You might suspect from the title I am quite enamored of the changes to the CT system generation presented in Book 3 of Cepheus Engine (CE) and you would be right. However we'll go in order through the book. Chapter 11 is the environment and hazards which are mostly rules for things I never really gave much thought to. Acid; disease; temperature; falling; poison; radiation; sustenance; exposure to vacuum and weirdly enough in the middle of all that is carrying capacity. Do you need these rules? Maybe or maybe not but to have them makes winging it easier for me. Like most GMs (I suspect) I know the rules for things that happen commonly in a session and vaguely recall those that rarely come up. Mostly I wouldn't stop the flow of a session to look up a rule so to have at least a vague idea of how to represent a challenge in the system gives me a point to make a better snap decision then just pulling one completely out of thin air. The only one that really stands out to me is the radiation section because it does point out radiation is a life time gift in that it is a cumulative rating. I am torn on this as it adds (maybe but probably not) something else to track. Fortunately there is a simple in game way to remove rads to go along with where to get irradiated in the first place and how much protection common things give from radiation. The reason I say this probably won't add something to track is I suspect unless it is part of the session neither I or my player will care.
Chapter 12 covers creating worlds and I am chuffed (I have been watching commonwealth comedians again) by the changes in here. It covers the UWP which remains unchanged that I saw. Star mapping is also pretty similar with DMs changing the likelihood a star is present rather than giving a table with different probabilities for each density. I can't honestly say I know if it makes a difference or not. On to the meat of it as it were. You generate the size of a world first and handily there is a table of the surface Gs of the sizes assuming a standard composition. Next it a paragraph on how to introduce DMs to show some kind of effect for being in a gravity field different from your own. Next is atmosphere with an extended range of atmosphere types and a description of what the types are. Hydrographics is next and has additional modifiers for size and atmosphere introduced. Population is the fourth thing to be generated and the part that really impressed me. It is the standard 2D6-2 roll but it gets modified by the physical world stats so the crappier the planet the lower it's population will be which is something I had already decided I was going to do in FU. To me it just makes over all good sense that a planet with a lesser ability to support human life will have a lower population. Population modifier comes up for those who want to use it however I never really worried about it before. The next big change which I hadn't thought of before and makes amazing sense to me is that you generate the starport after you know the worlds population. More people should mean more traffic which would lead to a better port. Thinking back to the passenger and freight tables being based exclusively on the starport might make a little more sense now and it also means I no longer am sure what the most common starport type is. The next thing you generate is the government type with a quibble that there is not a description of the types just a name. Law Level is the next step being influenced by government type. Technology level is generated in the expected manner with a table of certain minimums based on world characteristics which I think was also in the LBBs but am to lazy to look up right now. After generating the world you can flesh out the system some by checking for gas giants; planetoid belts and various bases. You can also figure the worlds trade codes and likely trade routes. Travel zones; world allegiance and communications routes will depend on your setting more than random rolls or at least will in my case.
Chapter 13 covers wilderness encounters and the creation of animals and encounter tables. Animals get created with the same characteristics as PCs for the most part simplifying using them. Chapter 14 covers social encounters which means the NPCs of the setting. Chapter 15 covers starship or space encounters with sample encounter tables. These sections are more in depth that my summary would otherwise suggest but without actually playing the game I can't really say much about the material in them.
Chapter 16 covers refereeing the game which is usually my favorite section of any rule book. Most often this is where the developer of the game talks to the reader most directly and shares their experiences playing intentionally or not. Much like posting this blog and reading the comments is valuable to me because it is where I will most often encounter something I have either never thought of or have a different opinion of. It is my belief anything I may create will be better by getting input from people who are not part of my own echo chamber. Even if I don't appear to use a suggestion or differing point of view I will have thought through the point made and my own idea will be more fully thought out for it. I would advise reading the chapter as it has some good ideas but I will also admit if you have been playing RPGs for any length of time it is things you will have heard before.
Chapter 17 is suggestions on how to create adventures and much like the previous chapter you may or may not have heard everything in it before. I do still advise reading it. Some people know the five act structure and some have never heard of it regardless it never hurts to have a checklist of things to consider when making up an adventure or getting ready to play a sandbox.
And that ends the overview of the Cepheus Engine as written. I decided to go through the rule book as written before making any changes. I am happy I did because I more or less assumed CE would be just the SRD version of classic traveller and it is not. some people won't like that it has some important changes but I am okay or happy with the changes I did notice. Also I did it this way to avoid my most common trap. I have a really cool idea for a Starship or adventure or world or even a campaign and start there. Then I have to do the non really part of editing rules and lose interest. This bottom up approach doesn't work to well in a sci-fi game at least it doesn't work as well as it does in fantasy. For me knowing the basic way the universe works is a good thing so I can make specific things up and not have to fight them into the general way things work.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Monday, October 17, 2016
Cepheus Engine and it's effect on sheeple
The sheeple in the title applies to me specifically. I am okay at adapting other people innovations like The Cepheus Engine but would never come up with the idea and courage to do something like it. And it does take courage to say, I can rewrite an iconic game and release it online where there are a lot of not so nice people. This came to mind for me going through Book Two of The Cepheus Engine (CE). There are things I am ambivalent about and am most likely going to change. Normally I would not do that with a rule set and would never think to put it out in public. However for whatever bizarre reason I am okay doing it with a set of someone else's version of GDW's rules. I guess I am a sheeple but I am also grateful to Samardan Press for letting my own hangups get around themselves.
On to Book Two then. The high level overview is there are more changes to this section from the LBBs of yore and I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing. I mean it is good in the sense of getting the rules in one place and providing a consistent usage for skills but I am somewhat thrown by some of the choices made. Interplanetary travel is the first topic and is fine the way it is. Next up is interstellar travel introducing the CE standard jump theory of a hull grid and the effect of gravity wells on jump drives. It also mentions jump plots either created by the ship's navigator or a purchased tape and how they are negatively effected by time passing. Then a more in depth version of the jump procedure is presented. I like giving the Ship's Engineer a part in the course of a jump and a higher skill in Navigation having an effect and longer jumps being harder. What I am unsure of is an jump roll under 8 causing a critical hit to the ship. It seems quite harsh to me that even when you don't misjump and only come out further from your destination than intended your ship takes a significant amount of damage. Well maybe significant as I can't find critical hit defined in the section on Starship Combat. The thing is most starship components are extremely expensive and unless the Trade and Commerce rules allow the rapid accumulation of wealth any damage can strand the PCs with no way to fix it. All because your Navigator got a 7 rather than an 8 on his jump roll. I don't know if I am keeping this or not as until I go through the rules and tweak them the first time I can't really tell how often this would happen.
The next section covers standard operations of a starship including what the various levels of passage are. Here I have some trouble as I like the number of passengers a steward can attend to increases with their steward skill and I dislike formalized double occupancy for High and Middle passage. I have never been on a cruise but I would like to think if I am paying for a cabin the ship can't stick a random person in the same cabin as me. True it seems to imply if you pay the full rather than discounted rate you are in the cabin yourself but if you are paying for the whole cabin and two people can occupy it why does allowing someone else in your cabin suddenly cost 6,000 more instead of the 2,000 more for the cost of life support, Next expenses are discussed most of which I am okay with. My biggest quibble isn't in the expense section so much as in ship construction and that is the common availability of fuel processors. I think a government would try to restrict this to government ships. If you can get fuel for free most anywhere in system it is less likely you will go to the main world. The size of a star system precludes any kind of comprehensive sensor net so if you are going to be doing something naughty you'll do it in the remote part of the system. I can see governments doing whatever they can to get civilian starships to only go where they are supposed to be to reduce crime and search and rescue costs. Requiring flight plans also means a ship will draw attention to missing blocks of time or excessive fuel use. On the other hand I have to actually use the Trade and Commerce rules to see if a starship is viable without fuel processors. Routine maintenance seems to be a monthly expense rather than a once a year two week event. Revenue is the next section and the next thing I find odd. There is a random number of passengers and freight based on the the starport. That is actually something I always found odd in the old system even after the revisions of Book 7 however there is no effect based on technology or population of the source or destination. Assuming the math works the same the average starport is a C so on average there are 2 High, 7 Middle and 10 Low passengers and 20 tons of freight for the average world or 87 Kcr (life support deducted) on an average run or 174 Kcr a month assuming 2 such voyages. The basic Trader (not Frontier) has a mortgage that runs 160 Kcr a month and it can't even haul all the awake passengers where most of the money comes from and that doesn't include any other ship expenses. I am dubious of a table with no modifiers as it reduces player involvement but I am also aware the highly simplified rules for starship finances make it really easy to make a major mistake and turn ships into gold factories. Next up are miscellaneous topics such as airlocks; docking ships together; boarding and landing on a world. None are really necessary but like a lot of things in CE it is nice to have the topic covered. Ship security is the next section and covers both physical and cyber security which are topics it never occurred to me to think about in the past so are a welcome addition. Character actions on other worlds are briefly discussed in the final section including causing trouble, leading to arrests and finally sentencing.
Chapter seven deals with Trade and Commerce. I guess I am okay with this section equivocating in a cowardly fashion. Figuring out the purchase and sale price of speculative goods is different than it used to be but not terribly so and it is easy enough to understand I just don't know how well it works until I make some characters and play with it some. One oddity I see is the seller's broker skill gives the buyer a crappier deal. I sort of understand this on a buying a car level but on the level of interstellar trade it seems to me everyone would look for inexperienced sellers reducing the demand for skilled ones. I said before I am not an economist and really don't want to be one but this seems simple enough to cause a problem. Unlike the LBBs you are not committed to a purchase or sale prior to rolling the dice which I am also ambivalent toward. The old system could be a narrative tool to say you get a great price on used ATV bikes but when you sell them the taxes and fees mean you break even at best aka Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones". Meh I will reserve judgement until I actually play with the system some. It is an easier system as only the best modifier from the world trade code is applied from both the Purchase and Sale price.
Chapter eight covers starship construction and I am okay with it on the whole. There are more options for stuff to put in or on a ship and that is always a good thing. I am iffy on the inclusion of bay weapons and screens but as I said elsewhere that is my personal desire to keep ships less important than characters which I don't see military weapons helping. I will do chapter nine in this paragraph as well which covers the standard designs. None of them offend me and none make my kokoro go doki doki (if you don't know what that means and don't mind offensive language I recommend the Urban dictionary example of usage). My above usage of a standard design in my take on standard freight and passenger service means I am dubious of some of the design choices but that happens no matter who is making the ship.
Chapter ten covers space combat and I was pleasantly surprised by it. First off I understand it and would mind running one unlike the LBB version. Also an attempt is made to include rolls for everyone not just the pilot and gunner so you can hopefully keep the whole table engaged in the combat which was a problem before. The damage system seems much more workable to me although not chipping away at drive letters seems wrong to my traditionalist self. My only real problem is no discussion of repairing things damaged in combat. I say damaged not outright destroyed because it does seem like a way to involve the players and avoid the whole any damage bankrupts and derails the campaign problem.
As always I welcome opinions.
On to Book Two then. The high level overview is there are more changes to this section from the LBBs of yore and I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing. I mean it is good in the sense of getting the rules in one place and providing a consistent usage for skills but I am somewhat thrown by some of the choices made. Interplanetary travel is the first topic and is fine the way it is. Next up is interstellar travel introducing the CE standard jump theory of a hull grid and the effect of gravity wells on jump drives. It also mentions jump plots either created by the ship's navigator or a purchased tape and how they are negatively effected by time passing. Then a more in depth version of the jump procedure is presented. I like giving the Ship's Engineer a part in the course of a jump and a higher skill in Navigation having an effect and longer jumps being harder. What I am unsure of is an jump roll under 8 causing a critical hit to the ship. It seems quite harsh to me that even when you don't misjump and only come out further from your destination than intended your ship takes a significant amount of damage. Well maybe significant as I can't find critical hit defined in the section on Starship Combat. The thing is most starship components are extremely expensive and unless the Trade and Commerce rules allow the rapid accumulation of wealth any damage can strand the PCs with no way to fix it. All because your Navigator got a 7 rather than an 8 on his jump roll. I don't know if I am keeping this or not as until I go through the rules and tweak them the first time I can't really tell how often this would happen.
The next section covers standard operations of a starship including what the various levels of passage are. Here I have some trouble as I like the number of passengers a steward can attend to increases with their steward skill and I dislike formalized double occupancy for High and Middle passage. I have never been on a cruise but I would like to think if I am paying for a cabin the ship can't stick a random person in the same cabin as me. True it seems to imply if you pay the full rather than discounted rate you are in the cabin yourself but if you are paying for the whole cabin and two people can occupy it why does allowing someone else in your cabin suddenly cost 6,000 more instead of the 2,000 more for the cost of life support, Next expenses are discussed most of which I am okay with. My biggest quibble isn't in the expense section so much as in ship construction and that is the common availability of fuel processors. I think a government would try to restrict this to government ships. If you can get fuel for free most anywhere in system it is less likely you will go to the main world. The size of a star system precludes any kind of comprehensive sensor net so if you are going to be doing something naughty you'll do it in the remote part of the system. I can see governments doing whatever they can to get civilian starships to only go where they are supposed to be to reduce crime and search and rescue costs. Requiring flight plans also means a ship will draw attention to missing blocks of time or excessive fuel use. On the other hand I have to actually use the Trade and Commerce rules to see if a starship is viable without fuel processors. Routine maintenance seems to be a monthly expense rather than a once a year two week event. Revenue is the next section and the next thing I find odd. There is a random number of passengers and freight based on the the starport. That is actually something I always found odd in the old system even after the revisions of Book 7 however there is no effect based on technology or population of the source or destination. Assuming the math works the same the average starport is a C so on average there are 2 High, 7 Middle and 10 Low passengers and 20 tons of freight for the average world or 87 Kcr (life support deducted) on an average run or 174 Kcr a month assuming 2 such voyages. The basic Trader (not Frontier) has a mortgage that runs 160 Kcr a month and it can't even haul all the awake passengers where most of the money comes from and that doesn't include any other ship expenses. I am dubious of a table with no modifiers as it reduces player involvement but I am also aware the highly simplified rules for starship finances make it really easy to make a major mistake and turn ships into gold factories. Next up are miscellaneous topics such as airlocks; docking ships together; boarding and landing on a world. None are really necessary but like a lot of things in CE it is nice to have the topic covered. Ship security is the next section and covers both physical and cyber security which are topics it never occurred to me to think about in the past so are a welcome addition. Character actions on other worlds are briefly discussed in the final section including causing trouble, leading to arrests and finally sentencing.
Chapter seven deals with Trade and Commerce. I guess I am okay with this section equivocating in a cowardly fashion. Figuring out the purchase and sale price of speculative goods is different than it used to be but not terribly so and it is easy enough to understand I just don't know how well it works until I make some characters and play with it some. One oddity I see is the seller's broker skill gives the buyer a crappier deal. I sort of understand this on a buying a car level but on the level of interstellar trade it seems to me everyone would look for inexperienced sellers reducing the demand for skilled ones. I said before I am not an economist and really don't want to be one but this seems simple enough to cause a problem. Unlike the LBBs you are not committed to a purchase or sale prior to rolling the dice which I am also ambivalent toward. The old system could be a narrative tool to say you get a great price on used ATV bikes but when you sell them the taxes and fees mean you break even at best aka Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones". Meh I will reserve judgement until I actually play with the system some. It is an easier system as only the best modifier from the world trade code is applied from both the Purchase and Sale price.
Chapter eight covers starship construction and I am okay with it on the whole. There are more options for stuff to put in or on a ship and that is always a good thing. I am iffy on the inclusion of bay weapons and screens but as I said elsewhere that is my personal desire to keep ships less important than characters which I don't see military weapons helping. I will do chapter nine in this paragraph as well which covers the standard designs. None of them offend me and none make my kokoro go doki doki (if you don't know what that means and don't mind offensive language I recommend the Urban dictionary example of usage). My above usage of a standard design in my take on standard freight and passenger service means I am dubious of some of the design choices but that happens no matter who is making the ship.
Chapter ten covers space combat and I was pleasantly surprised by it. First off I understand it and would mind running one unlike the LBB version. Also an attempt is made to include rolls for everyone not just the pilot and gunner so you can hopefully keep the whole table engaged in the combat which was a problem before. The damage system seems much more workable to me although not chipping away at drive letters seems wrong to my traditionalist self. My only real problem is no discussion of repairing things damaged in combat. I say damaged not outright destroyed because it does seem like a way to involve the players and avoid the whole any damage bankrupts and derails the campaign problem.
As always I welcome opinions.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Pulling myself free of the mass of snow and bodies and into the Cepheus Engine
I could try and claim I was doing research on the Cepheus Engine (CE) and important adulting stuff but the sad reality is I was goofing off in IWD. However I did read through the first 102 pages of CE and have some thoughts before I get into FU the CE version. First off there are two things that will generate some passion as they have in the past. A standardized task resolution system and armor absorbing damage. The first I have taken part in discussions in this group concerning and the second I don't recall happening specifically in this community but is pretty universal in RPGs. The reason I am doing blog posts rather than keeping my amateur efforts to myself is interaction with a diverse group with differing opinions always makes my final ideas better. I understand the view of the LBBs as written but feel with the limited time most people have to game these days a unified mechanic speeds things up which is also handy when using a VTT. The armor issue I am neutral toward. Mostly because I don't think an RPG is going to accurately simulate combat regardless if armor reduce the effect of getting hit or if it makes you harder to hit in the first place. I willingly suspend reality to play these games and as long as the rules let you have fun I am good with it. A fantasy game I own but never got to play is Altus Adventum which has a Yahtzee like to hit mechanic and your armor adds hit points (called wound levels) both of which are definitely game-ist as opposed to simulation-ist but it seems like it would be fun.
On to CE proper in my case I have the PWYW PDF version clocking in at 208 pages. Those are letter sized pages not the usual digest sized ones so there is quite a bit there. The table of contents is hyperlinked which is always helpful. It is subdivided into the introduction and then 3 books. The introduction is fairly standard stuff with the addition of setting out the task resolution system including modifiers from your attributes. I like having the Attributes having a modifier that is known from the start as it is a helpful shortcut for players to know when you start to shine or stink. Also included is a glossary of common terms which is standard the only thing standing out for me was The Explorer's Guild to take the place of Traveller's Aid Society. The books are in order Characters; Starships and finally Referee's Guide. This is better organized than the LBBs because they move all the relevant stuff into the appropriate book making find things easier. For instance drugs and wound recovery are in Book One not Book Two.
I went through Book One and am okay with most of it. My only issues are multiple careers and inclusion of certain skills. Both of these issues stem from the elements of FU I am bringing over from my original series of posts. My central premise of the original series of blog posts was a mandatory service for 4 years upon reaching eighteen. The reason I had conceived of that was a means to unify the citizens at the end of the civil war in the OTU. There is a strange dynamic to the OTU in that there are few things the Imperium does for or too it's citizens. I pondered that this was an explanation for the civil war and seeming willingness of everyone to break the law in almost every published adventure. Warming to the idea I used the universal draft to explain the very random nature of character creation. Nothing is guaranteed, you can't count on being in a given service or getting any given skill. So dealing with a huge number of recruits across the career spectrum made it plausible to me that you were assigned somewhere and trained to do whatever the Imperium wanted/needed with no regard for your own desires and then you may or may not keep your job randomly. More importantly it gave a narrative tool I really liked, your prior career was largely out of your control when it ended the players were in charge of their own destiny at last. A clear demarcation between the end of generation and the start of play. None of that makes a difference to how the rules worked by descriptively it is very different than the way past careers are usually presented. The skills I a probably going to remove are Spinal Weapons; Bay Weapons; Screens and Battle Dress. I don't see myself ever running a Mobile Infantry campaign or a main battle fleet one so these would just be a waste of player skill choices. There can be a case made for battle Dress I suppose however sticking with my idea of universal service it would be reserved of elite units and because of what one being wearing it could do I posit it is closely monitored to the point of being almost impossible to encounter in civilian life. As for heavier ship weapons I like the dynamic of turrets only. The biggest difference in ships in LBB terms was the computer (I think) adding to your to hit otherwise the weapons on a merchant ship were the same as on a naval one. Naval vessels only had advantages in not needing to pay for themselves so redundant systems and armed small craft made tangling with them a bad but not impossible idea. Also It means it is unlikely in fleet actions ships fight to the death as one hit and the ship blows up doesn't really happen. Most importantly it keeps the focus on individuals rather than technology.
A very brief overview of Book One without any changes. Characteristics are generated normally with the rolls recorded in order as the standard rule, any order is mentioned as an option. Calculate the Characteristic modifier. The UPP is explained and a proposed character stat block is given. Then come the first innovation (for me at least) background skills. You get 3+ your EDU mod in level 0 background skills. I know MT had some based on your homeworld and even further back one of the Judge's Guild products had a similar concept but in both case it was one skill that was explicitly listed. In CE you get from one to five skills only one is dictated by your homeworld the other coming from a kind of everyman list of skills. Level 0 I hear you cry in derision! How lame! Not so if you have no skill you get a -3 DM if you try a task but level 0 get rid of the DM so it is worthwhile. Also setting up my desired tension during creation of limited choices to make players want to start playing. Then you go on to careers and there are twenty-four of them. Enlistment is called qualification now and it confused me at first as I thought it meant minimum characteristic required as opposed to a target number and the characteristic whose DM you use. If you fail to get into the career you attempt yo have to submit to the draft or try and qualify as a Drifter a rootless vagabond. I can't decide if the rules as stated mean every time you fail to qualify for a different career you get drafted or is that only on the first go round at 18. After qualifying or being drafted you do basic training which gives level 0 in everyone of the skills on the Service Skill table which I think is genius. Then comes the standard survive; commission; promotion; re-enlist cycle. Two skills per term is standard for all careers not offering ranks. As long as you have served less than seven total terms you can change careers if you get the boot from your current one or just decide to leave. There is a progressively worse DM for each prior career you have had except for getting into the Drifters which is the only career you can join more than once. Then comes mustering out which is pretty standard except for the addition of ship shares each worth 2 Mcr toward the cost of a ship. I have a quibble here as well as it isn't applied consistently as Scouts and Scientists get the use of a ship rather than a ship share or in most cases 1D6 shares. The gods of polyhedral randomness guarantee your play group will get a player with a ship and at least one other with at least one share. Character generation finishes up with so advise for finishing touches and some sample alien races.
Chapter Two covers skills and how to use them. It covers the task system in detail then gives a list of skills. An major difference is handled in one short paragraph that ends the chapter namely gaining new skills and improving ones you have. The total of all your skills plus the level of the skill you want is the number of weeks you need to spend. Chapter Three covers Psionics which handily are handled like skills. It also covers some Psi/Anti-Psi tech and some notes on psionics in society. Chapter Four covers equipment with many examples including suggest related tasks. The only real standouts are the section on computers and software and the one on robots and drones. Chapter Five is the personal combat rules which I didn't try to analyze to deeply but there is a section on vehicles which is handy. This also where the rules for injury and healing are.
In summary The Cepheus Engine is clearly laid out; more completely covering the sci-fi genre and quite different that Classic Traveller while still being pretty compatible. I am trying to decide if I should go through the rest of CE and then adapt it all at once or dive into characters right off.
On to CE proper in my case I have the PWYW PDF version clocking in at 208 pages. Those are letter sized pages not the usual digest sized ones so there is quite a bit there. The table of contents is hyperlinked which is always helpful. It is subdivided into the introduction and then 3 books. The introduction is fairly standard stuff with the addition of setting out the task resolution system including modifiers from your attributes. I like having the Attributes having a modifier that is known from the start as it is a helpful shortcut for players to know when you start to shine or stink. Also included is a glossary of common terms which is standard the only thing standing out for me was The Explorer's Guild to take the place of Traveller's Aid Society. The books are in order Characters; Starships and finally Referee's Guide. This is better organized than the LBBs because they move all the relevant stuff into the appropriate book making find things easier. For instance drugs and wound recovery are in Book One not Book Two.
I went through Book One and am okay with most of it. My only issues are multiple careers and inclusion of certain skills. Both of these issues stem from the elements of FU I am bringing over from my original series of posts. My central premise of the original series of blog posts was a mandatory service for 4 years upon reaching eighteen. The reason I had conceived of that was a means to unify the citizens at the end of the civil war in the OTU. There is a strange dynamic to the OTU in that there are few things the Imperium does for or too it's citizens. I pondered that this was an explanation for the civil war and seeming willingness of everyone to break the law in almost every published adventure. Warming to the idea I used the universal draft to explain the very random nature of character creation. Nothing is guaranteed, you can't count on being in a given service or getting any given skill. So dealing with a huge number of recruits across the career spectrum made it plausible to me that you were assigned somewhere and trained to do whatever the Imperium wanted/needed with no regard for your own desires and then you may or may not keep your job randomly. More importantly it gave a narrative tool I really liked, your prior career was largely out of your control when it ended the players were in charge of their own destiny at last. A clear demarcation between the end of generation and the start of play. None of that makes a difference to how the rules worked by descriptively it is very different than the way past careers are usually presented. The skills I a probably going to remove are Spinal Weapons; Bay Weapons; Screens and Battle Dress. I don't see myself ever running a Mobile Infantry campaign or a main battle fleet one so these would just be a waste of player skill choices. There can be a case made for battle Dress I suppose however sticking with my idea of universal service it would be reserved of elite units and because of what one being wearing it could do I posit it is closely monitored to the point of being almost impossible to encounter in civilian life. As for heavier ship weapons I like the dynamic of turrets only. The biggest difference in ships in LBB terms was the computer (I think) adding to your to hit otherwise the weapons on a merchant ship were the same as on a naval one. Naval vessels only had advantages in not needing to pay for themselves so redundant systems and armed small craft made tangling with them a bad but not impossible idea. Also It means it is unlikely in fleet actions ships fight to the death as one hit and the ship blows up doesn't really happen. Most importantly it keeps the focus on individuals rather than technology.
A very brief overview of Book One without any changes. Characteristics are generated normally with the rolls recorded in order as the standard rule, any order is mentioned as an option. Calculate the Characteristic modifier. The UPP is explained and a proposed character stat block is given. Then come the first innovation (for me at least) background skills. You get 3+ your EDU mod in level 0 background skills. I know MT had some based on your homeworld and even further back one of the Judge's Guild products had a similar concept but in both case it was one skill that was explicitly listed. In CE you get from one to five skills only one is dictated by your homeworld the other coming from a kind of everyman list of skills. Level 0 I hear you cry in derision! How lame! Not so if you have no skill you get a -3 DM if you try a task but level 0 get rid of the DM so it is worthwhile. Also setting up my desired tension during creation of limited choices to make players want to start playing. Then you go on to careers and there are twenty-four of them. Enlistment is called qualification now and it confused me at first as I thought it meant minimum characteristic required as opposed to a target number and the characteristic whose DM you use. If you fail to get into the career you attempt yo have to submit to the draft or try and qualify as a Drifter a rootless vagabond. I can't decide if the rules as stated mean every time you fail to qualify for a different career you get drafted or is that only on the first go round at 18. After qualifying or being drafted you do basic training which gives level 0 in everyone of the skills on the Service Skill table which I think is genius. Then comes the standard survive; commission; promotion; re-enlist cycle. Two skills per term is standard for all careers not offering ranks. As long as you have served less than seven total terms you can change careers if you get the boot from your current one or just decide to leave. There is a progressively worse DM for each prior career you have had except for getting into the Drifters which is the only career you can join more than once. Then comes mustering out which is pretty standard except for the addition of ship shares each worth 2 Mcr toward the cost of a ship. I have a quibble here as well as it isn't applied consistently as Scouts and Scientists get the use of a ship rather than a ship share or in most cases 1D6 shares. The gods of polyhedral randomness guarantee your play group will get a player with a ship and at least one other with at least one share. Character generation finishes up with so advise for finishing touches and some sample alien races.
Chapter Two covers skills and how to use them. It covers the task system in detail then gives a list of skills. An major difference is handled in one short paragraph that ends the chapter namely gaining new skills and improving ones you have. The total of all your skills plus the level of the skill you want is the number of weeks you need to spend. Chapter Three covers Psionics which handily are handled like skills. It also covers some Psi/Anti-Psi tech and some notes on psionics in society. Chapter Four covers equipment with many examples including suggest related tasks. The only real standouts are the section on computers and software and the one on robots and drones. Chapter Five is the personal combat rules which I didn't try to analyze to deeply but there is a section on vehicles which is handy. This also where the rules for injury and healing are.
In summary The Cepheus Engine is clearly laid out; more completely covering the sci-fi genre and quite different that Classic Traveller while still being pretty compatible. I am trying to decide if I should go through the rest of CE and then adapt it all at once or dive into characters right off.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Mind reading about nobility and taxes
Okay here are the last three topics to lay out a sentient on the street view on before I start. People weren't freaked out by a small number of people having Psionics because their leaders (in almost all cases) were people who could touch a rock and get a magic picture show. When the organized study and training meant most people had some ability it was still a meh kind of thing. I view it as having the same kind of following as the metaphysical or spiritual aspects of yoga today. Everyone has heard of yoga and thinks anyone could do it fewer people are aware there is a belief (I am not sure that is the right description) system that goes along with it. No government support so it remained a kind of fringe element. Why do I say most people have some ability? Because you get a roll at 18 for strength which declines every 4 years afterwards so everyone starts with some power. The minimum strength required for most talents means only a few people will have a game effect even if they got training right at 18. Sorry my hard copy is at least 6 feet away from me and I don't have TK to get it so I can't give hard numbers but I recall you need around a PSI of 5 to get any of the cooler base powers and the average PSI is 7 at age 18. As it is a fringe thing most people have to do the adulting thing for awhile before they can afford training to stop the decay of PSI so I would guess without prejudice 5 would be the average score. So until meeting up with the Enlightened Order TBR/KoK viewed psionics like we view the magicians on [your country goes here]'s Got Talent! EO is a very different place with testing and training provided by the state and being lead by people who have higher PSI scores the common view changed from amusing party trick to Orwellian police state. Add a couple marketing savvy ambitious politicians who learn the EO sends telepaths to prospective worlds first to figure out how best to change public opinion for the purpose of easing integration and mental McCarthyism is born.
Nobles as I have said get their initial boost from activating the obelisks. This leads to two problems a lack of dynastic succession and it is a terrible way to get competent leadership. So I see it as likely that people from commoner parents who can activate obelisks would get adopted into noble families (or seized in creepier states) at first. Eventually non-noble individuals get ennobled for merit leading to the current situation of nobility not necessarily running things regardless of their obelisk affinity. It has lead to two kinds of nobles, the O.B.E are those who can activate obelisks which in game are characters who start with a SOC of B or C. Knights can activate an obelisks but the information shown is not comprehensible; Counts activate a known or comprehensible idea. Merit nobles gain SOC due to their own actions regardless of their initial SOC score.
And finally everyone's least favorite but undeniably necessary thing taxes. I am not an economist. I don't want to be an economist. So there various taxes; fees and surcharges the government imposes don't need to be laid out. However I don't want to pretend (while pretending) they don't exists. The explanation for no interest on savings; lack of investment opportunities and random value of trade goods is that all the unseen taxes gobble up these things. It also makes it easier to use this as an adventure hook if I want. The TBR/KoK needs more money then a tax increase shows up as a +1 on the landing fee roll and a -1 on the resale value table. No one at the table needs to fool around figuring out an exact amount and in reality just telling the PC's their taxes went up without it having any effect will cause teeth gnashing and many shaken tiny fists.
Nobles as I have said get their initial boost from activating the obelisks. This leads to two problems a lack of dynastic succession and it is a terrible way to get competent leadership. So I see it as likely that people from commoner parents who can activate obelisks would get adopted into noble families (or seized in creepier states) at first. Eventually non-noble individuals get ennobled for merit leading to the current situation of nobility not necessarily running things regardless of their obelisk affinity. It has lead to two kinds of nobles, the O.B.E are those who can activate obelisks which in game are characters who start with a SOC of B or C. Knights can activate an obelisks but the information shown is not comprehensible; Counts activate a known or comprehensible idea. Merit nobles gain SOC due to their own actions regardless of their initial SOC score.
And finally everyone's least favorite but undeniably necessary thing taxes. I am not an economist. I don't want to be an economist. So there various taxes; fees and surcharges the government imposes don't need to be laid out. However I don't want to pretend (while pretending) they don't exists. The explanation for no interest on savings; lack of investment opportunities and random value of trade goods is that all the unseen taxes gobble up these things. It also makes it easier to use this as an adventure hook if I want. The TBR/KoK needs more money then a tax increase shows up as a +1 on the landing fee roll and a -1 on the resale value table. No one at the table needs to fool around figuring out an exact amount and in reality just telling the PC's their taxes went up without it having any effect will cause teeth gnashing and many shaken tiny fists.
Monday, October 10, 2016
My soul twists slowly in the cold Ice Wind blowing through the Dale
Having just figured out how to apply Windows Mods to my Linux IWDEE I was remiss in doing more on Fermi's Universe which I now regret as a naming choice as it become FU :sigh:. Anyways I have the general history and layout of FU set up the next thing to do is setting out the Patriarchy/Kent government and society so I can actually begin applying the rules. First thing though is dealing with the name which I have become increasingly displeased with. I had seen a video where an unpleasant person continuously repeated the word "Patriarchy" and I used to smoke Kent cigarettes. Okay for spur of the moment but Patriarchy needs to go because it is a real world divisive political issue and I want none of that in gaming, I still smoke so I am okay with Kent.
My idea is that To Be Renamed (TBR) was a Feudal Technocracy that operated much closer to historical feudalism. Individuals, in this case worlds, swore fealty to a single authority exchanging control over external policy for independence on internal policy. The Kingdom of Kent (KoK) was a more traditional fictional version of a kingdom with the royal family having control over much more of the territory and it's citizens. Both homeworlds need to be very close to Earth in physical characteristics because the short history means evolution would not have time to compensate for any really drastic changes. The further away for earth like a world is the smaller the population will be. The smaller the population the slower the rate of technological advance because a smaller group produces fewer exceptional members in either direction. I also think they need to be in a sector isolated by a rift of around jump 3. This gives around 400 worlds (Spinward Marches has 440 worlds I believe) enough to grow two powers to a large enough size to constitute a reasonable threat to each other and with limited expansion making war a likely course of action considering both are lead by totalitarian government styles. The war which I need to come up with a catchy name for starts between client states leading to escalating assistance from the two major powers until full out war. Devastation; destruction widespread misery follows. TBR ultimately forces a surrender as more independent worlds side with them do to the nature of TBR's local autonomy . One event was a rogue KoK squadron using nukes on a system triggering the capitulation in the face of similar retaliatory attacks. Post war there is political unrest until several historical figures make some really cool as yet undefined decisions leading to an amalgamation of the two major powers with the crown rotating between the two "royal" families. TBR traditions are the most prevalent but KoK shows up as the mandatory rates for ship passages and freight also the creation of "imperial" services each world is subservient to.
I think that covers a different reason for a society that is comparable to 3I. I welcome any comments in case I am missing glaring flaws in this chain of ideas.
My idea is that To Be Renamed (TBR) was a Feudal Technocracy that operated much closer to historical feudalism. Individuals, in this case worlds, swore fealty to a single authority exchanging control over external policy for independence on internal policy. The Kingdom of Kent (KoK) was a more traditional fictional version of a kingdom with the royal family having control over much more of the territory and it's citizens. Both homeworlds need to be very close to Earth in physical characteristics because the short history means evolution would not have time to compensate for any really drastic changes. The further away for earth like a world is the smaller the population will be. The smaller the population the slower the rate of technological advance because a smaller group produces fewer exceptional members in either direction. I also think they need to be in a sector isolated by a rift of around jump 3. This gives around 400 worlds (Spinward Marches has 440 worlds I believe) enough to grow two powers to a large enough size to constitute a reasonable threat to each other and with limited expansion making war a likely course of action considering both are lead by totalitarian government styles. The war which I need to come up with a catchy name for starts between client states leading to escalating assistance from the two major powers until full out war. Devastation; destruction widespread misery follows. TBR ultimately forces a surrender as more independent worlds side with them do to the nature of TBR's local autonomy . One event was a rogue KoK squadron using nukes on a system triggering the capitulation in the face of similar retaliatory attacks. Post war there is political unrest until several historical figures make some really cool as yet undefined decisions leading to an amalgamation of the two major powers with the crown rotating between the two "royal" families. TBR traditions are the most prevalent but KoK shows up as the mandatory rates for ship passages and freight also the creation of "imperial" services each world is subservient to.
I think that covers a different reason for a society that is comparable to 3I. I welcome any comments in case I am missing glaring flaws in this chain of ideas.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Fermi Cluster
It is now obvious I am not even slightly artistically enabled but this is the super high level map of the Fermi cluster. I regret not setting the background to black but the gaps between the areas are intentional. The reason I decided to have so many worlds with there own "native" human populations was twofold. The first to satisfy myself on why there will be the huge variations in technology levels of the worlds. Having a source of higher tech goods will in my viewpoint stagnate a worlds own development. It is cheaper to buy a Windows 10 touch tablet made overseas than to setup the capacity to make one in your own backyard, more so if the source belongs to the same government as your world. Secondly it was to slow the rate of expansion of the empires. However they go about adding worlds to their sphere of influence integrating a different society to the point it can be reliably considered a member of the empire will take more time than settling a world with people who are already citizens.
MegaTraveller's story had it's problems but one thing I really liked was the various zones idea. The safes wear all the worlds were definitely on the same team and law and order worked. The Outlands or Frontiers where the worlds where sympathetic to the closest power for the most part but not members worlds and where law and order became less the norm. And finally the Wilds were there was no offworld loyalty and safety was an intellectual concept and rarely a concrete state of being. So the above preliminary undoubtedly will change map shows the positions of the various safes in relation to each other and the uncontrolled distances between them. My goal here is to have a setting that allows for any kind of campaign the group is interested in. Also shrinking the overall size of the universe should allow for changes in what the group wants to do. So you start with the plucky free trader crew on the southern edge of P/K doing stuff and upgrading their ship. As their ship gets better in my experience players get more bellicose. I call it the 5th level deathwish from years of D&D that was the level where we all of a sudden decided we could do anything because we were invincible leading to our deaths. So you can wander toward the E but probably not as mind readers and the usually nefarious PC's aren't a good fit or strike out into the Frontier and eventually the Wilds. It also ould mean maps and nav tapes become hard to come by the further you get from the safes. Commercially there wouldn't be a reason to mass produce information for places no one goes and if the government has them what motivation would they have to share them freely with their own population?
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Before beginning
I realized that just switching to Cepheus wasn't going to quite enough. Seeing as the main reason to switch over was to write stuff and not worry about offending or abusing FFE's trust I couldn't in good faith just use the 3I setting. So I am going to have to come up with my own and seeing as that is the heart of the LBB it may be of interest to the community. No I did a very quick outline of Fermi's Universe and conversing with +Christopher Kubasik made me realize I need to do more work on the fluff before I delve into the crunch. That being said I am not under the delusion I am going to create anything like the canon of Traveller however I do need to set out a few things to give me a context to adapt the rules.
First is the size of the universe or at least known space. The canonverse is ridiculously large like 32 (?) plus sectors in size. It would take several years game time just to travel from Terra to Regina even if that is all the PC's did. While known space being that huge is cool in it's own right it also meant the was very little unknown space for PC's to get to. Also there is the length of history to be considered 3I had been around for 1100 years with common space travel occurring for a couple thousand years prior to that again cool on one hand limiting on the other. And finally is that Earth is part of canon which has it's own issues. I try and follow +Joe Johnston Google+ posting guidelines from 9/18/2015 so real world politics and religion hold no interest in my gaming material. Yes I have opinions on these topics and hopefully you will never know it from any of my posts to the Classic Traveller community which is about gaming. Will I present situations and places that are obviously derived from our world? Yes I will but by adding the level of indirection of a completely fictional universe what ever I present is just an idea for a game not a attack or defense of any beliefs people I am sharing with may hold.
Why do I start my timeline at 25,000 years ago? It is because that is approximately when modern man makes his appearance in the fossil record. It is my point of view that we are fascinated by Traveller (and Sci-Fi in a more general way) by imagining ourselves in the setting or at least beings that are to a large extent the same as us. Assuming the course of human history is generally the same on the distant worlds there are around 10,000 years to get where we are now and give another 1,000 to expand into a star faring culture or five and the Forerunners disappear 14,000 years ago. Upon further reflection I think I will tighten up the timeline some. 11,000 years ago the Forerunners grab up a bunch of genetically modern humans from the early earth civilizations and brought them to the Fermi cluster. They lorded about being all godlike for a thousand years or so and then vanish. Humans on a couple thousand (maybe) worlds take sometime to go from hunter gatherers so astronauts. My thinking here is the Forerunners should be of as little significance as possible so the focus is on the here and now of the players' actions. Do I know what happened to them? No I don't because unless I am running for a group that wants to find out or I decide to write an adventure that needs to have it defined it really isn't necessary. I only need to define the big picture. It happened long enough ago to make it not clearly understood, there were many different Forerunners, they had really high tech, they built stuff that is still around and they are all gone.
Obelisks and nobility. 2001 is one inspiration for the obelisk idea although more for their appearance than function. Mr. Whoopee's 3D blackboard is what I view the patterns looking like. I am okay with the idea of a noble social class but was always a little dubious about how it was presented in 3I. As I understand it nobility originated in the idea of divine favor, they were chosen by god to lead. Tradition would keep the concept even after that idea went out of favor. However I couldn't really see why people would buy into it for a modern society when there is no benefit provided for giving one group of people special status. Leadin to my idea of a random ability to activate obelisks which did provide a concrete benefit without giving an in game one. The same information is revealed no matter which obelisk is touched and the usefulness can be defined or not as the GM chooses. For example a PC could activate a pattern that shows what elements combine to form bronze showing a copper molecule and a tin molecule and symbolically adding heat to end up with bronze. Not terribly useful to starmen but a pretty flashy effect. This means when I get into house ruling the different cultures I don't have to come up with what the sixth stat is as every culture would have an obelisk based social class. The mandatory nature of touching one is to add a story hook for traveling into the territory of the Real Men.
Because I want to create stuff that is thematically usable in 3I without just blatantly ripping off FFE I came up with the Patriarchy/Kent for Solomani/Vilani and the Enlightenment for the Zhodani. I will be going through the rules laying out how the apply to the Patriarchy as that is the Imperium analog for my setting. Don't be surprised if the name changes as it was just the first couple of things that came to mind. I am thinking each of the powers are around 10 subsectors in size which give 100 years to bring a subsector under control over the thousand or so years the governments have been tooling around the stars. I did not set out any full scale wars between the powers other than the one that gave rise to the Patriarchy and the Republic and Real Men. I think I have to go through the starship rules before deciding how effective interstellar war would be. Keeping in mind the upper size limit of 5000 tons invading a world is not an easy task. It is possible to bomb one out of existence but I think the principle of M.A.D would preclude using nuclear warheads on populated worlds. It would be to easy to lob missiles on ballistic courses from remote areas of any system for the powers to not come up with a policy not to do this. Leading to a consistent no nuclear warheads for civilians. The other powers are just ideas for cultures different than the standard one without being so weird as to make it a chore to create them or play a citizen from one.
First is the size of the universe or at least known space. The canonverse is ridiculously large like 32 (?) plus sectors in size. It would take several years game time just to travel from Terra to Regina even if that is all the PC's did. While known space being that huge is cool in it's own right it also meant the was very little unknown space for PC's to get to. Also there is the length of history to be considered 3I had been around for 1100 years with common space travel occurring for a couple thousand years prior to that again cool on one hand limiting on the other. And finally is that Earth is part of canon which has it's own issues. I try and follow +Joe Johnston Google+ posting guidelines from 9/18/2015 so real world politics and religion hold no interest in my gaming material. Yes I have opinions on these topics and hopefully you will never know it from any of my posts to the Classic Traveller community which is about gaming. Will I present situations and places that are obviously derived from our world? Yes I will but by adding the level of indirection of a completely fictional universe what ever I present is just an idea for a game not a attack or defense of any beliefs people I am sharing with may hold.
Why do I start my timeline at 25,000 years ago? It is because that is approximately when modern man makes his appearance in the fossil record. It is my point of view that we are fascinated by Traveller (and Sci-Fi in a more general way) by imagining ourselves in the setting or at least beings that are to a large extent the same as us. Assuming the course of human history is generally the same on the distant worlds there are around 10,000 years to get where we are now and give another 1,000 to expand into a star faring culture or five and the Forerunners disappear 14,000 years ago. Upon further reflection I think I will tighten up the timeline some. 11,000 years ago the Forerunners grab up a bunch of genetically modern humans from the early earth civilizations and brought them to the Fermi cluster. They lorded about being all godlike for a thousand years or so and then vanish. Humans on a couple thousand (maybe) worlds take sometime to go from hunter gatherers so astronauts. My thinking here is the Forerunners should be of as little significance as possible so the focus is on the here and now of the players' actions. Do I know what happened to them? No I don't because unless I am running for a group that wants to find out or I decide to write an adventure that needs to have it defined it really isn't necessary. I only need to define the big picture. It happened long enough ago to make it not clearly understood, there were many different Forerunners, they had really high tech, they built stuff that is still around and they are all gone.
Obelisks and nobility. 2001 is one inspiration for the obelisk idea although more for their appearance than function. Mr. Whoopee's 3D blackboard is what I view the patterns looking like. I am okay with the idea of a noble social class but was always a little dubious about how it was presented in 3I. As I understand it nobility originated in the idea of divine favor, they were chosen by god to lead. Tradition would keep the concept even after that idea went out of favor. However I couldn't really see why people would buy into it for a modern society when there is no benefit provided for giving one group of people special status. Leadin to my idea of a random ability to activate obelisks which did provide a concrete benefit without giving an in game one. The same information is revealed no matter which obelisk is touched and the usefulness can be defined or not as the GM chooses. For example a PC could activate a pattern that shows what elements combine to form bronze showing a copper molecule and a tin molecule and symbolically adding heat to end up with bronze. Not terribly useful to starmen but a pretty flashy effect. This means when I get into house ruling the different cultures I don't have to come up with what the sixth stat is as every culture would have an obelisk based social class. The mandatory nature of touching one is to add a story hook for traveling into the territory of the Real Men.
Because I want to create stuff that is thematically usable in 3I without just blatantly ripping off FFE I came up with the Patriarchy/Kent for Solomani/Vilani and the Enlightenment for the Zhodani. I will be going through the rules laying out how the apply to the Patriarchy as that is the Imperium analog for my setting. Don't be surprised if the name changes as it was just the first couple of things that came to mind. I am thinking each of the powers are around 10 subsectors in size which give 100 years to bring a subsector under control over the thousand or so years the governments have been tooling around the stars. I did not set out any full scale wars between the powers other than the one that gave rise to the Patriarchy and the Republic and Real Men. I think I have to go through the starship rules before deciding how effective interstellar war would be. Keeping in mind the upper size limit of 5000 tons invading a world is not an easy task. It is possible to bomb one out of existence but I think the principle of M.A.D would preclude using nuclear warheads on populated worlds. It would be to easy to lob missiles on ballistic courses from remote areas of any system for the powers to not come up with a policy not to do this. Leading to a consistent no nuclear warheads for civilians. The other powers are just ideas for cultures different than the standard one without being so weird as to make it a chore to create them or play a citizen from one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)