Did anyone ever buy or play the ED TTRPG by Spidermind Games?

[Comandante]

SW WEG (any edition) also has the benefit that you only need to make stats for the HTH weapons, armor, perhaps starting classes and then (most important) the ships.

A first pass could yield a pretty good job, enough to start a game and then you can refine 'as you go'. Actually the geek in me would love to do the EDO element of different suits, their benefits and the different upgrades you can achieve.

Even the supplement for ship trading can be lifted directly because it dealt with trading between low- and high-tech systems, using the bartering and/or con skills to make profits. Out-of-the-box the trading supplement is actually awesome whichever universe you play in.

 

[Frankymole]

Since the 1984 original Elite game was based on a small part of the Traveller TTRPG (mainly space trading and combat), why not just play Traveller? Which can be set in any universe. I've even seen Traveller fantasy and Western themed campaigns.

 

[Enkelas]

i have the ttrpg and all the expansion books.
As a ttrpg is fine and lets you play well and with a lot of mission generators.

even they have the panther clipper, the boa and the imperium explorers as huge ships. The ships are like the pc game with a-e systems and the huge ships are shown their characteristics

it has been a lot since i took a look at it but i think there were planet vehicles

 

[Craith]

View attachment 420118

Any opinions on translating Elite into an RPG again?

Page 366, rightmost column, lower third ...

Spoiler

I like the execution, the ship combat, outfitting, and the on-foot part is really well done, I wish some of the weapons were in the game (like a shoulder mounted beam laser - generally more variety wouldnt hurt here).

never got to play it, only once built characters but the group disbanded before we got started

Edit: you got me reading it again, now I want to play again. Going to invest a lot of time to get the new ships converted, just to never use anything of it. I found my old automated character sheets, and the most badass-background in the book:

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Since the 1984 original Elite game was based on a small part of the Traveller TTRPG (mainly space trading and combat), why not just play Traveller? Which can be set in any universe. I've even seen Traveller fantasy and Western themed campaigns.

You would have to adjust a lot if you want Traveller to feel like ED. In Traveller, ALL jumps take 1 week. Depending on your jump drive, that will be 1 to 5 parsecs (so about 3 to 15 ly per jump). Also there is no communication faster than ship travel. It's a very realistic/grounded approach, which also means you won't get very far.

That's why I liked the Elite TTRPG. It has a lot of the same elements (past careers, skill system similarities), without out the slow, ponderous baggage. However, you could easily say that jump times are now nearly instantaneous, increase the jump range, etc. But then why buy all the traveller books when you already have the Elite specific game.

Full disclosure: I say this as someone that got most of the "new" Traveller core rule books about 3 years ago. It's a game I want to run, but I find it harder to get enthused about it and making an engaging campaign in that universe than I would doing the extra work for the Elite ttrpg. I also have previous versions of Traveller, including the much maligned "Traveller: The New Era." While that one had the most depressing universe, and the deadliest combat system, it also had a LOT of potential for story telling. All in all, I would stick with Elite... I just don't have the time and energy to set anything up right now.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Page 366, rightmost column, lower third ...

Spoiler

View attachment 420150

I like the execution, the ship combat, outfitting, and the on-foot part is really well done, I wish some of the weapons were in the game (like a shoulder mounted beam laser - generally more variety wouldnt hurt here).

never got to play it, only once built characters but the group disbanded before we got started

Edit: you got me reading it again, now I want to play again. Going to invest a lot of time to get the new ships converted, just to never use anything of it. I found my old automated character sheets, and the most badass-background in the book:
View attachment 420156

Huh... I forgot my name was in that list. I'm not going to say which one it is, but it is in that picture.

 

[Frankymole]

You would have to adjust a lot if you want Traveller to feel like ED. In Traveller, ALL jumps take 1 week. Depending on your jump drive, that will be 1 to 5 parsecs (so about 3 to 15 ly per jump). Also there is no communication faster than ship travel. It's a very realistic/grounded approach, which also means you won't get very far.

Changing that takes seconds.

There are lots of different drive types in later iterations of the ruleset.

I take your point about the lore though. I just prefer Traveller having a mileu with aliens...

 

[Kaocraft]

When it initially released I read through the introductory sample adventure module and overall I thought it looked pretty solid. I have vague fantasies about running some kind of ongoing game session with my squadron which ties back in and back and forth between TTRPG activities and activities in the game. There's a section of the rules dedicated to the notion that between play sessions or between main adventures, the characters are all off doing their own thing and accruing X Y or Z resources, new problems, or whatever. I think there might be a good way to fold that premise into playing the computer game and looping it back into the TTRPG sessions.

 

[metatheurgist]

Checked it out, the mechanics did not appeal to me. Elite is a CMS now, not even close to being an RPG. You'd have to turn it into a board game like Settlers of Catan where you do exciting things like personally transfer crap to build things.

 

[Craith]

Huh... I forgot my name was in that list. I'm not going to say which one it is, but it is in that picture.

let me guess ... it starts with Daniel? (or maybe you are the Daniel on the list)

 

[Enkelas]

You would have to adjust a lot if you want Traveller to feel like ED. In Traveller, ALL jumps take 1 week. Depending on your jump drive, that will be 1 to 5 parsecs (so about 3 to 15 ly per jump). Also there is no communication faster than ship travel. It's a very realistic/grounded approach, which also means you won't get very far.

1-6. the jump drive 6 is tech level 15 and the 3rd empire has it

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

let me guess ... it starts with Daniel? (or maybe you are the Daniel on the list)

Nope.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Changing that takes seconds.

There are lots of different drive types in later iterations of the ruleset.

I take your point about the lore though. I just prefer Traveller having a mileu with aliens...

Yes, you could make those changes... but then the setting would drastically change. The Traveller universe is all centered around that slow, plodding travel... and inter-system communication being limited to the speed of the courier ships.

Yes, you could probably make all those adjustments and work. And believe me, I've thought about it. I do love reading the various books, but I'm left with a sense of "meh" when I think of running a campaign. And every "classic" adventure, some of which have been reworked and republished, are just BORING.

On the plus side, at least you get ship interiors (deck plans and 3d models) now. Technically, you could make them in the Traveller: The New Era ruleset, but I don't have the time do the math involved. Building the ships was bad enough (built a excel spreadsheet to handle the calculations).

I'm not knocking Traveller. Clearly the Elite RPG from Spidermind games borrowed from a lot of it's systems (e.g. character creation with past careers, skill improvement system). I just found it less laborious. Downside is it's less flexible. Traveller lets you customize everything.

1-6. the jump drive 6 is tech level 15 and the 3rd empire has it

I was going from memory and I was thinking there was J6 drive, but I wasn't sure.

 

[metatheurgist]

Always thought the (original) Character Gen in Traveler was more interesting than the game itself.

 

[Yure]

Here is the play test info for Starfinder 2e.

https://paizo.com/starfinderplaytest

 

[Jmanis]

I wanted to, except that shipping cost more than the items.

 

[Frankymole]

Yes, you could make those changes... but then the setting would drastically change. The Traveller universe is all centered around that slow, plodding travel... and inter-system communication being limited to the speed of the courier ships.

Well, the original Traveller ruleset didn't have a setting, so it was adaptable to any universe you wanted to make for it.
I hope the Elite TTRPG has provision for intelligent aliens on the planets you trade with, like the original Elite computer game(s)... I do find an empty galaxy a bit depressing.
At least Traveller's alien modules gave a good insight into how to make a rounded alien culture, if you're inventing your own. Exploration and meeting new races should be part of space trading and pioneering, I feel. We get a little of that with exobiology in the computer game, but not much (yet).

Interestingly, this post from Ian Doncaster speculates "what if the jump times are in fact not instant but take hours, days or weeks"? https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...be-more-expensive.634900/page-2#post-10570707

Always thought the (original) Character Gen in Traveler was more interesting than the game itself.

And notoriously deadly!

It gave a backstory to grizzled adventurers better than, say, D&D with its 18 year old neophytes. Innovative at the time. I once had a medic character with about level 7 in the skill, so he was the best surgeon in the galaxy... We still don't really have that backstory generation in Elite (computer game) except lore we invent offline ourselves.

 

[metatheurgist]

And notoriously deadly!

It gave a backstory to grizzled adventurers better than, say, D&D with its 18 year old neophytes. Innovative at the time. I once had a medic character with about level 7 in the skill, so he was the best surgeon in the galaxy... We still don't really have that backstory generation in Elite (computer game) except lore we invent offline ourselves.

That's why I liked it. My character could reach a full interesting life and die before they even got off the character sheet. The GM was often disappointing in comparison. tbf, ED is not an RPG though.

 

[Comandante]

Always thought the (original) Character Gen in Traveler was more interesting than the game itself.

2000%. There weren't many games that took on this notion; I remember 1st and 2nd edition of Cyberpunk (1988 1st edition IIRC) doing similar in that you'd start with a randomised history where you'd made enemies, allies, friends and other (+/-ve) bonuses. You could keep 'advancing' through your timeline at your own benefit/downfall. Though TBF a good games master/storyteller/whatever would only use either good or bad for plot line embellishment and campaign 'flavouring'.

I got together with some friends and we actually really enjoyed the character creation process in ED. It was fair and enabled players to be 'a bit of this and a bit of that' or 'a lot of this and not much else'. Time, work, age and being old gits prevented us from going further but it's always on the horizon.

To me Traveller in many ways was ahead of the time for other RPGs. Brutal, realistic (in terms of getting squished) and not dissimilar to the brutal realism of Runequest. Bear in mind that both reared their heads around the mid-to-late 70s when you could still be a level 7 cheese maker in Basements and Lizards (sorry, was NEVER a fan of that game, even in the early 80s - give me Dragon Warriors any day ). Oh, and don't get me started on SW D20. Level 3 Jedi, 11 hit points, AC 6 <SHUDDER>

I really liked the career choice and character building plus merits and flaws of the ED RPG. My only (personal) criticism of ED RPG was that (like CP 2020) was the 'equality' of stats/skills - was never a fan of that - i.e. if you had 10 (max) agility and 10 (max) rifles that was your total (20). Would rather halve the stats so that the skills were more 'important' than the stats when rolling. But, to be fair, the rules DID say 'change these rules to suit your needs'. So my criticism is probably unfounded because game-wise it's actually a good balance and you can make changes in the difficulties as you saw fit.

In retrospect it's a real shame the Spidermind games books were published pre-EDO. But, ignoring that, I think they did a darn good effort with what they had - game lore and technology available in-game - at the time. What would be good is a concerted effort to map the post-EDO rules into the game but am not sure what the IP issues are on that - you've got SM games and FD to take into acount.

I'd loved to have seen aditional modules on top of the ones created for ED RPG, along the lines produced by WEG for Star Wars. But when I used to RPG PC games were 8 bit and the landscape has changed a lot since then - I feel that PC games have filled a large niche where RPGs used to be the rule when computer power was much, much lower.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Well, the original Traveller ruleset didn't have a setting, so it was adaptable to any universe you wanted to make for it.
I hope the Elite TTRPG has provision for intelligent aliens on the planets you trade with, like the original Elite computer game(s)... I do find an empty galaxy a bit depressing.
At least Traveller's alien modules gave a good insight into how to make a rounded alien culture, if you're inventing your own. Exploration and meeting new races should be part of space trading and pioneering, I feel. We get a little of that with exobiology in the computer game, but not much (yet).

Interestingly, this post from Ian Doncaster speculates "what if the jump times are in fact not instant but take hours, days or weeks"? https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...be-more-expensive.634900/page-2#post-10570707

And notoriously deadly!

I had a brief brush with the original (small black book) version of Traveller in the early 80s as a player. Yes, it didn't seem to have a detailed universe. That may be why successive generations of the game, with the whole 3rd Imperium (or fallen Imperium) were so bland. They gave you more than nothing, but still left way too much for you to fill in and make the universe exciting. The ED RPG had more to work with because of all the Galnet articles, corporations, and factions developed for the game.

As a counterpoint to those who recommend the Star Wars universe (again, use whatever you like), how many ship manufacturers can you name from that universe? Maker of commercial products? Space ports? Elite Dangerous doesn't have a ton of stuff, but it has more than they do... just no alien races running around/mixing with humanity.

Concerning jump times, that is the one unique item that ED brings to the table that a lot of people forget. The modern FSD - where jump times are in seconds, and supercruise is available in system - have only been around for somewhere between 10 and 20 years (I think) before the game launched. Before that, the previous jump drives took longer (two different versions, I don't remember exact length for each) and then in system travel was at sublight speeds. Now imagine the massive societal shift going from those delays in travel to what we had at launch. And since launch, jump ranges have increased, we now have SCO boosting... massive societal change taking place. While I'm not invested in the new Trailblazers system, it actually makes sense in this backdrop... humanity is going to spready across the galaxy at a much faster rate in the following centuries. That makes for a very exciting backdrop for an RPG.

That's why I liked it. My character could reach a full interesting life and die before they even got off the character sheet. The GM was often disappointing in comparison. tbf, ED is not an RPG though.

Yes, it was amusing to go through the career path and have characters not even make it to the session - restarting before you even play! In the Traveller: The New Era game I tried to run back in the early 90s - where I developed a spreadsheet so I could custom build a ship for the players to use (and maximize their chances of survival) - the whole game never even got started. The player that was going to play the doctor character did so well in his past career generation that his ready to play doctor was a trauma surgeon god. So he demanded the largest passenger quarters for himself and wanted a larger share of crew payout. The other players didn't go along and the whole "character group" disbanded before they even got started. From a GM perspective, that's really frustrating (even if funny in the moment), as all your work has gone for nothing - ship design, ship mortgage calculation, initial campaign work... bleh.