michaelpooley
Mongoose
I have the core rule book, the psion lbb4 and the spinward marches supplement. what, if anything do i need to change to play a campaign set at the time of the psionic suppressions?
psionic suppressions
- Thread starter michaelpooley
- Start date
At the time of psionic suppressions? As in... during the 3I?
Anyway, you have it. the psion book has details of psionic suppression drugs. Shoot psions up on those, and you're done.
Just keep your players (assuming they are psions) on the run from the authorities at all times, underground and scared.
Anyway, you have it. the psion book has details of psionic suppression drugs. Shoot psions up on those, and you're done.
Just keep your players (assuming they are psions) on the run from the authorities at all times, underground and scared.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Think B5 but it’s not the Psi Corp it’s the Imperials
Think psi hunter squads using captured psions who chose to hunt their own rather than spend the rest of their lives in a deep dark hole dosed up on psi null drugs.
Think neighbours watching everything you do, "he was such a nice man; I never would have guessed he was a dirty stinkin Psion till I saw him making things float with his mind".
Think adverts everywhere, report the Psion, they are among us, rewards offered for turning in a Psion. Psions are your enemy, they will steal your secrets and use them against you.
The Psion underground, is it a group of kindly Psions helping others to escape, is it a group of fanatics who want to murder as many mundanes as they can in revenge, is it a front for the Zho who are using this whole thing to weaken the 3I in preparation for the next invasion.
Watch the B5 episodes relating to the Psions hiding on the station. Watch a few 2nd world war movies but replace the spies/Nazis etc posters with Psions. Think McCarthy but replace communists with Psions.
It wasn't this bad everywhere, some places it was worse. The marches for example have had plenty of examples of the Zho and are easy to bring to an anti Psion frenzy.
As a game playing Psions during the PSI suppression can be either an underground/criminal type game or something truly dark and depressing (well from the point of view of the dirty stinkin witches anyway). :twisted:
Think psi hunter squads using captured psions who chose to hunt their own rather than spend the rest of their lives in a deep dark hole dosed up on psi null drugs.
Think neighbours watching everything you do, "he was such a nice man; I never would have guessed he was a dirty stinkin Psion till I saw him making things float with his mind".
Think adverts everywhere, report the Psion, they are among us, rewards offered for turning in a Psion. Psions are your enemy, they will steal your secrets and use them against you.
The Psion underground, is it a group of kindly Psions helping others to escape, is it a group of fanatics who want to murder as many mundanes as they can in revenge, is it a front for the Zho who are using this whole thing to weaken the 3I in preparation for the next invasion.
Watch the B5 episodes relating to the Psions hiding on the station. Watch a few 2nd world war movies but replace the spies/Nazis etc posters with Psions. Think McCarthy but replace communists with Psions.
It wasn't this bad everywhere, some places it was worse. The marches for example have had plenty of examples of the Zho and are easy to bring to an anti Psion frenzy.
As a game playing Psions during the PSI suppression can be either an underground/criminal type game or something truly dark and depressing (well from the point of view of the dirty stinkin witches anyway). :twisted:
Apart from what has already been mentioned, your setting would existmichaelpooley said:
approximately 300 years before the time described in the Spinward Mar-
ches supplement. You could ignore this, or use a Traveller timeline to
find out what the main differences between the periods should be (main-
ly available technology and development of the frontier regions of the
Spinward Marches), or you can take a shortcut and just keep technology,
populations and all that a bit lower in your version of the Spinward Mar-
ches.
michaelpooley
Mongoose
I thank you for all of your replies. 
I have taken them all under advisement. I do want to change anything unless I have to. I will all necessary modifications. I thinking about the UPPs etc. But I have decided to keep them the same for the most part as there will be three more wars.
Psionic institutes will be in plain sight untill 800imp. then they will disappear and go underground. the focus of the campaign will determine the characters. Will they be psions who go on the run? Will be they psion hunters?
I am thinking of also including the Abyss Rift. The place where mysterious things happen. Just what is the truth?
I have taken them all under advisement. I do want to change anything unless I have to. I will all necessary modifications. I thinking about the UPPs etc. But I have decided to keep them the same for the most part as there will be three more wars.
Psionic institutes will be in plain sight untill 800imp. then they will disappear and go underground. the focus of the campaign will determine the characters. Will they be psions who go on the run? Will be they psion hunters?
I am thinking of also including the Abyss Rift. The place where mysterious things happen. Just what is the truth?
Nuclear Fridge Magnet
Mongoose
The truth about the Abyss rift? It's -- :shock:
It's whatever you want it to be. Some sort of creepy Bermuda Triangle which isn't -- can't be -- explained by the Imperium's finest scientists. Not that any reputable researcher is going to commit career suicide by actually believing wild stories from x-boat pilots about 'something on the hull, trying to get in'. Everyone knows that x-boat pilots are a bit... strange.
If I were to send a group of PCs into the Rift, I'd give the players fair warning that they may not make it back. Oh, and I'd tell them not to split up. That freaks my friends out because I used to GM Call of Cthulhu...
It's whatever you want it to be. Some sort of creepy Bermuda Triangle which isn't -- can't be -- explained by the Imperium's finest scientists. Not that any reputable researcher is going to commit career suicide by actually believing wild stories from x-boat pilots about 'something on the hull, trying to get in'. Everyone knows that x-boat pilots are a bit... strange.
If I were to send a group of PCs into the Rift, I'd give the players fair warning that they may not make it back. Oh, and I'd tell them not to split up. That freaks my friends out because I used to GM Call of Cthulhu...
alex_greene
Guest
Just use three little words that would put the wind up anybody:- "That's Reaver territory."Nuclear Fridge Magnet said:
You don't have to set the thing in the past. Set it in the present. Some planetary Governor or Baron gets murdered, looks like a locked room, people start screaming that it was a teleporter, the news spreads throughout the subsector like wildfire - almost as if someone were deliberately spreading this news - and suddenly there's a Second Psionic Suppression right there in your back yard.
Even if the characters prove that it could not have been psionics - a perfectly logical explanation is that the man was murdered and the killer used a little Engineering, a tablecloth and some theatrical wire to lock the door from the outside and slip the key under the door - it's too late. The Suppressions have started, and people (not just psions, but all manner of subversives, dissidents, psion lovers and the lovers of psions, Zhodani expats, Zho sympathisers, authors, artists, the LGBT community ...) are being rounded up everywhere with disturbing speed and efficiency ... almost as if they'd been poised for some time, lists of targets in hand, just waiting for a signal ...
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
What are Reavers you ask?
Well, if they catch us:
They will Rape us to Death,
Use our Skin as Clothing,
and Eat our Flesh.
and if we are VERY lucky, they will to it in that order.
Still one of the scariest lines ever uttered in a SciFi show...
Well, if they catch us:
They will Rape us to Death,
Use our Skin as Clothing,
and Eat our Flesh.
and if we are VERY lucky, they will to it in that order.
Still one of the scariest lines ever uttered in a SciFi show...
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
And if they are Psion Reavers they will do that to your entire crew one by one but make the rest of you experience it via telepathy. So your captain or the character they hate the most gets to have all that happen multiple times :twisted:
Witches, burn them on sight.
Reavers. Shot them on sight.
Reaver witches, nuke them from maximum range and keep nuking them till the ashes glow.
Witches, burn them on sight.
Reavers. Shot them on sight.
Reaver witches, nuke them from maximum range and keep nuking them till the ashes glow.
alex_greene
Guest
I'm sorry I started this train of thought.
kafka
Mongoose
Another way to play the PS era is to take out Paranoia RPG and substitute Computer for 3I. Given the era until after the suppressions that was a laissez faire of psionics (the T4 product is quite good in explaining it) - there are any number of weird cults, memes, etc. regarding psionics. So instead of Communist (from the classic paranoia) you could have misguided idealist who wishes to impose a perfect psionic democracy like found in the Consulate. Plus, given the state of confusion that the PS causes within the Imperial Bureaucracy - it perfectly mirrors the "mind" of Computer.
Or you can take your cue from Soviet Spy literature - in which a valiant hero stands up against the ommipresent Capitalist Imperialist Fascistic State and you must flee and outwit your oppressors to seek the embrace of the fraternal Soviet Union. And, if you feel you can run a G-Man or Upstairs-Downstairs Spy Campaign - it perfectly captures the era.
Add to that cleavages between Vilani and Solomani are beginning to appear, as PS were a vehicle to reassert Vilani prominence in Court which they had lost since the recontact with Terra. So, even if your Campaign is set in the PS, it need not involve psions.
Hopefully, this helps...
Or you can take your cue from Soviet Spy literature - in which a valiant hero stands up against the ommipresent Capitalist Imperialist Fascistic State and you must flee and outwit your oppressors to seek the embrace of the fraternal Soviet Union. And, if you feel you can run a G-Man or Upstairs-Downstairs Spy Campaign - it perfectly captures the era.
Add to that cleavages between Vilani and Solomani are beginning to appear, as PS were a vehicle to reassert Vilani prominence in Court which they had lost since the recontact with Terra. So, even if your Campaign is set in the PS, it need not involve psions.
Hopefully, this helps...
Liam Devlin
Mongoose
AndrewW said:
Or as stated in Mongoose's Aliens: Darrians book, page 143-44 on Rorre, "a great many Imperial psions fled to the Confederation and were secretly transported there, and made welcome."...
Liam Devlin
Mongoose
Another thing to look at for your time period in UPP's is the government and the law levels of the worlds in question for your campaign. If you are using the Mongoose Corebook (pages 175-176), you will note that world governments with contraband listings like 1, 3, 4, 6, & 9 have explicit mention of 'Travellers' as things they restrict as a *general rule*; Then the other worlds where 'varies' can be interpreted. 4 & 9 mention Psions as a general rule of banning/contraband, but law level can also balance this out too.
A Psion on the run/ Psion hunter will need to be familiar with which governments will hinder or help them on their way.
Note also on p. 176 only Law Level 0 worlds don't give a fig if you're a psion or not, LL 1 through 9+ they do, to varying degrees of law enforcement annoyance/ arrest/ detention,/ death & dismemberment, etc.
A Psion on the run to a frontier will want to avoid medium high law worlds (legal scrutiny higher here), and head off through the D & E-class worlds where traffic is lighter and less frequent to stay ahead of pursuit.
And a dirty secret of the Suppressions, yes one day there were Psionic Institutes all across the 3I, the next they vanished. Many never fled, they simply hid themselves well. The wilder talented, non-conformists were left to be hunted, those in the group who were disciplined enough and better 'team-players' went underground. They sacrificed a few for the many, in other words, on many worlds.
In some regions, and on some planets, A Psion is the equivalent of the medieval witch--to be lynched and killed when found (Spinward Marches, e.g., worlds struck by the Zhodani in any of the Frontier wars, per-se).
Hope this is of some use to you.
Traveller be safe & go armed,
Liam Devlin
A Psion on the run/ Psion hunter will need to be familiar with which governments will hinder or help them on their way.
Note also on p. 176 only Law Level 0 worlds don't give a fig if you're a psion or not, LL 1 through 9+ they do, to varying degrees of law enforcement annoyance/ arrest/ detention,/ death & dismemberment, etc.
A Psion on the run to a frontier will want to avoid medium high law worlds (legal scrutiny higher here), and head off through the D & E-class worlds where traffic is lighter and less frequent to stay ahead of pursuit.
And a dirty secret of the Suppressions, yes one day there were Psionic Institutes all across the 3I, the next they vanished. Many never fled, they simply hid themselves well. The wilder talented, non-conformists were left to be hunted, those in the group who were disciplined enough and better 'team-players' went underground. They sacrificed a few for the many, in other words, on many worlds.
In some regions, and on some planets, A Psion is the equivalent of the medieval witch--to be lynched and killed when found (Spinward Marches, e.g., worlds struck by the Zhodani in any of the Frontier wars, per-se).
Hope this is of some use to you.
Traveller be safe & go armed,
Liam Devlin
michaelpooley
Mongoose
Something to mull over as I am fleshing out the outline for the adventure/campaign. Thank you one and all.
The effects of the Abyss rift are similiar to the empress wave(mentioned in TNE). I thought that they might be similiar. Either natural or artificial.
I thought that during the final war of the Ancients a device similiar to the empress wave was used. I t was used to disable an enemy that is still recovering from the attack all those years ago. Using STL is has been a long road to recovery. the experince has led them to stay unnoticed until they are ready to act. They live on a artificial planet in one of the empty hexes. They are susceptable to psionics. I am thinking of the Daleks with a psionic hive mind and bio tech. About the time of the psionic suppressions they are discovered and the 3I learns that they need the psions to help defeat this enemy. It is a clandestine war with little public disclosures.
what do you think.
The effects of the Abyss rift are similiar to the empress wave(mentioned in TNE). I thought that they might be similiar. Either natural or artificial.
I thought that during the final war of the Ancients a device similiar to the empress wave was used. I t was used to disable an enemy that is still recovering from the attack all those years ago. Using STL is has been a long road to recovery. the experince has led them to stay unnoticed until they are ready to act. They live on a artificial planet in one of the empty hexes. They are susceptable to psionics. I am thinking of the Daleks with a psionic hive mind and bio tech. About the time of the psionic suppressions they are discovered and the 3I learns that they need the psions to help defeat this enemy. It is a clandestine war with little public disclosures.
what do you think.
Liam Devlin
Mongoose
You're quite welcome! 
The 3I needing Psions to fight a very clandestine war in the Abyss... and a Suppression/ draft to get them for the war...
Clever!
Traveller be safe & go armed,
Liam Devlin
The 3I needing Psions to fight a very clandestine war in the Abyss... and a Suppression/ draft to get them for the war...
Clever!
Traveller be safe & go armed,
Liam Devlin
