This is where I will post the various Q&A posts from various boards' PM's about the various Traveller line games.
my text is in red and pink. Theirs in gold. My later comments are in green
I have always wondered this and thought sense you said you liked it best you could share with me.
I went from CT to New Era (long story) and then to GURPS & T20. Missed Mega-Traveller. So I am asking from a place of ignorance.
that's fine. I'm also going to post this on my website.
How different was Mega from CT? Where they some what compatible like MGT is or were they really two different games?
Mostly compatible.
Character generation: added special duty (which brings an extra skill), added bonus skills (Make by Commission, Promo, or Special Duty by more than 4, and you get another extra skill), added more cascades to tables. Kill the character is the optional rule, while the core rule is short term and out. doubled mustering out benefits. Compatible with MoTrav on final skill levels.
Combat: Is a striker/Bk1 hybrid. It works really well, but is very poorly worded, and has a flaw in conversion that made armor excessively powerful. Fix that flaw, and it rolls along nicely.
Big change here is damage: hits are 1/3 the total of the three physical stats, divided into hits to unconscious and hits to kill. Looks to be 2/3:1/3, round in favor of HTU. After combat (or at the GM's option, when KO'd), damage is then turned from hits into CT-style damage to attribute.
Vehicles and Ships: Again, Striker derived. Design axis are: Power, Weight, Price, Volume (vs HG's Power, Volume and price)
T&C essentially Bk7++
System Gen: Bk6, pretty much straight.
Encounters Better than Bk1&3, by a bit.
Task System very nice, better than Mongoose's, but only by a small amount and by being far more clearly written.
setting: The 3I is in a civil war, and the 3I falls apart into 6 major factions. I like the setting, just not the "reset" that happened after (TNE's virus, and no winner in the civil war.)
Was the CharGen similar to CT? see above
If I plan on doing CT and MGT is it worth also picking up the Mega CD?
Probably; MT skills, tasks, and CGen (even if nothing else is used) will make characters almost identical in overall skills to MoTrav.
The design system sucks, but at least it is integrated. The rating system, however, puts all combat into the same scale as characters.
The Ref's companion makes the combat system into a tabletop minis (or counters) game, and allows mixed unit sizes. Best design I've ever seen for that. I've run entire campaigns based around the military where mass combat was handled with MT, and it ran both smoothly and realistically.
Thanks for any insights you can offer.
Daniel
You're Welcome.
My last "in service" game was a full blown Marines in the 5FW game. PC's were cadre of a Regiment. 2 PC's per player, 6 players. Regimental CO, XO, RSM, RSO, RCMO, and 4 Plt Cdrs, plus two Staff NCO's. Since I used MT, it was very easy to run the units as a mass combat.
How did you handle the NPCs? Were the players given NPCs by name and role or did you work up full specs for all of them (Yes I realise the numbers I am thinking about, thus the question. :wink: ).
I had thougth about doing something like this with Stargrunt and just giving them "unit cards" other then their own characters. But I never did follow through witht he idea.
I would love to know more about how you did your game.
Thanks
Daniel
NPC's were generated for the entire regiment via automated system. Specialized troops got one roll on service skills and their specialty skill.
Special duty rolls made as normal.
NCO's:
Corporals are term 2,
Plt Sgt Term 3,
Co1Sgt Term 4,
Bn 1Sgt Trm 5,
RSM term 6,
BdSM Term 7.
1 skill base, +1 skill per term, special duty rolled normally for +1 skill each receipt, and two if made by 4+. Specialists gain 1st level of specialty as their base (So medics got Medic 1 on term 1, HW troops got HWpn, BD troops got BDress), 1st term skill rolled on service skills, rest rolled on random table, random pick of cascades.
Stats rolled on 2d6.
Note that no commissions rolled for.
This was all automated in a bit of basic code. Were I to do it again, I'd use Python.
Вильям–Франклин Джамсович Хостман