Anybody here play Traveller?

[geoschmo]

Do you? Did you? How long ago? Do you still have your books? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

[Slick]

Did, in the early 80's. Didn't have books, used a friend's set. Why?

[Desdinova]

i played traveller. still have the 1st edition books including book 0, the journal books, megatravller, traveller the new era. have not gotten into the new ones by steve jackson however. also still have the dice from the boxset.

also played star frontiers, space opera, cyberpunk, D&D, arduin, ICE series, shadowrun, etc.

[ December 22, 2002, 05:01: Message edited by: desdinova ]

[Thei R'vek]

cyb3rpunk k1k$ @$$ d00d!

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Thei R'vek:
cyb3rpunk k1k$ @$$ d00d!<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That is just disturbing... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[geoschmo]

I played it back then, had all the books, but they got lost. A few months ago I bought an original box set on Ebay. I am such a nerd. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Anyway, I was thinking it might be fun to play a game now and then. Just wondering if anyone here was still into it.

Geoschmo

[spoon]

hehe, I remember being a bunch of teenagers trying to roleplay a bunch of 50-year olds (had to stay in the Service so long to get all the good Muster!).

And I loved the map that came with the game.

[DavidG]

Yea I played than many years ago and still have all the books including a bunch of adventures and Supplement books. I was so into it back then I even wrote a program in basic (I think on an Apple IIE) to create characters for you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Desdinova]

i still play every now and then. depends on how often i can get back to my home town to game with the old group. its a 4 hr drive.

[Desdinova]

anybody playad the computer games. there were two of them. horrible by todays standards but semi-ok for when they came out.

[capnq]

My favorite non-computer game company, Steve Jackson Games, still puts out material for GURPS Traveller {link} (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/).

I haven't played Traveller myself, but I've bought two of the GURPS books for reference.

[LostCommander]

I never played the original, but I have most of the GURPS Traveller books by SJ Games and they are very nice. LOTS of depth and detail for whatever the group might want to do, and since it is in the GURPS system it is much easier for me to drop in random events for the PCs (they kept talking about what would happen if there was a borg cube to run into...). A Traveller shipset might be interesting.

[Puke]

played the original AGES ago...

and am in a GURPS traveller campaign now, that is picking back up in january. i prefer the new ruels...

ALSO: there is a D20 (new d&d franchise, marketing out their 3rd ed rule system) traveller rule system, either out or coming out. sounds interesting, but i will reserve judgement..

[geoschmo]

I'll have to check out that GURPS. I have heard of it but never played it. What is it you like better about it Puke? By the way, check your email.

Geoschmo

[Puke]

the flexability of it, mostly. it can be as detailed as you could possibly want a game to be, but you can also scale it down to a more manageable set of rules. it can handle a variety of settings fairly well, and does a good job with sci-fi. the Traveller career system is missing from character creation, but i believe there are optional supplements to work it back in.

[Sinapus]

The original Traveller rules are being reprinted by Far Future Enterprises. (So you get the Tech Level chart that says Earth discovered Fusion (TL9) in the 90s, while in reality we're still stuck at TL8.) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Dralasite]

Never played Traveler (although I heard of it), but I was really into star frontiers! My group got through most of the volturnous modules, only playing 1 hour a day during lunch in school.

Thanks for reminding me about Star Frontiers desdinova! I have been lurking on this forum forever, partially because I couldn't think of a name. Now I have one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

In retrospect, Star Frontiers was not that great of an rpg system. GURPS is a much better thought out system. I sort of wish someone would license and write the core rules (at least the charager building, skills, and combat system) into a game engine...

[Gryphin]

Not any more and yes, still have the books. Most of our missions were setups for tactical level battles where we would fight as if our lives depended on it. In most miniatures games you don't care as much if the leaders get killed. When you are playing with an RPG character as leader you play a bit more carefuly.
"Charge that Hill" starts with calling in heavy artillery and smoke.

[PvK]

I did a little Traveller a long time ago (80's, basic set). I liked the career-based character generation system (as a neat and sensible way of establishing a character history that determines skills, which makes a lot of sense). Vector-based tactical ship movement was neat. However most of the other rules in the basic set were a bit shallow for my taste, although naturally it was mainly a matter of page length versus subject breadth - it did a good job for the amount of space they had.

GURPS, however, is a very nice system, especially for tactical personal combat (one-meter hexmaps, one second turns, excellent realistic and detailed game mechanics - although you can also wimp out and play GURPS in a very simple style) and for interesting non-cookie-cutter character generation, not to mention the heaps of worldbooks and rules extensions.

PvK

[Desdinova]

Originally posted by Dralasite:
Thanks for reminding me about Star Frontiers desdinova! I have been lurking on this forum forever, partially because I couldn't think of a name. Now I have one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

In retrospect, Star Frontiers was not that great of an rpg system. GURPS is a much better thought out system. I sort of wish someone would license and write the core rules (at least the charager building, skills, and combat system) into a game engine...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I will always remember the bar fights at The Hole In The Wall and The Spacers Rest, it always the best way to start a new adventure. Hard to believe that almost all adventures initially took place on that map included with the box set. not to mention the occassional Sathar Invasion at the startport map.

[Desdinova]

i guess i never gave GURPS an even chance. back when it came out it seemed so cheesy. then again my gaming group had already modified the rules for all the games we played to the point where they were not recognizable. that way we could play whatever character we wanted in any setting.

[Dralasite]

I will always remember the bar fights at The Hole In The Wall and The Spacers Rest, it always the best way to start a new adventure. Hard to believe that almost all adventures initially took place on that map included with the box set. not to mention the occassional Sathar Invasion at the startport map
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No doubt http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ! It was pretty funny how every city had the same layout as that map. For me, every ship we were ever on used the same map from the 1st volturnous module. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I agree, the idea of GURPS came off as pretty corny when I first saw it. But all the different world books, especially those based upon book series that I really enjoyed (uplift, for example), drew me in. And suprisingly the system was well done. Before that, the only thing I bought from Steve Jackson games was board games -Car Wars and Ogre (and Globbo, if anyone remembers that one).

[PvK]

The rules in the GURPS Basic Set are really excellent (elegant and flexible, realistic, extensible, and capable of either very simple fudgey play, or very detail-oriented rules-based play). The hand-to-hand and ancient/medieval combat rules, played on a hex-map with all the advanced rules, are the most accurate and realistic combat system of their type that I've seen, second only to the mods I've added to them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[Desdinova]

ahhhh! Car Wars. we made the mistake of letting one friends little sister play with us. she used a stock subcompact (dont remember which one) and opened a can of whoopass on us. she had the best luck of the dice. she would make sharp (90degree) turns successfully, end up on our tail then fire minirockets and machineguns at us. we just couldnt shake her off. it was really embarassing for the 5 of us.

Yes. 5 to 1 odds and she beat us in both challanges that night. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Dralasite]

Thats funny! I was never lucky enough to play with a subcompact or compact. In fact, I was pretty terrible at Car Wars. I always wound getting all my weapson destroyed and then ramming another car to go out in a bang. Come to think of it, the same thing happens to me in SEIV... hmmm http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I didn't want go too off topic in the avatar thread (eye of splurggoth), but I think its fine to blab about palladium games here. They have one of the worst systems ever! Combat easliy Lasted 2 hours because everyone has so much armor and weapons do so little damage. It was just silly. However I did like their "Rifts" worldbooks. The mechanoids were neat too. I bought a lot of their books and used the ideas in GURPs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Desdinova]

combat can get a little tiresome, however with the old paladium rules you could at least hit the person if you rolled high enough. Rifts took that away and now armor stops everything until it is destroyed.
I love the Rifts world though, as it combines D&D, Gamma World and a few other games into it. My preference is the technowizard. You get the best of both worlds, an understanding of technology and magic plus the ability to combine them to make things neither one alone can do.

[Kamog]

GURPS is a great system, very flexible and comprehensive. It takes a long time to create characters (let's see... I'll put 1/2 point here to get this skill, 1 point here to get this other skill... nah, instead I'll raise this stat by 1 so that I only use 1/2 point, etc) but once the characters are created, it works well. The magic system is kind of tedious, though, with the different element-based magics with all sorts of prerequites for the higher spells.

Rifts is very strange. They combined all sorts of stuff into it that isn't very well balanced. The mega-damage weapons and armor don't make much sense. The money system was weird. If you start off a game with some weapons and ammo, and you use up a few rounds, you will never earn enough money to buy new ammo! All equipment is super expensive and you will never have more than you started off with, because you never make enough money to purchase anything. If you look through the different Palladium games, they all re-use the same equipment pictures for every book. Also, when you make your characters, you get so many skills that you end up taking all sorts of useless things just to use up the points. (Let's see, I get another 3 high school skills, but I already have everything I want: oh, whatever, I'll take pottery and basket-weaving).

[Desdinova]

unfortunately no game system is perfect. except maybe the one you make for yourself. even then others might have problems with it. i reread GURPS and it is a good system. i havent kept up with it so will need to see what addons they have made. to bad there is not someway to upload a copy of myself into a computer and have it go through all the game systems and combine them into 1 system that will let you do anything.

[Dralasite]

Yeah, balance was just a joke in palladium games, especially rifts. The techno-wizard or techno-psi is a cool concept, too bad magic was so wimpy in rifts. You can make them much better in gurps

Gurps can take a long time to make characters, but only if you really want to min-max your character into some super combat machine http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I'm as guilty of that as the next guy, but I do find that if you have a solid character concept before you start, it cuts down on the point fiddling at the end.

[Dralasite]

Whoops, double post.

[ January 06, 2003, 22:35: Message edited by: Dralasite ]

[Kamog]

The Gurps character creations system can be abused if you don't limit the disadvantages that people can take. If you have ever used Gurps, you know that you can get extra character points by taking disadvantages. In one game, everybody took multiple disadvantages like "pyromaniac", "blood thirsty", and "powerful enemies". Needless to say, the game ended up being a mindlessly violent one and didn't Last long.

[PvK]

As with all games, it helps if you have some experienced players. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Krsqk]

Not much different than SE4 min-maxing, it sounds like. "I'll take 120% maintenance and 150% minerals extraction and spaceyards, with 50% ER and cunning." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[PvK]

Yes. Another example comparison:

SE4 player Posts to forums: "I have the ultimate strategy - speed 1 escorts with max combat bonuses!"

GURPS analogy: "I have the ultimate gladiator character - quadrapeligic in a heavy steel armor - he head-butts you to death!"

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:
Yes. Another example comparison:

SE4 player Posts to forums: "I have the ultimate strategy - speed 1 escorts with max combat bonuses!"

GURPS analogy: "I have the ultimate gladiator character - quadrapeligic in a heavy steel armor - he head-butts you to death!"

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The black night from the Holy Grail? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

It's just a scratch!

But You're arms off!

No it isn't!

Geo