Re: Mongoose Traveller or Cepheus Engine

On 6/21/2024 4:23 PM, lkh wrote:

Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/20/2024 10:07 PM, Alex Schroeder wrote:

People click on generators until they get a character they like, I fear.

 Which seems o.k. if you'd need a quick replacement character, I guess.
But your also missing an interesting part of the game. The betting
game, trying to advance your character as much as possible, or
as much as you like, before the game starts.
 

I started thinking about a short Traveller replacement based on
conversations with Frotz. I never had any concrete plans and so it never
went anywhere.
>
https://alexschroeder.ch/pdfs/Halbardier.pdf

 There's one thing about Traveller: it's a complete game. Much more so
than OD&D. For me there seems hardly any need to fiddle around, find
my preferred initiative rule or whatever. You can just take the little
three booklets and confidently start playing. It'll work without
any house rules needed.
 

Yeah, I have to say the character generation system really is one of the
best parts of Mongoose Traveller, as it gives you a fully-fledged
backstory. It's not quite OSR though, as it involves too much investment
into the character at the beginning.

 So since I've run MgT1, CT and T5, and played CT, I think MgT and T5
*seem* to offer more options and interesting life path events. But
don't they actually give you more limitations? Which no doubt help
in making up our minds? CT hardly gives you any rails to orient
yourself. To my mind, that's a feature. Especially the "Others"
carrer leaves wide room for interpretation.

I think the main thing I like about MgT was that you could create a character and decide what you wanted to do, but it seemed like everything you could decide to do was somehow able to be put in. It felt like this was a complete world simulator in a box, and you could add to it but you didn't need to detract from it.

 That's a general thing about rpg rules I feel: The more advanced an
an edition is (by name, by number and year of publishing) the more
specific it gets. Specificity may well feel like "more options",
because they're all spelled out. But the old and lean rules sets
never prevented you from adding as many unnamed options to your game
as you want.
 

I was recently thinking about maybe playing Traveller Adventure 4:
Leviathan in MgT, as that is a very nice sandbox adventure (with a
moving base).

 A great idea, I was thinking about that one too, on and off. It might
well be a master class in domain style gaming. Since at the primary
player level PCs would be among the highest ranking officers on the
ship. While of course they could go on many adventures themselves,
it would be highly realistic if they'd send regular crew members
on individual missions planet side: an open table of
red shirts ;)
 I also like that at the officer level there are many tactical issues
to debate, and star ship encounters might lead to some good old
tabletop space fighting.
 I'd be in! :D

I afterwards realized there was a 2nd ed. reboot scenario of Leviathan called The Last Flight of the Amuar, which actually is based on one small tidbit in Leviathan that claims the Amuar was a Leviathan-class ship that was lost in the Trojan Reaches.
The adventure is basically meant as an update to Leviathan, as Leviathan seems to imply that nobody knows what is going on in the Outrim Void despite it being right next to an area that has been settled and explored for centuries.
Although I think this is nicely explained in Leviathan itself: the Imperium has information about the area under wraps, and it's just the patrons of the PCs that don't have the info available. ALthough I guess that made more sense when the Information Superhighway wasn't a thing.
By the way I realized Albie Fiore seems to have been the driving force behind Leviathan. The same Albie Fiore who wrote The Lichway and The Halls of Tizun Thane for White Dwarf.
I find it rather sad that afterwards he decided to put his talents elsewhere, as those three scenarios all are great works, and I wish we'd have more stuff from him. He seems to have focused on boardgames for a while (he cowrote Talisman) and then went into crossword design for the Guardian and the Financial Times. But I wish he'd been more prolific creating DnD and Traveller stuff.

Also, CT would be my preferred rules choice, but I guess you knew
that already.

MgT 1st is mine, so there's that.

 Cheers,
 lkh
 

--
kyonshi - @kyonshi@dice.camp - gmkeros.wordpress.com - @kyonshi@pixelfed.de