GM Preserves needed

[Shadowblayde99]

As the title says, we need more sectors set aside as GM preserves with no official (or unofficial) information published about them.

The reason for this post is that I've just watched a review on the Rim Expeditions book which contains information on the Kruse sector.

I had wanted to run a Solomani exploration campaign.

I'd therefore like to request that the two sectors rimward of the RimReach sector be set aside as GM preserves, like the Foreven sector, and to have no information published about them at all. And similarly for the sectors rimward of Elyetleisiyea and Ftyer.

Thanks.

 

[Vormaerin]

This is something I don't understand, honestly. The existence of a published version of something doesn't make me feel bound by that. Even if I don't like it, published material never hurts me. Maybe it has ideas I like, maybe I just ignore it and do my own thing.

I'm fine with people publishing things even if I don't like or use them, because other people have different tastes and interests than I do.

 

[phavoc]

Have to agree with the above. Published data is easily ignored or tweaked to make it what you are wanting for your own sandbox.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Making Foreven terra ignota may be part responsible for the underdevelopment of the entire region spinward of the Marches in general and the Zhodani in particular.

 

[steelbrok]

Making Foreven terra ignota may be part responsible for the underdevelopment of the entire region spinward of the Marches in general and the Zhodani in particular.

I agree.
Smaller reserves (maybe a couple of subsectors or so scattered around might be a better idea.
When Terra/Sol were developing their Twilight Sector setting only half of the subsector was mapped and the rest left blank. I think that's a bit far in the other direction tbh but it did mean there was empty space right next to the main adventuring area.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I have tried twice to compose a polite response.

This is the best I can do.

I couldn't give a stuff what is written in a Traveller product about the world Forboldn in the Spinward Marches once I read about the Forboldn project in A1 Library data. I will develop it as I see fit. I don't need someone else to tell me what the world is like or what happens.

I'm not interested in a page of details about every world in the Spinward Marches, even the Traveller Adventure left most of the subsector as nothing more than a UPP and brief description.

I will put worlds where I want, I will develop them as I want, and the published stuff is there to use or not use as I see fit.

Regina is TL10 and always will be in MTU circa 1105.

Traveller is not the Third Imperium role playing game, the Third Imperium is just one setting for Travelling, any referee can change anything they want to, ignore anything they want to, make up any new stuff they want to in their universe.

Canon is for authors, not referees.

 

[Vormaerin]

lol. I never even noticed that they changed Regina from TL10 to TL12. UPPs are rarely of any interest to me.

I have my own highly idiosyncratic "Islands Subsectors" that I run in. Mongoose is revisiting the published Islands stuff sometime soonish. I might find some interesting ideas in it. But I don't feel like this stuff is any threat to my campaign. I'll use what works for my campaign and ignore the rest.

 

[Arkathan]

I agree with Sigtrygg.
My players finished the adventure where I ported Starfield's Schrodinger's Cat scenario, and brought one of their contact's cousins and her husband (the "cat") back to where he was stationed. I decided to port the Jack Reacher story "Persuader" since they are investigators and really big on cutting out kidnappers and human traffickers. A Loki agent who has been a thorn in their side since the first adventure is Quinn.
The planet they are at has no water... but they never look at the planet codes, so it has water.
I gave Paullie a 15 END. They successfully infiltrated a stealthed mini spy robot into his living area, and when he went to sleep, got a critical remote ops roll to fly it down his throat once he started snoring. The drone has a mini grenade in it, which detonated in his throat for 15 damage. Only enough to reduce his endurance to zero. I spent two minutes pondering how he could have survived that, so they'd have to deal with him later, and settled on he died slowly and painfully as he bled out and suffocated from the shrapnel, burns and wreckage of the drone in his throat.
Sometimes the rules and the published material just don't matter, when they contradict logic and really good rolls.

 

[AndrewW]

I spent two minutes pondering how he could have survived that, so they'd have to deal with him later, and settled on he died slowly and painfully as he bled out and suffocated from the shrapnel, burns and wreckage of the drone in his throat.

But his friends or relatives will seek revenge (or both).

 

[ottarrus]

You have all the preserve you need...
Just inform your players that the travellermaps is inaccurate and that you've designed a sandbox for them to explore.
Boom. Done.
NOTHING in Traveller says you 'must' used the published data, it's IYTU for a reason. Besides, no published setting survives contact with a referee intact. And no referee plan survives contact with player characters at all!

 

[Arkathan]

But his friends or relatives will seek revenge (or both).

Fortunately, only a couple of people know who did it, and they are the ones Paullie was terrorizing.
Loki operates in cells, and they are in the process of dismantling this one, which actually consists of one person heading up a criminal organization leaning on other criminals. What the players are afraid of is that the gang they helped Beck eliminate had some of the high tech weapons they produced in a pirate base in Imperial space and sold to a Sword Worlder patrol contact. Now they think they wiped out an undercover Patrol operation. They failed their opposed computer check when they were in Quinn's warehouse to access the hacker's computer, which would have shown the weapons were skimmed and misdirected by a couple of crooked quartermasters.

 

[Condottiere]

For the Third Imperium, it's a question of scale.

The village of Hommlet can be anywhere, without really impacting local, or any, geopolitics; next door Temple of Evil, regional.

You can add any number of space stations, asteroids or moons, their impact is likely to be minimal.

Star system non main worlds, likewise.

Star systems effect subsector geopolitics.

Subsectors effect sector geopolitics.

Sectors effect major factions.

 

[Vormaerin]

Same situation. If I don't like their factions or geopolitics, I just don't use it. Problem solved.

 

[NOLATrav]

To the OP - Space is big, really really big. Feeling constrained? Just move a bit over there and you’ll be fine.

Tinath, anyone? A whole campaign, floating in the middle of nowhere.

But everyone’s already made the real point - you shouldn’t ever feel constrained by the published material. Build your universe as you see fit. Create your own preserve.

 

[phavoc]

I LIKE when someone spends time creating details - but they can be easily changed/discarded.

While it has always been interesting to see the maps of where the various factions are, one problem with such a thing is that the frontiers aren't really like what you'd expect the world to be in say circa 1850. You HAVE civilization, and you know where the continents are, but your info is sketchy and there just vast swathes of areas that you know nothing about.

You can't really hide a star, but everything else is subject to change. If you really want to have the major named players around for something then you'd need to pick an area and just tweak the specifics to match your gaming needs.

In the D&D world the World of Greyhawk supplement was just fantastic for referees - it had maps and sufficient details to provide meta-level info, but it wasn't so detailed that you couldn't squeeze whatever you wanted out of it wherever you happened to drop your players.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

OP: You have seen the size of the TravellerMap? Would take generations to fill that out.