Why is there no Setting Guide book that explains the whole setting without going deep into each sector?

[Anstett]

I think that the Explorer Edition book does a decent job of explaining the rules separate from the setting. There is a chapter there on basics of most Traveller settings without getting into Charted Space Lore. One thing missing from that book that the Core Rule book has is the paragraph about Traveller Map and other Charted Space OTU types of things. It is already 74 pages without adding the Lore section. And is only $1.

Traveller Explorer's Edition

Dock your ship at advanced starports, visit strange worlds, encounter alien beings and animals, and take on the challenges that the galaxy sets before you.

www.mongoosepublishing.com

 

[paltrysum]

Thank you all for your opinions and suggestions. My only concern is from a consumer standpoint, buying from the core rulebooks usable for any hard sci-fi or sci-fi opera, into the setting of Traveller itself is a very rough and unclear way. I think I will start with the Aliens of Charted Space and as others suggested Behind the Claw will be the first setting book I will buy into. But beyond this, it is very hard to tell do I need The Solomani Front, do I need Third Imperium, do I need Glorious Empire, etc. I don't even know if the Vargr have their book yet, and I have just recently discovered Great Rift exists and for the vast emptiness of it, there is a whole boxed set. It is really hard to tell what to buy and where to base my sandbox for my players.

It's hard to know without a little knowledge of the setting, but I think the marketing for each book gives you a good sense of what's in them. Behind the Claw is the traditional setting: the Spinward Marches, and it has Deneb sector as well. Frontier area with lots of different factions and aliens. Plus, if you dig up old material from previous incarnations of the game, you'll find cool bits of lore and complete adventures that you could convert and use there.

The Third Imperium features the Core, where the Emperor sits upon his throne, the place where the Imperium started over a thousand years ago. It's a more settled, generally higher tech, political region, with lots of dystopias and several key worlds of Traveller lore. There will be a campaign added for this region next year.

The Deep and the Dark contains two sectors where the presence of the alien Aslan is an important part of the narrative. It contains their homeworld and the polities that border their region. Lots of cool minor alien species are present in both sectors if you like the idea of a diverse and complex region to run your game.

The Solomani Front is a politically tense region that the Imperium largely occupies, but in which the Solomani, descended from Terra, hope to regain their homeworld and dominion over the region. Like the Core, it's got consistently higher tech, higher populations, and features a politically rich background where border conflicts and tension would be rife. The presence of Terra is a big part of the appeal, but the Solomani are a disjointed, often racist lot.

There's nothing stopping you from running games in more than one sector, but I realize the cost of all those books could be prohibitive. It is fun to jump around and explore different regions, though, if you're into published settings.

As others have suggested, you could build your own, which probably fully half of all Traveller players do.

 

[metlk]

I don't play within any official setting for a couple of reasons. First, it's massive and daunting to even know where to start. An entire college history course could be taught off of all the lore and still not touch everything. Second, like you said it's an expense endeavor to even consider wading into. I have The Third Imperium on my wish-list but the idea of playing in any existing setting is just going to require far more studying than feasible with my free time. Maybe some day.

I would love to have a book that is more of an overview of the official setting. I don't need to know every war on every planet, just an understanding of how each of the six main factions came to be, the areas they control, the cultural differences, and how they interact with each other. Much of the stuff is available on the webs, but I just like the tactile feel of a good book that I can hand to a player. Even a short chapter in the core rulebook on the Settled Systems would go a long ways to getting people into the Official setting. As it is, they sprinkle just enough mentions of Charted Space throughout the core book to lead people down the rabbit hole without any sense of direction. The first time I tried to run Traveller (which was my first time with Traveller period because nobody in my area had even heard of it,) I got a whole lot of questions that I had no answers for, and finally had to declare that we were not in Charted Space and to disregard any mention of it in the rulebook. And since I wasn't prepared for that, I suddenly found myself having to come up with on the fly reasons for things like why a TL3 peasant world had a starport. Even a modicum of back story would have been of considerable use.

 

[phavoc]

No one could figure out the coordinates of the planet of Hommlet.

It takes a village.

 

[hughsieman]

I 100% agree with the OP here and I think that I have suggested something very similar previously. As someone entirely new to the game it was difficult to get started with the lore side of things. The Explorer's Edition is excellent but as stated above it is rules focused (quite rightly, of course) but I definitely think there is space for a book equivalent of the Explorer's Edition covering Charted Space/OTU.

It ideally would have an overview of Charted Space. A timeline of major events and details about the Third Imperium. Plus a brief summary (perhaps 2-3 pages) for each sector, referring the player to other books in the range for further information. It would be amazing as well if it also listed published adventures and campaigns taking place in each sector, in whole or in part, as this is something I struggled with initially). And then the same for the major races (again referring the reader to other books to take things further for each race). And a section on the FFW would be useful, and also topical ;-), this could then list the available and upcoming books in the FFW range and how they relate to the overarching campaign. What about a section on Traveller Map as well, perhaps an abridged version of the Traveller Map chapter in the Companion.

Of course, it would need to be updated periodically to keep up with new releases.

It would tie all of the other publications together really well and make a 'jumping off' point for new players to get into things in a more informed way.

 

[Grognardia]

Download and Study the .png from @Grognardia 's post here : Campaign Settings . Then read some of the other follow up comments that reply to that post. You might find that somewhat helpful, as it shows where the Behind the Claw book fits side-by-side, in comparison to many of the others.

A picture says more than a 1,000 words, and such, this picture should be pinned where everyone interested can see it.

Cheers! I just took the map from 'This is Free Trader Beowulf' and added a few more sectors. Here's a slightly updated map;

 

[IanBruntlett]

This is a very loaded question, but I am trying to avoid ranting and just wonder about the publishing logic of not having a single starter book that each new DM can buy, understand the world at scale, and then pick a sector book based on his preferences based on this initial book's contents. Almost every other RPG line follows a starting point logic that gives an overview and a "must have product" for DMs to buy.

I find that when a new sector book is released, I never have sufficient information on whether to buy it or not.

Regarding sector books, I would either go for "Behind the Claw" for the Spinward Marches and Deneb or Pirates of Drinax for the Trojan Reach. If I had to choose one, it would be "Behind the Claw".

Regarding Core Rule Books. While the trend for updates is understandable, personally I expect my Traveller hardbacks to last a long time. When a new update arrives of a Core Rule Book, I'm never sure what I am getting for my money in buying a title again. As an environmentalist I'm stuck with prior core rule books wondering why I bothered buying them in the first place and what to do with them. I believe in aviation that airframes get upgraded with new avionics. Having the option to buy a booklet/PDF explaining the differences between one version of High Guard and another would be very helpful.

 

[ThornPlutonius]

Or, go old school and create your own setting. Doing that will ingrain an understanding of the setting better than studying any official setting book. It will also save a lot of money for you.

That written, Do what thou Will shall be whole of the Law.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Or, go old school and create your own setting. Doing that will ingrain an understanding of the setting better than studying any official setting book. It will also save a lot of money for you.

That written, Do what thou Will shall be whole of the Law.

That's certainly valid, but I find I save a lot of time taking something existent and moding it to suit my needs. Time is money and I get mine back in saved hours.

 

[ottarrus]

To the OP:
While it doesn't explain everything, one book that gets you most of the way down that road is 'The Third Imperium'.
It looks at the entire Imperium instead of bogging down in just one sector or region. It goes into to all the high points: the military, the megacorps, the nobility, and how the Imperium governs itself.
And even in the ending third of the book where it covers Core Sector, a lot of time is spent pointing out how Core relates to it's neighbors.
In one sense it's like discussing the United States and then adding the regional pressures that are prevalent in American culture.

 

[Condottiere]

The dilemma could be, because official Traveller is somewhat monolithic, unlike Dungeons and Dragons, only one setting sells well.

The dragon needs to feed, and if it has a preference for young maidens, young maidens tend to be on the menu.

 

[apoapostolov]

Or, go old school and create your own setting.

While your point is valid, the reason I asked this question is because I want (desperately?) to be sold on the canon Charted Space and be able to absorb the higher picture of the whole setting, hopefully from a single source of setting information. Just buying a sector based on the proposals here is fine, but I find that each book's format follows a very predictable 20-50 pages of region information + 200 pages of planets. If the introductionary material were collected in a single or two tomes (Atlas of Charted Space, Vol 1 and 2) and we could cover some additional territories that are yet on the long-term plan for sector books or campaigns, we can have a potential winner.
I suggest two tomes of not too big books for two reasons - to not be too overwhelming and also to allow Mongoose to put what is already published and developed in a Vol 1, while giving themselves time to plan ahead and put the starting points for next 5 years of campaigns in Vol 2, or delay it for 3-4 years until the sectors and campaigns have been detailed for the information to be reused and repurposed in an Atlas book.

 

[Limpin Legin]

While your point is valid, the reason I asked this question is because I want (desperately?) to be sold on the canon Charted Space and be able to absorb the higher picture of the whole setting, hopefully from a single source of setting information. Just buying a sector based on the proposals here is fine, but I find that each book's format follows a very predictable 20-50 pages of region information + 200 pages of planets. If the introductionary material were collected in a single or two tomes (Atlas of Charted Space, Vol 1 and 2) and we could cover some additional territories that are yet on the long-term plan for sector books or campaigns, we can have a potential winner.
I suggest two tomes of not too big books for two reasons - to not be too overwhelming and also to allow Mongoose to put what is already published and developed in a Vol 1, while giving themselves time to plan ahead and put the starting points for next 5 years of campaigns in Vol 2, or delay it for 3-4 years until the sectors and campaigns have been detailed for the information to be reused and repurposed in an Atlas book.

Do use the free resources like Traveller Wiki and Traveller Map:

Traveller Tools

www.mongoosepublishing.com

With Traveller Wiki, you can get anything from a quick succinct overview to a "drilled down" meandering detail, depending on how many weblinks you click on. Here:

Traveller

wiki.travellerrpg.com

Look at the Chartered Space Overview, Traveller Settings Overview, and if you wish the Chartered Space Technologies.

but I find that each book's format follows a very predictable 20-50 pages of region information + 200 pages of planets.

Yes, at a glance, it looks tedious. However each digit in each UWP is something creative waiting to happen. Use the World Builders Handbook or the Starports supplement, or the other supplements, to bring some creative detail out into the open.

 

[Sigtrygg]

What follows is taken from MegaTraveller, with my own additions in [ ]parenthesis.
The First Starfarers
We place the age of the universe at more than fifteen billion years.
The oldest stars in Charted Space are dim red dwarfs some ten billion years old.
Intelligent life first appeared in Charted Space more than two billion years ago.
Intelligent life first began sublight travel between the stars more than a billion years ago. Short-lived beings found sublight travel tedious and frustrating and contented themselves with confinement to a few star systems. Longer lived races ranged far and wide using generation ships, cold sleep, and even electronic personality transfers.

495,000 BC Ancient cities arise, their ruins have been discovered across charted space.
395,000 BC Ancients thrive. Humans transplanted from Earth to worlds across charted space, The Vargr are uplifted from wolves and also transported.
295,000 BC Final war (lasting 2000 yrs) destroys the Ancients [this has been retconned]

The Vilani

6,500 BC Flowering of Vilani culture and pre-spaceflight technology
5,493 BC First Vilani space explorations [similar to early Terran steps into space]
5,382 BC Scientific bases established in Vland system [which would develop into a thriving space industry]
4,882 BC Vilani sublight interstellar colonization of nearby worlds [using cold sleep]
4,792 BC Vilani discover non-Vilani human civilization.
4,717 BC Vilani discover Jump Drive.
[The Vilani use their newly discovered FTL drive to explore far and wide. They encounter other races, human and alien, they settle systems and develop trade. The shock discovery of another human civilization possessing jump technology, the Geonee, leads to the first interstellar conflict of the modern era.]
912 BC Vilani develop Jump-2 drive
882 BC Start of Vilani Consolidation Wars

AD 473 Consolidation Wars end, Ziru Sirka founded
AD 518 Vilani stop exploring

[Under the guidance of the Shadow Emperor and divided into provinces the Ziru Sirka becomes technologically and culturally stagnant. Only the Vilani are allowed jump 2 technology, minor races are limited in the regions they can trade within.]

To be continued.

 

[tytalan]

While your point is valid, the reason I asked this question is because I want (desperately?) to be sold on the canon Charted Space and be able to absorb the higher picture of the whole setting, hopefully from a single source of setting information. Just buying a sector based on the proposals here is fine, but I find that each book's format follows a very predictable 20-50 pages of region information + 200 pages of planets. If the introductionary material were collected in a single or two tomes (Atlas of Charted Space, Vol 1 and 2) and we could cover some additional territories that are yet on the long-term plan for sector books or campaigns, we can have a potential winner.
I suggest two tomes of not too big books for two reasons - to not be too overwhelming and also to allow Mongoose to put what is already published and developed in a Vol 1, while giving themselves time to plan ahead and put the starting points for next 5 years of campaigns in Vol 2, or delay it for 3-4 years until the sectors and campaigns have been detailed for the information to be reused and repurposed in an Atlas book.

One of the problems with this is each sector is just to vastly different. With the incredibly long communication delay combined with the fact that each planet has a very high amount of independents makes this really impractical. The spindward marches and Denab for example is very different in feel and tone than Say the Solomani Rim. While it’s easy to think of the Imperium as being a monolith government the truth is it’s closer to being 1100 governments with a strong trade organization connecting they all. Just running a campaign in the spindward marches is completely different from the Trojan Reach. There is just to many differences to do an over covering book.

 

[metlk]

While it’s easy to think of the Imperium as being a monolith government the truth is it’s closer to being 1100 governments with a strong trade organization connecting they all. Just running a campaign in the spindward marches is completely different from the Trojan Reach. There is just to many differences to do an over covering book.

I do not own any of the settings books other than Drinax (which is an entire campaign unto itself and wholly different than the other setting books , afaik.) The brief descriptions of the books don't really lead one to understand the type of gameplay that could be found in those settings. I've not seen anything suggesting the Imperium is closer to 1100 governments with a strong trade organization, nor any differences in gameplay (other than a few minor social changes) to suggest playing in the Solomoni Rim being any different than the Spinward Marches. There's just a distinct lack of forward information to assist in deciding which setting is right for the style of game being ran. Most new players and refs simply do not know that if they want to play a heavy Psionic-leaning pirate campaign, the heart of the Imperium is probably not the best place to do that. An overview book doesn't need to be a great historical reference and encyclopedia set of the entire galaxy as known. It just needs a chapter that's an overview of general history, then chapters for each major faction that covers social and governmental structures, major systems, and key players. Keep it simple and straight forward, focusing on the key differences between the factions and regions.

Personally, I prefer custom sectors so I can do whatever I want without having to worry about how it interacts with the lore. While that is where Traveller shines over other games, it also means I've had little reason to invest in rather expensive setting books, hampered even further by the lack of even a basic overview of why I might want to use those settings.

 

[Condottiere]

1. The official supplements give you a canonical flavouring of the setting, which you can use to spice up your homemade ones.

2. Also, microwave them and serve, if you have neither the time nor inclination to play chef.

3. There are secondary publishers, whose works might be more suitable.

 

[apoapostolov]

1. The official supplements give you a canonical flavouring of the setting, which you can use to spice up your homemade ones.

2. Also, microwave them and serve, if you have neither the time nor inclination to play chef.

3. There are secondary publishers, whose works might be more suitable.

This post initially was about the best approach to buy into Charted Space, advising to go elsewhere or do your own lore ignoring the canon is changing the subject is obviously legit but totally different tangent.

 

[IanBruntlett]

3. There are secondary publishers, whose works might be more suitable.

My problem is the lack of information about both the Mongoose books and the third party books.

For example, Aliens of Charted Space Vol 1 covers Aslan, K'kree, Vargr, and Zhodani. It is especially useful for Behind the Claw - Spinward Marches (Vargr, Zhodani) and Trojan Reach (Aslan) to name but a few (feel free to pitch in with more examples ).

 

[MongooseMatt]

Sorry for the late arrival to this thread...

In terms of utility, we always felt the sector books were a better introduction as each is really quite different from the others, and so you can kind of pick and choose your setting within Charted Space and have everything you need to start exploring.

But.

A Guide to Charted Space/Introduction to Charted Space is not a bad idea at all as an overview, and something to consider...