Title: Mongoose Traveller, A Review for RPGbomb
Tags: review scifi Traveller
Blog Entry: I’m in love again. Nope, it isn't a woman. It's an RPG. Lots of reasons for it not to be a woman, but only one reason for it to be an RPG: it's Traveller. And it's back - much like an old flame who just keeps showing up at your doorstep. And sure, I admit that there have been flings with Star Frontiers, Fading Suns, Blue Planet and TransHuman Space, but I promise, baby… you were always the one for me. Now, truth be told, I haven’t played Traveller in a looong time. Everyone I’ve gamed with in the past 10 or 15 years has wanted fantasy games, and my vaunted collection of scifi games sits on my shelves collecting dust for the most part. But back in the day when I did have a gaming group that would enjoy forays into science fiction gaming, the original little black books, and then later, MegaTraveller, were the games of choice. I bemoaned for some time my loss of the library of little black books which, sadly, burned up in a nasty fire. Okay, so an ex lit that fire (which prompted me to never, ever love a woman as much as my books – at least THEY don’t get bitchy when you get bored with the same old thing every night and want to try something a little different). I decided to buy the T20 game as a PDF when those books came out, but something about Traveller as a d20 game just didn’t really go well with me. I do have, but have never played, the GURPS 4e Interstellar Wars stuff, but GURPS turns my current players off for some reason. And so I’ve been waiting patiently for Traveller 5 to arrive, to rekindle my Traveller flame. And waiting. And waiting. And… well, you get the picture. In the face of T5 not yet materializing, I recently discovered upon the shelf of my LGS a thin black book with red writing upon the front cover which made my eyes do a double take and my heart do little flip-flops. It looked a bit thin for the cover price of 39.99, but it beckoned to me. The owner of the shop itself could attest to the trepidation I was obviously feeling at that pricing, were he here. But now, after having read over the slender and lovely book, all trepidation gone and with myself as the happy owner of MGT Core, I begin my review of the book… 1. Basic Mechanics: MGT’s mechanics are based upon a 2d6 method, with modifiers called Dice Modifiers (DMs) assigned by the GM based on the character’s Characteristics, skill levels, task difficulties and situational modifiers. The target number to beat on any check is always 8. If the degree of success of a check is important, one subtracts 8 from the total of the dice roll and all DMs. These simple rules govern every roll one could make in MGT. 2. Statting Up: Characteristics generated for each character are the same as in previous editions of Traveller: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education and Social Standing. A small group of skills are learned based upon the characters’ home world and Education; this list of known skills expands with the character's life experience. Like previous editions of Traveller, one follows a four-year term of service in various careers. Each of the Careers have numerous specializations, such as the Courier, Survey and Exploration branches of the Scout Service. Characters must qualify for a given Career at the beginning of their history (with the exception of the Drifter, which is open to anyone). Each character learns the Service Skills of their chosen Career, or the specialist skills of their branch within their Career. With each term of service, the character may learn new skills, gain personal development in the form of Characteristic bonuses, earn contacts, or advancement bonuses in their Career with some Event during that term. Mishaps during these Events can drive a character from their Career. Every term served ages the character four years, beginning at age 18 upon their first term. Every successfully completed term gains the character mustering out benefits upon the completion of character generation, providing the character with equipment, cash, or shares in a starship. The standard races of the Third Imperium (Human, Vargr, Aslan, Hiver, Vilani, etc.) are presented as example races, with a listing of racial attributes which can be used to create new races to populate your far-flung subsector maps. All sounds pretty familiar, right? Well, something pretty new and fairly unique comes up during character generation as well with MGT. In order to promote character relations, any events in a character’s term of service may be used to tie two characters together if both players agree. Each character gains the benefit of learning one extra skill when forming this connection. Characters also don’t start out with a ship free and clear unless they pool their ship shares as a group, or purchase an old ship. Debt will follow swift on the ship captain’s heels… 3. Gearing Up: Much of the gear in the Core Rulebook is left intentionally simple in description and design, with a few options following each section of equipment which are often applied to that type of equipment. In that, the equipment section follows the “toolbox” design philosophy of MGT in general closely. For example, the Augments section describes cybernetic, genetic and surgical alteration briefly, with a few basic items described such as the Neural Comm and Subdermal Armor; with Physical Characteristic, Intelligence and Skill Augmentation, a selection of bonuses are given and a very basic description of some possible procedures leaving it open to both GM and player to describe the style of augmentation the character has acquired. The Equipment section covers weapons, armor, augments, robots, drones, medtech, sensors, communications devices and some basic survival gear. 4. Taking Off: Being behind the helm of a starship of some kind is often the premise behind a game of Traveller. The rules presented for generation of starships, as well as worlds and their denizens, are covered in the chapters on Encounters and Dangers, Spacecraft Design, and World Creation. All of which should prove extremely familiar to veteran Traveller players. For the novice, all is provided in very basic and simple terms which will enable them to begin creating creatures, crafts and worlds with ease. Being the Core Rulebook, this volume does not detail a setting. The Third Imperium is currently under production for those who might be interested in MGT but lack the time to easily generate a campaign setting. 5. Filthy Lucre: As Traveller characters are often mercantile by trade or inclination, a chapter is of course devoted to Trade, which details speculative trading and freight hauling as well as smuggling and mail delivery. Of course, a ship captain will wish to know as much as possible about this particular section of the rules, if only to find a means to allay his or her massive debt from obtaining a craft! The Encounters and Dangers chapter also provides numerous sample NPCs to use as marks, patrons, or contacts to develop a business relationship with. 6. Shoot ‘Em Up: The Combat chapter describes what happens when you can’t wheel and deal your way through life out in the Outer Rim (or wherever). The ubiquitous six second combat round is the rule. Actions are divided into Significant (such as firing a weapon, using first aid upon a comrade with the Medic skill, using a psychic power, etc.), Minor (such as movement, drawing or reloading a weapon, aiming, or skill checks that do not require complex physical action), Reactions (such as ducking, dodging and parrying), and Free (such as shouting a warning, pushing a button etc.). Each character can take one significant, one minor and as many reactions as he likes in a round. Free actions are possible at any time, within reasonable limits. Damage in MGT is subtracted directly from the injured characters’ Physical Characteristics, and as the Characteristics drop so too to the Dice Modifiers the characters have for their characteristic and skill checks. Endurance goes first, then the player’s choice after Endurance is exhausted. The second characteristic reduced to 0 renders the character unconscious and the third leads to death. 7. Overview and Recommendation: If you are looking for a Core Rulebook to meet your scifi gaming needs that is stripped of assumed setting and ready for your evil designs, then MGT is your game. Although I am fond of several other scifi games as well, all have an assumed setting and background (Fading Suns, Blue Planet, TransHuman Space, Star Frontiers, Cyberpunk) which at times I enjoy and at times leaves me wanting. MGT provides a fine set of rules which is between light-moderate in complexity with which you may govern almost any type of setting imaginable. I’m looking forward to using these rules in play, and already have my subsector maps ready for my trembling hand to put pencil to. I give the Mongoose Traveller Core Rulebook a hearty thumbs up. P.S.: Iron Man Traveller is an option in this version as well, heh! For those unfamiliar, in the older versions of Traveller, your character could DIE during character generation. Always highly amusing!
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