Tell me about your Traveller campaign

[Golan2072]

Just finished creating my sector, and all I can say is that the Imperium is populated by madmen of the highest order.

That Size 8/Atm 6/Temp 6/Hyd 7 Agricultural Garden world? Yeah, sure, a coupla' hunnerd backwater hicks settled there, probably because the Class E Starport had such lousy service it was easier to stay than to leave.

Six parsecs over, on the Size A/Atm C/Temp C/Hyd 0 hellhole? There packing them in, tens of billions of them! Forgot just one thing, though...didn't remember to actually bring any TECHNOLOGY to help deal with the harsh planetary surface conditions that are trying to exterminate them. Good thing they've got that "Procreate Like Rabbits" Custom to replace all the poor sots that got disintegrated in this morning's blast of the superheated molecular acid that passes for atmosphere on this planet.

First Imperial order of business: forced relocation of colonists :wink:

Which generation rules did you use? The Space Opera/Hard Science optional rules (TMB p.180) partially solve this issue, as well as the minimum required TL rules (TMB p.179).

If you want to go even further simply double the Hard Science DMs for population. This way you'll mostly get low-pop hellholes and high-pop gardens, and since starport is tied to the population with these rules (and TL is influenced by starport), gardens would generally have better TLs and starports.

 

[Maedhros]

Which generation rules did you use? The Space Opera/Hard Science optional rules (TMB p.180) partially solve this issue, as well as the minimum required TL rules (TMB p.179).

If you want to go even further simply double the Hard Science DMs for population. This way you'll mostly get low-pop hellholes and high-pop gardens, and since starport is tied to the population with these rules (and TL is influenced by starport), gardens would generally have better TLs and starports.

I used the default method. I considered the "hard science" approach, but decided against it. My educational background is in experimental high-pressure geochemistry, so I imagine I could drive myself nuts trying to generate "realistic" planets. I decided to go the other route - let the dice throw out the combinations, and come up with the justifications on-the-fly.

I also sort of dig the idea of lower-than-minimum TLs. I generated one Size 0 orbital complex with a population of Millions, but a lower TL than the minimum. Throw in a Government Type of "Balkanzation", four 9+ Factions and a Barbaric Culture, and - presto! A huge, decaying space station populated by warring factions oblivious to the fact that their "world" is dying. Nice place to visit.

 

[vertigo25]

My group's Traveller game does not take place in the Traveller universe…

I would play this in a heartbeat!

Sounds very cool. Hope you and your group have a blast with it.

 

[Golan2072]

I used the default method. I considered the "hard science" approach, but decided against it. My educational background is in experimental high-pressure geochemistry, so I imagine I could drive myself nuts trying to generate "realistic" planets. I decided to go the other route - let the dice throw out the combinations, and come up with the justifications on-the-fly.

I also sort of dig the idea of lower-than-minimum TLs. I generated one Size 0 orbital complex with a population of Millions, but a lower TL than the minimum. Throw in a Government Type of "Balkanzation", four 9+ Factions and a Barbaric Culture, and - presto! A huge, decaying space station populated by warring factions oblivious to the fact that their "world" is dying. Nice place to visit.

I agree that bizarre UWP-digit combinations are a great source for inspiration. However, the main issue with the standard system is that you usually end up with too many anomalies like that in a sector; the so-called "hard science" rules (which aren't really realistic but at least reduces the excessive number of totally illogical worlds) simply reduce their number to a more bearable one.

Anyhow, an efficient way to explain the distribution of populations, starports and TLs in the typical Traveller sector is to have a recent war in your setting's history. This way, worlds with low TLs and/or low populations and/or bad starports won't necessarily be primitive worlds but rather places hit particularly hard by the war and thus in ruins.

 

[Maedhros]

Just finished our first session last night. It essentially consisted of the players meeting and retrieving an old colleague from a backwater world.

Interesting situation came up: two of my players are retired Navy, and both received a Ship's Boat during mustering. They are planning on selling these to help with the down-payment on their ship. Of course, one of them sold it in (at 72% purchase cost) and immediately purchased Battle Dress and a Fusion Gun (sigh). I was hoping this wouldn't happen, because I'd like the game to be about the characters rather than about the equipment, but I can roll with it. I'm looking forward to when he actually uses the Fusion Gun, since it will probably provoke an in-kind response.

 

[saundby]

Just finished our first session last night. It essentially consisted of the players meeting and retrieving an old colleague from a backwater world.

Interesting situation came up: two of my players are retired Navy, and both received a Ship's Boat during mustering. They are planning on selling these to help with the down-payment on their ship. Of course, one of them sold it in (at 72% purchase cost) and immediately purchased Battle Dress and a Fusion Gun (sigh). I was hoping this wouldn't happen, because I'd like the game to be about the characters rather than about the equipment, but I can roll with it. I'm looking forward to when he actually uses the Fusion Gun, since it will probably provoke an in-kind response.

Hehe, darn those players who just can't resist when their chip is full of credits. Kids going to the store for mom with their first 20 in their pocket are more responsible. :lol:

Now, did they pay the "extra service charges" to get the IFF and other standard safety features disabled on the gun and suit? No? Then perhaps the first time the gun identifies itself when an SDB does a sweep of the ship they'll feel the need to look up someone on the shady side to do the necessary mods without bricking the equipment...

:twisted:

 

[PoppySeed45]

Of course, one of them sold it in (at 72% purchase cost) and immediately purchased Battle Dress and a Fusion Gun (sigh). I was hoping this wouldn't happen, because I'd like the game to be about the characters rather than about the equipment, but I can roll with it. I'm looking forward to when he actually uses the Fusion Gun, since it will probably provoke an in-kind response.

Last I checked (unless you rolled this all out, of course) one cannot just go and "purchase" Battle Dress. It's military grade equipment, no? Or IYTU is it just lying around for people to buy? That's like buying a tank IRL. Is that possible (unless you're a government)? How do they store it? Service it? Just wondering...

Otherwise, I was always wondering how to deal with that. Though I can't imagine letting the players have that much actual CASH. Sure, it's in a bank, but you can't just march down there, pick up a few million credits (thereby destabilizing the economy of a probably low population world) and spend it on military hardware. Or can you?

 

[Tipsy]

I agree that bizarre UWP-digit combinations are a great source for inspiration. However, the main issue with the standard system is that you usually end up with too many anomalies like that in a sector; the so-called "hard science" rules (which aren't really realistic but at least reduces the excessive number of totally illogical worlds) simply reduce their number to a more bearable one.

Anyhow, an efficient way to explain the distribution of populations, starports and TLs in the typical Traveller sector is to have a recent war in your setting's history. This way, worlds with low TLs and/or low populations and/or bad starports won't necessarily be primitive worlds but rather places hit particularly hard by the war and thus in ruins.

Personally I have three general tools to help me with sector madness that I'm currently using.

1) Hellholes weren't always that bad. The world has been ravaged by war, industry and disaster. If the tech level has collapsed it is likely because the elites pulled out or simply never put a manufacturing infrastructure in place. They just cracked the planet like an egg and sucked out the good bits.

2) Underpopulated garden spots just got that way. I assume expensive and relatively slow terraforming in MTU. That super-sparely populated world with the breathable atmosphere? It is the end product of 200 years of costly development by a coalition of nobles and corporations in the Imperial Core.

3a) No, you can't just move there. If a world falls within Imperial borders it belongs to somebody. In MTU colonization/interplanetary emigration requires an Imperial license (since they rule they space between the stars). This requires the approval of the offices of at least the two Barons involved. Should a dispute occur over one group's right to colonize a world then this will be resolved either through the ducal court or, in extreme cases, through war.

3b) Moving ain't cheap. Besides the Imperial bureaucracy, big colony ships are expensive. Most of the overpopulated hellholes lack either a starport with construction facilities or the capital to attract massive colony ships. Especially since the Imperium seems to have scaled back its expansion and colonization policies out where I am currently playing (the Marches).

 

[Maedhros]

Of course, one of them sold it in (at 72% purchase cost) and immediately purchased Battle Dress and a Fusion Gun (sigh). I was hoping this wouldn't happen, because I'd like the game to be about the characters rather than about the equipment, but I can roll with it. I'm looking forward to when he actually uses the Fusion Gun, since it will probably provoke an in-kind response.

Last I checked (unless you rolled this all out, of course) one cannot just go and "purchase" Battle Dress. It's military grade equipment, no? Or IYTU is it just lying around for people to buy? That's like buying a tank IRL. Is that possible (unless you're a government)? How do they store it? Service it? Just wondering...

Otherwise, I was always wondering how to deal with that. Though I can't imagine letting the players have that much actual CASH. Sure, it's in a bank, but you can't just march down there, pick up a few million credits (thereby destabilizing the economy of a probably low population world) and spend it on military hardware. Or can you?

The character in question is a retired Navy Captain who did a stint in the Marines early in his career and picked up Battle Dress/2 . I figured a combination of his rank, high SOC and military Contacts would be enough to find a suit. The player actually called me last night and told me he wanted to back off from the BD/PGMP setup for character reasons: he wants to play his character more as the wise, experienced, zen-approach kind of guy rather than the blow-everything-up-with-fire guy.

But the situation points up some difficulties with the Mustering Out rules. Awarding a Ship's Boat to a character means essentially giving them 16 MCr. This pretty much invalidates many other careers' mustering benefits - for example, one of my players was mightily stoked to receive two Combat Implants when mustering out. How is he going to feel when Mr. Ships Boat can literally go buy all the augmentations listed? One can treat the Ships Boat like Ship Shares (i.e. rule that it has no cash value), but that is really artificial and hard to justify: "What do you mean I can't sell my boat?" I think the intention of awarding a Ships Boat is to provide a means of intra-system travel for adventuring purposes, not to provide a hefty stockpile of cash.

 

[EDG]

My educational background is in experimental high-pressure geochemistry, so I imagine I could drive myself nuts trying to generate "realistic" planets. I decided to go the other route - let the dice throw out the combinations, and come up with the justifications on-the-fly.

Try seeing how your sanity fares when you have a background in planetary science . Hasn't stopped me from making realistic planets though - I just discard the nonsensical ones rather than come up with wacky explanations for them. I don't like universes full of anomalies - I want the oddities to be rare, not around every figurative corner.

Incidentally Maedhros... I don't suppose you have bulk moduli numbers for silicates at stupidly high pressures (100+ GPa), do you? If you do, send me a PM!

 

[AndrewW]

Last I checked (unless you rolled this all out, of course) one cannot just go and "purchase" Battle Dress. It's military grade equipment, no? Or IYTU is it just lying around for people to buy? That's like buying a tank IRL. Is that possible (unless you're a government)? How do they store it? Service it? Just wondering...

Yes it's possible, there are tanks along with other military vehicles under private ownership. Including a Russian nuclear missile launcher, fighter jets, ect.

 

[GypsyComet]

Not sure MGT has explored this aspect of the setting yet, but a past idea was that mercenary companies are an established part of the setting, they are probably licensed, or at least *can* be licensed. An Imperial Mercenary License allows for the purchase of things like Battledress, though it will probably not look exactly like the battledress worn by the Imperial Marines.

 

[Fireflame]

My campaign has been running three months now and with four brand spanking new Traveller players (3 of which are brand spanking first time anything players) I decided to start off with The Traveller Adventure to get them used to the Traveller Universe and show how it differs from other games.

We've run about 2/3 of the way through and have been littering the game with hooks that will push eventually push them out of the Aramis subsector and into the Spinward Marches Sector proper. As I have pretty much most of the previously published material for CT, MT, T4 and some of TNE, T20 and GURPS traveller, I want to push them into a hunt for the Ancients campaign and then hit them with the Fifth Frontier war and then see what happens from there. Of course I'm adding in extras where I can from other released material to enemies/rivals generated via char creation.

My characters are determined to stay on the right side of law, and will often go for the talking method instead of the gunning method. In three months they've been in a bar brawl, and animal attack and have shot down some incoming missles. They started with a bunch of money - one being a famous rich doctor and another a noble (I asked him to pick a planet to come from by what he though would be cool as he knew nothing about Traveller before and he picked Mora - which made him the Sector Duke's son). They are flying around in a 70 year old corsair (thanks for the idea whoever that was).

Have never played a game with minimal combat, but it is refreshing after having played D&D for the past year.

 

[Garuda]

Not sure MGT has explored this aspect of the setting yet, but a past idea was that mercenary companies are an established part of the setting, they are probably licensed, or at least *can* be licensed. An Imperial Mercenary License allows for the purchase of things like Battledress, though it will probably not look exactly like the battledress worn by the Imperial Marines.

Why not. Privateers used to be given letters of Marque. Why shouldn't a world government in Traveller be able to issue letters of marque to privateers and mercenaries. Though of course a neighbouring system might construe this as an act of war.

 

[Woas]

Well, it's still a work in progress but here is MTU (so far just a single Subsector numbered after my birthday 8))

http://mytraveller.pbwiki.com/

 

[Anonymous]

Well, it's still a work in progress but here is MTU (so far just a single Subsector numbered after my birthday 8))

http://mytraveller.pbwiki.com/

I really liked what you did! I will be watching and ready to copy, if you don't mind, at a moments notice. Might even contribute Subsector 626 for you, my birthday.

How far were you planning on having Earth?

 

[Woas]

Thank you. It's really been nice to see it all coming slowly to fruition from the original ideas I put down on some scratch paper and I'm always looking forward to working on it in my spare time. These past couple days since I've finished writing up all the systems of the planet I have been abuzz with formatting and getting it all on there.

As I've slowly built Subsector 619 over the past 3-4 months I have undoubtedly searched (mostly the Traveller Wiki) the WWW for ideas to scrap together. Especially for idea 'seeds' on how to interpret some system UWPs. So as I have taken from the grist, you are free to take what you wish from my meager offerings.

All the player's have made characters (except one who is away on vacation. I'll get him when he gets home) and we are ready to start a game a week from tomorrow. I'm pretty psyched cause I think once we start playing a lot of the creative ideas will really pick up.
In addition to all the internet idea searching I've also picked up some pretty basic info on the 3I. For MTU, I wanted things more compressed and intimate. The 3I is just too big (for me). In addition to not having aliens, MTU is much smaller than 3I and the timeline compressed. In the 3I humans have reached TL 15/16 by ~5000 AD right? The year in MTU is 2320 AD (no alternate calendar) with TL 15/16 still being the max.
As for where Earth is, like a lot of the 'story', I guess you could say I haven't put it in stone yet, waiting for the actual game to start. I picture Earth and the Old systems being a relatively short trip via Xboat. 3-4 weeks perhaps? So I think that would put it ~3 or 4 sub-sector grids away. Trying to get back to Earth via conventional J1 or J2 would be a 3-4 month trip assuming the ship refuels ASAP, jumps again and there are no stops. Maybe a little more. The inspiration I take for this is the Oregon Trail which took an estimated 5-6 months for pioneers to go from Missouri to the Pacific, along with the long trans-Atlantic trips of wind powered sailing ships of the 15th-16th century. Even still, this is like a drop in the bucket compared to the 3I.

Well I'm glad you liked it! Subsector 619 definitely isn't the 'end' of this stellar Oregon Trail and I'm sure the Coalition of Free Systems located further away could use a good system to be based in. 8)

I really liked what you did! I will be watching and ready to copy, if you don't mind, at a moments notice. Might even contribute Subsector 626 for you, my birthday.

How far were you planning on having Earth?

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you. It's really been nice to see it all coming slowly to fruition from the original ideas I put down on some scratch paper and I'm always looking forward to working on it in my spare time. These past couple days since I've finished writing up all the systems of the planet I have been abuzz with formatting and getting it all on there.

As I've slowly built Subsector 619 over the past 3-4 months I have undoubtedly searched (mostly the Traveller Wiki) the WWW for ideas to scrap together. Especially for idea 'seeds' on how to interpret some system UWPs. So as I have taken from the grist, you are free to take what you wish from my meager offerings.

All the player's have made characters (except one who is away on vacation. I'll get him when he gets home) and we are ready to start a game a week from tomorrow. I'm pretty psyched cause I think once we start playing a lot of the creative ideas will really pick up.
In addition to all the internet idea searching I've also picked up some pretty basic info on the 3I. For MTU, I wanted things more compressed and intimate. The 3I is just too big (for me). In addition to not having aliens, MTU is much smaller than 3I and the timeline compressed. In the 3I humans have reached TL 15/16 by ~5000 AD right? The year in MTU is 2320 AD (no alternate calendar) with TL 15/16 still being the max.
As for where Earth is, like a lot of the 'story', I guess you could say I haven't put it in stone yet, waiting for the actual game to start. I picture Earth and the Old systems being a relatively short trip via Xboat. 3-4 weeks perhaps? So I think that would put it ~3 or 4 sub-sector grids away. Trying to get back to Earth via conventional J1 or J2 would be a 3-4 month trip assuming the ship refuels ASAP, jumps again and there are no stops. Maybe a little more. The inspiration I take for this is the Oregon Trail which took an estimated 5-6 months for pioneers to go from Missouri to the Pacific, along with the long trans-Atlantic trips of wind powered sailing ships of the 15th-16th century. Even still, this is like a drop in the bucket compared to the 3I.

Well I'm glad you liked it! Subsector 619 definitely isn't the 'end' of this stellar Oregon Trail and I'm sure the Coalition of Free Systems located further away could use a good system to be based in. 8)

I really liked what you did! I will be watching and ready to copy, if you don't mind, at a moments notice. Might even contribute Subsector 626 for you, my birthday.

How far were you planning on having Earth?

So are you saying that Earth and your subsector have reached TL15/16 already? Not being critical, just asking. In MTU I am using only 4 subsectors in which to play and Earth is much farther away at TL 12 being the top right now...with some mods to what has been achieved.

 

[Woas]

So are you saying that Earth and your subsector have reached TL15/16 already? Not being critical, just asking. In MTU I am using only 4 subsectors in which to play and Earth is much farther away at TL 12 being the top right now...with some mods to what has been achieved.

Well, Earth and the nebulous systems around it a couple sub-sectors away that I am calling the "Home Systems" (I haven't gone through and named or rolled UWPs for them all or anything. Right now it's just a catch-all phrase) have reached TL 15, but it is considered cutting edge. I see TL 10/11 being the standard or base TL of the time.

In SS619 I only have 7 of 22 systems that have a TL higher than 10: three at TL 11, an one each at TL 12, 13 and 14. None have TL 15. Doing some quick math the average TL for SS619 is 8.333.
So SS619 is considered some what behind the times overall.