Classic Traveller

Date:  16/04/16
So in preparing for my game in Sector 77 I had several thoughts - why would the players (as characters) have full knowledge of the subsector or each planet?  They wouldn't and would probably only know what rumours and half truths that are past between traders and what data they can buy as forms of information on places, people and things beyond their own immediate interaction.  So with this thought I have created a few new Subsectors in which the start of the game plays out. Tycho has been relegated to being in the 'Far Rim' section of space while Jurojin and Mut are past this point and in the 'Beyond' area.  Here trade routes are not so clearly defined, inter race, inter polity dealings are for most, at the start of their negotiations with each other, and some worlds have yet to feel the touch of an offworlder. So here are Jurojin and Mut - the two subsectors the Sector 77 takes place in.


JUROJIN

MUT




Date: Late March 2016
Sector 77
Over on Google + before Christmas there was a lot of discussion around the differences in play and setting using the 'Classic Traveller' of 1981 onward and the original LBB from 1977.  Some that were pointed out was the exclusion of the Imperium and how that, in later editions, became the game known as Classic Traveller.  Our group , having bought to our attention, have gone off and done our own thing concerning this.  Here I am going to present my version, all hand rolled from the LBB of 77: Sector 77, my first Subsector is Tycho, where the group, once we complete the Starlight story line, will move into.  I present to you the subsector map and the UPP of the planets therein.  i will also explain some of my homebrew stuff that has been added in the next installment.  Feel free to use the subsector and UPP, I would appreciate that if you do you mention where you got it from.  Cheers and GAME ON!
Steve


TYCHO SUBSECTOR



15 comments:

  1. So I have been thinking about Traveller Armor quite a bit. Classic Traveller uses a grid with modifiers, which I am convinced is derivative of the Man-to-Man Melee table in TSR's Chainmail rules. Many people, including myself, have mixed feelings about this table. It is figity and has a tendency to slow down combat while players look up their weapon vs. armor modifier. However, it does have the potential to accurately represent how armor actually works.

    Most newer games have armor deduct damage points from an attack. This is both simple and quick. However it doesn't really accurately represent how armor works in the real world. The fact of the matter is, if an attack penetrates armor, there is very little or no dissipation of energy by the armor itself. This is especially true of ballistic weapons as well as melee weapons that piercing. Armor does dissipate more of the energy from slashing and blunt weapons, however if the armor fails to deflect the blow, the target still takes the vast majority of the energy from the blow.

    And this is exactly what we see in the Traveller table. Each weapon has a modifier TO HIT based on the armor, which in essence is a modifier based on how good a particular weapon is in penetrating a certain type of armor. There is absolutely no damage reduction whatsoever related to the Armor. This is perhaps a not so obvious insight made at the very beginning of role playing that has since been overshadowed by the "more intuitive" but unrealistic damage reduction of armor, which is admittedly simpler and makes for faster play. Still, as grognards, it is important to remind the younger players that, while the "Olde Ways" may have been clunkier, they were actually more realistic.

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    1. Eh? Whats that? Young whippersnapper! Get off my lawn and take your new fandnagled contraption with ya - in my day we just use to aim, pull the trigger and hope like hell ya hit and took em down before they took you down! But...good point Glenn

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  2. So More thoughts about that armor chart in Classic Traveller...

    The standard "to-hit" number is 8+ on 2d6. So how is it that some armor makes it EASIER for someone to hit you. I can see how range and skill can make it easier to hit a target. But I just cannot wrap my head around how wearing Jack armor gives your opponent a +5 to hit you with a broadsword. Shouldn't the base "to-hit" be just that? Shouldn't armor in some way represent deflection vs. penetration on the chart? If that were the case, and if Jack were just useless against a broadsword, then shouldn't it be a -0 to hit? I mean a guy with a broadsword currently only needs a 3+ to hit someone in Jack armor, at short range he gets a +3 on top of that, so he needs a 0+ to hit. So someone with no skill at all with broadsword can still hit if they roll 5+, taking into account the -5 modifier for absolutely no skill. What this means is that if I roll up a barbarian, a profession that can easily get a skill level of 4 or more in broadsword, I pretty much cannot miss. Heck, a guy in Combat armor is only -4 vs a broadsword. That means with a skill level 4, I still only need a 5+ to hit him at short range. Screw carrying around a laser rifle, just give a loincloth and a broadsword and I will take out Imperial Marines all day long...!!!

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  3. Next... Jack armor isn't worth jack.

    So when you read the description for JACK ARMOR in CT and later versions it is clear from the description that they had leather jackets in mind for this type of armor. And in the description they say that it is only slightly better than nothing vs. bladed weapons and useless against bullets. And this is born out in the weapons vs. armor chart which shows Jack as 1-point better protection vs most bladed weapon than no armor, but the same vs. pretty much everything else. In fact Jack is really pretty useless as armor period, which is odd since leather armor has been used extensively through out history.

    The problem is that historical leather armor is nothing like modern leather jackets. Historical leather armor was THICK. The modern leather jacket is made from split leather that is softened and maybe 1/32" thick. Historical leather armor was typically boiled and treated to make it tough and was more like 1/4" and often had 2 or more layers or scales protecting vital parts. While it didn't deflect blows and projectiles like plate armor did, this thick leather was very difficult to slice through offered decent protection against thrusting weapons and missiles. This type of leather was so effective that it was used as the cover over the light wood of large shields. Now I will grant you that it is still pretty ineffective vs. bullets, except maybe .22 calibre rounds. But when talking about ARMOR, this is the type of leather armor that is effective. The stuff Traveller talks about is more of a fashion statement than armor.

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  4. Some thoughts on "Traveller" profession.

    Steve, you have alternately called this class "Traveller", "Wanderer", "Adventurer", and maybe some other titles. I would like to maybe get a better explanation of what you mean by this.

    When you use these names, what I personally think of is a person who wanders the space lanes either paying for passage or booking working passage. This is a meme very much in sync with the travellers in the Dumarest novels. In your CT-77 setting I very much like this as there is not an overweening single empire to fund a Scout service. But I agree that the Scout is very close to this Traveller profession.

    However, after I rolled up my character I checked and realized that Scouts automatically gets Pilot skill when they enlist. While I can maybe see this for a Scout character, it doesn't really quite make sense for a Traveller character, who are not part of a huge organization that teaches every new recruit how to fly a starship. I suggest changing this to something a little more appropriate for the wandering Traveller.

    I would suggest one of the following:

    VaccSuit: if you conceive of them as space gypsies this makes good sense.
    Streetwise: If you conceive of them as vaguely criminal and underclass.
    Jack-of-All-Trades: If you conceive of them as daring individualists who have to know a wee bit about everything to survive. However, you would need to flesh out how JOT works, as I don't see an explanation in the '77 version. I think this is my favorite and makes the most sense.

    Another thought - because this class has no ranks or commissions the characters are stuck only getting one skill per term, you might allow players to choose from one of these three.

    What do you think?

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    1. Hi Glen, I have purposely left the description vague as to allow the player to take the class where they want. As to the Pilot skill, I think J-O-T -1 is acceptable given the Professions free wheeling style. Remembering of course that any higher level in Jot will count for nothing. All JOT will do is allow a character to roll as if they had level -0 in any skill. Hope that clarifies your queries. :)

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  5. Some thoughts on the OTHER Profession:

    So the Other profession has not commissions or ranks, so the class is limited to one skill per term (except for the first term). To mitigate this and make the Other profession more attractive I would suggest allowing players choosing this class to just pick their skills from the list instead of rolling. This makes some sense because in the private sector, people have more freedom to choose what they do. In the military people are given orders and have less input into their direction.

    What do you think?

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    1. You might even give them a free skill in Streetwise. Just a thought.

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    2. For now I am not wanting to house rule too much - only where its needed to make 'sense' of the Universe etc. I would agree with the freedom to choose thing so I think if I were to change it around I would still have the player roll for which table the skill etc comes from and then choose from that table (depending on how many tables the character can access)- Randomness still plays a small part :)

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  6. John,
    Looking at Striker, it attempts to assign a number of dice to the different wound types in the section for "Integration with Traveller". It calls a Light Wound 3D and a Serious Wound 6D.

    In my opinion this is WAY too much.

    If the average character has 7 in STR, DEX, & END, then a 3D damage roll will almost always render the target unconscious, since the average damage would be 10. Likewise a 6D damage roll will almost always kill a target since the average damage would be 21, or enough to zero out all three stats.

    I think it would work to break out the Light Wound listing and the Serious Wound listing and even the "Death" listing into graduated numbers of dice. See Below:

    3 No Effect
    4 Light Wound (1D) 1-6 points with an average of 3.5 points of damage. May incapacitate a week character.
    5 Light Wound (1D) 1-6 points with an average of 3.5 points of damage. May incapacitate a week character.
    6 Light Wound (2D) 2-12 points with an average of 7 points of damage. Generally incapacitates an average character.
    7 Light Wound (2D) 2-12 points with an average of 7 points of damage. Generally incapacitates an average character.
    8 Serious Wound (3D) 3-18 points with an average of 10.5 points of damage. Generally incapacitates a strong character.
    9 Serious Wound (3D) 3-18 points with an average of 10.5 points of damage. Generally incapacitates a strong character.
    10 Serious Wound (4D) 4-24 points with an average of 14 points of damage. May kill a week character.
    11 Serious Wound (4D) 4-24 points with an average of 14 points of damage. May kill a week character.
    12 Critical Wound (5D) 5-30 points with an average of 17.5 points of damage. May kill an average character.
    13 Critical Wound (5D) 5-30 points with an average of 17.5 points of damage. May kill an average character.
    14 Critical Wound (6D) 6-36 points with an average of 21 points of damage. May kill a strong character.
    15 Critical Wound (6D) 6-36 points with an average of 21 points of damage. May kill a strong character.

    The assumption is that week characters will have an average of 5-points per stat for 15-points total, Average characters will have 7-points per stat for 21-points total, and strong characters will have an average of 10-points per stat for 30-points total.

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    1. Alternatively if you want to avoid making another roll for damage, you can just assign a damage amount to each number.


      3 No Effect
      4 Light Wound 2-points of damage
      5 Light Wound 4-points of damage
      6 Light Wound 6-points of damage
      7 Light Wound 8-points of damage
      8 Serious Wound 10-points of damage
      9 Serious Wound 12-points of damage
      10 Serious Wound 14-points of damage
      11 Serious Wound 16-points of damage
      12 Critical Wound 18-points of damage
      13 Critical Wound 20-points of damage
      14 Critical Wound 22-points of damage
      15 Critical Wound 24-points of damage

      To save yourself from another roll for hit application, you can just use "Hit Points" based on adding all three stats together as per MT, with 50% loss forcing an END roll to stay conscious. Under this provision a week character (approximately 15/7 points) may have to make this roll with a light wound, an Average character (Approximately 21/10) may have to make this roll at the lower end of serious wounds, and a strong character (approximately 30/15) may have to make this roll at the upper end of serious wounds.

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    2. An additional aspect, which would take into account the amount of damage a weapon does, might be to limit the amount of damage to the max damage of the weapon. A Foil (1D) would only do a max of 6-points. A Body Pistol (2D) does a max of 12-points. A Rifle (3D) does a max of 18-points. A Shotgun (4D) would do a max of 24-points. A Laser Rifle (5D) would do a max of 30-points.

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    3. Some interesting points. I think the main thrust about Traveller combat for me is that it is deadly, meant to be so , encouraging the players to come up with other ways to defeat the enemy - I like this as its missing from many other role playing games - its all about Kill!, Kill!, Kill!

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. Some RANDOM Thoughts on COMBAT aimed at no one in particular...

    - DEAD SIMPLE CLASSIC TRAVELLER HIT LOCATION, DAMAGE, and other COMBAT RULES -

    1) All attacks UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED are hits to the main body mass. This is the location where most of the vital organs are located and where people are typically armored. Unless otherwise stated the rules apply to ranged and melee attacks.

    2) A player may choose to attack an area other than the main body mass by declaring the area they wish to attack before an attack.

    A) Attacks to the HEAD are at -4 TO HIT and the damage rolled is DOUBLED.
    - The HEAD includes the NECK and FACE.
    - Depending on helmet and facing, roll 1D6 to determine if the hit is in the FACE, which may be unarmored, or the HEAD, which may be armored.
    - Light wound to the HEAD stuns the player for 1D6 rounds minus an END modifier. All actions are at -2.
    - Serious wound to the HEAD the player rolls against his END at -4 to remain conscious. All actions are at -4.
    - Critical wound to the HEAD the player is unconscious and dying. Roll under END -2 each round to stay alive.

    B) Attacks to the LEG are at -2 TO HIT and the damage rolled is HALVED.
    - The LEG includes the hip joint.
    - Roll 1D6 to determine if Right or Left LEG. If important roll 1D6 for location where 1-3 is THIGH, 4-5 is CALF, 6 is FOOT.
    - Light wound to the LEG stuns the player for 1D3 rounds minus an END modifier. Player may not run.
    - Serious wound to the LEG rolls against his END to remain conscious. Player may no walk unaided.
    - Critical wound to the LEG the player is unconscious and dying. Roll under END +2 each round to stay alive.

    C) Attacks to the ARM are at -2 TO HIT and the damage rolled is HALVED.
    - The ARM includes the SHOULDER joint.
    - Roll 1D6 to determine if Right or Left ARM. If important roll 1D6 for location where 1-3 is UPPER ARM, 4-5 is LOWER ARM, 6 is HAND.
    - Light wound to the ARM stuns the player for 1D3 rounds minus an END modifier. Player -2 to any manual task.
    - Serious wound to the ARM rolls against his END to remain conscious. Player is -4 to any manual task.
    - Critical wound to the ARM the player is unconscious and dying. Roll under END +4 each round to stay alive.

    D) Attacks to the LEFT or RIGHT CHEST are at -2 TO HIT and damage is normal.
    - The chest includes everything covered by the RIB cage.
    - When someone is shooting around a corner typically their only their HEAD, LEFT CHEST and RIGHT CHEST are visible.
    - Light wound to the CHEST stuns the player for 1D6 rounds minus an END modifier.
    - Serious wound to the CHEST rolls against his END to remain conscious.
    - Critical wound to the CHEST the player is unconscious and dying. Roll under END each round to stay alive.

    E) Attacks to the TORSO are at -2 TO HIT and damage is normal.
    - The TORSO includes the BELLY and GROIN.
    - There may be times when only a target's TORSO, RIGHT LEG and LEFT LEG are visible.
    - Light wound to the TORSO stuns the player for 1D6 rounds minus an END modifier.
    - Serious wound to the TORSO rolls against his END to remain conscious.
    - Critical wound to the TORSO the player is unconscious and dying. Roll under END each round to stay alive.

    3) A player may AIM a ranged weapon for a full round and gain a +1 TO HIT so long as they do not move or take any other action in a round.

    4) A player may declare before a melee attack their intent to use their skill level as a bonus to DAMAGE instead of a bonus TO HIT.

    5) A player may declare before a melee attack their intent to use their STR bonus as a bonus to DAMAGE instead of a bonus TO HIT.

    6) A player engaged in melee may use their skill level as a negative modifier to an opponents TO HIT roll.

    7) A player engaged in melee may use their DEX modifier as a negative modifier to an opponents TO HIT roll.

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