Anomalies

[alex_greene]

Refs, do you run anomalies in your Traveller universe? I mean, not as in Ancient Artifacts, as much as spaceborne, migratory clouds of disembodied sentient alien lifeforms, temporal dilation pockets, wormholes etc.?

Players, have your characters encountered weirdness such as the above?

And has anyone run anomalies in the 3I OTU setting? How did it play out?

 

[rust]

My current setting has wormholes ("conduits"), both natural and artificial
ones, as it is based in part on MJD's Far Avalon setting, and these cause
no problems at all - they are just something like interstellar "fast lanes"
for long distance voyages.

I rarely use other anomalies, although I often introduce things that look li-
ke anomalies at first sight and require the characters to examine and re-
search them in order to find out what non-anomalous event created them.

While I want to create a sense of wonder in my settings, I also want to gi-
ve the characters a chance to understand most of what exists and is going
on around them, provided they are willing to invest the time and effort ne-
cessary to explore some strange phenomenon and have a little luck.

That said, I also take care that there are some strange things the charac-
ters are unable to understand, no matter how hard they try.

 

[GamerDude]

It's been a long time since I've used any non-Traveller FTL system, but I haven't been a large user of the "captain, we've hit an anomaly and are stranded in the center of it (Imagine 'Scotty' on Star Trek). I'm not very up on what the current science says on a bunch of the stuff ST:Name any Series has used as a plot device, but much of it was fairly well contrived to just give us something to hang a story on.

I do like to use them as a way to give the players something to think about while in transit.. I love it in Firefly/Serenity where the crew discovers a derelict or something and are gawking at it trying to figure out what happened to it, next they end up going into it to explore... that's the kind of things I like in my game. Just not too often.

 

[BP]

Toyed with the idea plenty back in the day, but never implemented any - most just seemed to cliche.

For just fluff, the idea of some giant artifacts - whose sole purpose turns out to be just artistic has come to mind several times (think gigantic yellow 'rubber' ducky) and a space time rift that just deposits the ship outside the rift several minutes in the future, but approaching the rift again.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I have used stellar design in the past.

I ripped off Arthur C. Clarke's "The City and the Stars" and had a group of stars that were moved into their current locations. In my game I put one of each star color in the same planetary system in a Rosette kind of pattern. It made for an obvious "Here there be Intelligence" kind of message for anyone that could observe the stars.

Unfortunately, the players never got to that system, so the adventure sits idle in my mind...

 

[kafka]

anomalies...

spaceborne, migratory clouds of disembodied sentient alien lifeforms, temporal dilation pockets, wormholes etc

Anything that can be explained will be explained but largely the remain as the ultimate enigma.

Therefore, players can...

1. Harness their power and then have the anomaly phenomena bite them in the ass.
2. Stay clear of dangerious tech and be drawn into it.
3. Actively parttake in an anomaly based campaign.
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