Background

Wow...there is alot of details to tell...where to begin?

Well the game Traveller has been around what 30-31 years now and is set within the 3rd Imperium of mankind (called Humaniti). It is a rich campaign universe with tons and tons of resources from multiple different gaming companies over the years set in a multiple different eras within the timeline. I do not have time to go into indepth explanations here but just do a search on Traveller RPG on the net and set back and have a good read for "Days" on all that is out their for it.

Penn
 
Here is another web site with alot of details for you to read. The company is ComStar games and they have both just created/published The New era 1248 and put out a new version of Traveller Hero (using the Hero Systems system). Both are awesome products and there is ALOT of good people and traveller writers posting to that site too:

http://www.traveller.comstar-games.com/


Penn
 
If anyone is interested in Traveller Hero, the Hero's System puts out a genre called Star Hero that has some good resources that could be used with ComStar's Traveller Hero product.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=6

Their message board has alot of good stuff there, just start digging!

Penn
 
In a paragraph:

Traveller is set in the 5600's (AD) time frame, where a human dominated Imperium controls thousands of systems. The Imperium has lasted 1000 years, built on the rubble of the Terran "Ramshackle Imperium", which itself had taken over the Vilani Imperium, both of which were human Empires as well. The many human races predate the Solomani, or men of Sol, venturign out into the stars. Due to the fact that a jump takes a week, and no ship known can cross more than six parsecs in a single jump, and that there is no FTL travel, the far ends of the Imperium are run by quasi-feudal Nobles, with lots of local authority. The local Sector Dukes command the impressive navies and their marines, in the name of the Emperor. Local worlds, provided they pay their taxes and don't destroy each other's populations nor means of production, are allowed a free hand most of the time. At the top of the whole mess is the Emperor, Strephon Alkhalikoi, and the Moot, those nobles sent to make decisions on who the next emperor shall be, usually by bloodline inheritance, sometimes by seizure of the Throne. Your characters, relative nobodies, are out on the fringes.... at a bright spot called Regina, a local capital that once ruled the Sector, and now just the local cluster. The hostile Zhodani humans are just a few parsecs away, and Regina is unsafe as a capital.

Ok, so it's a run-on paragraph.... ;)
 
I am not exactly sure whether you want to know about the default setting, or about the sort of game Traveller is. I'll take a swing at the latter.

Traveller is about that sub-genre of SF called interstellar SF. Interstellar SF stories concentrate on civilizations, usually human, but occasionally alien, who use Faster-Than-Light technology to travel the stars. Most early SF (the Golden Age of the late thirties and forties, and extending into the fifties and sixties, and even later) is actually interstellar SF.

So the sources for Traveller include the writings of Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper, Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, Alexi Panshin, Keith Laumer, Robert Heinlein and others.

Space Opera is sometimes considered to be interstellar SF, but is thought of as a poor cousin, with a distinct pulp sensibility. Traveller leans away from this, and is usually considered to be 'Hard' SF, or more scientifically accurate SF. That's probably true as far as RPG SF goes, which is 'pulpier' than regular SF. There are definite pulp aspects to Traveller, but the assumed background looks more like Serenity than Star Wars.

Characters in Traveller travel the stars. That’s the raison d’être for the game, and is the basis of all other activities in Traveller. The rules specifically address a host of issues dealing with FTL travel, including trade, naval combat, the problems of creating worlds for players to visit, developing tools for creating alien life forms for the players to interact with. For example, many of the skills don’t make sense outside the context of a starship.

The original rules do assume as common technology, society and technological development. These elements can be changed while still using the rules, but the amount of work required depends on how far you stray from the baseline technology.

For example, if you decide to use a different FTL paradigm than the one offered by the game (Jump Drive), you may have to change some of the assumptions about the way a society would develop. Much as D&D offered a template for a particular style of Swords and Sorcery, Traveller offered a template for a distinct style of SF, which most referees used, even if they did not rely on the specific Traveller Universe background developed for the game.

Any other questions?
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and in particular the "Mote in Gods Eye" and the various books set in the Codominium/Sauron wars. I certainly remember chatting with Terry McInnes over a pint (or two or was it rather more...) about him once chatting with Jerry P about the influence of his work on Traveller.
 
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