Retro Traveller

[alex_greene]

Anyone thought of trying to run a Traveller campaign with 1970s or 1980s tech, like the BBC TV shows Life On Mars or Ashes To Ashes?

No mobile phones, no Internet, no digital radio, only three British TV channels, no satellite or cable, copper coax cables instead of fibre optic, analogue broadcast rather than digital signals ... oh, and the low, low prices of commonplace items.

US correspondents, think of That '70s Show.

I'd say "only without laughs," but that'd be superfluous ...

 

[Golan2072]

Are you talking about 1970's/1980's TL7 tech (making the setting "hard science" based on that period's assumptions) or tech depicted in 1970's/1980's sci-fi?

 

[AndrewW]

Anyone thought of trying to run a Traveller campaign with 1970s or 1980s tech, like the BBC TV shows Life On Mars or Ashes To Ashes?
US correspondents, think of That '70s Show.

Actually being in the US I've never seen that 70's Show but have watched Life on Mars...

Not that it matters. I remember life before cell phones (and don't have one anyways).

 

[saundby]

Yeah, I ran one of those. I started running it in 1977 and continued running it into the late 1980s.

I suppose it wasn't "pure", though. After all, I had a personal computer, satellite dish receiver, a fax machine and a 2-meter radio on my bike's handlebars from which I could do a "phone patch" in 1976, the year before I started running Traveller. So some of these sorts of things crept into my campaign, presuming that they'd be available sometime hundreds of years into the future as well.

:lol:

 

[alex_greene]

Look at computers.

For the most part, if you knew what you wanted to do, you most likely needed a ready source of electronics, and you most likely could create some useful tech, but you'd need large breadboards, bins filled with electronic bits and a good deal of familiarity with a soldering iron.

Silicon chips were becoming relatively easy to purchase and install, but what you really needed was some form of data storage. And back then, that meant cassettes, and 20 minutes to load a 16k program into working memory.

But oh, the things you could do even with tech as primitive at that.

 

[EDG]

I think one big problem is that we know we can do so much more now... that "retro tech" thing works if you're in an era where the tech actually is er... "retro". But once you move into the "future" of that era it's harder to get yourself back into that mindset.

To wit - back in the 50s or 60s the idea of an internet where information was available so quickly might have been too outlandish to consider. And the idea that computers could be tiny and not the size of small houses could be equally outlandish.

Now though, we know that the internet is around, and it changes everything. We know that we can carry around little communicators that can easily tap into a global network of information too. And I think that makes it harder to justify why the rest of technology could be so "retro" and somehow ignore all these new concepts that have arisen since then, while still having the SF staples of AI and FTL starships. Then you'd just end up with really weird contrived explanations that make progressively less sense as they pile up.

 

[tneva82]

I think one big problem is that we know we can do so much more now... that "retro tech" thing works if you're in an era where the tech actually is er... "retro". But once you move into the "future" of that era it's harder to get yourself back into that mindset.

To wit - back in the 50s or 60s the idea of an internet where information was available so quickly might have been too outlandish to consider. And the idea that computers could be tiny and not the size of small houses could be equally outlandish.

Ummm...What does that have to do with running campaign set in '70s like OP is asking for?

 

[EDG]

Ummm...What does that have to do with running campaign set in '70s like OP is asking for?

Everything. It's about suspension of disbelief. If you run a campaign now using only tech that would have been imagined in the 1970s then I think players are going to be more likely to ask "but why don't we have (insert tech here)?" and GMs are going to have to jump more hoops to explain why they don't have it.

 

[tneva82]

Ummm...What does that have to do with running campaign set in '70s like OP is asking for?

Everything. It's about suspension of disbelief. If you run a campaign now using only tech that would have been imagined in the 1970s then I think players are going to be more likely to ask "but why don't we have (insert tech here)?" and GMs are going to have to jump more hoops to explain why they don't have it.

What does that have to do with running campaign set in 70's? Ie using technology that was AVAILABLE DURING 1970-1980!!!

Bloody hell. We don't have to IMAGINE what we had available on that era. That's HISTORY. We KNOW what we had! Are you seriously trying to suggest we should put in FTL communications and FTL travel for 20-30 years in history? What's the sense of that?

And the answer to that question is: Because that didn't EXISTS in '70s. You can't have mobile phones or personal computers or internet or FTL in 1970 because that-didn't-exists-back-then.

 

[Vile]

I believe the Evil Doctor is under a misapprehension fuelled by the common usage of the term "retro-tech", to wit, "old-fashioned science fiction". The OP, of course, is actually talking about running a historical era game set in the 1970s (or an alternate setting with equivalent technology), in which context the term, ironically, makes more sense. Still, no need to bash your keyboard so hard it gets stuck on the CAPS key, tneva82.

That era makes life much more interesting for RPGs in my opinion, because things really were simpler then. CCTV was pants, DNA application was in its infancy, smart bombs were not that smart. A much friendlier PC environment (when PC meant "Player Character", and not the other thing). A better source of inspiration would be to watch some actual 1970s or 80s programmes (The Professionals, The Sweeney, Miami Vice) - they did have television back then, you know. :wink:

 

[EDG]

I believe the Evil Doctor is under a misapprehension fuelled by the common usage of the term "retro-tech", to wit, "old-fashioned science fiction". The OP, of course, is actually talking about running a historical era game set in the 1970s (or an alternate setting with equivalent technology), in which context the term, ironically, makes more sense. Still, no need to bash your keyboard so hard it gets stuck on the CAPS key, tneva82.

Oh, yeah, I thought he was talking about running a SF campaign using just tech that was imagined in the 70s. That'd make more sense given the context of Traveller.

Though I can't imagine why anyone would want to run a "modern" type campaign with Traveller but set in the 1970s instead of now. Traveller's a SF game, not a "modern" one - there are other, probably better games to use that are more in line with that sort of era.

 

[Golan2072]

There is always the possibility of running an alternate history campaign set in the 1970's, set, for example, during an alien invasion of Earth in 1977 or after a nuclear war that broke out in 1973.

Another possibility is to take modern technology and dress it in 1970's look and feel, as was done in the Fallout computer game with fusion, computers and robotic dressed in a 1950's feel.

 

[tneva82]

Though I can't imagine why anyone would want to run a "modern" type campaign with Traveller but set in the 1970s instead of now. Traveller's a SF game, not a "modern" one - there are other, probably better games to use that are more in line with that sort of era.

a) some people prefer current or even somewhat behind era to sci-fi
b) 70 era happens to be in the cold war. Plenty of cold war inspired spy plot hooks available there. Modern era doesn't have cold war so plots would be different.
c) as for SF game...Well since the traveller rules work splendidly in sword&sorcery why would '70 era be bad idea? It's less of a change to standard traveller than sword&sorcery is for which it also works. Traveller is quick&fast rules with depth and is pretty darned good ruleset to work with. It also happens to be open which is always a plus. No reason to limit Traveller just for sci-fi games when it works in other areas as well. If you prefer Traveller rules why use some other rules when they work just as well? I know I enjoy Traveller rules more than any others since they offer both depth and ease of use in splendid combination.

 

[alex_greene]

Just because the era is now historical, and the tech seems unbelievably outdated, a number of TV shows from that era have heavy SF themes.

Part of Doctor Who was set in the 1970s. Amid the jaw-achingly primitive tech of the day, one had alien invasions and all sorts of weirdness. Not to mention the fact that the protagonist himself was an alien.

The New Avengers. Department S. Gerry Anderson's UFO.

James Bond.

Hell, even keeping it mundane - The Protectors, The Sweeney and The Professionals. Lots of tyre-screeching car chases (top speed 78mph!) in narrow alleys and knocking over conveniently-placed stacks of empty cardboard boxes.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

If you run a game based on Dune, you would get that retro-tech feel. For all the problems that the original Dune movie had, the visuals were really good. Steam powered equipment, clunky iron-clad devices. It all fit with the "no computers" rule.

So, if your setting had some kind of Butlerian Jihad that outlawed anything that couldn't be made using vacuum tubes and breadboards, then maybe you could get what you are looking for. You don't have to buy into the CHOAM/Emperor/Spice stuff from Dune if you don't want to, but you could take the anti-technology aspect of it. It could almost be a steam-punk kind of setting if you wanted.

 

[captainjack23]

Forbidden planet and Star Trek (TOS) illustrate an interesting mix of mosly 70/80 tech and TL16 in SF. Almost as if the seventies or eighties discovered an alien artifact that gave them Warp, shield, phaser and Transporter tech. Say, a wrecked ship on the moon....which the apollo landings recovered key parts of....and helped create the US centric "Federation"

.....if we have a moon that is.....because..

Space 1999 !


Actually, that almost fails with their slap a monitor on everything sensibility which was somewhat mocked at the time.......but the FTL moon more than makes up for that bit of accuracy...

For that matter, 1984, Farenheit 451 and Brave New world (for classic, classic SF) Logans Run, ZPG, and Zardoz (for less than....ACK....ACK...classic SF) all give us worlds where the tech that the common man have access to isn't much above the cold war - and is intentionally supressed or hoarded.

And if we are talking about running a traveller84 campaign, The Cold war is so traveller ethos that it practically writes itself...not quite as easy as Age of Sail or Classical Diodachi/Late Rome, but pretty close. God knows I've ripped off plot and Mood from the cold war (Blind man's Bluff) Deighton and LeCarrie....

Though I can't imagine why anyone would want to run a "modern" type campaign with Traveller but set in the 1970s instead of now.

[Yoda mode =YES] ....and that is why you fail. [/YODA]




(assume all neccessary smileys are included with the last comment; here are some extras if you need 'em.... )

 

[EDG]

Space 1999 !

Actually, that almost fails with their slap a monitor on everything sensibility which was somewhat mocked at the time.......but the FTL moon more than makes up for that bit of accuracy...

Oi. Anyone who mocks (the first season of) Space 1999 will receive a sound slapping. Though the abominable second season of that is fair game for mockery because it was so terribly dumbed down for a US audience by a producer who couldn't have missed the point of the show more if he tried.

And I'd kill for a commlock. Those are the coolest gizmos I've ever seen on a scifi show.

 

[captainjack23]

Space 1999 !

Actually, that almost fails with their slap a monitor on everything sensibility which was somewhat mocked at the time.......but the FTL moon more than makes up for that bit of accuracy...

Oi. Anyone who mocks (the first season of) Space 1999 will receive a sound slapping.

Agreed. Once one accepts the "Moon Transit FTL Effect" and limited grav tech, it's pretty good predictive fiction. Almost (as I suggested) enough to fail as Cold War retro tech. Tiny cameras, monitors everywhere - comlocks -details we don't see because they look so right now, or are so exactly what we want now.

Though the abominable second season of that is fair game for mockery because it was so terribly dumbed down for a US audience by a producer who couldn't have missed the point of the show more if he tried.

I remember seeing the first episode of season two. It was literally my first experience with that "mouth-hanging-open-WTF-was-that ?"emotion that nowadays so many sequels provide. Again, a success in prediction..

I'm appreciative also that you laid the problem on the producer -and not the audience which he decided needed to have it dumbed down.
[rant]He was Wrong. It failed. Too many of those get blamed on the audience being ignorant -which is odd, if it didn't sail when dumbed down. Almost as if....they went in the wrong direction ? Or that the marketing/production was at fault, not the audience ?

That producers think that a huge (US) audience is neccessarily dumbed is a misuse of stats I see in marketing all the time. While you do have more idiots in a bigger population, you also have outliers on the other end increase in number....and mainly, the real world isn't two dimentional, even if a graph is. [/rant]

 

[EDG]

I'm appreciative also that you laid the problem on the producer -and not the audience which he decided needed to have it dumbed down.

It's pretty widely accepted that Fred Frieberger (who also worked on Star Trek:TOS) screwed up the show bigtime. I think it was more the US networks that they were selling it to - they thought the first season was too high brow for their audience. So they "sexed it up", removed pretty much all element of threat, and had the Alphans being more proactive and not at the mercy of the universe (as they were in season 1).

I tried watching S2 again a while back, to see if I was being unfair on it. I wasn't - it was bloody awful. Totally cringeworthy, lame stories, random changes to existing characters to fit the plot... I only made it about seven episodes into it before I couldn't take it anymore.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I find it interesting that the guy was also on ST:TOS. I felt that the third season of TOS had similar problems in many of the stories. Character's personalities were changed to fit the plot (Chekov being conservative and Spock being a hippy is one example). While it also had some nice gritty stuff, it was very uneven IMHO.

Now that there is a common element, it makes some kind of sense...