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.

Dawn Sector: The Bladish

By Brian Pichelman

The Bladish are large lobster-like men with a taste for war. They are tough, strong, and did I mention tough?

Bladish speak Bladish. Most Bladish do not understand English.

Appearance and Biology

Bladish are usually 7' tall, with large crab claws reaching to the ground instead of hands. They use their 3 clawed toes as hands, which actually works. Their claws will inflict 1-8 h.p. of damage if used as a weapon. They are considered proficient with their own claws.

They have a tail. Males have a cone shaped tail, fat at the beginning, thin at the end, with 4 smaller legs at the end (2 on each side, each about 10 centimeters long). Males have 2 large ridge-like horns on their head. Females have a fat lobster-like tail and 2 long antennae, each stopping at the waist. Female Bladish can swim backwards at their normal swimming rate.

Most Bladish wear red pants and a sash with their name in Bladish. Females might wear only the  sash and no top (Female Bladish lack breasts) or they might wear a large red cloak and the sash. They look sort of like giant lobsters. Most Bladish dress the same (with exceptions for life-saving equipment such as space-suits) because of religious custom. They wear mostly red because it is the color they can perceive the best, and the sash comes from Bladish law for identification (this is no joke, as Bladish look mostly alike even to other Bladish). The sash is also part of a mindset, like shirts and pants for humans.

All Bladish have a solid face, and despite the fact that they have obvious cheekbones, they cannot move their mouth or blink. Their eyes have a shell that protects them. Their language excludes “b”,”p”, “v” and “m” sounds because of their face. Otherwise, it sounds like a very foreign human speech. When they speak in English, they sound like someone that speaks without lips and through clenched teeth.

Unusual Biological Abilities

When there is enough radiation, Bladish can employ X-ray vision. Around fusion engines, they can see  the inner parts and they can easily spot spaceships in hidden areas. Assuming there is enough radiation, A Bladish can see 5' through solid rock. When attacking and able to use their x-ray vision, they gain +1 damage because they can see weak spots in armor that cannot usually be seen, i.e. places that lack any hard bone or extra armor. 

 They are semi aquatic, being able to swim very well and breathe underwater. All Bladish are immune to any disease they have already had. 

Bladish naturally have a AC of 2.

All Bladish are unusually strong, this is because Flicker's gravity is 1.5 times more than Earth's. NPC Bladish have strength of 5-20 (3d6+2). All other scores are normal. 

Bladish regrow lost limbs in 1-10 months. Their regeneration is also on a smaller scale, healing 1 h.p. of damage in 1 turn, but damage taken by fire or acid will only heal normally.

All Bladish need radioactivity added to their food. This “extra topping” can be bought at most space faring markets for 4 credits for a day's worth of radiation. If they do not get their radiation, they grow weak,-1 strength every day until it reaches 0, and then they die.

They have a much higher tolerance to radiation than humans. They enjoy a bonus +3 to saving throws vs. radiation.

History

The Bladish are the second-oldest race on Flicker. They never fully left the ocean, and never developed on their own past the 19^th century (Tech Level 2). 

Despite their war-craze, they have never started a war with the Hippaflicks or the Irons (the former would refuse to give them wonderful technologies, and the latter would most certainly destroy the Bladish)

Bladish Psychics are shunned and banned from society. They have settled on other worlds. The Bladish are the most space faring, the Hippaflicks fearing space, and the Irons being terrified for perfectly legitimate reasons. More on the general history above.

The Bladish are ruled by a parliament, but they have 13 elected leaders instead of a singular Prime Minister. These leaders also serve on the Council of Flicker.

Psychology

The Bladish are war minded individuals.

Males and females in the Bladish culture are different, but nevertheless equal. Their social rules are about the same as humans.

Bladish hate the uneducated, and will go out of their way to educate others. This is because they view themselves as the least intelligent race on Flicker. Bladish hate being less-than-best at anything.

They view the world in black and white, good-and-evil. Their religion is focused around the all-good Clawed God, one who promotes the Bladish way of life, and representing the all-evil is the deity the Burned One, who is in all respects identical to the Clawed God in appearance, with the exception he promotes evil ways and has been burned all over.

Flicker is a very dangerous place, and when Bladish are surprised, there is a 75% chance that a male will immediately attack the nearest enemy. A female will react normally. 

Other Notes

NPC Bladish will have 2 HD., a AC of 2 and a randomly encountered Bladish NPC has a 60% chance of being a Warrior, a 20% chance of being a Expert, and a 20% of being a Psychic. On Flicker itself, there is a 39.9% chance of being a Expert and a 0.1% chance of being a Psychic.

All Bladish over the age of 8 carry a Lak-Haz. This is a ceremonial knife, +1 to hit and 1-8 damage. A Bladish will NEVER lend their Lak-Haz. They are automatically proficient in their Lak-Haz, but not necessarily proficient in other primitive weapons.

Bladish reproduce externally, i.e. they do not have sex. Prostitution is literally alien to them. The female egg is impregnated outside her body, and the young are raised in a strict fashion, taking a lot of school and physical activities (sports, weight training, etc.).

They cannot move and fight at the same time, because the majority of their weapons are used by their feet-hands. Bladish weapons are usually made with the large forearms in mind though, and these can be used normally. They suffer no other issues with their feet-hands but this.

Bladish live for 700 Flicker years, or about 200 Earth years.

Bladish as Player Characters

PC Bladish need a minimum Strength of 14. If a player successfully rolls up Bladish stats, the GM should allow +1 to Strength. They cannot wear any TL 3 or lower armor because of their bulkiness. Their AC of 2 is classified as “primitive” armor. TL 4 or higher armor will cost 5/3rds as much due to the custom design needed for them. They are otherwise like a NPC Bladish.

Bladish take the h.p. of their class, not their race, even if it means losing h.p.

PC Bladish usually see opportunity in leaving. Some are curious about the outside universe, some want to conquer and rule a world of their own. Many are for-hire guards on other worlds. Many Bladish just want to leave Flicker. Having three different races inhabiting the same planet can get stressful. Some Psychic Bladish might leave because of persecution by their brethren.

Dawn Sector: The World of Flicker

By Brian Pichelman

This series of articles by Brian Pichelman will present the Dawn Sector, home to the Flickerians and Kendeleorians as well as several Human colonies, a complete sector in the Stars Without Number universe. This article details the world of Flicker.

Flicker is a planet so radioactive that is can be seen to glow at night. From this glowing land, three alien species rose to become some of the strangest and most powerful creatures the galaxy has ever seen.

Flicker is at a outer arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and the Scream never technically hit them. Because they emerged technologically later than humans, this does not make much of a difference.

Flicker has a mass that is 150% Earth's; gravity is 1.5 times stronger there than as compared to Earth-like planets. Flicker’s core and lower mantle has incredibly high concentrations of radioactive materials such as Uranium; trying to detoxify the planet is practically impossible. Scientists do not believe that the unusual core of Flicker is natural, but they have not been able to come up with an explanation for how it could have been created. Otherwise, Flicker's atmosphere and temperature are pretty much Earth-like.

In spite of the radiation, the planet flourishes with life, albeit evolution occurred much faster here than anywhere else (mutations, while impossible for the intelligent species to suffer from, occurs almost daily in animals). Because of the radiation, the biology cannot be consumed by humans unless it is given a through anti-radiation wash first. Surface radiation levels vary, roll 2d6*100 Rads per hour when necessary.

There are approximately 9 billion inhabitants on Flicker: about 5 billion Bladish, about 3 billion Hippaflicks, and around 1 billion Irons.

The main spaceport is Chek-Ni (which means “First Contact” in Bladish). It is located off the edge of the biggest continent. Chek-Ni is at the midpoint between the land cities and the underwater civilization.

With the exception of the Bladish's many land-based cities near the oceans, most of the land is devoid of civilization. There have even been rumors of illegal human colonies existing in the heart of the wilderness. The only known intelligent life in the wilderness areas is the Irons. Most Irons, though, live in the large mountains just north of Chek-Ni. All of Hippaflick civilization exist underwater, some of it even going down to the trenches. About 45% of Bladish call the ocean cities their home as well.

Cities

The underwater cities of the Hippaflicks rarely go above two stories in height, but they can cover thousands of square kilometers. Their houses accommodate their bulky bodies. Many psionic centers exist in their cities as well. Many a psychic have traveled to the Hippaflick's centers of psionic learning.

The Bladish underwater cities are typically carved out

of canyon walls, and their homes are air-filled. Defenses on Bladish cities are vast and unusual (some reports indicate continual use of antimatter as a weapon).

Bladish land cities are composed of small skyscrapers, smaller than Earth's mostly because of the higher gravity. They are structured much like a human city would.

Irons live in mines used for extracting iron ore, their primary food. As they do not need creature comforts, most Irons only posses a sleeping jar.

Animals

There are many dangerous animals on Flicker. All Flicker predators have compounded iron ore in their bodies that give off a magnetic trace, allowing them to be located with a compass. This is why the Bladish and Hippaflicks have magnetic sensing abilities.

The animals come in all shapes and sizes, so pretty much anything can be encountered.

History of Flicker

All the intelligent creatures on Flicker super-evolved until they finally became sentient and grew a resistance to the radiation (even pretech scientists were scratching their heads about why that was). Three species grew from that planet: The Bladish, The Hippaflicks, and The Irons. The Irons emerged about 1 million Earth years ago; the Bladish emerged about 50,000 years ago; and the Hippaflicks about 5,000 years ago.

The Bladish invented modern society on Flicker, but it was the Hippaflicks that perfected the technologies needed for travel beyond their world. The Irons were discovered in their equivalent of our 14^th century. The Irons were a boon to mining and medicine. Skilled Iron operators could worm their way through a patient’s body and knock out diseases, while not harming the patient. With the increase of public health and mining, the whole world quickly industrialized and prospered.

The Bladish built antimatter drives that took them to the stars. Antimatter was not suitable for galactic exploration, because of power requirements. Their system used a combination of throwing space dust at antimatter and aiming the explosion out the back end. This method was slower-than-light, so trying to go anywhere on a Bladish's 200 year lifespan was generally useless. so they built rudimentary wormholes. Wormholes were made by blowing a large hole in the universe, usually with antimatter. The wormholes only needed power at one end to maintain the opening, and could reach across galaxies.

These wormholes were large, but also inefficient; they took up a lot of space, and consumed a lot of power. A wormhole with a diameter of 1 kilometer would only allow one ship about 31 meters wide to pass safely; a frigate sized ship. None of the Flickerians invented spike drive technology and because the Bladish suppressed large-scale Psychic endeavors, they never made Jump Gates (In a few instances, Bladish military forces blew up space ships containing Psychics). Many historians conclude that sufficient technology existed, and even prototypes, but the Bladish suppressed all of it.

The Bladish did not have the energy to build multiple wormholes though, because they could not build a second supercollider. The Hippaflicks were freaked out about one supercollider, and so they simply refused to provide the technological support required to build a second supercollider. The Bladish made use of their one supercollider and connected to Earth (they read radio signals that suggested intelligent life) and made contact with humans.

The humans quickly made a Jump Gate to Flicker, and they traded. They had a issue at first because on Flicker humans could not handle the high amounts of radiation that occurred naturally. Nevertheless, humans managed to continue trading with the Flickerians. Most historians have concluded that the best radiation-proof suits were made to be used on Flicker. A unprotected human would die in a matter of minutes without protection.

Humans supplied them with enough power to build other wormholes, including one to Kendleoria (detailed later). When the Scream occurred, the Flickerians lost the human-supported power to run their wormholes.

The Flickerians had to close all other wormholes to keep just one working. They picked the Kendleorian wormhole, because the Kendleorian had Jump Gates near Flicker, but there was only one wormhole to Kendleoria. They closed the Earth wormhole after they learned of the collapse of mankind but before any human ships could cross over.

Flicker never suffered the devastating effects of the Scream, but their empire was severely cut down without mankind to supply power.

All antimatter spaceships were grounded after humans introduced the spike drive (because if even a single bit got loose, it would be a very large explosion), but many antimatter ships existed in museums. The sole reason for producing antimatter after the Scream was to power the Kendleorian wormhole.

Government

Each race on Flicker has their own government, but there is one unifying entity: The Council of Flicker. It is composed of 13 beings of each race, the exception being that the Irons only have 12. This council generally does not do much except extra-flicker-estrial (alien) relations, and to stop wars between the races.

The Flickerians control the immediate solar systems surrounding them, but they were never really concerned with expansion as much as exploration (i.e. just looking around, but going home for dinner).

The next articles in these series will discuss the three races of Flicker, and, later on, the neighboring world of Kendleoria and its inhabitants; finally, the xenomorphs native to Flicker and Kendleoria will be discussed.

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.