Mysteries -> Secrets (of the Ancients)

[flyteach]

I did search the forum, but didn't find what I'm looking for. I'm starting a new campaign and Secrets has definitely caught my eye. Couple of questions:
1. Anticipating the group to stay together, is it worth waiting to run Mysteries before taking them thru Secrets?
2. Will I want to take them thru Mysteries if we go thru Secrets (and possibly Wrath) first?
3. Are they independent enough to make it fun for the group?
4. Are there spoilers in Secrets that could ruin running Mysteries after?

Thanks for any advice,
Jim/Flyteach

 

[Vormaerin]

Mysteries is a lower level adventure than Secrets. They are dealing with humans hunting for Ancients, Droyne, and leftover semi functional or non functional Ancients devices and critters. Finding out what is and isn't true about the Ancients is part of the story. Secrets you are dealing with actual Ancients, lost knowledge at a level Ancients hunters can only dream of, and working devices of significant power. Wrath isn't (quite) out yet, but it'll refer back to events and people in Mysteries.

You don't need to play Mysteries to play the others, but it would take a lot of reworking to play Mysteries *after* Secrets. IMHO.

 

[alex_greene]

I did search the forum, but didn't find what I'm looking for. I'm starting a new campaign and Secrets has definitely caught my eye. Couple of questions:
1. Anticipating the group to stay together, is it worth waiting to run Mysteries before taking them thru Secrets?
2. Will I want to take them thru Mysteries if we go thru Secrets (and possibly Wrath) first?
3. Are they independent enough to make it fun for the group?
4. Are there spoilers in Secrets that could ruin running Mysteries after?

What Vormaerin said.

Think of Mysteries as a taster, or an aperitif before the main course. Mysteries gives your characters an appetite, steering them into the events of Secrets and allowing the Travellers to dip their toes into the waters before ramping up the tension and allowing them the choice of following the trail deeper into the woods.

I'm going to stretch this to include Wrath of The Ancients, which should be coming out real soon, by all indications.

Oh, and here's the fun thing, the bit that they don't tell you about when they write these adventures.

You don't have to follow them at all. Use the stories as hints, but run your own adventures using MOTA, SOTA and WrOTA as inspiration and guidance rather than as canon, written in stone, sacred cows. If you like planets and don't want them to be blown up, ignore that bit in the canon. If you want Yaskoydray to be dead and buried 300,000 years ago, and the Ancients with him, so be it. Ancient tech can still be knocking about, just not operated by actual Ancients - just the descendants of the Ancients, who have as much clue as to how their toys operate as you would.

 

[PeterFdH]

I've designed my campaign around Secrets but wanted to run some other stuff first anyway as our group is new to Traveller so running Marches 1-5, as well as Mysteries before Secrets. We've not yet started Mysteries but it's easy to incorporate and what I like is that it is a more gentle easing into the Ancients mythology.