On 03Jul2022 0744, Alex Goodwin - alex.goodwin at multitel.com.au (via
tml list) wrote:
> Evening all,
>
> After Parental Advisory died in an in-game fireball nearly six months
> ago now, I'm starting to get an itch to run Traveller again.
>
> I've got a few ideas, and figured would ask the Learned Members (yes,
> Collision, that means you as well) for feedback and advice.
>
>
> As for mechanics:
>
> MGT2 - mechanics creaked way too much - I found the sensor and
> economic rules, for starters, ultimately nonsensical.  About all I
> found worth salvaging was the lifepath (NOT the aging).
>
> MGT1 - not no.  HELL NO.
>
> T5 - I really, _really_ wanted to like this edition.  I liked the dice
> roll mechanics - being able to simultaneously critically succeed and
> critically fail on the same roll would be side splitting with my mob. 
> I found the skill system confusing, lifepath both confusing and too
> detailed (FreeTrav, STOP THAT SNIGGERING), and the less said about
> psionics in T5, the better.
>
> CT/MT/ - Don't know much about it.  Now there are alternatives, I
> suspect ironman chargen is something that sounds nice, but will really
> cheese off players with bad dice karma (such as Herr Sweep's Wheatonic
> level thereof).
Only the original 1977 printing of CT had 'failed survival equals
death'. The rest it just terminates chargen and means you got no
benefits from that term.

Under no circumstances would I use the more detailed chargen systems in
the various CT books or in MT's player book. They give characters that
are insanely more skilled than the normal system does.

MegaTraveller has a lot of errata, unfortunately. However, it has (IMO)
the best of the CT-style chargen and skill systems, and I like the task
system quite a bit. Unless you're heavily into detailed spaceship
design, rather than use the MT rules I'd use CT's *Book 5: High Guard*.

I'm not sure that either CT's or MT's economics would fare any better
under close scrutiny than MgT's did. MT's *World Builder's Handbook* has
a fair bit on surveying systems and worlds. Unfortunately it's generally
unavailable, being a DGP publication and not part of the material FFE
has for sale.

>
> TNE/T4/T20 - Don't know much about it.
I love TNE, but it's a very different system. Chargen still uses terms,
etc., but they give far more control to the player. Spaceships require
fuel to manoeuvre in normal space as well as to jump, which has the
possibly unfortunate effect that most ships carry enough fuel for
several jumps between refuellings if they're careful about their normal
space fuel consumption. If they're not, well... oooops.

TNE's *World Tamer's Handbook* also has stuff on system and world
surveying (and is available for online purchase), but doesn't discuss
out-of-system long range survey at all, and has a focus on planetary
surveying with an eye to colonisation.
>
> GT/GT:ISW, through its parent systems, scratch my itches for
> consistency, character development, etc.  However, one thing notably
> lacking which powered _a lot_ of Parental Advisory was a lifepath.
It's the thing I miss most when using GURPS to do Traveller.
>
> Best idea I have to fix that is to knock off MGT2's lifepath, and beat
> the stuffing out of the character conversion notes in GT: 2e. 
> However, concerns about point balance still have currency.
>
> Referring to Parental Advisory, it would be sheerest folly to expect
> the raw recruit, Rhett Shird (age 26, blamed for causing IW2) to work
> out to the same point value as Badass Badass-Moustache or Old Joe
> (both psykers, Joe in his 70s, Badass-Moustache (I think) in his mid
> 60s).
Well, their objective power in MgT, CT, etc. would be wildly different
as well. In play differing point values in GURPS don't matter that much
as long as everyone has some skill or talent they can bring that's
useful to the party - assuming that the players don't care about it.
Note that learning new skills is fairly easy in GURPS, and stats
influence skill level very strongly, and there's no built-in niche
protection to stop a high-IQ engineer quickly also becoming the best at
science, sensor ops, piloting, etc., so you need to be aware of this and
have players that are in board with not trampling too hard on other PC's
niches, especially if some of the characters are young and have limited
skills - they need to be able to be the go-to guy in their niche or
players will rapidly start wondering why that guy is even on the crew.

>
> Learned Members, thoughts?
>
>
> If MGT2 was any indication, untrained psi abilities weaken with age. 
> G3 handled this straight up with explicit power levels for
>
> each ability which can fade with age.  G4, not so much.
>
> For example, out of G4: Psionic Powers, the Life Extension ability. 
> Level 1 allows the character to attempt a yearly skill roll to retard
> their own aging.  Levels 2 and up (as written) allow the character to
> affect (level - 1) _other_ people - which slams headlong into the
> in-setting restriction of self-healers being unable to affect anyone
> else.
>
> Same book, Emotion Sense (aka telempathy - the added m is deliberate)
> - level 1 requires skin contact, level 2 is penalised by _normal_
> range penalties (additional -6 per 10x range), level 3 is penalised
> by  _long-distance_ range penalties (additional -2 per 10x range), and
> level 4 points and laughs at range.
>
> Third example, out of the same book, Cyberpsi (directly interfacing
> with a computer). Level 1 requires touching the box or a network cable
> plugged into it, level 2 is penalised at -1 per yard of distance,
> level 3 uses normal range penalties, and level 4 uses long-distance
> range penalties.
>
> Each separate ability has an eponymous skill driving it - simply
> penalising those skills across board by some time-related figure (like
> -1 per term of adulthood before psi training) seems like too much of a
> kludge.
>
> Should I simply follow GT:ISW's lead - doesn't seem to give three
> fifths of one half of sod all about untrained psi powers fading. Or,
> as Einstein's Theory of Negativity put it, "SOD IT!".
>
> Again, Learned Members, thoughts?
The G4 psionics books weren't written for Traveller, so they'll need
some hammering/evisceration to fit. If you want age-weakening, one way
would be to rule that the later in life the character is when they get
training, to lower the cap on levels (or points) that can be put into a
power is. I'd leave psi skills uncapped by age, so an old character
might be limited in raw power, but with sufficient effort they can be
just as effective within that power limit as anyone else.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>