Unusual Traveller Settings - Retrotech

alex_greene

alex_greene

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Has anyone played a Traveller game set in a world where the top level of local technology had been capped at, say, TL 7 - roughly corresponding to the 1970s? TV screens were small, generally took a few seconds to warm up, did not have remote controls and some of them were still monochrome.

Telephones were all, 100% of them, landline based. Most had rotary dials, rather than buttons. Walkie talkies were just becoming available for commercial use - they were the size of early Eighties mobile phones.

Dentists still used cocaine as a local anaesthetic in their surgeries. Almost everybody smoked. Almost nobody had any sense of taste in decor, in music or in fashion.

Computers were huge and primitive, but email has only just been invented, as had teletext (a digital text service carried on the TV signal, accessed through special set top boxes and, later, through the TV sets themelves).

If a civilian vehicle could do more than 90 mph, it was considered a sports car. 4x4s had yet to be made available for civilians - the Audi Quattro was some way off, though its time was coming ...

Anybody ever run a game in that kind of setting?
 
alex_greene said:
Has anyone played a Traveller game set in a world where the top level of local technology had been capped at, say, TL 7 - roughly corresponding to the 1970s?
Click to expand...
I once had an isolated Red Zone planet of that kind in one of my settings.
It was a bit difficult to remember what actually had been available and to
get stats for some of the non-combat equipment, but otherwise it worked
just fine, although it was a minor nightmare for the characters - most of
the inhabitants of that planet either feared to be abducted by aliens and
went on "alien witchhunts" or hoped to be abducted by aliens and regar-
ded them as omnipotent and omniscient higher entities.
 
I created this question rather than go through the old threads and perform thread necromancy on it. The aim is to ask similar questions, each on separate threads, each covering an alternative setting.

I'm curious to see whether the Referees on here have played in settings other than the standard Traveller high SF setting. Twilight: 2000 and 2300 don't count.
 
I once played in a game using the CT ruleset that was an anti terrorist game set in contemporary eighties earth. It was something different from the usual CT and CoC games we played at the time.
 
There was a deliberate decision behind this.

I don't want wargame discussions. I want to see if you enjoyed roleplaying in this kind of a setting.

Any mook can push pieces across a board. If all I wanted was just to move little figures around, I'd have taken up chess.
 
alex_greene said:
If a civilian vehicle could do more than 90 mph, it was considered a sports car. 4x4s had yet to be made available for civilians - the Audi Quattro was some way off, though its time was coming ...

Anybody ever run a game in that kind of setting?
Click to expand...

That's more like the 40's...
 
Just because there is a certain tech level doesn't mean it is going to be exactly like the world you may be more familiar with. Many geographical, political, social, religious and other factors come into play. Two worlds of similar tech levels wouldn't necessarily be mirror images.

For example, if a world is desert and another is water then certain things would be more likely to be invented on one world than others.

For your car speed example:
- What if the world is low gravity with a denser atmosphere. This makes flying easier. Planes might be more common and cars were not given much thought.
- On a water world boats may be the primary mode of transportation and personal land vehicles travel very short distances on congested islands so they are more likely to be like mopeds and golf carts.
- Maybe a world has a people and government that is more "green" so polluting vehicles were never created.

If a world has a singular government and the people generally live in peace then certain military items might not exist even in peoples imaginations even though it is technically possible.

There is the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention"

Religion, may have certain restrictions. Yes, there are religions that restrict almost all technology but I'm thinking of something more specific like "Only gods are meant to fly" so research into anything that allows flight is sacrilegious. Even a kite! Every other technology is as advanced as possible.

You could have a socialist society where centuries of people have believed that all should be equal. Yes there are cars but they all are the same color and have the same options. Maybe there is only one radio or TV station.
 
Interesting concept. To further fuel the thread and keep it on track, I give you this: http://www.behance.net/Gallery/ALT1977-WE-ARE-NOT-TIME-TRAVELERS/545221

It's been circulating for quite a while on the web; I'm surprised nobody here said anything about it given Traveller's 1970s roots. :D

Pax et bonum,

Dale
 
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