Inspiration

[Jak Nazryth]

I'm preparing to reboot my Traveller in March. Three out of the 6 or 7 players have never played Traveller before. One of them has never even heard of Traveller. (He's mostly a D&D player)
For inspiration, this weekend I re-watched all the episodes of Firefly.
It's not the only show that gives me inspiration and ideas and a basic themes, but its the show I identify with most when telling new players "This is what Traveller is like."

What shows, movies, books, etc.. inspires you when planning on running a Traveller Campaign?

 

[bluekieran]

What shows, movies, books, etc.. inspires you when planning on running a Traveller Campaign?

I'm new to the Original Traveller Universe, so I've been reading books set in the OTU to get a feel for it. Agent of the Imperium is excellent, and the New Era trilogy is also good, particularly The Backwards Mask* (though the old-paperback-badly-scanned-to-PDF format it's available in sucks).

* I read Matt Carson's version as the format sucked less and I was able to convert it into a reasonably readable EPUB with a bit of search/replace.

 

[Condottiere]

The Expanse.

Westworld, for the concept of suspension of disbelief.

 

[steve98052]

Firefly is pretty much a Traveller campaign in a human space outside of the Imperium. It has the technology variation and the emphasis on slugthrowers, the small ship story, and the varied characters.

I hadn't thought of Westworld as anything like Traveller, but it is a nice little lesson about why robots might be uncommon in the Imperium, for those who don't want to dig deep into the Shudusham Concords story.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

As mentioned by Condottiere , The Expanse is a good example of inner system life, various rivals with different planets and especially the life of belters.

There was a short live 1980's show called "Tales of the Gold Monkey" set in the late 30's south pacific that has an exotic location/ back-water feel to it. You replace the small cargo service sea plane of the main character with a typical tramp freighter, and many of the plots lines, and general "vibe" of that old show can be easily transplanted in the Trojan Reach area.

 

[legozhodani]

Ha ha I bought that series for inspiration for a pulp champaign. And yes it would be fun as Traveller. Film 'outland' with sean connery is good. Blakes 7 is good for dystopia. In fact most British scifi seems good for dystopia

 

[Juums]

As mentioned by Condottiere , The Expanse is a good example of inner system life, various rivals with different planets and especially the life of belters.

There was a short live 1980's show called "Tales of the Gold Monkey" set in the late 30's south pacific that has an exotic location/ back-water feel to it. You replace the small cargo service sea plane of the main character with a typical tramp freighter, and many of the plots lines, and general "vibe" of that old show can be easily transplanted in the Trojan Reach area.

And if you're going to bring up Tales of the Gold Monkey, you might as Tail spin to the list as well, as it was basically just an animated version of Tales of the Gold Monkey. (With Jungle Book characters. But...you get the idea.)

You could also add Wing Commander, as well. (The games, mind you! Or the animated TV series. Just so long as the less we talk about the movie, the better.) As the Kilrathi are the Aslan with the serial numbers filed off, and the scenario is basically what you'd have if the ball dropped and the Imperial-Hierate war in the Trojan Reaches actually came to pass.

 

[Condottiere]

Star Citizen, probably.

Selective episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

Arguably, Killjoy and Dark Matter.

 

[M Harold Page]

Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War is a good modern series about free trading in space (but with a political arc).

For older stuff that (probably) influenced Traveller, try Betram Chandler's Rim of Space series (more traders), Edmond Hamilton's Star Wolf trilogy (space mercs), and EC Tubb's Dumarest series (noir space hobos).

 

[locarno24]

Agree on Wing Commander - albeit that traveller mechanics tends to favour dreadnoughts-with-death-rays over carriers - we had an Aslan ex-Ihatei referred to by the rest of the crew as "Hobbes".

The Expanse is good, but whilst you could very easily do an RPG campaign set in the Expanse (indeed it's an obvious license for Mongoose to snag if they can!) it doesn't actually resemble the OTU very much.

Firefly is definitely a good example and is pretty much Traveller the TV series.


Others:

1) I always thought Andromeda Ascendant was a good setting - it disappeared up its own backside in later series, but the general setting was very interesting, and everything from nanotech to FTL couriers to massive world-to-world variations in technology show up

2) Bits of the Honorverse fit very well. Many bits don't, of course - but a military campaign using the traveller rules in something resembling the Honorverse would work without needing quite so many powers of ten on either the missile barrage sizes or the acceleration values.

3) Whatever you think of the acting, Jupiter Ascending's universe is both visually beautiful and really intriguing. There is a lot of traveller-esque elements, including the corporate-feudal overtones, uplift (in this case more hybridisation), anagathics, and the 'it's all done with gravetics' tendancy for variform hulls where a lot of ships consist of components which aren't physically connected to each other.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Some of these things... I have never even heard of!
I would like to find the time to read some actual "Traveller Novels"... I guess fan fiction?

Plus I agree on a lot of the shows that I recognise.
I never have played Traveller 2300, but it's my understanding that the "Aliens" movie franchise is a good comparison for the "look and feel", but that's what I've heard. It could be wrong

 

[Condottiere]

Roddenberry's stuff has always been a little out of sync, though to do him credit, without Star Trek, we might be decades behind in scifi programmes.

A lot of stuff before this century just looks and feels dated.

Energy is not, or should not, be an issue.

 

[locarno24]

Plus I agree on a lot of the shows that I recognise.
I never have played Traveller 2300, but it's my understanding that the "Aliens" movie franchise is a good comparison for the "look and feel", but that's what I've heard. It could be wrong

The Aliens franchise has a lot of good universe-building, especially some of the games and books that go beyond the films.

Roddenberry's stuff has always been a little out of sync, though to do him credit, without Star Trek, we might be decades behind in scifi programmes.

Andromeda is one of those series where they've taken inspiration from some notes he wrote; it reminds me of nothing so much as Ian M Banks 'culture' universe (which is definitely a bit odd if you've never come across it before - a good way to get people to understand the whole "transhuman" concept, though).

 

[Condottiere]

There were only three things really memorable about the Firefly series, Christina Hendricks, Morena Baccarin, and the ship.

Seen objectively, it looked like it would have lost steam towards the end of a full season in any event, and a lot of the nostalgia has to do more with could have been, rather than what was; Serenity answered that, but it was a one shot.

 

[xnet445]

There were only three things really memorable about the Firefly series, Christina Hendricks, Morena Baccarin, and the ship.

Seen objectively, it looked like it would have lost steam towards the end of a full season in any event, and a lot of the nostalgia has to do more with could have been, rather than what was; Serenity answered that, but it was a one shot.

Heresy!

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Your opinion of Firefly being "seen objectively" is purely subjective on your part...
And that's ok. Not everyone likes Firefly.

 

[Reynard]

Back in classic Traveller days when I first played we adapted Star Wars and Battlestar to it. When I watch any scifi movies or Tv shows I always ask how would I write this as a Traveller scenario. For the most part, I see Traveller as its own universe and would love to see its elements translated into a media production.

 

[Condottiere]

Anderson is a delight when it comes to hardware, but the stories and characters never seemed compelling.

However, despite the likely kid demographic, the new CGI Thunderbirds Are Go is painless to watch, and about a third of the episodes are rather interesting.

Clone Wars and Rebels improved during their run, and certainly Clone Wars could have easily gone on for another two seasons upto the time Anakin decided the younglings needed tough love, but it finished on a high note with Ahsoka leaving the Order, which may in hindsight have been a major turning point in Anakin's alienation.