On Creating a Frictionless Traveller, Addendum: the Law and Melee Combat

When makingthe table in Part I, I realized that every planet has a semi-hiddencharacteristic that balances melee combat. This was pretty astonishing to me,as it’s buried pretty deep, but it’s also a huge improvement to the game ifimplemented in your campaign.

The issueis as follows: Traveller ranged andmelee combat is realistically balanced (whichis to say, swords simply don’t compare to laser guns). Traveller also lacks “sci-fi remedies” such as lightning swords and laser whips and whatnot:with the exception of the stunstick, melee weapons are pretty conventionalrenaissance or medieval era swords and so on. None of this is exactly a problem, but it’s a little weird that,during character creation, there’s quite a lot of emphasis on getting fancyswords and the Melee skill, especially Melee (Blade). A lot of career optionsdangle Melee (Blade) in front of players in a way that means it seems like it ought to be useful, but, on its face, isn’t.

There’s alittle note in the rules that cutlasses and so on are popular boarding weaponsbecause it reduces the chances that a stray shot will damage a ship’scomponent, but there’s not really any clear rule or system for how that wouldplay out beyond occasional GM fiat. In practice, I’m pretty sure that if theparty tried to rush a pirate ship through the airlock with cutlasses, and thepirates were willing to scuff their own ship and thus had shotguns, the resultswould be fairly predictable.

(At some point I might create a houserule to handle that (missed ranged attacks roll on a table of spaceship damage or something)).

It’s fine to say “in this sciencefiction setting, combat is done with guns. Bringing a sword to a gunfight isanachronistic and suicidal.” Most science fiction, Star Wars aside, takes this approach. But if that’s the approach Traveller was going for, then… why are there all these rules for melee combat? Traveller, unlike,say, D20: Modern, isn’t a spinoff ofa fantasy game with a bunch of vestigial fantasy-genre-stuff. These rules were put in for a reason.

A relatedissue (again, not exactly a problem)is that laser weapons are vastly moreeffective than conventional firearms (unless the enemy has Reflec, though text in the book (and equipment of default NPCs) indicates that this is supposed to be a fairly rare item). Laser weapons are also more expensive, but theprice of both are trivial compared to the amount of money Players will bedealing with in the trade system. So… why are there all these rules forconventional firearms?

The answer:because guns are illegal, laser guns,doubly so. On a shockingly large number of planets, anyway. Shocking tosomeone from a D&D background, anyway, where the expectation is that if aweapon is written on a character sheet, it’s pretty much always available.

Law Level Table, Mongoose Traveller (2008) p.176

Each planethas a Government code, and a separate Law Level Table tells you which items are banned bywhich type of government. Most governmentsrestrict weapons. The two most important for our purposes are“Weapons” and “Techology” (because a lot of powerfulweapons are only available at advanced TL’s, also). I went through each weapon in the book and pennedin the “Law Level” it becomes illegal at (this should have been in the book to begin with). The result isthat nearly every planetary governmentrestricts laser weaponry (Law level 2+ by Weapon, 3-7 by Technology,depending on the weapon in question). Some,but not all, restrict conventional firearms (Law Level 4-7+, depending on theweapon, and by around 5+, by Technology), but virtually none restrict meleeweaponry, whether by restricting Weaponry or Technology. I had to make a prettyarbitrary few judgement calls (I decided any weapon with autofire, plus theextra-deadly gauss weapons, counted as “assault weapons,” forexample). Now, when the party goes to a planet’s surface, I tell them therestrictions that planet places on weapons and technology (”Weapons Law 2+, TL13+,” for example), which they compareto the number printed on their weapon cards (see the upcoming Post II), and then they tellme if they’re complying with the law or smuggling their weapons in. I havethese numbers written in my notes on each planet in my GM binder.

The resultof this is that there are huge stretches of the galaxy where sword-and-boardfighting is prevalent (ruthlessly enforced by police who are equipped with controlled weapons), while boarding actions,which are an anything goes “wild west,” are dominated by ultra-lethallaser weaponry. I know that this is the opposite dynamic  to that noted by the text on boarding actionsand cutlasses, which is a discrepancy I haven’t yet been able to resolve. Nonetheless, it does leave a niche for both styles of fighting.

If you, asGM, are consistent with weapon and technology control laws (which means theheadache of dealing with the Law and Government tables at the back of the book),it opens up many new opportunities for PC’s with unconventional skills toshine. This is especially important given Traveller’s quirky character creation—playersdon’t always have a lot of control over their character’s skills, so anythingthat puts disparate skills on a more level playing field is worthwhile.