On the Free Kriegsspiel Revolution

 

A new wave washes over the shores of role-playing games - the Free Kriegsspiel Revolution (FKR). While the concept itself is not new by any means, this Revolution follows the heels of the traditional OSR, brushing aside the stricter rule systems and granting greater freedom to players and Referees alike.

The name "Free Kriegsspiel" itself comes from 19th century Prussian wargames initially used for training military officers in battlefield tactics (the word "Kiegsspiel" simply means "Wargame" in German). Originally, there was Strict Kriegsspiel, a rules-heavy, high-complexity refereed Napoleonic tabletop wargame using a map, counters, and dice, first developed in 1824.

The rules, however, were of such complexity that many officers had to invest much time learning the rules, at the expense of playing the game itself and learning tactics. Thus, half a century later, in 1873, a new movement began - the Free Kriegsspiel Movement. This movement dispensed of most rules, in some cases of all rules, and replaced them with referee discretion. The game became a conversation between the players and the referee (often an experienced military expert), where the referee would adjudicate military actions based on his expertise rather than using complex table and dice (at least for the most part). This movement became highly popular among Prussian officers, as this permitted faster play, as well as allowed for expert referees to utilize their knowledge and experience in a more realistic manner rather than rely on tables.

A century and a half later, the term Free Kriegsspiel was adopted by role-players. While this was a translation of the principles from wargaming to role-playing games, the core idea remained - "ruling, not rules", and a Simulationist approach based on conversation between the Referee (or Game Master) and the players and the Referee's judgement of the situation, with dice kept in the secondary role of resolving dangerous situations where luck is of great importance.

This does follow the "rulings, not rules" approach presented by the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming by Matthew Finch. However, the new Revolution crystalizes the greater freedom and secondary nature of rules, presenting a strong case against the "new school" approach. "New school" being the spirit of post-2000 d20 and similar games, where it is customary to use dice to resolve many, if not most, in-game situations.

For example, in a (new school) D&D 5E game I am a player in, the Dungeon Master calls for ability or skill checks very often, sometimes even 5-10 times per scene or dungeon room. I find this fatiguing and distracting from the game world, especially when basic clues are "gated" behind linear 1d20 die rolls. This also makes characters feel incompetent, as even a high-level character may fail in relatively trivial tasks he or she should be an expert in.

In comparison, in an FKR game, the table resolves most exploration by conversation between the Referee and the players, with the players asking questions about their environment and the Referee answering them. The dice come out only where there is imminent danger and when luck plays a role even for competent experts such as higher-level player characters. There may be structured minigames with more die rolling (such as combat and character generation in Classic Traveller, for example), but the core game loop is conversational.

This seems to be the way Marc Miller, Traveller's creator, Referees his own game. Yes, even with the high-complexity Traveller 5th Edition rules, from what I understand. Outside of minigames, his games are often very conversational in nature, and with limited die rolls. This also explains why Classic Traveller has no clear "task system" outside of the minigames, as the game assumes such situations would be resolved by discussion between the Referee and the players, or, at most, that the Referee will improvise a die roll when needed, based on the situation and not on a rigid resolution mechanic.

Note, however, that FKR games are Simulationist and not Narrativist. The key here is exploring a living world and interacting with it, with the "story" being emergent, rather than explicitly weaving a story together or following the GM's pre-planned story. However, this simulation relies more on Referee judgement than on complex rules, except for specific situations where, again, there is danger and luck plays a part.

I am now in love with this concept of FKR, and it may inspire my future game design!

More damage system thoughts

I have been thinking more about my proposed damage system, as well as receiving feedback for its original version. So, here is a variant for you to consider.

Ordinary handguns, knives, spears, etc. have 2d6 Penetration Dice. Rifles, light machine guns, big-ass pistols, long/bastard swords, etc. have 3d6. Sniper rifles, medium machine guns, grenade blasts, and broadswords have 4d6. Really heavy stuff such as RPG-7s and big lasers have  5d6.

Once you hit a target, you roll the penetration dice: 1-7, light wound; 8-11, severe wound; 12-16, mortal wound; or 16+ insta-kill.

Armor reduces the number of Penetration Dice you have. Light armor reduces by one die; heavy armor by two dice; powered armor by three dice.

A critical hit (let's say, a natural 12 on the 2d6 attack roll) adds one Penetration Die.

2 light wounds become a serious wound. 2 serious wounds become a mortal wound. Being wounded again when mortally wounded kills you.

So, the probabilities of the various wound levels, once a hit is made, are (I hope I got the math right this time...):

Pistol vs. unarmored target:

58% light wound

39% serious wound

3% mortal wound

No insta-kill without crit.

Rifle vs. unarmored target:

16% light wound

46% serious wound

36% mortal wound

2% insta-kill

With light armor (-1 Penetration Die):

Pistol:

100% light wound unless on a crit, in which case 58% light wound, 39% serious wound, 3% mortal wound

Rifle:

58% light wound

39% serious wound

3% mortal wound

No insta-kill without crit.

With heavy armor (-2 Penetration Dice):

Pistol:

No damage without crit, in which case light wound.

Rifle:

100% light wound unless on a crit, in which case 58% light wound, 39% serious wound, 3% mortal wound

Now, let's factor in the to-hit chance: 8+ on 2d6 + attacker skill - target skill and assume equal skills, per shot fired (42% to-hit chance):

Unarmored/Pistol:

58% miss

24% light wound

17% serious wound

1% mortal wound

No insta-kill without crit.

Unarmored/Rifle:

58% miss

7% light wound

19% serious wound

15% mortal wound

1% insta-kill

With light armor:

Pistol:

58% miss

42% light wound unless on a crit

Rifle:

58% miss

24% light wound

17% serious wound

1% mortal wound

No insta-kill without crit.

With heavy armor:

Pistol:

No damage without crit.

Rifle:

58% miss

42% light wound

Of course, chances are way higher if you're more skilled than your target!

What do you think of it now?

A damage system I was thinking about for gritty RPG combat

I have been thinking about a gritty penetration-based, hit-point-less damage system for grittier RPG combat. The came to me when thinking about my Cepheus Atom rules, where you have "hit-point-equivalents" (Endurance and Lifeblood), but, in practice, you have wound levels based on these "hit points": Uninjured, Lightly Injured, Seriously Injured, and Dead. So, why should I use the wound levels directly, instead of going through the "hit points"?

So...

Let's use Cepheus Light vehicle damage as an inspiration. Weapons have Penetration Dice. Ordinary handguns, knives, spears, etc. have 1d6. Rifles, light machine guns, big-ass pistols, long/bastard swords, etc. have 2d6. Sniper rifles, medium machine guns, grenade blasts, and broadswords have 3d6. Really heavy stuff such as RPG-7s and big lasers have 4d6.

Once you hit a target, you roll the penetration dice: 1-2 no damage; 3-5 light wound; 6-8 to severe wound; 9-11 mortally wound; or 12+ insta-kill.

Armor is a penalty to the penetration roll. Light armor is -3, heavy armor is -6, powered armor is -9.

A critical hit (let's say, a natural 12 on the 2d6 attack roll) adds one Penetration Die.

So, the probabilities of the various wound levels, once a hit is made, are (I hope I got the math right...):

Pistol vs. unarmored target:

33% flesh wound (no game effect)

50% light wound

17% serious wound

No mortal wound or insta-kill without crit.

Rifle vs. unarmored target:

8% flesh wound

33% light wound

42% serious wound

15% mortal wound

2% insta-kill

With light armor (-3 to the roll):

Pistol:

85% flesh wound

16% light wound

No serious+ wounds without crit.

Rifle:

27% flesh wound

56% light wound

15% serious wound

2% mortal wound

With heavy armor (-6 to the roll):

Pistol:

No damage unless on a crit.

Rifle:

73% flesh wound

25% light wound

2% serious wound

Now, let's factor in the to-hit chance: 8+ on 2d6 + attacker skill - target skill and assume equal skills, per shot fired:

Unarmored/Pistol:

71% miss or flesh wound (no game-relevant damage)

21% light wound

7% serious wound

Unarmored/Rifle:

61% miss or flesh wound (no game-relevant damage)

14% light wound

17% serious wound

6% mortal wound

1% insta-kill

With (common) light armor:

Pistol:

93% miss or flesh wound

7% light wound

Rifle:

69% miss or flesh wound

23% light wound

6% serious wound

1% mortal wound

What do you think of this system? Is it too lethal? Does it "feel" well in play?

Even more musings on Traveller and CE skills

Back to my favorite subject!

In Classic Traveller and the Cepheus Engine, Skill-0 means basic training and literacy in the subject which is sufficient to perform some tasks but insufficient for gaining employment in the field. Skill-1 is employable and in CE can earn you very good pay in some cases.

My dear mother

For example, My mother knows how to check her e-mail, do basic Google searches, take pictures with her phone camera, type at a reasonable speed, and use KODI (and similar streaming services). However, she would be clueless in any further technical task, even installing updates on her Linux Lite machine or installing apps on her phone from Google Play. That would be Unskilled in CE terms.

The soon-to-be Mrs. Stellagama

My fiancee knows how to operate a computer, an Android phone, or an Android streamer, including updating, installing new apps, and even installing and configuring KODI extensions. She knows that the solution to 50% of basic computer problems is a restart and can also solve several other basic issues, both ones related to loose connectors and some software issues. She knows the basics of MSOFFICE use but not any more advanced tricks. That would be Skill-0 in CE terms.

Yours Truely

I have good knowledge of messing around with Windows and various Ubuntu distros, assembling a computer from parts I buy, advanced MSOFFICE functions, advanced Google search functions, and how to solve a wide range of software related issues (even a few hardware ones).  I can write simple but very readable and well-organized scripts in Python. I type at 50 or so words per minute. I use many of these skills as part of my job which combines translation, editing, content editing, and information services. That would be Skill-1 in CE terms.

This is one reason I like the Classic Traveller skill system. Skill levels are not an incremental increase in your roll bonus, but rather denote actual very different levels of skill and are quite "realistic". This is the difference between unskilled (untrained), having basic literacy in the area (Skill-0), having a baseline employable skill (Skill-1), being a lower-level certified professional (Skill-2), having a full-blown Profession (Skill-3) or being an expert (Skill-4+).

In medicine: Medicine-0 is first-aid/CPR training; Medicine-1 is a paramedic; Medicine-2 is a registered nurse (a certified professional) or a medical intern; Medicine-3 is a proper doctor (a Profession); experts have Medicine-4 or higher.

This also explains the CT training rules - which I intend to port into CE. At this scale of skills, the gradual accumulation of experience alone can rarely bring you from one level to another. You need both experience and study. You can teach yourself in some cases, but this requires dedication.

How many nurses (Medicine-2 and let's say DEX 8) gain the medical knowledge and proficiency of a surgeon (Medicine-3 and DEX 8) simply by working as a nurse for a decade or two? This requires deliberate training, as well as practice. It also takes time, and not everyone succeeds in this.

How many trained combat soldiers (Gun Combat-1) become designated sharpshooters (Gun Combat-2) or snipers (Gun Combat-3) after a tour of duty or even several tours of duty, simply by being soldiers and using their gun a lot? Again, this needs deliberate training (or at least self-training) and practice. Not everyone will be able to do so.

How many people belong to two Professions (say, Skill-3 in both Medicine and Engineering) at the same time? Some do, but this is uncommon.

Ellen Ripley. Badass with 5 skill points!

Many people will never be 'proper' high-level Professionals. Many sci-fi heroes are not "Professionals". Ellen Ripley, from Alien(s), would be (in CT) UPP 67C997 Merchant 4th Officer, 3 terms, age 30, Vacc Suit-2, Pilot-1, Navigation-1, Admin-1. In CE, she will also have several Skill-0's. Only 5 skill points, highest skill at 2. Enough for boundless sci-fi heroism and adventure!

This is not D&D. You don't go "zero to hero" in Traveller or CE. You are a skilled adult, sometimes a professional. But there is a sharp limit on what you can learn and on how far further experience and training can get you.

Frames of Reference

The Star Wars presents its frame of reference

A good setting, whether for a sci-fi story (or movie) or a role-playing game, needs a frame of reference. This is a central element of the setting that affects many, though not all, of its other elements. This also allows you to fall back to the frame of reference when you run out of ideas or have to improvise.

A frame of reference is neither a theme per se nor a mere plot. It is the combination of plot, backstory, and themes - the glasses through which you see the setting or franchise.

For example, both Star Wars and Babylon 5 have excellent frames of reference. Star Wars (the original trilogy) starts off with scrolling text describing the Empire and the Rebellion against it. Moments later, we encounter an Imperial Star Destroyer chasing a Rebel Blockade Runner. Almost any world or other setting elements in the original Star Wars universe has something to do with this civil war; most have Imperial presence. Others have hidden Rebel bases. When designing an RPG adventure in the original Star Wars universe, for example, you have a frame of reference to work from - there is the Empire and there is its war against the Rebellion. It colors almost everything. It also serves as a terrific starting point for plot and setting elements.

The same goes with Babylon 5 - its pilot starts with an intro speaking about the Earth-Minbari War, then proceeds to have a plot directly connected to it. While many Babylon 5 plots have little to do with the Earth-Minbari War, it is always in the background and serves as a launching pad for stories in many occasions. Son enough the story moves on to the main frame of reference, which is the Shadow War.

So, when designing a new setting, think of a major frame of reference that defines your setting. Was there a massive War recently? Is this a post-apocalyptic setting? Or did Earth discover faster-than-light travel just recently and is now exploring the wide-open frontier of space? Either way, a frame of reference helps you build a good setting.

Once again on Classic Traveller skills

Vacc Suit-2 skill in action

The question arises many times - what do Classic Traveller skills represent? How competent is my character? If he only has Vacc Suit-2 (for example) and no other skill, is he useful in gameplay?

I have written about this in the past, but I think that this warrants further discussion.

The first thing to remember is that Traveller characters are competent. Skill-1 is employable - you are good enough with it to get a paying job using this skill. Skill-3 is a professional - typically enough to get you a license in one of the Professions, such as being a Medical Doctor or a licensed Engineer. In ordinary situations, they do their jobs competently. Under CT rules, for example, First Aid and even Surgery for Severe Wounds do not require a roll - you got the paramedic (First Aid) or the surgeon (Surgery), you get results. They only need to roll dice when there is a significant chance of failure even for a professional, and when failure will have dire consequences. For example, if a doctor character would try to perform the above-mentioned surgery in some colonial hellhole when only the local TL-3 tools are available, and not in the default TL8+ Medlab.

Again- Skill-1 is enough to work at an actual, skilled job. Most people, both in real life and in Traveller, do not have too many such employable skills. Most of the things you do rarely go over Skill-1. As a typical person living in a modern, industrialized country, you probably have Ground Car-0 and Steward-0 if you know how to drive and cook/entertain guests, respectively. However, unless you have specific training, these would not be enough to work as a professional driver or a steward (or chef), respectively.

For example, I, the writer of this post, am a highly skilled and experienced Hebrew-English-Hebrew translator, as well as a skilled writer and game designer. I deal quite a lot with official documents. I can cook a decent meal and know my way around a car. I also have a good education and a Master's Degree in Geography. In Traveller terms, I will probably be:

Omer, UPP 4759C7 Other, 4 terms, age 34, Linguistics-2, Art-1*, Admin-1, Ground Car-0.

Enough to earn a decent living while holding a quasi-professional job. Am I an adventurer? No. An adventurer will typically have different skills, for example, Gun Combat or Pilot or Vacc Suit instead of one or more of my skills. The number of skills, however, is quite typical. Someone with a good military career will usually have one or two additional skills. Of course, there are the rare elite soldiers who enjoy a meteoric rise through the ranks - the maximum is ten skill points at age 34, DOUBLE what a typical civilian like myself has. These are the officers with stellar careers who reach the rank of Commander or Lieutenant Colonel by the age of 34 - unlikely in real life even for a successful officer, and unlikely in Traveller as well. These people are exceptional, but most Traveller characters are not - this is a game about ordinary people doing wildly extraordinary things and going on hair-raising interstellar adventures.

Skills are a Big Deal in Classic Traveller. Pilot-1 alone can land you in a 6KCr/month job - very well-paying for a 22-years-old character. Medic-3 alone is enough for being a licensed physician, and with DEX 8+ you are actually a surgeon! Most people - even sci-fi heroes - will not have too many skills. The game mechanics also reflect this - on a 2d6 curve, DM +3 is a Big Deal, and skews things very far in your favor. Add to that Characteristics DMs, and a talented, skilled professional can be a highly successful expert.

But what about all the other adventuring stuff? you ask, If my character only has Vacc Suit-2 and Computer-1, what about combat skills? Driving a vehicle? Well, my friends, for this you have the Skill-0 rules. For starters, all Traveller adventures have Skill-0 in all common small arms. With a good gun at good range, especially with good Characteristics, they'll make very decent combatants even with Skill-0. With Vacc Suit-1, you can wear Combat Armor, and with Vacc Suit-2, you can wear a Battledress! As a Referee, I'd also assume Vacc Suit-0 and a Skill-0 in one Vehicle skill for the typical character. Most "passive" knowledge skills are subsumed in the EDU Characteristic. Finally, this is Old School - your character can do a whole load of "adventuring" stuff without having a specific skill listed on their character sheet.

An interesting sci-fi example comes from the Alien(s) movies. Ellen Ripley from was not a soldier and didn't really have good combat skills. At most, she has the usual Traveller Skill-0 in common weapons. In Alien, she killed the xenomorph without using a weapon by using her Pilot and Vacc Suit skills. In Aliens, she does shoot guns and throw grenades (Skill-0, right?) but her real kickass moment is when she uses her excellent Vacc Suit skill to slay the xenomorph queen with the industrial/loading equivalent of a Battledress.

Her Classic Traveller stats would probably look similar to this:

Ellen Ripley, UPP 67C997 Merchant 4th Officer**, 3 terms, age 30, Vacc Suit-2, Pilot-1, Navigation-1, Admin-1.

Another sci-fi example is Commander Shepard of Mass Effect fame. Canonically she*** is 29 years old at the beginning of Mass Effect, but to keep with Traveller character generation rules, I'd make her 34 years old - the earliest age you can reach the rank of Commander in the Navy. She is an N7 - an elite special forces soldier of the System Alliance Navy/Marines. In Traveller terms, she got Commissioned and Promoted on her first term and Promoted on each subsequent term. She is the poster-girl of the best you can achieve in the Navy in a stellar (so to speak) Naval career.

Her Classic Traveller stats would probably look similar to this - assuming the Infiltrator class I always play in Mass Effect 1:

Shepard, UPP 7CA875 Navy Commander, 4 terms, age 34, Rifle-3, Autopistol-2, Admin-1, Computer-1, Vacc Suit-1, Electronics-1, Forward Obs-1****.

Badass!

On a final note, the above also explains why it is difficult to learn new skills in Classic Traveller. Learning a new employable trade - not to mention a full-blown profession - at a later stage of life is difficult. Possible, but difficult. Certainly, you can learn a new profession - Skill-2 - by taking a Sabbatical - once per lifetime. You can also vastly increase your Education Characteristics by up to six points through study. You can train new weapon skills, but this takes time, dedication, and effort to become permanent. You can also train skills - it takes 8 years to increase one of your skills by one level. This all makes sense in the context I have described above.

* Additional skills from the Cepheus Engine/MGT1.

** Roughly Classic Traveller's Book 1 Merchant Service equivalent to the movie's "Warrant Officer", which is a senior non-commissioned officer.

*** FemShep FTW!

**** Actually uses this skill several times, most notably in Mass Effect 3.

Why is System Shock one of the greatest masterpieces in computer gaming?

Many people regard System Shock, first released in 1994 on floppy disks and re-released in a remastered CDROM version with better graphics and full-audio logs, as an excellent and memorable game. It has also inspired generations of newer games, as well as a host of imitations and spiritual successors. Why is so? In this article, I will try to outline the three main factors contributing to System Shock’s success - persistent non-linear world; immersion; and an excellent villain. I will also discuss its spiritual successors, focusing on the Bioshock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R series.

What are the three primary factors in System Shock’s timeless excellence?

1. Persistent non-linear world. In System Shock, you explore Citadel Station, a ten-level space station in Saturn orbit. You do start on level 1, but from then on you slowly unlock access to the other levels. So far - similar to most spaceborne survival-horror games. But in Citadel Station, you do not simply progress in a linear fashion from one level to another. Instead, you go back and forth between the various levels as you pursue you protracted battle with SHODAN, the rogue AI in charge. You will find yourself revisiting the very same levels, re-exploring them, and in many cases unlocking more parts of them which were inaccessible before. Unlike many games, System Shock’s designers did not arrange Citadel Station in a convenient sequence of levels appropriate to the plot’s progression. Instead, facilities and objects exist where they should be on the station, and you will have to backtrack and reach them where they are. The world is persistent and non-linear - leave a stim-patch on the floor in the very first room you start in, and you can return many hours later all the way from - say - level 8 to that room and pick it up. You are absolutely free to explore any area you have unlocked in any order you desire. Citadel is not a stage set for a pre-determined plot. Instead, it is a place.

2. Immersion. System Shock’s designers effectively used the limited graphical and engine tools available in 1994 to create a masterpiece of technological horror. Everything in the game works to build that atmosphere and experience. The station is a metallic, highly technological, sterile space. It is also falling apart. From malfunctioning and blinking neon lights to metallic wall panels, from loose wires to computer screens filled with static - the place is dead and dying. Everything in the game is technological, from crewmembers turned into horrific cyborgs by SHODAN, through mutants she formed by genetically-engineered viruses, to your implants and weapons. There is no magic and very little vegetation outside the hellish hothouses of the three remaining Groves. Almost no one alive who is not a mutant or a cyborg. This is pure technological horror, the result of science gone rogue.

Another element of immersion is the sense of paranoia this game instills in its player from a very early stage. The levels are non-linear in their design, and monsters respawn. Furthermore, the designers carefully placed enemies, especially the completely silent Cyborg Assassins and Invisible Mutants, in hidden nooks and crannies on the various levels. Danger can come at any time and from any direction. You always dread what might be creeping up on you from behind. Or what hides in some cubby-hall high on the wall of some dark room. You are afraid. You feel hunted. You will never really clean out Citadel. You are never the master of Citadel Station. That honor belongs to SHODAN.

3. Villain. A very major factor in System Shock’s success is SHODAN, the rogue AI in control of Citadel Station. She pulls all strings. She is always around, from her digital face on malfunctioning computer screens through her pixelated visage when you try to access a keypad she controls - to actively trying to hunt you, the lone Hacker. You cannot escape her. Most of this is scripted of course but effectively shows SHODAN setting up ambushes and sometimes sending an army of cyborgs and robots to stop you. She also taunts you and even interrupts the e-mails you get from your friends on Earth. SHODAN also has multiple contingency plans towards the end of crushing the Hacker and bringing Humanity to its knees. A perfect villain.

System Shock’s success spawned a good number of games inspired by its mechanics, atmosphere, or even some of its themes - from Deus Ex to Dead Space. Here I will discuss two games inspired in such a way, and their comparison to System Shock.

The first is Bioshock - the official spiritual successor to System Shock - and its sequels. Bioshock, like System Shock, takes place in an abandoned and isolated technological location overrun by mutants and filled with dead people who left behind their audio logs. But here the similarity ends. Bioshock - in my humble opinion - failed to fully live up to the three factors I have described above.

First and foremost, its world is far more linear. Yes, you can walk around and explore a level. But once you finish a level, that’s it - you do not really come back. A level might be non-linear to a certain degree. The game itself is linear. This hurts Rapture’s sense of place and sets it as a series of locations conveniently stringed together in the order of the plot. Second, Bioshock’s overly-colorful art-deco world gets in the way of technological horror. Rapture is wonderful to behold - but this city, as well as many enemies residing in it, are more along the lines of grotesque monstrosity rather than the mind-numbing technological horror of Citadel. Combined with the magic inherent in the Plasmids, this reduces the game’s immersive focus. Finally, Bioshock’s villains do not repeat SHODAN’s success and hound the player far less. They are not everywhere. They do not really try to hunt you. They are not absolute masters of a domain in which you are a mere intruder.

The second is the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series, especially its most refined version - S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat. Its setting is an open series of areas around Pripyat, the Ukraine - and not a space-station or underwater city. However, it did manage to live up to two factors of System Shock’s success. It does lack a clear villain unless you consider the Zone a “villain” of sorts. However, it has two other things - a persistent non-linear world and immersion. 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s world is open. You might need to unlock some of the areas prior to entering them, but you do roam the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone quite freely, and you do backtrack in some cases. In Call of Pripyat, you do it very much - you eventually unlock three huge outdoor maps and can freely travel between all three once unlocked. You also move between them constantly as you pursue your military mission to find the fate of an expedition into the Zone’s very heart. Things in the Zone are where they should be; it is a place, not one long corridor used to tell a single plot. Furthermore, immersion is S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s biggest selling point. In place of System Shock’s technological horror, S.T.A.L.K.E.R provides an industrial post-apocalypse and carefully moves to build it up. The Zone is as sterile as Citadel. It lacks women, children, or old men. It lacks real homes as the Stalkers live in temporary shelters inside abandoned buildings, never rebuilding anything. It even lacks real food for the most part other than conserved foodstuffs brought from outside. There is life in the Zone, but it is mutated and inimical to Humanity. Inside the various bunkers under the Zone’s soil one can feel paranoia, maybe not as strong as that in System Shock, but enough to make you watch your back from mutants. Especially the invisible Bloodsuckers.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R also follows suit with System Shock’s “RPG elements. It lacks character stats and skills. You “build” your character - already an accomplished criminal, mercenary, or special-forces soldier - by gather equipment and artifacts, just like in System Shock.

Repeating System Shock’s success is difficult. But System Shock itself will now be rebuilt, thanks to a Kickstarter campaign. The future looks “bright” - that is dark and horrible - for SHODAN!

What is Proto-Traveller?

I have already written about old-school Traveller several years ago when I wrote of the "Three Creeps" - Modifier Creep, Complexity Creep, and Scale Creep - that is, gradual and (at least partially) unintentional processes of change in Traveller which made later Traveller products significantly different from the earlier game. But a recent discussion on the Citizens of the Imperium Forums brought forth again the subject of Proto-Traveller, that is the Traveller "Old-School" movement. For your reading comfort, pleasure, and ease, I will provide here a consolidated and clarified version of what I posted in that thread.

Proto Traveller is not necessarily a time period - as High Guard came in 1979, before the accepted 1980 "cut-off" point - and not necessarily a "tight" set of rules. It is an attitude, a style if you will. It is Traveller in the spirit of the first three books of the original boxed set, as well as early adventures, JTAS articles, and supplements. That is - small ship, small setting, simple rules. I'd also argue that it has a focus on civilian or quasi-civilian (ex-military) play rather than strictly military settings and plots as suggested by the weapon list in Book 1 and as opposed to the mercenary unit play of Book 4, the huge-combatant naval play of Book 5, and the strict military fleet-building play of Trillion Credits Squadron.

This Proto-Traveller attitude consciously and intentionally resists the Three Creeps - Complexity Creep, Modifier Creep, and Scale Creep.

Complexity Creep was introduced by Book 4 with its Advanced Character Generation system. Book 1 character generation was very simple and straightforward - and incredibly quick. Book 4 introduced a much more complex system for generating characters, and books 5-7 continued this trend. Book 5 put forth a ship design system which was far more complex than the one in Book 2. Book 8 suggested a highly complex robot design system similar to the similarly complex Striker wargame rules. The Proto-Traveller attitude resists this complexity and desires a return to the simplicity of Book 1/Supplement 4 character generation and of Book 2 ship design.

Modifier Creep began with Book 4 as well. The 2D6 curve used by Traveller is highly sensitive to modifiers, and hence the strictly limited skill acquisition in Book 1 character generation, as well as the moderate to-hit modifiers of most (though not all) Book 1 weapons. Book 4 introduced characters with much more skills and much higher skills. It also introduced advanced weaponry bearing massive to-hit modifiers guaranteeing auto-hits - and usually also auto-kills - on almost all targets. Books 5-7 continued this trend with their Advanced Character Generation systems. The Proto-Traveller attitude prefers smaller modifiers and more limited skills.

Scale Creep began with Book 5. Suddenly, instead of small, relatively affordable ships - you have massive dreadnoughts. Such vessels are monstrously expensive and thus require a similarly massive polity to support them. They are also far beyond the scale of player-centered starships, unless, of course, the players are Big Navy captains or admirals. Book 5 focuses on major naval engagements, not the affairs of merchants, scouts, and corsairs - or at most a mercenary company or a local small-scale naval patrol, as in Book 2. This soon escalated into a huge Imperium many Sectors across, supporting similarly huge navies. The Proto-Traveller attitude prefers smaller ships, smaller empires - and a greater focus on a small group of characters rather than on wider affairs of state and navy.

To expand my explanation above, another potential (fourth) "creep" in later Traveller was (possibly) "Military Creep". Note that the first book has ex-military characters who have clearly mustered out; they might have combat skills, but they are no longer soldiers. Also, note the Book 1 weapon list - all small arms, with the auto-rifle being the toughest gun around. Further, note the ship list - there are some paramilitary ships, even two "cruisers", but they are all small ships that a small PC-owned ship has a certain chance of defeating in combat, especially with missiles.

This is very similar to the Alien, Firefly, or The Expanse premise - characters might be ex-military, but they now work on civilian or at most paramilitary jobs, have a civilian starship (in The Expanse they do acquire a small military ship, but nevertheless not a big warship), and tot small arms. A single Xenomorph is a huge threat to the trader crew who at best have flamethrowers. Gangsters and outlaws with revolvers and shotguns are common foes. A real battleship is something you try to avoid or outsmart, not fire guns at. At most in Book 2 ship terms you can have a mercenary platoon, again armed with small arms for the most part.

Book 4 introduced military-grade weaponry and a big discussion of field artillery and armored warfare. Granted, it is a specific boo for mercenaries, but it did start the military "creep". Add to that huge battleships with all sorts of Naval guns in Book 5, and soon things start escalating into a very militarized outlook which, IMHO, MegaTraveller was the peak of it. It went from Firefly to Babylon 5 (both magnificent sci-fi, IMHO), from Dumarest to Honor Harrington. Especially the later seasons of Babylon 5 where the action often involved (wonderful) space battles between major combatants. There is of course nothing wrong with "Big Military" games - which are enormous fun - but it's very different than the more low-key picaresque adventures of a tiny starship's crew or very small mercenary detachment as depicted by the three first books.

Also, note that in Proto-Traveller you might deal with military themes such as in Kinunir or Chamax/Horde. But you always deal with them as civilians or ex-soldiers unwittingly caught in military affairs - PCs are never generals or fleet admirals or even the commanders of warships.

Finally, you should keep in mind the inspirational "source material" for Proto-Traveller, that is the science fiction stories it was inspired by. They usually had a picaresque element to them - usually, the protagonist, such as Dumarest, travelled the stars and ended up in all sorts of weird and cool situations. The focus was far less on large-scale setting construction and more about exotic and interesting locales to explore.

The Tales to Astound blog, for example, has some interesting and highly educational articles about this. Go and read them - he had some very interesting points indeed!

In (Classic Traveller) space, no one can hear you scream!

I have already written about the use of lethality in old-school games here and here. In this post, I will further discuss this concept in the context of Classic Traveller.

Some incarnations of Traveller assume - in many cases - that space travel is as safe as modern air travel. This is a completely legitimate viewpoint, in tune with Star Wars and similar universes where interstellar travel is commonplace and many people travel from world to world The universe depicted by the three-book Classic Traveller, however, is different. Very different. In it, space is a dangerous place. Traverse the dark gulf between the stars - and risk your life. Looks at the Scout career in the core book, for example. With the basic rule according to which a failed Survival roll means death, a good portion of Scouts perish during their careers even if they are hardy enough. Exploring the stars is dangerous. Scouts have a 41.66% chance of dying per 4-year term if they are regular, healthy human beings. If they are particularly hardy (END 9+), they still have a 16.66% chance of dying per 4-year term. Beyond the obvious game-design need to balance the easy acquisition of a "free" Type-S Scout/Courier, this also has in-universe implications. Traversing the stars is dangerous. If you boldly go into the Uknown, you often find out that the Unknown has teeth, claws and tentacles and that the Unknown wants to eat you. Space, indeed, is a dangerous place.

Interstellar passage aboard a liner or trader is expensive - Cr8,000 per jump for Middle passage or Cr10,000 per jump for the more comfortable High Passage. Even highly paid professionals such as pilots do not make so much money in a whole month, some would not even make such a sum in half a year, even if you ignore life expenses. The only other option is to travel by Low Passage - essentially go into freezers originally intended for livestock (so it was in the source material), which is not only extremely uncomfortable and demeaning but also risky - 16.66% to die en route, 8.33% even with a highly skilled (Skill-2) medic, and an unhealthy passenger (END 6-) has a 27.77% chance of death due to freezer failure! Even if you pay for Middle Passage, and even if you are riding a legit, fully maintained liner, once the liner goes through routine or frontier starports (C or worse) - and in most cases it will - it uses unrefined fuel, and has a risk of 2.77% per jump to develop a potentially deadly drive malfunction and a risk of 2.77% per jump for a dangerous misjump. All of this - without accounting for the threat of piracy, or other risks of traversing the interstellar frontier.

So travelling the stars is dangerous and highly expensive. This is somewhat similar to the Age of Sail or the earlier Age of Exploration. Back then, sailing the cruel seas was a dangerous undertaking, and most people avoided doing it routinely unless they were sailors or fishermen, and even then, most of them stayed close to the coast. Sailing into the unknown could earn you a ship's load of gold, but also a watery grave. Even sailing to known ports was a risky undertaking. In the implied Classic Traveller universe, then, most people do not travel often, if at all. The majority stay on their home worlds or whatever colony they were born on, at most travelling once or twice in their entire lives for pilgrimage, emigration or fleeing wars and disasters. Going beyond very few parsecs is prohibitively expensive - to cross a Sector in Middle Passage will probably cost you your life savings and further put you into debt.

So who travels? Travellers travel. Travellers are a different class of people from the ordinary planet-bound colonist. They travel - they take vast risks - they dare go into the dark and face certain death. In this, they are similar to adventurers in older-school fantasy RPGs as opposed to non-adventuring 0-level "Normal Men". Sure, adventuring can get you rich, and so can speculative trade or mercenary work, but it is likely to get you killed, and therefore, most "normal" people avoid it if they could.

So you play a Traveller. You take risks. You boldly go into the Unknown. Sometimes you get fabulously rich. Other times, you end up dead. Space travel is not for "ordinary" people who wish to have a long, healthy life working for a wage. Space travel is for adventurous souls, nobles bored so much that they look for such thrill and risk for entertainment, and very hardy men and women who serve in the interstellar military, the scout service or the merchant marine.

Effective use of Lethality in Old-School RPGs

A few days ago I wrote about lethality in older-school RPGs. Many responses were enthusiastic; other correctly criticized my post regarding arbitrary as opposed to non-arbitrary death; after all, "gotcha" death usually sucks in RPGs, and if the Referee just wants to kill the PCs, he could always bury them in a landslide or under a collapsing ceiling. This, of course, will be no fun. So I am obliged to further elaborate regarding the use of lethality and Save-or-Die elements in older-schools role-playing games.

Lethality should always be the result of a choice. An informed choice, at least to a certain degree. As I've noted above, and as obvious to any good player or Referee, "gotcha" lethality is not very enjoyable. A Save-or-Die situation should arise as a result of a player choice. Taking risks sometimes warrants an immediate risk of death. For example, if you choose to go toe to toe with a venomous snake, you take the risk of getting bitten, which may be fatal. Typically, a good Referee will describe a snake or, at least, hint at its existence. If you choose to ignore the warning and take the risk, you can definitely face death. After all, venomous snakes are scary for a reason - many of them can kill you. A dead king's tomb still containing treasure after centuries of potential grave-robbers is bound to be trapped to the hilt, and its exploration warrants great care and many precautions. If you take the risk and rush your exploration of such a dungeon, a trap may kill you. There should always be a chance to avoid the trap by player skill and attention to details. But deadly traps in such tombs are part of the adventure genre. If you choose to drink a mysterious potion found in an underground temple of Chaos, you risk being poisoned or worse. If you enter the dungeon corridor strewn with many human bones and skulls of possible victims of a horrible monster - you might actually encounter the monster itself, and you risk turning into yet another pile of bones in the corridor. If you enter the curious garden of strange statues, you might face the Medusa - capable of turning you to stone with a single gaze.

The thing common to all of these cases is that there is a warning before the decision to take the risk or avoid it. Either an explicit warning, such as the town's elders speaking in hushes whispers about the horrors of a haunted tomb, an environmental cue such as bones of former victims or the petrified victims of the Medusa, or a risk known to common sense such as the notion that strange liquids in deep chapels of Chaos might have negative effects on you or the basic fact that venomous snakes might kill you with a bite. Taking the risk is a player's choice, and typically holds a potential reward. A pile of gold under the slithering snakes, rumors of great treasures guarded by the Medusa, stories of potions holding wondrous effects on their imbibers. If you wish to reduce risk, you also reduce the reward in many cases. You wish a big reward - you'll have to take risks.

The same goes in Traveller. In character generation, if you choose to be a Marine, you should be tough as nails - as a Marine should be, or you face a high risk of death in the line of duty. Even if you're tough, Marines are people who get kicked out of a starship in orbit and told: "conquer that planet!". This is badass, but very, very risky, especially in times of war. The reward is first the badass title of a Star Marine, and also all manners of combat skills, easy retention and relatively easy promotion. Scouts are more extreme - you die easily in the line of duty just like Marines, because you go into the Unknown and the Unknown has teeth, claws, and tentacles, but you may receive the ultimate reward - a free starship of your own! A clever character entering the Merchant Marine risks a far lower risk of death, but if you do gain a starship, it has a heavy mortgage attached. You can try and save hard-earned Credits by travelling in Low Passage, but you risk Low Berth failure and death. You can try and save on expensive refined fuel by doing frontier refuelling, but unrefined fuel can do bad things to the delicate and finicky civilian systems of your Free Trader.

Risk and reward, accompanied by at least some hint regarding the risk and reward at hand, are key to enjoyable death threats in older-school RPGs. This could add much tension, excitement and thrill to your game of handled right. This is why Save-or-Die effects are so useful in such games.

In praise of lethality in old-school RPGs

A common complaint about older-school role-playing games (RPGs) is that they are highly lethal and, as the complaint goes "unduly and arbitrarily punish characters and players". And indeed, many newer-school players view such lethality in disdain and prefer their games to include more moderate dangers, less "arbitrary" threats and much stronger player characters. Dungeons and Dragons(TM) 5th Edition is a prime example of this. Around levels 3-5, player characters are already very powerful and are rarely killed by ordinary monsters; I found my 5th level party mowing through undead supposed to be scary, and only moderately challenged by a mummy, energy-draining wraiths and shadow-demons capable of moving through walls. Risks were mitigated; healing was made much easier; and many frightening abilities from earlier editions, such as level drain, poison and disease, were made far more forgiving. Don't get me wrong - we are enjoying the hell out of our D&D 5E campaign set in the Barbarian, Conqueror, King setting with some ACKS rule additions. But the ruleset feels to me more and more forgiving - and sometimes "flat". Risks and threats seem a bit minor compared to what the horrors of a haunted dungeon, a cemetery in midnight or a giant-toad-infested swamp should be.

Older-school games were certainly lethal. Highly lethal. A venomous snake could kill you. Green slime could kill you. Triggering a trap could kill you outright. A fight with several zombies at low level could certainly kill you. Medusae could turn you into stone with a single failed saving throw. At low levels, one or two sword swings had a potential to kill you. In Classic Traveller, you could die during character generation as well, using unrefined fuel could kill you, a single well-placed and lucky laser shot could blow your ship out of the sky, travelling in low passage could kill you, the "first blood" rule could get you severely injured from a single shotgun blast.

Why the lethality? There are plenty of reasons why this actually enhances your game. First and foremost, you typically play adventurers. Why be typical "Normal Man" level 0 villagers eke out a living at 1gp a month from the sweat of their brows, toiling on the harsh soil under the constant threat of starvation - when there are dungeons laden with marvellous amounts of gold and wonderful magical items a day's travel from the typical hamlet? Becuase dungeons are dangerous, and most who venture there do not come back. Adventurers are those brave - or some might say insane - souls who dare delve into these deadly places reeking with the stench of death. The YouTube video linked above - a promotional video for the excellent old-school dungeon called "Barrowmaze" - strikes the nail right on its head. Horrors await those who dare stray away from civilization into the wilds and the ruins of the eldritch past. Villagers huddle in the relative safety of their hovels and even soldiers - typically "Normal Men" as well except for the most grizzled veterans - find safety in their numbers and rarely dare fight anything but other Men, or at most Beast-Men hordes. Only a few foolhardy adventurers dare descend into dungeons in hope of finding gold and glory. Most find their untimely death. But a few survive and carry back sacks full of gold back to civilization, eventually becoming lords and magisters.

But adventuring carries risks. Horrid risks. This is part of the challenge of the game. This is a major source of excitement for the players. A mistake can kill you. Monsters can rip you limb by limb. A venomous snake, like a real venomous snake, is dangerous and frightening - a bite is very likely to kill you. Rush into combat like a fool - and you will typically get butchered. Tread carelessly, and you risk death. Player skill is important. This is a similar challenge to the "Roguelike" genre of digital games which is now enjoying another golden age after existing from the very dawn of digital gaming, from the sci-fi FTL: Faster Than Light, through the post-apocalyptic N.E.O. Scavenger to the fantasy Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. In these games, unlike more typical digital games of our day and age, you die easily. And death is permanent - you can't just reload a saved game when you die. When you die - you die. Yet players - myself included - come back and play these games again and again. Why? Because the challenge is exciting, because facing the challenge is enjoyable. Survival is its own reward, is a thing of pride. Player skill is important. Learning how to survive in the N.E.O. Scavenger world, for example, is something you - the player - have to learn; no character skill will save you from contaminated water, hypothermia and infection setting into your wounds; you have to learn how to cope with them. This is challenging. This requires thought and learning. This is also enjoyable for many gamers. An old-school RPG is the tabletop equivalent of "Roguelike" digital games; player skill is important and survival is a challenge - and its own reward.

Finally, having survived the horrors of the low levels, when death hangs over your head each and every moment in the dungeon or in the wilds - is the best background your character can have. Not even ten pages of backstory can mean as much for your character as actual experience you and your fellow player went through with your characters. You start, more or less, as a nobody, and you build your character, your personality and history - by actual adventuring. Classic Traveller adds to this a "lifepath" character generation system where you actually - though briefly - go through risky careers and face a threat of actual death for your character, making your choices and risk management crucial for your character's survival even during that early phase of the game. But even in Classic Traveller, the background your past career - rolled on a few tables in 5-10 minutes or so - is only a paragraph of text in most cases, and then you strike out to the stars to make a real name for yourself. But facing risks and threats builds your character. When a significant portion of the encounters in the game might end in a Total Party Kill (TPK), reaching Name Level - typically the 9th level in D&D-type games - is an achievement to be proud of and not just a given stage in the game.

In short, lethality in an RPG - when done right and framed correctly - can be a source of challenge, excitement and enjoyment. This is what makes older-school so appealing to many people, and this is something every tabletop gamer should try; some might not like it, but others will be thrilled.

So what *ARE* the Classic Traveller skills?

I discussed Classic Traveller (CT) skills before, and I'll discuss them here again, in greater detail, this time about their nature. A common misconception is that skills in CT work like skills in a D20 game, or Mongoose Traveller (MGT) for that matter - that is, as modifiers to the task roll (2d6 for 8+ in MGT). This indeed is the case of weapon skills in combat - they add the skill as modifier to the combat roll, but also (in the case of melee weapons, that is) as a penalty to attack the character. But many other skills are not meant to serve as modifiers in some standardized task system; a lot of them are actually "all-or-nothing" character features.

Let's see: Bribery directly affects Reaction rolls, not "task" rolls; Engineering adds +2 per skill level to rolls to repair ship systems; Forgery applies a -2 DM per level to the throw to detect a forgery; Forward Observer actually applies a +4 DM to-hit by artillery fire per level; J-o-T simply gives you (regardless of level) Skill-0 in all skills; Leader allows you various command abilities per level; Medical-1 can give first aid and work as a medic aboard a starship, Medical-2 gives you a +DM to revive low passengers, Medical-3 makes you a real Doctor and Medical-3 plus DEX 8+ makes you a surgeon; a level in Navigation, Steward, Medic, Pilot or Engineering makes you employable as a starship crewman; Pilot gives you Ship's Boat at one level lower; and Vacc Suit-1 confers battledress/combat armor proficiency.

In short, these skills are somewhere between simple "+DM" skills ala MGT - and "Feats" (in D20) or "Proficiencies"(in ACKS) which actually give you a benefit above and beyond adding the skill level to rolls. Also, not all work the same way, some add a higher DM per skill level, and penalty for no skill varies from skill to skill.

MGT (as MegaTraveller did decades before that) "flattens" this "edginess" of CT, making it easier to run and remember - but losing some of the flavor and uniqueness on the way.

On the Beauty of Classic Traveller

Classic Traveller. The game that started it all. One of the first SFRPGs in history. Sure, it is rough around the edges, and its rules have many "holes" in them (vehicle combat comes to mind), but the game itself is a thing of beauty, from both a game design and an old-school play perspective. It is a work of art; returning to it after playing many other and newer games is refreshing. But to truly appreciate it, one must see it as its own game, maybe even take the first three Little Black Books (or the Traveller Book which is an edited and improved version of them) as their own thing, apart from later, supplemental Classic Traveller or later Traveller rulesets.

So what is the beauty of Classic Traveller?

The beauty of Classic Traveller is a character sheet which is a few rows of text on an index card, smaller in size even than the typical old-school D&D character sheet, yet describes a complete character. From these few stats, randomly generated, one can infer a very interesting and complete character, all without needing too many rules to reference. HERE is an example of such inference from the Ancient Faith in the Far Future blog - the character is three short rows, yet the experienced player, or Referee, can easily extrapolate much background and personality details, enough for years of play.

The beauty of Classic Traveller is generating a complete character in 5 minutes (believe me, I've tried this with a timer). Sure, your character may die during chargen. But who cares? You "wasted" a few minutes of your life playing a game. No harm done - five minutes more and another character will spring forth. All of this while allowing for much diversity of characters.

The beauty of Classic Traveller is building a starship in twenty minutes; this starship has no "stat block", but rather a paragraph of readable English text, which is enough to run it. Much variety is possible, and the "building block" simplicity of the ship creation system allows for the Referee to quickly add new components (say, hydroponics, a shipboard hospital and so on) to Book 2 ships. One ship in a paragraph - this is beautiful, especially when compared to the long strings of hex digits serving as the "stat blocks" of ships in later iterations of Traveller.

The beauty of Classic Traveller is that a mere 2-3 pages of tables create a wonderfully complex world of weapons, each with its own nuances, each fitting a niche. No need for ultra-complex penetration rolls; all is included in these simple tables. CT weapons have their own "character", and their own uses. The emergent complexity here is breathtaking.

The beauty of Classic Traveller is that a few digits define a world, and are enough to infer much from them, all while allowing for much nuances and for an endless variety of worlds. The stats suit adventurers and their needs - What starport services are available? Can I take my laser rifle ashore? Which politics will I have to deal with? Can I breath the air? Can I refuel from oceans/gas-giants/glaciers? All of this is very quick to generate and very fun to infer from.

A beautiful system, isn't it?

What the Traveller: New Era setting got right for Sandbox Play

Traveller: New Era (TNE) is reputed to be a controversial version of Traveller; from what I've heard, when this game was released back in 1993, it split the fan-base, as not all players were content with the significant changes in the setting, not to mention a new and different ruleset (the GDW "house system" also used in Twilight: 2000). Indeed, much criticism has been leveled at the Virus - a self-replicating cyber/bio weapon capable of taking over most computerized system and the reason for the TNE post-apocalyptic condition, as well as at the departure from the "Golden Era" milieu of Traveller (or its Rebellion extension). In this post, I will avoid the subject of the Virus for the most part, though I will mention some of its impact on the setting. Instead, I intend to talk about a few key elements of the New Era setting, which I consider to be very good for the game, especially for a sandbox game, regardless of the ruleset (which I do not care much for).

The first is the removal of the over-powerful overbearing interstellar government (Imperium) of late Classic Traveller and of Megatraveller. While the Imperium, indeed, is a well-loved setting among many fans, it does have its limitations, especially in its "modern" form - a very powerful, omnipresent government holding multiple multi-kton battleships in every subsector. This (the "Golden Era" and the Rebellion) is a setting where many elements are far beyond the reach and influence of players, and players typically are pretty low on the political foodchain. The "endgame" elements of a sandbox - that is, influencing planetary and interstellar politics and maybe even establishing a pocket-empire ruled by the PCs - are very difficult to pull off with interstellar "big government" and big corporations running around. TNE removes them, albeit in a very brutal and total way, but suddenly there are much less "big boys" running around and either foiling the PCs plans, or making them redundant. Less authority figures around is a good thing for a sandbox, as it makes the PCs important, and makes their decisions meaningful. Even when governments ARE involved, they are much smaller affairs than, say, the Megatraveller factions, and thus much more amenable to PC influence.

The second, and related point is the opening up of a real frontier for actual exploration. A recurring problem with the "Golden Era" was that, unless you used semi-canonical peripheral regions such as the Outer Rim Void of A4: Leviathan fame, there wasn't a "hard" frontier to be found. Sure the Spinward Marches were a relative frontier, but they were fully explored and fully known, all a developed, or semi-developed, part of an existing interstellar empire. TNE wiped the map clean, and now whatever polity the PCs are part of (say, the Reformation Coalition) has a "hard" frontier around it, and, beyond it, vast tracts of space which is either unexplored for 70 years, or very minimally explored. So you can boldly go where no man has gone before.

The third is having an actual framework for adventure. The PCs are, by default, Space Vikings - government-sponsored explorers, raiders and privateers out to explore, and loot, the Wilds. This is somewhat akin to the "dungeon crawling" of old-school D&D - PCs are out there to recover treasure, make a name for themselves, and, eventually, topple tyrants and leave their mark on the setting. This also allows for "treasure" - high-TL goods recovered from dead 'boneyard' worlds and from regressed colonies. In a sandbox, this is very useful - PCs have a motivation to take risks, to explore, and to interact with the setting and with its factions, and it is also very easy to explain why a very diverse group of PCs work together on one starship (they are all out to get rich from off-world plunder). this becomes even better with a built-in patron for the PCs - the Reformation Coalition Exploration Service (RCES), who may provide adventure hooks and assistance, all while being unable to have a significant level of control over the PCs during the adventure itself (resources are limited, and, outside of the Coalition itself, interstellar government, or even significant RCES oversight, are very rare).

With the three elements above, TNE allows for many sandbox gaming possibilities, for exploration and for meaningful PC influence on the setting, all of which are very good things.

(Last but not least, on a side-note, TNE finally gave us a reason why Traveller computers, robotics and cybernetics were limited in scope and very bulky (other than the game being published in 1977, that is) - the reason given in the new (2000's) Battlestar Galactica. In other words, people deliberately opt for very primitive electronics to keep Virus infection risks at a bearable minimum.)

The roles of Wandering Monsters in old-school games

In old-school RPGs, wondering monsters had several roles.

1) The most important role, IMHO, was to turn time into a strategic resource. Even if you carry plenty of supplies and torches, random encounters are pretty frequent in a dungeon, and thus wasting time means risking encountering monsters, some of them quite powerful for your level. So every action which takes significant time, risks a wondering monster roll, and thus requires a strategic choice on part of the players: should they rest now, that they have expanded 50% of their resources, and thus risk encountering something nasty while they sleep - or rather press on (or leave the dungeon to rest in a safer place)? Should they spend a turn doing a "take 20" search of each and every room in the dungeon, and thus risk encountering a monster, or try and notice clues in their environment? Should they kick down every door they encounter (thus making a LOT of noise and forcing an immediate wandering monster roll), or try to use discretion? Once time has a concrete cost in risk of encountering monsters, you reduce the tendency of players to resort to "15-minute adventuring days" and "take 20 to search everything", by making such actions into meaningful choices rather than routine acts.

2) Making dungeons, and deep wilderness, actually dangerous in-game. Peasants avoid the Accursed Moor because it is haunted. PCs who venture there - take a risk of meeting undead. Not just set-piece undead in barrow mounds, mind you, but random undead - after all, it is the Moor where the dead are reputed to walk. A nasty place. Not a place to tread casually through. The same goes with entering the Ghoul Castle of Doom - hungry ghouls abound there, and not just in set-piece encounters - the place is crawling with them. On the other hand, you shouldn't roll too often for random encounters in civilized areas - ACKS, for example has one encounter check PER MONTH in civilized areas. This strikes home the reason why peasants stay close to civilization and shun the wilderness - there are bad things there out to eat you, and you have to go prepared.

3) Making things interesting for both DM and players. A typical DM has a style - the kind of monsters and encounters he or she is likely to set up. A good random-encounter table goes beyond that - something surprising might turn up, and make the game more interesting It also pushes for encounters which are not "level set" to the PCs, and thus might necessitate something other than combat - maybe negotiating with the dragon who turns up in a random encounter and bribing him with treasure, or running away from him - not everything the PCs encounter is a balanced fight or even a necessary fight.

Why do Commercial RPGs Succeed?

Basic D&D - a successful commercial RPG.

I posted this as a comment to the RPGPundit's column "Why do Commercial RPGs Fail?", and thought that this might be interesting as a blog post of its own.

So why do some commercial RPGs succeed?

1) Usability out of the box. You take the book, read it cover to cover, and can start an actual game with people around an actual table. Good products, especially good "big" products (i.e. rulesets and settings), should always include a starter adventure with pre-generated PCs so that the book would be of immediate use to any group. This is the reason old-school D&D boxed sets always came with a pre-packaged adventure.

2) Editing and proofreading. Significant errata kills games. The game should be perfectly playable at its first printing, with no need for looking for errata online due to missing tables and similar screw-ups. Both old-school D&D and Classic Traveller could be played out of the box without needing much errata.

3) Focus on actual play. An RPG is a *GAME* first, anything else second. Mechanics should facilitate play. Fluff should be limited to what is useful in play. Setting histories of over 2-3 pages rarely figure in play, especially if they come in the first product in the line. Old-school D&D and Traveller, for example, came with VERY little fluff, yet were highly successful, as they were focused on play. In my Outer Veil setting for Traveller, for example, there are about 2 pages of setting history; and most other setting material is game-relevant (a few paragraphs on things such as culture, politics, etc with some hooks); flavor text is usually a paragraph or two at most at the beginning of each chapter.

4) Art and layout. Too much text with no art is painful on the eye. Tasteful stock art will do. Custom art conveying the feel of the setting is better. D&D always had art, especially in later editions. An index can help, too, and if you're publishing a PDF, make sure that it is indexed, bookmarked and fully searchable for maximum usability.

5) Aiming at the casual player. Most people who play RPGs are not the big enthusiasts, but rather people who play every 1-2 weeks for 3-5 hours each time over beer and pretzels (or Mountain Dew and pizza). They want a game which is easy to understand and use, requires little commitment, and which is fun from the get-go. Generally speaking, for the casual gamer, simple rules and quick chargen are preferable. The casual GM/DM/Referee/Judge, i.e. one with limited time to devote to the hobby, needs a game for which it is VERY easy to prep adventures. Old-school boxed-set D&D, or Classic Traveller for that matter, fit this to a T.

And, the most important -

6) Aim towards subjects and themes with a broad appeal. A lot of people dig faux-Tolkien fantasy, for example, and thus D&D appeals to them thematically. Traveller appealed very much to all Battlestar Galactica, Alien and Star Wars fans. Being overly unique and "original" can be bad for your game - it is generally better to take a common, even cliche, theme and build a good game around it than re-invent the wheel around something too focused.