its energy from who knows where.

It also has FTL comms and there are more than just two invisibility cloaks. Jan, Jace, and even the fucking monkey wear one too.

The comic book from five-six years ago was sick, if a bit rushed.

Not chiding, user. Adding to. I watched Space Ghost routinely as a kid while spooning a bowl of cereal into my face.

Those wrist bands, as you point out, are miraculously small and powerful. As you suggest, they simply must be some sort artifact from long vanished and highly advanced alien civilization.

IIDC Space Ghost could fly even faster than The Phantom Cruiser and their little space coupe in FTL while wearing his space armor

Now I'll have to watch the original series again to count the aliens, worlds, monsters, and strange space anomalies.

Not brave enough to watch the 80s version, though.

It's pretty horrifying up-front. For example, character stats are given in eHex, supposedly for the sake of brevity, while at the same time there's a full page character sheet for each individual item of equipment. It's such a weird mismatch that I don't even. And that's not even getting into the weirdness of eHex itself.

A social situation in the game is idiosyncratically called 'a personal' and is basically a pedantic 'social combat' system. In the opening blurb to the section it suggests that roleplaying doesn't work for this because it's just pitting the personality of the referee against that of the player, implying the author either doesn't believe people can get into character or that the referee will cheat unless hemmed in by strict rules at every turn. I REALLY don't dig this.

It does have some cool stuff. Skill resolution is quite widely praised. In the combat section I like its cover system where you choose between 0 and -6 as a penalty to incoming attacks, but with an equal penalty to your own attacks.

Overall though I think it simulates more than is really necessary, and doesn't offer enough premade stuff. It's not strictly 'bad', just unlikely to be what most players want. I go with Mongoose and haven't regretted it.

It's definitely NOT player-ready nor is it decipherable to anyone who has never seen Traveller before.

>Now I'll have to watch the original series again to count the aliens, worlds, monsters, and strange space anomalies.

Thinking back, I don't remember them ever visiting a planet with an atmosphere they could breathe or with much of a biosphere either. Every planet was stark and thinly vegetated with a small variety of plants, kind of like the Sonora Desert.

>Not brave enough to watch the 80s version, though.

I'd just managed to forget that, thank you very much. Can you imagine what a 2017 SJW reboot would be like?

>I'd just managed to forget that, thank you very much. Can you imagine what a 2017 SJW reboot would be like?

The horror... the horror...

Remember the carefree days when cartoons and comics were simple entertainment and not turgid propaganda vectors...

>Remember the carefree days when cartoons and comics were simple entertainment and not turgid propaganda vectors...
No not really

pg 10 bmp

I would go for Jovian Chronicles desu, not much cybernetic stuff but good, solid Mobile suits (it's basically Gundam made be Westerners), the problem is SilCore system than it's currently dead, but there are people than adapted Heavy Gear to d6 and seems to work well enough.

To bring that line back on-topic I always find it fun to imagine what a post-judaic version of the Traveller universe would look like.
> Mortgages come with fees instead of interest and thus even at max duration, are womewhere between a third of the increase and none at all if they almost immediately pay the entirety of the original price off - which is now a thing they can do
> Mortgages aren't necessary because even randos are raking in the cash necessary to save up and buy ships
> most broker careers are scrapped completely from the system, brokers have to start checking the government type and law level because a lot of worlds prohibit nonproductive trade altogether
> same goes for taking mortgages, because a lot of worlds prohibit banking altogether
> generally brokers are treated largely the same way psions are treated in the current version
> Large parts of the ethnic landscape among the solomani are wiped off the playing field completely
> Any scoundrel campaigns are somewhere between much harder and completely impossible because the law levels on all worlds are significantly increased and a lot more strongly enforced
> skills like streetwise and deception are harder to acquire
> The Vargr died out, wiped out by a concerted effort on part of the Vilani, Solomani and Zhodani
> In every term in chargen, PCs and npcs learn 3 or four times the amount of skills and get five times the amount of benefit rolls at the very least.
> Social sciences as a skill is removed from the game
> Zhodani are much more openly accepted in the Imperium and the Solomani sphere and psionics are commonplace everywhere

bump

what's Traveller's approach to religion?

are there major ones, or is everyone atheist, or is it just a sort of assumed thing without description, etc?

It seems like a lot of frontier worlds have their own local cults and faiths, but I don't know if there's any broad, multi-system religions of note.

I think it's more interesting for most faiths to be kind of isolated things where the proper nouns and canons blend and blur into vague ideologies through the gaps of spacetime, so most spacers of any superstitious or religious bent tend to carry a variety of borrowed and invented ideas that combine the general philosophical attitudes of spacers at large with their own moral codes.

Makes it so your crew chaplain is less likely to be a standard Space Abrahamic or D&D Cleric In Space, more likely to be the party's bokor or similar eccentric.

>It seems like a lot of frontier worlds have their own local cults and faiths

Yeah, the Long Night left a lot of worlds isolated for up to a thousand years, so many of them developed their own unique ideas.

>sort of assumed thing without description
This. The designers presumed that any attempt to describe religions, especially projections of real religions, was going to offend *someone* (and potentially a lot of someones). So they relegated religion to local occurrences with no obvious ancestry.

You are free to develop for your own use religions that will not offend or automatically offend, Just don't expect an official word on what Islam became...

>the Long Night left a lot of worlds isolated for up to a thousand years
Closer to two thousand in some cases.

...

...

>what's Traveller's approach to religion?

What explained. GDW wisely left any decision up to the individual referee and their players.

Religions exist, as the government tables clearly show, and a few bland examples, both local and widespread, were briefly mentioned. For example, Classic mentions a few briefly. A Church of Stellar Divinity is active in the 3I with a "mother church" in Antares and a "heretical" sect on Pavabid. Some Vargr belong to a religion which teaches they're the heirs to the Ancients. Nearly all of Classic's Alien Modules lightly touch on *spiritual* beliefs rather than *religious* ones.

MT introduced many more, mostly as part of world descriptions and some of which were offshoots of major current faiths. MT's WBH alos has a "roll-up-a-religion" a few anons used a few Veeky Forums threads ago.

Later version followed Classic's lead: Religion exists, you decide everything for you and our group.

Miller's degree is in sociology. He knows that faiths, spiritual beliefs, religions, and what not are part of any culture. He's also smart enough to leave all the details to you the referee.

While the physical parts of that pension plan are very dated - "paper" photo IDs and checks - the ideas behind it are easily updated. What's more, the pension mechanism provides many adventure opportunities.

Having the pension paid once a year and then only within a certain window of time suggests lots of shenanigans. Having ID only reissued on the PC's mustering out world suggest others.

Rather then just being "free" money, you can make your players "work" for their pensions after they've retired!

...

Nice. Got an adventure or encounter idea to go with it?

The fully armored Warrior Caste and his new friend the low tech local are investigating that "weather phenomenon". The Leader, the other Warriors, and the Technicians are off-camera.

Could the low tech local be a chirper or is it too big physically?

Chirpers are smaller.

While not too big to be a Chirper, it does show "adult" Droyne proportions, which Chirpers typically do not.

...

Thanks Anons. I was too lazy to d/l the Droyne AM and GT Alien book to look.

Is that magmagmag's work? He's a Japanese 3D artist who has done some of the most spectacular work on several of Classic's designs. He took an quick ink illo of Al Morai's Planet-class merchant which appeared only once and produced an actual ship from it, something no one had done in nearly 40 years.

Yes, this is one of Mags. One of the nicer visions of the CE.

Looks like our current campaign should wrapping up in 2 or 3 months. We generally play 2x a month but summer and holidays do change that. As the "forever referee" I'm starting to think over some ideas to pitch and have been drawn to the idea of subsidized merchants.

Thanks to some of the bits I've borrowed from SWN like factions and "friction", I'm thinking a scheduled trade route visiting the same worlds and dealing with most of the same people could result in a really immersive campaign.

The players would begin right after their bid won the right to crew the Type-R for a given period. While certain freight like mail, government shipment, and other all but guaranteed each jump, the chance to engage in speculative with a ship belonging to someone else is attractive.

I'm thinking that their "loop" will take about a quarter, so ~6 systems they'll visit 4 times a year.

Has anyone run a subsidized merchant campaign? Have any ideas, suggestions, etc?

You have a potential soap/space opera in six acts. Repeat NPCs are a resource for continuity and plot hooks.

Name and stat up (on a job necessary basis) the six Brokers they've been set up with, along with related NPCs including competing brokers, favored sources for recurring goods, port cargo handlers, other port functionaries who might interact (including portmasters at small ports for contacts, and at large ports for making news items about). Consider naming startown bars and their bartenders and equipment merchants who the PCs might see more than once.

>You have a potential soap/space opera in six acts. Repeat NPCs are a resource for continuity and plot hooks.

You're right. There's going to be shit ton more named NPCs, "repeated" NPCs, and the like. I'm also going to have to detail the ports, "startowns", local governments, and surrounding regions more than I usually do.

Hmmm... TNE's playing card system can give me quick personalities and I'll use reaction tables naturally. With work, the players can turn a bad first meeting into better subsequent meetings - or the other way around!

I'll need NPCs for each of the six port staffs they'll need to meet an/or interact with. Initial brokers are going to be government shipping agents; it's a government subsidized freighter and must carry gov't shipments, although the required amount will vary world and will be rarely used in full. That means their spec good volume isn't going to be carved in stone. They'll hire brokers of their own, it's just that the 6 systems have first dibs up to a certain number of dTons.

I wonder if I should have a NPC from the previous crew fly with them for the first loop or two? He would introduce them, provide advice, and prove both helpful and hindrance depending on the who & where in question.

Gov't shipments means they'll be carrying gov't dTons more than one jump. Should gov't "dibs" involve passengers too?

Finally, maybe a jump2 version of the Type-R to spread things out a bit?

Anyone have any good ideas for large plot hooks in a localised area of space ?

Your question is too vague to bother answering in any detail.

That being said, SWN's Faction system can whip up any number of plot hooks for you with a little work. You set up a number of factions, 6 is usually a good number, in the area, run a couple of factions turns, and look over the actions the factions took against each other.

Each of those actions is a plot hook.

did someone need some NPCs?

Three Line NPCs
sendspace.com
/file/he6euo

I want to run an episodic campaign, I've got a lot of good ideas for an episodic campaign however I'm just trying to tie them together.

Thanks user!

Can you sum up each of the episodes in 2 or 3 story elements? If you can, you can look for commonalities among them.

You should use the difficulty modifiers.

Anything that is usual for a professional in a field to carry out should be a Routine (+2) task. A person with +1 from an attribute and +1 from skill has a total bonus of +4, so the odds of success are 91,67%. Even if you fail, the degree of failure will be small meaning the outcome is likely to be annoying rather than catastrophic.

Compare this to an Average (+0) task: total bonus is +2 so the odds of success are 72,22%. Success is again likely, but by no means guaranteed. You might get a significant degree of failure, which again implies that whatever you are doing could go wrong pretty bad. In other words even professionals sometimes fail at Average tasks; they are no picnic.

The same basic professional would have a 41,67% chance of succeeding at a Hard (-2) task, and a 16,67% chance of succeeding at a Very Hard (-4) task. With the Very Hard task it most of the time it is a case of how badly it goes wrong, not if it succeeds. In other words, these difficulty levels should be used for tasks that even professionals are more likely to fail than to succeed at.

In conclusion: most common tasks performed in the universe are not Average, they are Routine (as the name implies). Now obviously you should not roll for such boring tasks unless the outcome actually matters. The difficulty level with +0 modifier does not represent the difficulty of the tasks people carry out most often, it represents the difficulty of tasks that are most often just difficult enough to warrant a roll.

Thank you, that was the answer I was looking for!

>Thank you, that was the answer I was looking for!

Seriously? You're that stupid? Seriously?

You couldn't find the "Task Difficulty" chart on the GM's Screen? Or understand it? You didn't read pages 56, 57, and 58 of the MgT2e core book? Or the chart on page 58? Or understand any of that? Seriously?

Hopefully your players are as stupid as you are otherwise they're not going to have a pleasant game in the hands of a referee who cannot understand basic concepts specifically explained in the rules with examples.

Here's some other advice from the core book you didn't read:

The referee should only call for checks when:
● The Travellers are in danger.
● The task is especially difficult or hazardous.
● The Travellers are under the pressure of time.
● Success or failure is especially important or
interesting.

Good luck. Your players will need it.

>The comic book from five-six years ago was sick, if a bit rushed.
Can confirm, just checked to see if I still had the files on this computer because I would have storytimed the first issue.

>Rather then just being "free" money, you can make your players "work" for their pensions after they've retired!
God, why didn't I ever think of this

Thanks user, idea stolen

So far the commonalities are that high profile people are dying, the middle / high class are rising up and the dissaperance of key items and personal are happening. I guess I could tie them all with someone trying to destabilise the reason so they can grab power.