I'm trying to decide on a ruleset for my hypothetical Dark Nebula game. First of all, Dark Nebula is a "Traveller" setting (actually the setting of a boardgame developed by GDW alongside Traveller and using similar ideas - it isn't Traveller 'canon' per se), so the obvious choice would be Traveller. In this case, Classic Traveller, not only because this is a great ruleset on its own, but also because, due to licensing reasons, you can't publish (including on a blog) Official Traveller Universe material (Dark Nebula included) with Mongoose Traveller stats UNLESS this is set in the Foreven sector, in which I have little interest, while you can definitely do so for CT as long as this is a free publication. However, Stars Without Number, a Traveller/OD&D semi-clone, is also very appealing to me. Why? because it has many cool bits, such as world tages, more interesting technology and gadgets than Classic Traveller, faction rules, vehicle rules, better robot rules and general coolness.
So what do you think? Which ruleset will work best for this? Vote on the poll to your right!
I say, CT, but steal some SWN ideas to add flavor.
ReplyDeleteI'll probably go with CT, with some house-rules.
DeleteI would think the decision is very much dependent on your players and what you know about them. Cater to the players interests and the campaign will run longer.
ReplyDeleteI have pondered if there is an easy way to port from traveller to SWN easily. I think the ship combat stuff could easily stay with traveller rules. The skills would port very easily as well. I suppose the only decision would be around how to convert hitpoints (= to an average of physical traits perhaps?) and levels from tours of duty (is it 1:1 or something else?).
It will be some time before I run this with any real players. Right now I'm writing the setting for fun... And for subsequent potential PbP.
DeleteIf I'll be using SWN, I'll use the rules as written, and change the setting a bit to fit them.
There are two fundamental differences I think. From a player's perspective, CT is a skills-based system with very little character advancement, while SWN is a class-and-level system with the levelling-up that implies and an optional skills system; which do you and your players prefer? From a GM perspective, in terms of preparation time, the same amount of effort gets you much further in SWN; how much prep time do you have, and how much do you enjoy generating worlds, factions etc.?
ReplyDeleteThe prep aspect, as well as better worldgen rules (IMHO - especially the world tags) and faction rules are what interests me in SWN in comparison to CT. SWN combines a lot of old game-design ideas (from CT and OD&D) with many new ones (such as tags). It also supports the narrative better. The 37 years since the publication of Classic Traveller have added some interesting advances to game design, after all.
DeleteTravelled all the time, every time.
ReplyDelete