Single System games

[Keikan300]

Our group has been looking at different games to start in. We have played a lot of superhero games and now I personally want to try a sci-fi game. I have always been a fan of the Jovian Chronicles setting and another of our players suggested Traveller. Jovian Chronicles and the tv series, the Expanse have a lot of similar themes and I was looking at running a game based in a setting more like these two. I have already looked at the possibility of incorporating mecha into the game (ala: Jovian Chronicles).
Has anybody created, or does anybody know of a product, which establishes this sort of universe? I know that the Traveller setting by default is about galazy-spanning adventures, but I was just wondering if there was anything out there.

I picked up the Heavy Metal supplement for mecha, but it feels more like Battletech than Jovian Chronicles. I always liked JC for it's eye on science as much as sci-fi.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Vormaerin]

Traveller has Beltstrike, both in CT and a Mongooose 1e version, which are both single systems (different ones) designed for play entirely in that system. They are both focused around asteroid belts. IIRC, the Mongoose 1e system is designed to be isolated.

There are a few systems that are fully statted out for all the secondary planets and such that could be easily used for a single system adventuring.

But you can easily just design your own star system and just not have jump drive be invented. While most people play space opera to because they want FTL travel, Traveller is not locked into that and can be used for single planet, single system, or small cluster play just fine.

 

[Anstett]

Picking up the World Builders Handbook to create your own fully fleshed out system can turn into several different campaigns.

Or take a look at The Borderland for examples of systems already done. Then just ignore the parts that conflict with how you want the traffic in your system to work.

The Borderland

The Borderland is a sourcebook providing the Referee with a semi-isolated ‘sandbox’ within which to set a Traveller TTRPG campaign. In printed & PDF format.

www.mongoosepublishing.com

 

[rinku]

Cluster Truck is set in a tight cluster of systems, with a lot more than usual in-system activity. That's worth looking at, even if you choose to drop the 70's Trucker culture tribute stuff (easily done, it's basically just gloss).

 

[agentwigggles]

Our group has been looking at different games to start in. We have played a lot of superhero games and now I personally want to try a sci-fi game. I have always been a fan of the Jovian Chronicles setting and another of our players suggested Traveller. Jovian Chronicles and the tv series, the Expanse have a lot of similar themes and I was looking at running a game based in a setting more like these two. I have already looked at the possibility of incorporating mecha into the game (ala: Jovian Chronicles).
Has anybody created, or does anybody know of a product, which establishes this sort of universe? I know that the Traveller setting by default is about galazy-spanning adventures, but I was just wondering if there was anything out there.

I picked up the Heavy Metal supplement for mecha, but it feels more like Battletech than Jovian Chronicles. I always liked JC for it's eye on science as much as sci-fi.

Thanks in advance.

Ignore its addition to the Mechanic skill.
And I am not sure what they were going. Mostly it felt like they just made stats for the Mech art pack they bought, then having real theme for the mechs themselves.

World Builder handbook would help, def. Its a dense book. Its really good at making scientifically plausible systems. Though if thats isnt a goal or care, it may not do yourself well.

Cluster Truck seems to be more up that alley.

 

[DeepSpaceAdventures]

Classic Traveller had "Tarsus - World Beyond the Frontier". You can get it easily as a pdf or try your luck on ebay.
It's a boxed set that describes the Tarsus system in District 268 > Spinward Marches. It also has a few adventure seeds.
It's nice but you still have to put a lot of work into it.

 

[DeepSpaceAdventures]

Oh, I totally forgot the new Borderland book. Although it is a book about a double cluster, it provides detailed descriptions of every system, including maps of each solar system and at least a short description of every planetary body in each system. Probably the most detailed book for M2e.

ps: I have not read Cluster Truck, yet.

 

[rinku]

Note that you REALLY don't need the full World Builder's Handbook to design a reasonable solar system. There are any number of science-based solar system generators out there. Or, you just go with "main world in the habitable zone, everything else is too hot or too cold" and put things where it seems sensible to do so. The important numbers are star mass, star size, star type and (if not too eccentric) average orbital distance. Mass of the star and orbital distance gives you the world's year, and temperature is a function of luminosity (from star type and size).

Stuff like axial inclination and day length can just be made up - they're more or less random in real life (some planet passed too close 100 million years ago and now it spins faster than you'd expect). The mainworld generation in Core Rule Book, including the temperature roll, will be fine for almost all purposes.

Most objects that aren't mainworlds are rocks, iceballs or gas giants, barely worth describing in great detail. In our solar system, as an example, Jupiter's year length of 11.86 years is not likely to ever come up. For all campaign purposes it's in the same location and it's only Earth's orbit that changes the relative position. Even then, the distance between them only ever varies by 2AU; closest is 588 million km, furthest is 968 million km, but the time it takes Earth to go from minimum to maximum distance is only 6 months. In your own solar system, should you want to do so, it's generally only going to worth tracking the inner system planets' relative positions.

 

[Maxijohndoe]

Our group has been looking at different games to start in. We have played a lot of superhero games and now I personally want to try a sci-fi game. I have always been a fan of the Jovian Chronicles setting and another of our players suggested Traveller. Jovian Chronicles and the tv series, the Expanse have a lot of similar themes and I was looking at running a game based in a setting more like these two. I have already looked at the possibility of incorporating mecha into the game (ala: Jovian Chronicles).
Has anybody created, or does anybody know of a product, which establishes this sort of universe? I know that the Traveller setting by default is about galazy-spanning adventures, but I was just wondering if there was anything out there.

I picked up the Heavy Metal supplement for mecha, but it feels more like Battletech than Jovian Chronicles. I always liked JC for it's eye on science as much as sci-fi.

Thanks in advance.

I don't like tooting my own horn but I have detailed hundreds of Traveller Systems.

Drop Box link

My aim is to eventually detail the entirety of the Spinward Marches on top of most of the Trojan Reach

 

[Saladman]

Mechs are oddly a weak point for Traveller. It seems like they're a perfect fit, we've got rules to build them in Vehicles, but I'm not aware of any single killer app for a mecha campaign.

Orbital is a single system campaign setting in our own solar system in the near future. It's well executed but definitely not mech-oriented, more Have Spacesuit Will Travel.

 

[Quint]

I've run both, the single system (actually several single planet campaigns) and the wider-ranging subsector/quadrant/sector spanning games. The single biggest thing you have to decide for single system games is the tech level and how developed the system is. In Star Wars terms are you playing on Dagobah, Tatooine, or Coruscant - the amount of tech and infrastructure is going to have a massive impact on the campaign.

D.

 

[rinku]

Mechs are oddly a weak point for Traveller. It seems like they're a perfect fit, we've got rules to build them in Vehicles, but I'm not aware of any single killer app for a mecha campaign.

Orbital is a single system campaign setting in our own solar system in the near future. It's well executed but definitely not mech-oriented, more Have Spacesuit Will Travel.

They're really a niche vehicle. Grav vehicles appear near the end of TL8 and quickly displace most other vehicles for military, and most civilian uses. Walking vehicles (and robots) appear around that time, so they don't usually get a chance to develop.

Cargo loaders and similar applications where being an upright biped with arms offers an advantage is about it.

Or, in a universe where grav vehicles don't appear, but that would be a very different universe than core Traveller.

But you might contrive a world where walker combat is a thing. Sporting contests, for example, or where local conditions make fliers not used and the terrain is unsuitable for tracked vehicles.

 

[Sigtrygg]

You would also have a lot more point defence, EW, and countermeasures on your huge target; tanks are easy enough to take out with man portable anti tank missiles, drones, plasma guns... a mech could be taken out far too easily.

 

[rinku]

Yeah. Really, it's more of a civilian vehicle idea, but just as you can mount a gun in the tray of a ute (pickup) and make a makeshift support vehicle, I could see a legged cargo loader being co-opted for a similar use, perhaps using its manipulators to heft a heavy machine gun or rocket launcher, or mounting remote turrets.

And I guess if you bolt a heavier weapon on to its forearms, you do have a makeshift aiming setup. Though you'd want to watch the recoil. But any portable squad support weapon would probably be okay.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on local conditions, and return on how much money you're investing.

(Para)militarization of commercial vehicles might be more of a case of the need for an immediate solution.

 

[swordtart]

As has been noted in thread about lifters grav that can lift need not be effective for horizontal thrust (i.e. perpendicular to gravity). I am not sure what handwavium is used to make the Air Raft move at speed, but you may decide it is an atmospheric thruster of some kind. If there is thin atmosphere that may not be effective, if it is a dense atmosphere aerodynamic resistance might also limit air speed.

For lots of reasons (maybe Imperial edict or just TL) you might not have grav and surface vehicles are the norm for heavy transport. It is always hard to justify mechs over simpler vehicles, but that is just a story conceit. If you have mechs in universe then they obviously have some advantage, just accept it and move on. Maybe the world has lush ground cover and roads get swallowed regularly. Maybe the native sohonts are 30ft bipeds and a mech is the most convenient way of dealing with their infrastructure. Maybe combine the two and they are brachiators and the only way to move around the planet is by swinging through giant trees.

It's SF no-one gets to say you are wrong if they accept jump travel.

 

[Studio Cat]

Jovian Chronicles was originally a campaign supplement for R Talsorian Games Mekton II. The mecha designs and action reflect that. Traveller is great, but does not do anime cinematic giant robots very well, I'm sorry to say.

I'll see if I can come up with a good solution for that using Traveller , but it may play better if you treated the giant robots as just giant people and used scaled up personal combat. Movement could use the space combat movement in space. To get that feeling of one against one, just make attacks and defensive dodging contested rolls with the winner hitting the loser instead of using static target numbers.

 

[Quint]

What if it's less "mecha" and more along the lines of 40k Terminator armor? Or, taken to another level, 40k Dreadnaughts? I could picture mecha, hard scifi, as being a development in dueling or gladiatorial combat, which would/could give the players access, but again for all the same reasons mentioned above, the typical mecha doesn't make much sense on the battlefield.

D.

 

[agentwigggles]

Yea. A grav tank, has pretty anime like agility while still having a fairly small profile. Add stealth systems, a la the vargr tanks, and they're even a pain in the ass to spot when they're just being relatively still.
If a planet made bipedal mechs and somehow it doesnt crush itself on its legs and it somehow doesnt crush the ground under it, and it somehow can move at car speeds without rattling itself apart. A grav tank will just fly circles around.

 

[Studio Cat]

Yea. A grav tank, has pretty anime like agility while still having a fairly small profile. Add stealth systems, a la the vargr tanks, and they're even a pain in the ass to spot when they're just being relatively still.
If a planet made bipedal mechs and somehow it doesnt crush itself on its legs and it somehow doesnt crush the ground under it, and it somehow can move at car speeds without rattling itself apart. A grav tank will just fly circles around.

One of my favorite things in Mekton was a section written by Mike Pondsmith:

"Why use a humanoid mecha when it is outclassed on the battlefield by tanks, ships, and jets? Simple, because they look cool."