Is this game basically Breaking Bad in space?

Nah you just take lucrative merc contracts but use stunners. Then collect the bodies & sell them as slaves.

>Firefly is the go to example of Traveller

Firefly is the go-to example because Whedon based the show on a Traveller campaign he played in college.

Firefly isn't the only example however.

>The game literally has a section on medical debt.

That's just the Mongoose version. Like some, but not all, of the changes Mongoose made it's a mistake. In every other version, anagathics are a goal to be sought in play and not an option to be chosen in chargen.

Holy fuck how much money are you dropping on the initial investment?

I prefer the medical debt.

The Library Data Archive has been updated, at /Traveller.

In the Cepheus Engine folder we've got:
() HOSTILE, a "gritty sci fi RPG," including character sheets, a subsector hexmap, and some content from the net.
() 50 Wonders of the Reticulan Empire for These Stars Are Ours, which has its own folder now
() A Life Worth Living, a sourcebook for the Near Heavens setting
() 2d6 Retro Rules, a variant of the Cepheus Engine designed to be closer to Classic Traveller
() The Polixenes Class Cruiser and RAX class Protected Merchant are the first ship designs we've received for TCE

Under General Misc:
() A Star for Queen Zoe, a system-independent adventure

Under Mongoose Traveller 2e:
() The Great Rift and associated files, including an adventure, Islands In the Rift
() Foreven Worlds - Ships of the Border Worlds

As always, contributions are welcome.

Thanks for all this!

>I prefer the medical debt.

Then by all means play with medical debt. Do whatever you find to be fun.

Medical debt, however is NOT automatically part of chargen.

>a space RV

Rip some of that stuff out in favor of a chemistry workstation, and you're good to go.

This one's cooler though.

Fuck you

>Medical debt, however is NOT automatically part of chargen.
It is for the version in OPs pic.

>It is for the version in OPs pic.

No, not even in Mongoose. Anagathic use is an option in chargen and not a requirement.

It's one munchkins often choose because a great age equates more terms which in turn equates more skills. They want the skills and want to avoid aging penalties so anagathics and the debts it incurs become part of their chargen process. Angathics use is not automatic however.

Many years ago during a Classic campaign, I played a PC who was a 1 term Scout with 1 level in 1 skill. The skill was Pilot and he mustered out with a scout/courier. The GM and I came up with a story in which my PC was looking for a psionics institute for training. The GM and another player came up with a story for his PC that involved him keeping an eye on my PC which both then hid from me.

It was great campaign despite not having the numbers and levels of skills many people believe is necessary. Traveller has always been more about what you as a player put into it rather than what you can pull out of the rules.

He's right, folks. Luke Skywalker was statted for Classic Traveller in Citizens of the Imperium and had these stats:

797655 Age 22 Cr minimal
Pilot-2

That's all you need for everything he did in the original Star Wars.

True. Something I like about Mongoose is that even a term 1 character will have a healthy pool of skills

Call me a newfag but where exactly is the Archive?

>Something I like about Mongoose is that even a term 1 character will have a healthy pool of skills

If you play in a fashion where a healthy pool of skills are needed, that's something good Mongoose did. However, that isn't the only way to play and that's not the way Classic was played.

Despite being one of first, if not the first, RPG with skills, play in Classic wasn't dependent on skills. The Level 0 rule, forex, meant PCs could use every weapon without penalty. Also, many of Classic's die throws didn't penalize unskilled attempts. You just didn't get any bonuses.

There's no "right" or "wrong" way to play. As long as you and your group are having fun nothing else matters.

It's always been a snip link and the Librarian already gave you the suffix.

...

Ah, thank you kind anons.

Yes, but each skill in MgT does less, despite the appearance the cascades give. For example, Luke uses Pilot-2, which covers everything piloting related, and probably also includes some light repair work (he knows the theory of how his instruments, engines, etc, work). If anything came up that his expertise in that field covered, he would have a +2 on a throw against (usually) 8+, or an over 50% (I think its almost 60% at +2) chance of success in a stressful or combat situation. If he could take his time, or didn't have to improvise too much, he could perform piloting tasks with greater ease, or with less time-consuming mistakes and processes. No roll needed.
Now in Mongoose, Luke would need 4 terms of rolling Pilot every time, plus 1 term where he got Mechanic (or probably Engineering, multiple terms), just to replicate pilot-2 in small craft and spaceships, and the repair abilities. In short, Luke would need 5 movies to obtain the skills he shows in one (minus psychic plot powers).
But anything he needed to do, if it wasn't covered by a listed skill, could be a +1 DM if it was related to his background, or just an attribute throw if it wasn't and he was trying his best.
Simple.

Yeah, I will admit that my group tends to call for skill checks pretty often. At the same time, some of us are the kind of shitheads that try to get away with stuff if there aren't rules so it's a nice balance.

>Yes, but each skill in MgT does less

That has nothing to do with MgT though. That's just part of the "skills bloat" all RPGs have seen since at least the mid-1980s. The more skills you have, the more those skills need to be defined, and the more narrowly they then can be used.

Look at the skills list MegaTraveller eventually ended up with, for example. It's insanely detailed compared to Classic's list.

IMHO, people want lots of skills because they use skills too much and they use skills to much because they roll the dice too much. People also impose DMs too often. 2D6 is "tiny". Once you add up all the DMs for stats, skills, and whatnot, success is almost automatic meaning you shouldn't have been rolling in the first place.

Whichever way you play, all that matters is that you're playing. There's no "right" or "wrong".

Poul Anderson is the definitive "Traveller" author in my mind.
Dominic Flandry.
Nicholas Van Rijn
David Falkenhyn
etc.
It also has a dash of Niven and a smidgen of Heinlein. Generally, it seems to be "70s scifi that isn't star trek or wars."

To think of it, most definitive sci-fi classics (e.g., by Asimov, Lem, Niven: my favourites) would probably only need a handful of rolls to play out. They were... ponderous, and it was good.

>Poul Anderson is the definitive "Traveller" author in my mind.

Anderson was definitely an inspiration. Apart from the Polesotechnic League stuff you mentioned, someone found a quote from an old short story of his that described a dog-like sentient wearing wildly clashing clothes; aka Vargr. Miller has pointed to the others you mention along with Norton, Asimov, and E.C. Tubbs. GDW borrowed a lot from the latter's Dumerest stories

>>Generally, it seems to be "70s scifi that isn't star trek or wars.

GDW stayed away from anything even remotely resembling Trek due in part to Lou Zocchi getting his ass handed to him for publishing a barely disguised Trek ship combat game. As for Star Wars, Classic's final galleys had just gone to the printers when GDW went to see the movie.

It's a shame that the immense popularity Star Wars has essentially thrown 50s, 60s, and 70s sci-fi down the memory hole for most people.

There was also a trend to more precisely define what characters were capable of. For example, look at Eclipse Phase and its skill list - it's huge, and is capable of describing everything a character knows and can do, to the point where the statement was made that all adults knew about various subjects. In CT, your character has a whole host of skill-0s and skill-1s that never hit the character sheet as specifics. Most of them were covered by EDU, like reading, writing, math, basic history, etc, which allowed a simple check of "what is the chance of an adult knowing these things?" By comparing the stat to the chance of rolling that number or higher, you knew if your character automatically knew that. Now, if knowing that thing was a specialist field, then just add that skill to EDU to see if you hit the percentage.
And if knowing that thing was required, right now, with no research time, then you roll... And hope you paid attention in class that day.
You are absolutely right about most RPGs rolling the dice too much, and the DM bloat. But I blame most off that on D&D, which created the expectation of learning via adventuring.

>There was also a trend to more precisely define what characters were capable of.

That's because most people are more comfortable with rolling than "role-ing".

No, he'd need one. That minimal repair work is represented by mechanic and/or engineering 0 that he can start with, and pilot 2 is achievable in one term.

Mongoose: It's not as bad as you'd think!™

What's the principal difference between Cepheus Engine and Mongoose Traveller? I mean, balance-wise, or another stuff that's not immediately visible?

Say, if I were to make a game in my own setting, which one is more suitable/hackable?

It's basically an MgT1 clone from what I've seen. Somebody really ought to go over it with a fine-tooth comb one of these days and write up the differences, but reading over it, it looks like it is to MgT1 what OSRIC is to AD&D 1e, a legal way to continue printing material for a system without having to deal with license restrictions..

They aren't that different, there is a pdf in the Traveller general than had the differences if I recall well.
The main difference is the scope, Cepheus is a smol ship universe (5000dt, or 25000 tonnes) and "generic" (It needs more generic, not traveller related stuff in my opinion, but oh well).

>what OSRIC is to 1e
Oh, that was the best explanation I've seen in a long time. Thanks, user.

>Somebody really ought to go over it with a fine-tooth comb one of these days and write up the differences

Already been done and it's usually shared in Traveller general. It may even be in the Archive.

>>what OSRIC is to 1e
>Oh, that was the best explanation I've seen in a long time.

That is a good analogy.

I've seen "differences between MgT1 and MgT2" and the Getting Started pdf, but neither of those address the split between MgT1 and Cepheus Engine.

From the "Getting Started" pdf:

>The open source CEPHEUS ENGINE rules are a combination of CT and MgT1, being an update of the former and a clean-up of the latter.

Granted that's not a line by line analysis, but I've found little difference between CE and the 1e core book. Please note, I wrote "the 1e CORE book". CE doesn't touch on all the canon and fluff found in the far too many 1e splats.

The major difference between the two is the lack of 1e "serial numbers", that is readily identifiable Traveller titles, races, phrases, & and other canonical data, in CE. Starting with the 5th book for Classic, GDW increasingly snarled Traveller's rules and Traveller's setting together until it became hard to separate the two. Any rules concerning "scouts", for example, continually referred to the OTU's IISS and not a generic exploration and/or communication organization. CE basically strips away all the OTU's "fingerprints" from the 1e rules and does so to such an extent that you won't find Zhos, Hivers, etc.

>i know [contemporary] sci-fi authors: the post

While GDW didn't publish an Appendix N for Traveller, they were still inspired by certain authors when creating the game and often mentioned those authors over the decades. Acknowledging that those authors inspired Traveller isn't bragging.

You can take inspiration from those same authors or ignore them. The choice is your's to make just as the game is your's to play.

Nigga I read sci-fi from when I was 9 years old.

You're right that that's not a line by line analysis, but I don't think that line rises to a level worthy of mention at all. It says next to nothing and half of that is wrong -- I didn't notice a single thing specifically similar to CT (as distinct from MgT1) in the Cepheus Engine rules on my read through.

>Threatened by people who read: the post

Why don't you write one then? Instead of bitching that no one has written one for you?

I might do that. But I'm not "bitching," I'm just correcting misinfo because when I said nobody's done it, people jumped up to say "yes they have" when that's not true.

But I have to admit my interest is mostly in CT, not MgT/CE. When I said somebody should do it, I'm just saying that it would be nice to have since the question of differences between MgT1/CE comes up constantly.

Firefly came out 15 years ago.