Traveller NPC cards

I decided to make a deck of NPC's for Traveller awhile.   I already have plenty of employee/henchmen cards, but thought that Andrew's scheme of having the pictures of NPC's would be particularly useful for Traveller.   In fact, since a Traveller character stat block is very simple, just a list of ability scores, in a quick format, and a list of skills, I could get the entire stat block onto the picture card.   I started by making 1 for each of the 36 types of "patrons" listed on the patron encounter chart.

Actually, I think that the picture cards will be even more useful for Traveller than they are for ACKS, since at high level, most NPC's are largely irrelevant to the players, while in Traveller they are constantly important.   One of the things I like about Traveller is the fact that the PC's are really any different than the NPC's around them, and there isn't a huge difference between a character's innate power in the first session and the last.

Here are two examples:

#1 Gleep-Glorp the Spanky, doing research for groin called shots:

Here's #2:  Rutherford St. Cool, galactic playboy

Backlog Continued

A squad of Saxon slingers

An owlbear

Some familiars

Operation Backlog

Most of my new sci-fi miniatures have arrived, but I wanted to try to clear my backlog of old lead before charging into the new stuff (or else old lead never gets painted).  So, I've gotten through enough of them so that I can proceed with my newer stuff without feeling like a hoarder.  The only things in my back up box are those plastic Viking spearmen (who I may try to get rid of, as I really don't need them), and some snake-men, which I think Jason gave me (no guilt involved if I didn;t buy them).

I had one disaster in the process.   When I was bringing in the primed and assembled historicals from the car-hole, I dropped them on the floor, shattering much of the assembly work (I never did find one of the lances and some of the bases are still cracked).

Anyway, here are the results:

3 mounted knights from the 1400's

4 mounted knights from the 1200's

A byzantine emperor and his retinue

Long Delayed floor plan project

Many, many years ago Andrew gave me a bunch of floor-plan blue-print type thingies (not actually blue) which I believe were made by his students when he taught some CAD type course at YTI (again, many, many years ago, so details are a bit foggy).   I was going through my basement throwing away all the extraneous card board boxes when I found this lump of paper.

At first I was just going to chuck them (chuck fever was raging) but instead I went through them, found 5 or 6 that would actually be pretty useful, right scale, top-down view, not scribbled up with comments.   So I cut out the actual floor plans from them and pasted them on hunks of card-board.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Project Screaming Monkey Complete

I've gotten my backlog of apes and monkeys complete, and since Andrew was calling me a dirty liar, here's the proof:

One giant carnivorous ape

3 fez-wearing archer monkeys with natty vests

The gangster apemen gifted me by you guys

And, finally, the Space apes in shiny armor

Update, I enlarged the pictures a bit

TRAVELLER LIBRARY DATA: SIMIOIDS

LIBRARY DATA:

SIMIOIDS

a.k.a. Gorilloids, Squatches, Ape-men

Terran experimentation with uplifting animals to sentience is well known, and when the Spinward Marches was first being colonized many of the Solomani human settlers were accompanied by sentient animal colonists. The famous, and terribly annoying talking dolphins of Loneseda are among the most widely known group of such uplifted animals in the Marches, but not the most widespread. The most commonly encountered uplifts are actually the Simioids, a race created by Old Earth scientists by modifying the DNA of the Great Apes of Earth. While Simioids have been created from Gorilla, Chimpanzee and Orangutan DNA sources, they generally favor the gorilla in general appearance; there is only one species of Simioid in the Marches, 

The Simioids average 10% taller than human average and 30% greater in mass, and are often amazingly strong. However, they are noticeably dim and have trouble in social situations, especially when dealing with groups more than a dozen or two. They look like slim gorillas with a man-like bipedal posture. Most are covered with black or black and grey hair, although some have been known to have reddish hair (indicating some Orangutan ancestry). 

There is no planet in the Marches where the Simioids are the majority species. They tend to live in villages in the mountains or forests of various planets with breathable atmospheres. Simioids often live at a tech level below that of the rest of the world. Simioids can also be found in some major cities of low and middle tech worlds, where their great strength is in high demand for physical labor. While Simioids occasionally can be found in any of the career common to galatic travelers, they are only very infrequently seen on Naval vessels or in the various government bureaus or diplomatic offices.

The rumor surfaces now and again that the Simioids were created by direct or assisted crossbreeding between humans and gorillas, often citing documented projects by the old Earth dictator Josef Stalin to attempt such a cross breed. However, DNA analysis shows that the gene sculpting of great ape DNA is the more likely route.

(Game Stats: simioids gain +4 Strength, +2 Endurance, -2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Social and ignore the effects of a “Graze” result in combat)

Return to Painting

For the first time since my Crusades plastics project, I got some painting done today.   I had 6 Sci-Fi  Ape Troopers already primed (I don't even remember when I got them) and painted them up with snazzy metallic armor.   I also based and primed 3 flying monkeys (I decided to skip the wings), my new Owlbear, a Carnivorous Ape, and 6 familiars.    I also have 6 Saxon slingers primed and ready and a half dozen ape gangsters.

The rest of my to be painted file includes 6 mounted knights, a Byzantine emperor and his retinue and a box of 30 28mm hard plastic Viking spearmen.  Gads, viking spearmen, last on my list of things to paint.

My Droyne and Space-suit guys have not shown up yet in the mail.

I must say painting the space apes put a few ideas in my head and I think I've decided how to proceed with the Traveller set up (not that I'm 100% set on Traveller for the next game, if anyone has other thoughts,..speak up)

We demand Spanky!!

I always do this.  When I plan a campaign, I'm always super serious.  I fiddle with Theology, Cosmology and so forth in D&D,  I study the Traveller universe intently, and so forth.   Yet, when we actually play, it's always much more goofy.  It's like I plan Jonny Quest and we play Venture Brothers.   I plan Star Trek and we play Futurama.

So, while I was thinking about a straight Traveller universe campaign, theoretically,  now we have people clammering for Spanky.  

There are two paths to procede:

Create a new setting for Traveller:   pros: we can dump in all the Spankies and Crab People and Ack-Ack Martians we want just the way we want. Cons:  making the Traveller "geography" is very, very intricate and time consuming.

Or,  take the Zhodani empire, next to the PC's home 3rd Imperium and turn it from the empire of a race of psionic humans in turbans into an empire of Spankies and Martians and Crab people.   Pros: no geography work.   Cons: a strange feeling of wrongness.

Traveller Rules adjustments #2: Personal Armor

Armor Nomenclature:

The armor  names in Classic Traveller are a bit misleading.   What we would call Kevlar or Modern Body Armor is called CLOTH in Traveller.   It's short for Ballistic Cloth Body Armor, but it always seems to give the impression it's normal clothes.    Furthermore, it refers to a complete body armor set, not just a vest, which is called Flak Jacket (which should more properly refer to an older, heavier sort of armor used in WWII made of nylon or canvas holding steel plates).  Powered Armor, furthermore is called BATTLE DRESS, which in actual English means the uniform soldiers use to fight in, not a metal can with motors.

For clarity's sake it might be better to rename the armors as follows:

Traveller Name             New Name Description
Jack                               Jack            Leather or synthetic jacket (fine)

Mesh                          Mesh           chain-mail type modern armor (fine)

Flak Jacket              Tactical Vest       kevlar vest

Cloth                      Tactical Armor   reinforced kevlar body suit

Combat Armor  Combat Armor  enclosed advanced armor suit, unpowered

Battle Dress     Power Armor   powered armor suit

It's a minor change, but I think that it would be make visualization easier.

However, it's also not a serious problem and maybe the rename would be more trouble that it's worth.

CALLED SHOTS
I think having a rule for using some sort of Called Shot to help defeat high armor protection might be useful.  In the rules as written, high tech armor can be pretty much invulnerable to most hand weapons.   If you look at the orginal combat system, this wasn't true, many guns could do damage to combat armor or battle dress.  However, the combat system we are using comes from a Traveller Board Game (Azhanti High Lightning) and the Traveller Miniatures game (Striker), both of which were essentially the same, and meant as a replacement for the original system.

Long Story Short:  I propose that:
If you make an aimed shot (don't move), and use a single shot (no autofire or multiple hits) you can take some sort of penalty to avoid some of the armor protection of your target.  

I'm thinking that the goal might be to cut armor protection in half.  Maybe the penalty might be -4

Example:   Frank has a rifle (PEN 3) and shoots at an enemy in Cloth Armor (AR 5), he wants to avoid the armor, so aims for the face.   At effective range he needs 8+, but has an electronic scope (+2) and Rifle Skill 3 (+3).  Normally he'd therefore need a 3+, an almost guaranteed hit with a net -2 on his damage roll.  With a -4 penalty that would be 7+, and a +1 on the damage roll

Traveller Rules Issue #1 Dog Fiighring

While I'm really happy with the Traveller house rules we used in the last campaign  (The Rhylanor Express:  see here traveller documents   )   and they worked much to my satisfaction in the actual campaign,  there are a few issues I'd like to deal with for a possible next Traveller game.

Issue One:  my dogfighting rule:

In the vehicle combat rules, I had this paragraph:

Dog Fighting

: if 2 flying vehicles of similar speeds engage in combat, they need to

dogfight for position (so biplane vs. bi-plane or helicopter is okay, but air/raft vs, grav interceptor is not). During the attacker’s direct fire phase, he rolls 1d6 and adds his vehicle skill, and subtracts the vehicle skill of his target if he rolls 8+, then he has matched vectors in a position where he can get a clear shot, making a regular attack,

ignoring the Vehicle movement penalty. If he fails, he gets no shot  and the enemy may get a similar shot at him during the Return Fire Phase 

Now,  since this is for aircraft or flying grav vehicles within an atmosphere, it's not exactly the most common  of game situations.  I don't think it actually came up in the last campaign.  That being said, I'm a bit fuzzy on the math and what exactly I meant when I wrote it.

Say, for example, that Captain Flash has an aircraft skill of 3, and is fighting Major Payne who has an aircraft skill of 2 (both are flying Jet interceptors).  Tbe rule as written means that Flash cannot have a successful dog fight roll against Payne  (6+3-2=7) and that if he tries he just gives Payne a free excellent shot at him during the return fire phase.

I'm thinking that I must have meant 2d6.  That way it's a risk, but a very skillful pilot is really going to start splashing the noobs.

Workshop's Back Open

I finally made my Saving Throw against X-COM.   I'm still not finished with it, but have broken it's evil soul-consuming spell, and can actually get myself on the hobby trail again.

Next week I'm going to get started with miniatures and maybe models again.  Since I've been thinking about Traveller, I decided to get a few miniatures in the Traveller realm,   One set I've ordered are some armed guys in Space Suits from Victory Forge,  they have a lot of other space crew (not at all Star Trek rip-offs) that look fun, but I decided to order only 1 blister so I can see if their size plays well with the size of the sci-fi miniatures I've already got.

Another interesting thing is that I've always avoided certain published adventures and connected themes, because I don't have any miniatures that are appropriate for the Traveller alien race called the Droyne.

The Droyne are a winged, reptilian race who although they don't posses a star-spanning empire are nonetheless an important part of the Trav universe.

Here's an image:

I asked around the old geezers in Traveller fandom and they pointed me to these figures, re-casts by RAFM of old Citadel 15mm  Droyne

They are now called "Dracos" for license reasons.   Their wings are very stubby, but I sort of consider that a bonus, since miniatures with wings are usually a pain in the schwartz.   They're also 15mm, when most of my miniatures are 25mm, but that isn't too much of an issue in this case, since Droyne are supposed to be really small, hobbit or gnome size I guess.   Well, I bough 20 of them (15mm are much more reasonably priced as well).

Neither order has arrived yet, but I have various monkey men and flying monkeys, and model buildings and vehicles to work on in the mean time.  \\

Since I'm taking the family up to State College on Saturday, and we have our ACKS game on Sunday, I won't get around to actual fiddling until Monday, but I'm getting geared up.

I have been poking around with Traveller materials, re-reading adventures (published and home-made) looking at the last campaign materials.  Man, I still have a really good, complete set of NPC cards for employees, separated by function (mercenaries, ship crew etc).   I made up 2 more ==Pedro Gonzales and Henry Spacely to get my beak wet again.  

I think the rules set we were using (Classic Traveller with the Striker game personal combat and Mayday game ship combat woven in) should work just fine.  I'm thinking of adding a few minor rules changes but nothing big.