A Less Travelled Road: The Three Creeps

By Omer Golan-Joel

During the development of Traveller as a game, there were three slow, somewhat unintended, but certain nonetheless currents of development from the three little books of Classic Traveller to the massive electronic (and soon physical) tome which is Traveller 5. I call this kind of development "creep" as it was, as far as I can tell, unintended, and usually quite slow, but it did change the game considerably.

The first creep, and the only one with relatively undebatable detrimental side effects on the game, was the Modifier Creep. You see, Classic Traveller (like most editions of Traveller) uses a 2d6 curve for task and combat resolution; this kind of curve is far more sensitive to modifiers than, for example, the 1d20 curve used by the D20 family of games. A +1 modifier influences the 2d6 curve in quite a significant way, and higher modifiers have much more effect than the simple incremental effects they have on 1d20. A big enough modifier would "break" the curve - that is, force either an automatic success or an automatic failure, which is an undesired result in an RPG, where "swingy" mechanics are usually preferred.

So Classic Traveller, very reasonably, kept skills very low - to an average of 4 skill points per character and usually no more than 1 point in each skill. Skills of 2 or 3 were uncommon and skills beyond that were rare. Also, the combat modifiers were, for the most part, quite modest. But Book 4: Mercenary and the books that followed, as well as later Traveller products, started adding more and more skill points to characters and more powerful weapons with bigger to-hit modifiers. The end result was a "broken" 2d6 curve and less interesting mechanics.

A second type of creep, which is more a matter of taste, is complexity creep. Classic Traveller was a very simple game, where a character can be described in a few rows of text and a starship in a single paragraph; character generation and ship-building were very simple, sometimes too simple, and very quick (about five minutes per character). Book 4: Mercenary and Book 5: High Guard added many more details, including a much more cumbersome character generation system, as well as much more technical ship design rules. While the High Guard design rules were excellent, they started a trend in Traveller which led to more and more complex design rules up to the highly technical Mega Traveller and Fire, Fusion and Steel design systems (and Traveller 5), which were very detailed and very complex. That's not a bad thing in itself, mind you, but a major departure from Classic Traveller's simplicity nonetheless.

A third type of creep is scale creep - the gradual change from pocket empires or a loose Imperium as implied by the first three books to a much grander, more secure and much more powerful Imperium as implied by later products. I think this trend started with Book 5: High Guard. While I love High Guard, I think that it started a chain reaction which made Traveller extremely different from what was apparent from the original three little black books. HG did two main things: 1) it increased the size of military starships, as well as they costs, by one or two orders of magnitude; 2) it changed the focus from small civilian and paramilitary ships with light weapons to big naval engagements.

The result was, of course, a VERY expensive navy - not 4x 1,200 dton cruisers per subsector, but rather multiple 30k dton cruisers. This costs a lot of money, and a loose Imperium or pocket empires as implied by books 1-3 can't finance and maintain such an expensive fleet. So then came a huge, powerful Imperium of 11,000 worlds with strong Imperial rule and large interstellar military presence making piracy and smuggling much less feasible. A large, powerful, stable Imperium became, at one point, a bit boring, so they started a Rebellion, which, due to the huge ship sizes, was mostly fought above and beyond the players' level. Because it involved such huge fleets and empires, it eventually fell into stagnation and the slate had to be cleaned by the Virus. But the Virus was controversial and so fractured the fan base.

Now, MT and TNE aren't necessarily bad, but they do have a completely different tone than LBBs 1-3 and the first few adventures. The same goes with the two previously-discussed processes.

A Less Traveller Road: Abstract Book 2 Space Combat

By Paul Elliott

Art by David Reddington

There was nothing really like Traveller’s original ship combat rules, with its acceleration vectors and computer-programming-on-the-fly. For me, though, the novelty was soon replaced with the burning desire to get on with the story and find out how it all ends. One screenwriter in Hollywood is a critic of the car chase, describing it as a gap in the plot, a gaping hole that leaves the audience waiting for the outcome. I’d been wanting to plug Traveller’s ‘plot gap’ for years, but only recently come around to the task when I decided to jump into a Book 1, 2 and 3 only, universe.

The system I developed is an abstraction of the Book 2 space combat rules as they stand. An important point to make is that it leaves the starship construction rules unchanged; any book 2 design can participate in these abstract combats quite easily. I wanted to know very quickly, 'who wins?' without deciding which programs to feed into the computer, or which turrets should fire on which targets. There involves a short assessment procedure for any participating craft which assigns each a number, a Combat Rating (CR).

Download the complete rules HERE!

A Less-Travelled Road: In Defense of Dying in Traveller Character Generation

By Omer Golan-Joel

 Art by David Reddington

A common complaint about Classic Traveller is that characters can die during character generation. At the surface of it, it looks like a very strong and robust complaint - why should character generation be based on chance rather than the player's choice, and why should a character die even before starting the game?

However, there are actually good reasons to follow this controversial, and lethal, rule.

First of all, Classic Traveller game starts not after character generation, but rather at the beginning of character generation. It is a mini-game all by itself - a game of chance, if you will. And like all gambles, it has its own thrill in it. Will your character survive multiple terms of combat as a Marine? Will you muster out a General, or, alternatively, finish your career at a state funeral reserved to military heroes? Go on, gamble!

Another thing to keep in mind is that, as long as you stick to Book 1 and Supplement 4, Classic Traveller character generation is FAST. VERY FAST. Once you know the system well, generating a character takes a mere five minutes. So even if your character dies, you don't lose much time - in fact, you've only played a little game of dice for several moments, no harm done.

But the real reasons for the chances for character death in Classic Traveller character generation are twofold: from a setting perspective and from a game-mechanics perspective.

From a setting perspective, a military career, especially in actual combat service (when you can learn all these nifty combat skills), is a risky thing. Combat is no picnic, after all. You don't earn combat experience by sitting behind a desk, but rather by shooting and being shot at. Soldiers die in many cases; that is the nature of war. And the game reflects that.

From a game-mechanics perspective, keep in mind that Classic Traveller - like most versions of Traveller - uses the 2d6 curve for task resolution. This curve is highly sensitive to modifiers, so even a mere +1 is significant; high skill levels will skew the curve much towards the character's favor, and thus are highly valuable. The chance of death during character generation, therefore, exists in order to make higher skills rarer and more valuable. Otherwise, why not just stick in, say, the Scouts for terms and terms on no end and have a character with Pilot-5? This presents the player with a choice: do you muster out now alive but with a smaller amount of skills, or risk a certain chance of death in the line of duty to earn better combat experience? Are you determined enough to become an officer to risk your life in the line of duty, or do you muster out as a Private and stay alive for the time being? Choices. Choices. And risks. This is the essence of Classic Traveller character generation.

I hope that these few arguments would make you think again about the reasoning behind these seemingly arbitrary mechanics.

A Less-Travelled Road: A Fresh Look at Classic Traveller

By Omer Golan-Joel

 Art by David Reddington

Published a mere three years after the original fantasy role-playing game, Classic Traveller was one of the first science-fiction role-playing games ever. Rules-light, simple and innovative, it still has its following even today, 34 long years after its initial publication, even though numerous new editions of the game have been published since. This article is the first in a series of articles exploring this old game from a fresh, modern perspective, while remaining respectful for the game that has started it all.

The initial publication of the three little black books of Classic Traveller was followed by a veritable river of supplements and adventures expanding on them. While most, if not all, of these supplements were excellent products, they did considerably change the flavour, scope and, indeed, the very nature of the game. From its humble beginnings, Traveller grew into a major brand-name in science-fiction role-playing, an empire of its own. But it was changed in a major way by its supplements.

I argue that you can roughly divide Classic Traveller into two "eras" or separate games. These are not, by any means, historical or chronological eras, but rather two different approaches to the subject of science-fiction role-playing. I argue that the main divide is between Book 2 and its implied flavour and Book 5 (High Guard) and its setting implications.

If you look at Book 2 on its own, it clearly implies a smaller setting, with even the mightiest TL15 (maximum technology) empire fielding 5,000-ton ships at most, and most polities having much smaller ships; military weapons are not better than civilian ones. This requires relatively small budgets; only allows for limited trade; and makes player-scale ships relevant. In contrast, High Guard allows for giant military (and commercial) ships up to 1,000,000-ton monstrosities, brimming with world-shattering weapons. It implies, therefore, mighty empires with mighty fleets and bulk-scale shipping. In other words, while the first implied setting feels like Firefly – with small, civilian-scale ships and shotguns in space – the second implied setting feels like Star Wars or Star Trek, with huge military ships and space-stations and massive energy weapons.

There is also the matter of game mechanics to consider. Traveller traditionally uses the 2d6 curve, which is quite sensitive to modifiers, in the sense that even a small modifier could sway the chances of success or failure on that curve by a significant degree. The first three little books stringently limited the number of skills per character, so that a skill of 3 or above was rare and valuable and most modifiers were in the area of -2 to +2 (except for a few to-hit modifiers). Books 4, 5, 6 and 7 with their Expanded Character Generation gave characters much higher and more numerous skills, and gave their weapons higher modifiers, essentially "breaking" the 2d6 curve by making success almost automatic for such skilled characters.

Let me stress that both implied settings are legitimate and both could lead to enjoyable games. However, Traveller has already chosen the latter road of large-scale settings with huge ships and expensive military tech, and all later editions of Traveller have faithfully followed this road. But what would result if you follow the former road, the road of only the three little books and a handful of supplements, the way of small ships and light weapons?

My rough mapping of the road is as follows. The first road, that of lighter rules, small ships and a smaller, weaker Imperium, includes, generally speaking, the first Three Little Black Books, Supplements 1-4, Adventures 1-4 and all the Double Adventures. The second road, that of more complex rules, more law and order and a vast Imperium with mighty warships, starts with A5: Trillion Credits Squadron, Book 4: Mercenary and Book 5: High Guard, and continues with latter-era Classic Traveller products, and later MegaTraveller.

How would a hypothetical game and setting using only Books 1-3, Supplements 1-4, Adventures 1-4 and the Double Adventures look like? For starters, things would be at a smaller, more "human", scale than when using later books. It will be a universe where there are four 1,200-ton Battlecruisers per subsector while most day-to-day naval work is done by 300-ton Patrol Cruisers; a universe where most ground battles are resolved with firearms, or, at most, with lasers; a universe where the Imperium (or whatever major polity in your game) is much smaller and weaker than in later books, a fact which opens much more opportunities for enterprising (and/or criminal and/or mercenary) characters for adventure and profit. Game mechanics would also be quite simple, and the average character will have a handful of skills, well within the capabilities of the 2d6 curve to handle.

The next article in these series will discuss Classic Traveller's most distinctive, and, for some people, most hated, element – death at character generation.