The following rules are my House modifications to the Traveller
System. For the most part I play Traveller one on one (i.e. no parties)
throught he mail. In these situations having a PC that can fend for
himself is critical. The number of characters I run depends on my
free time. Also since it is one on one it becomes important that
the characters are interesting to me i.e. you almost want an interactive
fiction atmosphere. Running one to one via mail has the advantage of
allowing both the player and ref to run at their own pace a turn can
last a year or a minute depending on the situation. Little or no attempt
is made to keep players on the same time line. If two characters
are in the same place during play and it is their first meeting
they can meet if they wish and no temporal problems would occur (i.e.
characters 1 and 2 meet at time x, charaters 1 does x+6mo. and
meets charater 3, charcter 3 moves to planet y, character 2 is on
planet y but has only done 2 mo since meeting character 1, therefore
character 2 and 3 can't meet until 2 has done 4 more months).
The following are food for thought only as at the present time
I don't have free time to run any new characters. Much of what is
stated here was stolen directly from Don Rapp's Paranoia game
which puts anything I've ever done in Traveller to shame.
1. Character Generation: First and foremost, I want to say that I
encourage different characters. If you want to play a different
species let me know. (Within reason (i.e. I expect some balance) you
may change the way your character is rolled up {number of dice, or
plus and minus on the normal two dice} I do of course reserve the
right to approval). Other human cultures are not discouraged
either. I will generally give a skill bonuses, as a reward, to
characters who are trying to make things more interesting to me
(feel free to suggest skills you think the character should get).
Character Generation other than as stated above is more or less
done normally (except that character survival is ipso facto and
characters will not feel the effects of age (more later)). You
should use Mercenary, High Guard, Scouts and Assassins (PP), Merchants
and Merchandise (PP), or a similar book to roll up a character (if you
lack the desired one of the above, I will roll you up a character
using one. Be sure and tell me any ideas you have for the character
(you will also be able to reject the character if you don't like
it and I'll roll one up till we get one you like)). If you have
the book feel free to roll up several characters and choose the
best one (the object of the game is to enjoy it and I find it is
easier to enjoy when you start off right). Your first submission
to me should be a character (send what the character did each year
too as it gives me some background to work with) (or a description
of the kind of character you want), preferred place of mustering
out (any base).
a. As I said before I feel that characters should always
survive the rolling up process and that medical science will
progress enough that characters will not age within the terms of
the game (i.e. lifespan of several hundred years). However
severe damage as per wounds will simulate the effects of
aging i.e. the body will begin to lose its ability to
recover if enough serious damage is inflicted on it, the
aging table will now be the effects of multiple wounds table.
The label Terms of Service should be replaced with one called
Wounds Received. When rolling up a character if that character
should fail a survival roll that character is considered to have
taken a serious wound instead (don't roll for promotion or
skills, but do roll for decorations with a +2 modifier (note that
the Purple Heart is automatic)(in cases where no decoration is
normally available a roll of 12 naturally will get the player
character the highest honor the service can award i.e. it means
you got yourself nearly killed doing something incredibly brave
and stupid)(rolling exactly the number needed to survive
is treated as usual). His next year will be considered as
in the hospital and will be rolled as a year of training
(skills must be rolled on the hospital life table, failure
to survive a year in hospital means another year in hospital
and add two more to the number of wounds received (a third
year would add four wounds for a total of seven wounds, etc)).
Hospital Life Table
1 Gambling
2 Bribery
3 Admin
4 -1 strength
5 -1 endurance
6 +1 education
b. (Modifications to Paranoia Press' Scouts and Assasins book):
There is a third branch to the scout service called the
Systems Branch. The Systems Branch (also called the Space Patrol)
has the dubious honor of patrolling (in a civil sense, not a
military sense) explored space. They are the people who man the
majority of the Scout bases encountered by players. When heavy
guns and a show of force are necessary the Navy does the job, but
the day to day patroling and policing of a subsector is done by
the scouts. Retired Scouts with ships are automatically at the
call of the System Service. The following tables apply:
Scout Occupational Specialty Table General Assignment
Die Systems 1 Stand-By
Roll Section 2 Active
1 Blade Combat 3 Active
2 Gun Combat 4 Active
3 Gunnery 5 Active
4 Admin 6 Special
5 Recon
6 Pilot
7 Computer
Active Duty Assignment Skill Table
2 Recon Mission Systems
3 Raid 1 Gunnery
4 Patrol 2 Zero-G Cmbt
5 Patrol 3 Leadership
6 Patrol 4 Admin
7 Ship Maintenance 5 Survival
8 Training 6 Small Ship Tactics
9 Training 7 Investigation
10 Patrol 8 Choice
11 Patrol +1 for Recon Mission Assignment
12 Raid +1 for fourth term scouts
+2 for fifth up term scouts
Assignment Resolution
Raid Recon Patrol Ship Train Stand-By
Mission Maint
Systems
Survive 7+ 8+ 5+ Auto 4+ 4+
Decoration 6+ 5+ 9+ none none none
Skill 6+ 6+ 6+ 8+ 5+ 4+
New Skill: Investigation: Expertise in finding whether or not
several events are related.
2. Planets: For the most part planets are defined the same way as
in the original book. The main exception is that I have
changed the meaning of the starport codes, changed the
meaning of the population table and rewritten the rules
for planet generation. Since the changes in planet generation do
not affect players directly except in the two cases shown(i.e. the
generated planets are identical from the player's point of view)
they are not explained here (I will be glad to tell interested
parties all!).
a. The new starports chart (from page 5 book 3) is:
STARPORTS
A Imperial Starport. Starport built by the Imperial
Government to support both a scout base and a
navy base. Fuel and Shipyard available.
Free fuel for scouts.
B Subsector Starport. Starport built by the Imperial
Government to support a scout base. Fuel and
Shipyard available. Free fuel for scouts.
C Commercial Starport. Starport built by a planetary
government or a commercial concern. Refined fuel and
Shipyard available.
D Private Starport. Starport built by a government or a
commercial concern, but intended for private use.
You can land there, but chances are no services will
be available to you without prior arrangement (or
invitation). Note that there may not be a shipyard
here at all, however at the minimum their license requires
them to provide unrefined fuel. You will be
allowed to trade.
F Fueling Station. A Private Starport (generally on a
low tech/pop world which wants to encourage trade) where
refined fuel is available (but there are few or no
repair facilities).
S Scout Base. Shipyard and free fuel available to scout
ships. Unrefined fuel (at the minimum) for others.
N Navy Base and scout base. Shipyard and free fuel
available to scout ships. Unrefined fuel (at the
minimum) available to nonscouts.
E Primitive Installation. There are suitable areas
prepared or available for landing starships, but due
to the low tech level or frontier nature of the
planet no services for starship fueling, or repair
are available. You can trade.
X No facility. The planet has no provisions for landing
starships. Trading may be iffy.
R Special Installation. May be travel restrictions to
and from this installation. Requires explanation on
subsector map. Example: a prison planet.
My resons for the new starport chart are based on how I
see subsectors come into being. A subsector was originally
explored by the Scout Service and consisted of mainly X and
E planets (unless there was a space going race native to the
subsector (D starports and rarely C starports)). As the
subsector starts to open up the SS builds a series of Scout
Bases (S), some of which are also used by the navy (N). As
Imperial Worlds begin to develop around these bases they start
to become commercial starports as well (A starports or B
starports). As worlds on which bases aren't built become Imperial
Worlds they build their own commercial facilities (C public and D
private). Some worlds may become owned by large industrial
facilities who will build a starport to carry away cargoes
(D starports and E starports depending on their needs). Some
of the original base worlds never develop into Imperial Worlds
and remain as their original base (S or N). A planet may be
chosen as special world (R) and travel to and from it may be
restricted. Some worlds don't have the technology/population
to support a full starport, but wish to encourage travel and
trade (for tourism etc.) and build fueling stops (F).
b. New Population Table (numbers give are maximums).
0 0 - 100 Marginal planet or station of some kind.
1 5,000 Generally some kind of industrial/mining planet.
2 10,000 New colony. Minimum for Military Base.
3 100,000
4 250,000 Minimum for B starport.
5 500,000 Minimum for an A starport.
6 1,000,000 Minimum for a C starport.
7 10,000,000 TL 0-8 sentient lower/TL 0 upper pop limit.
8 25,000,000
9 50,000,000
A 100,000,000 TL 1 upper population limit.
B 500,000,000 TL 2 upper population limit.
C 1,000,000,000 TL 3-4 upper population limit.
D 5,000,000,000 TL 5-6 upper population limit.
E 10,000,000,000 TL 7-8 upper population limit.
F 10,000,000,000+ Probably several planets.
c. Misc: Gas Giants are present in a system on 5+.
Indigenous Populations are 1D6 for a one on
planets where the Atmosphere, Water and Air are
between 5 and 9.
3. Computers.
The current computers in traveller are rather over sized for what
they can do i.e. a computer today that can run only two programs
every ten minutes and can only store 4 more would, comfortably
fit inside a telephone, yet it takes one ton of space to do this
in Traveller. With just the currently projected advances in
technology you will be able to compact computers even more. (Also
Traveller computers obviously have no concept of virtual storage,
concurrency, multiprogramming, or multiprocessing all of which add
up to allowing literally scores of programs to run at the same
time. With these each program only needs a small portion of itself in
memory at any one time. The number of programs running being
limited by the speed of switching programs, rate new pages are
needed, and secondary storage more than CPU memory size.)
Since the Traveller tech chart shows the level 1 computer as a
Tech Level 5 entity, we are going to assume that the chart on page
13, book two is the TL5 chart. Because I find the CPU/storage
columns to be nonsense they will be combined into one column
(note that this eliminates the need to have bis models). For each
odd TL above five the program capacity of the chart will be shift
down one rows i.e. model 2 program capacity will become model one
program capacity, cost and space will be read as normal.
On even TLs the cost can be cut by one third or the mass can be
halved. Therefore the chart for TL11-12 is:
model price mass prog cap
1 2 1 14
2 9 2 27
3 18 3 50
4 30 4 70
5 45 5 90
6 55 5 110
7 60 5 130
Note that I decided to project the top of the chart at a constant
20 programs. I think for the time being we'll leave software as
it is. (I will accept comments and suggestions there though).
Any computer with a program capacity of 150 or greater can be
considered an artificial intelligence (AI cost is x3). These
computers may replace their prog cap with skills at a ration of 1
skill for 15 programs (one skill must be the skill AI which
equates to a personality)(plus they will automatically have 1 skill at
ship maintenance and be able to function as a library). AIs are
required to have a robot at their disposal and are considered to
have heat and vacuum sensors through out the ship (visual, hearing
and voice would be limited except by the presence of the robot,
maintenance senors would be placed where needed). Ship specific
skills would be: Predict, Gunnery (assumed equal to Gunner
Interact, Target, Launch, return fire, anti missile programs and a
Gunnery skill of 1), Select, Multi-Target, Maneuver/Evade, Jump
(includes Generate and Navigation programs), and Anti-Hijack. All
these skills can be assumed to have the same effect as the best
equivalent book 2 page 12 software and may be chosen freely by
the player. AI computers can also have any other skill (granted
many of them would be useless to the computer) available and can
be used to teach. AI computers can not change skills once they
are chosen. An AI computer (that is to say the ship) will not
necessarily do what it is ordered since it is a NPC (note ships are
considered to be phenomenally loyal to their owner (i.e. incapable
of treachery), but not without a sense of self preservation). We
will deal with the problems this will entail, in the area of title
transfer, when we come to it.
a. When starships are awarded to a player (when he musters
out) a die is rolled and the TL of the computer is as
follows 1 = TL9, 2,3,4 = TL11 5,6 = TL13. Note: that you
may buy a new higher TL computer to replace the one given.
4. Combat: For the most part the nature of combat will be free
form. This is to a large part due to the medium involved. I use
the following as guidelines:
Small Ship action: Mayday (enhanced with the original
rules for damage and programs). I also
have also developed some errata.
Large Ship action: High Guard version 2 (lots of free form, too).
Small ground action: Snapshot/Azanti High Lighting.
Large Ground action: Striker.
5. Players who earn the Starburst for Extreme Heroism (or its
equivalent) are automatically members of Traveller's (Scouts and
Merchant Captains have the option of not becoming members of
Traveller's and automatically getting a ship on their first die
roll (i.e. you do expend the roll). Note that only one membership
in Traveller's or one ship is ever granted, multiple SEHs get you
nothing except your governments gratitude (and any monetary subsidy
attached).
6. Psionics: I follow the Traveller rules for Psionics very
closely, except that I feel that the government actively screens
for Psionics (mainly because of their abilities to spy, etc.).
The Psionic screening is done at time of induction and to the
inductee it is just another in a long series of tests. This is why
the government does not actively root out the Psionics Institute.
Popular sentiment (primarily due to the way Psionics tend to be
used) is heavily against Psionics (as per the books) and open use
of Psionic ability is likely to end in death for the user (knife
in the back and whatnot). Player characters have their Psionic
abilities rolled by the referee and if their rating is high enough
they may be asked if they want to be trained (note that this would
happen before they served their first term). All NPCs have a second
characteristic, Psionic reaction, (rolled by me as well) for use
in determining their reaction to Psionics. Players should
remember that any other individual that they encounter may indeed
be Psionic and living/working under an assumed identity (retired
(do spys ever really retire?) Psionics are generally permitted to
take their assumed identities with them). Psionic ability in
untrained individuals may be used by me (where appropriate) as an
intuitive factor to help players (or others).