I've been wanting to do stuff with Traveller for years, and not found a reason until now (cause everyone only wants to play D&D). Interestingly, the Traveller videos get a lot of interest. I ended up settling on Classic Traveller because there seems to be some kind of branching in the versions and I couldn't tell which one was the one to go with.
@@solorpgjournal Seth Skorkowski is who gave me the drive to get into Traveller. I bought the starter set a couple of years ago and ran that. Some of my players didn’t like the character generation system because they didn’t like that they weren’t in control. I looked into T5 but from everything I read people were saying it had some good ideas but was ultimately unplayable. I have also just started running a 40k Wrath and Glory campaign and that has been a lot of fun too.
Yeah, I think that was what I was getting when I looked into T5, and then there were different recommendations for different versions... It was a few years ago now so I don't have a clear memory. How are you finding Wrath and Glory?
Great stuff bud have the playlist saved :-) I just got the classic traveller myself both pdf and ordered a print copy. Been watching a playthough of this as well from another channels. Its very damn cool. I will play it at some point stuck into my AD&D game :-P
I loved rolling Others. One of my best characters was a punk. He had Streetwise-1 and Blade-1. And a yearning to get off the rock he came from and see the universe. I have also rolled a noble who was basically a remittance man. He started with several hundred thousand credits and a bunch of useful skills - and of course his SOC score of 12. First played Classic Traveller in 1978 here in New Zealand.
One caveat on the endurance of 2. I figure that anyone willing to risk his life exploring the universe would be above average, so I allow reroll of 1's and on one or two attributes 1D6 + 6.
This is really cool. I’d heard that Traveller was wild because you could die during character creation, but I’m flabbergasted that survival is literally just a die roll. What a weird mechanic.
There is an optional rule to instead take an injury and muster out early, only having done half the service time. Makes some sense when you consider that you may have spent an hour or so on a character that just dies, and you have to start again. Course you can also fudge dice to avoid it... I do believe that the injury rule is the one that goes forward into latter editions, though I kind of want to see a mix. Higher chance of injury, lower chance of death, and then injury having some kind of interesting impact on the game.
Hi! Classic Traveller is the best edition of Traveller in my personal opinion, You are doing good work covering such an amazing game system. Whenever I roll up a Character for Classic Traveller I roll 3D6 and I then chose the highest two numbers, I get reasonably better statistics by using this method.
Ive heard a variation on that where only 2 of the main stats are rolled with 3d6 and choose the 2 highest dice but you can roll all stats numbers and then allocate them so you are almost guaranteed 2 good stats
Shameless self promotion: I'm in the process of setting up a patreon: www.patreon.com/SoloRPGJournal It's a bit bare boned at the moment, but if you want to support me here you can.
Could the life path system of traveller be used to pre gen a crew of NPCs that the PC finds themselves on a ship with ? Thinking of the rap sheets of the bad guy crew from the movie Con Air.
When doing the skills for the third term, you forgot the automatic Pilot-1 skill for being promoted to 1st Officer. Also, with the Vehicle skill you are meant to select a type, eg Air Raft, Tracked APC. Another thing, you couldn't get the Free Trader as a 1st Officer - only a Captain could as they get a +1 on their rolls.
Not intergalactic. The Imperium, and the default setting, spans at most if you include all the known regions the width of the galactic arm where Sol is located (Earth itself is part of the Solomani Confederation, but was captured in the last interstellar war with the Imperium). You could have an intergalactic setting, but would have to homebrew rules as there are no rules in the basic black box set to cover that: ancient gateway(s) to other galaxies that enable the Travellers (the player character(s)) to explore the local systems around it. You could do this in a _The Expanse_ like setting, as the technologies in-game are comparable (no fancy phasers or disintegration rays, droids, warp or hyperdrives), but would not use the jump drives or you would have to homebrew rules to explain changes, like the jump drive is actually the Epstein drive component that enables the high acceleration seen in the Expanse (the base game's maneuver drives only goes as high as 6 Gs acceleration (the in-universe setting has things like gravity and inertial compensation floor plating to handle high G maneuvers) or if you want to keep the jump drive for interstellar travel outside of the gateway, allow the game's maneuver drives to kick-in the Epstein drive-like boost to 11-12 G's acceleration). The black box does have a high solo play value, as it has tables to handle interstellar trade, encounters, patrons, etc., for those with a healthy imagination.
It is pretty awesome. I was originally using it for actually running games, as you can write a couple of code blocks in an init section, execute them on document load, and then have Emacs commands that you can run to do things like roll dice. Got a random table you want to roll on? Write a quick command. Got to give it options? Use the hydra package. It is a really nice solution, as long as you are happy to do the setup and learn the environment.
@@solorpgjournal Fractured development. For example Mega Traveller and TNE were incredible, but short lived. Once 3.0/3.5 OGL landed from WotC FFE never adapted. Remained as a copyright system with only QuikLink and Mongoose with licenses. No video game cross overs, and generally relegated to a personal project of clutter. See T5 for an example. Classic Traveller is incredible with tweaks and lives on.
I love that Traveller is starting to get noticed more and more. Personally I like how mongoose has streamlined the system.
I've been wanting to do stuff with Traveller for years, and not found a reason until now (cause everyone only wants to play D&D). Interestingly, the Traveller videos get a lot of interest.
I ended up settling on Classic Traveller because there seems to be some kind of branching in the versions and I couldn't tell which one was the one to go with.
@@solorpgjournal Seth Skorkowski is who gave me the drive to get into Traveller. I bought the starter set a couple of years ago and ran that.
Some of my players didn’t like the character generation system because they didn’t like that they weren’t in control.
I looked into T5 but from everything I read people were saying it had some good ideas but was ultimately unplayable.
I have also just started running a 40k Wrath and Glory campaign and that has been a lot of fun too.
Yeah, I think that was what I was getting when I looked into T5, and then there were different recommendations for different versions... It was a few years ago now so I don't have a clear memory.
How are you finding Wrath and Glory?
Great stuff bud have the playlist saved :-) I just got the classic traveller myself both pdf and ordered a print copy. Been watching a playthough of this as well from another channels. Its very damn cool. I will play it at some point stuck into my AD&D game :-P
I loved rolling Others. One of my best characters was a punk. He had Streetwise-1 and Blade-1. And a yearning to get off the rock he came from and see the universe. I have also rolled a noble who was basically a remittance man. He started with several hundred thousand credits and a bunch of useful skills - and of course his SOC score of 12. First played Classic Traveller in 1978 here in New Zealand.
This seems really neat!
I just bought a vintage box set with some extras in it. I can’t wait to get back into it.
Very cool.
One caveat on the endurance of 2. I figure that anyone willing to risk his life exploring the universe would be above average, so I allow reroll of 1's and on one or two attributes 1D6 + 6.
This is really cool. I’d heard that Traveller was wild because you could die during character creation, but I’m flabbergasted that survival is literally just a die roll. What a weird mechanic.
There is an optional rule to instead take an injury and muster out early, only having done half the service time. Makes some sense when you consider that you may have spent an hour or so on a character that just dies, and you have to start again.
Course you can also fudge dice to avoid it...
I do believe that the injury rule is the one that goes forward into latter editions, though I kind of want to see a mix. Higher chance of injury, lower chance of death, and then injury having some kind of interesting impact on the game.
Hi! Classic Traveller is the best edition of Traveller in my personal opinion, You are doing good work covering such an amazing game system. Whenever I roll up a Character for Classic Traveller I roll 3D6 and I then chose the highest two numbers, I get reasonably better statistics by using this method.
Thanks, that is really good to hear. I've been a bit unwell, so I've fallen behind my schedule, but I'm hoping to rectify that soon.
Ive heard a variation on that where only 2 of the main stats are rolled with 3d6 and choose the 2 highest dice but you can roll all stats numbers and then allocate them so you are almost guaranteed 2 good stats
God I miss this
Classic Traveller?
Shameless self promotion: I'm in the process of setting up a patreon: www.patreon.com/SoloRPGJournal
It's a bit bare boned at the moment, but if you want to support me here you can.
Could the life path system of traveller be used to pre gen a crew of NPCs that the PC finds themselves on a ship with ? Thinking of the rap sheets of the bad guy crew from the movie Con Air.
It absolutely could. I think its a really good way of not only getting some stats for some NPCs, but a bit of background for them as well.
You got your strength confused with education. Your strength is 9
Well that is embarrassing...
@Solo RPG Journal that's okay I'm just learning about traveller and I was super confused but figured it out. No big deal
When doing the skills for the third term, you forgot the automatic Pilot-1 skill for being promoted to 1st Officer. Also, with the Vehicle skill you are meant to select a type, eg Air Raft, Tracked APC.
Another thing, you couldn't get the Free Trader as a 1st Officer - only a Captain could as they get a +1 on their rolls.
Thanks, I picked up on the Pilot-1 extra when I was editing it, but I hadn't actually read the Vehicle skill, lol
Not intergalactic. The Imperium, and the default setting, spans at most if you include all the known regions the width of the galactic arm where Sol is located (Earth itself is part of the Solomani Confederation, but was captured in the last interstellar war with the Imperium).
You could have an intergalactic setting, but would have to homebrew rules as there are no rules in the basic black box set to cover that: ancient gateway(s) to other galaxies that enable the Travellers (the player character(s)) to explore the local systems around it. You could do this in a _The Expanse_ like setting, as the technologies in-game are comparable (no fancy phasers or disintegration rays, droids, warp or hyperdrives), but would not use the jump drives or you would have to homebrew rules to explain changes, like the jump drive is actually the Epstein drive component that enables the high acceleration seen in the Expanse (the base game's maneuver drives only goes as high as 6 Gs acceleration (the in-universe setting has things like gravity and inertial compensation floor plating to handle high G maneuvers) or if you want to keep the jump drive for interstellar travel outside of the gateway, allow the game's maneuver drives to kick-in the Epstein drive-like boost to 11-12 G's acceleration).
The black box does have a high solo play value, as it has tables to handle interstellar trade, encounters, patrons, etc., for those with a healthy imagination.
You forgot Pilot-1 skill for making merchant 1st off.
Hang on a minute is that EMACS org mode ? On the right
Yes
@@solorpgjournal W00t Emacs rocks
It is pretty awesome. I was originally using it for actually running games, as you can write a couple of code blocks in an init section, execute them on document load, and then have Emacs commands that you can run to do things like roll dice. Got a random table you want to roll on? Write a quick command. Got to give it options? Use the hydra package. It is a really nice solution, as long as you are happy to do the setup and learn the environment.
I think of it as apprenticeships.
This game had such tremendous potential, ruined by lack of give a shit.
How do you mean?
@@solorpgjournal
Fractured development. For example Mega Traveller and TNE were incredible, but short lived. Once 3.0/3.5 OGL landed from WotC FFE never adapted. Remained as a copyright system with only QuikLink and Mongoose with licenses. No video game cross overs, and generally relegated to a personal project of clutter. See T5 for an example.
Classic Traveller is incredible with tweaks and lives on.