Traveller - Scifi Adventures!

Remove all ads!

I have recently purchased and become a fan of the RPG Traveller published by Mongoose Publishing (a revision of the original).

What is Traveller about?

What isn't it about!? Well its not about elves and gnomes I guess...Traveller is a Science Fiction Role Playing Game, it has rules for creating characters from all walks of life, building space ships, carrying out interstellar trade, and creating entire worlds. The default setting is that of the Third Imperium, humanity has gone to the stars with its Jump Drive technology and created a vast empire, communication however is limited between worlds/systems and messages are stored and transported on special X-boats (databanks with an engine and a pilot) and flown from system to system. This means that planets are generally left to govern themselves the further from galactic central you get meaning diversity is the order of the day.

If you have ever seen Firefly then that is pretty much Traveller the TV show.

So where do the players come into this?

They play a group of individuals from a variety of backgrounds brought together by some common purpose like any good RPG, the great thing about traveller is that it scales so well. One session you might be plying the interstellar trade lanes, seeking out your fortune with a shipment of advanced electronics, the next you might be plunged into a great space battle fighting a boarding action against an invading enemy. Or you could end up investigating a government conspiracy, or exploring an uncharted world in search of artifacts or alien life ala star trek.

What sort of Characters can we make?

Character creation is a some what interesting bit of traveller, instead of plunging you into your new life of adventure with nout but a basic knowledge of sword waving and some fur armour traveller gives you an entire life time of experience. Before your adventure even starts your character will serve a number of terms (4 year assignments) as part of one of the 12 careers (each with 3 specialties to choose), through these assignments you gain skills and other bonuses. Its alot of rolling on tables and you might end up as something completely different to what you were aiming for, but its so much fun you won't mind! Character Creation is a game unto itself.

The main careers are:

• Agent (Law enforcement, Intelligence, Corporate)
• Army (Support, Infantry, Cavalry)
• Citizen (Corporate, Worker, Colonist)
• Drifter (Barbarian, Wanderer, Scavenger)
• Entertainer (Artist, Journalist, Performer)
• Marines (Support, Star Marines, Ground Assault)
• Merchants (Merchant Marine, Free Trader, Broker)
• Navy (Line/Crew, Engineering/Gunnery, Flight)
• Nobility (Administrator, Diplomat, Dilettante)
• Rogue (Thief, Enforcer, Pirate)
• Scholar (Field Researcher, Scientist, Physician)
• Scout (Courier, Survey, Exploration)

Thats quite a list but how does Character Generation work?

You role up your basic stats Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education and Social Standing. Some of those might be pretty self explanatory and others not so, so I'll give you a quick run down:

• Strength - How strong your character is physically.
• Dexterity - Speed, Agility, coordination etc.
• Endurance - How much damage you can take, this is your health points.
• Intelligence - Your smarts.
• Education - Represents the quality of your education, also your memory.
• Social Standing - You may gain a title from having this as a high stat, sort of like charisma.

Once your stats are decided you choose a career to try and qualify for, rolling some dice to decide if you succeed or fail. If you fail you take the Drifter career (or can enter the draft to be randomly asigned if it is a military career). If you succeed you choose a specialisation and recieve some basic training (a group of skills common in that career). Now the fun begins, you make your survival roll, this represents you making it unscathed through your four year term, failure has all sorts of consequences not least of which is ejection from that career. Success though means you roll on the events table to find out what happened to you that term, again all sorts (good and bad) could happen, generally you gain more skills and bonuses this way. You then can try and advance up in your careers ranking system, gaining yet more bonuses for success.

At the end of each Term you will age 4 years (starting at 18), once you hit 34 you'll start feeling your age and might end up suffering some serious stat penalties if you choose to continue, the older you get the more chance you have. How ever you can at any point choose to Muster out of a career gaining money and benefits for your time served, you can then choose a new career or call it quits. If you stay in you begin the process again, rolling to survive, seeing what happened and advancing.

If your lucky your character won't die in character generation it can happen...

Thats character generation but what about the rest of it?

I haven't had chance to play it yet, that'll have to wait till I go back to university, but from what I have read and tested myself it is a very sound and simple system needing nothing more than a few D6. You can use models for fights if you like and it is covered in the rules, but its just as easy to do without. GM's have a host of random tables at their disposal to help create contacts, monsters, aliens, encounters, planets, missions, etc The only section I have had any problems with is the Ship building because it is all about percentages and things and maths is hard

So overall I think its a well made system, the book itself suffers from a few typos here and there which is unfortunate but it certainly doesn't confuse anything. It gives plenty of inspiration and covers a variety of situations. If people would like to see some example characters created with the system or even make their own I'm sure we could sort something out also ask questions or discuss if you've played it in the past, there have been a few versions so here's the wiki to help with the confusion!

 

Nice review, it brought back some good memories. I havent checked this version but I own a copy of Traveller: The New Era, what I really like about it is the very detailed character creation and career system (with promotions, special adventures and such). Making up adventures for a sci-fi setting like this one is not hard either.

 

My dad used to have a really old version of traveller from his childhood but my mum made him sell it, it was remembering about that that got me ineterested...The Mongoose traveller was being sold at Forbidden Planet so I thought "Why not?" and I'm glad I did

I think you're right coming up with campaign ideas and stuff is really easy for it, easier than D&D and D20 is thats for sure...Well for me anyway! I think it helps that Sci-Fi is such a wide genre, and is generally mixed in with other genres...you don't often get Fantasy/Noir, or Fantasy/Mystery, but Scifi mixes with them so naturally. The DM tables are fantastic especially, cos if you don't have time to plan anything you can quickly roll up an adventure purely by random, and it still leaves you with enough blanks to make it fun and exciting for all

Have you played in many games Caradhras? I mean all versions must have their similarities Got any stories?
In the campaign I'm wanting to run for my players, I want to take full advantage of this, by setting up a sort of Mission Database on each world that has ads for missions ranging from simple trade runs to exploring uncharted worlds...I imagine the players landing on a planet and going to a computer terminal and scouring the work ads, seeing whats available and choosing a job from the list. We don't get to play RPG's very often so I think it'd be a good way to keep things simple and fun.

 

From the reviews I've read, this later version is very similar to the old ones. Just a slight update of rules to make them more streamline (and 'modern') but people seem to comment how well it does justice to the old game.

 

I didn't play a lot of Traveller actually but it was a good source of inspiration to me for many many games (including house rules and such).

Nevertheless there was a scenario in The New Era book which I'm particularly fond of because it had to do with a post apocalyptic setting and a megalomaniac computer which would call himself God and rule over the planet from space enlisting the most ruthless thugs to work its schemes while it was opposed by good hearted rebels and survivalists. starting the game with stranded characters in a low tech setting and playing up the discovery of technological wonders (almost magic or miracles for the characters) was thoroughly enjoyable.

As for your campaign, IMO that's a good way to start. I don't know if you need a few pointers (as you seem to know pretty much what you're doing) but here are a few things based on my personal experience playing pnp RPGs. First I'd like to point out that It's always a good thing to involve your players as much as possible.

Depending on your players (especially if they can take initiatives and you can make them not rely on you for providing them with run of the mill missions) you can have a ball by focusing on preparing the setting of your campaign and the major NPCs. What I generally do when preparing for a campaign is quite simply define the place where it's going to take place (rough lines, you can always go into details later) and then I start making numerous NPCs (it's time consuming but they can be recycled anyway) I stress their motivations and I foresee their interactions so when the game begins they can live their lives and interact together. PCs can mess things up (or sort them out) but if they don't do anything things are still going to happen around them. This outlook tends to reinforce the "realism" of the setting as not everyone is waiting for the PCs to intervene (of course they should try and interact with NPCs and their environment, PCs are not meant to be spectators).

Another important aspect of playing a campaign is that the world evolves and the NPCs change as well. References to previous events or showing how an NPC has changed because of what the PCs did is part and parcel of playing a campaign. It's like a good TV show, you have story arcs that bring back element from previous seasons and ensure a sense of continuity. That also means your players will have to take notes so they will remember major plot elements from a gaming session to another (especially if you don't play regularly).

With a number of gaming sessions under your belt you can go for a total improvisation if you've laid the ground work (setting and NPCs). Leaving complete freedom to the players can be exhilarating. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have plot ideas but that instead of doing things like it was done in DnD in the 80s you can avoid the whole mission thing (or better yet make it so the mission is only an excuse for them to get involved in a situation). If you can trick your players into believing that you were improvising the whole time it's quite good actually. If they can't tell when you were improvising it's even better and if they believe the game could have gone in completely opposite directions (meaning that they rightfully assume that you are confident enough to adapt completely to the PCs and their backgrounds) it's perfect (since nothing is more frustrating than "railroad plots" when a Game Master uses conspicuous tricks so the PCs have to be doing what's in the script to the letter -if you take away free will and choice you're only left with acting and RPing shouldn't be limited to playing a part, it should be first and foremost about making choices and tough ones for that matter).

For instance imagine your party involved in smuggling merchandise to a backwater planet. The customer pretends its medicine for some kind of NGO but when the PCs check it out they find out they are running guns. Add many problems with customs, mechanical troubles and bribes... The PCs realize the world they're travelling to is ruled by some sort of plutocracy that rules over the natives with an iron fist and destroy the environment in the process. They can witness first hand that the peaceful natives are being exploited and segregated. Shake and stir. The PCs will probably deliver the guns and get their pay (the old "take the XP and run" syndrome), but there are many questions that are still unanswered: Who are the NGO rebels and why are they trying to arm the natives? What are going to be the consequences of arming untrained pacifists to put them against trained paratroopers and enforcers? Are the NGO guys misguided idealists or do they have a darker agenda? Are they manipulated by a major space corporation? How are the PCs going to react when they understand that because of the delivery they made they are directly responsible for terrorist bombings or the massacre of whole native villages in retaliation?

Moral ambiguity is the most important element in an RPG game and sci-fi settings are great in that respect. Working out some kind of dilemma is much more satisfying than blasting away and rolling the dice. I like when the players are made to make choices especially when there is no perfect choice. A good way to achieve that is to make sure that all the good guys (and the bad guys) are not on the same side. If your foe is a family man who only wants to protect his family or a selfless idealist who is trying to do the right thing but miserably fails it should be more complicated for the players to solve the situation with their guns (should they do so you can always grab that chance to make them feel bad). The same goes for unpalatable allies. If the PCs have to rely on an NPC that is a sadist and a racist you can have them question the old saying that the end justifies the means. RPers are bound to get a kick out of situations like these.

Sorry, that's quite a long post...

 

The Mongoose Traveller uses a D6, 2D6, and D66 system much like the Classic Traveller, but there have been a few other conversions into a D20 system, like the GURPS one, or T20 (Traveller 20 I think lol) I like the simplicity of the D6 system because it works alot smoother I think...some people complain that it limits the possibilities, and such and makes modifiers too powerful, but if it made Classic Traveller such a good game then it can't be THAT broken

And thanks for the tips Caradhras though a long post it was a very good post And you've given me some more ideas!....As to sounding like I know what I'm doing, well I have a lot of time to think about it though I've only run a few sessions with my players, and they're all pretty new to RPG's and are finding the RP part a little tricky, but they do make the effort occasionally....I think they find it all a little embarrassing lol!

 

You're welcome. Don't give the rules too much importance since in the end it's not what matters. As far as RPG experience is concerned don't make too big a deal out of it. More seasoned RPers tend to have some habits and are quite predictable because they try and predict what the Game Master is planning or doing. It can be irksome when a player draws conclusions based on elements that are not part of the game per see if you take my meaning.

That's why I like playing with new RPers or old vets who are able not to take themselves too seriously. Make sure your players (and you as well) don't forget it's a game and that you are meant to have fun. Nothing is worse than criticism about someone's way of RPing as it is really personal. If someone is not trying at all to play the role suggest a break or try and help out (perhaps by involving that character more) but be wary never to crush someone's attempts without consideration (should these attempts be worthy of consideration of course). Last but not least make sure you don't favour a PC over the others. It can be quite hard since in every group there is a leader or someone who is more out-going than the others. The best way to make this happen is by creating a situation in which another PC has to take responsibility or deal with a major NPC (because it makes sense in the plot so the players won't realize what you're trying to do).

Regarding the embarrassing factor, you have to open the way as the GM and show that it's all for fun and that there is nothing wrong in having a good laugh (provided it doesn't break the mood of the game of course). If you're playing with friends there is nothing to be self conscious at all. Make NPCs with speech impediments, funny voices and accents. Provide situations that will relieve the tension and create some humorous moments so that your players will grow more and more confident about playing their roles. Insist on them speaking in the first person saying "I" instead of "he" or "she" and make them roleplay the interaction between themselves and with NPCs it will be awkward at first but it will get easier with practice as they get better. Ban remarks like "ok, I go to the bar and ask the bartender about the whereabouts of X" and replace it with a fully fleshed dialogue with memorable details -think about people you know or you have met or characters from books and films and it will help you flesh minor NPCs out.

The same goes for places, if you're improvising and you find yourself in a tight spot, don't panic and think about real places or places you know or you've visited. If the PCs want to make some cash by attacking a bank and you don't have any plan for it, think about your local bank to get a basic layout to make it work. One last word of advice, use your players! They will have ideas and they will certainly discuss their strategy. Listen and make decisions on the spot, you'll have to stick by them later on but never mind that. Keep a straight face so your players won't be able to draw conclusions from your facial expression and if you need some extra time ask them an innocuous question, by the time they eventually reply (wondering all the time why you're asking them that question since they have to assume that it must have some sort of direct relevance to the game) you'll have plenty of time to put the finishing touches.

Another long post... It seems that can't be helped today!

 

More good tips and hints I was definately going to make the effort to do some "acting" of my own, it might get some of them to get involved, also it'll be a good laugh Also whats your view on prop making? do you think making some print outs and things is worth it? Like print outs of what they see when they're searching the computer so they have like a record of the info?...or "you find a ancient laser pistol" then give them a cardboard cutout version of it to wave around I like making things so I'll probably try it anyway, but have you or anyone else done this in the past?

 

Get as many of them to participate actively. You don't need to dress up but if props can help go for it... Truth be told I'm not a big fan of props myself. I do use handouts (like files and documents, handwritten letters in foreign languages, cyphers, etc) on a regular basis but a cardboard laser pistol? Not yet.