OTU date?

[Host of Angels]

What is the current date (or date range) in the OTU as described in the Mongoose Spinward Marches book? I'm sure it is in there, but I can't for the life of me find it. For some reason 1105 is in my head, but I cannot find out where I got that, of if I just made it up.

Thanks

 

[rust]

See page 44, "The Marches Today", which gives the date
as 1105.

 

[Host of Angels]

Thanks - I knew it was in there somewhere...

 

[Captain Jonah]

Yep only 11 years till the rebellion breaks out :roll:

 

[GypsyComet]

Less than that for the 5th Frontier War.

If the proximity to known big events bugs you, back the game up to 1080 or so. Nothing big changes, aside from the nobles (the only universally documented major NPCs in many places) being younger. The 4th Frontier War and the end of the Second Survey are more recent memories, there are still a few old Vilani around who remember the Solomani Rim War, and Strephon is much more recently on the Iridium Throne.

 

[Hans Rancke]

If the proximity to known big events bugs you, back the game up to 1080 or so. Nothing big changes, aside from the nobles (the only universally documented major NPCs in many places) being younger. The 4th Frontier War and the end of the Second Survey are more recent memories, there are still a few old Vilani around who remember the Solomani Rim War, and Strephon is much more recently on the Iridium Throne.

In 1080 the Duke of Regina is Willem and his heir is William. Norris is a mere second son who is just about to enter Naval Academy next year. And the 4th Frontier War will begin in two years .


Hans

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Yep only 11 years till the rebellion breaks out :roll:

In your timeline!

Egil

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Less than that for the 5th Frontier War.

If the proximity to known big events bugs you, back the game up to 1080 or so. Nothing big changes, aside from the nobles (the only universally documented major NPCs in many places) being younger. The 4th Frontier War and the end of the Second Survey are more recent memories, there are still a few old Vilani around who remember the Solomani Rim War, and Strephon is much more recently on the Iridium Throne.

Yep, I set my group's campaign after 4FW, now in 1092, to avoid the big events.

Egil

 

[GypsyComet]

In 1080 the Duke of Regina is Willem and his heir is William. Norris is a mere second son who is just about to enter Naval Academy next year. And the 4th Frontier War will begin in two years .


Hans

Hah. Wasn't looking at a timeline this morning. The point stands.

The "cost" of playing in a rich setting is that stuff happens around you.

With years of Traveller exposure, the more common tactic of producing settings that are on the brink on something big that *never happens* because the published timeline will never move is now far more annoying to me. I don't have a problem with "but I can never be important!" arguments because they are, in Traveller, patently false. Sure, you can never be EMPEROR, but that job is frankly pretty boring in a gaming context. You want to be a Duke? We can swing that, even if certain *specific* Duchies aren't available. Business magnate? Pah, the Imperium is swimming in them, so there is always room for one more...

I've run wartime games, and rather like the ability to tell my players that such-and-such system is under seige and prob... scratch that, absolutely not safe to travel to. My favorite was set in Daibei in the opening moves of the Rebellion, but I am now running a "Wars of Ambition" game in Arzul (courtesy of The Traveller Map and a bit of UWP editing).

The Third Imperium (and the First and Second) as a setting has long been the strength of Traveller. Some argue that it IS Traveller. As game settings go, it is not static, not small, and not overly micromanaged. We play in the setting because of those things. The various publishers and vast fanbase have the big picture, the wheel of stars and empires, covered. Now what are you doing about the airlock in front of you?

 

[zero]

When the Fifth Frontier War hits, my Darrian crew are due to be round the Provence Sector around Lighoz, which I believe is in the Vargr's Dzarrgh Federate space.

Not sure how the Vargr will take a drifting Imperial-built battleship with a Darrian crew at such a time of outbreaking war though :lol:

The Vargr will generally be the most common aliens encountered at this time though, where the Darrians will feel that theyre the aliens even more with so many worlds for months at a time being occupied by the canine-people.

 

[Captain Jonah]

I don't have a problem with them, the rolly eyes was more for my "oh here we go again" another rerun of the war thing.

The rich and detailed history of the OTU is both good and bad.

For games where I know things like the 5th or the rebelion are going to happen I don't tell the players the year or just say its year 5 for making note of dates.

Or the rebellion kicks of in 1112 when Dulinor declares himself emperor and the fighting starts then but a truce is called 1115 and dulinor goes before the emperor to beg forgiveness and then kills him with a smuggled weapon. Lots of ways of doing it.

What it tend to do though is muddy the waters at the player level so that big battle that happens in this system is late or early or doesn't happen to throw the long term players off balance.

 

[Hans Rancke]

When the Fifth Frontier War hits, my Darrian crew are due to be round the Provence Sector around Lighoz, which I believe is in the Vargr's Dzarrgh Federate space.

Not sure how the Vargr will take a drifting Imperial-built battleship with a Darrian crew at such a time of outbreaking war though.

Seeing as these Vargr are a 100 parsecs from the Zhodani, they're probably supremely indifferent to a war in the Spinward Marches. Unless you want it to be an issue, in which case perfidious Zhodani diplomats have managed to convince these Vargr to make trouble for the Imperium in their neck of the woods just as an distraction (What the Vargr get out of it is left as an exercise for the referee ).


Hans

 

[Jak Nazryth]

What year is TNE set? When does the super virus break out?

 

[daryen]

TNE was set in 1201 (1202 for the Regency).

Important dates to keep in mind:
1107: Start of 5FW
1110: End of 5FW
1116: Strephon Assassinated
1130: Release of Virus, Deneb warned
1197: Hivers help form Dawn League/Reformation Coalition
1248: Fourth Imperium

 

[Richard]

We play the GURPs incarnation where the rebellion and assassination don't occur and the 5th Frontier war is behind us. Well they haven't occurred yet at any rate. It works well because it kind of 'clears the air' with regard to expectations (Sure there is the 1248 stuff but you can pretty much ignore that if your timeline's taking a sharp left). In any case you can utterly ignore the official timeline and do what you bloody well want! You could pick your own starting date. Maybe the war is averted by the PCs; maybe it doesn't go the way those know it all grognards expect...

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

In any case you can utterly ignore the official timeline and do what you bloody well want! You could pick your own starting date. Maybe the war is averted by the PCs; maybe it doesn't go the way those know it all grognards expect...

Very much my take on the "official" timeline.

I like the idea of setting a game during the Interstellar Wars or the Solomani Rim War, but not neccessarily following the offical timelines (though the end results may be the same, depending on player actions).

Once you start a campaign, regardless of where on the official timeline, it becomes YTU timeline, change as much or as little as you like.

Egil

 

[GypsyComet]

I like the idea of setting a game during the Interstellar Wars or the Solomani Rim War, but not neccessarily following the offical timelines (though the end results may be the same, depending on player actions).

In both cases, the established details have to do mostly with what the map looked like when it was all over. The Nth Interstellar War period was lengthy, had periods of cold war, periods of limited front conflict, and periods of all-out grinding attrition. It would be a neat period to play a multi generational game in, the political map of the Rim and Diaspora (and to a lesser extent Daibei and the Old Expanses) constantly changing with skirmishes, stealthy colonization, occupations, and mercantile "conquest" all going constantly.

And the only thing established for the period is "the Solomani won, establishing the Second Imperium". We know the borders of the First and Second Imperiums at the dotmap level, but the centuries in between are open season.

 

[zero]

Wow, just realised my Darrian crew will be around 55 when the Virus hits. :shock:

They'll be dead by time the Fourth Imperium happens...

Thats all *cough*.

 

[daryen]

Just to be clear, I was just answering the query about OTU dates. Obviously, what you do in YTU is up to you.

When talking about moving a campaign into TNE, the two main suggestions in the rulebook (aside from "start over") was to have the present characters' children (or grandchildren) be the new heroes, or use the infamous "stuck in a low berth for decades" trick.

 

[AndrewW]

When talking about moving a campaign into TNE, the two main suggestions in the rulebook (aside from "start over") was to have the present characters' children (or grandchildren) be the new heroes, or use the infamous "stuck in a low berth for decades" trick.

Nah, just stay in the pattern buffer of the transporter... Not that Traveller has transporters but supposing they did.