Monday, July 9, 2012

Space Mountebanks and Blasters

Of course as noted many times on this blog, I just can't simply play a game as written without unwisely messing under the hood. Bah orthodox RAWers be damned, this is the first post of likely a series of variant whoha for Classic Traveller for my Cantonment campaign.

Mountebanks
With the mounting decadance of the Cantonment, Mountebanks (also known as “Grifters”) are a shockingly common career choice for the quick tongued and amoral. 

Though some enjoy only moderately-shady employment by the various factions, circles, cults, and collectives as “fixers” and spies, most Mountebanks ply their hustles as a life on the make throughout the confederation.

Mountebanks have no ranks and receive two skills per term.

Enlistment 7+
DM+1 if Dex 7+
DM+2 if Intel 8+




Survival 6+
DM+2 if Intel 7+




Reenlist 4+

Aquired Skills Table

Personal Development
1 +1 Endur
2 +1 Dex
3 +1 Intel
4 Gambling
5 Blade Cbt.
6 Bribery

Service Skills
1 Forgery
2 Leader
3 Streetwise
4 Gun Cbt.
5 Bribery
6 Jack-o-T

Advanced Education
1 Streetwise
2 Leader
3 Electronic
4 Admin
5 Computer
6 Forgery

Advanced Education (Educ 8+)
1 Medical
2 Computer
3 Electronic
4 Admin
5 Pilot
6 Jack-o-T

Mustering Out

Material Benefits
1 Low Psg
2 +1 Intel
3 +1 Educ
4 Gun
5 Blade
6 High Psg

Cash Allowances
1 2000
2 5000
3 10000
4 20000
5 20000
6 50000
7 100000


Blaster Pistol (TL: 11)
Base Weight: 1000
Length 350
Ammo 20
Ammo Cost 200
Base Price 6000
Damage 4D
Same modifiers and Dex requirements as Laser Carbine

4 comments:

  1. Why didn't Trav include blasters and light sabres? (yeah I know why, but these seemed like appalling deficiencies to my 11 year old self). I had to get them, and powered armour, from Simbalist, Ratner & MacGregor, and they came packaged with a ton of other stuff that wound up destroying my little sf game altogether.

    It's a good job I'm on a nonsensical Bollysciencefantasy kick right now or I'd have to start writing my own hardish-sf Chris Foss ruleset.

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    1. Every relevant passage about design choices on personal weapons has this somewhat defensive, somewhat DIY embracing waffling answer that seems a lot like the tone of AD&D. Sure you can and should add in any old weapon you want, but you are likely ruining the game if it's "unscientific".

      In Book 0 (which incidentally has to be my all-time favorite RPG introduction) there's a bunch of snark about anti-matter weapons going on and on about how much energy it would take to contain them. This in a game where a starship can bend the whole fabric of time and space and "jump" parsecs in a week. How much energy would that take?

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  2. CT was written before Star Wars. We added Blasters, they were just like Lasers but Reflec had no effect (or 1/2 effect depending on the campaign). Reflective armor (and ablative to some extent) made Lasers a horrible weapon.

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    Replies
    1. Agree, you definitely get the feel that the laser carbine and rifle were only included very grudgingly.

      One reason I liked Book 4: Mercenary so much was that you (finally)got a range of future tech weapons and armor. Electromagnetic gauss gun? Fusion rifle? Yes please.

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