On Creating a Frictionless Traveller, Part I: Trade

I just ranSession Zero (character creation and so on) of Mongoose Traveller 1st edition (2008) with my quarantine pod.This is my second Traveller campaignthat I’ve run (thoughts inspired by the first you can read about here), and thefourth that I’ve been a part of. Having learned a little from my last campaign,I’ve made a few improvements to the game’s interface(not really houserules) that speed up gameplay and reduce friction.

What do Imean by interface? Imagine if Traveller was a computerprogram. The interface would be the information displayed on the screen, whilethe actual rules of the game are what goes on in the background. Traveller’s rules, so far, are rock-solid.The basic core dice mechanics are fast and easy, and the game’s many elegantsystems for procedural generation allow nearly endless gameplay with onlysparing need for GM-added “spice.”

What isn’t elegantis the way some of these systems are presented to the GM and the players. Thusfar, I have isolated several systems (many of which are quite entangled witheach other) that could benefit from a more polished interface to reducefriction during play (i.e., avoidable timeswhen the game grinds to a halt and something has to be looked up, calculated, found,remembered, etc.). They are:

Trade (namely: calculating purchase modifiers,number of passengers, amount of available freight, legality of various goods)Character Statistics (namely: character sheets, weaponand armour statistics)Spaceship combat (namely: tracking spaceshipposition, responsibilities of individual crewmembers, tracking computerprograms)

I’ll startwith trade because it is, I think,one of the most overwhelming systems in the game on its face, but also one ofthe most crucial to keeping the Traveller“loop” going. It’s also part of what makes Traveller so unique.

To buycargo, a character must make a Broker skill check (easy), adding a modifierbased on the value of that trade good on the current planet (easy), and compareit to a little table that converts that into the price, as a percentage, of thegood’s value (easy, with a calculator or smartphone). For example: to buy BasicMachine Parts, a player must roll 3D6 + 2 (the PC’s Broker skill modifier) + 4(a bonus because the goods are cheap on the current planet). The roll is 17,which a table on page 164 tells you means Basic Machine Parts can be bought at65% of their value (normally cr. 1000/ton), or cr.650 per ton. Great. Easyenough, right?

Wrong.

The reasonthis can be incredibly slow isbecause the price modifier based on the planet’s characteristics—the number that encourages the players toexplore the galaxy—is a real headache to calculate on the fly. It is calculatedfrom the following sources:

First,look up the Trade Good on the table on page 165. Lookat the Trade Codes of the planet in question (on a handout the GM generates andgives to the players at the start of the campaign) Determineif the Trade Good is illegal on this planet. This is found by:Comparingthe planet’s Government Code (on the handout) to the Government Table (on page175) to see if a category of goods is restrictedIfit is, debating for awhile whether “Advanced Weapons” are considered“Heavy Weapons” or “Portable Energy Weapons” (i.e., make ajudgement call)Comparingthe Law Digit for the item from the Law Table on page 176 to the Law Level ofthe planet to see how illegal it isFindthe highest number in the Purchase DM category related to these Trade Codes,unless it is lower than the number calculated in step 3, in which case, use thenumber in step 3 (and the PCs are now smuggling! This is cool because now youcan have police chases and so on.)Findthe highest number in the Sale DM category related to these Trade Codes andsubtract thisSumall of these numbers. Repeat for each trade good purchased.

Looking atall of those steps probably convinced at least some of you to swear off Traveller altogether. But here’s thething: this is incredibly slow to calculate duringplay, but after the galaxy is generated, these numbers never really change.Barring exceptional events in thecampaign, an Industrial world will continue to be Industrial from start tofinish. My toddler was unusually chill last week, so I spent a few hours makingan Excel spreadsheet that crunches this once, and only once, and spits out this table for my star cluster:

Eachfour-digit code along the top corresponds to a labelled hex coordinate on the starcluster map they have (i.e., a settled planet).

This tablepresents each planet’s numerical stats. There’s a lot more that goes into eachplanet (it’s weird cultural quirks, important NPCs there, maps, etc.—you know, worldbuilding stuff) but this table iswhat the players need for the game’s rules. Different types of survivalequipment available are rated for different atmosphere numbers, for instance,and different bases provide different services. I know “Gas Giants”aren’t really bases, but I didn’t have space for another column for them.

I’ll admitthis was a slog to put together. I like spreadsheets more than most, but evenmy eyes glazed over a few times doing this. I also had to make a few judgementcalls on what items were restricted at various law and government levels. It’salso possible it contains significant errors; my spreadsheet grew morecomplicated than I was able to understand (and thus debug) by the time it wasdone. Still, it works for now, and I’m not willing to change it. It wasn’t morework than, say, drawing a dungeon map, and it’ll last the whole campaign. Imade similar tables for determining passenger and freight availability. If I ever go back and tidy up that spreadsheet so that it’s useable for others, I’ll post it.

Nowthat that math is done, it stays done. I gave the players this,printed on cardstock, at the start of the campaign, and they never need to know how much work I savedthem.

 Buying and selling stuff now isn’t any more work than any other skillcheck: it’s a dice roll, plus a modifier on the character sheet, plus acircumstance modifier. It’s quick, it’s easy, it's frictionless.