Help with Campaign?

[RichardP]

Hans

Yes news can move at J6 for naval couriers, star spacing etc. do slow it down a bit but it averages at least J5 a week. The xboats and high Jump commerical vessels manage about 1 yr to the core(again jump routes don't follow straight lines). The lower J1 / J2 merchants take years to get to the core. The range of about 4 yrs came from one of the early library data entries (if my memory holds), But regardless of exact travel times, you aren't going to get news / instructions from the capital for a good while.

You can imagine a border noble wonder what fashions the emperor is wearing this year when all the nobles info is a year out of date

 

[Hans Rancke]

Yes news can move at J6 for naval couriers, star spacing etc. do slow it down a bit but it averages at least J5 a week. The xboats and high Jump commerical vessels manage about 1 yr to the core(again jump routes don't follow straight lines).

The 27 jump route from Capital to Mora is one I traced out on the map. That's why I mention the one jump-4 and several jump-5 links. I stand by the calculated times. Always assuming a rational (i.e. optimal) route. Note that the canonical X-boat routes are NOT rational. They're not even rational by jump-4 standards, let alone by jump-5 and jump-6 standards.

The lower J1 / J2 merchants take years to get to the core.

Regular jump-1 ships (i.e. those working for established companies) would almost never do anything other than jump back and forth between the same two systems one parsec apart. Jump-2 can be cheaper than jump-3 on specific short routes (depending on astrography), but for long-distance traffic jump-3 costs roughly the same and is 50% faster. Note that these are per parsec costs. A jump-3 costs more and carries less payload, but it carries that payload 50% further.

The range of about 4 yrs came from one of the early library data entries (if my memory holds),

I think your memory holds fine, but whoever wrote that early library data hadn't done his sums.

But regardless of exact travel times, you aren't going to get news / instructions from the capital for a good while.

Very true. Six months is as bad as a year when it comes to speedy response to sudden emergencies. That's why the Imperium is divided into duchies.


Hans

 

[GypsyComet]

]The range of about 4 yrs came from one of the early library data entries (if my memory holds),

I think your memory holds fine, but whoever wrote that early library data hadn't done his sums.

Or hadn't actually mapped the Imperium's X-boat routes yet. Beyond the Marches, Solomani Rim, and Old Expanses, the Imperial sector X-boat routes weren't mapped until DGP started their grand tour.

 

[Corvus]

I agree that SotA is a bad choice for a first adventure; it will be a huge amount of work to run, and requires a lot of background knowledge by both players and referee. A bad decision can easily end in a campaign-killing TPK.

I do not like "you all meet in a bar" adventures for beginners; beginners often don't know what to do and don't have enough background to make good decisions. My suggestion is to start the players out as employees; their boss gives them their first few assignments and can bail them out if they get into trouble.

You may want to try the introductory adventure in Beltstrike; this adventure starts out as a simple work for hire, but is open-ended enough to turn into a campaign.

 

[Hans Rancke]

If you have a subscription to JTAS Online, you can try searching for 'Regina Startown'. That will produce about a dozen interlocked articles that combine to make up a campaign setting that is specifically designed for beginning players and referees to ease them into the Traveller Universe. There's a description of Regina Startown, a dozen interesting NPCs, a set of six beginner PCs (suitable as NPC friends and allies, if the players want to design their own characters), an adventure suitable for opening a campaign, half a dozen amber zones with small side adventures, and an issue of a campaign newspaper (just two pages) containing hints and links (and fluff) that you can print out and hand to the players.

(Incidentally, the PCs get to know each other by staying at the same boarding house. :wink: )

I was heavily involved in the project, so I'm biased, but I've heard some very nice things about it from others.

If you don't have a subscription, think about getting one. It costs $20 for a two-year subscription, but the real bargain is that you get access to the archives, with more than a thousand articles, including a lot of adventures and amber zones. Many of them won't fit your immediate needs, of course, but even if you can only use 10% of them, we're talking less than 20c apiece.


Hans

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Dragonfly,
I will tell you what worked best for me when introducing 6 of my friends to Traveller for the very first time.
For the very first adventure, make it the last mission of their last term of their character generation.
Normally when you make a character, you simply roll dice and see what happens. On your final term you muster out, buy gear, then start the adventure. You meet at the proverbial "space bar" and ask... "who wants to go adventuring?"... ok... maybe not like that, but it's pretty close.
In stead, create an short adventure for your characters last mission. Since this adventure is "technically" part of their background / character generation, you as a GM can have a certain amount of leeway with the story line. I will tell you how I handled it.
All 6 of my friends were part of the same crew of a large merchant cruiser called "The Leviathan". It's a ship that appeared in one of the old adventures back in the early 80's.
Since they were all part of the crew, they already knew each other for several years, no awkward... hm... my names Bob, and I'm an adventure... wanna go kill a dragon??...
Anyway, their mission was to rescue the CEO of a manufacturing facility on a corporate moon. The owner of the Leviathan has a contract with the corporation in question, so they get to do the dirty work. Once their ship jumps into the system, they are attacked by a few small pirate/merc ships (hired by the bad guys who are sacking the moon facility), so a short space battle starts. This space battle is simply a tool to teach the players (and the GM) how space combat works. As a GM you "allow" the crew to win. (remember this is the characters background creation, so don't kill them). In my case, my friends got to use their pilot skills, (one flew a fighter), targeting, tactics, comms, and any other skills that could be used in a space combat. After they chase off the smaller ships your characters insert themselves into the company town surrounded by factories etc... The best situation is to let your players with "Ships boat" skill fly the 20 ton "special ops launch" down to a designated landing site. Launch missiles and energy weapons at them as they descend.
In my case I "pre-programmed" my players launch to get shot out of the sky, the pilot rolls "just good enough" to crash land in a small plaza. The players survive the crash, but in my case, their NPC leader (Lt. Dan... he looses his legs...) dies in the crash, so the player are now on their own to locate, rescue and find another way off the moon with the CEO. In short, my players found the CEO, killed the bad guys, stole another small launch, and escaped back to the Leviathan. This "adventure" allowed all the players (and GM) a variety of situation to test out their skills in several combats, recon, roll-play, and just fun. It got everyone used to the system, allowed questions, and find solutions.
After they got back to the ship, they were all congratulated on a job well done. The Leviathan went on it's way to its final destination, where my players finally finished their contract. That's when their "rolling up characters" ended, they mustered out, and got ready to begin the "real adventure" the following weekend.
They all really enjoyed the idea to get one night of adventuring under their belt "that didn't really count", so they really couldn't screw up too bad. It was all one fun exerciser in how to play the game, and a chance for the players to get to know each other. My characters decided to put all their ship shares into a specially designed 300 ton armed merchant. They are now enjoying my on going campaign for the last few months.
Everyone else before me has given you plenty of ideas for an ongoing adventure...

Oh... one note. I DO have a Zho psion in my group. He created a character that discovered the "truth" behind the absolute control of Zho psions have on the Zho non-psions, so he fled into the Emperium. He finished his pison studies withing an underground institute. So far, he has done a good job on hiding his talents from those who would turn him into the authorities.

Hope that helps

 

[Vargrz]

There are certainly a lot of great ideas being posted.

The first issue you might consider is whether you are trying to start an ongoing epic story, a sandbox, or just a couple adventures to learn the system.

With an epic or sandbox you need to know the background and your sources for the area of space and Traveller timeframe.

That is why I'd suggest starting with something simpler.

Try a couple of one off adventures. Have fun with your group generating characters and imagining the environment. Then throw them against an unavoidable challenge. Include some combat and non-combat objectives. When the group I play with started, we rolled up characters each session and played one-shots. By the end of three or four of these, everyone understood the basic rules and had tried a few different careers. As referee, it was good to know how players reacted and what they enjoyed. Then an epic or sandbox becomes more feasible.

 

[Thile]

If you do not know what things to buy at first and still want to try out the system and universe, you can always just buy Spinward Marches and choose a group of worlds that are all connected with Jump-1 drives, have other worlds beyond those, but only give a Jump-1 spaceship to the players.

Then you flesh out those solar systems with a few worlds, a group of fancy cities and adventure sites and let the players loose, and when you are warmer in your clothes, you can expand your universe by giving your players a jump-2 engine and let them have it installed. and thus they and you will know the core worlds, but have more worlds accessible to them.

I did that when I was doing my first campaign. I placed my campaign in the Jewel system/jewel Subsector and I had my players owning a 95-ton non-jump capable shuttle, then when I felt that I knew the game system i let them inherit a old jump 1 ship from one of the players old relative and then the players and they could visit a small group of worlds, when that felt secure, I had them rewarded with a jump 2 engine, and the universe expanded before them

That campaign lasted for 4 years playing almost every week.