What setting do you use to play Traveller?

[Cleon the Mad]

I noticed another poll about where does one get one's aliens from in one's games, and I noticed only 13 percent said the OTU. No issues with that of course, but it did make me curious as to how many here use the OTU, either (mostly) as is or some variant of it.

So, here's the poll! To be clear for purposes of the poll, take OTU as any time in the canon, so Interstellar War era to Year 1248 and everything inbetween.

As an addendum, I guess consider the older GURPS Traveller material set in the non-rebellion based year 1120 to be "small but notable changes" for lack of anything better, since that (I think) is not canon per-se, at least their stuff set during and after year 1116. I'm assuming GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars IS canon though since most of the information in it has never been stated before to the best of my knowledge, and isn't an attempt to do an alternate universe where Dulinor shot someone who may or may not have been Strephon, etc.

To mention myself, I do use the OTU, any changes I do are pretty minor, just mostly due to my take on something that seems vague or doesn't quite make sense IMO, and I usually set a campaign somewhere between 1105 and 1120, sometimes 1107 if in the Marches so the Fifth Fronteer war is just starting. I do have a couple Traveller D20 books just for the setting info, some day I MIGHT do something set circa year 1000 but not use the D20 ruleset.

 

[Cleon the Mad]

OTU with a heavy MT/TNE "rotten empire" bias.

I do consider MT/TNE part of the OTU and "Hard Times" is one of my prefered settings. I might "change" the OTU here by ignoring Virus and using a different timeline past 1130

I do consider QLIs "Gateway to Destiny" part of the OTU and when playing "non-rebellion/non TNE setting" use this exclusively since it's IMHO the best "imperial" setting yet written

Yes, I do consider all of that to be OTU as well, I don't play TNE or 1248 era but I consider all of that to be canon, along with D20's year 1000 stuff. Technically (I think) the GURPS stuff that isn't Interstellar Wars (I.E. the stuff written for third edition GURPS) isn't canon per-se, but again I'm counting it as "Canon but with notable changes" since anything with GURPS Traveller before the year 1116 is the same canon as the OTU to the best of my knowledge.

 

[rust]

The only parts of the Third Imperium setting I use are some technology
assumptions (e.g. gravitic maneuver drive) and some equipment descrip-
tions, and I occasionally "borrow" an interesting plot idea from one of the
adventures. Otherwise my settings have no connection with the Third Im-
perium, and the older I get the more they move away from it.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Mostly OTU with changes. MT/TNE being OTU.
I like running campaigns from Rebellion to hard times and jumping to 1248 skipping the whole virus end of the universe rubbish. The cores and frontiers from the rebelion then building back up to the 1248 era but doing it in less time, basicly chopping75 odd years out of the timeline and NO VIRUS hack cough.
I replace them with fully advanced AI's illegal before the war but used durring the war and often used to enfore the orders of the faction rulers where a ship has a loyalist AI, fanatical bridge crew and the rest have no idea they are on a suicide run for Lucan.
The vanila classic era is ok but it lacks that dark edge that make for great campaigns, the hardtimes 1248 (well about 1175) has core sectors which are secure and developed, frontiers and the wilds to run adventures in.
Best of all worlds

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

I know at least four other GMs (2 are "casual" 'Traveller''s), and none of those use the 3rd Imperium setting (none follow this list).

Mind you, I have to say I actually use 'Space Opera' as a ruleset... I just "lift" stuff from 'Traveller'. I did play 'Traveller' back before GDW published any of the 3rd Imperium setting material though.

 

[kristof65]

It would be nice if we could select multiple on this. For the most part, my Traveller campaigns are OTU, but in the past I've run ones that have purely original, and hybridized using the OTU as a starting point.

 

[rust]

Mind you, I have to say I actually use 'Space Opera' as a ruleset...

A very nice system, with a fine focus on the non-military science fiction,
although a bit complex for my taste. I really should look it up again to
mine it for ideas, just like the old and somewhat similar Universe RPG.

Thank you for the reminder.

 

[starpilot]

I stick with canon as much as possible. I've always liked working within the confines Traveller's various custodians have given us.

I've run a few of the campaigns over the years: Knightfall and Hard Times come to mind. And I've run two extensive multi-adventure campaigns: one with a ragtag group in the Solomani Rim; and an extensive mercenary campaign in the Regency during the New Era.

Currently running an 1105 Spinward Marches campaign. Nothing fancy but all homemade adventures. I love the settings and I like the write-ups I've read from Mongoose, but somehow I just like running my own stuff better.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Mind you, I have to say I actually use 'Space Opera' as a ruleset...

A very nice system, with a fine focus on the non-military science fiction,
although a bit complex for my taste. I really should look it up again to
mine it for ideas, just like the old and somewhat similar Universe RPG.

Thank you for the reminder.

As a system it's a lot simpler than 'Traveller'.

That said, it's merely the 'Space Opera' mechanics I use, pretty much everything else I ignore. And as I don't chiefly use anything other than the core system, all the same 1970-1980's issues that 'Traveller' suffers from are side-stepped.

The technology was the first to go, then the planetary system design, then the setting... etc., etc..

 

[Jame Rowe]

For me, it's usually been either "OTU with changes" (The last game I ran for my full group included a teleport device - it would have worked had the builders been using TL 16/17 instead of TL14/15) or "My own TU, with the OTU used as a springboard."

 

[Captain Brann]

I use the Spinward Marches.
As this is my first ever Traveller campaign it made starting easier.
However my players all start as Sword Worlders, so that the 3I is the brooding baddy over the border.
Started with the Rescue and then moved on to the scout ship recovery. Followed with a few home made scenario's.
At the moment they are working for a noble until I am ready to let them have there own ship.

If you want to read how the game is going check out my web site
http://chrisbrann.wordpress.com/rpg-campaign-stories/

 

[Cleon the Mad]

I use the Spinward Marches.
As this is my first ever Traveller campaign it made starting easier.
However my players all start as Sword Worlders, so that the 3I is the brooding baddy over the border.
Started with the Rescue and then moved on to the scout ship recovery. Followed with a few home made scenario's.
At the moment they are working for a noble until I am ready to let them have there own ship.

If you want to read how the game is going check out my web site
http://chrisbrann.wordpress.com/rpg-campaign-stories/

Nice replies so far. I may have to look at your campaign website as an aside. I'm debating doing the same thing but using the Darrian Confederation as a starting point, and setting it year 1107 so that the Fifth Frontier War is just starting too.

 

[rinku]

I prefer to just rely on the massive amounts of 3I stuff I own. My creativity gets plenty of workout anyway since most planets (even in well established areas like the Spinward Marches) are just survey notes.

 

[Treebore]

By and large I run "OTU", but in the Spinward Marches, which has always been my favorite go to area, a fair number of things have deviated from OTU. Like it has its own Duke unique to my campaigns, because of this Duke and the actions of others the TL in the Spinward Marches is markedly higher than anywhere else in the Imperium or Zhodani space, etc... Plus relations with the Zhodani and the Spinward Marches is much more cordial than OTU has it.

So for me the Spinward MArches has been a hot bed of action and change, but the rest of the Imperium remians pretty much unchanged except the Rebellion was avoided in my setting because I had a group of players who managed to come up with some pretty surprising ideas and pull off some cool things that helped avoid a Rebellion. So only 2 or 3 early Rebellion clashes occurred, but after that unity was re-established and the Imperium went on. With an Empress.

On the grand scheme of the Imperium though, my changes are relatively insignificant.

 

[Golan2072]

I use a modified version of the OTU/TNE, but it is set in Canopus, for which there is almost no canon, so I get to build the setting almost out of whole cloth. The overall background is the OTU, with the OTU races (especially Solomani, Vilani, Aslan and a few Droyne and Hivers), the Collapse and the Virus being present in the setting, However, I tend to limit the Virus' influence on this setting in order to make things more interesting than just one boneyard after another.

 

[Gravmonkey]

OTU spinward with weirdness to unfold. I'll keep you guys posted.

 

[Cleon the Mad]

Bumping my own poll.

Okay, to make a real comment, I'm finding the poll results to be interesting so far. Kind of interesting to see that roughly the same amount of people use a canon OTU as the people who use a completly original universe for their TU.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

It's not really that surprising. When 'traveller' first came out in the 1970's it was written as setting independent... one was actually encouraged to make up your own setting.

The 3rd Imperium only came along a couple of years later.

 

[BP]

Prior to MGT - everything was my own TUs (just used core CT LBBs).

Recently 'inherited' refereeing of a game set in the OTU (sort of) - and I must say, its a real pain. I am finding that having a setting provided for you is a double edged sword. On the one hand, there is lots of starting material - on the other, making my plots conform to existing material is quite challenging. Not only because things are not of my own choosing, but also because I must remember and constantly look up what others have done.

When I do things myself, I can actually wing it a lot more - since I can avoid inconsistencies when creating completely new material.

(I can also completely nix the whole silly swords in space load...)

 

[Cleon the Mad]

It's not really that surprising. When 'traveller' first came out in the 1970's it was written as setting independent... one was actually encouraged to make up your own setting.

The 3rd Imperium only came along a couple of years later.

Well yes, I'm aware of this. I don't consider myself a grognard (or at least married to one ruleset) but my first set of LBB's I bought in 1981, so I'm old enough to be a grognard. But, even if the CT rules came before the setting, it's still closely tied into to it enough that I found it surprising. It's also not like let's say D&D where they had Greyhawk, then the Forgotten Realms as the "official/traditional" settings, but many others also put out by then TSR and now Wizards of the Coast. For the most part Traveller has always stuck with the OTU, albeit not always the same era obviously. Even GURPS is still in the OTU, even if the far past of the OTU with Interstellar Wars. So, to me it's still somewhat surprising since the OTU was more or less "it", just when in the OTU changed with each new edition. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Mongoose seems to be the first publisher really looking at the "Hey, at one time Traveller was setting generic" aspect of the game with their publishing of things like a Babylon 5 sourcebook, a Judge Dredd one and so forth. (Well publisher with a license to make an edition of Traveller anyway).

Then again, maybe you're right and I shouldn't be surprised. If someone is making campaign books for other popular settings, it shouldn't be too much of a shock that someone will buy them, and then use them somehow. Gee, did I just play devil's advocate with myself?