I own 1e, been a gamer for 40 years but only this year ran a game or even played at all. My thoughts: 1. If you and your group had fun then you did it right. 2. According to the experienced players the narrative is the thing, going to rolls only when you have to. Doing the roll playing is the emphasis, over combat. 3. Agree on the sandbox. Some people choose run whole games with nothing but random generated situations. Thanks for the overview
Remember, in 1977/78, all we had was paper and narrative for the 99th percentile of Traveller games. If your players enjoyed the game sessions, you did it right. It took me over 5 years to become more than a novice GM because of the in-depth rules provided by the GDW team. Back in 1988-ish days, I created a Megatraveller Character Generator for Windows that I sold as shareware. It simplified the character generation process such that you could start with a brand new set of characters and play a session in one evening instead of requiring multiple sessions just to roll the characters and create their backgrounds. For the free version, I included the 6 original player classes. For the paid version, I added the 6 Mercenary classes and the 7 primary classes for the High Guard. Once completed, the referee/GM could print the character sheets which included all of the normal backstory type stuff ready to play. I had started on a sector generator, but real life got in the way and it all got back burnered.
Nice paintjob on the TypeJ. Traveller was first published in 1977, 3 years after D&D, so it's not quite 50 years old. I first played it in 1982/83 (oh dear, that dates me!) and always enjoyed doing solo things like generating characters, designing ships and creating subsectors even during the several decades of not gaming. I got back into it a few years back and I'm quite impressed by what Mongoose has been publishing.
Traveller tends to motivate the players with paying for their ship rather than improving their skills. The original edition didn't have an experience system. Death Station was one of the modules GDW produced for the first edition being half of Double Adventure 3 along with The Argon Gambit. The Double Adventures were pairs of shorter adventures printed back to back with one upside down compared with the other which enabled GDW to produce shorter adventures in their standard book size. Death Station appears to have been written to showpiece the Type-L Lab Ship that had recently been added to the game with the Scientist Career in Citizens of the Imperium. I think the Double Adventurers came about because GDW wanted to reprint the ANNIC NOVA adventure from the Travellers Aid Society Magazine and filled out their usual book size with a second exploring an Alien site scenario. Double adventures tended to have a theme linking both adventures.
I like the experience system with 2nd edition where you can incrementally increase your skills or to study. It's just that skill rolling wasn't ever that significant since most rolls could be done by every player (e.g., recon check) and chances were that at lease one person would pass. Also, the players should be rolling a lot more skill checks, it was my deficit as GM that didn't know which checks they should be doing and when. Also, I've found that almost any of the published modules can be modded fairly easily to personalize to the players. Did you ever play Pirates of Drinax? I would probably have gone that route, had we continued playing.
Do it if you can! Although, I hope they don't start the game with a Free Trader--that's an expensive ship and they are going to have a hard time paying the upkeep fees, let alone the mortgage.
@@gaminggeek241 --that's an expensive ship and they are going to have a hard time paying the upkeep fees, let alone the mortgage That of course is why they adventure. Also where the various characters can do their role playing. Think of the Firefly TV show where Kaylee is trying to persuade travellers to fly with them while Mal and Zoe are out trying to get cargo shipped with them or special missions and Inara is looking for customers for herself which can involve them getting a ship mission or contact with a patron. Wash and Jayne each out doing their own form of carousing can find leads for missions and potentially illicit cargoes or passengers. Everything an opportunity. Even in jump space you might find you have aboard a rapidly breeding insect pest or a single elusive small rodent gnawing on wiring or pipes or maybe an small assassin drone out to get you or a passenger. Maybe a passenger is a drug addict and his fumes are causing havoc with peoples behavior or with the air purification system.
@@gaminggeek241 Free Trader--that's an expensive ship I did a redesign to current Traveller rules and shaved nearly 9 MCr off the price, gained 1 ton of cargo space while retaining passenger capacity and adding biospheres to lower operating expenses on top of the smaller mortgage. I eliminated the armor (1g means it can't run away and no weapons means it can't fight so what is armor good for?), made the drives and power plant budget and a light hull all at TL 9. ~20% cheaper on the mortgage and maintenance cost + greatly decreased life support costs as a bonus. 36.5 MCr (as a standard ship) assuming 25% paid for that makes the mortgage 114,061 Cr, maintenance 3,042 Cr/month. If you ship with full cargo bays and pay the standard 5 crew as having skill 1 doing 2 trips a month you break even (not counting berthing costs), passengers are bonus money and can be carried twice a month. If you have fewer characters (Say your pilot is also astrogator and your medic is the steward) you have lower wages and you free up staterooms to raise profits. The same if the crew will double up to free staterooms. more potential money in more profits I also did it as a pure freighter 2 staterooms intended to operate with a Pilot/Astrogator and a Mechanic. Takes cargo to 133 tons ship price to 31.347 MCr (as a standard ship). Drops the mortgage to 97,959 Cr and maintenance to 2612. Two full loads of cargo per month 266,000 Cr. Wages (skill 1 characters) 12,500 Cr/month and about 21,000 Cr for fuel. Ship half full and you come very close to break even anything above is profit. Of course if your ship is 1/2 paid for or 3/4s let alone totally paid for profitability can come easier if you don't reduce the term of the mortgage.
These larger ships seem limited compared to a dungeon crawl or open field battle. I feel like vehicle combat doesn't work well for 28mm scale. It's too bad you didn't have much opportunity for space combat. I'm really curious how you would DM a space combat with a group of friends in a way that can be fun. Also, if you are interested in SciFi RPGs you should check out Lancer. It's a mecha RPG with a lot of crunchy combat mechanics while the non-mech interactions is more narrative. Given your channel content it would also be a great opportunity for you to print and paint some mechs.
I own 1e, been a gamer for 40 years but only this year ran a game or even played at all. My thoughts:
1. If you and your group had fun then you did it right.
2. According to the experienced players the narrative is the thing, going to rolls only when you have to. Doing the roll playing is the emphasis, over combat.
3. Agree on the sandbox. Some people choose run whole games with nothing but random generated situations.
Thanks for the overview
Are you running 1e or Mongoose 2e?
Remember, in 1977/78, all we had was paper and narrative for the 99th percentile of Traveller games. If your players enjoyed the game sessions, you did it right. It took me over 5 years to become more than a novice GM because of the in-depth rules provided by the GDW team. Back in 1988-ish days, I created a Megatraveller Character Generator for Windows that I sold as shareware. It simplified the character generation process such that you could start with a brand new set of characters and play a session in one evening instead of requiring multiple sessions just to roll the characters and create their backgrounds. For the free version, I included the 6 original player classes. For the paid version, I added the 6 Mercenary classes and the 7 primary classes for the High Guard. Once completed, the referee/GM could print the character sheets which included all of the normal backstory type stuff ready to play. I had started on a sector generator, but real life got in the way and it all got back burnered.
Nice paintjob on the TypeJ.
Traveller was first published in 1977, 3 years after D&D, so it's not quite 50 years old. I first played it in 1982/83 (oh dear, that dates me!) and always enjoyed doing solo things like generating characters, designing ships and creating subsectors even during the several decades of not gaming. I got back into it a few years back and I'm quite impressed by what Mongoose has been publishing.
1977--so that was when Star Wars came out! Talk about perfect timing to have a scifi RPG...
Traveller tends to motivate the players with paying for their ship rather than improving their skills. The original edition didn't have an experience system. Death Station was one of the modules GDW produced for the first edition being half of Double Adventure 3 along with The Argon Gambit. The Double Adventures were pairs of shorter adventures printed back to back with one upside down compared with the other which enabled GDW to produce shorter adventures in their standard book size. Death Station appears to have been written to showpiece the Type-L Lab Ship that had recently been added to the game with the Scientist Career in Citizens of the Imperium. I think the Double Adventurers came about because GDW wanted to reprint the ANNIC NOVA adventure from the Travellers Aid Society Magazine and filled out their usual book size with a second exploring an Alien site scenario. Double adventures tended to have a theme linking both adventures.
I like the experience system with 2nd edition where you can incrementally increase your skills or to study. It's just that skill rolling wasn't ever that significant since most rolls could be done by every player (e.g., recon check) and chances were that at lease one person would pass. Also, the players should be rolling a lot more skill checks, it was my deficit as GM that didn't know which checks they should be doing and when.
Also, I've found that almost any of the published modules can be modded fairly easily to personalize to the players. Did you ever play Pirates of Drinax? I would probably have gone that route, had we continued playing.
We had our Session 0 for our 1st Traveller campaign yesterday. My oldest player is begging me to print a Far Trader.
Do it if you can! Although, I hope they don't start the game with a Free Trader--that's an expensive ship and they are going to have a hard time paying the upkeep fees, let alone the mortgage.
I would love to play traveller. Played it in the 80’s
@@gaminggeek241 --that's an expensive ship and they are going to have a hard time paying the upkeep fees, let alone the mortgage
That of course is why they adventure. Also where the various characters can do their role playing.
Think of the Firefly TV show where Kaylee is trying to persuade travellers to fly with them while Mal and Zoe are out trying to get cargo shipped with them or special missions and Inara is looking for customers for herself which can involve them getting a ship mission or contact with a patron. Wash and Jayne each out doing their own form of carousing can find leads for missions and potentially illicit cargoes or passengers.
Everything an opportunity. Even in jump space you might find you have aboard a rapidly breeding insect pest or a single elusive small rodent gnawing on wiring or pipes or maybe an small assassin drone out to get you or a passenger. Maybe a passenger is a drug addict and his fumes are causing havoc with peoples behavior or with the air purification system.
@@gaminggeek241 Free Trader--that's an expensive ship
I did a redesign to current Traveller rules and shaved nearly 9 MCr off the price, gained 1 ton of cargo space while retaining passenger capacity and adding biospheres to lower operating expenses on top of the smaller mortgage. I eliminated the armor (1g means it can't run away and no weapons means it can't fight so what is armor good for?), made the drives and power plant budget and a light hull all at TL 9. ~20% cheaper on the mortgage and maintenance cost + greatly decreased life support costs as a bonus.
36.5 MCr (as a standard ship) assuming 25% paid for that makes the mortgage 114,061 Cr, maintenance 3,042 Cr/month. If you ship with full cargo bays and pay the standard 5 crew as having skill 1 doing 2 trips a month you break even (not counting berthing costs), passengers are bonus money and can be carried twice a month. If you have fewer characters (Say your pilot is also astrogator and your medic is the steward) you have lower wages and you free up staterooms to raise profits. The same if the crew will double up to free staterooms. more potential money in more profits
I also did it as a pure freighter 2 staterooms intended to operate with a Pilot/Astrogator and a Mechanic. Takes cargo to 133 tons ship price to 31.347 MCr (as a standard ship). Drops the mortgage to 97,959 Cr and maintenance to 2612. Two full loads of cargo per month 266,000 Cr. Wages (skill 1 characters) 12,500 Cr/month and about 21,000 Cr for fuel. Ship half full and you come very close to break even anything above is profit.
Of course if your ship is 1/2 paid for or 3/4s let alone totally paid for profitability can come easier if you don't reduce the term of the mortgage.
that type J is what the sequel trilogy star destroyers should have looked like
The type J absolutely NEEDS cargo nets.
These larger ships seem limited compared to a dungeon crawl or open field battle. I feel like vehicle combat doesn't work well for 28mm scale. It's too bad you didn't have much opportunity for space combat. I'm really curious how you would DM a space combat with a group of friends in a way that can be fun.
Also, if you are interested in SciFi RPGs you should check out Lancer. It's a mecha RPG with a lot of crunchy combat mechanics while the non-mech interactions is more narrative. Given your channel content it would also be a great opportunity for you to print and paint some mechs.
What did you use for a primer?
Dark brown for the hull, black for the engines, and tan for the inside.
@@gaminggeek241 thanks