Rules Questions

I just got the book in the mail yesterday, will need to digest it so of course an actual adventure may be many weeks away.  I can't make promises but hope to justify your faith in me and in this game. This section will be to ask rules questions.  It will also explain key differences if you are used to another TRAVELLER version.  The Traveller 5 CD-ROM kindly includes core rules of all previous GDW and FFE editions for me. The more understanding is shared here outside the game, the more time is freed up for adventure, awesomeness, mutants, telepaths, and mind-bending intrigue inside the game!  But I may learn from you too!  I don't have so much of a Traveller history. Players are encouraged to get their own Core Rules book or CD-ROM by LEGAL means.  If you are not able to get one, you can get guidance on the Traveller 5 variety of dice-rolls and procedures (knowledge of another Traveller edition is helpful) and I guess you will want to emphasize role-playing instead (although the number-crunching here is sooooo sweet.)

I wonder how it compares with the mongoose version.  5 is huge!!    I have the mongoose one but all the new makers in the new one make me want it. 

I got lucky and read the sophont generation chapter first which was pretty decent. It characterizes the Senses numerically on a scale so you can quantify dice-rolls to see if your human notices something. If a human character won't notice it, maybe an alien character will. There are alien senses like Awareness (of Life, and Thought, a sense the blind Xenomorphs in the ALIEN movies have) and Perception (being able to sense the colors Mag and Lek, i.e. electromagnetic forces.) Quantifying everything on a scale of intensities and sizes allows dice-rolls on anything. Then I had a concept for a factory of robots that became self-aware, and lo, the chapter on robots supports this. If you want a robot character in my game (if you REALLY want one, with the advantages and draw-backs,) they will come from the planet Frideyo. See my art vignettes by Joining the game and looking in the Handouts.) But omigosh it is a forest of errata. Even the character sheet mistyped Edu instead of End. There are 2 End's on the sheet -- and I was the pair of eyeballs that brought it up in the Citizens of the Imperium forum! Really, this thing needs work. Also people don't really understand the combat system and how the different types of damage behave towards armor. I hope people don't mind if I approach this game from a rules-light angle. There are details where details can be beautiful. I am charmed by the game, although dismayed by the penciling-in I'll have to do. One thing's for sure, if there's a rules argument, I can stop things cold by lifting the book up one inch and dropping it. It makes an Intensity-4 noise...

Nice.  Rules light angle would be fine with me.  Seems allot to take in.  Shitty about all the errata... Still think I'll order Traveller 5 tonight the cd version, also gonna get the book 1001 characters and animal encounters for the mongoose version . I wonder if the attributes will transfer well. Definitely keep me updated on how its goin' as I'm stoked to play some Traveller! 

Rules light is fine with me- I have far more interest in cooperative story telling than I do meta-game. Is there a soft copy of these rules that can be bought? I'm not seeing one on the FFE site or DriveThru RPG

There doesn't seem to be a .pdf copy available, just the CD-ROM. On DriveThru you can get a version of the original TRAVELLER. If you have never seen TRAVELLER it may be of some help to understand the lingo, although Traveller 5th-edition is a much-evolved game so expect some differences. And the price is right: FREE! (until the end of 2013) <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/80190/CT-ST-Starter-Traveller?manufacturers_id=4" rel="nofollow">http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/80190/CT-ST-Starter-Traveller?manufacturers_id=4</a>

YouTube user Hemdian has made a new video about how to conduct Personal Combat in Traveller 5. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipJivyMWgMs" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipJivyMWgMs</a> It's very good, but made a mistake about Ranges. The numbers shown are the typical or "average" ranges in each range band, not the maximum. The limits of each band are halfway to the average range number on each side. So for example Medium Range 3 is from 100 m - 325 m (typical 150 m). See p. 36 of the rules for a table of the actual ranges (there is a typo that says 300 m but that's not exactly halfway between 150 m and 500 m.)