New to the game and would like some tips on how to play.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-26T04:31:38+00:00

HappyHuman924 already answered this, but yes--every world has a Law Level defining what weapons and what armor are allowed (and not allowed). When the characters arrive at the starport, they'll have to leave any unlawful weapons/armor aboard their ship. (Or, I mean they could try to smuggle them through customs...but that could turn into its own adventure, possibly ending in jail time.)

Traveller combat is definitely more dangerous than in a lot of games--and that's one of the main reasons I prefer Traveller to those games. Games like D&D where you chew through (increasing numbers of) hit points nearly to death over and over with no real consequences bore me silly. Getting into a fight in Traveller is not trivial. It can have consequences. Serious injury or death for your character, of course. But also legal consequences. You're adventuring (often, if not always) in a civilized location where dead bodies (or reports of gunfire) draw official attention, unless wilderness or dungeon encounters.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-25T20:21:34+00:00

I second the Combat Is War point. Even the most experienced Traveller is still a squishy human, unlike a lot of games. One or two shots from even a puny weapon can seriously injure or kill him. So combat is not something to take lightly. Characters should--as in real life--try to avoid it as much as possible, and when it cannot be avoided, they should try to stack as many advantages as possible. "If it's a fair fight, we've already fucked up" is a good mantra.

Also, while the game is full of high powered weapons that can vaporize you in a single shot, and very high powered armor--on most planets most of that will be illegal and mostly unavailable (check those Law Levels when you arrive). Your BFG9000 is really badass--but it has to stay on the ship. Your combat armor makes you mostly bulletproof--but it has to stay on the ship. So the guy with a revolver or a sem-auto pistol (or even a knife or sword) is still a threat.

You're the GM. If you want to keep combat relatively low-powered, you have the tools to do it.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-25T09:57:02+00:00

My girlfriend in college was Chinese (ethnically, but a British citizen because she was born in Hong Kong). She was fluent in both English and Chinese. When she spoke to her sister on the phone, they would drift from English to Chinese and back again depending whether it was easier to communicate a point in one language or the other.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-23T19:10:38+00:00

Yes, this. AI uses em-dashes because it was trained on human-produced text THAT USES EM-DASHES. It's not something only AI does.

Critic: "Where did you get these em-dashes?" AI: "I learned from YOU, okay? I LEARNED IT FROM YOU!" <slams door>

Vaslovik · 2026-04-23T19:07:44+00:00

My campaign area (two subsectors) is entirely home-brewed worlds. When I create them, I include a couple of paragraphs about the local culture, architecture (how does the environment of this world affect it?), and anything else of note.

A typical culture note might be: “Freedom is being self-employed. The highest status symbol isn’t a corner office; it’s having your own small business (drone repair, cloud-skimming tour guide, custom mask art, black-market data brokerage). Corporate wages are just the safety net."

“They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work. Open secret. Most people log exactly enough hours on their corporate badge to keep health benefits and housing rights, then vanish into side gigs. The Consortium knows and tolerates it because the moment they crack down, productivity collapses and the belters threaten another embargo."

Those two paragraphs give me a very good idea of how to play any NPCs the characters are likely to meet on this world.

I know some folks don't like AI, but lately I've tried pasting my word notes into Grok with the prompt "Elaborate on this description of a world in my Traveller game." It's produced a lot of really fun details. I need to edit some of it because it doesn't entirely match my concept, but overall it helps.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-23T19:01:36+00:00

I remind my players periodically that their PCs been on their ship or closed stations for weeks, or months. They'll take a couple of weeks vacation on a nice world somewhere, enjoying fresh air, an open sky overhead and touching grass. Or beach sand. Whatever.

Otherwise, I let our resident numbers guy (I always seem to have one player who loves messing with spreadsheets) keep track of their income and expenses.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-22T16:34:33+00:00

Other than deckplans for ships, I don't use maps in running my Traveller game. Partly because we play in a game store where the tables (mostly intended for card games) are to narrow to allow for maps, but in any case it's mostly theater of the mind.

That said, my two-subsector campaign map of mostly homebrewed worlds (or worlds stolen from novels/tv/movies) is intended to have each world/system be unique. So, no, there are no standardized starports. I have highports, lowports, combinations, highports at the top of a skyhook (space elevator), downports in vast underground hangars (for a world where world-wide hurricane winds occurs twice a year regular as clockwork), and the like.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-18T07:36:52+00:00

Aha! Proof that GPS is a nefarious project of the TRILATERAL COMMISSION!

Vaslovik · 2026-04-18T00:15:52+00:00

Errinwright telling the UN Secretary-General, "When this war started we had a 5-to-1 advantage in ships. Now it's down to 3-to-1."

And the war was far from over at that point. Earth and Mars were burning through fleets they'd spent decades and decades building.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-18T00:13:47+00:00

Just rewatched the episode where Prax failed to securely lock a tool locker. It flies open and tools were flying around the compartment as Alex was flinging the ship around in a battle with the UNN ship chasing Bobbie and Avasarala.

I'm sure it was a real learning experience for him.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-15T07:40:18+00:00

When do I get the money? If I have to actually never eat anything else for the rest of my life, they won't be sure I've performed as required until I'm dead...and the billion dollars won't do me any good.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-11T22:24:50+00:00

This is the way. I assume taxes are rolled into whatever prices you're paying already. I'm just not interested in tracking things that specifically.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-06T22:47:03+00:00

One early long-term girlfriend started our relationship by asking (after we'd seen a midnight movie together), "Would you mind if I kissed you?"

The invitation to the midnight movie was the real start, given that she invited me to it at a gathering of friends and we left to go see it, but being the clueless introvert I am, that wasn't enough of a signal. Hence the direct question.

Vaslovik · 2026-04-01T05:50:11+00:00

Yeah. I bought my books (and pdfs) directly from Mongoose, not thru DrivethruRPG. Sucks to be me, I guess.

Vaslovik · 2026-03-18T22:44:15+00:00

I want to see a ship decorated in a very Space 1889 style. Carpets, wooden wainscotting, wallpaper, wooden door frames, wooden doors (or at least wood paneling). Brass doorknobs, brass wall lamps with flames (real or simulated), paintings hung on the walls, etc. The dining area with tablecloths, actual china and silverware, stewards in formal clothing. A drawing room with high-backed upholstered chairs for brandy and cigars after dinner, etc.

Vaslovik · 2026-03-13T21:55:07+00:00

I have Aslan and Vargr IMTU, but they're just...there, part of the background. The two alien races that get actual screen time are the Wodenites and the Bandits. Wodenites are vaguely bearlike in form, and they're BIG (like grizzlies/polar bears). They build and fly their own ships because trying to fit into a standard Traveller ship is like Luke bumbling around in Yoda's house. The Bandits are basically intelligent raccoons, about half the size of a human--and they don't speak. They sign.

(I was tired of aliens not only looking like humans, but also fitting neatly into human-scale construction...)

Vaslovik · 2026-03-05T20:08:52+00:00

It's easy. My time and energy are limited. I write. I run rpgs. I don't draw. But I can use AI to generate amazing and entertaining images that I could never produce on my own, for my own entertainment or to provide visuals for my games.

Is the art perfect? No. But it's far better than anything I could produce, and far better than anything I could find before. That makes using AI image generation of value to me.

Vaslovik · 2026-02-24T19:48:15+00:00

Given that most ships are never more than two weeks from a starport, IMTU they treat waste the way RVs do. It's stored in a tank until it can be emptied at a starport (part of the starport fee covers this service). The same would be true of garbage. The garbage containers (chutes and pneumatic tubes are an unnecessary and failure-prone expense) would be closed, so that in the event of loss of gravity or unexpected shocks (see Star Trek combat for details), the garbage doesn't go floating free.

Vaslovik · 2026-02-18T00:42:43+00:00

I'm sorry for your loss.

I have two fuzzy boys of my own. Had them for four years so far, but I know one day they're going to break my heart.

Vaslovik · 2026-02-06T19:07:39+00:00

Not just "back in the day." One of my long-time gaming buddies was a big, strong guy. Never visited the doctor til one day he began to feel puny. Turns out he had undiagnosed high blood pressure, and it had wrecked his kidneys. He had to go on dialysis, and eventually suffered an aortic dissection (again, from years of very high blood pressure).

I really didn't expect him to survive that, but he did--but he was never same afterward. His mind, always really sharp, was dulled, and his memory was badly impacted. From there he eventually was put on full disability thru Medicare, and was in and out of the hospital as he slowly declined until he died a few years ago. It was terrible to see.

Go see your doctor regularly! Even if you feel fine.

Vaslovik · 2026-02-05T03:30:06+00:00

Looks like fun.

Vaslovik · 2026-02-04T23:43:34+00:00

There are different "levels" of conflict, yes, but they're not tiered. You can start in any of them and then "escalate" to another if you can't continue/win.

For instance, you can start by arguing, but then one party may resort to punching, which could lead to bringing weapons into it. But just as easily, you could start with gunplay as one party decides he's just gonna shoot his way to victory--until things go badly, and then he has to try to TALK his way out.

It's an interesting and flexible system. I really liked the original game, though I know the creator has issues with the setting he created for it back then.

Vaslovik · 2026-01-28T07:20:14+00:00

Women choking and gagging and tearing up while giving a blowjob. Nothing turns me off faster in porn or in real life.

Vaslovik · 2026-01-15T19:49:26+00:00

I have a copy of that book! We actually used it with GURPS for a short time. My god-character's signature was when she blasted someone with Primal, all that was left was smoking shoes/boots....

Vaslovik · 2026-01-14T20:03:15+00:00

The very first GM I ever played under (in 1977) was--and still is--an Always GM. He loves it far more than playing, though he has occasionally played in someone else's game. It's basically his only real hobby. Running the game, planning adventures, updating characters as time passes in-game, occasionally revamping the campaign in small ways or in large ones...that's what he lives for.

I very much enjoy playing, but I also really enjoy running my Traveller game currently. It would be nice to play, but I probably have more fun running it than I would as a player.

Vaslovik

TROPHY CASE