I purchased used copies of MegaTraveller's three basic books, plus Referee's Companion and Rebellion Sourcebook, on eBay a couple of weeks ago - they arrived a couple of days ago from Canada.
I've had a chance to read them somewhat and compare them to Classic Traveller. I grew up with CT, first playing it in high school in the very early 80's. By the end of high school, I and my fellow players had sort of drifted away from Traveller, so we scoffed at MT as an effort to get more money from players. Two of us stayed in touch with one another, and sort of stayed in touch with CT. He kept all his books, and though I sold mine in the late 80's, I've re-established my library with all the FFE reprints.
Upon recently reading the MT books, however, I've realized that we were mistaken. MT is a dedicated carrying-forward of CT, though not a perfect one. I've prepared summaries for my fellow CT friend, which I've emailed to him, and have taken the liberty of repeating below for the benefit of any CT players not familiar with MT (the scans mentioned are not included below). These are my personal opinions, so have a salt-shaker handy to take a grain from, and it didn't occur to me to share these until just now, so please forgive any errors or familiarities.
For what they might be worth:
----
Quick first impressions (at lunch at Pete's):
This looks like MechWarrior with the perfect binding, color cover, portrait
letter-size pages, and factions.
Keith's art is used extensively, but he isn't credited?!
A lot more detail!
The starship combat damage system is HG's. Errr...
Lots of sensor stuff. Lots and lots. Detailed lists of starship operations:
good! Fleet maps. Tables for planets' ground forces! Oh, yeah!
The first four books really are Traveller, just expanded! The rebellion
Sourcebook is the only background stuff that's different.
A more-detailed (but still not thorough) perusal tonight:
Players' Manual:
Hmm, task resolution is shown before character generation. Odd.
Social standing is used? The computer game has Charisma. This is good.
The PC types are the same as B2 and S4, with Law Enforcement added.
The survival roll rule has been reversed, with short term the norm and death
optional.
Looks like they've expanded and standardized skills. Good.
Ah, I'd wondered what happened to the detailed HG/Merc/etc. character
generation. It's "Advanced Character Generation."
Combat now uses Hits and Life Force. A 777 char = 3/5 (3 to knock
unconscious, 5 more to kill).
The interrupt business sounds cumbersome.
I don't like Danforth's art. The characters look unbelievable.
Vehicle damage charts: good.
Laser PISTOL?!
The art gets worse.
Lots of good combat detail. Throwing objects, jumping, etc.
Throwing POLEARMS?! Yeah, lemme toss my halberd down the hall! Err...
Referee's Manual:
A page of faction crests. Norris, Margaret, etc. Where's Steiner and Liao?
Wait, wrong game.
UWPs now keep track of Population Multiple (how many millions/billions,
etc.), Gas Giants, and Planetoid Belts. Good.
So *that's* where Heaven & Earth's dumb "Ay Bee See" naming system came
from! Bleh.
The Extended System Generation looks a lot like Scouts.
Animals: like B3, but with weights. Good.
Improved encounters.
Lots of trading rules. Wonder how they compare with Merchant Prince's?
Craft design. 1 ton = 135 kiloliters. Good - it's 13.5 cubic meters on the
dot (though I'd have used that term rather than the silly "kiloliter"). This
looks like Striker and High Guard smooshed together - not a bad idea, and one
Striker hinted at.
Communicators, sensors, radar, ladar, jammers. That's the stuff!
What the heck is a disintegrator? They range from TL 17 to 21!
Jump projector? Jump damper? Tractors? All very high TL (20-21)
An entire page on the bridge! Sweet.
Heh, there's the old scout illo from JTAS 6!
Starship combat looks a lot like personal combat with its range bands,
interrupts, and tasks. Also High Guard-y.
Imperial Encyclopedia:
Hey, Keith finally gets a credit!
This is a whole lot like the Library Datas. It also is a lot like the online
version.
Ah, here's where all the equipment is. It's more modern (a TL 11 hand
computer that's the equal of a Model 1, for Cr1,000 weighing .5 kg).
Drugs are still here. Multiple types of vacc suits (looks like that JTAS
stuff).
Laser weapons (incl. pistols) still use a power pack. Good.
Ground cars have risen to Cr5,600. Inflation <g>.
Wow, cars, air/rafts, ship's boats, free traders, patrol cruisers, and
everything else share the same types of statistic listing.
Referee's Companion:
Large-scale combat looks like an expansion of Book 4's system.
In-system operations. Book 2 stuff with more detail. Good.
Heh, the re-defined TLs: 7=1970 as before, but then 8=1990, 9=2010, and
A=2100. This was obviously needed, but still seems too optimistic for 8 & 9
(unless early grav vehicles and orbital cities are only 8 years away...).
Nice articles on communications and research.
Large-scale campaign notes. Looks like some handy stuff.
Ah, a local map to detail each planetary map hex.... which can itself be
detailed, and so on. I knew I'd be doing this, but here's the standard
method to use.
The language section is nice. A proper guide to pronouncing Zhodani and
other languages.
Rebellion Sourcebook:
Jefferson Swycaffer shows up in the credits. Interesting...
Rebellion, blah, blah, blah, strategies, information - yeah, whatever. I
don't care about this.
Imperial Fleets - more like it. Still sketchy, but better than previous
info.
Armies of the Imperium. Good stuff (though a lot like JTAS stuff).
More rebellion stuff. Very MechWarrior (fine, but wrong universe).
Ahh, ship data and illos (fair quality). Vargr battle cruiser and heavy
cruiser. Imperial ships like S9's. Grav tanks (looking pretty BattleTechy).
Aslan cruiser and transport. Zho tank.
And we're done. I'd hoped for some more general info rather than all that
Rebellion fluff text, but the book's name was a good clue what to expect.
Conclusion:
Looking through these books just doesn't *feel* like it does with Traveller.
The text is too big. The columns are too wide. There's too much art. It
feels a *whole lot* like looking through BattleTech/MechWarrior books. CT
has a dry, almost detached feel. MT tries harder to draw you in and add
color and personality. I must admit that makes it better as an RPG, but if
I'd first encountered Traveller in this form it wouldn't have hooked me like
it did. Traveller was almost mysterious: those small, black books, filled
with nothing but text and tables - it made me want to know more. MT looks
like a circus poster.
Now, that's the stuff that doesn't really matter. What *does* matter is
the quality of the systems and data contained in MT. That'll take a lot
longer to evaluate.
Below are two of the more interesting pages from each book.
---
After a detailed going-over of the MT Players' Manual:
At the beginning is the statement: "Traveller is the name of the overall
game. MegaTraveller is the name of this rules set, and is used to
distinguish it from the 10 years of development and earlier editions that
preceded it." The rules then constantly refer to "In Traveller..." rather
than "In MegaTraveller..." I like that.
Task System:
Pretty similar to the Traveller one (roll X+, +X DM for Skill), but more
standardized. The rolls are limited to 3+, 7+, 11+, and 15+ making it less
flexible than the CT version. Once nice addition, though, is a system for
determining how long it takes (specify an interval = 1/10 the typical time
then roll 3d6, subtracting skill DM).
Character generation:
Traveller has long had an entry for Homeworld on the character sheet. Here,
a system is given for quickly generating one, and there are more restrictions
on what it must be like to join a given service (S4 and B5 have this, but B1
doesn't). Merchant and Other have been removed from the draft, replaced by
Flyer and Sailor from S4, which does make more sense.
The service procedure has some changes, too. You can't be Commissioned your
first term. There's a Special Duty roll each term, and if you make it you
get another skill roll. If any throw for commission, promotion, or special
duty is at least 4 more than needed, you get an extra skill roll. Scouts get
two skills per term (as in Traveller) but now so do Belters, Doctors,
Hunters, Rogues, and Scientists (since they also have no ranks/promotions
like scouts). There are a few more default skills (like Computer-0 and
Wheeled Vehicle/Grav Vehicle-0) but no longer does every character have level
0 with every gun - instead you choose one gun to have level 0 with.
So, lots of skills. But wait, there's a limit. You can't have more skills
or levels of skills than your Int+Edu (not counting level 0). This would
rarely be a problem in CT, but MT is pretty skill-happy. This rule first
shows up in Book 7: Merchant Prince from 1985 (but not the 1982 JTAS
Supplement 1 version). While I see its intent, I don't much care for it, and
plan to ignore it in BT since it didn't exist for the main part of CT. You
don't just plop a single-sentence rule in the penultimate Book that means "by
the way, all the previous characters over the past eight years across four
Books, three Supplements, a dozen Adventures, and two dozen Journals might
now be illegal" - no.
Aging is still there (with more detail on finding Anagathics), but now
there's also Disability. When you turn 66, have Str, Dex, or End permanently
reduced to 1, or the sum of all three is 10 or less, you may quit adventuring
and generate a new character.
Skills:
Encumberment has been expanded. Str x 5 can be carried for five minutes, Str
x 10 can be lifted (not carried) for one minute, and Str x 15 can be dragged
for 5 minutes. Endurance is used for fatigue: you start getting fatigued
after End hours, and lose one point for every two hours thereafter (if tasks
are done in that time). Hit 0 and you collapse into sleep. Regardless of
activity, the max is 3 x End at which point you collapse and must sleep.
That's only 21 hours for average Endurance, which seems low to me.
There are several new skills and cascades. Some that caught my eye are:
Artisan, Biology, Chemistry, Genetics, Intrusion, Linguistics, Neural
Weapons, Sensor Ops. Good to see lots of sciences. There's also lots of
cross-skill stuff (Navigation or Survey serves as Sensor Ops -1, etc.).
Learning new skills has been expanded. You now collect Adventure Tallies
(AT). Bletch, what a name. You get these ATs (each is for a specific skill,
they aren't interchangeable) for doing things you don't have the skill to do,
by observing another character doing it and trying yourself, through
trial-and-error. If you succeed, you get ad AT at the end of the adventure.
After collecting several, you can make a roll to see if you've learned level
1 (if you fail, you get level 0); this is also how you improve your skills.
This looks like a codification of the less-formal process used in CT, and is
*not* the catch-all XP bucket found in D&D. The standard Traveller formal
training system is also expanded.
Enhanced Character Generation:
I.e. Mercenary, High Guard, Scouts, and Merchant Prince (with tweaks,
naturally). There are now Brownie Points (bletch again for the name) which
you get for good things (graduation, special assignments, getting a medal,
etc.) and which can be used as + DMs at any time, even *after* the roll. I
see how this could be very handy. You can also apply a negative DM for
survival in exchange for a positive DM for decoration, or vice versa if
you're cautious. But, if you blow the decoration roll by 6 or more, you can
be court-martialed, possibly resulting in jail or in an escape from a death
sentence with a reward on your head!
MT Combat:
Combat rounds are six seconds, instead of 15. A 1.5m grid is used indoors; a
15m grid outdoors. Movement is one unit on one side, then one unit on the
other side; repeat. But, a non-moving unit can attempt to interrupt the
moving unit, once per attack or square of movement. The given example show
how messy this can be: PC Dur runs from cover to a doorway closer to the
NPCs. He moves one square. An NPC interrupts him to shoot while he's in the
open. But then, PC AyBee interrupts the NPC to lay down covering fire.
Since all combat is immediate, if AyBee incapacitates the NPC, he can't shoot
Dur, who can then continue to the second square, where all of this can happen
again. Yeah, I see what they're going for, but what a mess. In CT, 15
seconds seemed way too long until Snapshot fixed it. Here, though, every
six-second turn could take five minutes to resolve, with all the interrupting
that's possible.
Combat itself uses the task system, which I'm not really familiar with, so I
can't judge it. It does, however, have a readily understandable penetration
system like AHL's though (though expanded, of course). There are different
levels of damage inflicted depending on how penetrated the armor is: full
damage if penetration is twice armor, 1/2 damage if it's equal to armor, but
less than twice, and 1/10 damage if it doesn't penetrate and the character
has any unarmored areas. This is further modified by how well the firer
rolled: marginal success (exactly equal to the roll needed) multiples the
nominal damage by .5 and exceptional success can double, quadruple, or
octuple the damage if the roll is exceeded by 2+, 4+, or 6+. This may be all
too much, but it does appeal to the number-cruncher in me.
Damage is kinda weird. I mentioned in my previous post that damage points
are applied to the character's Hits value which is based on Life Force (sum
of Str, Dex, and End). So, a 777 has 3/5: 3 to go unconscious and 5 more to
be killed. After combat, this is translated into the familiar characteristic
reductions: "For each damage point received, roll 1D and apply the results as
damage to the character's Strength, Dexterity, or Endurance. Apply each roll
to one of the three characteristics. If the character was not dead, do not
allow all three characteristics to go to zero. If the character was not
unconscious, do not allow any characteristics to go to zero." It's not clear
*who* determines what characteristics are affected, but the healing rules
specify player's choice during recovery. I can kinda see that: the player
can choose what sort of therapy to undertake to regain Str, Dex, or End. We
kidded about players being able to say "um, OK, so that bullet hits me *here*
in this shoulder." In MT, it looks like not only can players do just that,
but they don't have to choose until after all the shooting is over! No, I
*don't* think so.
Special rules cover opening hatches, climbing ladders, etc. Opening or
closing sliding doors, hatches, or iris valves takes one full round (six
seconds). Climbing a ladder takes one round per meter (six seconds to climb
one meter?!). So, you spend one round climbing to where you can reach the
hatch. Then a round opening it. Then two more rounds climbing the remaining
2 meters to the next deck. 24 seconds total to climb a ladder with a hatch
at the top. In Snapshot it's 5 APs to climb, 5 to open the hatch = 10 APs
(about 10 seconds). In AHL it's one meter of ladder climbing per Action
Phase (3 seconds) and one phase to open a hatch, so it takes 12 seconds. I
guess everyone in MT is in mourning the Emperor's assassination, so they're
moving very slowly <g>.
Let's see, I skipped over MT's basic movement rules: 10 squares/round
walking, 20 running = 2.5 m/s walking, 5 m/s running. Snapshot: 1 square/AP
walking, 3 squares/2 APs running. Average 14 APs per 15 second turn = 1.4
m/s walking, 2.1 m/s running. AHL: 2 APs per square walking, 1 AP per square
"trotting." 30 APs per 15 second turn = 1.5 m/s walking, 3 m/s running. So,
horizontal MT movement is twice as fast, but vertical movement is twice as
slow. Hmm.
The rest of the special rules look like AHL or simplified Striker.
Then there's Psionics, which looks pretty similar.
So, there's some stuff to like, and some that's not so good. I suspect that
some of the improvements showed up in JTAS for CT before appearing here.
---
More on the Ref's Manual:
My Players' Manual is 3rd printing, so it has errata fixed (all three books
were flawed in 1st and 2nd printings). I have 1st printing Referee's Manual
and Imperial Encyclopedia, however, so they need numerous of errata fixes
(available online). I'm about halfway through fixing the RM.
Task System:
One interesting thing not found in the Players' Manual is the effect of Tech
Level on tasks. If a PC's homeworld is above or below the TL of the
equipment he's using, he suffers a proportional penalty. Makes sense.
Generating Star Systems and Worlds:
As mentioned, this is basically the system from Scouts.
Animals:
Very Book 3 with some new ones (Circling Flyers that attract Chasers;
one-gram Poisonous Pests). Plants can now be threats with Animated Vines,
Hallucinogenic Pollen, Tanglewood, and Wirebushes (sounds kinda "sci-fi").
Encounters:
The Patrol and Random Encounter tables are Book 3's (except the six blank
entries on Book 3's have been filled in with Media Crew, Students, Athletes,
Event: Witness Accident, Event: Trash Dump, Event: Local Shop). Patrons now
have a mission table for what they want like Transport Self, Pick Up Others,
Guard Place, Smuggling, Steal Vehicle, Harass Others, Perform Military
Action, Find Place, etc. Good stuff.
Interpersonal Tasks:
Two pages detailing conversation, negotiation, bribery, interrogation, and
impersonation. Traveller covers most of this, but not this systematically.
Trade and Commerce:
The basic tables for passengers and goods is straight out of Book 2. The
gods tables are different from Book 2's, with separate tables for each type
of world (Agricultural, Industrial, etc.). This is different from Book 7's
as well, which is much more generic. The price modifier tables are from Book
7, though.
Craft Design:
One system (heavily reminiscent of Striker) is used for everything: ground
cars, tanks, sea-going ships, aircraft, small craft, and starships. Units
are Displacement Ton (13.5 kiloliters), Megawatt, Kiloliter (cubic meter),
Metric Ton (for weight), and Credit/MegaCredit.
Things that stand out: a bay is "Very large weapon mount able to move to
point at the target. The most powerful type of moving weapon mount."
Missiles: nuclear, nonnuclear, and antimatter (very high TL). Tractors: very
high TL, large, focused artificial-grav attractors that restrict agility of
other craft. Disintegrators: disrupt the strong molecular attraction that
holds matter together, causing an object's molecules to fly apart (very high
TL). Jump Projectors: induce a jump field around the target, causing it to
misjump (very high TL). Jump Damper: inhibit a target's ability to enter
jumpspace (very high TL). Proton Screens: render antimatter missiles
ineffective (very high TL). White Globe Generator: projects a glowing white
barrier which absorbs all weapons fire; doesn't restrict the operating ship
from seeing out or firing (very high TL). Antimatter power plants are
available at TL 17+.
Three computers are carried by ships so there will be backups. No problem,
since each is roughly 1/10 the volume and 1/4 the price of HG's. While on
the topic of backups I was going to check the feasibility of a smaller
auxiliary bridge when I encounter something I've read about MT craft design:
its complexity and recursive nature. Until the ship is pretty much built
there's no way to know what the bridge requirements are.
Rates of Fire (each space combat turn is 20 minutes): Spinal Mount = 1,
Missile Bay = 2, All Other Bays = 20, Missile Turrets = 1, Sandcaster Turrets
= 6, All Other Turrets = 30.
Missile Magazine Requirements: Standard HE: Volume 0.1, Weight 0.05, Price
20,000; Nuclear: 0.1, 0.07, 150,000; Antimatter: 0.1, 0.09, 200,000. Each
weapon in a turret holds one. 100-ton bays hold 100, 50-ton bays hold 50.
Additional magazines can be created.
Bridge Crew (Cb) = (T/C)/750 round up. T=Total Craft CP (Control Points;
CP=(Pr/100000)xTL; Pr=Price). C=Computer CP Multiple (see previously sent
table). Minimum bridge crew is 2. If Cb originally computed exceeds 10,
recompute as 10+(Cb/10) round up.
Engineering Crew (Ce) = ((P+L)/C)/400. <<Eh, it's easier just to scan the
page - see below - it's a bit dark in order to show the penciled errata>>
Note the bunks shown in the scan below. It also has Subordinate Craft stuff.
The whole volume/weight split is a good one, as is the way that everything
fits into Striker terms. It should be possible to expand HG (and through it,
Book 2) systems and designs with extra information like megawattage and
weight tonnage, since there seems to be a 1:1 correspondence with MT. It
might also be possible to come up with a way to break the lump displacement
and cost of HG/B2 bridges into MT controls, sensors, avionics, etc, but I'm
less certain of that.
Also below is an expanded Craft Codes listing.
The three paragraphs on drawing craft plans are quite familiar. 1.5 meters
per square, optimum space between decks of 3 meters. Assume only a portion
of stateroom/bunk/low berth, etc. space is used with the rest for common
areas. "A leeway of 10% to 20% should be allowed. If the final plan comes
within 20% of the craft's UCP volume, the plan is acceptable."
Starship Combat:
Twenty minutes per turn. 25,000 kilometers per square or hex. Range bands:
Visual = 1 square (< 50 km), Near = 2 squares (50-50,000 km), Far = 3-10
squares (50,000-500,000 km), Extreme = 11+ squares (>500,000 km). Combat is
just like person to person combat, interrupts and all.
The movement system has an unbelievably huge flaw. "A unit may change speed
each combat round by up to its maneuver drive value. Thus if a unit with a
maneuver drive-6 is moving at speed 10, the next time it takes a turn, it may
reduce its speed to as low as 4, or it may increase its speed to as high as
speed 16 or any value in between." So, Newtonian movement has been retained -
good. But in the previous paragraph: "The movement speed represents the
maximum number of squares the unit can move that turn; however, the unit may
move any number of squares less than the maximum, or it may even remain
stationary (25,000 km per square is a lot of space - in effect, the unit is
circling the square)." Aieee!! No, you can't do that! This is *not*
corrected in the errata.
As mentioned, damage is per HG.
I like the expanded Encounter stuff. The extra detail of the craft system is
nice, and should allow for a smooth transition from personal weapons to tanks
to starships. Oh, and since Striker doesn't have wet navy stuff, but MT
does, it should be possible to use it to expand Striker to cover ocean-going
ships. The ultra high-tech stuff is nice to know about I guess, but it won't
be showing up in BT (unless its for the Ancients or some such). There's no
better starship damage system, which is disappointing, and the movement
system is staggeringly broken.
------------------
Wendell (IMTU tc++ !tm !tn !t4 !tg ru+ ge+ 3i+ c+ jt- au ls+ he)
I've had a chance to read them somewhat and compare them to Classic Traveller. I grew up with CT, first playing it in high school in the very early 80's. By the end of high school, I and my fellow players had sort of drifted away from Traveller, so we scoffed at MT as an effort to get more money from players. Two of us stayed in touch with one another, and sort of stayed in touch with CT. He kept all his books, and though I sold mine in the late 80's, I've re-established my library with all the FFE reprints.
Upon recently reading the MT books, however, I've realized that we were mistaken. MT is a dedicated carrying-forward of CT, though not a perfect one. I've prepared summaries for my fellow CT friend, which I've emailed to him, and have taken the liberty of repeating below for the benefit of any CT players not familiar with MT (the scans mentioned are not included below). These are my personal opinions, so have a salt-shaker handy to take a grain from, and it didn't occur to me to share these until just now, so please forgive any errors or familiarities.
For what they might be worth:
----
Quick first impressions (at lunch at Pete's):
This looks like MechWarrior with the perfect binding, color cover, portrait
letter-size pages, and factions.
Keith's art is used extensively, but he isn't credited?!
A lot more detail!
The starship combat damage system is HG's. Errr...
Lots of sensor stuff. Lots and lots. Detailed lists of starship operations:
good! Fleet maps. Tables for planets' ground forces! Oh, yeah!
The first four books really are Traveller, just expanded! The rebellion
Sourcebook is the only background stuff that's different.
A more-detailed (but still not thorough) perusal tonight:
Players' Manual:
Hmm, task resolution is shown before character generation. Odd.
Social standing is used? The computer game has Charisma. This is good.
The PC types are the same as B2 and S4, with Law Enforcement added.
The survival roll rule has been reversed, with short term the norm and death
optional.
Looks like they've expanded and standardized skills. Good.
Ah, I'd wondered what happened to the detailed HG/Merc/etc. character
generation. It's "Advanced Character Generation."
Combat now uses Hits and Life Force. A 777 char = 3/5 (3 to knock
unconscious, 5 more to kill).
The interrupt business sounds cumbersome.
I don't like Danforth's art. The characters look unbelievable.
Vehicle damage charts: good.
Laser PISTOL?!
The art gets worse.
Lots of good combat detail. Throwing objects, jumping, etc.
Throwing POLEARMS?! Yeah, lemme toss my halberd down the hall! Err...
Referee's Manual:
A page of faction crests. Norris, Margaret, etc. Where's Steiner and Liao?
Wait, wrong game.
UWPs now keep track of Population Multiple (how many millions/billions,
etc.), Gas Giants, and Planetoid Belts. Good.
So *that's* where Heaven & Earth's dumb "Ay Bee See" naming system came
from! Bleh.
The Extended System Generation looks a lot like Scouts.
Animals: like B3, but with weights. Good.
Improved encounters.
Lots of trading rules. Wonder how they compare with Merchant Prince's?
Craft design. 1 ton = 135 kiloliters. Good - it's 13.5 cubic meters on the
dot (though I'd have used that term rather than the silly "kiloliter"). This
looks like Striker and High Guard smooshed together - not a bad idea, and one
Striker hinted at.
Communicators, sensors, radar, ladar, jammers. That's the stuff!
What the heck is a disintegrator? They range from TL 17 to 21!
Jump projector? Jump damper? Tractors? All very high TL (20-21)
An entire page on the bridge! Sweet.
Heh, there's the old scout illo from JTAS 6!
Starship combat looks a lot like personal combat with its range bands,
interrupts, and tasks. Also High Guard-y.
Imperial Encyclopedia:
Hey, Keith finally gets a credit!
This is a whole lot like the Library Datas. It also is a lot like the online
version.
Ah, here's where all the equipment is. It's more modern (a TL 11 hand
computer that's the equal of a Model 1, for Cr1,000 weighing .5 kg).
Drugs are still here. Multiple types of vacc suits (looks like that JTAS
stuff).
Laser weapons (incl. pistols) still use a power pack. Good.
Ground cars have risen to Cr5,600. Inflation <g>.
Wow, cars, air/rafts, ship's boats, free traders, patrol cruisers, and
everything else share the same types of statistic listing.
Referee's Companion:
Large-scale combat looks like an expansion of Book 4's system.
In-system operations. Book 2 stuff with more detail. Good.
Heh, the re-defined TLs: 7=1970 as before, but then 8=1990, 9=2010, and
A=2100. This was obviously needed, but still seems too optimistic for 8 & 9
(unless early grav vehicles and orbital cities are only 8 years away...).
Nice articles on communications and research.
Large-scale campaign notes. Looks like some handy stuff.
Ah, a local map to detail each planetary map hex.... which can itself be
detailed, and so on. I knew I'd be doing this, but here's the standard
method to use.
The language section is nice. A proper guide to pronouncing Zhodani and
other languages.
Rebellion Sourcebook:
Jefferson Swycaffer shows up in the credits. Interesting...
Rebellion, blah, blah, blah, strategies, information - yeah, whatever. I
don't care about this.
Imperial Fleets - more like it. Still sketchy, but better than previous
info.
Armies of the Imperium. Good stuff (though a lot like JTAS stuff).
More rebellion stuff. Very MechWarrior (fine, but wrong universe).
Ahh, ship data and illos (fair quality). Vargr battle cruiser and heavy
cruiser. Imperial ships like S9's. Grav tanks (looking pretty BattleTechy).
Aslan cruiser and transport. Zho tank.
And we're done. I'd hoped for some more general info rather than all that
Rebellion fluff text, but the book's name was a good clue what to expect.
Conclusion:
Looking through these books just doesn't *feel* like it does with Traveller.
The text is too big. The columns are too wide. There's too much art. It
feels a *whole lot* like looking through BattleTech/MechWarrior books. CT
has a dry, almost detached feel. MT tries harder to draw you in and add
color and personality. I must admit that makes it better as an RPG, but if
I'd first encountered Traveller in this form it wouldn't have hooked me like
it did. Traveller was almost mysterious: those small, black books, filled
with nothing but text and tables - it made me want to know more. MT looks
like a circus poster.
Now, that's the stuff that doesn't really matter. What *does* matter is
the quality of the systems and data contained in MT. That'll take a lot
longer to evaluate.
Below are two of the more interesting pages from each book.
---
After a detailed going-over of the MT Players' Manual:
At the beginning is the statement: "Traveller is the name of the overall
game. MegaTraveller is the name of this rules set, and is used to
distinguish it from the 10 years of development and earlier editions that
preceded it." The rules then constantly refer to "In Traveller..." rather
than "In MegaTraveller..." I like that.
Task System:
Pretty similar to the Traveller one (roll X+, +X DM for Skill), but more
standardized. The rolls are limited to 3+, 7+, 11+, and 15+ making it less
flexible than the CT version. Once nice addition, though, is a system for
determining how long it takes (specify an interval = 1/10 the typical time
then roll 3d6, subtracting skill DM).
Character generation:
Traveller has long had an entry for Homeworld on the character sheet. Here,
a system is given for quickly generating one, and there are more restrictions
on what it must be like to join a given service (S4 and B5 have this, but B1
doesn't). Merchant and Other have been removed from the draft, replaced by
Flyer and Sailor from S4, which does make more sense.
The service procedure has some changes, too. You can't be Commissioned your
first term. There's a Special Duty roll each term, and if you make it you
get another skill roll. If any throw for commission, promotion, or special
duty is at least 4 more than needed, you get an extra skill roll. Scouts get
two skills per term (as in Traveller) but now so do Belters, Doctors,
Hunters, Rogues, and Scientists (since they also have no ranks/promotions
like scouts). There are a few more default skills (like Computer-0 and
Wheeled Vehicle/Grav Vehicle-0) but no longer does every character have level
0 with every gun - instead you choose one gun to have level 0 with.
So, lots of skills. But wait, there's a limit. You can't have more skills
or levels of skills than your Int+Edu (not counting level 0). This would
rarely be a problem in CT, but MT is pretty skill-happy. This rule first
shows up in Book 7: Merchant Prince from 1985 (but not the 1982 JTAS
Supplement 1 version). While I see its intent, I don't much care for it, and
plan to ignore it in BT since it didn't exist for the main part of CT. You
don't just plop a single-sentence rule in the penultimate Book that means "by
the way, all the previous characters over the past eight years across four
Books, three Supplements, a dozen Adventures, and two dozen Journals might
now be illegal" - no.
Aging is still there (with more detail on finding Anagathics), but now
there's also Disability. When you turn 66, have Str, Dex, or End permanently
reduced to 1, or the sum of all three is 10 or less, you may quit adventuring
and generate a new character.
Skills:
Encumberment has been expanded. Str x 5 can be carried for five minutes, Str
x 10 can be lifted (not carried) for one minute, and Str x 15 can be dragged
for 5 minutes. Endurance is used for fatigue: you start getting fatigued
after End hours, and lose one point for every two hours thereafter (if tasks
are done in that time). Hit 0 and you collapse into sleep. Regardless of
activity, the max is 3 x End at which point you collapse and must sleep.
That's only 21 hours for average Endurance, which seems low to me.
There are several new skills and cascades. Some that caught my eye are:
Artisan, Biology, Chemistry, Genetics, Intrusion, Linguistics, Neural
Weapons, Sensor Ops. Good to see lots of sciences. There's also lots of
cross-skill stuff (Navigation or Survey serves as Sensor Ops -1, etc.).
Learning new skills has been expanded. You now collect Adventure Tallies
(AT). Bletch, what a name. You get these ATs (each is for a specific skill,
they aren't interchangeable) for doing things you don't have the skill to do,
by observing another character doing it and trying yourself, through
trial-and-error. If you succeed, you get ad AT at the end of the adventure.
After collecting several, you can make a roll to see if you've learned level
1 (if you fail, you get level 0); this is also how you improve your skills.
This looks like a codification of the less-formal process used in CT, and is
*not* the catch-all XP bucket found in D&D. The standard Traveller formal
training system is also expanded.
Enhanced Character Generation:
I.e. Mercenary, High Guard, Scouts, and Merchant Prince (with tweaks,
naturally). There are now Brownie Points (bletch again for the name) which
you get for good things (graduation, special assignments, getting a medal,
etc.) and which can be used as + DMs at any time, even *after* the roll. I
see how this could be very handy. You can also apply a negative DM for
survival in exchange for a positive DM for decoration, or vice versa if
you're cautious. But, if you blow the decoration roll by 6 or more, you can
be court-martialed, possibly resulting in jail or in an escape from a death
sentence with a reward on your head!
MT Combat:
Combat rounds are six seconds, instead of 15. A 1.5m grid is used indoors; a
15m grid outdoors. Movement is one unit on one side, then one unit on the
other side; repeat. But, a non-moving unit can attempt to interrupt the
moving unit, once per attack or square of movement. The given example show
how messy this can be: PC Dur runs from cover to a doorway closer to the
NPCs. He moves one square. An NPC interrupts him to shoot while he's in the
open. But then, PC AyBee interrupts the NPC to lay down covering fire.
Since all combat is immediate, if AyBee incapacitates the NPC, he can't shoot
Dur, who can then continue to the second square, where all of this can happen
again. Yeah, I see what they're going for, but what a mess. In CT, 15
seconds seemed way too long until Snapshot fixed it. Here, though, every
six-second turn could take five minutes to resolve, with all the interrupting
that's possible.
Combat itself uses the task system, which I'm not really familiar with, so I
can't judge it. It does, however, have a readily understandable penetration
system like AHL's though (though expanded, of course). There are different
levels of damage inflicted depending on how penetrated the armor is: full
damage if penetration is twice armor, 1/2 damage if it's equal to armor, but
less than twice, and 1/10 damage if it doesn't penetrate and the character
has any unarmored areas. This is further modified by how well the firer
rolled: marginal success (exactly equal to the roll needed) multiples the
nominal damage by .5 and exceptional success can double, quadruple, or
octuple the damage if the roll is exceeded by 2+, 4+, or 6+. This may be all
too much, but it does appeal to the number-cruncher in me.
Damage is kinda weird. I mentioned in my previous post that damage points
are applied to the character's Hits value which is based on Life Force (sum
of Str, Dex, and End). So, a 777 has 3/5: 3 to go unconscious and 5 more to
be killed. After combat, this is translated into the familiar characteristic
reductions: "For each damage point received, roll 1D and apply the results as
damage to the character's Strength, Dexterity, or Endurance. Apply each roll
to one of the three characteristics. If the character was not dead, do not
allow all three characteristics to go to zero. If the character was not
unconscious, do not allow any characteristics to go to zero." It's not clear
*who* determines what characteristics are affected, but the healing rules
specify player's choice during recovery. I can kinda see that: the player
can choose what sort of therapy to undertake to regain Str, Dex, or End. We
kidded about players being able to say "um, OK, so that bullet hits me *here*
in this shoulder." In MT, it looks like not only can players do just that,
but they don't have to choose until after all the shooting is over! No, I
*don't* think so.
Special rules cover opening hatches, climbing ladders, etc. Opening or
closing sliding doors, hatches, or iris valves takes one full round (six
seconds). Climbing a ladder takes one round per meter (six seconds to climb
one meter?!). So, you spend one round climbing to where you can reach the
hatch. Then a round opening it. Then two more rounds climbing the remaining
2 meters to the next deck. 24 seconds total to climb a ladder with a hatch
at the top. In Snapshot it's 5 APs to climb, 5 to open the hatch = 10 APs
(about 10 seconds). In AHL it's one meter of ladder climbing per Action
Phase (3 seconds) and one phase to open a hatch, so it takes 12 seconds. I
guess everyone in MT is in mourning the Emperor's assassination, so they're
moving very slowly <g>.
Let's see, I skipped over MT's basic movement rules: 10 squares/round
walking, 20 running = 2.5 m/s walking, 5 m/s running. Snapshot: 1 square/AP
walking, 3 squares/2 APs running. Average 14 APs per 15 second turn = 1.4
m/s walking, 2.1 m/s running. AHL: 2 APs per square walking, 1 AP per square
"trotting." 30 APs per 15 second turn = 1.5 m/s walking, 3 m/s running. So,
horizontal MT movement is twice as fast, but vertical movement is twice as
slow. Hmm.
The rest of the special rules look like AHL or simplified Striker.
Then there's Psionics, which looks pretty similar.
So, there's some stuff to like, and some that's not so good. I suspect that
some of the improvements showed up in JTAS for CT before appearing here.
---
More on the Ref's Manual:
My Players' Manual is 3rd printing, so it has errata fixed (all three books
were flawed in 1st and 2nd printings). I have 1st printing Referee's Manual
and Imperial Encyclopedia, however, so they need numerous of errata fixes
(available online). I'm about halfway through fixing the RM.
Task System:
One interesting thing not found in the Players' Manual is the effect of Tech
Level on tasks. If a PC's homeworld is above or below the TL of the
equipment he's using, he suffers a proportional penalty. Makes sense.
Generating Star Systems and Worlds:
As mentioned, this is basically the system from Scouts.
Animals:
Very Book 3 with some new ones (Circling Flyers that attract Chasers;
one-gram Poisonous Pests). Plants can now be threats with Animated Vines,
Hallucinogenic Pollen, Tanglewood, and Wirebushes (sounds kinda "sci-fi").
Encounters:
The Patrol and Random Encounter tables are Book 3's (except the six blank
entries on Book 3's have been filled in with Media Crew, Students, Athletes,
Event: Witness Accident, Event: Trash Dump, Event: Local Shop). Patrons now
have a mission table for what they want like Transport Self, Pick Up Others,
Guard Place, Smuggling, Steal Vehicle, Harass Others, Perform Military
Action, Find Place, etc. Good stuff.
Interpersonal Tasks:
Two pages detailing conversation, negotiation, bribery, interrogation, and
impersonation. Traveller covers most of this, but not this systematically.
Trade and Commerce:
The basic tables for passengers and goods is straight out of Book 2. The
gods tables are different from Book 2's, with separate tables for each type
of world (Agricultural, Industrial, etc.). This is different from Book 7's
as well, which is much more generic. The price modifier tables are from Book
7, though.
Craft Design:
One system (heavily reminiscent of Striker) is used for everything: ground
cars, tanks, sea-going ships, aircraft, small craft, and starships. Units
are Displacement Ton (13.5 kiloliters), Megawatt, Kiloliter (cubic meter),
Metric Ton (for weight), and Credit/MegaCredit.
Things that stand out: a bay is "Very large weapon mount able to move to
point at the target. The most powerful type of moving weapon mount."
Missiles: nuclear, nonnuclear, and antimatter (very high TL). Tractors: very
high TL, large, focused artificial-grav attractors that restrict agility of
other craft. Disintegrators: disrupt the strong molecular attraction that
holds matter together, causing an object's molecules to fly apart (very high
TL). Jump Projectors: induce a jump field around the target, causing it to
misjump (very high TL). Jump Damper: inhibit a target's ability to enter
jumpspace (very high TL). Proton Screens: render antimatter missiles
ineffective (very high TL). White Globe Generator: projects a glowing white
barrier which absorbs all weapons fire; doesn't restrict the operating ship
from seeing out or firing (very high TL). Antimatter power plants are
available at TL 17+.
Three computers are carried by ships so there will be backups. No problem,
since each is roughly 1/10 the volume and 1/4 the price of HG's. While on
the topic of backups I was going to check the feasibility of a smaller
auxiliary bridge when I encounter something I've read about MT craft design:
its complexity and recursive nature. Until the ship is pretty much built
there's no way to know what the bridge requirements are.
Rates of Fire (each space combat turn is 20 minutes): Spinal Mount = 1,
Missile Bay = 2, All Other Bays = 20, Missile Turrets = 1, Sandcaster Turrets
= 6, All Other Turrets = 30.
Missile Magazine Requirements: Standard HE: Volume 0.1, Weight 0.05, Price
20,000; Nuclear: 0.1, 0.07, 150,000; Antimatter: 0.1, 0.09, 200,000. Each
weapon in a turret holds one. 100-ton bays hold 100, 50-ton bays hold 50.
Additional magazines can be created.
Bridge Crew (Cb) = (T/C)/750 round up. T=Total Craft CP (Control Points;
CP=(Pr/100000)xTL; Pr=Price). C=Computer CP Multiple (see previously sent
table). Minimum bridge crew is 2. If Cb originally computed exceeds 10,
recompute as 10+(Cb/10) round up.
Engineering Crew (Ce) = ((P+L)/C)/400. <<Eh, it's easier just to scan the
page - see below - it's a bit dark in order to show the penciled errata>>
Note the bunks shown in the scan below. It also has Subordinate Craft stuff.
The whole volume/weight split is a good one, as is the way that everything
fits into Striker terms. It should be possible to expand HG (and through it,
Book 2) systems and designs with extra information like megawattage and
weight tonnage, since there seems to be a 1:1 correspondence with MT. It
might also be possible to come up with a way to break the lump displacement
and cost of HG/B2 bridges into MT controls, sensors, avionics, etc, but I'm
less certain of that.
Also below is an expanded Craft Codes listing.
The three paragraphs on drawing craft plans are quite familiar. 1.5 meters
per square, optimum space between decks of 3 meters. Assume only a portion
of stateroom/bunk/low berth, etc. space is used with the rest for common
areas. "A leeway of 10% to 20% should be allowed. If the final plan comes
within 20% of the craft's UCP volume, the plan is acceptable."
Starship Combat:
Twenty minutes per turn. 25,000 kilometers per square or hex. Range bands:
Visual = 1 square (< 50 km), Near = 2 squares (50-50,000 km), Far = 3-10
squares (50,000-500,000 km), Extreme = 11+ squares (>500,000 km). Combat is
just like person to person combat, interrupts and all.
The movement system has an unbelievably huge flaw. "A unit may change speed
each combat round by up to its maneuver drive value. Thus if a unit with a
maneuver drive-6 is moving at speed 10, the next time it takes a turn, it may
reduce its speed to as low as 4, or it may increase its speed to as high as
speed 16 or any value in between." So, Newtonian movement has been retained -
good. But in the previous paragraph: "The movement speed represents the
maximum number of squares the unit can move that turn; however, the unit may
move any number of squares less than the maximum, or it may even remain
stationary (25,000 km per square is a lot of space - in effect, the unit is
circling the square)." Aieee!! No, you can't do that! This is *not*
corrected in the errata.
As mentioned, damage is per HG.
I like the expanded Encounter stuff. The extra detail of the craft system is
nice, and should allow for a smooth transition from personal weapons to tanks
to starships. Oh, and since Striker doesn't have wet navy stuff, but MT
does, it should be possible to use it to expand Striker to cover ocean-going
ships. The ultra high-tech stuff is nice to know about I guess, but it won't
be showing up in BT (unless its for the Ancients or some such). There's no
better starship damage system, which is disappointing, and the movement
system is staggeringly broken.
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Wendell (IMTU tc++ !tm !tn !t4 !tg ru+ ge+ 3i+ c+ jt- au ls+ he)
