Retro review: Traveller

Traveller (the original, 1977 edition) was the first RPG I ever played, back in 1978, and I loved every minute we spent playing in the Third Imperium. We created hundreds – if not thousands – of characters, not to mention countless subsectors, sectors, starships and the rest. My copy lives in the top drawer of my bedside table and I still read through it occasionally.

Sad, I know. But in a good way.

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"For every point in Dexterity you lose, you have to reduce your combat rolls by one for example."

In my copy of Classic Traveller, this is not true. It's a bit more complicated than that.

Melee weapons require a certain Strength to use, lacking that gives a malus to hit; they also have an "advantageous Strength" level, where if you have that or more you get a bonus to hit. The same goes for ranged weapons and Dexterity.

For example, if you have a sword, then you need at least Str 6 or you get -2 to hit, and if you've Str 10 you get +1 to hit. So if your Strength goes from 12 to 10 you still have +1, or from 9 to 6 you still have +0. It's only if it drops past 10 or 6 that the bonus/malus changes.

In addition, you can only take as many swings or blows in melee as you have levels of Endurance, and after that you've a malus to attack. For example, someone of End 6 could make 6 blows with their sword, and the seventh and later blows would be at -3 to hit. So if your Endurance was wounded, that'd lower the number of blows you could swing; for example our End 6 PC fights for 5 rounds and then takes 3 points of damage to Endurance, now they have End 3 – the swings they've already done now exceed their Endurance, so any further swings will be at -3.

"The system works but I would have preferred to have some hitpoints or something like that instead. When I remember correctly that was one of the things I changed when I ran Traveller as a GM."

This is something I've playtested recently. Not hit points as such, but in many systems, what we have is,

– character is wounded on some hit location, or suffers "wound levels" to whole body

– wound gives malus to attribute/skill use

Classic Traveller cuts out the middle bit, going straight to the malus. If a blow to the leg has the effect of reducing Dex from 7 to 5, why not just forget about the first bit and go straight to the loss of Dex?

More succinctly put, we can have actual wounds described and then figure out the game mechanic effects, or get the game mechanic effects and then describe or forget about the actual wounds.

The CT approach has the advantage of simplicity. It has the disadvantage that it's not very evocative. "I was smashed in the leg" gives me a more interesting mental picture than "I lost 3 Dex… um… I suppose maybe I got smashed in the leg?"

Hehe! This is true in my copy too, but I didn't want to write down the whole combat damage rules but give one example. As you see with your comment, it would have made the post much, much longer. 🙂

But thanks for giving us all the details.

All you had to say was, "as you take damage, this may affect how you perform in combat."

Or adding, "not one-for-one but as you pass certain thresholds depending on which weapon you have."

As it was, you said something specific which was wrong. You can say something vague and short but right, or something specific and long but right; but if you say something specific but wrong your readers will just think you didn't read your review copy very well.

Which does happen with reviews from time to time…

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Hmm, I have read that part of my review again and I have to agree that what I read can easily been regarded as wrong.

I've tried Traveller, but never got into it. My players, who play everything from stone age fantasy to steampunk, didn't really like it. Traveller: 2300 though, that one clicked, but it was more than 15 years ago.

The thing that irked me about Traveller (or was it MegaTraveller) was the whole debacle about dying during character generation. What was the deal with that?

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Traveller uses a lifepath character creation method. And it was in fact possible to die during character creation. Back in the day we just ignored that result. But aside from that I like lifepath systems. You not only get a character but a basic character history as well.

Love Traveller! I loved making characters even more than playing the actual game. My GM was perhaps not the best but we still had fun back in the days. Actually dying in character generation was a good thing! It gave you the chance to start over. Lifepath system rocks, just look at Cyberpunk, Wastelands, etc.
.-= Robert´s last blog ..A Paper Craft Castle On the Ocean =-.

I'd say it's a fair review. The save vs death mechanic was put in there so that the player had to choose whether to re-enlist or not, thus risking death in a service such as Marines, or riding it out rather easily (with less skills) in the Merchants.

Miller & Crew didn't want superhero types with access to fleets, all over the place. A character that survives to become an admiral or free trader captain [Ship paid off] pretty much deserves it, within the setting. Otherwise, it's a bunch of semi-retired mid-30s to 40s guys with some guns and cash looking for work.

Particularly in the new Mongoose version, they've much improved the path flavor, adding in an actual Events chart that gives you bonuses or penalties.

Also, way back in 1975, James M. Ward wrote Metamorphosis Alpha, the first sfrpg to my knowledge.