Canonical Traveller

[robject]

This thread (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=23830)
got me re-hashing a very old theme. "What defines Traveller?"


As I develop this thread, I plan to cite resources which are useful, and potentially canonical.


I. Foundational Assumptions

The foundation is the universal assumptions about the game... ah, universe. To quote Daryen:

Traveller is all about a base set of assumptions. Science fiction is a huge concept that can be expressed in innumerable forms. While the underlying system any edition of Traveller has used is highly flexible, there are still certain assumptions that are involate.

Violate these, and you lose the 'Traveller', regardless of setting. Keep these, and setting probably doesn't matter.

Here's my list, a modified version of Daryen's list salted with others' comments.

• Jump. This is the key. The way Jump technology works dictates many other aspects of Traveller. This is probably the primary defining assumption. Without Jump there is no 'Traveller'. In brief: 100 tons or more, 1 week spent in jump, communication travels at the speed of jump.
• Starship classes (A, C, E, J, K, L, M, P, R, S, X...).
• Starport classes.
• Gas Giant refueling.
• Humanity. Humans are recognizably and unapologetically twentieth century humans. There is no transhumanism; cyborging; or any such. Any of that is a rare exception, not the norm.
• Sophont direction is essential. Starships, bases, vehicles all need a person in charge.
• Cheap power.
• Gravitics. Open-top Air/Rafts are part of that.
• Tech levels. Traveller allows for multiple levels of technology. Worlds are not homogenously hi-tech.
• Shotguns in Space. Traveller includes "anachronistic" elements that defy science fiction conventions. Not everything is blasters and lasers.
• Lots of worlds and Feudal Politics. SOC, Navy, and Marines implies these.
• Mercenary Tickets
• Backwater worlds
• Meson guns
• High Passage
• Low Berths
• Library Data
• Ship's Locker

 

[robject]

Mechanics

II. Foundational Mechanics

Foundational but more rules-based.

• Modular mechanics.
• Pre-career character generation.
• Six Characteristics per person.
• Physical characteristics take the damage from combat.
• Combat is deadly.
• No "experience points".
• Two dimensional hex subsector maps.
• The "Gimmick", "Enigma", "Push", and "Pull".
• Patron oriented adventures. You have a vast setting... you never know where the players will go.... But patrons give the referee a lot of control over such a chaotic situation. They are a coping mechanism that solve a problem created by the scope of the game and contrast greatly with lists of "standard" adventure premises. There is an implication of wide-open, wide ranging player driven adventuring here. Later on you have the concept of Pushes and Pulls codified as being a big part of "real" Traveller adventuring.

 

[robject]

Setting

III. Setting - General

• The Timeline. As Don showed us, that can go on for pages. I'll just note it and move on...
• The Spinward Marches is Traveller's 'home'. Others like other settings, and they are still all 'Traveller'. But the Spinward Marches is 'home'.
• More generally, Charted Space is Traveller's home, which is (by extension from the original Regina subsector) the Example of the default assumptions that undergird Traveller's rules.
• Cosmopolitan. A number of sophont types interact in Traveller.
• Traveller's Aide Society
• TAS News Service (TNS)

 

[robject]

IV. Setting - Sophonts

This is potentially such a large part of the Imperium setting that it doesn't hurt to break it out into its own post.

I'll try to limit it to significant non-human sophonts.

• Aslan - land-hungry samurai cats
• Droyne - enigmatic bird-lizards
• Hiver - manipulative 5-armed starfish
• K'Kree - militant anti-carnivore horses
• Vargr - uplifted wolves

 

[Gray Lensman]

III. Setting

• The Spinward Marches is Traveller's 'home'. Others like other settings, and they are still all 'Traveller'. But the Spinward Marches is 'home'. And the Marches live inside charted space, which itself has a host of assumptions, some very well defined.

Why? I mean I do understand that the Marches has more published about it than any other sector in whatever version. But Solomani Rim is just as valid, and if you count the two Gurps books that cover it, just may have had almost as many words written about it?

 

[Major B]

Robject, thanks for this.

This is what I wanted to get across in the poll asking about a Traveller MMO. You said it much better than I so in the future I'll just link to this thread.

 

[Enoki]

What has always drawn me to Traveller as a game is that you can, like any miniatures wargamer will do, tailor the game to your tastes. I don't see anything in it as set in absolute concrete other than the general concepts of it as game. That is, I feel free to mix and match characters from various versions in the same adventure. The rules are flexible enough to allow this. I would rather take the best of each version and combine them to make a more interesting and fun experiance than be a "rules lawyer" wanting to stickle over everything and whether it is in the rules or not.

That's me.

As an aside, I took Striker as a partial starting point for a historical set of minitures rules for WW 2 play about 25 years ago and turned that into a set of rules that got simpler and more accurate as I went. The final version is Panzerkriegsakademie 7.0. The guiding concept was "Does this make sense? Is it accurate? Can I recreate historical situations? And, is it easy to do?" That is what I think Traveller should do. Be common sense that allows you to play while sipping a beer, eating pizza and, watching bad late night television......

 

[robject]

What has always drawn me to Traveller as a game is that you can, like any miniatures wargamer will do, tailor the game to your tastes. I don't see anything in it as set in absolute concrete other than the general concepts of it as game.

We're all that way. And Traveller is modular enough to let us swap things in and out with relative ease.