Tales of the Neophyte Travellers

I checked your profile but didn't see where yo...

2010-09-01T20:42:32.370-07:00

I checked your profile but didn't see where you were headed to Minnesota... or since you're from NJ, are you being traded from the Jets of the Giants now that Meadowlands is gone?

If anything you've made "Favreing it"...

2010-09-01T19:19:35.340-07:00

If anything you've made "Favreing it" the newest slang on the street.

Crose87420

Best of luck with the new game. This blog was a u...

2010-09-01T13:05:50.874-07:00

Best of luck with the new game.

This blog was a useful sounding board for game style and metagame problem solving so it will be missed, but if your interests lie elsewhere, then you gotta follow the muse.

Friend, please consider using this space for rando...

2010-08-31T13:48:53.542-07:00

Friend, please consider using this space for random ideas and writings. I'm alerted through a feed, so whenever you get a chance to write I receive it. I'll even make a new banner!!

Good luck and have fun. If you ever decide to wri...

2010-08-31T11:19:29.474-07:00

Good luck and have fun.

If you ever decide to write about the adventure on the azure seas of Avandar, I am sure you will find people interested in reading about it.

I do appreciate that Alexis. My online time can n...

2010-08-31T11:06:28.142-07:00

I do appreciate that Alexis. My online time can now be better spent enjoying and participating in your fine blog, though... and perhaps an online campaign at some future point should the mood take you. :)

Well, hell. At least you're not dead. I'...

2010-08-31T10:00:03.870-07:00

Well, hell.

At least you're not dead.

I've checked this blog at least 30 times since the 2nd, just so you know.

It seems that virtually every new player I've ...

2010-08-03T10:13:01.050-07:00

It seems that virtually every new player I've had in a the real world has been someone with no previous experience at all. I would say about half have never actually seen a D&D game, much less played one. I usually encourage people to try sitting in without playing a character for a session or two, if they don't feel comfortable ... and at any rate, for the first while, the experienced players will tell the noobs what to do for awhile, anyway.

Perhaps this is why I've been able to get away with the game as I want to play it, with little rules lawyering. People accept what they've been taught to accept.

When I run a game for new players, I find that if ...

2010-08-03T01:05:42.377-07:00

When I run a game for new players, I find that if I have an NPC present, I can feed information to the new players in a better story form than if I, as Ref, just tell them stuff. I do voices and mannerisms so that the players can tell when the Ref is speaking and when the NPC is speaking, and I do a lot of descriptive exposition. What I'm trying to achieve is the magick moment when you see the player's eyes go a little unfocussed and you know that they're picturing your description in their mind's eye and are really getting into the narrative.

I also make a point of getting everyone to "do something", roll some dice or use a skill, during an encounter, especially the youngest or quietest players. Getting them involved and enthusiastic is part of creating the "neat thing" that is a RPG session.

Convincing new players that a Face-to-Face RPG session is more like Improv theatre rather than 'kill-the-monsters-steal-their-stuff' World of Warcraft can be a bit of a mission, but when they realise that they're in a story and not a fight to the death, they do get the hang of it. YMMV, of course ;)

Kobold, you are a prince. Send along to: Neophy...

2010-08-02T20:25:31.788-07:00

Kobold, you are a prince. Send along to:

NeophyteTravellers@gmail.com

Thanks.

Hi James, finally scanned those exchange rate tabl...

2010-08-02T01:09:40.342-07:00

Hi James, finally scanned those exchange rate tables I promised. Drop me an email at davebillATclearDOTnetDOTnz and I'll send them over to you.

Regards

David

That's why I keep tinkering with MTU - drawing...

2010-07-30T16:07:40.529-07:00

That's why I keep tinkering with MTU - drawing the links, finding the patterns, solving the "why" and "how" problems. Keeps me sane :)

Sounds like a great session. Sometimes, not over s...

2010-07-27T22:27:13.449-07:00

Sounds like a great session. Sometimes, not over scripting actually gives you more freedom if you're comfortable with your setting and you have some metaplot ideas.

For a trade system, it is important that it is bal...

2010-07-26T00:32:06.692-07:00

For a trade system, it is important that it is balanced. If a deal is too good to be true, then it shouldn't exist. This is important, or else the PCs will have too much cash...

Good luck with your contest entry!

Steps 5 and 6 are right up my alley, Alexis. It t...

2010-07-23T09:15:53.129-07:00

Steps 5 and 6 are right up my alley, Alexis. It took me a long time to learn the following lesson as a GM: You don't necessarily need over-wrought storylines, villianous masterminds or epic quests of your designing (and liking) to compel the players. At least, you won't get by with only these things. Simply find out what it is they want and confound their efforts to get it. If you can't yet figure out what they want, make something they take for granted much more difficult to acheive. Then weave in your grand plots and so forth.

"How much and what specific raw materials sho...

2010-07-22T16:49:19.394-07:00

"How much and what specific raw materials should be required to manufacture a jump drive?"

Hah. Marvellous question.

Step 1) Make a list of the 30 odd systems that go to making a jump drive work. Name each

Step 2) Ignore the detail, but randomly determine the weight (as % of jump drive ton) and composition (from those materials listed on the back page of Worlds And Adventures).

Step 3) Add totals to determine total cost of one ton of jump drive.

Step 4) Work out a likelihood for each system to crash, and whether it crashes before or after a jump (during is just too cruel).

Step 5) Watch players scream when the same, annoyingly expensive system crashes AGAIN!

Step 6) Introduce superquality system versions that virtually never crash, and watch the party splash all over the universe trying to find them.

Kobold, never too late to join. I'd love to s...

2010-07-19T07:37:11.190-07:00

Kobold, never too late to join. I'd love to see the article youspoke of if you could somehow pass it along. As you might see by the most recent blog post, I've decide to move on with a standard other than refined fuel, but a) that doesn't mean somebody else shouldn't pursue it and post here or elsewhere (with links!) or b) it also doesn't mean the discussion won't have some benefit to the overall aim of implementing a different economical system for Travller.

One advantage of unobtanium for the standard is th...

2010-07-17T10:53:16.675-07:00

One advantage of unobtanium for the standard is that it isn't likely to radically change in availability without growing the imperium (and commensurately the whole economy), thus leading to a pretty stable currency.

Of course there will be localized discoveries that will temporarily unbalance the economy in a local area sometimes, but that would be cool.

One other thought on scaling the distance effect - one thing to consider is the PCs may be most interested in that portion of the economy that is actually interstellar. In that case, you might be able to only deal with the commodities and that portion of the economy and have the transport scale still be 1 per day.

Frank

Not sure if I'm too late to join this fascinat...

2010-07-17T00:45:12.490-07:00

Not sure if I'm too late to join this fascinating discussion or not, but I would like to offer two observations.

Firstly, picking up on a point Frank made, exchange rates between Imperial Credits and Local Credits (based on a ratio of TL and Starport type) cropped up late in the Classic Traveller period. An article, with a handy little table, appeared in the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society and the same table, or a similar one, appeared in both Striker and Trillion Credit Squadron. I have all three articles and am quite happy to pass the information on, if you chaps are interested in having a look.

I actually have an Excel spreadsheat set up with all my system data plugged in so I can work out subsector military budgets (mainly for TCS).

Secondly, basing the credit on the cost of refined hydrogen might not be such a bad idea. Military ships and small wilderness traders carry refiners, I suspect most other ships don't as they expect to be able to purchase refined fuel at most starports. The bulk of interstellar trade is going to pass between High Pop/Good Starport worlds with the tramps and wilderness traders running the spur lines. When gas giant skimming can add several days to a trade run, ships on a tight schedule may be forced to only deal in refined fuel from starports.

This idea isn't fully formed, yet. I would recommend getting GURPs: Far Trader if you can, good source book!

I think in the OTU, unobtanium is called Lanthanum...

2010-07-16T13:30:52.319-07:00

I think in the OTU, unobtanium is called Lanthanum or something like that... It's something needed in the "jump coils" or somesuch.

I think you can pick any arbitrary numbers you want for the value of unobtanium in credits, and the amount of unobtanium needed in a jump drive (presumably some quantity per ton of jump drive).

What may be easier to decide is how many credits are in your imperium. Then just pick values that make the quantity of unobtanium interesting.

Now here's a thought, perhaps the imperial credit (or maybe the kcr) is actually a coin, with a few grams of unobtanium in it. Now you actually have a verifiable medium of exchange across interstellar distances that does not depend on instant (or relatively instant) communications.

While Alexis made a good point about travel being much harder than in his 1650 times, travel in the Imperium is still far more comparable to travel in the 1600s than in current times, and I hazard to say that Traveller suggests a comparable amount of travel between systems as one might expect between distant kingdoms in the 1600s (but much less than say occurred within Europe itself).

Frank

P.S. Last paragraph above should be "deter...

2010-07-16T11:02:32.095-07:00

P.S.

Last paragraph above should be "determine how much unobtanium there is", not gold. Have a great weekend folks.

Yoink Consider it stolen, Alexis. Frank/ Alexis ...

2010-07-16T10:52:48.427-07:00

Yoink

Consider it stolen, Alexis.

Frank/ Alexis

Both tech level and distance obvioulsy factor in, but I haven't gotten that far yet. In skipping ahead and thinking about implementation, I've considered making the economies rather localized, just as you muse above. This does a few things. For one purely practical reason, when I implement and write about this here I can look at something as small as a subsector and not drive myself nuts trying to figure out much else beyond (for now). Also, I htink its reasonable to expect localized economies when considering the cost of inter-stellar travel. Now, the local source of surplus food, or raw materials or the bile-inducing unobtanium becomes that much more important. The recent UWPs I posted for Regis and Cali describe agricultural worlds, one controlled by an off-world government and the other by an inter-stellar corporation. How much more imprtant have these food sources become if the economy is localized? Rather important, I'd say.

I was writing my last comment without seeing Frank...

2010-07-16T10:15:42.117-07:00

I was writing my last comment without seeing Frank's.

Frank, perhaps tech level might indicate the divisor by which other world's goods are applied. A high tech world could have the divisor be 20 per parsec, while a low tech world could have a divisor of 100 or 1000 per parsec.

Damn, I just came up with that. What an interesting idea. A shame I no longer play Traveller ...

Location would matter; note that with the system I...

2010-07-16T10:12:36.437-07:00

Location would matter; note that with the system I described, the actual location of the gold was not relevant to the cost of grain in various cities. Location of gold is relevant only to the cost of gold, which is calculated separately from grain and never the twain shall meet.

Therefore, if any particular planet should have 'unobtainium' (a word I find so annoying as to raise the bile to the back of my throat), the farther away from that planet one becomes, the more expensive it is.

The primary question should be, what is the dividing factor between systems? The larger you make the factor, the more important local production is - for example, if the divisor is by jumps, then the products of a system one parsec away would be divided by 2; but if the divisor was by days, the products would be divided by 7, the space of a week.

And if the divisor was based upon the reasonable expection of the mass of a planet's goods being transported by available tiny ships, it might be realistic to divide a planet's products by 100 per parsec. That would strongly localize each system's economy.

My divisor was based upon a day's travel ... but a day's travel in my world is no more complicated that deciding to walk, or drive a cart in a particular direction for a day. And carts are common. Goods can be moved for two days, transferred to someone else prepared to move for two days, and so on, with few groups ever needing to move large distances.

But space travel is very different. It is fabulously difficult to obtain, maintain and even have the technology for space travel. Not anyone can do it. That's something to take into consideration.

Any thoughts how Tech Level will affect things? On...

2010-07-16T10:06:43.947-07:00

Any thoughts how Tech Level will affect things? One thought is that for tech dependent commodities, when computing the effective number of references, to multiply the portion of references that come from higher tech places by some amount, and divide the portion that come from lower tech places. Other tech items might not have any value outside their tech level.

So for example, if Planet A is TL 10, and we're looking at hover cars, and the forumulae say Planet B (TL 11) provides 0.5 hover car references to A, then we would multiply that by some amount, while the 0.3 references that come from C (TL 9) are divided by some amount.

My initial gut was a doubling or halving for each TL different, but that may be way too much.

Frank