Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Characters & Combat, page 28

Ah, there we go. I was wondering if the ranges would actually be defined. So, ‘close’ means REALLY close, as in bumping into someone. Well, it makes sense that in a building or cave, you wouldn’t have much warning to someone coming around a corner. Short is melee range, medium is up to half a football field, long is pretty far, and very long ranges from a quarter to a half-kilometer. The chart also says that ‘medium’ is pistol range, and ‘long’ is rifle range, so that gives an idea of what those weapons can do, too.

Now that we’ve seen how to get the drop on people and how far away they are, now we learn how to get away from them. If you’ve got surprise, it’s easy; you just avoid them. There’s a straight 7+ roll for NPC parties with surprise to get away if they’re outnumbered.

When there’s no surprise, it’s a 9+ to evade, with modifiers depending on the encounter range. No hard-and-fast rule for NPCs in this case; it’s up to the referee. But these rules only apply prior to combat starting; once the fight starts, then the Movement rules come into play, which is what’s up next.

So, movement. First of all, this is related strictly to combat movement; moving between encounters will be covered later, I guess. There are four basic options to moving in combat: Evade, close range, open range, or stand. So, run away, move in, back off, or hold your ground. Yeah, that covers the obvious options.

Evading just means you’re dodging. Ah, so not running away. You’re not attacking, you’re just playing defense, with some modifiers based on your range. However, any modifiers from defensive expertise are lost, since you’re not using your weapon to defend yourself. So, there must be some kind of parrying rules coming up later.

Next, we have ‘close range,’ so moving up to get up close and personal. Depending on the weapons involved, this might be a really good idea. Oh, that’s interesting: there’s a table that describes how ‘big’ each range is, and how many rounds it takes to close each range gap. ‘Very long’ takes five rounds to close to ‘long,’ while ‘long’ is 4, ‘medium’ is 3, and both ‘short’ and ‘close’ are 1 round. I’m curious as to how much closer you can get than ‘close,’ which is described as ‘touching’ higher up on the page. Merging bodies? Committing to a relationship? It’s a funny bit.

Running means it takes about half as long, but it impacts your endurance. Another mention of the ‘Endurance rule,’ which I still haven’t seen. You can also ride an animal or a vehicle to close the gap faster, which doesn’t impact your Endurance.

Good stuff so far, pretty fast and loose. It will be interesting to see how it works in actual play.