Some Ideas

[JMISBEST]

I plan for A Princess of A Lesser Race that is part of The Uber Empire but is still more powerful then The Imperium get kidnapped by Slave Traders while on A Slumming it holiday and rescued by The Characters. Who are on route to Drinax

These guys don't realize their treatment of this very attactive Female with Blue Skin, Ebony Hair and Gold Eyes could depending on their actions either make them, as a group, richer then some Earls, or them captured and tortured to death and every world in Drinax's Subsector nuked from Orbit as a example or anything in between

As a gesture of goodwill The Uber Races retaliatory Fleet is more then 2,000 Ships strong and range from TL 16 38,000 tons that they classify as medium Frigates but The Imperium Classify as very-heavy Cruisers to TL 23 1,320,000 tons that they classify as A Light Battleship but The Imperium would classify as A Super-Heavy Mega-Dreadnought

The Allien Princess they rescued could save them and Drinax, but she can't speak their languages, is biased against them cos of how primitive Drinax is compared with her race, we're talking her race being TL 21 VS Drinax's TL of almost 16, and doesn't trust tnem as they could be part of the slaver group trying to pull a fast one.

What's The Characters and The Subsectors likely response and best actions?. Advise please

 

[Reynard]

I'd say at this point every race and empire, including the droyne and Grandfather, would ally and send every warship they have and clean out the annoying Ubers once and for all.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Why doesn't she simply transcend back to wherever she normally hangs out, instead of slumming around with a bunch of 777777s? It's weird that your Uber Empire has no adventures of its own, and is now looking for other empire adventures like Drinax to entertain with.

 

[Hakkonen]

Let me ask you this: what narrative purpose does this "Uber Empire" serve in your campaign? Because it sounds a great deal like a Mary Sue GMPC that's never allowed to lose, and that's not going to be much fun for your players.

 

[RogerMc]

You are basically throwing out one of the oldest plots in space opera and expecting people to flesh it out for you?

Traveller Han Solo doesn't rescue the princess - he hands the old madman who thinks he is a Jedi, the silly farmboy and his annoying droids over to the first imperial patrol ship he encounters and uses the reward to pay off his debt to Jabba and upgrade the Millennium Falcon so he can continue smuggling.

Traveller as an RPG is gritty and small scale and not the game you seem to need.

 

[Juums]

Traveller as an RPG is gritty and small scale and not the game you seem to need.

Isn't that a little high-handed? The actual game mechanics of the Mongoose editions of Traveller are remarkably modular and capable of supporting most scales of gaming: The only significant RAW hardcoding to limit the scope of things is that there is no FTL ansible and that FTL travel is restricted to 1-6 parsecs per week. You can easily run a post-scarcity utopia a la the Federation within those confines, and you might even be able to have swashbuckling adventures about a hammy, overacting captain of an excessively well-armed "exploration" vessel seducing green alien women too. The adventures of Captain Dirk Daring, his eclectic band of subordinates, and their trusty Type-T -- the USS Totally Not Enterprise -- as they bound about the fringes of Federal space, making (generally) peaceable contact with surprisingly human Forehead-Bump Aliens while also tangling with the hazards of technobabble and Bad Astronomy are entirely feasible within MgT. And, honestly, are expected to a certain degree from a system whose Persuade skill has "Ask the Alien Space Princess to Marry You" as an example usage of it.

Now, the actual setting of the Original Traveller Universe/Third Imperium is absolutely one that is pessimistic about the future and favors small-scale adventuring. But the OTU is not the entirety of the Traveller RPG, as the latter is nominally setting neutral and DMs are strongly encouraged to build their own worlds to reflect the themes they want to appear in their games. ...not that I'm certain such helps @JMISBEST, as if you're using the phrase "million d-ton ship" in the same sentence as "Drinax", you're not going to be able to resolve the narrative tensions that creates.

 

[Yatima]

The problem isn't whether the traveller rule set can or cannot handle some setting, the problem is that the OP is engaging in a number of things that are 'bad-citizen' posting practices:

• Uninformative post titles: which provide no clue what to expect when you open the post – "3 things" or "Some ideas".
• Begging for handholding: asking the board to undertake unreasonable, ill-defined and non-trivial tasks – design a ship for me.
• Posing impossible questions: which feature preposterous premises, large numbers of unknowable variables and no sensible answer.

I'm not posting this to attack the poster, but to suggest that there are better ways to get the very knowledgeable people on this board to read your posts and help out, for example:

• Use clearer post titles – it helps people know what your post is about and hopefully someone who can help will open and read what you've written.
• Try designing the ship yourself – if you get stuck and post asking for help, there are lots of people here who'd be glad to help so long as they see you trying it yourself. Other people's time is as valuable as your own.
• Think before you post – If you ask a question with no reasonable answer, all you are going to get is ignored or slated by exasperated board members.

Welcome to Traveller, I hope this helps. Be a good citizen of the boards and the boards will love you back.

J

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Traveller as an RPG is gritty and small scale and not the game you seem to need.

Mongoose Traveller can be used for any setting pretty much.

 

[ochd]

The problem isn't whether the traveller rule set can or cannot handle some setting, the problem is that the OP is engaging in a number of things that are 'bad-citizen' posting practices:

• Uninformative post titles: which provide no clue what to expect when you open the post – "3 things" or "Some ideas".
• Begging for handholding: asking the board to undertake unreasonable, ill-defined and non-trivial tasks – design a ship for me.
• Posing impossible questions: which feature preposterous premises, large numbers of unknowable variables and no sensible answer.

I'm not posting this to attack the poster, but to suggest that there are better ways to get the very knowledgeable people on this board to read your posts and help out, for example:

• Use clearer post titles – it helps people know what your post is about and hopefully someone who can help will open and read what you've written.
• Try designing the ship yourself – if you get stuck and post asking for help, there are lots of people here who'd be glad to help so long as they see you trying it yourself. Other people's time is as valuable as your own.
• Think before you post – If you ask a question with no reasonable answer, all you are going to get is ignored or slated by exasperated board members.

Welcome to Traveller, I hope this helps. Be a good citizen of the boards and the boards will love you back.

J

Well said!

Dan.

 

[steve98052]

I've seen a few vague hints of what can be accomplished by technology levels of TL16 and above. There is the Darrian star trigger and the Darrian self-repairing fleet. There is artificial intelligence that doesn't go HAL 9000 like the TL15 experimental Kinunir artificial intelligence. There are disintegrator weapons, better black globes, and hints of a white globe. There is matter transportation. There are stabilized pocket universes.

But in all those hints, the only rules I've ever seen are the black globe tables and the Darrian Special Arm article, which is essentially a McGuffin.

Can you point us to the rules you're using for your TL>15 "Uber Empire"? That might make it possible to actually design a TL16, 38000 dton "frigate".

Also, what Yatima said.

. . . Be a good citizen of the boards and the boards will love you back.

 

[locarno24]

Secrets of the Ancients has some proper ancient-tech stuff in it - the mongoose 1e stuff is largely compatible. The players got hold of a light courier/scout built by Grandfather (well, technically SEVEN) which had all-up traveller stats.

I can't remember much about it - it had pretty impressive stats - but its armour, drive, and so on were still 'normal rules, just better' - so whilst an accurate particle beam turret, armour 12 and a 6G drive shouldn't all fit on something the size of a Suleiman-class but didn't involve much in the way of new rules.

It did have functionally unlimited fuel, though, as it packed at The Authority Carrier-style baby pocket universe as the fuel tank.

You can easily run a post-scarcity utopia a la the Federation within those confines

The Dynasty supplement for 1st edition, or Secrets of the Ancients' A Thousand Years And More sequence are good examples of this, and fun.

What's The Characters and The Subsectors likely response and best actions?. Advise please

The character's response will be whatever they choose.
I don't know about other GMs, but from my experience; if you plan for PCs taking the 'best', 'logical', 'obvious' or even 'only' course of action, you can expect to see the plot disappearing over the horizon to the sound of gleeful cackling after the first gaming session!

It would depend on whether she can talk to them, or wants to learn to talk to them. How exactly was she planning to get home if she hadn't been kidnapped?

The subsector?
They have no particular reason to know. Presumably "generic secret alien princess" hasn't told them that she was making a visit to the reach or she wouldn't have been allowed to wander around on her own any more than an imperial heir would. And since she apparently can't tell anyone who she is, why should she find out?
Equally, how does her home race find out she was kidnapped? If they're off in this random uber empire you created, only their own race's ships can make the jump to tell anyone "she's gone missing", and if she was 'slumming it' she presumably wasn't on such a ship or she wouldn't have been captured.

If they knew someone really important was in the vicinity, then expect a bunch of high-end imperial agents (scary, highly trained unlimited imperial warrant holders - basically think 'the operative' from Serenity and you're not far off) to be sent out to try and find her and ensure her safety and/or contain her.

It's not really a job for battleships.