game scope
- Thread starter flykiller
- Start date
The campaigns I ran tended to focus on only a few worlds. Sure, players might refuel at a dozen or more worlds, but nothing memorable would happen there.
There tended to be two to four worlds which would contain nearly all of the game content. The others required little or no work.
There tended to be two to four worlds which would contain nearly all of the game content. The others required little or no work.
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Jeff M. Hopper
SOC-14 1K
I'm gonna sound like I'm waffling here, but it depends on the campaign for me. Some campaigns only required one world and all the action happened there while others required that each world the PCs travelled to be created in depth for the action that took place.
My typical campaign is wandering around the marches... I don't do GT... but I use a lot of the materials in The Traveller Adventure.
A significant fraction of worlds never get past the port or the startown.
But, as I said before, I've also run Adv. 0, and the players got through a good part of the sector.
A significant fraction of worlds never get past the port or the startown.
But, as I said before, I've also run Adv. 0, and the players got through a good part of the sector.
I tend to run route-based campaign arcs, where something happens on each world from the origin to the destination, and then back. In a campaign with several arcs over the passage of time, these add up. The bigger the route, the more worlds that get visited and which have significant action take place.
At a minimum, one route-based arc could visit 2-3 worlds, using a very short bit of travel and coming back the same way you went. I prefer larger, circuitous routes myself, where you visit 4-8 worlds en route to the destination (or first destination), and then take another route back, either because there's more than one stop on the circuit, or because of some in-game complication that occurs at the destination that requires at least a little divergence from the original path to the destination.
The size of your route is often determined by the size of the astrographic region you are playing in: subsector, quadrant, sector, Imperium, charted space.
Hope This Helps,
Flynn
At a minimum, one route-based arc could visit 2-3 worlds, using a very short bit of travel and coming back the same way you went. I prefer larger, circuitous routes myself, where you visit 4-8 worlds en route to the destination (or first destination), and then take another route back, either because there's more than one stop on the circuit, or because of some in-game complication that occurs at the destination that requires at least a little divergence from the original path to the destination.
The size of your route is often determined by the size of the astrographic region you are playing in: subsector, quadrant, sector, Imperium, charted space.
Hope This Helps,
Flynn
As Flynn said, it depends upon the game. A Campaign may involve an entire sector whilst others may be grounded in a cluster of worlds. If the players are seasoned SF fans, you can awe them into the majesty of the Imperium. If they are newbies, then, it is better even to start within a cluster and do the hub & spoke model. Listening to Hickman speak at GenCon, he talked about Campbell's great mythic cycle and I was think because Science Fiction is more open ended with endless frontiers, it would explain why Traveller appeals to so relatively few people - they are the ones who understand and appreciate the wonderlust that is still hardwired into our monkey brains.
An interesting thing to note is that around 85% of the voters involve 20 or less worlds in their game, in other words a single subsector or so; this means that players actually wander away less than they are reputed to do. It also means that a quadrant would satisfy (and more than so) the needs of the average Traveller gaming group.
no, the poll provides no good basis for such a conclusion. the poll treats all referees as being the same, with no regard for total number of individual games, the length of individual games, or number of players. many games fold up quickly, and it easily could be that most games and/or players are involved in those universes involving more than twenty worlds.
the fact that 85% of the responders here are saying twenty or fewer worlds per game is worth investigating, but no conclusions are supported yet.
I should have thought through the poll more thoroughly.
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You are right, with respect to longer games using more worlds. I ran a game that went for years, utilising numerous different characters in the same universe and often utilised new worlds when I had something a bit different to run.
I would have had over 30 well developed worlds in that game and many more fleshed out to a lesser degree, because the players had either visited once, or because something that happened on them was tangental to the game I was running.
I've also run shorter games (Annic Nova) that never got out of a single sytem.
I would have had over 30 well developed worlds in that game and many more fleshed out to a lesser degree, because the players had either visited once, or because something that happened on them was tangental to the game I was running.
I've also run shorter games (Annic Nova) that never got out of a single sytem.
Daneel Olivaw
SOC-11
I prefer to map out a region much greater than the expected scope of players' travels, for 2 reasons:
- In case players decide to travel beyond the expected area, I have worlds ready to be fleshed out for visits;
- The campaign's immersiveness is enhanced by news, rumours and other references to worlds and events in which the players probably won't get directly involved. In The Lord of The Rings, occasional references are made to other lands and other ages of history, but they are not explained fully. Tolkien called these "unexplained vistas".
