A Review of Marc Miller's Traveller

Note:
System Overview: T4 has errors; some are serious, most are not. T4 is not TNE Second Edition; the only thing it has in common with TNE is the starship systems (and even that has been changed from FF&S). T4 truly is, as IG claimed, "CT updated based on 20 years of RPG experience." Take "The Traveller Book," add a new task system, some more character classes, a new die-rolling convention or two (1/2 dice, X- targets instead of X+ targets), a consolidated and updated skills listing, and the aforementioned modified TNE starship creation system, and you'll have the essence of T4.

T4's Known Errors (Up to Chapter 3):

Lots and lots of typos. Words that are plural but which should be singular; vice versa; sentences like "use your Compute skill" instead of "use your ComputeR skill"; etc.
Some awkward phrasing here and there. Not as bad as the 70s-era "English" instructions in Japanese-made products, but still poor form for a professionally published work.
The mustering out process explanation doesn't jibe with the ranks tables. They kept the "Traveller Book" explanation, which bases the number of additional rolls on whether the character has achived rank 1,2,3,4,5 or 6, while the rank tables go from E1-E10 and O1-O7 or O1-O10. Not difficult to change for those of us with High Guard, Merchant Prince, etc. But newbies will be confused by it.
The Skills List and the Skills Descriptions are supposed to have some skills in italics, which is to connote those skills which may be used at level-0. Unfortunately, no skills are listed in italics. Therefore, there is no way to know which skills may be used at level-0.
In the services portion of character generation, the skill tables do not have cluster/cascade skills listed in bold (they ARE listed in bold in the schools/colleges section, though). This will confuse people at first, until they memorize which are clusters/cascades and which are not.

Things I Like About T4 (to chapter 3):

I love the addition of the colleges and schools. There are eight of them, but some cannot be entered into directly. That is, you have to go to College before you go to Graduate School; you must graduate with Honors from a Military Academy before going to Commando School; and so on.
I like the addition of basic skills. An age 18 character will have from 4 to 7 skills, depending on the tech level of his/her home world. This makes sense.
I like the fact that characters have far, far more skills than their CT (basic) counterparts. 4-7 basic skills, plus 4-6 skills per term, plus default skills. Basic character generation is almost as quick as with the CT basic rules, but the character generated this way will be on par with a CT Advanced (Book 4-7) character.
The skills list is right for a basic book. There are enough skills, but not so many that it becomes unweildy. Additional books may (and should) expand on this list, but the basic book has the right amount to keep experienced players happy while not demanding too much of newbies.
The task system is simple and logical. There aren't umpteen exceptions as there are in most other task systems. It's straight-forward and robust. I can get used to 1/2 dice (matter-of-fact, I got used to them after just two games of Traveller Starship Battles at Gen-Con).
Some Andy Rooney-ish musings about T4:

The ships look different. It's not a big deal, but I've always pictured Traveller ships as they appeared in CT. It will take a while for me to adjust my mental pictures.
The splashy Chris Foss interior art could have been dropped, esp. if it would have affected the sale price at all. I like the b&w art by Larry Elmore, though.
Every time I look at IG's Imperial Sunburst logo, I think of Mattel.
T4 is definitely the official abbreviation for the game. On the back of the book, in the bottom right-hand corner, is a graphic of "T4." Under that it says, "Marc Miller's Traveller 4th Edition."
The book is the right size. TNE was way too big. A return to three little black books would have been rediculous at this point (no matter how much I love those books). 192 pages (including many pages of splashy art, the index, and even an advertisement for some role-playing magazine on the last page!) is just about right.
The type font is nice. Good size, and easy to read.
That character sheet has got to go. For one thing, it doesn't give enough room to list all the skills one will undoubtedly get under this system. Heck, you can't list all the skills the example character ("Alexander L. Jamison") has! For another thing, you can get rid of the Mustering Out Cash/Items box (this stuff should be lised in the normal cash and items sections). I think some enterprising third-party could make some easy money by coming up with a more usable character sheet.
Including a picture of the design team was a good touch.
I miss the "Note on Gender and Race" that was included in previous versions. That struck me as a good thing to include. On the other hand, these days it would probably be vilified as too "Politically Correct." On the third hand, maybe it would be vilified as being not PC enough. I guess that's why they didn't include it.

Chapter 5 (Ground Combat)
The combat section looks good. 8 pages of text, one page of tables, and it covers just about everything you'd want it to (in a basic book), from hand-to-hand to artillery, tanks, robots, and other forms of ground combat. It is possible to cover all of this (in a basic way) in 8 short pages because of the robust task system. I'm impressed.

Quick Summary:
You can still tell Traveller has its roots in wargaming. :) The original rules shine through in this section, and their flavor is retained. However, the consolidating effects of having a task system has vastly simplified the combat rules over what appeared in CT. Once you memorize the task system, combat will go very quickly.
Errors:
The only error I found in the section is in the section discussing explosives. They don't mention whether a grenade is thrown at a target HEX or a target INDIVIDUAL. Since the system uses range bands, I guess I can see why they didn't mention it. But, it'll be hard for inexperienced players to resolve hand grenade attacks. They can figure damage, but not to-hit. Most will probably be able to puzzle it out though.
Cool Stuff:

Multiple actions: A character can now make a number of actions each round up to his or her related characteristic score, but at a penalty. A person with Strength 8 can make 8 Brawling attacks per round, for instance, but each attack will have relatively little chance of succeeding (unless the character is very highly skilled).
Called Shots: You can do a called shot for increased damage (two kinds), decrease damage (two kinds), or to disarm.
"Holding" your actions is covered well.
Special rules.: In addition to the Tactics Pool and Endurance rules that are familiar to most of us, there are also Strength and Dexterity Pools. Strength pools allow one to increase the damage done by non-ranged attacks. Dexterity pools allow one to avoid being hit by non-ranged attacks (no dodging bullets, darn it![G]).
Initiative: Initiative is done more logically (I got a taste of this in the Starship Battles game, and it works well) now. The side that wins the initiative moves LAST but attacks FIRST. That way, they can react to the other side's movement, then fire attack before the other side does. This is more playable than realistic, but from experience, I know it does work well.

Chapters 6 (Equipment) and 7 (Vehicles)
The equipment sections (comprising the Eqiuipment and Vehicles chapters) are well-done, and have fewer typos than the first few chapters (so far, the character creation chapter has the most typos). There is a sampling of equipment given in these chapters, much the same as that given in The Traveller Book. The full list, of course, will be in the Central Supply Catalog supplement.

There are also side-bars giving some examples of specific models of vehicles with very detailed descriptions and specifications. I like this. (BTW, the book uses side-bars the way they should be used: sparingly.)

The basic equipment section has a few new items in it (including a non-lethal weapon and a not-very-lethal weapon, both commonly used for personal protection a la mace/pepper spray and stun guns). The pictures given of various pieces of equipment are well-chosen. The text is well-written and informative. I usually skip equipment sections until I need a specific item, but this one has some gems in it that make it worth reading.

Overall, the equipment chapters were done well.
Chapters 8 (Spacecraft), 9 (Space Travel), and 10 (Space Combat)
We all know about the starship design sequence (developed by Guy "Wildstar" Garnett, and dubbed the Quick Ship Design System (QSDS)), so I won't go into that.

The section on travelling, "Lesser Known Aspects of Space Travel," etc. are all pretty much right from The Traveller Book. The big news is the space combat system. For you space combat fans, please remember that this, like all the systems in the book, is the BASIC system. You won't be stuck with it.

That said, the Basic Ship Combat system is excellent for those of us who are fans of ship combat, but who don't want something that takes all day. This system is simple, smooth, and streamlined. It is actually easier than the Traveller Starship Combat system alpha-tested at Gen-Con. It's a stand-and-blast sort of system, in short. A true Rediculously Simple Ship Combat system. :) I applaud the inclusion of this system. IG and FFE did the right thing.

I look forward to the release of the system shown at Gen-Con, but this will do for now. More importantly, this system will allow newbies to jump right in and engage in starship battles. It will whet their appetites for the (two? three?) more complex ship combat systems to come.
Forms (Revisited)
As I mentioned earlier, if someone will release a new character sheet, that would be most helpful. Further, a Forms Pack of some sort would be even more welcome.

On page 13, in the What's In This Book section, they kept the paragraph on forms from The Traveller Book:
"Scattered throughout several chapters are various prepared forms. One is used to record the specifics of the character, for instance. Anothr records data about a starship. The forms provided are intended for use by the referee and the players as they generate information during the game. They have been printed on the page for maximum ease of photocopying. Once two copies have been made, they can be positioned side by side on the photocopier and multiple copies can be run off."

This is almost completely wrong. Yes, there is a character sheet. It takes up a whole page. Two copies of it makes no sense for ease of further copying, since it takes up a whole page and not 1/2 page as in CT. The starship form is tiny, about 3 inches by 4 inches. It is toward the binding on the page, and the page has other information on it which you would not want to copy. Hardly suitable for copying unless you go to rather more effort than should be required.

I have found no other forms in the book. Most notably missing are the Sector Map Grid and the Sector Data Form.

IG or someone else should rush a Forms Pack to the market, so that players and referees who don't have the CT forms can more easily keep records, generate sectors, etc.
The Rest of the Book
All of the chapters reviewed here have only minimal errors, as far as I can see. Little typos such have been mentioned before, but they aren't so frequent as to drive one up with wall. ;)

Chapter 11 in T4 is on Psionics. It is mostly straight out of "The Traveller Book," with the notable addition of a Psionicist prior service! That's right, there is a somewhat-hidden 11th character type in T4! (I was rather surprised to run across the generation table in the Psionics chapter.) Also included is a Telekinetic Damage chart, which shows just how lethal such a skill can be. The maximum damage listed is 33D!!

Chapter 12 is World Generation. It is almost completely a copy of the same chapter from "The Traveller Book" (I'll abbreviate that to TTB from here on). Sadly, there are no forms provided for use with this section.

Chapter 13 is on Encounters. This is a combination of the Encounters and Animal Encounters chapters from TTB. The notable exception is an inclusion of short (1/2 to 4/5-column) descriptions of each of the major and minor races of Traveller. Also included is a bit of info on including aliens in a Traveller campaign (administering them, role-playing them, creating new ones, etc.). Interestingly, the example encounter table from TTB was used. In TTB and in T4, it is labelled as the encounter table for Regina, which won't be contacted for quite some time after Milieu 0. That one will probably confuse some newbies! "Where the heck is Regina on the Core Subsector Grid? Eh, I'll just call one of these unnamed planets Regina. What could it hurt?" ;)

Chapter 14 is the Referee's Introduction. This is mostly taken from the Introduction in TTB. Also included is the Character Experience section, which has much better allowances for skill improvement, learning new skills, and improving characteristics (somewhat like the system I proposed here several months ago).

Chapter 15 is "Running Adventures and Campaigns." This stuff is right out of TTB's "Referee's Guide to Adventuring," right down to the well-known "basics, push, pull, gimmick, enigma" method.

Chapter 16 is "Trade and Commerce." This is right out of Scouts. We're back to trade goods being designated C-9 Ag Ni Cr 7,000. I'd hoped for something more, but I guess that, like the space combat enthusiasts, I'll have to wait for a supplement.

Chapter 17 is "Exit Visa," one of the adventures included in TTB. It has been updated to make sense under the setting and rules of T4 (ie, different equipment, different date, etc.), but is otherwise very simlar to the original.
B Chapter 18 is "Rubicon Cross," a new adventure.

Sadly, unlike TTB, no other adventures were included. Also, no mention was made of "Basic Traveller Activities," which in TTB offered a list of suggested solo activities for players and referees to engage in between sessions.

The rest of the book: Core Subsector data, Core Subsector Grid, the Traveller character sheet, some Library Data (right out of TTB, once again) and a pretty good Index.

Rating the T4 Book
My overall score for T4, if it had been completely error-free: 100 out of a possible 100. (This assumes no typos, no other errors, and the inclusion of better/more forms.) [That is, I think the ideas behind the book are rock-solid.]

My overall score for T4, if it had been without the errors in chapters 2 and 3 (Character Generation and Skills), but otherwise unchanged: 92 out of a possible 100. [Meaning that all of the errors I have found, excepting those in Chapters 2 and 3, are trivial, saying only to the reader that IG was sloppy and/or rushed in preparing the book.]

My overall score for T4, errors and all: 80 out of 100. [Meaning that the errors in chapters 2 and 3 are serious enough to knock their score down considerably, but they still squeek by with a "B" grade.]
My Recommendation After Reading All of T4:
Read the book and make your own decision, above all. I've tried to give people a feel for the system, but there's nothing like seeing it for yourself. That said:

If you are a fan of CT and would like to see new products for your favorite game, this is probably the system for you. The plethora of new products planned for T4 will almost certainly satisfy every type of player.

If you are a fan of MT but wish it hadn't been done quite the way it was, this may be the CT update you've been wishing for since 1987.

If you are a fan of TNE, this is probably not what you are looking for. If you like TNE's starship systems a lot, but like some of the things about CT and MT, you may enjoy T4. But if you think TNE is the best incarnation of Traveller you've seen yet, you probably won't like T4. [This one is an almost uneducated guess, as I have never played TNE and I've only read the rulebook for it once. But, comments from TNE players at Gen-Con, while perhaps not representative of all TNE players, concur with my opinion expressed above.]

This ends my initial review of T4. I hope it has been informative for those who haven't had a chance to look at the game yet. When you do see it, please post your own opinion of Marc Miller's Traveller.

-Joe Walsh

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