The ancients in your campaigns.

[kafka]

That is MJD is constantly hinting at... However, the Droyne don't seem to be making the cut. Clearly, Granddad, has a larger plan but like most things that Ancients (GOO) did, it is unfathomable. Hence, the Droyne are one part of a larger enigma which is Traveller. The Secret should lead to multiple secrets not being revealed but created by creating more questions.

 

[badpixie]

Have the Ancients as a mystery/ concept, just don't run 'Secret of the Ancients' as a scenario- simple.

During CT days it was simple enough to spot that running the LBB adventure would have spelled suicide for any further ancients/mystery, or even the campaign as a whole.

It was a bad idea then, and it remains one now. Just because a mystery exists it doesn't mean the pcs have to solve it- there should be plenty of other stuff to do. Should the pcs also cure the common cold, single handed win the 5th Frontier War and bring universal peace to the galaxy?I don't think so.

 

[kafka]

Have the Ancients as a mystery/ concept, just don't run 'Secret of the Ancients' as a scenario- simple.

During CT days it was simple enough to spot that running the LBB adventure would have spelled suicide for any further ancients/mystery, or even the campaign as a whole.

It was a bad idea then, and it remains one now. Just because a mystery exists it doesn't mean the pcs have to solve it- there should be plenty of other stuff to do. Should the pcs also cure the common cold, single handed win the 5th Frontier War and bring universal peace to the galaxy?I don't think so.

True. But, players who reach a certain level of (for lack of better word) maturity should have a hand in shaping those events. For instance, leading the task force that retrieves the Imperial Stationary from the perils the antimatter minefield of Shionny (sp) or be one of the lead researchers finding the cure for the Plague of Duskir (sp) was the interaction between the Common Cold and a virulent fungi lifeform or similarly solve the Secret of the Ancients...

The point would be - maybe - who would care? If, in 500yrs, when mankind (hopefully) has spread across the nearby stellar neighborhood. We find the remains of a shattered "alien" computer underneath the remains of a Babylonian temple in today's Iraq. Would it shatter human's conception of the universe. Only if we discover that we are still alone. However, if there is an abundance of life. The question would arise - then who? If we do encounter the Vilani out there... And, find it to be their's - it poses more questions than answers and the sands of time have simply sallowed them up forever lost but through inquiry we may only generate different hypothesis and that is where the possibility for adventure always remains.

 

[badpixie]

I am mature to the point of over- ripeness.

I don't mean that the players should run around shooting everything instead, I mean that revealing the Secret of the Ancients is a poor campaign idea.

An adventurer might influence one majot event idea in his lifetime, not run around resolving all of the Universe's mysteries.

My advice: keep the Ancients as context/background/occasional mystery. Don't give the pc's God's telephone number.

 

[rust]

My advice: keep the Ancients as context/background/occasional mystery. Don't give the pc's God's telephone number.

Or at least let him react very badly to silly calls from insignificant lesser
animals ... :twisted:

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

At the risk of sounding like a polititician, I agree with both sides in this debate. I tend to pitch rpgs at the level where the players may influence some significant events (but more likely to just be present when History happens), but are not going to discover the meaning of life.

But there is a strong thread in sci-fi where the protagonists do exactly that, change the galaxy and get to re-write the rules. There is also a strong thread of "mysterious, alien, others".

I intend to keep the ancients as mysterious rumours and stories, back ground colour, legends, but I can quite see how other GMs would want to establish a truly epic story, which is surely the point of the "secrets of the ancients", and I agree with them as well.

It very much a YTU / MTU thing, which to me is one of the great strengths of trav.

Egil