Does anyone use the Traveller Universe?
- Thread starter ShawnDriscoll
- Start date
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
F33D said:
What? Why is 1983 being late? What was missed exactly?
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
ShawnDriscoll said:
Most of the original run of JTAS, and thus the one period (77-79) when Traveller did not have a setting at all, only what was implied by the rules. Heady times.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
Exactly. Two full years of just 3 books in a $12 box and not even Snapshot until the very end maybe. People think that was the golden age of Traveller for some reason.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
ShawnDriscoll said:
Note that this is also during the age of the acoustic modem and dumb terminals. No desktop computers. Those subsectors were rolled by hand, and a sector was a vast area to develop. When Supplement 3: Spinward Marches came out, even as bare-bones as it was, having an entire sector suddenly available was pretty seductive compared to several thousand die rolls.
Then along came JTAS, and the little note at the bottom of page 1 that showed the internal date of the issue. Traveller was not only an early example of a game with its own setting, but unlike all the rest, that setting *moved*.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
GypsyComet said:
I had the magazine, but didn't use much of it unless there was a new race being talked about, or the Broadsword Mercenary cruiser. I had access to a 300 baud acoustic modem, DecWriter II, and HP 2000F back then to do subectors on greenbar. Later had TRS-80, etc.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
F33D said:
Which do you mean? Trying to pin the rule set to a setting? Or having it pinned to a rule set?
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
The former... Well, I have no idea what you're talking about. Classic Traveller is pretty much a generic sci-fi RPG.
Though be honest, it was only loosely a generic game. It was informed by the technology and sci-fi writings of it's time. And it is full of odd little assumptions that make it less generic than it could have been (Jump drives, for example). It may not have been "the ruleset of the Third Imperium" but it also wasn't free of setting-limiting elements.ShawnDriscoll said:
I suspect that's why the two feel so permanently intertwined to me.
F33D said:
Lees? As in Lee's Guides? Hmm, you mean like D&D's nonexistant Greyhawk setting? Traveller does actually have lots of settings now, CT not so much. Unless you count the different sectors, which with continuity factors such as going from the SM to SR. Which is called "diluting the market" where one product you sell cannibalizes sales from other products. At the end of the day, the setting is where the game is played.
Woods Walker
Mongoose
I use the 3rd Imperium as the de facto setting for my work in progress game. Their is a lot of info after. One thing I've chosen not to go into is psychic powers. Seems a little soft SF for me but they still exist in the universe. They are just truly rare so players aren't likely to meet a psionic at all and if they do they probably wouldn't know it. Inspiring such paranoia in players can be very useful.
ShawnDriscoll said:
It was, but in that beginning of anything when all things are possible way. Games run then just sorta grew organically with new bits being added to what was being run previously.
Frankly fanzines had just as much to do with the development of my early games as any of GDW "official" releases. Those early adventures could pretty much be dropped into any game that used the base mechanics presented in the LBBs. And to be quite frank the universe of the Traveller Adventure is much different from what the 3rd Imperium became.
Consider this what role do the Scouts fill in your campaign? In MTU they are the core intelligence gathering wing of the Imperium, and that is how they are presented.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
JP42 said:
Nearly every RPG system is that way. Classic Traveller is no different. The idea is that Traveller have a sci-fi feel that had certain tech. Fantasy RPGs have loads of fantasy feel and have a certain majictech and races. Classic Traveller didn't have races (just jobs).
Find a "better" sci-fi RPG that's more generic that doesn't borrow ideas from movies or novels. I'll wait. Most people want their RPG to be Star Wars. I don't own anything Star Wars, so I'm in the small minority.
There have been attempts to design roleplaying games with
unique technology assumptions not based upon any of the
mainstream movies or novels, but it turned out that very few
people want to play them, mostly because it takes too much
time and effort to "get into" the unfamiliar setting.
A famous example from science fantasy is Empire of the Petal
Throne, for most people a truly unique setting because it has
its roots in a non-European and non-medieval history. While
it is certainly an excellent game and setting, its fan community
remains tiny, and from a business point of view it is an epic
failure.
In other words, most people want to play in worlds that are ba-
sically familiar, building upon familiar sources, they do not want
to learn the ropes of a completely unfamiliar setting.
unique technology assumptions not based upon any of the
mainstream movies or novels, but it turned out that very few
people want to play them, mostly because it takes too much
time and effort to "get into" the unfamiliar setting.
A famous example from science fantasy is Empire of the Petal
Throne, for most people a truly unique setting because it has
its roots in a non-European and non-medieval history. While
it is certainly an excellent game and setting, its fan community
remains tiny, and from a business point of view it is an epic
failure.
In other words, most people want to play in worlds that are ba-
sically familiar, building upon familiar sources, they do not want
to learn the ropes of a completely unfamiliar setting.
