Where to start an exploration/small scale politics campaign?

[Terry Mixon]

Not in the sense of being the first to ever go to those systems, true, but there are a lot of unmapped or mysterious planets detailed in the systems of The Borderland that could afford a lot of sites for exploratory missions. I do think it is probably the best balance between being "fringe" but also being connected to the setting at large.

Another possibility though is grabbing Spinward Extents like Vormaerin said and putting that World Builder's Handbook to good use by fleshing out the Foreven Sector, immediately Corewards of the Beyond sector detailed in Spinward Extents — Foreven is what's called a 'Referee Preserve', perpetually undeveloped in canon materials so that Referees would have an area adjacent to the Marches to make their own as needed.

You could nab the existing stellar position data from the freely available site [here] and fill in the information you need using the WBH as required.

If that sounds like too much work, I loaded the Foreven data from the Sector Creation Guide and made a set of files that could be input to TravellerMap and you have a pretty empty sector with names and stellar data.

The files are here.

Thread 'Mongoose Foreven Sector Data (With Borders!) for TravellerMap'

Oct 5, 2024

After a bunch of calculating and typing, I have what I believe is an accurate sector data file (with UWP and Trade codes) as well as the border data file for the Mongoose version of the Foreven sector for TravellerMap done. Yes, yes, I know that this is a GM preserve and the gods should tremble at the temerity of mere mortals encroaching on this sacred preserve, but I wanted to trade there and needed trade codes, so I just did the whole thing so I can match other sector maps. Now my hours of labor can benefit those who want to take advantage of it.

This entailed taking the default Foreven...

• Terry Mixon
• Replies: 98
• Forum: Traveller

• 

They can be cut and pasted here to get the map.

Poster Maker - Traveller Map

travellermap.com

I'll even attach the map it outputs in case it is useful.

 

[Vormaerin]

True, it does depend on what you mean for "exploring". There are plenty of funky places to go in the Borderlands and surrounds, but it would be a stretch for them to have populations. But if you mean "wander off into the wilderness of a less than fully populated world, there's definitely plenty of opportunity for that kind of exploration.

It is definitely a great option if you want to remain involved in the Imperium and have published adventures.

 

[Sigtrygg]

When I began running Traveller over four decades ago I ripped off books I had read, movies and TV shows I watched.

The longest running campaign I have (on again off again) started with the PCs on their mustering out planet (checks note recently recovered from father's loft) - Star's End.
Star's End is the furthest frontier planet from the Tri-World Alliance core worlds, the "Imperium" of my setting (the off board big empire). Prior careers had been in service to the Alliance where applicable. The PCs were given rumours for Star's End, I mapped out only the worlds they could travel to in one jump and off we went adventuring. They headed off into the unknown beyond the border.

The players couldn't be bothered with the hassle of ship ownership and usually travelled world to world the way Tubb intended - as passengers, working passengers, stowaways, press-ganged, even as prisoners once or twice. They have, over the years, gained temporary possession of a ship, which either ends up shot out from under them or they sell it.

Planet of the week adventure was where it was at.

I would use published adventures from time to time, altering the set up to fit.

 

[ottarrus]

So, I'm not exactly new to Traveller, but haven't played in ages, and I know next to nothing about the Third Imperium. Still, I'd love to read some of the current material with an eye to running a campaign at some point in the future ... I'm wondering what would be most interesting if I want to go for a combination of exploration/sense of wonder and small scale politics (as in politics that are relevant to one or maybe two planets, not more ...).
I was thinking of a combination of Rim Expeditions, World Builder's Handbook and Maybe The Great Rift ... but are the Rift and the Rim neighbouring regions? or are they totally apart from each other? In terms of concept, they sound similar ...

EDIT: Oh, I think I'm getting Rim/Rift now ... so Rim is actually the outer rim of the galaxy, from Solomani/Terra outwards, while the Rift is the other direction, the literal rigt between our spiral arm and the rest of the galaxy ... right?

There are several regions on the edge of Charted Space that you can play about in. But the Solomani Rim isn't the edge of the Milky Way; in the OTU nothing has gotten to the edge yet.

There are several questions you have to ask yourself if you want to an exploratory campaign:
- What civilization is the home of your campaign? This will significantly effect the style and tone of your campaign, as well as character generation.
- What kind of exploration is it? For example, trade exploration opening new territories, threat assessment looking for possible future problems for your home government, or is it 'here be dragons' territory where you're the first of your civilization to enter an area?
- What ship do you want the characters to use?

Some resources that'll be helpful:
- Folks have already told you about Travellermap
- The two 'generate it yourself' sources, The World Builder's Guide and the Sector Builder's Guide from Mongoose
- The Great Rift from Mongoose, which has just been revised and contains a lot of nitty-gritty exploration mechanics. It also has the stats for several sectors along the far edge of the Rift with governments you can start the player off in.
- The Deepnight Revelation Campaign; this is an EPIC campaign, a box set plus 6 additional books. It deals with a converted cruiser on an epic 20+ year mission to the edge of the Sagittarius Arm
- Rim Expeditions, a sourcebook for exploring the far side of Solomani territory
- Later this summer Core Expeditions comes out, which will detail the greatest exploration mission ever: the Zhodani Core Expeditions

Here are two zones you probably didn't think of that I think might be fertile territory for explorers
- The Spinward Extents, which deals with two sectors beyond Foreven, The Beyond and the Vanguard Reaches.
- The Trailing Frontier, which deals with Ley and Gateway Sectors. This isn't so much an exploratory campaign so much as it's a fact-finding mission... the governments and planetary stats are known, but the threat of the 2K Worlds is a clear and present danger and the situation needs constant updating

And there is always the 'do it hardcore' method of generating a sector yourself, developing the civilizations and politics, and dropping the players off at one edge...

Hopefully all this is of some use to you.

 

[Sigtrygg]

As time passed I borrowed a bit from the Imperium setting. I decided that the galaxy as a whole was in a Long Night, with the last great Galactic Empire having fallen thousands of years ago. There were the occasional ruins, bases, lost tech, even whole worlds from the time of Empire.

There were, of course, even earlier "Ancient" (but not them) and ancient civilizations.

 

[DeepSpaceAdventures]

I'm pretty much in the same situation. I've GM'd a few single adventures on conventions but next month, I'll start my first long term group.
Since I'm lazy, I'll go with official adventures - at least for the beginning.
My plan is to start with Flatlined and Death Station (back to back, as recommended by Seth Skorkowsky) and then move on to Borderlands and Trojan Reach. From there maybe to Spinward Marches or the Great Rift, or even Drinax. That depends on my players choice.
I might move a few systems around or move adventures to other systems, so they won't be too far away. ( I do like "Mysteries on Arcturus Station" and might move it to the Trojan Reach, maybe Glisten or a new, self made system).
And in May, we'll get "Great Rift Adventures 1-5" with two completely new adventures. Let's see...

 

[Vormaerin]

I've run single world Traveller campaigns, single system Traveller campaigns, and multi system Traveller campaigns. Sometimes with the players having a ship, mostly without. When the Deluxe Traveller Box set came out, I started using the Spinward Marches because I loved that big poster map. But it was a Spinward Marches with almost no "official" detail, so it was basically still my own.

When Trillion Credit Squadron came out, the only thing in it I found useful was the idea of the Islands Subsectors. After a couple years of enjoying my big poster map, I moved the Islands and have spent the last 40 years customizing them and making them entirely my own. I really like the Empire being just off map, so the players can be from there, but aren't actually dealing with it. And the bounded play area makes things easier for me and for the players.

And it lets me run my preferred "small ship" setting by declaring that the version of Jump drives known in the island is only capable of J2 and uses jump bubbles that can't expand beyond a 5k tonnage ship. They obviously know that the Imperium has hull grids instead of Jump bubbles, can do huge ships, and can jump 4+, but no one local has figured it out yet.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Another area you may want to check out is corewardmost 4 subsectors of Reaver's Deep. They have lots of unaligned systems, barren systems, as well as small pocket empires just to Rimward and on either side of these subsectors the Heirate and the 3I. Lots of exploration and small-scale politics are possible here.