With a tip of the palm...

...And the roll of a die.

Traveller was always a system and a setting that appealed to me, yet always out of my grasp. It's very hard to play a game if you're the only one that wants to. But what really kept me was how the game played. I like my big bag of many polyhedrons, don't get me wrong, but the call of the days when only the six-sided die consisted my collection is strong. I've always been a great fan of rolling multiple dice in place of single, higher-value dice; it gives better results. Do take note however, that I'm not big on absurd rolls like 12d4 or 20d6, yikes!

From every mechanic, generation table, character statistic and action with randomized outcome, one would need nothing but the common die in classic Traveller. From shooting a walking bulls-eye to succeeding at one of the character's few trained skills, only two sixers were ever needed. This created a bell curve of success, which tied in fluidly with the human-centric feel of Traveller, in that we as squishy organisms usually only do so well, on average. The average roll of '7' guaranteed that characters still maintained a measure of success with basic skill levels. Because generally, we succeed at things we know (flat DC is usually '8'), while still allowing room for potential failure. A stark contrast to the very random nature of rolling a single d20.

Further on, we see the system continuing its variety of uses for the pairing of 2d6 with generation charts. Using one die in the tens, and another in the ones, to the similar effect of 2d10 for determining percentile successes. Each of these tables generate 36 possible results, which while small compared to 100 for 2d10, this again allows for a bell curve effect. The result places more common encounters nearer the center of the curve. So instead of truly random encounters in the sense, we can see an increased chance of more common mooks arising with more interesting and rare things turning up with a probability to match.

Maybe I'm still just too much of a wargamer at heart, but the simplicity of using fewer varieties of polyhedron while still maximizing their potential can be just as fun as throwing pyramids and buckyballs about the tabletop.

And Here's an Update. (Finally)

Here they are, as originally promised, though late certainly and in no way fashionably so. Ended up being fairly busy with this and that yesterday, so couldn't take some piccies until just recently. Behold: the inconsistent trial runs of my borrowed camera!

First up is a scavenger/scout sort of fellow from Grenadier's now defunct Future Skirmish line (though still available from em-4, but I'm sure you all know that). Another fine figure from Copplestone's illustrious past. Actually painted him a little while back but never got around to photographing him, and I think you can see some of the dust he's accumulated, oh, balls. Hopefully I've rendered the dark, smoothed leather look I was going for with his hood. I've still forgotten to put some tufts of grass on his base, it seems. Though I've not been able to find any of my flock, nor any of my static grass since I've moved into this house. I've still got lots of wood chip grass from my first days of terrain making (more on that later), but really, it doesn't look that pretty.

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Next we've got a smallish group shot featuring the scav to the center, the first of many raiders to the left, and one of my Stalker-eresque conversions brandishing base colours. I like the purple scarf; it's manly. All Copplestone sculpts.

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And here's another picture of that loveable sadist. I really enjoyed painting his skin, as I've never had so much space to paint it with before, though through my flailing and failing with photography, I don't know if I've done him justice enough. I've noticed a lot of my blending often doesn't carry over with my pictures, with many of the shots being too over-exposed and whatnot. Do note: this fellow and his base both aren't done; I'm very sporadic in my painting. The last time I was working on this guy was almost last Christmas ago, so a long, long time. How does his hip-pouch look? I was aiming for that sun bleached look all post-apocalyptica textiles should feature.

Now for some 15mm goodness, though I will apologize right now in advance. My deepest sincerity for accidentally saving the following image in .JPG format. I'd not known the mistake myself until just now as I went to upload the image.

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Three Traveller adventurers clad in survival gear, the obligatory barbarian adventurer, and an assassin. I imagined these three adventurers were, rather, clad in survival garments and gear, which would also give me a good excuse for their red, yellow and blue colour schemes. This fits with the overall theme I wanted to present of company-supplied agents or surveyors, armed with military equipment, as I wanted to look into playing Star Frontiers with 15mm scale figures, if only because model vehicles and fliers are more affordable. Only the barbarian and the female adventurer have been completely painted, with the blue-suited adventurer only needing his alice pack and visor finished up. The assassin and the tactical vest-wearing fellow are only in base colours so far. The bases of all are unfinished (needs some foliage). I like the barbarian's reversible shirt and the blue adventurer's grey skeinsuit.

Run! It's got Tentacles!

Actually just today I finally got my hands on one of those damn Volturnian monstrosities that are, the Queequeg. I've been wanting one for some time now, and blam, there it is, and oh boy, oh boy! No spots of rot!

Unlike most monster-type figures out there, I was surprised to find that the damn thing was actually scaled to 25mm figures properly. I've been underwhelmed many times by such 'great' beasts. GW's Red Terror figure, for example, though don't get me wrong, I love it. It just doesn't look like it could show any space marine a gape of the serpent.

And last, but by all means not even remotely least, a small preview of some 'greens' of some armatures I'm bulking up. They're actually not green. I'm using that ProCreate stuff, and because of the aesthetic charm of greyscaled sculpting previews, I've made the image thusly so. I've got some sketches somewhere, but for the most part I'm just practicing forming tiny characters.

They might eventually be Heavy EVA salvaging-types

That's it for today, folks! I'll try to be more regular and improve my camera skills, maybe share some Star Frontiers and D&D home-brew and/or thoughts, or at least find something entertaining or interesting to talk about.

That backdrop is the inside of my second shirt.

Now the fun begins.

   After a long, perilous and later fruitless and redundant trip to lands abroad, have I finally returned home to a couple of nice little parcels full of potential. First things for home though? Some decent food and a proper shave to get rid of that O'Bannon beard.

   I won't lie, my main interest in making this web log was for an outlet for starting my foray into 15mm scale science fiction miniatures. And what better way for a kick-start with none other than some good ol' Traveller figures from RAFM? I also purchased some other things from Khurasan Miniatures for some other factions and tridlins.

An elegant clash of Hard Sci-Fi & Fantasy.

   Maybe I should have made it more clear on the picture for those interested, but various mini-projects and factions are present in that pile of stuff.

   In the top-left is a currently-incomplete platoon of Milstarsbanki (Planetary Garrison Militia) (2 fire teams, 1 assault team, and platoon command), below that is Khurasan lamprey-men and some belligerent modifications. Ishtaran reptilia-hominids control the bottom-left next to Khurasan militia. There's two 5-person HE-EVA-suited squads each with an engineer, starship crew, colonists/citizens, thugs/armed colonists, a few miscellaneous bestial aliens, Khurasan mantid-men, a primed steward android and some primed adventurers along with that pesky assassin.

   I've started painting the steward and have already got an idea of what I want to do with the others.

  Also, it seems Khurasan just recently put out a new Modern/Sci-Fi Stowage set. Cool stuff!

   I am changing the font. It's not too much a worry to me, but I feel it might be hard for some of you lot to read.