I think in CT, many of them were treated as blade, cutlass, etc. with some sort of mods applied. Animals of modest sizes were rarely a real danger to well equipped mercs, but sometimes to the 'thinky' classes who didn't come loaded up. In larger numbers, or if you have a massive animal (we had an 800 kg one at one point), then they should be very dangerous.
You could go the way that D&D did:
claw/claw/bite
and if you are a feline with back claws, two more. If both hit, they do double damage as this simulates the attempt to disembowel.
Really, Traveller (all variants0 spends a lot of ink on systems for planets, animals, economies, and vehicles/ships, but really all of those are story vehicles, not ends in themselves. If you rule in ways that place your players in peril and provide tension and don't just kill them outright, then your game will be memorable.
I agree (and think I've written about this in the past). Only I can't help a slight, very slight these days, sense of guilt that I'm somehow 'cheating' or not giving my players the full Traveller experience!
I love Traveller, but what was fun for relatively underexposed (to games) kids in the 1980s looks pretty clunky now in some particular areas. How many characters in CT do I have to roll to get a 5 term Scout? It's a lot and I'd better bring body bags.
The 'Traveller Experience' should (IMO) be: A certain sensibility and style (in the things the game has as treasured characteristics of setting), a focus to some extent on some hard science here and there, and a sense of scope and diversity that is unmatched in any other sci-fi game I've seen (the number of sectors that have been released by official and unofficial sources over the years is insane).
Let your players feel what it is to start with a non-n00b character with some skills, someone who feels like a real and full person. Let them travel to diverse places, run into straight up fights, cons, larceny, disasters, aliens, odd biomes and planetary systems, different governments and the great game of nations, etc. Let them experience the challenge where communication has limitation and what being alone in the black in a crisis can be like. Let them defend their ship with shotguns and hand to hand combat (once, then they'll get better weapons - lol) and let them know excitement and discovery, along with travelling.
Let them avoid the book-keeping. This is not accounting in space (despite what every design system has tried to condition you to believe....)
I used to do all those designs, now I realize I can off the cuff the descriptive colour, make rolls that make sense in where critters or vehicles/ships are part of a scene, and I focus on the story goal that having them there assists.
Absolutely. Of course, the one caveat I have is that I'm writing for publication I feel I have to put in the 'correct' details so that referees, in turn, *can* just use what they want in the way that they want. Yesterday I spent some time turning a couple of MgT1 ships into MgT2 rule compatible. (Well, in one case I wasn't strictly converting so much as correcting a published one <sigh>). I've run the adventure they're part of twice without needing any of the detail, but I'd feel remiss in not providing it.
Just thank your lucky stars that you weren't trying to validate or fix any MegaTraveller designs.... cue the 'PT Barnum'/Send in the Clowns music for the worse supplement ever... 'Shattered Ships of the Fighting Imperium'.... where errata and just plain old failures to edit, to calculate, etc. are not just common, they must have been MANDATORY.
I do agree that when trying to write something for an official publication, we try to jump through the hoops and provide things that are complete to what the game system requires.
On the other hand, every time I've built a Traveller ship or APC or you name it, and then I've played other games that could produce reasonably playable outcomes with much simpler construction systems (Ahem: Stargrunt II, Full Thrust - not perfect, but decent with a few key limits and far easier to knock out than an MT ship), I scratch my head about why I spent all that time number fiddling when *as the GM*, I'm literally the ONLY person that cared.
My players want to know 'Does the grav APC have a big gun?' or 'Does the ship have a pool and a wet bar?' or 'How fast can it do the Kessel run?'. If I tell them a reasonable number, or a short answer ('Yes, the APC has a Gauss support weapon with a blinding rate of fire that's good against light armour and infantry' or 'The ship's quarters are spartan. There is a common room with a table, a couch, and some year old magazines from the last sector.' or 'The Third Imperium's navigational database does not include an entry for Kessel, perhaps deleted for fear of the Lucas Attack Lawyers.'), then they are happy and I have done MUCH less work.
Funnily enough, the MOST important thing for most players is a deck plan and a sketch of a ship or vehicle or station or base. If they get those (so they can see the geometries and so any fight is more easily visualized), they are happy. And I lift deck plans and floor plans from anywhere I can get them (which then means many don't match Traveller constructions) and everybody still loves them.
I had a giant underwater kracken sort of thing that used to 'dry fish' with filaments up onto the beeches. When it caught you, it pulled you underwater. If you had the right gear or could breathe hold a long time, you could then try to free yourself.
See. I think I'm doing this wrong. Recently in The Traveller Adventure we had a side adventure on Junidy out on the oceans. (The idea had been to have something of an easy introduction for a new player. Who then didn't make it. Ah well.) The PCs were out at sea on a sailing vessel and hit a semi-submerged shipping container that had fallen overboard from an ocean freighter. As they're sinking, of course they get attacked by a kraken just to ratchet up the tension and as they try to fend it off, *parent* turns up. Much bigger. It turned out, juvenile was trying to help keep them afloat as they took on water but had bitten off more than it could chew, as it were. Maybe I should have red shirt crew being dragged screaming off the decks...
That's a great way to raise the tension. Better yet, play up the other crew members trying to hold him back from being taken, but then show the futility of their efforts and the massive strength of the Kraken. That's where the anxiety begins... ("This could squish me like a peach or drag me underwater and drown me.... I can't swim!.... I'm a belter!')
A lot of refereeing is more about the execution than the basic idea. Some pretty weak ideas, well delivered, can still make a great session. Some strong ideas, bogged down in detail, can be kinda boring or draggy.
If not, panic set in fast (in the players, not just their characters). Killing an NPC red shirt is always a classic way to underscorethe danger. The more gross and sudden, the more shocking to players.
Yes, definitely doing it wrong. :-) In our last outing (Annic Nova as a side adventure to TTA) I had a family of now feral anolas on the Annic Nova 'attack' the players with cuddles. Well, the little ones did after the parental had had a go at one of the PCs and been despatched.
A lot depends on knowing your players too. Their natures (do they like a bit of humour? do they like fights or puzzles or just touristing with GM as tour guide? do they have motivations other than hedonism, credits, or Soc upgrades? etc) dictate presentation and even scenario ideas to some extent if you want them to work well.
You don't usually want the players to die (unless they are wilfully stupid), but you do want them to feel like they might if they weren't really smart and lucky....
I have a feeling I'd be lynched if I actually killed a PC after four years and 23 sessions of TTA. But I wouldn't say that out loud.
How about 'dead' but then revived with advanced technology? Or in a coma hanging on the edge of life... depending on the other players to fetch some key medicine or to get the patient to a high tech hospital asap from challenging circumstance? etc.
There's dead and there's 'gosh, he's gonna die if we don't...' but both introduce tension.
In my 19 year D&D campaign, once people passed level 4, only stupidity or character choice would kill you. Didn't say that and some people got badly savaged (The rogues third degree burns meant he had negatives to his skills, attacks and saves, but also that if he moved too fast, he irritated them and took extra damage.... boy was he glad when he healed up).
While I'm here, I've got the MgT2 core book in front of me and have found the bit on dual weapons:
"If a Traveller is using two weapons at the same time, he may attack with both in the same combat round. However, he may not aim with either, and will suffer DM -2 on the attack rolls for both."
In MT, I don't ever recall a two-weapon rule. They did have a rapid fire option in the errata (two shots or two burst but each moved up a difficulty level which in MT was 4 points).
You can see why, with a -5 penalty, the other characters have removed the firing pins from Captain Loyd's OMGs. ;-)
The machine pistol is for movies, not actual use. Get a single short carbine and you'll be much more useful. Of course, if the character is about style over efficacy, that's cool too.
(and if you missed the joke in the - perhaps too long TTA write up - it was then suggested that maybe they should, for extra safety, remove the pins from the rather gung-ho Lily's grenades)
Once the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not your friend.
But perhaps the answer to the original question, is - yes, the critter can attack with both weapons at the same time but at some form of negative DM.
tc
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