Travellers Needed - The Future of Traveller

[MongooseMatt]

Maybe it is time that Traveller gets a new setting.

Hmm....

 

[Condottiere]

I always thought that the GURPS edition had a sense of humour.


Staff Sergeant Khashi Mouse Khurlushasum

 

[MaxTac Transfer]

Hmm....

If you write a good one - They will buy it

(Kevin Costner as a guy building a starport on a remote world is optional)

 

[Vormaerin]

I use MgT as a material source. The setting has to many problems (and GT is much worse) to be playable for me / of interest to me. Use some pieces, discard the rest. Stellar maps are nice, some base tech is nice, some species are nice. Rest is unused.

GT material is smaller and has to much bias in the descriptions so would need even more work. And is even more "shudder" to read than MgT 2e

That's how 90% of people use the setting. That's how most people use most settings. Even super old school types like Sygtrygg and I don't run the setting as written (and often don't run the setting at all). About half my Traveller campaigns could be considered set in Charted Space. And that's a highly idiosyncratic version of the Islands subsectors.

It is pretty rare that a company publishes the exact setting you want to play in. And even if they did, it would probably not be the exact setting I want to play in.

About the only thing in common with the half dozen or so published settings using Traveller or Traveller derived rules is no FTL communications.

Mind you, I am all for Traveller doing more to distinguish the rules from any particular setting. And publishing other settings is great. But I wouldn't want a new "official setting" and Mongoose trying to support it the way Charted Space is supported.

 

[Vormaerin]

For me, I don't personally care if they make more sector books for Charted Space or make a new setting. I don't expect that they will produce something that makes me go "Oh yeah, I wanna play there the way it is written". No one has done that in the 45 years I've been playing. The three digest page suggestion of a region that came out in Trillion Credit Squadron inspired my "Charted Space" campaigns. But that was little more than a map, especially since I don't actually play big ship navy stuff much less Trillion Credit Squadron They are technically in Charted Space, but not really the Charted Space as written.

I'll happily buy and read new sector books or new settings. Because that might inspire me to use that material somewhere. Just not where and how it is actually written. Sansterre in my Islands is basically a clone of Bellerophon from Nomads of the World Ocean. Which is my favorite Traveller adventure ever, even though it's basically unplayable as written

What I like about Mongoose's work on Traveller is the way they support different ways to play. Deep Space Exploration campaigns. Naval Officer Campaigns. Mercenary Campaigns. High Fantasy (wrath of the ancients) campaigns. Empire Building & Piracy campaigns. Singularity sounds like it might be a different kind of campaign also. I would love if they do something to showcase single world or single star system campaigns. Something that showcases campaigning without a starship. Something that showcases how to run merchant themed campaigns. That kind of stuff.

That can include new settings if that is an example of how to build a setting to do a kind of gameplay. Like the New Era was for rebuilding/exploring/star vikings type gameplay. But just another canvas for whatever kind of story you want to adapt it to? Doesn't really appeal to me. That would just have a different set of things that I like and dislike without really adding anything to the tools for playing.

Mongoose should do what they think will sell well and that inspires them, of course. But what I hope that turns out to be is new ways to play, not just new places to play.

 

[TrippyHippy]

They have just released GURPS Transhuman Space on Bundle of Holding which is worth picking up. I think, although there were antecedents, it was the first RPG setting that explored the notion of Transhumanism as a near future setting. Personally, I think it it would be perfect to adapt to Traveller rules - and could iron out some of the issues the original game had like the use of Imperial measurements (grrrr…) and the general complexity of some of the rules. Although there was an update supplement for the game to shift to GURPS 4E some time ago, it was originally written for 3E and I feel that MG2E Traveller has got more elegant rules.

Either way, I think some of the material could be adopted for use with 2300AD or even the upcoming Pioneer. It is set in 2100 and was very much written (at the turn of the Millennium) to be predictive of real world developments as a very hard sci-fi setting. It is an interesting read as to how much they have already got right (along with those things they didn’t) a quarter of a century on.

Having had a drift into the GURPS line recently, I also noted GURPS Steampunk. While Space: 1889 isn’t apparently available, I still think that Steampunk as a genre would be a perfect fit for an alternative Traveller setting. Please consider this still.

 

[tytalan]

Maybe it is time that Traveller gets a new setting. 2300AD is not the alternative for a number of reasons (To close to now, real world politics and RPG are not a mix I would want). A big, old empire or the ruins of one is nice. But build using a more modern and complex system than the one based on the 1970s tech restrictions that eliminates some of the ugly side effects.

Wait for the Rebellion/Hardtimes for your ruined empire. As for changing the tech restrictions now your no longer talking a setting your basically talking a new game because the tech levels are core game mechanics

 

[-Daniel-]

Hmm....

Just to be clear, a new setting using the Traveller core ruleset might catch my attention. Using a new setting to also publish a new core set of rules is just a new RPG and I will pass. I already have way too many unused games on my shelf so to say. :-(

 

[Limpin Legin]

Mongoose should do what they think will sell well and that inspires them, of course. But what I hope that turns out to be is new ways to play, not just new places to play.

this ^^^

Because that might inspire me to use that material somewhere. Just not where and how it is actually written.

The Worlds named in some of the adventures sometimes form an unnecessary dependency between rules and setting. Sometimes it is enough to play the adventure just by having any world that has certain atmosphere/tech/law/etc - and nothing else in the unique UWP actually matters to the plot. The Adventure could explicitly mention this, just for the benefit of letting some gamers off the hook, should they want to try the adventure out, while deviating from the OTU setting.

 

[actionman]

Even super old school types like Sygtrygg and I don't run the setting as written

Not even I run the setting as written, because there are so many problems with it. There are so many inconsistencies and contradictions and the like, and so many events and conditions in the setting that don't have plausible motivations. I have to reimagine Charted Space every time I set a campaign in it, just to address these issues. It becomes less Charted Space and more of a 'used furniture' setting in which the names are the same.

Here are a few of my favorites.

• Homogenous "Imperial culture" instead of planetary and racial identities that would naturally occur on worlds separated by a minimum of one week's travel.
• The technically conservative and non-innovative Vilani somehow advancing their technology faster than the innovative pro-technology Solomani.
• The absolute monarchy and military aristocracy of the Imperium with a track record of coercion and violence inexplicably acting like a liberal democracy.
• The Imperial Moot being called a deliberative advisory body and then being called a legislative branch and then being described as having only one power, which is to dissolve the Imperium.
• The Imperium rules 'the space between the stars' and lets member worlds govern themselves as they see fit, and then has a body of 'law' that dictates how member worlds treat their workers.
• The Imperial military and aristocracy, predicated on honor and obedience to the Emperor, tears itself apart during in the Civil War. That means an admiral aristocrat threw honor and obligation to the wind and ship crews and officers willingly fired on their own navy. And they did it over and over again. I know the Romans did it, but the Romans were an Iron Age civilization. What does this say about 'Imperial culture'?
• The Solomani, who appeared to be good Imperial citizens, wake up one century with a case of the racisms, oppress everybody, then start the Solomani Rim War. Why? What was going so wrong in the Solomani Sphere that billions of people found autonomy and then secession to be a reasonable course of action? Especially since they're on thousands of separate worlds with no interstellar mass media to spread propaganda, and no police state to coerce them? Why were so many people so dissatisfied with Imperial rule that they willingly joined the new SolSec to oppress their neighbors?
• And the Shattered Imperium. The Imperial nobility screws up again and tears the Imperium apart. Nobody said, 'this is crazy, let's not do this". Of course it was for setting reset purposes, but things still have to make sense.
• And of course the TL15 air filters that only last for 2 weeks.

I don't have to do extensive headcanon justifications and changes with any other game setting.

Hmm....

If Mongoose is considering a new setting, it has to be consistent. It has to keep contradictions to an absolute minimum, and contradictions have to be corrected when found. It has to require that all future products do not contradict or create problems for the new setting's fundamental vision and established lore. It has to be kept as free as possible of arbitrary gamist limitations. People and events have to plausible motivations and causes. It has to be a coherent whole, so it doesn't require extensive headcanon to fix issues, and when players sit down with at a new table they know that the setting will be reasonably consistent with the published lore. And, most of all, it has to make sense. I'd go so far as suggesting a lore control team, whose job it is to consider the effects and later order effects of any new events, lore additions, and technology additions on the setting, and which is willing to say no to writers who want to shove their idiosyncratic pet ideas, their barely concealed politics, or crap they think is oh so funny into official lore (I'm looking you, GT). Writers can save that for their own homebake settings instead of pushing it on the rest of us and sneering 'well, in your Traveller universe you can do it your way' when people protest. One thing CT really did well was its clinical tone, which refrained from attempts at humor and and stayed judgment neutral.

What I like about Mongoose's work on Traveller is the way they support different ways to play. Deep Space Exploration campaigns. Naval Officer Campaigns. Mercenary Campaigns. High Fantasy (wrath of the ancients) campaigns. Empire Building & Piracy campaigns. Singularity sounds like it might be a different kind of campaign also. I would love if they do something to showcase single world or single star system campaigns. Something that showcases campaigning without a starship. Something that showcases how to run merchant themed campaigns. That kind of stuff.

Agreed.


And a product I'd like to see is not so much a book about building settings, since MgT has plenty of resources to support that, but a book that supports adventure and campaign building, like how to put together a multi-stage adventure or campaign, similar to the Star Trek TNG rpg's Narrator's Toolkit book. Something that can include some pointers how to use basic storytelling principles like inciting incident, plot points, pinch points, rising action, and so forth to create more compelling adventures for the players. Instead of presenting something straightforward like break a guy out of prison, there would be the initial situation, a complication, then information which causes the players to realize the situation is more complicated that it originally appeared, then opponents responding with increasing intensity, the players new attempt to deal with the situation as it really is, then a more serious complication which throws the outcome of the adventure into doubt, and then the climactic conflict which could go either way, and then the immediate and lasting consequences of how the adventure turns out.

Here's an example:

Ordinary way:
The party gets hired to break a guy out of prison on some backwater world.
1. The party takes the job.
2. The party tries to break the guy out of prison, and everything is as it seems.
3. Depending on how things work out, party completes the mission and gets paid, or they fail to complete the mission, and either retreat, end up dead, end up in prison themselves, or all of the above.

With storytelling techniques:
1. The party takes the job.
2. The party makes it's initial assessment of the situation, and tries to break the guy out of prison based on that assessment.
3. Complication / new information that changes things: the guy's location in the prison is fake, and he's is in an underground maximum security block.
4. The party reassesses what the situation and makes a new plan. The opponents are fighting back harder and a quick reaction force is inbound (this adds time pressure). The party attempts to complete the mission again.
5. Complication / new information that changes things again: When/if the party gains entry to the maximum security block, they find the guy and discover that he's an unwilling pawn in an Imperial Naval Intelligence operation, and they've just forced their way into an INI black site.
6. Climactic conflict: The party has to extract the guy, get past the rallying security forces, outrun or fight through the quick reaction force, and race for the 100 diameter limit against responding ships.
7. Short term and long term consequences. Make the consequences adventures in themselves:

• Success
  • The party completes the mission, gets paid, and earns the goodwill of the guy and the patron who hired them.
  • The party now has an implacable enemy in the INI, which leads to cascading branching adventures in which the party becomes fugitives and fights to survive as the INI/IN net draws ever closer around them. The black operation the INI was working on fails, and anti-Imperial forces advance their agendas. During its adventures, news items and rumors indicate a pattern of growing instability in the region (which can lead to more adventures).
  • After surviving as fugitives for a while, the party has to resolve this situation. The characters can flee the Imperium or otherwise start new lives, accept living as outlaws, agree to serve the INI by undertaking dangerous missions for it, or even ally with the anti-Imperial forces. These and other options would lead to still more adventures.
• Failure
  • Any characters who fall into the hands of the INI could end up being made into more pawns in its black operation, with various forms of leverage held over them. This leads to INI adventures with an eventual goal of escaping INI control, or even embracing the INI and making a career of it.
  • Other adventures could include getting sent to some prison hellworld and having a series of adventures to escape, or getting sent to an Imperial Marine penal battalion and having related adventures.

 

[Arkathan]

The Worlds named in some of the adventures sometimes form an unnecessary dependency between rules and setting. Sometimes it is enough to play the adventure just by having any world that has certain atmosphere/tech/law/etc - and nothing else in the unique UWP actually matters to the plot. The Adventure could explicitly mention this, just for the benefit of letting some gamers off the hook, should they want to try the adventure out, while deviating from the OTU setting.

I use a secondary planet in a different system far more often than I use the named planet when I use a commercially made adventure.

 

[Vormaerin]

I tend to have a higher opinion of human tendency towards governmental entropy, I think. I usually am quite unimpressed with the way most game worlds have that kind of artificial consistency that is not present in the real world. Some things, of course, are just simplifications. It is like pretending I know Germany because I read the CIA factbook or a Living Planet Guide to the country.

Traveller, of course, has inconsistency in spades because so many different chefs have been helping with the soup.

And the Vilani are just generally misunderstood.

 

[Condottiere]

If government doesn't directly interfere with your ability to control your immediate environment, human nature is towards political inertia.

 

[Limpin Legin]

If government doesn't directly interfere with your ability to control your immediate environment, human nature is towards political inertia.

That depends on your beliefs about phenomena - should it be handled and priced by some external agency (or agencies), or should communities "live and let live", etc?

 

[Condottiere]

Perception.

Which is where propaganda comes in to control the narrative.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Compare

- Machiavelli's cynical diplomacy
- Gandhi's Ahimsa (non-violence)
- Haiti's voodoo worship.

Different GLs have different strengths/weaknesses.

 

[Condottiere]

You don't need to employ violence, if no one interferes with you.

Society and politics is basically trying to get along with others, so if no one is getting in your way, then why be bothered?

Unfortunately, human nature tends to take advantage of a power vacuum, so societies develop rules to regulate interactions.

For diplomacy, this means the wish to expand the environmental area you control or influence, so you either act on that, or have the means to deter that from your neighbours.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm not familiar with voodoo worship, only the consequences.

 

[Arkathan]

You don't need to employ violence, if no one interferes with you.

Society and politics is basically trying to get along with others, so if no one is getting in your way, then why be bothered?

Unfortunately, human nature tends to take advantage of a power vacuum, so societies develop rules to regulate interactions.

For diplomacy, this means the wish to expand the environmental area you control or influence, so you either act on that, or have the means to deter that from your neighbours.

You may not need to employ violence, but certain ideologies make that employment much more likely.
Like was employed on every respondent to that one person's Open Government Suggestion Boxes,; thereby eliminating the people who were smart enough to know that his new government was going to be a crap sandwich and who were confident enough to share that knowledge.

 

[actionman]

Society and politics is basically trying to get along with others

I'm not too sure about that. It seems more like society and politics is basically trying to get as much power as possible and then using that power to get as much wealth as possible. And, that's why force, violence, and other ethically dubious methods are so much a part of it. Although, I suppose fighting over money and power while oppressing the poors is a form of getting along, I guess.

Edit:

Something else to consider is that a lot of people who seek power are really screwed up. The reasons could be inborn or environmental, but many people who seek power really don't care about the rivals they destroy to get it and the people they crush to maintain it. Being left alone is not enough for such people. Even if people start out as only ambitious, they have to sear their consciences to stay in the game. It's the same with wealth, but at least people can retire from the wealth game. If people commit unethical actions to gain and maintain power, they can't stop. They can't just hang it up one day, because as soon as they give up power the consequences of their actions will come due. It could be legal proceedings, a team of assassins, or an angry mob. They have no choice but to hold on until the bitter end, or to flee into exile.