The next section is GETTING YOUR FEET WET a high level view of the overall system. Ummm, even though this section is longer than the two I talk about in my first post I don't really have anything to say about it. It is a well written snapshot of what Traveller can be which I have no quibbles with so I am going to move on. If you are just starting with Traveller give it a read as it does bring up some reoccurring themes.
REQUIRED MATERIALS is up next and seems quaint and nostalgic considering I am posting to a blog as a way to get organized enough to run a VTT game. A few things strike me though concerning players knowing the rules and imagination. It isn't as annoying to explain what a total newbie needs to do in CT as in a lot of games because there aren't many rules. The relative lack of rules (as opposed to 3.5 and it's derivatives) encourages (IMHO) players to ask more frequently can I do this?
As for imagination I think my fantasy background actually inhibits me somewhat because I am more used to thinking about the possibilities offered by a world as opposed to an entire universe. So I need to try and make each location different than the others. It is very seductive to have every starport and world be the same if an adventure isn't fleshed out for that world. Realistically however I am not going to be able to make all 440 systems of The Spinward Marches a fully developed as your average D&D campaign so what is my goal? I have a fairly extensive library of fiction; history; DVDs and RPG stuff so I am planning on assigning an inspiration source to each world.
For instance Esalin is going to have "Casablanca" as my inspirational source. This doesn't mean space nazis per say but instead I have a reason to watch one of my favorite films and try and create a sense of a paranoid population with little respect for the terribly corrupt government. Also the natives resent both the Zhodani and Imperial outsiders. Because you can't tell who is a disgusting mind reading freak by looking at 'em there is a large group of people trying to flee the Zhodani empire but unable to get passage into the Imperium. I think I mentioned I am better at adapting things than creating whole cloth so this seems like a way to get a different feel for each world without an enormous amount of work.
To take the place of scrap paper and index cards I am going to shamelessly shill for people who have never heard of me. Cherrytree is a super awesome free windows and linux based app. It says it is for note taking however it is easily a lot more than that. Roll20 or Roll20 in Google Hangouts go without saying although the free ScreenMonkey from NBOS is an alternative I am still mulling over.
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS is a necessary section with no reason to discuss.
CONDUCT OF THE ADVENTURING SESSION is mostly a primer on how to run any kind of RPG with some Traveller specific mentions. "Don't split the party" kind of stuff is routine if everyone has played an RPG but if you have some neophytes it would be very worthwhile before the session (and ideally one on one through email/IM) to cover. Why do it away from the game session? Because it is mostly because of meta-game reasons you don't do them and things that take away from being in game are probably best dealt with outside of the context of the game.
One thing mentioned I need to work on is passage of time and tracking the flow of information. If the party blasts it's way out of say Heroni/Rhylanor a low tech backwater off of the main xboat network I need to have an easy way to track when the info gets where. Mostly because it isn't going to be reasonable that they will be anonymous. The "Blatant Lie" is the ship that fled and the crew roster will be accessible to the authorities. Besides if I don't screw it up the fun potential of this is huge. The PCs get up to typical naughtiness on a low pop world off the main line and it takes 3 months for word to hit the Xboat network and it takes another month to catch up with them. I can say without fear they won't remember that they did it and will get the best dumbfounded expression when confronted. I am exploring ways to actually do this however and am leaning toward outdated day planners from the local dollar store.
Before starting the campaign I am going to have to come up with how long news takes to travel from the subsector capital to each world in the subsector so I only need to know when the alert reaches a capital not track it for each world individually. Again I am trying to come up with a way to use a potential awesome way to make the game different from real life but balance it against the amount of time and attention I can devote to a game. I also think I am going to use Google's IM version of hangout to send secret notes to players because the whisper feature of group chat isn't as convenient as having a different window for each player and with chat history it is a good way for players to have access to stuff their PC's should know without having to ask me while the game is going on. That isn't clear but I mean have a instance of the chat window for each player.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Starter Traveller Post 5, The Marines
Okay we touched on why the cutlass could be important enough to warrant every Marine knowing how to use one so we are ready to do this thing. The Marines are carried aboard naval ships; secure navy bases and guard starports. First thing I am going to change is removing the general guarding starports role. Starports are going to be civilian commercial installations and guarded by civilians also you would have squad sized independent units spread all over D and E starports across the imperium and that makes no sense.
Moving on to the tables the first thing we see is the Marines have the highest enlistment number in the game (only Doctors match it) which could indicate a smaller highly selective force. I am going with the key quality being political reliability. The Imperium has the Marines watching the Navy to make it harder for the next Admiral Plankwell. I don't see this as a SOLSEC kind of explicit mission though more along the lines of indoctrination, sorry, service history stories. What is and isn't a lawful order; idealized role of the military in the Imperium and how it is the responsibility and sacred duty of the armed forces to guard against internal as well as external threats (the Marines are just better at it). Why would the emperor lose sleep over the Navy? It is the only branch that can threaten the Imperium rather than just a world the unit is stationed on. As for DM's to enlist the minor preference is for quick thinking and a major bonus for a high strength.
They get shot at more than other services with only the semi-suicidal Scouts having a higher Survival roll. Endurance gives the bonus on this roll. This goes along with my premise of the reliable service in that the Marines get sent in first because they will do what is in the Imperium's interest and then a more permanent solution is put in place if need be. Being able to operate on less sleep and resist supply deprivations is handy if you are a member of a smaller force operating in hostile territory.
Commissions are hard to come by and again we see the military forces preference for knowing facts as the DM comes from EDU but anyone with the standard schooling should be able to get the bonus.
Promotion is also difficult and it matters who your family is as the DM comes from SOC although being from a moderately well off family is good enough.
Reenlistment is, like the Navy, not a sure thing.
As stated above every Marine has Cutlass - 1 and on earning a Commission they get Revolver -1 a more mechanically reliable sidearm than an automatic pistol.
The cash table has an oddity in that the lowest roll is twice what the naval character would earn and the two highest rolls are less than the corresponding naval reward.
The material table is the same as the Navy with 1 distinct difference Marines get a +2 INT and a +1 EDU which is the reverse of the Navy. So throughout their service Marines are trained more on reacting to a situation rather than rote knowledge of a topic.
The Personal Development table only allows for improvement of the three physical characteristics adding Gambling; Brawling and Blade Combat in place of the mental and social characteristics. This has the effect that either a Marine can use 3 tables or all 4 decided at the generation of characteristics which is why I am house ruling in the ability to always replace a skill roll with +1 EDU. Gambling I was going to gloss over as we all know what it is but on reflection I think I will use it to add another detail to the Imperium. The state encourages gambling in its population. My own state in the US has a very profitable lottery and I can see the Imperium doing the same kinds of things. I already hinted that the TAS benefit was awarded like a lottery so why not make it official? I don't see penny ante poker in the barracks giving you a 3,000 to 10,000 cr bump on each cash roll either. Brawling and Blade Combat are reasonable considering what the Marines are supposed to do.
Again I think of the Service Skill table as those things the Marines consider core skills to carry out their mission and we have ATV; Vacc Suit; 2x Gun Combat and 2x Blade Combat. ATV I am looking askance at because I think it is a left over from the 1977 set of rules and should be Vehicle skill. I (oddly considering the boulders of salt I accept elsewhere) have trouble with something covering Wheeled and Tracked Vehicles in the same skill when they are split elsewhere. Vacc Suit makes sense as does Gun Combat. Blade Combat only deserves another mention because it is more commonly gained than Gun Combat.
The first Advanced Education table has Vehicle; Mechanical; Electronic; Tactics; Blade and Gun Combat. Vehicle as I said is more sensible to me than ATV which by the way you can't select when you get Vehicle. I had thought Ship's Boat was available under Vehicle but it does not appear to be so. Mechanical and Electronics are fine, someone has to fix stuff. Tactics is also a necessary skill. Gun and Blade don't need any further discussion.
The 8+ Advanced Education table has Medical; 2x Tactics; Computer; Leader; and Admin. The only standout here is Leader and it is only worth mentioning because it isn't a naval skill. So my premise of some paranoia concerning the Navy holds merit. The military knows how to train for leadership potential and chooses not to emphasize it for naval officers.
I have problems with the skill set available to the Marines. It is missing 2 skills I am not willing to buy the Marines wouldn't have, Ship's Boat and Forward Observer. They are supposed to board enemy ships and/or assault enemy worlds but they can't fly themselves there or call in fire support? I think not. I also think they should have Gunnery as I am not planning on using Book 4 so artillery isn't an available skill otherwise. So I am replacing ATV with Ship's Boat and the second Blade Combat with Forward Observer this leaves an equal frequency of Gun and Blade Combat in the tables. I like the idea of Gunnery but I am not sure what it would replace although I am leaning toward it belonging on the 8+ table I don't want to eliminate anything or reduce the chance of Tactics. Any opinions?
Now to try and sum that all up. The Marines look for Imperial patriots and subtly encourage them to watch out for the other branches rising up. Their missions are either boarding actions in deep space or being outnumbered defending bases or being the first to assault an enemy world. They are also oriented toward psychological warfare by emphasizing closing to hand to hand and hacking people up. They place little emphasis on non-combat skills preferring to focus on killing or getting to a place where people need killing.
Moving on to the tables the first thing we see is the Marines have the highest enlistment number in the game (only Doctors match it) which could indicate a smaller highly selective force. I am going with the key quality being political reliability. The Imperium has the Marines watching the Navy to make it harder for the next Admiral Plankwell. I don't see this as a SOLSEC kind of explicit mission though more along the lines of indoctrination, sorry, service history stories. What is and isn't a lawful order; idealized role of the military in the Imperium and how it is the responsibility and sacred duty of the armed forces to guard against internal as well as external threats (the Marines are just better at it). Why would the emperor lose sleep over the Navy? It is the only branch that can threaten the Imperium rather than just a world the unit is stationed on. As for DM's to enlist the minor preference is for quick thinking and a major bonus for a high strength.
They get shot at more than other services with only the semi-suicidal Scouts having a higher Survival roll. Endurance gives the bonus on this roll. This goes along with my premise of the reliable service in that the Marines get sent in first because they will do what is in the Imperium's interest and then a more permanent solution is put in place if need be. Being able to operate on less sleep and resist supply deprivations is handy if you are a member of a smaller force operating in hostile territory.
Commissions are hard to come by and again we see the military forces preference for knowing facts as the DM comes from EDU but anyone with the standard schooling should be able to get the bonus.
Promotion is also difficult and it matters who your family is as the DM comes from SOC although being from a moderately well off family is good enough.
Reenlistment is, like the Navy, not a sure thing.
As stated above every Marine has Cutlass - 1 and on earning a Commission they get Revolver -1 a more mechanically reliable sidearm than an automatic pistol.
The cash table has an oddity in that the lowest roll is twice what the naval character would earn and the two highest rolls are less than the corresponding naval reward.
The material table is the same as the Navy with 1 distinct difference Marines get a +2 INT and a +1 EDU which is the reverse of the Navy. So throughout their service Marines are trained more on reacting to a situation rather than rote knowledge of a topic.
The Personal Development table only allows for improvement of the three physical characteristics adding Gambling; Brawling and Blade Combat in place of the mental and social characteristics. This has the effect that either a Marine can use 3 tables or all 4 decided at the generation of characteristics which is why I am house ruling in the ability to always replace a skill roll with +1 EDU. Gambling I was going to gloss over as we all know what it is but on reflection I think I will use it to add another detail to the Imperium. The state encourages gambling in its population. My own state in the US has a very profitable lottery and I can see the Imperium doing the same kinds of things. I already hinted that the TAS benefit was awarded like a lottery so why not make it official? I don't see penny ante poker in the barracks giving you a 3,000 to 10,000 cr bump on each cash roll either. Brawling and Blade Combat are reasonable considering what the Marines are supposed to do.
Again I think of the Service Skill table as those things the Marines consider core skills to carry out their mission and we have ATV; Vacc Suit; 2x Gun Combat and 2x Blade Combat. ATV I am looking askance at because I think it is a left over from the 1977 set of rules and should be Vehicle skill. I (oddly considering the boulders of salt I accept elsewhere) have trouble with something covering Wheeled and Tracked Vehicles in the same skill when they are split elsewhere. Vacc Suit makes sense as does Gun Combat. Blade Combat only deserves another mention because it is more commonly gained than Gun Combat.
The first Advanced Education table has Vehicle; Mechanical; Electronic; Tactics; Blade and Gun Combat. Vehicle as I said is more sensible to me than ATV which by the way you can't select when you get Vehicle. I had thought Ship's Boat was available under Vehicle but it does not appear to be so. Mechanical and Electronics are fine, someone has to fix stuff. Tactics is also a necessary skill. Gun and Blade don't need any further discussion.
The 8+ Advanced Education table has Medical; 2x Tactics; Computer; Leader; and Admin. The only standout here is Leader and it is only worth mentioning because it isn't a naval skill. So my premise of some paranoia concerning the Navy holds merit. The military knows how to train for leadership potential and chooses not to emphasize it for naval officers.
I have problems with the skill set available to the Marines. It is missing 2 skills I am not willing to buy the Marines wouldn't have, Ship's Boat and Forward Observer. They are supposed to board enemy ships and/or assault enemy worlds but they can't fly themselves there or call in fire support? I think not. I also think they should have Gunnery as I am not planning on using Book 4 so artillery isn't an available skill otherwise. So I am replacing ATV with Ship's Boat and the second Blade Combat with Forward Observer this leaves an equal frequency of Gun and Blade Combat in the tables. I like the idea of Gunnery but I am not sure what it would replace although I am leaning toward it belonging on the 8+ table I don't want to eliminate anything or reduce the chance of Tactics. Any opinions?
Now to try and sum that all up. The Marines look for Imperial patriots and subtly encourage them to watch out for the other branches rising up. Their missions are either boarding actions in deep space or being outnumbered defending bases or being the first to assault an enemy world. They are also oriented toward psychological warfare by emphasizing closing to hand to hand and hacking people up. They place little emphasis on non-combat skills preferring to focus on killing or getting to a place where people need killing.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
A brief interlude about sharp and pointy things
Next up is going to the Marines and that means a service that makes sure everyone knows who to use a cutlass but not a rifle and their Lt's get revolver training. Seriously what is up with all the swords and knives and other D&D crap? I wish I could remember who said/wrote an explanation of why high tech societies using ancient tech weapons I could live with was but I don't. The gist of the premise was there is so much technology stuff on a starship that bullets and energy beams flying around would cause all kinds of collateral damage that could be fatal to everyone on the ship. Damage the controls of M Drive and off you go into an orbital body or the deep dark. Unplanned jump anyone? Runaway power plant to ruin the day? That's just the engineering deck. Now add that you are in a vacc suit/combat armor with restricted vision in the tight close range of a starship interior and it becomes more likely intended or not hand to hand becomes more common. Also as I seem to think I read somewhere else humans find the idea of being attacked with a knife much more frightening than a gun. I fear it was a police show where I heard it so it could be total BS but I could see someone trying to hack my arm off rather than shoot me being more terrifying.
Most of this is me trying to come up with a reason worth suspending disbelief and still using the rules as presented. Let me be clear in that I am not saying the Marines or anyone else for that matter are going in without guns. The nature of shipboard combat gives a the reason so many people know how to kill you with a knife or sword or spear. Any one buying this because I am still underwhelmed. More so considering most times the character spends 4 years of their life and said primitive weapon is the most noteworthy skill they pick up.
Most of this is me trying to come up with a reason worth suspending disbelief and still using the rules as presented. Let me be clear in that I am not saying the Marines or anyone else for that matter are going in without guns. The nature of shipboard combat gives a the reason so many people know how to kill you with a knife or sword or spear. Any one buying this because I am still underwhelmed. More so considering most times the character spends 4 years of their life and said primitive weapon is the most noteworthy skill they pick up.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Starter Traveller post 5, career types Navy
For the next couple of posts I am going to go through the careers in ST and Citizens of the Imperium Supplement 4 and the Law Enforcer which I think is in a JTAS and I know is in MT. I will look at what the game says; skills available and the Mustering Out benefits and how I am going to apply them in my view of the Imperium. Keep in mind I have decided that all pre-game career generation is in service to the Imperium which has a universal conscription and no provision for enlisting as anything other than rank 0 scrubbo no matter the service or UPP of the character. How sincere the stated goal of universal employment and skill training is remains up in the air as does the claim all the services promote on merit. Starting with Starter Traveller itself here we go.
NAVY
The service is described as patrolling space defending society from lawless elements and foreign invaders. Meh, that works. From latter works we know there are Imperial Fleets; Imperial Reserve Fleets and local squadrons. During character generation service is with an Imperial Fleet only. People go from the Imperial navy to local (world) navies or noble huscarles but everyone starts serving the Emperor. It is harder than average to volunteer for the navy with Intelligence offering a slight bonus and Education offering a bigger one. Which using my take on the UPP means knowing a bunch of stuff by memory. The naval entrance exam therefor is a grueling test covering a very wide swath of possible knowledge relying mostly on concrete facts rather than problem solving.
Survival indicates it is moderately dangerous with an Intelligence DM showing quick thinking is key in avoiding what dangers come up.
Commission is where nepotism makes its first appearance it is friggin' hard to get a commission from the ranks and Social Status is what gives you a leg up. A little more thought and it seems likely to me the Emperor wants his fleets controlled by people tied to the future of the Imperium most closely which means his feudal vassals the nobles.
Promotion is a little less likely than average and again the Education DM implies giant tests of facts rather than problem solving. The difference between the difficulty in gaining a commission and getting promoted is significant on a 2D6 roll so once you get rank it is possible to advance.
However the reenlistment is not conducive to a long career. Having no DM for reenlistment makes me even more content with the everyone gets drafted idea because the career system does make your career end kind of arbitrary in there is no way to improve your chance to continue.
Mustering out of the Navy gives you an equal chance for the best and worst kind of travel; improved mental agility; a really significant bump in the crap you know; Blade combat and finally membership in TAS. If you made it to Rank 5 or 6 you can zip into the peerage with +2 to SOC on every 6. Passage vouchers can be used on any ship at any time so I am thinking they are awards by a grateful company/vessel to the crew a of a naval vessel for a rescue of some kind so it is a civilian perk not government one. The Intelligence and Education increases represent the years of living under naval expectations and what they train their people for. TAS is weird to me because if you don't get it mustering out it would cost 1 Mcr. So I think of it as a partnership between the Imperium and TAS in a kind of lottery if you get TAS you could goof off never working again by cashing in your high passage for 8,000 a month for life. The Blade reward is an actual bladed weapon (and skill 0 if not already possessed) with additional awards being different weapons or +1 skill in the same weapon.
This benefit has always mystified me, why the sudden knife fights at the end of your career? True you can view it as something that took place during the career and it is a mechanic of the game that awards it at the end but there is a stranger possibility that occured to me. Combine my belief the Imperium gives the option to return you to your homeworld at the end of enlistment and TAS giving 16% of naval personal the million credit prize upon leaving the service with humankind's fascination with individual conflict and we have the campaign enhancing and creepy TNS exclusive traveling retirement tournaments. If you take up the offer for returning home you travel along on your way home participating in televised first blood duels amongst the various services. Kind of an olympic reality TV recruitment propaganda campaign with TAS getting revenue from broadcasting and the services getting tv exposure to boost enlistment. And this GM enhances his setting where the Imperium is tone deaf to how it can appear not to care about individual citizens, everybody wins! The final high rank getting a noble title also adds to my earlier supposition the Imperium wants those people capable of leading a fleet loyal to the current structure of the Imperium.
The cash table just comes out odd as you can get between 1000 and 150,000 credits with gambling skill of any level being the only DM. <shrug> I got nothing.
However I would suggest and am going to see if it is worthwhile to have each roll represent something worth at least a sentence of backstory. Sitting here writing a blog this seems a good idea actual rolling needs to be done to see if is worth it.
On to the skill tables. The personal development table gives an equal chance to increase any of your characteristics, meh.
Service skills I have always taken to represent the most common tasks that need to be performed and the Navy has Ship's Boat; Vacc Suit; Forward Observer; Gunnery; Blade Combat and Gun Combat. Hmmm, looking at this it seems to me the navy does a lot of boarding actions as all except Forward Observer are useful for this. It also seems the Navy routinely bombs land based targets. If we take my point of view these are the skills the Navy expects its members to need it indicates a fair amount of unequal contests ie piracy and uprisings.
Moving on to the first Advanced Education table we get Vacc Suit; Mechanical; Electrical; Engineering; Gunnery and Jack of all Trades. Vacc Suit makes sense in that the first thing ships are going to do if combat seems likely is depressurize their interiors. The next three seems to indicate keeping the equipment on the ship running is important. Gunnery has shown up twice as well because the Navy is there to shoot stuff when you come down to it. Finally the oddball skill of JOT which is poorly explained leading to really interesting debates on the G+ group on what it should be used for. I am leaning toward it being a DM pool that can be used on any roll and resets every gaming session in addition to the stated level-0 in all other skills.
Finally the is the 8+ Education Advance Education table which I again believe can be explain by that most beloved of bureaucratic tools the standardized test. You have to test to get into the technical schools for these skills Medical; Navigation; Engineering; Computer; Pilot and Administration. Making these skills harder to get would imply the Navy wants more control over the people capable of doing them and looking at them they are the ones which will have an effect on a whole ship rather than the personal on the ship individually.
Not to be ignored are the two rank awards of +1 SOC each as you rise in rank again supporting my view the people able to lead a ship into a fight are the ones the Imperium wants tied to the current status quo.
So we end up with a service that is moderately difficult to get into, really hard to get rank in and probably not one you are going to retire from. While in you spend a lot of time in Vacuum and fights. The more prestigious jobs involve you with keeping the ship going. You also spend a huge amount of time taking tests checking how well you memorize stuff. If you can get a commission you can get promoted and will move in higher and higher circles of society as you do. When you get out you get somewhere between lame and decent money and recognition through free tickets an exclusive membership most people dream about the way we do about winning the lottery and the possibility of some media exposure getting in sensationalized combats with sharp things. If you got high rank chances are good you will receive a title. Applying this to ship design theory I see naval vessels as having the bridge (and senior officers) separated from the rest of crew, every vessel having small craft and at least a few missile weapons for bombardments.
NAVY
The service is described as patrolling space defending society from lawless elements and foreign invaders. Meh, that works. From latter works we know there are Imperial Fleets; Imperial Reserve Fleets and local squadrons. During character generation service is with an Imperial Fleet only. People go from the Imperial navy to local (world) navies or noble huscarles but everyone starts serving the Emperor. It is harder than average to volunteer for the navy with Intelligence offering a slight bonus and Education offering a bigger one. Which using my take on the UPP means knowing a bunch of stuff by memory. The naval entrance exam therefor is a grueling test covering a very wide swath of possible knowledge relying mostly on concrete facts rather than problem solving.
Survival indicates it is moderately dangerous with an Intelligence DM showing quick thinking is key in avoiding what dangers come up.
Commission is where nepotism makes its first appearance it is friggin' hard to get a commission from the ranks and Social Status is what gives you a leg up. A little more thought and it seems likely to me the Emperor wants his fleets controlled by people tied to the future of the Imperium most closely which means his feudal vassals the nobles.
Promotion is a little less likely than average and again the Education DM implies giant tests of facts rather than problem solving. The difference between the difficulty in gaining a commission and getting promoted is significant on a 2D6 roll so once you get rank it is possible to advance.
However the reenlistment is not conducive to a long career. Having no DM for reenlistment makes me even more content with the everyone gets drafted idea because the career system does make your career end kind of arbitrary in there is no way to improve your chance to continue.
Mustering out of the Navy gives you an equal chance for the best and worst kind of travel; improved mental agility; a really significant bump in the crap you know; Blade combat and finally membership in TAS. If you made it to Rank 5 or 6 you can zip into the peerage with +2 to SOC on every 6. Passage vouchers can be used on any ship at any time so I am thinking they are awards by a grateful company/vessel to the crew a of a naval vessel for a rescue of some kind so it is a civilian perk not government one. The Intelligence and Education increases represent the years of living under naval expectations and what they train their people for. TAS is weird to me because if you don't get it mustering out it would cost 1 Mcr. So I think of it as a partnership between the Imperium and TAS in a kind of lottery if you get TAS you could goof off never working again by cashing in your high passage for 8,000 a month for life. The Blade reward is an actual bladed weapon (and skill 0 if not already possessed) with additional awards being different weapons or +1 skill in the same weapon.
This benefit has always mystified me, why the sudden knife fights at the end of your career? True you can view it as something that took place during the career and it is a mechanic of the game that awards it at the end but there is a stranger possibility that occured to me. Combine my belief the Imperium gives the option to return you to your homeworld at the end of enlistment and TAS giving 16% of naval personal the million credit prize upon leaving the service with humankind's fascination with individual conflict and we have the campaign enhancing and creepy TNS exclusive traveling retirement tournaments. If you take up the offer for returning home you travel along on your way home participating in televised first blood duels amongst the various services. Kind of an olympic reality TV recruitment propaganda campaign with TAS getting revenue from broadcasting and the services getting tv exposure to boost enlistment. And this GM enhances his setting where the Imperium is tone deaf to how it can appear not to care about individual citizens, everybody wins! The final high rank getting a noble title also adds to my earlier supposition the Imperium wants those people capable of leading a fleet loyal to the current structure of the Imperium.
The cash table just comes out odd as you can get between 1000 and 150,000 credits with gambling skill of any level being the only DM. <shrug> I got nothing.
However I would suggest and am going to see if it is worthwhile to have each roll represent something worth at least a sentence of backstory. Sitting here writing a blog this seems a good idea actual rolling needs to be done to see if is worth it.
On to the skill tables. The personal development table gives an equal chance to increase any of your characteristics, meh.
Service skills I have always taken to represent the most common tasks that need to be performed and the Navy has Ship's Boat; Vacc Suit; Forward Observer; Gunnery; Blade Combat and Gun Combat. Hmmm, looking at this it seems to me the navy does a lot of boarding actions as all except Forward Observer are useful for this. It also seems the Navy routinely bombs land based targets. If we take my point of view these are the skills the Navy expects its members to need it indicates a fair amount of unequal contests ie piracy and uprisings.
Moving on to the first Advanced Education table we get Vacc Suit; Mechanical; Electrical; Engineering; Gunnery and Jack of all Trades. Vacc Suit makes sense in that the first thing ships are going to do if combat seems likely is depressurize their interiors. The next three seems to indicate keeping the equipment on the ship running is important. Gunnery has shown up twice as well because the Navy is there to shoot stuff when you come down to it. Finally the oddball skill of JOT which is poorly explained leading to really interesting debates on the G+ group on what it should be used for. I am leaning toward it being a DM pool that can be used on any roll and resets every gaming session in addition to the stated level-0 in all other skills.
Finally the is the 8+ Education Advance Education table which I again believe can be explain by that most beloved of bureaucratic tools the standardized test. You have to test to get into the technical schools for these skills Medical; Navigation; Engineering; Computer; Pilot and Administration. Making these skills harder to get would imply the Navy wants more control over the people capable of doing them and looking at them they are the ones which will have an effect on a whole ship rather than the personal on the ship individually.
Not to be ignored are the two rank awards of +1 SOC each as you rise in rank again supporting my view the people able to lead a ship into a fight are the ones the Imperium wants tied to the current status quo.
So we end up with a service that is moderately difficult to get into, really hard to get rank in and probably not one you are going to retire from. While in you spend a lot of time in Vacuum and fights. The more prestigious jobs involve you with keeping the ship going. You also spend a huge amount of time taking tests checking how well you memorize stuff. If you can get a commission you can get promoted and will move in higher and higher circles of society as you do. When you get out you get somewhere between lame and decent money and recognition through free tickets an exclusive membership most people dream about the way we do about winning the lottery and the possibility of some media exposure getting in sensationalized combats with sharp things. If you got high rank chances are good you will receive a title. Applying this to ship design theory I see naval vessels as having the bridge (and senior officers) separated from the rest of crew, every vessel having small craft and at least a few missile weapons for bombardments.
Eldritch RPG by Crossroad Games
Having recently started a series of posts to get ready for a possible Traveller game I discovered sharing with the G+ community is going to make it better by getting views other than my own. I decided to try it with my next Fantasy game as well. My favorite Fantasy RPG is Eldritch RPG by Crossroads Games. It is simple to play and run and the first game I ran on Roll20 was pretty fun before the real world intruded and brought it to a close before any of would have liked. What I am planning on doing is going through the rules as presented in the book giving my take on them (and soliciting other opinions). In the interest of transparency I am an online friend of one of the authors +Eldritch Role Playing Game Dan Cross although I have no ties to the company.
Who the heck am I? I am a 50 year old guy from Massachusetts who has been playing RPG's since I got the Holmes Blue Book in freshman year in high school. I will try and avoid terms like OSR, rules light, story telling and the most common terms thrown around these days because I have noticed they seem to mean something different to each person. <sigh> I will try and expect to fail to convey a sense of the game my expectation of failure has nothing to do with the game. It really is a game that is best played rather than described because it is really intuitive to play but when you describe it it doesn't sound like it. At it's core everything has a die (or series of dice) assigned to it and you roll those dice to exceed a target number. It is a point buy classless system which awards points to improve your character's die sizes or ranges rather than gain levels. There are a bunch of default very broad skills that everyone start with a D4 in and you build your character by increasing the size of the base die or refining the skill with a die in a narrower subset of the skill. For example everyone has Melee D4 which covers any form of beating the snot out of each other with something standing toe to toe. You decide your character is better than average at it so you can bump the D4 to a D6 or D8 or you have a picture of a guy with a walking stick which he uses in combat so you could add a D4 in Bludgeon or Bludgeon D4 and then 1 handed club D4. If Example Guy is standing in a bar holding a short sword (because his party is harassing him all the real heroes use sword) and all of a sudden a gang of orcs attack he rolls a D4 in combat as he retreats toward the umbrella stand. Disarmed he picks up a stray war hammer and starts using D4+D4 until reaching his ebony walking stick when he starts dealing a D4+D4+D4. These are called Ability Die Chains (ADC) and are the core of the system. ADC are simple and flexible letting you to create whatever you want to play without the need for a ton of rules.They all follow the same template extremely broad field / Specialty applying to a lot of situations/ Mastery applying to most cases the PC's can be prepared for. As for GMing the game it is a matter of how much crunch you want to use. There are rules for most of the common fantasy situations but you also look at the situation pick a difficulty and randomly generate a target number.
Having actually run the game and most players I had having no experience with system at all I can tell you explaining was less helpful than just playing. The GM needs a basic idea but not a mastery which is why I am going to go through the book cover to cover to actually know the rules rather than think I know them. The way I did character generation was to ask what the player wanted to play without explaining the rules. Refined a backstory with the player to put them in the game world and then I built the character and did a final tweak with the player. This worked really well with me and the players having fun and them ending up with more than just a fighter or wizard or cleric. You will get different results depending on your group but it is a method to think about. Crap that was a lot of blabbing to say Eldritch works really well to develop a concept and then figure out the rules to meet the concept.
The hardest thing about playing or running Eldritch is accepting it is as easy as it is. This came up over and over again with both me and most of my players continuously over complicating something because we were use to more traditional games. If you find yourself thinking you need to looks something up in the book you are probably overthinking the situation. However there are rules you probably won't memorize right away, disarming (Melee and Ranged) the spell system (not hard but you can make any spell you can imagine) and some other things related to doing movie hero kinds of stuff. Because the system leans more toward a cinematic level of play than realistic.
And rereading this confused mess I am sadly unsurprised I met my expectation of failure. It is a really, really fun game that is easy to play and run which if you are looking for something new I think is worth a look.
Who the heck am I? I am a 50 year old guy from Massachusetts who has been playing RPG's since I got the Holmes Blue Book in freshman year in high school. I will try and avoid terms like OSR, rules light, story telling and the most common terms thrown around these days because I have noticed they seem to mean something different to each person. <sigh> I will try and expect to fail to convey a sense of the game my expectation of failure has nothing to do with the game. It really is a game that is best played rather than described because it is really intuitive to play but when you describe it it doesn't sound like it. At it's core everything has a die (or series of dice) assigned to it and you roll those dice to exceed a target number. It is a point buy classless system which awards points to improve your character's die sizes or ranges rather than gain levels. There are a bunch of default very broad skills that everyone start with a D4 in and you build your character by increasing the size of the base die or refining the skill with a die in a narrower subset of the skill. For example everyone has Melee D4 which covers any form of beating the snot out of each other with something standing toe to toe. You decide your character is better than average at it so you can bump the D4 to a D6 or D8 or you have a picture of a guy with a walking stick which he uses in combat so you could add a D4 in Bludgeon or Bludgeon D4 and then 1 handed club D4. If Example Guy is standing in a bar holding a short sword (because his party is harassing him all the real heroes use sword) and all of a sudden a gang of orcs attack he rolls a D4 in combat as he retreats toward the umbrella stand. Disarmed he picks up a stray war hammer and starts using D4+D4 until reaching his ebony walking stick when he starts dealing a D4+D4+D4. These are called Ability Die Chains (ADC) and are the core of the system. ADC are simple and flexible letting you to create whatever you want to play without the need for a ton of rules.They all follow the same template extremely broad field / Specialty applying to a lot of situations/ Mastery applying to most cases the PC's can be prepared for. As for GMing the game it is a matter of how much crunch you want to use. There are rules for most of the common fantasy situations but you also look at the situation pick a difficulty and randomly generate a target number.
Having actually run the game and most players I had having no experience with system at all I can tell you explaining was less helpful than just playing. The GM needs a basic idea but not a mastery which is why I am going to go through the book cover to cover to actually know the rules rather than think I know them. The way I did character generation was to ask what the player wanted to play without explaining the rules. Refined a backstory with the player to put them in the game world and then I built the character and did a final tweak with the player. This worked really well with me and the players having fun and them ending up with more than just a fighter or wizard or cleric. You will get different results depending on your group but it is a method to think about. Crap that was a lot of blabbing to say Eldritch works really well to develop a concept and then figure out the rules to meet the concept.
The hardest thing about playing or running Eldritch is accepting it is as easy as it is. This came up over and over again with both me and most of my players continuously over complicating something because we were use to more traditional games. If you find yourself thinking you need to looks something up in the book you are probably overthinking the situation. However there are rules you probably won't memorize right away, disarming (Melee and Ranged) the spell system (not hard but you can make any spell you can imagine) and some other things related to doing movie hero kinds of stuff. Because the system leans more toward a cinematic level of play than realistic.
And rereading this confused mess I am sadly unsurprised I met my expectation of failure. It is a really, really fun game that is easy to play and run which if you are looking for something new I think is worth a look.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Starter Traveller post 4
Oddly there are a couple sections before discussing the types of careers so I will deal with them first. MUSTERING OUT is pretty straight forward with the exception of the restriction of no more than 3 rolls for cash. Given my premise that the pre-game careers represent service in a government job I postulate this is a restriction put in place because of popular demand in reaction to a portrayal of more than a certain amount as an insider scam to inflate government employee benefits unavailable to the private sector. I am okay with this as it fits my idea of a tension between the average person and the Imperium as a whole.
AGING is a painful thing to contemplate what was completely reasonable to me before I was 30 is insulting now that I am over 50. What I am talking about is the rules saying you start your downhill spiral at 34. I am not a biologist so this can be true and if I am honest I can admit I noticed after 25 there were things I could no longer do. Most of those things I now view as foolish like excessive alcohol consumption and failure to sleep which adds to the feeling of unreasonable persecution in the game. Mechanics wise and story wise I can't see a need to screw with it though but I want to. Weirdly there is the implication you are stuck with a character until that character dies or turns 66. Or maybe not so weird as character generation is pretty much presented as playing the hand of cards you are randomly dealt. Regardless I don't think anyone is going to be surprised I have no intention of enforcing this rule and there by encouraging a campaign derailment from player disinterest.
NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS is the final section before we get to the career type overviews. Seemingly somewhat out of place it is placed here I believe because the GM is supposed to roll them up as full blown characters. Decidedly different than most other games but not terribly difficult to do ahead of times in traveller.
AGING is a painful thing to contemplate what was completely reasonable to me before I was 30 is insulting now that I am over 50. What I am talking about is the rules saying you start your downhill spiral at 34. I am not a biologist so this can be true and if I am honest I can admit I noticed after 25 there were things I could no longer do. Most of those things I now view as foolish like excessive alcohol consumption and failure to sleep which adds to the feeling of unreasonable persecution in the game. Mechanics wise and story wise I can't see a need to screw with it though but I want to. Weirdly there is the implication you are stuck with a character until that character dies or turns 66. Or maybe not so weird as character generation is pretty much presented as playing the hand of cards you are randomly dealt. Regardless I don't think anyone is going to be surprised I have no intention of enforcing this rule and there by encouraging a campaign derailment from player disinterest.
NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS is the final section before we get to the career type overviews. Seemingly somewhat out of place it is placed here I believe because the GM is supposed to roll them up as full blown characters. Decidedly different than most other games but not terribly difficult to do ahead of times in traveller.
Crown Prince Paulo announces sweeping new Imperial progam
Traveller News Service 038-718 Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F
Crown Prince Paulo today announced that with the completion of the X-Boat network another sweeping new Imperial program would begin universal conscription. "During her regency my ancestor Empress Arbellatra not only searched for a legitimate heir but also commissioned detailed and in depth sociological studies to try and understand what drove the instability in imperial society that allowed the civil war to continue as long ans as pointlessly as it did. After bowing to the wishes of the Moot and the subjects of the Iridium Throne at large and accepting the crown and all it's burdens these studies started reporting results. The central reason was the Imperium was seen as a force that acted on the average citizens life but cared little for them. Directed to find a way to overcome this fallacy two projects were begun the first was the X-Boat network so the concerns of the people could be heard and addressed in a timely fashion no matter how far from Capital and the second was a means to give everyone a personal connection to the Imperium and provide training in a career to allow them to have a fulfilling life. In pursuit of the second goal every citizen regardless of social position will upon attaining their majority be required to serve the Imperium for 4 years in some capacity. Hand in hand with the Nobles of the Moot a wide variety of career paths are available and will not only provide a solid skill for the individual but also a way to improve the quality of life for the Imperium as a whole. Further details are available from your local noble.
Traveller News Service 038-1018 Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F
On the 300th anniversary of universal conscription the University of Sylea held a symposium on benefits gained from it and lessons learned during its implementation. On the whole the academics found it a positive program leading to a more cohesive sense of belonging and proving a workable way of the long talked about universal employment at least for 18 to 22 year olds. Some quibbled with it distorting the fundamental free market system that forms the foundation of Imperium. The most heated moment came when it was asserted the lessons from the program where used in the Psionic Suppression's as asserted by Albert Croale in Crisis of '99. This theory has never been proved and is hotly denied by Imperial Officials but remain popular with the fringe conspiracy theory crowd.
*Traveller News Service; Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F; X-Boat; Arbellatra; Iridium Throne; Sylea; Psionic Supression's; Albert Croale and Crisis of '99 are all the intellectual creations of GDW and I am in no way claiming any rights to them or their usage. I believe I am following fair use but if I am not please let me know and I will delete this post
Crown Prince Paulo today announced that with the completion of the X-Boat network another sweeping new Imperial program would begin universal conscription. "During her regency my ancestor Empress Arbellatra not only searched for a legitimate heir but also commissioned detailed and in depth sociological studies to try and understand what drove the instability in imperial society that allowed the civil war to continue as long ans as pointlessly as it did. After bowing to the wishes of the Moot and the subjects of the Iridium Throne at large and accepting the crown and all it's burdens these studies started reporting results. The central reason was the Imperium was seen as a force that acted on the average citizens life but cared little for them. Directed to find a way to overcome this fallacy two projects were begun the first was the X-Boat network so the concerns of the people could be heard and addressed in a timely fashion no matter how far from Capital and the second was a means to give everyone a personal connection to the Imperium and provide training in a career to allow them to have a fulfilling life. In pursuit of the second goal every citizen regardless of social position will upon attaining their majority be required to serve the Imperium for 4 years in some capacity. Hand in hand with the Nobles of the Moot a wide variety of career paths are available and will not only provide a solid skill for the individual but also a way to improve the quality of life for the Imperium as a whole. Further details are available from your local noble.
Traveller News Service 038-1018 Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F
On the 300th anniversary of universal conscription the University of Sylea held a symposium on benefits gained from it and lessons learned during its implementation. On the whole the academics found it a positive program leading to a more cohesive sense of belonging and proving a workable way of the long talked about universal employment at least for 18 to 22 year olds. Some quibbled with it distorting the fundamental free market system that forms the foundation of Imperium. The most heated moment came when it was asserted the lessons from the program where used in the Psionic Suppression's as asserted by Albert Croale in Crisis of '99. This theory has never been proved and is hotly denied by Imperial Officials but remain popular with the fringe conspiracy theory crowd.
*Traveller News Service; Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F; X-Boat; Arbellatra; Iridium Throne; Sylea; Psionic Supression's; Albert Croale and Crisis of '99 are all the intellectual creations of GDW and I am in no way claiming any rights to them or their usage. I believe I am following fair use but if I am not please let me know and I will delete this post
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