CW and Cepheus

[swordtart]

Recently I have been playing around the Traveller reboot. I am surprised that I never noticed before how easily you could merge CT with CW.

They are both built around similar premises. Travel in an armed vehicle seeking fortune and glory. CT spaceship combat is not remotely crunchy but you could conduct space battles using the CW rules with very little work needed (other than having spaceships manoeuvre like cars - like they do in Star Wars). The CW role playing system is not really crunchy (but it is quite lumpy) but CT is well developed (assuming you survive the Char Gen process).

As they both use 2d6 they are ideal candidates for a mash-up.

I'd favour the revised skill system where you use stats and skills as bonuses to try to achieve a target number (based on difficulty of task). Most CW skills could be ported as is (and even the 2 dice and pray is basically the same structure). Some of the less portable skills would benefit from being recast in the Traveller mould. It would remove all those inconsistent skill mechanics (and I am looking at you Mechanic!)

It also means you can use all those random encounter tables and trade rules (with a bit of tweaking) and imbue your drivers with some background (and extra zero level skills)

Cepheus is currently available as Pay What You Want, so it's a low risk option.

[Chris Goodwin]

I would swear that someone, somewhere, created and posted an autoduellist career for Traveller, probably ak_aramis. Numerous web searches I've performed over the years have not found any evidence of such, though.

Cepheus would absolutely work!

[swordtart]

There are a number of supplements that would provide appropriate careers.

I started working up a Trucker, Courier, Pro-Duellist and Biker etc. But I decided quite quickly that Traveller characters are more rounded anyway. Simply replacing the various vehicle/ship skills with Driver / Cyclist was enough. Making specific a specific Trucker for example meant making the character more bland. You don't really want Trucker-5 in a 2d6 skill system and a DM of +3 often make the game a bit silly. You can easily get Driver-0 as a background skill.

Zozer Zaibatsu for Cepheus has a more cyberpunk feel that I thought fitted well with CW. It also starts with a more unusual premise that characters are young and so start with a lot of skills at zero. As the penalty for not having a skill is -3, skill zero is actually quite good (and many CW classic characters were Driver-0, Gunner-0 and Handgunner-0)

[Vulcan Stev]

We used Savage Worlds for any and all roleplay and used Car Wars for vehicular combat. I ran a weekly game for my boys and their friends for the better part of 2 years (I miss those days).

I'll never forget the excitement of one of my players when they had successfully finished a job and his share of the haul gave him enough cash to complete repairs and upgrades to his dueling vehicle.