Summertime

I love summer. Finally some heat for these old bones, and no more of that cloak of darkness that descends over you in winter.

But, I never get to play any games during summer! Since everyone is away on summer vacation it's even harder than usual to get people together. I hate it.

So, I sigh and read games, not play them. It makes it hard to write anything inspired here, since I lack the input of real play.

But.

How about this idea.

A big starship has crashed, and sits there with the nose buried in the soil, smoking. The imperial marines are sent there, in case the aliens are hostile, since it's clearly a warship. But, something is leaking out, into the soil. It's the aliens reality leaking...

Things are about to get interesting for our brave team.

Maybe I'll type it all up.

Traveller - the game I thought I had quit

Traveller is one of the icons in the hobby. For me the acronym LBB always meant Little Black Books, and referred to the three volumes of Classic Traveller from 1977. I have never seen the OD&D books in real life, so I maybe they look more brown than I think, but for me they have always looked more cream or khaki coloured, but I guess LBB looks better than LCB or LKB does.

I have a quite decent collection of Traveller books, from all the eras of the game. The first one I owned was MegaTraveller, and while I agree with James Maliszewski that the name is daft, I still have a lot of fondness for that edition. But, after having tried to start playing Traveller for multiple times, I have never managed to make it work. More often than not, science fiction fails for me. It is as if I can't present it the way I want, and my players don't seem to grasp what I'm aiming for. My last attempt turned into "accountants in space", and was a real bore for everyone.


So, guess what? I decided to put my collection, quite a few kilos of it, in storage and forget about Traveller. Until I started to listen to Happy Jacks RPG Podcast.


Listening to Stu discuss how he set up his game, and the players to talk about how their characters emerged through the life path system of character generation, made me interested again. The edition in print right now is the one published by Mongoose Publishing. I guess nobody have managed to miss MGP? The company have sailed up as a power houses of the hobby, with lot of licences and some interesting core system like RuneQuest and Traveller.


When Noble Knight Games had their latest sale, I succumbed to temptation. I bought another edition of Traveller, that game I had given up upon!


So, how does it compare?


Well, very favourably actually! It seem to have all the good things from the LBB, and then some. Let me take one example where the have gone beyond the original in a good way. One thing I never liked with the LBB, and find very grating when people talk about Traveller as an engine for any kind of science fiction game, is the fact that the career choices in LBB are very limited. All except one, are military careers! I don't know about you, but I have read quite a lot of sf books where there are more scientist or scoundrels than military men. 


MGT, as I dub it, have done like MT and included a more general set of careers. Sure, you have your army, naval and scout careers, but also things like Entertainer and Nobles. 


Some things are slightly less brutal that LBB, and you can no longer die during character creation and if you fail a Survival roll you get to roll a mishap. Another really cool addition is the roll every term for an Event, which can give you some extra background and skills. That and the rule that any event and mishap can generate a connection between two PCs and give both a skill is just inspired. 


So far I have not looked that closely at the starship combat system, nor the trading system. Both seem to change somewhat between editions and especially the former never really seem to come out right.


But the life path system to generate character is great fun. It has inspired many games after it, and for good reasons. It usually deliver something memorable. I did try to roll them bones, and this is what the life path system spat out:


UPP      Rank: Dilettante 1 - Wastrel; Diplomat 0 - Intern
63424c/0-1-1-2-1+2  Age: 24


admin 0
advocate 1
carouse 1
comms 0
computer 0
diplomacy 1
flyer(any) 1
investigate 0
persuade 0
streetwise 0


Managed to charm his way into high society and managed to get on Ally and one Rival. Learned to Fly and weaseled his way into an internship in the diplomatic corps. Due to his limited intelligence and enormous arrogance, he was involved in a mishap which cost him one eye and made his abysmal dexterity even worse. Was kicked out of the corps and now is about to step out into the world with only his name and 6 shares of a Yacht. (I added the die modifiers after the stats for people who recognize the system to see how they did that part).


What do you say? I'd absolutely love to play this miserable twit! Just imagine a noble so stupid, so ignorant and in general without a clue. I think the Connections rule which might tie him to another character, probably due to his flying skill, will be his way to survive. Unless of course the other players would not join hands to strangle him! Imagine the fun in playing such a worthless character, but with influence, family and a starship. 


Some things Traveller do deliver...

Nice resource about the FASA Star Trek game

I found a very cool resource I'd like to share. This page have a listing of all the publications for the FASA Star Trek game. Quite useful when hitting eBay. Enjoy!

A shot of science fiction feel

(edit: I managed to mess up the line breaks. Hopefully it looks better now)

I will continue on with the science fiction theme from last post. Now I want to focus on mood and atmosphere, the sense of "being there".

Many years ago I read an article in a gaming magazine about how to evoke the mood of fantasy. One thing that stuck in my mind was how the author had once been running a game for his friends, and when they were packing up for the night one of his players got to see the cover of the module they were playing. He gasped (I'm paraphrasing) "Oh! I didn't know that place was so fantasy!", which for me was very interesting.

That story show how important it is to try to plant the right picture in the minds of your players. Now, some of you might protest that it's the players own business what kind of mental perception they have of the game world. Maybe they just want to roll some dice and hang out, right? True, but if you are playing a game where mood is important, like horror, it might be crucial. Also, it will probably help to give the players a better picture of what to do in the world, and what actions migth be appropriate. Since I wrote that I was going to keep talking about science fiction, I'll start doing that now.

Imagine you quickly, and forcefully want to set the mood for science fiction, and to get the message across that "you're not in Kansas anymore", what do you do? In fantasy you could always resort to having something to do with magic, gods or weird monsters happen. Travelling through the woods, the characters have an encounter with a faun. Fantasy Feeling(tm). Keep trekking and you encounter some standing stones, and the place makes you feel a icy feeling run down your spine and a shimmering haze can be seen around the stones. Fantasy Feeling(tm)!

How about science fiction?

Weird aliens show up! Nah. Too much like fantasy. Weird technology! Isn't that just like magic by another name? I have some trouble with this, actually. For me, things that can happen in science fiction is the vast vistas of space, the impact of science and technology on society. Kind of hard to put into play unless it's a long campaign.

All the time I have tried to start a sf campaign it have fallen apart. Maybe not that surprising, considering the confusion that have come clear from thinking about it this way. It will take some more work for me before I try to run sf again. I did find a page about Star Frontiers which almost made me want to do it again, at once. We will see.

Starship settings?

We were talking after our last session of 3:16 about science fiction
in roleplaying, and settings for gaming in general. It have struck me
that even though most games are fantasy games, there are some other
genres covered. Looking at those other genres, it seems like mostly
it's the indie games that covers the odd ones. I guess you have heard
of Contenders, right?

So, my question about settings is about starships. One of my friends
told me that when we have played sf, we have spend most of our time on
a spaceship. He suggested that was why it wasn't working out, since
most books and tv shows are not set on a ship all the time. But let's
think about gaming where that is the case.

Have you ever seen a game where the setting is a generation ship?

Traveller - boring and still excellent

A few days back, I found a whole box of science fiction rpgs in my basement. I opened it up, and when I looked inside I realized that there was no point in me bringing them all up to the apartment. In fact, I realized that my extensive Traveller collection was of no interest to me. Well, you see, I love to read about that game. It's also a game which I love to think about. But, it's a game which just bores me when I try to play it, and sometimes even when I read it. Still, it's an excellent game!

So. Why doesn't it work for me? I think I might finally have understood why.

Looking at two things, it will become clear why I think I've found out why Traveller wont make me tick. If you have any of the adventures for Traveller published by GDW, take one of them out and look at it. Chances are that in the booklet in front of you, there are descriptions of a vehicle of some kind. There's a very high probability it's a spaceship. Since it's a science fiction game, there will be space ships. Nothing odd. Then there are probably a list of personnel of that spaceship, and some text describing the capabilites of said vehicle and where in the Third Imperium it can be found and what it might be doing there. Maybe it migh even be a tracked terrain vehicle, and it is in one place and has to be driven to another place. You start to feel excited about this adventure yet?

Then, secondly, let's take a look at the rules of the game. We can skim most of it, but look a bit closer on those bits about space combat and trading goods in space. The space combat system is different in every edition I've read. Nobody seem to like the rules of their predecessors. One thing seem to be common through all of them, though. None of them say much about what happen to the people involved, i.e. it's fairly abstract and board gamey. Looking at the rules for trade, and keeping the rules about the cost of running a spaceship in mind, we see the same trend there. I get the feeling I see a complex field like economy rendered into simpler rotes you can follow, and while it might look like filing your tax return it is called a game. Are you excited about this kind of thing?

So. My problem is that I have played Traveller, and realized it wasn't having much fun. I guess the easy way to handle that would be to just stop doing that unfun thing and leave it be. Naturally, I had to figure out why it wasn't fun, since I wanted it to be so. Playing something else would not let me get rid of the lingering ache that it could have been fun, if I only did it right!

My two examples above of things which rubbed me the wrong way always looked insular to me, but now I think I see a commonality. Playing the rules is what are supposed to make it fun!

The adventure where I'm not seeing interesting tensions between NPCs with goals and ambitions, or plots and stories waiting to be unfolded, are to be used in a different way than I expect them to. This is confirmed when I look at those other issues. When I see chores which looks like homework, some other gamer will see something else. Probably interesting abstract shapes to be manipulated and combined according to specific set of rules in order to create new shapes and forms which in themselves have beauty, but also as an aesthetic act in itself. Playing the rules is what are supposed to make it fun!

Maybe my big problem with Traveller is that it seem to lack some sex, melodrama, sweat and emotion. I'm not saying it can't be brought to the game! It sure can. The thing is, I know that I've met people who think the great fun with a fantasy game (like, say D&D) is to move their character like a chess piece and optimize its potential and utilize its resources in order to gain tokens which show the success of that process. Like, killing things effectively with a minimum of resources to gain as much XP and gold as possible. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that. But, what I am saying is that while nothing ever stopped me from doing that while as the same time engaging in immersion and talking in funny voices and taking decisions which were sub-optimal since they were based on "in character" emotions and impressions. I don't need rules telling me it is ok to do that. But, for some reason it is just not happening as easy in Traveller. In fact, I think the rules are in some places (like the trading and spaceship economics) written in a way which makes me think it never struck the designers as a possibility that you would want to do that. While being fairly bare bones, the rules of Traveller 1977 makes me think of the straight jacket school of design I associate with D&D 4th ed! Sketchy and everything nailed down at the same time.

I still think Traveller is an excellent game. For example, I think the life-path character generation is a stroke of genius! Great fun for a gamer without a group of her own, and also a marvellous way to build a back story for your in game persona. Also, the idea that you start the game as skilled and mature is a novel and great idea. There are so many things I like about this game. But, that adventure Across the Bright Face, brought home to me that the game was designed with a different perspective than mine. There are nobody to interact with during the whole adventure except the other player characters. The game can very easy be a long string of skill rolls to untangle the group from external threats you encounter during the trek. Maybe you even have to figure out as a player some novel use of skills and equipment to solve problems, but it is still a string of skill rolls. It's the ultimate victory of "rollplay" over "roleplay". Now, it has been said that you can make any game sing with the right players and attitude, but I must confess I don't understand what I need to bring to the table to make this game work. It's definitely not just gathering a bunch of "story gamers" and start gaming. For some reason the game just bends my effort into its own path and I find myself where I don't want to be.

While the situation probably isn't unsolvable, my box of science fiction rpgs will stay in the basement. Rifts, TORG, Fading Suns just work for me, but Traveller will collect dust a while longer.