Does anyone use the Traveller Universe?

[Jeraa]

I don't use published settings, with one exception*. I don't want to deal with the "Canon Nazis" saying "That never happened" or "Its supposed to be like this" or "So-and-so would never do that".

And it can lead to a point where the PCs actions directly contradict something in canon. If canon says "Starbase X existed in year Y", but the PCs blow it up before that, you end up having to ignore the canon. If your going to ignore the canon anyway, why not just make your own setting, and have everything the way you want it?

*The exception being Forgotten Realms. Sometimes, I'll set a D&D campaign in the Realms.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I have mixed feelings about the OTU. On the one hand, I like the way that the setting captures a number of classic SF tropes but I dislike the way that the existence of a restrictive canonical timeline makes it difficult to incorporate recent SF influences into the setting. I've played in the 3I many times, but have also developed my own homebrew setting that has a slightly different "feel" to the OTU.

 

[JP42]

I, too, try to follow the canon for the Third Imperium when I play. It's my favorite Sci Fi setting, and I intend to use it with other systems as well, I like it so much. To me, the Third Imperium is Traveller, but I know that makes me something of an anachronism anymore. I guess, just as Mongoose gave up the RuneQuest name and made the generic version into Legend, I'd not mind seeing the rules stripped of all references to the Imperium, made to include things that never were proper for the Imperium (Strong AIs, Cybernetics, etc), and called something else, because when you start adding those things, it stops being Traveller to me.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I guess, just as Mongoose gave up the RuneQuest name and made the generic version into Legend, I'd not mind seeing the rules stripped of all references to the Imperium, made to include things that never were proper for the Imperium (Strong AIs, Cybernetics, etc), and called something else, because when you start adding those things, it stops being Traveller to me.

One option that I've been considering is keeping the Third Imperium setting as described in canon, but developing a Fourth Imperium setting set maybe 200-300 years after the 1248 era books published by Avenger Enterprises, but incorporating some of the elements that you mention. It would still be space opera and would still contain many elements recognizably derived from the Traveller that we know and love, but would have more of a modern feel - I'd be aiming for something that incorporates influences such as Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks et al. This would allow those who prefer the old school feel of the Third Imperium to stick with the era that they know and love, while providing the freedom to advance the canon to absorb some of the best new ideas out there.

 

[GypsyComet]

I, too, try to follow the canon for the Third Imperium when I play. It's my favorite Sci Fi setting, and I intend to use it with other systems as well, I like it so much. To me, the Third Imperium is Traveller, but I know that makes me something of an anachronism anymore. I guess, just as Mongoose gave up the RuneQuest name and made the generic version into Legend, I'd not mind seeing the rules stripped of all references to the Imperium, made to include things that never were proper for the Imperium (Strong AIs, Cybernetics, etc), and called something else, because when you start adding those things, it stops being Traveller to me.

Except that Traveller and the Third Imperium were doing cybernetics years before they became fashionable. They aren't prevalent in the setting because medical tech has gotten beyond the need for them, but they are there and have been since CT.

Strong and common AI was one of the things that the whole Virus event was written for, so it is already in place by 1248.

The nanotech sidebar in the GURPS Traveller main book is a useful read on that subject.

High-powered Psi is not a good fit, but is also fairly rare in the harder SF that Traveller comes from.

I don't use published settings, with one exception*.

*The exception being Forgotten Realms. Sometimes, I'll set a D&D campaign in the Realms.

And yet the conditions you describe are worse in FR than in Traveller.

 

[Hopeless]

I don't use published settings, with one exception*.
*The exception being Forgotten Realms. Sometimes, I'll set a D&D campaign in the Realms.

And yet the conditions you describe are worse in FR than in Traveller.

Ah but as long as you stick to the grey box that as far as all of that goes oh and ignore the books about paladins done poorly...

Latest Star Wars comic from Dark Horse has been released and makes me wonder about doing that in a Traveller game!

But I'd probably go along the lines of the Empire has glassed your world after a ferocious battle leaving few surivors some have been captured but those still evading the remorseless grasp of their enemy they now have the dubious honour of trying to find a new home for the survivors even as their merchants try to keep the supplies running another group sets out to search for a new home albeit tempered by the growing fact that the Empire has spies in their number making their continued flight far more dangerous...
The real question is why the continued pursuit for an near extinguished threat?
What possible reason has their foe have for continuing their remorseless hunt?
And who are they hunting or what?

 

[IanBruntlett]

I've been running games in the OTU ever since Mongoose published their take on Spinward Marches. I have run the occasional Mongoose Judge Dredd Traveller game and am likely to try the other Mongoose Traveller universes in the future.

 

[F33D]

To me, the Third Imperium is Traveller, but I know that makes me something of an anachronism anymore.

No, that is not uncommon for people who started playing the game late. For the old timers there was no 3rd Imperium.

 

[Captain Jonah]

To me, the Third Imperium is Traveller, but I know that makes me something of an anachronism anymore.

No, that is not uncommon for people who started playing the game late. For the old timers there was no 3rd Imperium.

Who are you calling old. :roll:

The 3rd Imperium and the Traveller rules are two seperate things.

You can use the rules in any verse and use any rules in the 3rdI.

For myself I have done both, Hero system and Gurps games in the 3rdI. Traveller rules hunting Aliens on a terra-forming plant etc.

For a game with experienced players the 3rdI is useful since canon aside your players will know what you are talking about without long explanation. With new players the Traveller rules are simple enough that the only explanation needed is about the verse.

As long as the ref and players are enjoying it then go with whatever you want to do.

 

[JP42]

To me, the Third Imperium is Traveller, but I know that makes me something of an anachronism anymore.

No, that is not uncommon for people who started playing the game late. For the old timers there was no 3rd Imperium.

Does 1983 count as coming to the game late? I was definitely impacted by Classic Traveller.

 

[Infojunky]

Does 1983 count as coming to the game late? I was definitely impacted by Classic Traveller.

YES! newbie!.....

Why I was already running my game in my parents paperbag in the middle of the road....

 

[Greylond]

A lot of the original 3I stuff came out in 1979. Two years after CT came out...

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Does 1983 count as coming to the game late? I was definitely impacted by Classic Traveller.

Not at all. The first print of boxed Traveller had already sold off the shelves though (but who really cared about the 1977 printing in 1981? Do people care about the two printings that Mongoose did using different art each time?). The second boxed printing was on store shelves. The hard cover printing, which cost more was in stores (in limited copies). The Classic Traveller game was still fairly new and being sold in wargame and comicbook stores. The library data books (which compiled the 3rd Imperium info) were not in stores yet until 1981 - 1982.

Don't worry if you were not a Traveller player in the '70s. The game was very spartan back then anyway. Enough people bought the game, and GDW gave the Classic version full support for its next print run in the '80s.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Does 1983 count as coming to the game late? I was definitely impacted by Classic Traveller.

YES! newbie!.....

Why I was already running my game in my parents paperbag in the middle of the road....

You had a whole paper bag! On a road! You was lucky.
We dreamed of being on a road, back in my day we was lucky to have a spot on a muddy track, miles from the road, in a swamp, next to a toxic dump. Paper bag, a whole paper bag. Back in my day we dreamed of having a paper bag. :lol:

Re 1983. Children, children everywhere I look these days :lol:

Seriously don't worry about it. It doesn't matter if you started playing in 1977 on the day the rules first hit the shop or not till mega traveller or TNE or Gurps or T4 or just started now with MongT. Just about everything published over 36 years (yes it has been that long near enough) is still there somewhere but you don’t need to own every single CT book and adventure or everything from MegaT or TNE etc to have fun.

There are a few old timers around here who can drop quotes from obscure publications that came out before many of today’s gamers were born and they have many years of experience. They come up with good ideas which are mostly worth listening to but it’s just advice. Listen to the ideas then do your own thing, it’s a great game, play as you want and have fun. You could have bought the rules yesterday and still have fun.

Of course we will gently mock the newbies, the noobs, the children etc. After all us ol... erm more experienced types like to poke fun at the juniors :lol: :wink:

 

[AndrewW]

You had a whole paper bag! On a road! You was lucky.
We dreamed of being on a road, back in my day we was lucky to have a spot on a muddy track, miles from the road, in a swamp, next to a toxic dump. Paper bag, a whole paper bag. Back in my day we dreamed of having a paper bag. :lol:

There where roads? Gee, planet I was on all we had was endless sand, without any sort of landmarks not to mention 4 suns so it was rather warm, a paper bag would have caught fire.

 

[rust]

Gee, planet I was on all we had was endless sand ...

At least you had a planet to start with, we had to build
our own planet from paper mache* ...

* using the first edition of D&D for the raw materials ...

 

[Jame Rowe]

Does 1983 count as coming to the game late? I was definitely impacted by Classic Traveller.

YES! newbie!.....

Why I was already running my game in my parents paperbag in the middle of the road....

Careful whom you call a newbie! When I was 13 I got the very newest version of Traveller, a rather largish book called The New Era - Yes, I WAS 13 in 1993! Of course, I didn't actually start playing, well, ANY game until 2002...

Though in my area it's tough to find people who actually are willing to play any version of Traveller as most have never heard of it. The game I have access to is irregular too.

 

[JP42]

Careful whom you call a newbie! When I was 13 I got the very newest version of Traveller, a rather largish book called The New Era - Yes, I WAS 13 in 1993! Of course, I didn't actually start playing, well, ANY game until 2002...

Though in my area it's tough to find people who actually are willing to play any version of Traveller as most have never heard of it. The game I have access to is irregular too.

If you're going to admit that you're ten years my junior, I get to call you newbie too!

I, too, was 13 when we laid hands on The Traveller Book and played the living daylights out of it. I stopped playing when Megatraveller came out, more or less, and didn't come back until Mongoose had had the license for a while. I've since made up for lost time collecting pretty much everything MgT. What I bring from my earlier experience is definitely the not-quite-old-man-but-old-enough outlook that The Third Imperium is what makes Traveller Traveller. I'm a GURPS gearhead as well, and would choose 3I as my backdrop for a pick up game of GURPS with a sci-fi focus in a heartbeat, with or without the GURPS materials to back me up.

 

[dragoner]

You had a whole paper bag! On a road! You was lucky.
We dreamed of being on a road, back in my day we was lucky to have a spot on a muddy track, miles from the road, in a swamp, next to a toxic dump. Paper bag, a whole paper bag. Back in my day we dreamed of having a paper bag. :lol:

There where roads? Gee, planet I was on all we had was endless sand, without any sort of landmarks not to mention 4 suns so it was rather warm, a paper bag would have caught fire.

You had a planet? When I awoke in the cloning room of a derelict generation ship, all I had was the discarded lid from the old '81 deluxe editon traveller boxed set to cover my privates, and I was glad to have that when the vegepygmies attacked!

 

[Captain Jonah]

Does 1983 count as coming to the game late? I was definitely impacted by Classic Traveller.

YES! newbie!.....

Why I was already running my game in my parents paperbag in the middle of the road....

Careful whom you call a newbie! When I was 13 I got the very newest version of Traveller, a rather largish book called The New Era - Yes, I WAS 13 in 1993!

Children everywhere :lol: