Hi guys,
Trav III
I have NO idea how Twilight2 works.
>From what I hear, a person with no expertiese has zero
chance of success at anything. Doesn't sound good to me.
On the positive side, somebody thinks Twilight2 works. After all,
it is being bought. How does this help us? Well, maybe some of the
Twilight, DC, C&D game crowd will learn to play Trav if it is compatible
with the above. If Trav's audience increases, maybe they will start
making more Trav stuff. I can see the benefits of having a common system.
But on the other hand, I don't like having to subsitute a system in that
is known to have problems where previously those did not exist. Still,
I can live with it. (I can always come up with my own rules on how to
perform tasks)
Character generation.
On the experience stuff. It sounds like a character is going to have
to have a high level of skill in order to perform well. Can anybody tell
me how long it takes (in character generation years) for a character to
learn how to get that level of skill?
I think we need to compare skill level and performance against how long
it takes to learn that skill.
How long would a twilight character have to spend in medical school to
become a doctor? An average person takes a few years (after college)
in trav (assuming 1 level per year increase) that's 3 years.
An average person can get a private pilot's license in 6 months of hard
work. How long before a twilight character can take off, communicate,
navigate, land? (in traveller I assume that a pilot-1 can do all these
things)
Now about combat. I don't know about you, but I would guess that it
takes a lot less time to learn a skill like rifle-3, than it takes to
learn a skill like medic-3. (physics-3?!) I have only fired a fire
arm ONCE. (can you say zero level?) The one occasion I did, it was
pretty dark, but I managed to hit the target with the one round from
a 22 target pistol. (This to my mind does not indicate a 0% chance of
success for 0 level) (BTW, my dex is in the range of 2!)
Ship Design:
I agree with the people who are saying that there should be a basic set
that anyone can take and run with. Buy one box which contains sufficient
stuff to play. Maybe include an intro adventure? Somthing like the old
Deluxe Traveller set or the Traveller Book.
Ok, In the basic set I think there should be some ship design stuff.
A simplified system that can produce simple ships. This system doesn't
have to be able to produce battleships, cruisers etc. just normal
ships that players are more likely to deal with. The basic set doesn't
require spinal mounts, screens, armor...
There are lots of ways that ship design can be simplified for ships
like these. You can eliminate rules dealing with armor, spinal mounts
screens, globes, TL-17+ systems and TL-8 and below. Just concentrate on
the ships the players are likely to meet up with. The rest can be delt
with in a more advanced suppliment.
The Suppliment can then deal with all those things left out of the basic
set. It could potentially more detailed than the current MegaTrav
system which tries to balance simplicity with completeness. If 2 systems
existed, one could get down to designing REAL systems. I envision the
advanced suppliment dealing with being able to design its own weapons,
and computer systems as I mentioned before.
(I hope, I hope, I hope, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, hint, hint, plead,
beg, cagole!)
Part of the difficulty people have with MegaTrav is the number of choices
being put in front of them. The basic system could make use of standard
units. A 'unit' of sensors/commo/avionics (add up the
weight/volume/cost/power of active & passive EMS add in the radios, etc.)
Since military and civilian ships may have different requirements for
sensors and environments, you could have a Mil-grade sensor/commo/avionics
suite, and a civilian-grade sensor/commo/avionics suite.
A percentage of the hull could be set up for environment systems. (add up
the Basic Env/Basic LS/Extended LS/Grav Plates/Inertial Compensators)
I also am hoping that someone will give some thought as to the fuel
consumption of fusion reactors. The Fission power plant is totally
unrealistic. I strongly suggest that GDW look at some real nuclear
powered vessels. For instance the USS Nautilus had a reactor that
had to be refueled every 2 YEARS. If you use the MegaTrav fuel
consumption it would have burned up 90% of the mass of the ship in
that time. The N.S. Savannah (world's first nuclear powered merchant ship)
had enough fuel to sail for 2 YEARS on 110 POUNDS of fuel. (If any
one from GDW via GEnie is interested in this I will look up the exact
figures, but the article was something like 3 days sailing on a teaspoon of
fuel!)
Rob Dean and I chose to use the listed consumption of a nuclear reactor
as the fuel requirement per Year as opposed to per Hour. If you compare
with the Savannah, that works out pretty close. But if that is true,
then Fusion plants consume MUCH more fuel than they have any right to.
(Hint: Fusion is supposed to be more effiecient than Fission!) And
even when the Anti-matter pods come in at TL-17, Fission is Still more
fuel efficient with the modification.
But I have pointed this out in previous TML messages.
On Star Viking
The Imperium ALREADY has a long night on the history books. Why do we
need another? Couldn't Star Viking be set back in the original Long
Night? If it is set in stone, I strongly suggest you consider the idea
of leaving the Domain as the shining hope of the Imperium. (applause
to the person who came up with this idea originally!)
Adventures
I can't emphisize this enough. You can do what ever you want with the
rules. I can live with just about any garbage set of rules. But it
won't work unless you have some adventures to go with them! You can
come up with a truely easy and realistic game system and still it won't
work unless you give the refs something to DO with it!
If the rules are set to make the Ref's job easy, the biggest thing that
makes his job easy is an adventure to run! Managing rules is easy! The
hard part is finding something to do with them!
Scott S. Kellogg