Related Information to Aericsteele's Traveller Questions & Support

Aericsteele's Traveller Questions & Support - Page 3

This is The Cynic, over...

How does the dice roller work and how do penelties and bonuses apply?

For example if I roll a d6 two times, will the penelty or bonus be applied to each roll individually or the total?

Support and Questions Traveller Aericsteeles

Maiokus, the question could be asked [via here: Dice Support]. I haven't had enough experience with the Dice in these Forums to know.

Aericsteele's Traveller Questions & Support RPGs PBP Fiction Science

Rebel over...

I have a friend who is interested in joining us. He is not very experienced at online, but has plenty of tabletop experience. Time and space for him? I'll send him a link anyway...

Page 3 Support and Questions Traveller Aericsteeles

The Referee relays...

I think the best way to handle this using the embedded dice roller would be to roll d6 2x's without modifiers. Include the modifiers in your post for example in an out of character section state something to the effect of: +1 [Skill Name]; +1 [Ability Used]; +2 Total Dice Modifier

I believe if you try to add these modifiers up and place it in the appropriate section in the embedded roller it will add or subtract those modifiers to each d6 which is not what we want. For example if you put in to roll d6 2x's with a +3 Modifier and you rolled a 4 and a 6 the results would show 7, 9 which would make 16 but the actual result is 4+6 = 10 + 3 modifier which is 13.

I think we could handle one more, just make sure he reads and understands the site policies. You can link him to the character creation thread.

Support and Questions Traveller Aericsteeles

The Referee relays...

Just to let everyone know, a feature has been added to the dice roller that allows you to roll a d12 and have it generate a number from 2-12 which basically mimics a 2d6 roll. You do this using the Start # feature, and in this case the start # is 2. If you use this then you can add the modifiers into the embedded dice roller. If you decide to simply roll 2d6 then do not add the modifiers in the dice roller; you will need to state your modifiers in your post.

Remember to address Out of Character: questions to the appropriate thread when possible. Questions or comments about character creation or generation need to go to the character creation thread; questions about the game mechanics or setting should go to the support thread; that would include the discussion regarding paying the ships mortgage, operating costs, etc. The exception of course is when the character is doing an action or accessing a network to find information regarding different parts of the setting for example Shuth looking up information on Ruie on the computer; that would go in the Main thread as a in character post. So I can try to answer some of the questions posed in the Main thread here.

Paying bills: The mortgage on the ship is due every thirty days (030, 060, 090, etc) the ships operating costs covers things like food and basic materials on board.

Rolling for time: I generally try to determine time based on the skill roll starting at the longest amount of time for basic success (Roll of 8) and decreasing the time as the roll goes up. So for example, a task that takes 10-60 minutes (Like astrogation) would take you 60min if you rolled an 8, 50min on a 9, 40min for 10, etc though there may be other variables I may factor in as well making it more of an art than a science.

A note regarding dice rolls and skills: I am an advocate of the "Let it Ride!" rule in other words I do not like rolling several times until there is a success. I don't like to see a roll for a computer check come up a 6 (Fail) and then the player say that they just try again and roll again until they get a success unless a significant amount of time has passed or the situation changed dramatically.
On the other hand, a failed roll does not always mean that the person just failed to do what they wanted, it may mean that there is a complication to it, and that it didn't go as the player intended. For example making an intrusion roll to open a door, you roll a 5 (Fail); you may still get the door open but maybe there is a guard standing on the other side looking at you, or you've tripped an alarm.

Another example would be a failed astrogation check. Generally speaking you can't make a jump until the astrogation check is successful. If you fail the check I don't want to have to wait to see the results that you failed and then make you roll again, wait for that result, and so on; that is too slow time consuming. Instead what it will generally mean is that you spent a good 60-90 minutes plotting it in...you got it but there may be a greater chance of a misjump, that you will be off target, or some other complication occurs.

The other thing I don’t like is when everyone takes a turn at the same thing because the guy with the greatest skill failed so everyone will try until it’s successful. To make a Dungeons & Dragons reference this; like when the 18 strength fighter cannot force a jammed door open because he rolled bad but the 8 strength rogue comes along and rolls lucky so he busts the door down.

In general, if a person with a skill level of 4 can’t do it, the guy with skill level 0 shouldn’t reasonably be able to do it. I will research the rules a little because I can’t remember off hand whether Traveller allows for skill assists from other players, if it does then the character with a similar skill may assist but if the roll still fails, you cannot have the assisting character try to roll and have the original character acting to assist. Let it ride, you failed and it’s not going to happen.

Finally, there are skills that I feel should only be rolled once per situation. Rather than having you roll stealth five different times, I prefer to just do it once and let that result determine the general outcome. For example, your goal is for your character to sneak past some guards and pick the lock on a vault or something I’m not going to have you roll to get past the first set of guards, and then roll to get past another set of guards, and then roll a third time to sneak past a third set of guards.

You will roll once, modified by the difficulty, and if you succeed you manage to sneak past all of the guards then you will make an intrusion check at the door. This might change if the situation changes, for example the guards are alerted by something and alarms start going off, they are now actively looking so you may have to roll stealth again with different modifiers.

Aericsteele's Traveller Questions & Support

This is The Cynic, over...

I've got a friend who's interested in joining. We got room or is it too late for him to join?

Thanks for the post, good clarification of skill check policies!

Cheers!

Aericsteele's Traveller Questions & Support - Page 3

The Referee relays...

There is player who may be joining already and that would put us at seven characters...It will be pushing it with seven, and I'm not sure I could handle eight; I really hate turning people away, but I'm not sure I can coordinate things well enough with that many players. If I don't hear anything from the other player by Monday morning then yeah, we can work your friend in. There does seem to be a fair amount of interest and if that continues maybe one of you could start another game, perhaps a MegaTraveller or Classic Traveller game?

Also, a gentle nudge from the GM: There has been an effort by several characters to try and figure out what is so special about the chemical compound that Dr. Crane is looking for. This information is not going to be revealed through computer searches, asking around, or anything like that. Basically, I'm not a chemist (Heck I couldn't even handle high school chemistry), so I'm not going to be able to give you a detailed dissertation on the nuances of this particular chemical compound verses the others. This is also why it's so general...chemical compound...non-specific. Remember in post one I said that much of the game's content has been/will be generated randomly; this is one of those things.

It boils down to this researcher wants a particular chemical compound that is rare; why he wants that verses one that is cheaper and more readily available, is probably not going to be deduced by studying the chemical makeup of the compound. I know why this is, but obviously I'm not going to reveal it to you at this stage.

There has been an attempt to research Dr. Crane's background and you were able to glean some information from this, but again you are probably not going to be able to determine his underlying or true intent through a background check. All you can really do with this information is speculate.

Edited: Aericsteele on 4th Dec, 2015 - 4:39pm

Aericsteele's Traveller Questions & Support Science Fiction PBP RPGs - Page 3

Rebel over...

Aericsteele/Maiokus - Its weekly Games Night and I am talking to my friend - he is unable to get his tablet to work with this board, so he's not joining us.