Review - Traveller 5th Edition (T5)
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- čas přidán 23. 06. 2024
- Muffin reviews the fifth edition of the venerable Traveller game, the legendary (some say infamous) T5.
DriveThruRPG links:
T5.1 Core Rulebook set: preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/p...
T5 Atlas of the Imperium - Second Survey: preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/p...
Far Future Enterprises:
Traveller5: traveller5.net/
FFE: www.farfuture.net/
Previous edition reviews:
Classic Traveller (T1): • Review - Classic Trave...
MegaTraveller (T2): • Review - MegaTraveller...
Traveller: The New Era (T3): • Review - Traveller: Th...
Marc Miller's Traveller (T4): • Review - Marc Miller's...
The Interregnum (GT, HT, T20): • Reviews - Traveller (G...
Mongoose Traveller (MgT1, MgT2): • Review - Traveller (Mo... - Hry
I like T5.1 very much - but we need a ‘Starter Traveller 5’ to summarise the core rules - that would make 5.1 a much easier proposition to get running. I guess you could make such a book by cut and pasting from the CD Rom.
Starter T5 would definitely be a good addition.
Great and honest review of T5. I backed the 5.0 version and, as you said, it's NOT a usable system. I stopped trying to note erratas and fixing it after a while. The forum didn't help as the mere mention of it being broken resulted in you being kicked out! I saw the 5.1 Kickstarter and, like about half of those who were burned the first time around, I passed. I haven't looked into Traveller since then, but your review made me reconsider checking out 5.1. Thank you for that and for the detailed review.
Yeah, CotI did get a bit militant, but I think necessarily so. After acknowledging T5.0 to be a mess, it wouldn't have been constructive for a further deluge pointing that out. In many ways, I'm glad they did, because it led to the more constructive effort of errata-ing the damn thing.
I do hope you find 5.1 a better experience. As I note in the video, the organisation and layout still leave something to be desired - but the game itself is now a solid set of rules and tools.
Brilliant review. Absolutely nails the T5 experience. I agree completely, but I landed in a different place of using primarily M2E with T5 layered on to add crunch to taste.
M2E is generic if you want it to be, but the charted space setting is (imo) the single greatest setting in RPGs, so I like to use some of the Mongoose setting content. My particular homebrew recipe also borrows some of the sandbox tools from Stars Without Number.
Thank-you! And you highlight the brilliance of the Traveller system in general - it's wide open to absorb elements from all over the place with only a few tweaks here and there.
I do still need to look at SWON properly...
Very good work, amazing channel. I have no idea how I missed it for so many years. I am. In the M2 side since I prefer my rules in the lighter side.
I'm just not that good at promoting it! Thank-you 🙂 One of the great aspects of Traveller is that it can be as complex or as easy as you like - one of the main hallmarks I love about it.
Thank you for this awesome review and overview for T5!
Thank-you 🙂
The ultimate review of the ultimate edition. Happy new year, Willy.
And a happy new year to you, too! 🙂
FINALLY, will watch it now. Thanks in advance!! You're the best 😊
I hope it doesn't disappoint!
My god, T5. What a cluster****. I'd forgetten that I actually owned this and... well, thankfully got rid of it! Watching this brought back some (un)welcome memories! LOL. Enjoyed the video though, Will. Thanks for doing it - always a good watch and informative and hope you had a great Christmas. All the best. 🙂
I can sympathise - no shade from me on anyone that got T5 out of the gate and went "nope!" I just managed to fall into a stubborn groove of "I will get this to work!".
Anyway - hope you and yours had a good one, too, thank you 🙂
@@WillyMuffinUK I admire your resilience and persistence, mate! 👍
@@Rich_H_1972 It's just obstinate bloody-mindedness, really 🤣
Great and intelligent overview.
IMO T5's strength is the "maker" tables.
Thank-you. I'm sort of inclined to agree, mainly because the Makers are useful across the Traveller editions in one shape or form - Sophonts especially. Run the process, bit of rejigging, hey presto - new sophont for TNE!
I must mention Willy that this video made me take a new look at the 5.10 version. After backing the 5.0 edition and being vastly disappointed by it (after trying very hard to make it work) I had given up on T5. Years later I came back to Traveller and initially went for Cepheus Universal, but I found myself often going to T5 for missing things (missing for _me_). After watching your video I decided to give 5.10 a fair test. I must say it's a bit like trying to learn someone else's short hand... But once you do make the initial effort to learn how it's written, and take the time to read it _all_, making sure you cover everything (because some things are defined after they are used), then it starts to make sense. And then it starts to shine! It's not without its shortcomings (what game doesn't have those?), but it's a very elegant system that is not as complicated as it appears. Yes it's crunchy, but most of what you get is either modular (meaning you can opt out) or used outside of the game night (for the GM to work prepping the game). Once you get to a certain amount of understanding, you start to see the beauty of many of its subtle nuances. So, thank you for this video!
Nicely put 🙂
It is unfortunate that 5.0 was such a mess, as it did put a lot of people off. I tend to use T5.1 as core, and convert Mongoose and other material over, as even with so many releases, Mongoose Traveller still feels like it's missing core chunks compared to T5. But then, MgT is better presented.
Anyway... thank-you for your response. It hits on exactly one of the reasons I put this video together.
I actually like traveller t5 a lot. It's like deciphering physics, once you understand it, it's genius. Literally can do anything.
Pretty much the same here. I've found it to be the most comprehensive. I'll do more, T5 videos on some of its finer points - like tech advancement, QREBS, and so on that would have made this video too long for an overview. But it's things like that - attention to detail - that make it what it is.
@@WillyMuffinUK yes more T5 video's!
@WillyMuffinUK I look forward to your followup videos. You've sold me on quite a few old systems I never knew existed, let alone were so great. I appreciate you and your efforts.
@@jackrussel9573 Thank-you :) It's always nice to know people are finding these rambles of mine useful!
@@WillyMuffinUK please do!
Impressive review what's your background sir
Thank-you. In what way?
very informative!
I'm glad you found it so 🙂
Thank you very much Ian, I enjoy your video-essays a lot and appreciate your thoughts and "ramblings" very much! I myself know and use the classic traveller books and the 5.1 ones and I really cherish them. What I've never looked into, are the Mongoose 2E books. Do you think that they'd be worth the time and money to invest, coming from where I am, knowledge- and predispostion-vise?
I'd cagily say "some of them". There's a lot of overlap in what you already have - not specifically, but in scope. Depending which Classic books you have, you'll already have more material than the core Mongoose books present.
The caveat is that some of the Mongoose books and sets are fantastic, and are usable with Classic and T5. Which ones is a matter of taste. For me, The Great Rift and Deepnight Revelation represent huge scope and touch on things not covered by Traveller previously.
So - yes, Mongoose Traveller is worth checking out, but I'd urge a bit of buyer's caution on a book by book basis.
Got it! That makes a lot of sense! Thank you very much Ian, I've looked into "The Great Rift" - box and it has really quite a scope, I see your point! But I will apply buyer's caution as you said, and maybe consider getting it somewhere it the future, since Classic Traveller and 5.1 still deliver such a wealth of content.
The main issue I find with T5's layout at this point is the whole C1-C6 stuff - it's useful as a reference because the various types of alien might have different named stats, but it does make them feel more complex - especially if you're showing them to players who are new to the system.
Yeah, distilling it down to basics is definitely something needed. The C numbers work for general and broad reference, but from a player perspective, there's a lot of "huh?"
Traveller was an interesting RPG when I was40yrs younger. Even then, there were a couple of variants. I may have them tucked away in players handbooks sorts of stuff. I never came across gammaster edition. For me, tinkering with shipdesign was interesting although parameters for doing this was only 15-20 pages and had nada for genning up a character.
IIRC, some authors wrote some storys using much modded form of Traveller. All were shortstorys as I recall. Any oldfarts like me have a similar recollection???
Surprised you hadn't found any character generation rules - generally the first volume in each edition has those.
As for fiction... none that I recollect. There were some novels for The New Era (Traveller 3rd Edition), and Marc Miller wrote a novel a few years ago (Agent of the Imperium), but nothing that rings a bell along the lines you suggest.
Try Starwell by Alexei Panshin. It is actually pre-Traveller, but is the most Traveller-like book I have ever read. As a bonus, it is a delightful read.
Thank you for the review, I loved the cinematic 3D segments in between.
In your honest opinion, what ruleset do you find more suitable for the ultimate gearhead? I'm leaning more towards TNE with FF&S than to T5. I'd like to make a more hardish sci-fi setting such as the Expanse.
From that perspective - TNE. Although T5 is a close runner, it's design sequences are less technical than those of TNE FFS - although, you can do more with T5. Thinking about it now, if I was to do a Traveller Expanse type of campaign, it might well be T5 I'd go for.
Reason why I say that is that T5 has provision for designing things as "Experimental" - that is, of technology ahead of that the underlying Tech Level would allow - and "Basic" - of a tech so below the TL that, I don't know - kids easily rustle them up behind the bike sheds from scrap parts, or some such. And all points in between. It also allows for very high TLs, so something like Ring Builder tech could be modelled.
So I guess, either TNE or T5! My bias runs towards absolutely loving mucking about with FFS, though.
I bought both T5 and T5.1. I don't think the rules are complex. The large number of pages are mostly for the various makers. The actual rules for play are remarkably simple. My only real beef with the system is combat. Gun combat nearly always results in automatic hits - I fixed this by having a modifier that halves the target number when the firer is under fire - that seems to result in more pleasing numbers and simulates easy hits on unsuspecting targets vs harder hits under combat conditions.
Alas, I never figured out how to fix melee combat - that is something I'm still looking at.
There are also a few arbitrary rules that I drop altogether. The one where damaged armour becomes no armour at all and NPC's needing a minimum of 9 points(? It's been a while!) of damage to be affected. Both of these seemingly arbitrary rules break a lot of things so I drop them.
I love the starship combat, BUT.... the ref has a lot of work to do creating the hit location details for the various starships.
Despite the dodgy combat, there are a lot of mechanics in T5 that I really like.
The lack of materials for T5 is problematic, though one can easily use T4 adventures with the system with little modification.
One thing Marc should do, is release a Third Imperium book for T5. This would be a book full of pre-created equipment and starships for the Third Imperium. It would also contain maps, history and scenario seeds. I think that would sell pretty well :)
If I'm honest, I play a lot more Mongoose Traveller than T5, though there are various materials in T5 that are handy for use in Mongoose Traveller. It's a shame that the two systems are not really compatible as T5 is dice based roll under a target number, whereas Mongoose is 2d roll over 8 mostly...
I can only hope that Marc starts to support T5, but it has been a while now, so hope is fading.
What would be good at this point, I think, is for T5 to either be released under ORC, or have something similar to The Jonstown Compendium that Chaosium runs for fan-support of RuneQuest and Glorantha. I think "we the collective" could really do some good T5 work there.
bro... i want you as my gm :)
Hah! What brought that on? It's the beard, right? 🤣
👍@@WillyMuffinUK
So, is this thing actually playable without a physics doctorate?
Yes - it involves a bit of work to get through the initial difficulty, but if you understand previous Traveller it has much of the same DNA (e.g. the damage in combat vs wounding consequences after combat is a development of the MegaTraveller rules). I found the 5.1 edition snaps into place once you grasp it.
Yes, very definitely!
@@elliotvernon7971 Thanks, I might actually give this a try, I was burned by the previous version unplayability and the forums banning more people than rpg net but I like traveller too much not to give it a second shot.
No mate, don't go near it. Life's way too short to fanny about with T5 or 5.1! Will's actually a 25 year old guy. Only looks like he does after reading the rules and doing this video! 🤣
@@Rich_H_1972 I remember trying to start a game of T5 with my group, we played a lot of Cepheus Engine and Moongose Traveller so we thought it wouldn't change much, boy were we wrong lol.
The worst part is how difficult the base rules for T5 were, other versions have their complexities but the core rules are pretty damn easy overall, T5 had a ton of stuff just to get the basics running, I mean I get the simulation aspect, I've fooled around with system making and ship crafting a lot but that stuff was really excessive.
Quite in impressive but again try CataclysmDDA
But that's a video game...
@WillyMuffinUK Yeaps, however it's like GURPS, Basic Roleplaying, Hero, twilight, etc including tactical battle strategy, crafting computer game, & free.
It's biggest drawback is single player & not multipler.
@@tombouie Where is the Interactive role-playing, though? Without that, it'd be more accurate to say it's unlike those RPGs you mention. Although, having had a bit of a read-up on it, as far as a text-based solo distraction goes it doesn't seem too bad.