Going to run Mongoose Travellers tomorrow for the first time. Any advice for a new GM?
>>48298299
Be wary of stuff in the non-Core Mongoose books. Especially don't just hand them the Central Supply Catalogue and let 'em go nuts -- a guy on the Close the Airlock AP podcast did that and his character was getting like +30 to hit or something ludicrous like that, thanks to all the equipment and mods.
>>48301491
Thank you for the advice. I can trust most of my players to not try and cheese the system but there is one player who I might need to worry about. I'll try to keep the extra books to a minimum.
>>48298299
bump
>>48298299
There is no character progression in Traveller, just money and things you can buy with it.
Give them money. Lots of it. And make it to die forliterally.
>>48298299
In my experience the Mongoose Traveller as a game system has two things you need to be careful with.
The first is the character creation. Particularly with the supplements a character can end up with an incredibly bizarre skill set. For example I once created a navy character who in the end had Gunnery (Screens) 5: a living legend among those who can understand what the fuck he is doing. Apart from that he could barely tie his shoe laces. When planning an adventure carefully consider what the player characters are actually capable of. For example I put my players in a diplomatic situation, only to realize the party had the total diplomatic tact of a thrown brick.
The second thing to consider is the equipment. The people who wrote the equipment thought they were handing out +1 bonuses on a d20 instead of a 2d6. Quite often they also seem to have touched themselves while assigning damage to their weapons.
Oh, and finally, I like to think of all of the supplement books as being written from the viewpoint of the subjects in them. For example the belters of Belt Strike believe it is harder to survive as a belter (survival roll 9+) than as a ground assault space marine (survival roll 8+) and the Sword Worlders of the Sword Worlds book believe their Jotunhammer deals more damage (5d6) than a rocket launcher (4d6). There is an awful lot of dumb things in the supplements that need to be taken with a grain of salt.
>>48304061
>>48298299
First of all, there IS character progression in traveller. (albeit slow if they don't jump a lot, there are alternatives)
And don't throw money like a madman at them, money is still like 70% of the actual character progression and the original traveller spirit is: Start flying, keep flying. Most games start with the players broke as fuck. Or let them start debt free, and give them jump capable ship (read "rust bucket") around 200 years old.
Talk with your players about what sort of game they want to play, deep space exploration isn't everybody beer, and there are a lot of other things you can do with the setting and system.
Ironman rules at chargen make for a whole session, with weak and unlucky characters dying. That can be a lot of fun and excitement, but also very frustrating, depends on the players.
Think about a limit of careers at chargen. Characters with 7+ careers easily outshine the 2 careers beansprout. A cap of 3-4 can be a good thing. When using Ironman rules, demand that they reach that cap before they quit, otherwise you might have players which finish their first career and then quit, leaving them weak AND unskilled.
DON'T neglect the limit for the equipment they can carry, it is one of the balance mechanism of the game, so the weak ship pilot can't run around with artillery in hand.
Just tell them for their first rounds that they shouldn't carry more around than their END+STR allows. Later add the penalty's when they take damage in combat (explain it to them beforehand)
Another rather important balance factor for a longer game are the skills known, or skill level. A character with a lot of skills has a hard time learning new ones. A Noble with (only) 6 ranks in meele would need 6 weeks to learn a completely new skill. while a soldier who has always rolled "self improvement" will have a skillevel of 2-4 and needs a much shorter time to learn and adapt.
>high skill= powerful, low skill=adaptable
>>48304225
Personally i think the equipment from the CRB is okay as it is.
the +1 bonuses are okay, traveller was always a deadly and quick system when it comes to combat. And it lets those who cant tie their own shoes still be able to support their team with the right equipment. That's what equipment is there for.
>>48304296
bump
>>48303555
One thing I suggest is to use some of the rules for Nobles from their splat book. It basically locks up the Noble's disgusting amount of cash in various trusts, foundations, stocks, bonds, etc. so they don't have tens of millions of spending credits. AND it requires them to spend a certain amount to maintain their social standing as well.
I think it's amazing because now the player is very invested (haha) in how these corporations or trusts are doing, and when they throw social events you can easily have fun plot and intrigue occur. Win-win.
>>48306980
Not OP, but thread is tangential to my interest.
I'd like to run a game of Traveller, except with less of the Travelling part. Basically, DS9 in the Third Imperium or somesuch. Any ideas on how one might keep that thing fun and engaging?
>>48304296
Right. Stay away from the Central Supply Catalog for weapons. It *was* written for a different edition and then converted (ha ha, ho ho) to Mongoose.
>>48304258
Second this whole post, except for "careers" read "terms".
Moving between careers a lot produces broader characters, while staying in one career can produce a specialist. A good game will need both.
>>48307240
One Ref I know ran a game involving the cops in Regina Highport that ran for years with them rarely getting out an airlock.
Everything your campaign needs has to be on the station or be able to show up at the docking clamps. A Police procedural or Trade Office Drama might also include trips to the surface.
Instead of Star Trek or Firefly, think Hawaii Five-O or Magnum P.I., and build the station and its immediate neighbors to suit. You don;t need to removed the travelling aspect entirely, just build a neighborhood instead of being open-ended.
>>48307240
GDW published a whole book for Classic Traveller to show how to do that. "Tarsus, World Beyond the Frontier" was a campaign for one single world that would be the scene of numerous adventures.
>>48307251
>It *was* written for a different edition and then converted
Oh Mongoose, when will you give effort a try?
>>48307344
>Oh Mongoose, when will you give effort a try?
I learned recently that they botched converting the missiles in core badly. They changed the damage for lasers, but kept the damage for missiles, making missiles absolute shit.
>>48307344
>Oh Mongoose, when will you give effort a try?
This was the fault of the author, I think. He had the prior manuscript and an irrational need to induce power creep. The Mongoose V1 version make combat very different from the CRB. The assumptions are different, the mods are different, etc.
I wanted a Sears catalog when I picked it up, instead I got Guns & Ammo.
>>48307344
Ah, Tarsus. Love it, but that's one dry book in that box.
To duplicate that level of detail can take a lot of effort. We *could* try to make a /tg/ project out of it, since that makes all of the prior world building tools available. One world is a lot, but at the same time need only be enough to launch the Ref.
Other prior examples exist in the original run of JTAS. You can get a lot of mileage out of the description of Victoria in JTAS #2 and Craw in #9-10.
>>48307669
There's also FASA's Faldor: World of Adventure, which has several adventures on it.
>>48307719
I recall not being as impressed with that, but can't be specific after so long.
>>48298299
Try to knock a little harder
How beholden is MongTrav to it's setting?
I was thinking of doing a SWN type of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, where the Terran Empire has collapsed, with the local authority being a 50ish system Confederation.
I know a lot of careers assume a central authority, like the navy, but the Confederation will cover that, but apart from a few worlds there isn't much of a formal aristocracy. Would this make create problems for the SOC stat?
>>48312225
The Soc stat is a bit weird. If you alter the setting you need to take a moment to consider what it means in the new setting.
I'm playing my first one on Thursday. I think. A player dropped because we were giving him a hard time. Not picking on, mind you. Just poking fun at his rolls as we were at everyone else.
>Rolled up a dilettante who didn't qualify for college.
>Bummed around, attending parties, hanging with pirates and seedy individuals
>Gets caught and bailed out by Dad
>Next term has me getting outed by my twin brother (Older by moments) as he's sick of my shenanigans.
>Including my shady dealings with pirates
>In front of many higher up political and military figures
>Get disowned and escorted out of the party by a navy LT. (Another character) away from our lavish home.
>Navy LT. tired of getting bossed around by her commanding officer, musters out and finds me. Knowing I have cash (2 200k rolls on the cash table)
>We recruit a former pirate I may or may not have dealings with in the past.
Traveler is incredible. All this backstory came from just making the character. Sadly, now we have to wait for a fourth. Damn teenagers.
>>48312288
Aye. The thing I don't get is why persuade is keyed off INT in the skill example, but leadership is off SOC?
>>48312319
The editions vary a bit on how much backstory they spontaneously generate, but filling in the blanks is fun regardless. I do like the Connections and Events features seen in Mongoose.
>>48312513
Thing to realize is that those are only examples. Skills are not hard-linked to specific stats. This is by design.
>>48312225
>>48312288
50-ish planets in Traveller implies at least 4 or 5 with over a billion population. All you need for a decent sized Navy, even given High Guard style Branch divisions and million ton battleships.
As for Soc, realistically 1/36th of the population isn't going to be Baron+, even if the Imperium hands out patents like candy, so you can decide, say, that a Duke rules one of the major worlds, or 3-4 of the less important ones, and work out the rest of your fiefs from there.
>>48312940
Ignore the titles and just keep to the lifestyle costs (assuming those are still around from back in the day).
