Newbie Trav GM question: Where do you put your new planets?

[Evilschemer]

The planet generator is great!

So I'm just starting a new Traveller campaign, and I've never run Traveller before. I've got a big questions for the old hands..

Rolling up planets and systems and sectors sounds like fun, but as I look online and in various sourcebooks, the galaxy is filled with pregenerated worlds.

How much do you rely on the custom-generated worlds and sectors?

When you create a new world or sector, where do you put them?

Do you just ignore previously generated "canon" material and just make it up from scratch, ignoring all the other historical stuff?

For example, I've set my campaign in the Spinward Marches. It's been pretty well established with maps and data and factions and polities. I see no room for generating new sector maps or planet data.

This isn't a critique, I'm looking for advice as a n00b.

 

[EDG]

Back in the day I just took a sector from the OTU and recreated it the way I wanted. TBH I think the best way to do it is to avoid existing material on the OTU and just extrapolate from what you've got in whatever book you already have.

I wiped over Reaver's Deep myself, randomly generated worlds, changed the borders, kept the rough OTU setting, and filled it with pocket empires, weird alien mysteries and Ancient artefacts. I don't know or care what canon says should be there.

 

[Alexander Cecil]

I just did similar with the Old Expanses. I generated my own sector and then kept the borders roughly the same. I specifically did this because I really enjoy the extra depth that the Mongoose world generation rules give over what's usually out there (e.g. rival factions, temperature, and dissected law levels).

 

[dmccoy1693]

Suggestion 1: Replace any world you don't want there with whatever you want. Most worlds in the SM get the UWP and nothing more. Tell your players you changed it to this code instead.

Suggestion 2: Planets in a subsector are merely the MOST IMPORTANT worlds in the parsec. They are not necessarily the only worlds in a given parsec. So if you want 5-7 inhabitted worlds in a given system or 2-3 stars each with their own systems around it, go for it.

 

[Infojunky]

Rolling up planets and systems and sectors sounds like fun, but as I look online and in various sourcebooks, the galaxy is filled with pre-generated worlds.

Naw it only seems that way most of the "official" map is blank. A lot of the stuff that you see online is either based on the locations provide in the original Atlas of the Imperium (which was out of print nearly 20 years) the DGP sector files (which are incredibly dodgy in their raw format), frequently both. All are/were a work of love by the rabid fan-base.

How much do you rely on the custom-generated worlds and sectors?

No, not really, might keep something if it suits what I'm working on.

When you create a new world or sector, where do you put them?

Where ever I need them. Right now I am working on the Aldebaran Sector in 1248, I took the locations mostly from the Rats & Cats dot map, but the only "Cannon" world is Home.

Do you just ignore previously generated "canon" material and just make it up from scratch, ignoring all the other historical stuff?[/quote]

Sometimes, as there has never been a post rebellion writeup (hell there wasn't a pre-rebellion one either) for the area my game is in that really isn't a problem.

For example, I've set my campaign in the Spinward Marches. It's been pretty well established with maps and data and factions and polities. I see no room for generating new sector maps or planet data.

My advice is use what you like change/throw-out what doesn't work.

Though if you are anything like me I mine others posted stuff for use in my game. If someone else has done the work, why replicate it?

 

[Dietrich hault-Rauln]

I wanted to keep my campaign located near the Spinward March so I could easily use 'Official' interesting gear and minor races. My friend suggested locating my sector on a spur leading off the galactic plane in either the z or -z direction ie 'up' or 'down' from the existing subsector maps.

So you pick an 'official' world as your link world and then a jump rout from there leads into 'your' space (like an upside down letter 'T' where the cross piece is the OTU and the leg is your sector. And then you can create worlds to your heart's content

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

As was previously posted, only a couple of the sectors out there are "official" most are fan-generated material.

If you want to roll up a sub-sector, do it. Don't worry about what is already published and put it where you want.

 

[Evilschemer]

I KNOW what I CAN do.

What I'm not hearing from everyone is what YOU do.

Please phrase your response with..


"In my Traveller campaign, I..."

And go from there.

 

[Infojunky]

Ok, what I do.....

Wow.. that is a tall order.

Well, I'll start with where I started for my current game.

As I wanted to run a post-TNE game I started by locating a sector in the core region of the Solomani Rim. (I loathe both the Vilani and the Zhodani, as the background material for both is frequently a little too pat)

Aldebaran sector popped out as the logical choice. (Mind you this is in terms of the 1248 setting) It is bordered by two major factions, most of the classic major races are available. (Including Vargr they get everywhere, almost as bad as humans).

As for "Cannon" the only world with a defined UWP was Home, the capital of Confederation.

With a general location I placed my central location, a Station a'la Bab5 though it wasn't until after I started development started that I saw the relation. Good ideas seem to recreate themselves.

With those two data points I built a J6 map of the station's region, and am slowly filling in the rest as needed.

Now at this point I would like to point out I am not doing this all by hand. I am a strong believer in gam related software. Which very little has been produced in the last few years, but with the resergance of the game we may get lucky. Anyways, I am currently using Universe to manage my play space.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Generally speaking, I use canon as a suggestion. I change stuff I don't like or is merely inconvient. I add in worlds where I see fit and I ignore worlds that I see fit. I try to keep the base map as consistant as possible considering that that is what the players have as their base information, but changing stuff is ok by me.

 

[EDG]

I KNOW what I CAN do.

What I'm not hearing from everyone is what YOU do.

Well, I told you what I did - I took Reaver's Deep and treated it as a blank sector and made my own setting based on the OTU in it.

 

[captainjack23]

I KNOW what I CAN do.

What I'm not hearing from everyone is what YOU do.

Please phrase your response with..


"In my Traveller campaign, I..."

And go from there.

In my traveller campaign......

My first decision is OTU or not OTU. This is largely based on player prefence and my degree of motivation (rolling up is fun, but so is getting work done)

I choose the theme of the campaign second. Then, in either case, I hunt around the OTU and see if there is a good match; generally there is. If not, and I'm set on playing OTU, I either shift focus or work up a rationale for using one of the less well defined areas (Beyond, Vanguard,Empty, Rift areas, Foreven etc).

If OTU, I generally grab a pregen sector, scan the available discriptions for ones that I want to use (again, usually pretty easy); then I scan the UWPs for inspiration; then I delete ones I hate and/or add ones that I use to center the campaign (often as not, its a planet idea that inspires my campaign ideas); then, I like to gen a few, just to keep my plans for the area less transparent to my long term players.

If non-OTU, I'll generally randomly generate a subsector (using my handy dandy generator program) with tweaks as needed to bias it towards what I want. Then, I continue as above.

In general, I like to have lots of planets that I approve of, none that I can't present or that clash with the focus, a few built entirely by me, and a few absolutely ones random to foil player familiarity.

The importance of the latter is directly based on having a very long term bunch of players who absolutely try to figure things out based on meta information about how I do things...."Hmmmm. An offer from an agricultural nowhere backwater port....bet the customs officials are corrupt and the population insular.....with a dark hidden secret. Pass ."

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

I KNOW what I CAN do.

What I'm not hearing from everyone is what YOU do.

Please phrase your response with..


"In my Traveller campaign, I..."

And go from there.

Long ago, in the dark mists of time when I was at school, I ran the bulk of my games in the Spinward Marches. I used the SM because I had the book (Classic Traveller Supplement 3 Spinward Marches) and I was, admittedly, lazy. Then I got Supplement 10 The Solomani Rim and moved my games there - basically from one side of the Charted Space map to near enough the other.

Sometimes my players would go off the edge of the maps in the books, so I would have to generate perhaps a subsector or two to "fill in the gaps". Then they decided that they wanted to go exploring, so I sent them off Into The Unknown (yes, I did call the campaign that, honestly, seriously), off the edge of the rimward edge of the Solomani Confedration towards Magyar sector.

This basically meant I had to generate every system (as we didn't have Teh InterTubes back then) as the players travelled.

FWIW, my advice would be to either a) use the SM book if you have bought it or b) generate your own systems in YTU.

HTH

Teh Hivorz

 

[FreeTrav]

On the unfortunately rare occasions that I've run Traveller, I've generally just put the world wherever it was convenient for the campaign arc I was planning. When that campaign would be brought to a close, and a new campaign with new characters started, I'd reset to a canonical base and work from there, and not worry about my changes from the previous campaign.

 

[saundby]

My old campaign was entirely my own making. I had only the original 3 books, nothing else but what I wrote myself. I generated a few sectors by hand, then wrote a program for my COSMAC Elf to do it for me (a small computer I'd built a few months before I bought Traveller.) I fleshed things out by hand.

Now I'm using SM. I use as much canon as I can live with, but my current crew of players is learning that the prior survey teams sent by the IISS were drunk, lazy, on the take, or all the above. IOW, I change things to suit me, and use a lot of canon as unreliable canards.

 

[GJD]

IMTU I set the crew of the Queen Elizabeth off a-wandering in the Foreven sector, just to the left of the Marches. I seem to recall that this was set aside by GDW for player development, and aside from a few already established facts, a couple of worlds from The Chamax Plague and the general boundaries of the Avelar consulate, Mnemosene principality and the Zhodani consulate, it was a blank slate. I added in elements from 2300AD with the Kafers et al as a minor race.

G.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I do both.

I play one campaign in the Spinward Marches and am also developing MTU with an entirely new sector. So far, we have only played in the Marches, because it is taking me a lot longer than I thought to recreate MTU from when I was 16...

It comes down to what you want to do.

If you want to create a subsector but be in the OTU for the history, just put it of the map of the Spinward Marches (but connected to it). Foreven Sector is good because there is no official data for that sector (see the Foreven Free Sector Logo License info in the Developer Pack for all of the official data).

If you don't care about the OTU, then just create a subsector and make it all up.

Either way, Have Fun!

 

[Shiloh]

...learning that the prior survey teams sent by the IISS were drunk, lazy, on the take, or all the above...

Made me grin