T20 Rules, The New Era setting

[Werner]

Have you ever considered using T20 rules for playing in the New Era setting. I have always been curious as to why each Traveller setting had its own separate set of rules you needed to learn to play in that setting.
T20 has character classes, levels, and increasing Stamina Dice with those levels, it is compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, and it seems that the most common character type in The New Era, since the collapse of the Third Imperium, should be the barbarian. Now it seems to me that the T20 Barbarian class is a bit broader than the D&D Barbarian class. T20 Barbarians, don't get the rage ability that D&D barbarians get. Also T20 barbarians get a wider selection of armors, for instance a T20 barbarian can use all archaic armors and weapons, like a D&D Fighter can use. A medieval knight in full plate armor is still a barbarian by Traveller standards.

The New Era has lots of barbarous planets that have lost their technology, and just like in a D&D campaign, you can start out an adventure in a tavern. Designing a New Era adventure takes a bit of finesse, the idea is as one gains experience, and levels, one also gains technology and skills, one can then multiclass into some other character class. Have anyone ever tried this? Recovering lost stamina points and lifeblood is slower than in D&D. Combat encounters need to be less frequent, or player character parties need to be larger so injured party members can be rotated out.

Any suggestions for running this type of campaign?

 

[aramis]

1248 is the official adaptation of T20 to the New Era.

 

[GypsyComet]

I have always been curious as to why each Traveller setting had its own separate set of rules you needed to learn to play in that setting.

Game design theory and practice is always changing. Some new ideas may be attractive enough to influence a new edition.
In T20's case, the edition was written to draw the boom of D20 players toward Traveller.

T20 has character classes, levels, and increasing Stamina Dice with those levels, it is compatible with Dungeons & Dragons

At a very broad level, yes. T20 pointedly adapts D20, sometimes radically, to the needs of Traveller. The feats list is shorter for good reason: Even adapted, T20 isn't Heroic Fantasy.

it seems that the most common character type in The New Era, since the collapse of the Third Imperium, should be the barbarian. Now it seems to me that the T20 Barbarian class is a bit broader than the D&D Barbarian class. T20 Barbarians, don't get the rage ability that D&D barbarians get. Also T20 barbarians get a wider selection of armors, for instance a T20 barbarian can use all archaic armors and weapons, like a D&D Fighter can use. A medieval knight in full plate armor is still a barbarian by Traveller standards.

True, which is why the class features of the D&D Barbarian, modeled loosely after Conan, Kull, Fafhrd, and the Nordic bersark, are not present. Classic Traveller defined Barbarian as pre-TL5, which covers a lot of ground even in real life.

The New Era has lots of barbarous planets that have lost their technology, and just like in a D&D campaign, you can start out an adventure in a tavern. Designing a New Era adventure takes a bit of finesse, the idea is as one gains experience, and levels, one also gains technology and skills, one can then multiclass into some other character class. Have anyone ever tried this? Recovering lost stamina points and lifeblood is slower than in D&D. Combat encounters need to be less frequent, or player character parties need to be larger so injured party members can be rotated out.

Any suggestions for running this type of campaign?

Even with the rigorous tactical engine of D20, there is no need to revert Traveller to a high combat mode like D&D. As you've noted, no healing magic is present.

The environment of the New Era is also probably too young and too short to spawn a really deep Dark Age. This is not Howard's "thousand years after Atlantis fell", but instead two generations, maybe three, after the machines tried to kill us all. Technology and some knowledge of it is going to survive, and only the items of technology that can be suborned by Virus are going to be automatically hostile.

Gamma World with the gonzo turned waaay down; Star Man's Son; Saint Leibowitz; Pern; Pelbar; maybe a hint of Per Heiro Desteen or Horseclans, or Gramarye.

Also unlike D&D, most of the "monsters" will be people unless you pick a world with a diverse and aggressive native biosphere. Much like default Traveller, the New Era "fantasy" will still be a social game unless you go to great lengths to alter it. That can certainly be done, though.

 

[Werner]

Technology also has a short shelf life, in order for items to function, such as a laser rifle for instance, it can't be too old, otherwise it will just be junk. That said, I think the 4th Imperium put itself together too quickly. The Roman Empire and the Dark Ages weren't followed by a second Roman Empire, though a lot of people tried to make such a thing. A more realistic alternative would be a bunch of successor states, such as France, Spain, England, The Holy Roman Empire, and maybe Charted Space should have been filled with analogs of those, each one trying to fulfill their idea of what the 4th Imperium should be with them trying to conquer their neighbors and build that Imperium with them in charge.

 

[mike wightman]

T20 predated d20Modern/Future, which to my mind was a shame because I found. d20Modern/Future to be the best version of the 3.5 rules corpus, with d20 CoC a close second.

Converting T20 to d20 Modern/Future is doable, but then so is a direct conversion from CT or a later Traveller rules version.

I have hacked a version of d20 M/F that is based on the 5e rules and if I were to go back to using D&D based rules for a Traveller derived setting I would use it.

An up to date version of T20 would likely include lessons learned from d20M/F and 5e.

 

[Werner]

T20 predated d20Modern/Future, which to my mind was a shame because I found. d20Modern/Future to be the best version of the 3.5 rules corpus, with d20 CoC a close second.

Converting T20 to d20 Modern/Future is doable, but then so is a direct conversion from CT or a later Traveller rules version.

I have hacked a version of d20 M/F that is based on the 5e rules and if I were to go back to using D&D based rules for a Traveller derived setting I would use it.

An up to date version of T20 would likely include lessons learned from d20M/F and 5e.

D20 has the six standard ability scores: Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Cha. D&D has a social class, but it is not represented as an ability score so there is no Social Standing. One's education is not an ability score either, so we just have technical, and knowledge skills that use intelligence. The core classes are the Strong Hero, the Fast Hero, the Tough Hero, the Smart Hero, the Dedicated Hero, and the Charismatic Hero. There are advanced classes that characters must meet certain requirements to multi class into, for instance there is Soldier, which would be Army, Field Scientist would be Academic, a Techie would be an engineer.

I like the T20 spaceships better than the D20 Future spaceships. D20 Future is more handwavy about space combat, particularly the abstract it too much, and dog fights are not a thing in Traveller space combat. D20 Future is more comparable with Star Wars in its space combat, D20 Future starships have movement rates, not accelerations, and I know how to add vectors.

 

[Werner]

Game design theory and practice is always changing. Some new ideas may be attractive enough to influence a new edition.
In T20's case, the edition was written to draw the boom of D20 players toward Traveller.


At a very broad level, yes. T20 pointedly adapts D20, sometimes radically, to the needs of Traveller. The feats list is shorter for good reason: Even adapted, T20 isn't Heroic Fantasy.


True, which is why the class features of the D&D Barbarian, modeled loosely after Conan, Kull, Fafhrd, and the Nordic bersark, are not present. Classic Traveller defined Barbarian as pre-TL5, which covers a lot of ground even in real life.


Even with the rigorous tactical engine of D20, there is no need to revert Traveller to a high combat mode like D&D. As you've noted, no healing magic is present.

...

Also unlike D&D, most of the "monsters" will be people unless you pick a world with a diverse and aggressive native biosphere. Much like default Traveller, the New Era "fantasy" will still be a social game unless you go to great lengths to alter it. That can certainly be done, though.

A wilderness adventure will have less frequent encounters than a dungeon crawl, magical healing might not be needed, and the frequency of encounters might be enough for players at the table, if you have the adventure go day by day, and some days you have combat and other days you don't. If you have four players with each controling 5 characters in a party of 20, and have advanced medicine to heal characters as quickly as the Traveller rules will allow. Have groups of characters go out on patrol, and when they have a combat encounter, play it out, injured characters go into the sick tent to regain lost stamina while uninjured characters take their place. Characters that are neither injured or out on patrol are tied down performing various mundane tasks. Since this is the New Era, instant radio communication is not necessarily a given.

I like the idea of credits minted as precious metal coins where 1 copper piece equal 1 credit, 1 silver piece equals 10 credits, 1 gold piece equals 100 credits, and 1 platinum piece equals 1000 credits, these coins being of different sizes and weights to make this work, for instance, the copper pieces will be large and heavy, while the gold and platinum pieces will be very tiny and small to hold these value. It's possible for the gold coins to be gold plated rather than being solid gold, a gold plated silver coin could be worth 10 times as much as just a silver coin.

The GM might want to alter the treasure tables in the DMG, and find some substitutions for the magic items that would normally be rolled up and substitute technological items in their place.

 

[GypsyComet]

T20 predated d20Modern/Future, which to my mind was a shame because I found. d20Modern/Future to be the best version of the 3.5 rules corpus, with d20 CoC a close second.

Hunter was torn by the idea of doing it all over again when D20Modern came out just a few months after T20 did. He ran out of time and energy, sadly.

 

[Werner]

Hunter was torn by the idea of doing it all over again when D20Modern came out just a few months after T20 did. He ran out of time and energy, sadly.

Doesn't mean we couldn't do a version of D20 Future, the only thing is I don't like the D20 Future spaceship movement and combat rules, I would like to convert the T20 spaceship combat rules instead. Also what about the D20 rules on Psionics? Both D&D and Traveller have Psionics, should we make those rules compatible with D&D? I think D&D uses Wisdom instead of the Psionic Strength score, I also don't think we need the Education score, Intelligence works fine for D20, so I don't see why it wouldn't work for Traveller, and as far as I can tell, I don't know of any skills which use Social Standing modifiers. So instead of having a Social Standing ability score is, just have a box on the character sheep which indicate the character's noble title. In D&D you have Commoner, Aristocrat (knight, baron, count, duke, king, emperor)

 

[mike wightman]

For a 5e D&D/Traveller conversion I add Psi, Edu and Soc to the usual D&D characteristics.

 

[Werner]

For a 5e D&D/Traveller conversion I add Psi, Edu and Soc to the usual D&D characteristics.

Have you ever used Soc for anything? I looked at the list of T20 skills, and I couldn't find any that used a Soc modifier. Knowledge skills are education based rather than intelligence based as in D20. Dungeons & Dragons has social classes without having an ability score representing one's social class. It's hard to imagine someone having an Education of 18 and an Intelligence of 3 for instance, such a possibility can occur however if you are rolling dice for these scores. I believe D&D uses wisdom for psionic Abilities and it has a pool of psionic points to determine how many psionic abilities one can use before exhausting ones psionic points. D&D has many more psionic talents than Traveller has, some of them involve things like astroprojection, some psionic healing of other people might be possible. Some of these abilities are designed for a fantasy setting, so some discretion is advised.

 

[mike wightman]

If you have been to university you will have encountered a lot of people with a high Edu but low Int - many of them have high Soc too

As to the use of Soc - I use it all the time for resolving personal interactions, initial reaction of an NPC that sort of thing.

My personal favourite Psi rules are those found in T4, so I adapt those whenever possible.

 

[Werner]

If you have been to university you will have encountered a lot of people with a high Edu but low Int - many of them have high Soc too

As to the use of Soc - I use it all the time for resolving personal interactions, initial reaction of an NPC that sort of thing.

My personal favourite Psi rules are those found in T4, so I adapt those whenever possible.

A good university will not allow someone with a low intelligence to graduate, those that do just want your tuition money! Employers know which universities are the good ones and which universities will give degrees to people with low intelligence, and if you are smart it is not helpful to get a degree from a university which does not challenge your intellect. It would be more realistic not to allow one's education to exceed one's intelligence score. One can be smart but uneducated, but one's intelligence is what allows you to get educated.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I have always had a problem with SOC alone being the goto stat for personal interaction. Great in Traveller Imperials, not so much if you have Caste(Droyne) Charisma(Vargr) or Party(Solomani). But Charisma(D&D) alone should not be the sole determinant either.

d20 Modern had two attributes implying Social Standing, with connotations implying a type social heirarchy: Reputation and Wealth (d20 Modern p.38)
Reputation was a stat directly used to modify opinion in social interactions.

Wealth implied economic power ranging from
0 Imoverished
1-4 Struggling
5-10 Middle Class
11-15 Affluent
16-20 Wealthy
21-30 Rich
31+ Very Rich
(and from Menace Manual)
40 FBI, FEMA
45 CIA
50 Department of Defense

 

[Werner]

I have always had a problem with SOC alone being the goto stat for personal interaction. Great in Traveller Imperials, not so much if you have Caste(Droyne) Charisma(Vargr) or Party(Solomani). But Charisma(D&D) alone should not be the sole determinant either.

d20 Modern had two attributes implying Social Standing, with connotations implying a type social heirarchy: Reputation and Wealth (d20 Modern p.38)
Reputation was a stat directly used to modify opinion in social interactions.

Wealth implied economic power ranging from
0 Imoverished
1-4 Struggling
5-10 Middle Class
11-15 Affluent
16-20 Wealthy
21-30 Rich
31+ Very Rich
(and from Menace Manual)
40 FBI, FEMA
45 CIA
50 Department of Defense

I'm not a fan of abstract wealth, I prefer characters keep track of their money, and for the items they buy to have prices, not purchase DCs. I don't want to make a wealth check everytime my character buys something, it is hard to make a budget when you run around with a credit card making purchases left and right until it gets declined. Also let's take two real life examples and try to assign Soc scores to them. Who has a higher Social Standing, Prince Charles of the House of Winsor, or Donald Trump?

 

[mike wightman]

A good university will not allow someone with a low intelligence to graduate, those that do just want your tuition money!

Sadly not true. I went to Manchester University, and had friends who attended Oxford and Cambridge. High Edu low Int people are easy to find...

 

[Werner]

Sadly not true. I went to Manchester University, and had friends who attended Oxford and Cambridge. High Edu low Int people are easy to find...

Which is why so many people with college degrees have trouble finding related work to their field of study and why college student debt is such a huge problem! If a person with low intelligence has the same college degree you have, you have to compete with that person when you interview for a job, employers who have hired dumb people before who have had that college degree will not be so impressed when you put it on your resume.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I'm not a fan of abstract wealth, I prefer characters keep track of their money, and for the items they buy to have prices, not purchase DCs. I don't want to make a wealth check everytime my character buys something, it is hard to make a budget when you run around with a credit card making purchases left and right until it gets declined. Also let's take two real life examples and try to assign Soc scores to them. Who has a higher Social Standing, Prince Charles of the House of Winsor, or Donald Trump?

Yea I'm not a big fan of Wealth stat either. My point though is solely in regard to its use as a sort of substitute or alternative to measure social standing.

With regards to the real life examples. In Traveller, clearly neither is in charge of a sector, subsector, a system or even a whole planet. Trump is the executive in charge of a country, Prince Charles is not (Elizabeth or PM Johnson are). As such, Trump, Elizabeth and/or Johnson are at best SOC A. Charles is SOC 9. Whenever Trump and Johnson leave office they will drop to 9 (or lower). If Charles lives long enough to be king, he will rise to A.

 

[Condottiere]

If your parents just funded a new wing at the university, you may well graduate summa cum laude, in addition to contributing a couple of million to the endowment fund to get entrance in the first place.

That has less to do with qualifications, and more as a requisite prestige ornament in the curia vitae.

Basically, buttressing ye Social Standing.

Curiously, in a British Broadcasting Corporation interview, one of this year's Advanced Level recipients observed that their graduate year will always have an asterisk, due to how their scores were calculated, and apparently inflated.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Which is why so many people with college degrees have trouble finding related work to their field of study and why college student debt is such a huge problem! If a person with low intelligence has the same college degree you have, you have to compete with that person when you interview for a job, employers who have hired dumb people before who have had that college degree will not be so impressed when you put it on your resume.

That's not the real issue (though it's significant). The issue is that elite universities are quite often are less about the credential than they are about networking and signalling opportunities.

In game terms, the degree itself sets EDU, but an elite university degree (Ivy League or Oxbridge, for example) also sets SOC to a very high minimum or raises it if you're starting from above that minimum.