John Driver asks:
> Going through some old traveller stuff I noticed mention of a
> d20 task resolution system that is designed as a replacement
> for the one currently used by Twilight:2000 2nd edition.
> I was wondering if anything had been published...
Yes. The D20 system is described in the Twilight: 2000/Merc: 2000
Ref's Screen, for $5.50.
The D20 task resolution system can be summed up as follows:
Skills (Fixed-Wing Pilot, Chemist, etc) are rated from 1-10.
Attributes (Strength, Agility, etc) are also rated 1-10. Each
skill has a Controlling Attribute that it is associated with.
Tasks have a level of difficulty assigned (Easy, Average,
Dfficult, Formidable, and Impossible). An Easy task is a
D20 roll vs 4 times (Skill plus controlling attribute),
Average = 2X, Difficult ^C= 1X, Formidable = 1/2, Impossible
= 1/4. A 1 is an auto sucess, a 20 is an auto failure.
If a character has no relevant skill, they can still try the
task, but at one (or more) difficulty levels higher, versus the
Controlling Attribute alone (doubles, halved, etc.). This makes
having any skill at all very useful (it helps you avoid the extra
level, and improves your target number).
That's it in a nutshell.
*************
Rob Dean (answering Scott Kellogg)
> [Scott} How many 120mm shells does it take to kill a Twilight
> 2000 character?
> [Rob] It depends on where it hits. Since a 120mm DS round
> (non-uranium) does 28 dice of damage, and an average character has
> 60 hit points in the chest area, 28*3.5=98 points of average damage.
> 98 points of damage to the chest would be a "serious" wound.
> (No s***!) This means that the average character would be
> seriously wounded by such a hit, and would only have (?!) a
> 10% chance of remaining conscious. The second hit would
> probably finish him ^Coff....if he's hit in the head, he's dead.
In any game I ran, I would excerise referee fiat, and declare that
any character hit by a 120mm round is dead, over & out. However,
since we are discussing "strictly by the book" refereeing (something
I've always disliked):
The example was a good summation of the mechanics, but slightly
unfair an _average_ character has only 30 damage points in the
chest, not 60. This average character would be critically
wounded by such a hit, and will go down like a stunned ox (if
you use average values for the die roll, you ought to use
average values for the hit capacity also).
Now we come to the part that has disturbed a few people. An NPC hit
in such a fashion is dead. A PC taking a critical hit in the
chest automatically loses consciousness, and (again, following
the letter of the rules) will die in 10 minutes unless he
receives medical attention. "What medical attention can cure a
120mm hole in the chest?", I hear people ask. Looking under
"Recovery" we see that stabilizing a critical character is a
task requiring Medical skill, and its level of difficulty
depends on what medical equipment is available. The character
dies if the task fails, or if the 10 minutes passes. (As I
said, I prefer referee common-sense in a case like this...less
die-rolling)
This is a rather extreme example...the mechanics of most games look
pretty silly at their extreme edges. This is the sort of thing that
Space Gamer used to fill their Murphy's Rules page with,
and they never lacked for subject matter...in anybody's games.
Now, lets get to the implied question that's on everyone's minds, viz:
"Are Characters too hard to kill in T2K?"
(and, by extension, in TNE, since the same mechanics will be used)
We have structured the T2K mechanics to err on the side of PC
survival. We did this for a number of design reasons, the main
one being the playtesters* really, REALLY didn't like it when
their characters (generated with hours of loving care) got
greased in the second or third firefight. In a game where
combat occurs less often, a case could be made for more fragile
characters than we have. Ours is not the only game that does this
sort of thing, and we did it after careful consideration. The
Quick Kill rule (which is detailed in the support material Rob
has chosen not to buy) ameliorates the matter somewhat by making
characters easier to do in under some circumstances.
(* yes...we DID playtest Twilight)
All things considered, we like the way the T2K2 combat system
works, but we are considering a couple of minor tweaks for TNE.
Wildstar: I've given the message about stutterwarp to Frank
Chadwick and to Dave Nilsen.
Loren K. Wiseman
representing GDW, Inc.