Vector movement

• “I punch him hard in the face hoping to knock him out”
• “I jump to the other ship using my vacc-suit skill”
• “I do a Sense task to see if I can get a tracked”
• “I bluff the bouncer telling him I am the boyfriend of the drummer”

These are all situations that may lead up to a task roll in your role-playing game. Traveller is a role-playing game created by Marc Miller at Game Designers Workshop in 1977. Since then there have been many incarnations from various publishers, Megatraveller, TNE, GURPS Traveller etc. The most current versions are Mongoose Traveller and Traveller T5 by Marc Miller

My Traveller rules determine the results of tasks by rolling 2D6 +Skill and other modifiers versus a target number, the target number will be determined by the rules in everything I publish but in actual play a lot of times the referee has to come up with a number of the fly, when in doubt always use the 8+ normal task target number

• 5+ for easy tasks
• 8+ for normal tasks
• 11+ for hard tasks

It is similar to how the original Traveller resolved tasks but also determine degree of success by checking how much above or below the target number you rolled. This notion was invented by Digest Group Publications and was incorporated into Megatraveller and later versions.

Results

How much the die roll including skill and modifiers succeeded or missed the target number, the hitmargin or mismargin, determine how well the task went. Not all tasks will have specific rules for each degree below, often whether it was a success or a miss is the only fact that matters.

• If you rolled 6+ above the target number your result is Very Good. The task went as good as it could, impressive!
• If you rolled 3-5 above the target number your result is Good. You managed competently and professionally.
• If you rolled 0-2 above the target number your result is Fair. You made it, but not very impressive.
• If you rolled by 1-2 below the target number your result is a Miss. You failed, but not by much.
• If you rolled 3-5 below the target number your result is Bad. You clearly blew it.
• If you rolled 6+ below the target number your result is Very Bad. You totally screwed it up didn’t you!

Exploding dice

If both dice rolled are sixes the dice roll explode. Add 1D6 / 2 rounded down to the roll, keep rolling and adding as the die turns up a 6.

So, let’s say you roll boxcars (two sixes in gambler parlance), exploding dice time! Let us see how high you can get. You roll 1D6 and it turns up a 6. Add 6/2 rounded down to the previous roll, you are now at 15. You roll another D6 this times rolling 3. Add 3/2 rounded down to 15 for a total of 16. As you failed rolling a six this tine the dice stop exploding.

You ended up rolling 16 on 2D6, sometimes exploding dice can save your day!

Me hiding behind the screen when playing Sonar at a pub, screens are excellent to hide behind when rolling the referee D6 rolls to modify the actual task result.

Secret rolls

In situations where the task result should remain unknown, such as when rolling reactions for smarter NPCs we need a way to keep the result secret or at least semi secret. Player roll the task as usual and then the referee secretly roll 1D6, if the roll was 2-5 the result remain as  rolled, if the roll was a 6 the result is one degrre better and if the roll was a 1 the result is one degree lower. If a 1 or 6 was rolled the referee may roll again for multiple degrees better or worse. The referee is encouraged to roll twice even if the first roll was 2-5 to keep the player guessing.