Alternate Traveller Campaign Frames: High Guard

After the release of Book 4 Mercenary showed that there was a market for expanding on the careers of the original game, the next obvious direction to look was the Navy, those masters of the spaceways. Where Mercenary added more guns and other ironmongery, Book 5 High Guard added a new spaceship design sequence that could handle ships up to 200 times larger than the largest ships of the original spaceship design rules! To supplement those monstrously large spaceships, the supplement also included a new spaceship combat game that could handle larger numbers of spacecraft than the miniatures-based one from the original books.

Which was all fine and dandy until you realized that they forgot to include anything to actually do with those big spaceships and battle fleets. Unlike Mercenary, the authors forgot to include a campaign framework that made those spacecraft useful to anyone's game. So they sat down and did two things.

First, they rewrote the supplement. The first edition was kind of a mess, and the ships that came out of that design sequence weren't very interesting. Second, they released Adventure 5 Trillion Credit Squadron. TCS, as it quickly became known, was a radical departure at the time, presenting a campaign system with a rudimentary "domain" game that served to provide a reason for large fleets of giant spacecraft to fire weapons at each other. The players would play combination Admiral/Planetary Government and send ships at each other in a sort of roleplaying/wargame mashup. Except that there was a lot less of the roleplaying, a situation that would have to wait 16 years to be repaired, albeit imperfectly, but that is so different that it really represents a different campaign frame, and I will come back to it in a later installment.

In TCS, the game is changed to play in weeks, and each week allows six phases: Jumps, Communication and Intelligence, Battles, Changes of Control, Refueling, and Final Operations. I won't go into too much detail, but most of those phases are pretty self-explanatory. The Final Operations phase is the one in which campaign-level events occurred, such as ordering new ships, ship construction being completed, multi-week activities like being repaired, and so on. Planets would generate revenue based on the Traveller world statistics (UPP or Universal Planetary Profile), and the relative value of wealth from one world compared to the others based on technology level and the local starport. The campaign frame was more like a wargame than a roleplaying game, but that was OK.

Or, the Referee could just specify that a certain technology limit and certain other limits (minimum Jump capability, number of pilots available, and so on) applied, and let two players generate squadrons that just fought it out in one big battle (this method was also the basis of the Tournament Play method). TCS was pretty flexible.

Another way to use High Guard came up in one of the issues of Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, in which a campaign frame of active-duty Navy and Marine personnel would engage in mission-based adventures. The article included a way of generating the pay scale for those services and gave some advice and basic adventure seeds (one piece of advice was to watch or read The Sand Pebbles for ideas of the sorts of trouble that Navy personnel can get up to on shore leave, which is pretty depressing advice really; it's a good book and movie, but not particularly a happy one). So, out of one supplement, two or so campaign frames ultimately came around. The Active-Duty campaign, of course, was a little more under Referee control than the basic game (or TCS), much like the Mercenary campaign framework, and shares similar advantages and disadvantages. It does point out that we are seeing the same forces that were present in the hobby as a whole at the time affecting perceptions of how to play Traveller. That would become a big problem with the next edition of the game, MegaTraveller. Many of the sandbox tools remained to be used, so that edition wasn't entirely lost to the "storyteller" style of gaming. In fact, as we shall see, several campaign frames that are very much sandbox oriented have yet to come about by the end of classic Traveller.

Character Improvement In MegaTraveller (And Jack Of All Trades)

After a great deal of criticism over the unorthodox character improvement system in classic Traveller, the design team for the revision, MegaTraveller, decided to include a system that was more like that used in other games, allowing a character to improve through using the skills rather than through an extended program of study and practice. It was still different enough from the improvement systems of other games that it was overlooked by many, but mainly that was due to the poor layout that was common to games of the time. It was placed in a counterintuitive point in the rules, and only took up three pages (plus a paragraph in the Referee's Manual, though that wasn't explicitly tied to the improvement system - which is another mistake of presentation in my opinion).

MegaTraveller decided to include a system not entirely unlike the RuneQuest system of improving skills and attributes. Each session of play, the Referee would award to each character an "Adventure Tally" or "AT" in a skill that saw significant use by the character during the session. Each skill could only have two ATs per one-year period, so each was marked with the date in standard Traveller Imperium date format, so for instance "AT-Stealth (023-1120)", to help keep track. At the beginning of each session (or at the end of the current one after ATs are handed out, it doesn't matter so long as it is kept consistent), the player could try to improve any skills with ATs. It requires a Task check of Formidable difficulty (so needing a base of 15+ on 2D), to which roll the player can add the Int modifier (+0 to +3, usually +1) and the number of ATs on the skill. As always, there is a limit of +8 on the roll, so the best chance of success is going to be a roll of 7+. A success would give the skill at level 0 if the character did not have it, or raise it one level if the character did have it at level 0 or greater already. When a successful roll to raise the skill happens, then the ATs for that skill are erased (but erasing ATs does not occur until the skill is raised, so there is no penalty for failure on this roll other than not gaining the skill) and the character can gain more ATs as normal.

Now, it is really difficult to use a skill that the character doesn't possess at a level of at least 0, because the difficulty of any such Tasks is increased by a level, or 4 points harder on the dice (from 7+ to 11+, for instance). There are two ways of gaining a temporary level 0 in a skill, though. First is by observation. Watching someone else performing a skill allows a character to make a Task check to gain a level-0 in the skill for one use. Also, it is possible to use computer programs to assist and gain a level-0 on the same temporary basis.

Attributes use a similar system of ATs, but the player must specify which single attribute they wish the character to be pursuing this session, and if that particular attribute sees significant use the Referee can award it an AT.

In addition, characters can search for and undergo formal training in a skill or attribute. This requires a Task check to find the training program, then a Determination Task to stay committed. Failing the Determination Task can result in wasting the time and money for the program, as the amount of time the Task takes is used to see how long before the character drops out of the program (and this can represent showing up but not applying oneself to the course of study)! Once formal training is completed, there is another Task to see if the skill or attribute is gained or improved. A typical course of study requires 200 hours, arranged as appropriate (so an intensive 5-week course of 40 hours of study per week or self-study at 5 hours per week for 40 weeks or whatever). Such programs normally cost around Cr10 per hour.

Social Standing is improved or lowered by paying more or less than normal for upkeep (normal upkeep cost is Cr250 × Soc per month), though increasing Soc is limited to level A (10), since noble status can't be gained by this method. Such levels of Social Standing need to be granted by Imperial authorities, I would imagine.

Jack of All Trades skill has always been a strange beast in different editions of Traveller. Classic Traveller was fairly obscure about how it should be used, though reading the rules seems to indicate that any level of Jack of All Trades allows the use of any other skill as if it were possessed at level 0, with no additional benefit to higher levels. Other editions of Traveller have allowed levels of Jack of All Trades to offset penalties for lacking skill (GURPS Traveller makes it into an advantage that adds to skills from their defaults, Mongoose Traveller adds to attempts to use skills that aren't possessed by the character, and so on), but MegaTraveller took a different tack. In that edition, it was possible to retry failed tasks that weren't instant (instant tasks are things like combat tasks and whatever that may take some time in an absolute sense, but not any significant amount). A normal failure (a failure by 1) allows a free retry, but an Exceptional Failure (failure by 2 or more) requires a Determination Task check. A failure on that Task increases the difficulty of the Task by one level, while a success allows a retry at the current difficulty. Retries, of course, take the normal amount of time. Jack of All Trades skill allowed the character a number of free retries of Exceptionally Failed Tasks equal to the level of the Jack of All Trades skill. This is "representing the character's resourcefulness", which seems like a really good way of modeling it.

Alternate Traveller Campaign Frames: Mercenary

I previously discussed the default assumed game in Traveller, in which the players maneuvered their characters to scramble for payoffs from patrons and sometimes following up tantalizing rumors. That wasn't the only way to play the game, though, and a few other options were explored through the various expansions and editions. I'll cover some of these in this occasional series, and who knows? Maybe I'll outline some others.

The first alternative game was in the very first supplemental release for Traveller, the ground military expansion Book 4 Mercenary. (It's possible that Supplement 1 1001 Characters preceded it since both were released in the same year, but I haven't been able to confirm which came out first and both came out the year before I played my first roleplaying/adventure game.) Mercenary provided an expanded character creation system, which is all well and good, but more importantly it introduced the idea that the players could be employee-soldiers in a mercenary company, fighting for pay where they were told to go by their superiors, hoping one day, perhaps, to become those superiors. It included a rudimentary mass combat system (requiring a great deal of work by the Referee, since it was nearly nonexistent), and it also included the patron-substitute of a Mercenary-based campaign, the Ticket. Tickets were descriptions of the mission for which the company was to be hired, including objectives, pay, and other details. Some of the patrons in 76 Patrons, in fact, are Tickets instead of people. A typical Ticket might have the players travel to a backwater planet on which the locals were gearing up to fight each other and train the troops of one side or another. No doubt, many Referees introduced all sorts of complications. This campaign didn't include the detailed structure of play found in the default game, but that is because its own structure was very simple and mission-based. Eventually, GDW released a mass combat, or rather skirmish-level, miniatures game that interfaced very well with the Mercenary campaign frame.

Mercenary-based games were rather unlike normal Traveller games. In the normal game, the players would have maximum freedom of movement and choice of which adventure threads to take up. In a Mercenary-based game, the players went where they were told. That would usually be by the Referee, at least at first. Later, one or more of the players might find themselves in charge of a mercenary group. In some cases, the Referee would take a player whose character had long military experience and put them in charge from the beginning. In the cases where one or more players were in charge, that player or those players would be able to pick from a selection of mercenary Tickets proposed by the Referee, giving them somewhat more flexibility.

The course of play was more flexible than the day-to-day scheduling of the standard game, too. Once a Ticket was accepted, the time to travel would be simply calculated and then assumed to go without incident (unless the Referee had something up their sleeve). From there, the situation would play out in a more freeform method, the Referee adjudicating the results of the plans proposed by the players. Depending on the Referee, this could be either narratively handled or structured as an ad hoc wargame, with maps to regulate movement and perhaps Striker to handle direct contact. Striker was designed with roleplaying in mind, in fact, being centered on "orders" and the time of transmission for those by various methods of communication (providing the real benefit of battlefield computers, as an aside), and using a simplified form of the Traveller combat system so that injuries to two dozen soldiers didn't need to be tracked closely, itself based on the system originally included in Azhanti High Lightning. That simplified system would ultimately be used in MegaTraveller after some modification.

After the Ticket was completed and the unit was paid, the Referee would have to work up some expenses (replacement ammo and supplies, for example), plus the troops needed to get paid, and then the unit would look for another mission. Repeat as necessary and as interest held.

The main disadvantage of this campaign frame is the fairly straight-ahead nature of it: the players are given a mission and must solve the mission to gain the reward. There is little room for the players' characters to have their own goals that they can pursue with as much dedication as the default campaign framework. It isn't quite a railroad, as the players are given much leeway to decide exactly how they intend to carry out their mission, but the goals are not their own. That said, since it is a game in which the quantifiable goal is the pursuit of money first and foremost, it is perfectly possible for the characters to become wealthy enough to be able to make their own plans, eventually. This framework is probably most useful to players who prefer the more modern ways of gaming, as a compromise between the sandbox and the "adventure path", but it should also appeal strongly to those with an interest in military SF.

Note that it was possible to mix the Mercenary campaign frame with the default one, but I don't know anyone who did that, and I am not sure if it would be as interesting as either frame separately. That said, a campaign that alternated between Tickets and the players' characters getting in undirected trouble (using the default encounter/patron system) while on leave between the Tickets might be quite interesting.

Another interesting thing about the Mercenary campaign structure is the fact that it may have the most flexibility, ironically, in terms of the flow of any particular session. While the standard game has a pretty fixed "flow" (find cargo/freight, find patrons/rumors, resolve patrons and random encounters, rinse and repeat with only occasional variation), a mercenary Ticket can take a large number of forms, from the Cadre Ticket in which the players train the native troops to the Assault Ticket in which they go in guns blazing, and any number of others that the Referee can dream up. Again, the expense is that the stories that arise inherently owe a lot more to the Referee and less to the players and their characters, but some groups may find this structure worth it.

A Traveller Misconception And Describing The Structure Of Play

There's a lot about the original Traveller game to love (usually called Classic Traveller these days, and I will follow suit here; for the rest of this article, I will call it CT - and because it is the easiest to get now, being available in POD or electronic format from DriveThruRPG, I will use references from The Traveller Book). It's simple yet detailed, practical yet adventurous, short yet broad-ranging in scope. CT presented a default setting that was both science-fictional and familiar at once, walking a narrative line between "hard" SF and interstellar adventure. This article will cover two points: the misunderstanding that most people have about character improvement in CT and the basic structure of play in CT (which is dramatically different than that of more "story-oriented" gaming in recent years, but also somewhat different than RPGs of the D&D form of structure, which is most other RPGs). Here's a cut, since this ran long.