Traveller in Historical Settings Poll

[Sigtrygg]

I repeat.
Traveller is not just the Third Imperium.
Traveller was designed as a generic sci fi toolkit for the referee to customise.

The current incarnation of MgT has all the tools necessary for running a game in any historical setting.

Time Traveller would open up so many adventure possibilities even within the Third Imperium setting.

 

[WHULorigan]

While a time travel game would be a fun thing. I would like to see a new setting for traveler set shortly after the long night , where the 3rd imperium is just starting out. maybe a handful of systems around the capital that held on to sublight travel when just recently the jump drive is rediscovered. Their knowledge of the rest of the galaxy is 1000 years out of date. This would make it a true age of exploration theme. Did anyone survive on the planet ? what if any tech level did they hang onto? Do they remember the last imperium? Do they await its return or hate it for abandoning them. So you could end up with worlds that ended up at all different levels of of historical settings.

This is essentially the default setting of the T4 ruleset (Marc Miller's Traveller) published by Marc Miller under Imperium Games in the late 1990s.

 

[WHULorigan]

... Remember guys, TL4 is *everything* from the Renaissance to Industrialization. So just how rules crunchy are we gonna get?

Well, not exactly.

Combining the descriptions given in the MgT Core Rulebok 2022 Update on p. 6 and comparing with other iterations of Traveller (T5, et al), for MgT we have:

TL0 - Stone Age / No Tech​

TL1 - Terra/Europe ca Bronze/Iron Age​

TL2 - Terra/Europe ca Rennaissance​

TL3 - Terra/Europe ca 1800​

TL4 - Terra/Europe ca 1900​

TL5 - Terra/Europe ca 1935​

TL6 - Terra/Europe ca 1970​

TL7 - Terra/Europe ca 1990​

- (TL 7.5) - Terra CURRENT / 21st Century -​

TL8 - (Fusion Power)​

.​

.​

.​

 

[ottarrus]

Well, not exactly.

Combining the descriptions given in the MgT Core Rulebok 2022 Update on p. 6 and comparing with other iterations of Traveller (T5, et al), for MgT we have:

TL0 - Stone Age / No Tech​

TL1 - Terra/Europe ca Bronze/Iron Age​

TL2 - Terra/Europe ca Rennaissance​

TL3 - Terra/Europe ca 1800​

TL4 - Terra/Europe ca 1900​

TL5 - Terra/Europe ca 1935​

TL6 - Terra/Europe ca 1970​

TL7 - Terra/Europe ca 1990​

- (TL 7.5) - Terra CURRENT / 21st Century -​

TL8 - (Fusion Power)​

.​

.​

.​

Parsing a bit, hm?
My point is still that I wonder if the TL system won't break down when you get into the nitty gritty of important technologies. I honestly think that's a valid point that deserves discussion.
Do you *really* want to start mucking about with 'TL 3.75' because Medical Technology finally has microscopes. TL 3 firearms alone [which will be a huge topic in any Traveller game] go from smoothbore muskets and bayonets to machine guns and rapid fire artillery between TL 3 and 4. And that's not getting into the military tactics.
And we haven't gotten into the key 'TL bump' technologies yet... steam engines, computers, fusion energy, etc.
My main point here is that not every game system is granular enough to get into the spaces between the pixels, ok? BRP does that fine because it was designed from the bottom up to do that. But I'm not sure that Traveller has that flexibility. Don't get me wrong, I'm a HUGE Traveller fan and have been since the LBBs of the 70s.
And to weigh in on the other topic, no Traveller is not only the OTU. I should think that 2300AD has proven that and I look forward to Pioneer next year to see what that'll show us. OTOH, the homeland for Traveller will always be Regina and/or Rhylenor and anyone who thinks different is mistaken. Yeah, that includes all you Sollie apologists too!

 

[Sigtrygg]

There was no Regina back in the day...
there was no Third Imperium

there were just three little black books with the advice for referees to make up their own settings based on the sci fi that interests them and their group.

 

[Vormaerin]

And The Traveller Adventure doesn't even take place in the Regina subsector. If your official namesake adventure doesn't even mention the place, how iconic can it be?

 

[TrippyHippy]

We’ve already seen different settings for the Traveller game - Mindjammer and 2300AD - that make different assumptions with the Tech Levels. It is not that difficult to make adjustments.

There are now loads of supplements detailing the Charted Space setting with many more scheduled. It is the default setting but there is no conflict in releasing more alternative settings. It will simply help broaden the appeal of the game and give people more options with the game just. It is no different to D&D having multiple supported settings beyond Forgotten Realms.

 

[ottarrus]

While a time travel game would be a fun thing. I would like to see a new setting for traveler set shortly after the long night , where the 3rd imperium is just starting out. maybe a handful of systems around the capital that held on to sublight travel when just recently the jump drive is rediscovered. Their knowledge of the rest of the galaxy is 1000 years out of date. This would make it a true age of exploration theme. Did anyone survive on the planet ? what if any tech level did they hang onto? Do they remember the last imperium? Do they await its return or hate it for abandoning them. So you could end up with worlds that ended up at all different levels of of historical settings.

There is a complete setting for the Dawn of the Imperium.
Head to farfuture.com and get the T4 /Traveller 4 discs. The background writing for it is excellent. It goes into process by which Sylean industrialist Cleon Zhunastu becomes Emperor Cleon 1 and the struggles of the Third Imperium to get established. It had not one but two competing empires to conquer right out of the gate! This rules set /setting deals with the founding of the 3-I all the way up to the Civil War, so about half the Imperium's history.

 

[Numbers0to1]

I like the poll and the conversation it is generating. I hope for something that hasn't been done before, at least not the same way, as other RPG. A specific "era" could be part of a starting point but it wouldn't be the main point of the setting. Perhaps alternate history or world development could be subtexts, but not the only ones.

Some themes that cut across, maybe some but not all are elements of the same game:

• Very ancient world (Pangaea, ancient China, Archons)
• Overland trade routes and cultures/lore around them (Silk Road),
• Discovery and innovation or warfare (Xuanxan's travels of discovery from China to India, Marco Polo, empire and control in central Europe in the middle ages, ancient southeast Asia, early indian civilization),
• Moments civilization was disrupted and changed (early Renaissance, rise and decline of Islamic science)
• Attempts to define and understand the world (early map-making (Strabo))
• Historical empires that I believe haven't gotten a lot of RPG setting focus (Lithuanian empire, Sasanian Empire, Chola/ancient India) -- I believe GURPS/Mythras has covered some related possibilities (e.g, Aztecs, Constantinople, GURPS Timeline, GURPS Alternate Earths)

Hopefully the setting would have a lot of grit, like T2K, regardless of what theme or angle gets picked. If the Ancients/Archon Thesis factor in, that should also feel gritty and mysterious in this setting. I hope it captures the feeling that simply being alive was fundamentally brutal & mysterious.

 

[alex_greene]

I like the poll and the conversation it is generating. I hope for something that hasn't been done before, at least not the same way, as other RPG. A specific "era" could be part of a starting point but it wouldn't be the main point of the setting. Perhaps alternate history or world development could be subtexts, but not the only ones.

Some themes that cut across, maybe some but not all are elements of the same game:

• Very ancient world (Pangaea, ancient China, Archons)
• Overland trade routes and cultures/lore around them (Silk Road),
• Discovery and innovation or warfare (Xuanxan's travels of discovery from China to India, Marco Polo, empire and control in central Europe in the middle ages, ancient southeast Asia, early indian civilization),
• Moments civilization was disrupted and changed (early Renaissance, rise and decline of Islamic science)
• Attempts to define and understand the world (early map-making (Strabo))
• Historical empires that I believe haven't gotten a lot of RPG setting focus (Lithuanian empire, Sasanian Empire, Chola/ancient India) -- I believe GURPS/Mythras has covered some related possibilities (e.g, Aztecs, Constantinople, GURPS Timeline, GURPS Alternate Earths)

Hopefully the setting would have a lot of grit, like T2K, regardless of what theme or angle gets picked. If the Ancients/Archon Thesis factor in, that should also feel gritty and mysterious in this setting. I hope it captures the feeling that simply being alive was fundamentally brutal & mysterious.

Mythras has indeed covered Mythic Constantinople and Mythic Rome. They have gone into parallel modern worlds with alternate histories: Worlds United, where there really had been a War of The Worlds ... two of them ... with elements of Burroughs and the 2000 AD Scarlet Traces series; After the Vampire Wars, basically a version of the World of Darkness, but the nocturnal entities are out in the open; and Fioracitta, a fantasy world with odd echoes to Terran history, currently in a Renaissance, of sorts.
They've also got the rights to Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright IP, so they can put out the RPG equivalent of Seventies British underground comix, with shades of Metal Hurlant and Moebius.

Aside from The Design Mechanism, Codex Integrum LLC have their delightful and inspiring Codex Baltica setting. You want brocade, sabres and black powder? Go down that parallel, adjust your monocle, and shine those blades and boots.

 

[DarkDawning]

Head to farfutures.com and get the T4 /Traveller 4 discs. The background writing for it is excellent. It goes into process by which Sylean industrialist Cleon Zhunastu becomes Emperor Cleon 1 and the struggles of the Third Imperium to get established. It had not one but two competing empires to conquer right out of the gate! This rules set /setting deals with the founding of the 3-I all the way up to the Civil War, so about half the Imperium's history.

I think that should be farfutures.net the .com one is something else entirely. but thanks ill check them out

 

[IanBruntlett]

I think that should be farfutures.net the .com one is something else entirely. but thanks ill check them out

That should be https://www.farfuture.net/

 

[ottarrus]

That should be https://www.farfuture.net/

Thanks. I've corrected my error.

 

[Condottiere]

It's Traveller.

You have access to any number of planets.

Planet of hats.

 

[ColinD]

Alternate timelines would be a great way for the OTU to meet your IMTU or an ATU like the Imperium Eternal (Lorenverse) plus alternate pasts for all of them. I'm even thinking of making this my next Traveller campaign when the present group makes their long trek to Capital.