In My Still-Sketchy TU

[scott]

OK--I may be too much of a newbie to start coming up with an ATU, but I've been thinking about it anyway. I think it mostly comes down to making a game that is close to what I *imagined* Traveller was like when I first heard of it, since that would be the most fun for me to work with and play in. Of course, some of the differences from CT I've only thought about recently, since I didn't know much about the details of CT before.

So:

* Keep the jump-drive design and the lack of FTL communication
* Keep the idea of a widespread area of colonization

but...

* No mysterious ancients--just a very long period of colonization, by various human culture/language groups, in fits and starts over time.
* Replace the huge central empire with various unions and coalitions of planets, plus some independent planets, and a sort of galactic UN (non-paranoid-fantasy version). Some organizations, companies, social networks, etc., would cross the various boundaries. TAS would be included. Diplomacy would be complicated and lead to all kinds of intrigue.
* No humanoid aliens. I know they're not meant to be simple analogues, but I can't deal with the conveniently Earth-animal-like species (cat, dog, lizard, horse, Lovecraftian nightmare, etc. ). Instead, I'd have a less uniform human culture, with differences enhanced by the isolation and re-connection of various regions of space over time.
* Most of the interstellar stress and drama would come from diplomacy, trade, and fouled-up cultural contacts, rather than from war.
* No psionics. Too squishy.
* The focus of campaigns would include scout-service exploration missions; accidental adventures during trade in marginal areas; rescue missions and mystery-solving adventures (could be both); solo or small-group sessions about "just Travelling" (aka Vagrants Get In Deep Trouble); re-connecting with long-isolated systems; maybe archaeological expeditions that lead to trouble, or searches for signs of really-alien life.
* Big space battles, bean-counting trading trips, politics, religion, etc. would be right out. I tend to glaze over if I get into the details of weapons, combat, trading economics, ship mortgages, etc.--it all seems too much like work to be fun. It should be possible to keep a gritty, on-the-edge feel when needed even without that stuff.
* Lots of possible career paths that might get people on ships and travelling. (I just ordered a copy of the Citizens of the Imperium supplement, which should help.)
* More focus on role-playing and problem solving, very little on combat
* Could work with either CT or GURPs rules, but I'd try to keep rules, die-rolling, and detailed procedures from taking up lots of game time. Or solo scribbling time, if I don't get anybody else in realspace interested.

Now, I realize that all this may not really be what many people would consider "Traveller." And it may seem a bit wifty and soft-sci-fi-ish without the major military/mercenary and hard-economics elements. But, well, you gotta go with your strengths and interests.

Any thoughts or suggestions about all this would be welcome.

 

[BytePro]

Pretty much akin to my TUs for most of my CT days.

I didn't actually have a universe per se - each adventure usually started in a new subsector generated for just that adventure. Some times it would span more, but most action occurred between a handful of systems.

PCs didn't really deal with war or politics per se. Maybe on the fringes - i.e. trouble with the local authorities or doing a job designed to prevent hostilities or gather information for a government agency. Epic only got as big as saving a downport or local colony. And big ships were just places to visit and sabotage, not fight.

Aliens were alien - and somewhat rare. The best communication got was pigeon English which was also within my meager RP abilities.

Robots and AI were everywhere. They just are too useful a Ref tool!

Eventually I transitioned combat into a freeform system rather than follow rule mechanics with rounds and what not. Combat was not actually to common to begin with, once we got over our D&D bloodlust and wargaming and transitioned to more roleplay centric gaming. Stun guns and grenades along with cinematic knockouts were the order of the day - with explosives for structure damage and diversion tactics. Vehicle chases were also popular.

I greated programs for subsector mapping - and modified the rules to make civilized planets on a par TL wise, with low TLs for unpopulated/alien worlds. I prefer Sci-Fi to be futuristic, for the most part.

CT really handled this stuff well - especially if one limits to just those books necessary. Which, for me, was the first 3, Scouts, HG, Forms, and the Animal Supplement and ignoring the OTU stuffs.

Good Luck and Happy Travelling!

 

[Hemdian]

Any thoughts or suggestions about all this would be welcome.

Sounds more like 2300AD. (And if you wanted to use MgT rules I notice that there is a MgT/2300AD book available for pre-order.)

 

[scott]

I didn't actually have a universe per se - each adventure usually started in a new subsector generated for just that adventure. Some times it would span more, but most action occurred between a handful of systems.

That's a good idea--you don't really need more than that to have enough room for good adventures, and the rest can be background.

big ships were just places to visit and sabotage

Eventually I transitioned combat into a freeform system rather than follow rule mechanics with rounds and what not.

Yeah, that's where I was heading, too--quick and dirty, and keep the story moving on from there.

I greated programs for subsector mapping - and modified the rules to make civilized planets on a par TL wise, with low TLs for unpopulated/alien worlds. I prefer Sci-Fi to be futuristic, for the most part.

Yeah, that makes sense--especially in a smaller region, you'd expect space travel would even out the differences in tech levels.

CT really handled this stuff well - especially if one limits to just those books necessary. Which, for me, was the first 3, Scouts, HG, Forms, and the Animal Supplement and ignoring the OTU stuffs.

Good point--I'll have several of the CT books soon, but will probably focus on the ones you suggest.

Good Luck and Happy Travelling!

Thanks!

Sounds more like 2300AD.

I've only started reading about 2300AD recently, but in a lot of ways I think you're right. But I suppose I can combine elements of both and still call it Traveller.

 

[BytePro]

I'm a big fan of KISS. One aspect of that is I'd rather own my setting - hence reducing the risk of contradiction down to one.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good material out there to draw from, but in retrospect, I'd have been better off just doing my own thing. The FFE CT reprints and the CD-Rom are a great value and everything one needs (and then some), IMO.

BTW, Mongoose Traveller's chargen and task mechanics are pretty well done, IMO, and available for free (one career only). At first I liked the concept of specialty skills, but have since changed my mind for real play. Its funny that they breakout Engineering into life support, electronics, and each drive - but Medic covers everything from battlefield triage to neuro surgery.

TBH, a 'star' map, a deckplan and a few planetary maps along with the equivalent of a 2 minute slide show are all the setting and background most players need or want.

 

[Original_Carl]

What you're describing sounds a bit like Asimov's Foundation. He did touch on psionics in those books, though. You could read those again for inspiration.

I like where you're going with this.

 

[BytePro]

Foundation series is a good read, though I fail to see much in the way of similarities.

Its been a long time, but, IIRC, psionics actually plays a big part in the plot (not to say the narrative, so much) and it is a huge sweeping empire with a ruler and space military ala the OTU. However, its FTL for travel and comms is not at all like Traveller, though its system travel might be. Mostly such things are left way in the background, IIRC. Another major difference being no real aliens (mule? = mutant?).

 

[Mark Morgan]

Foundation series is a good read, though I fail to see much in the way of similarities.

Its been a long time, but, IIRC, psionics actually plays a big part in the plot (not to say the narrative, so much) and it is a huge sweeping empire with a ruler and space military ala the OTU. However, its FTL for travel and comms is not at all like Traveller, though its system travel might be. Mostly such things are left way in the background, IIRC. Another major difference being no real aliens (mule? = mutant?).

the mule is a mutant form the planet Gaia in the seshcelle? sector no alien maybe R danell olivaw's robots may have dealt with any the were there

 

[scott]

I'm a big fan of KISS.

For one terrible moment, I thought you meant the band ;-)

TBH, a 'star' map, a deckplan and a few planetary maps along with the equivalent of a 2 minute slide show are all the setting and background most players need or want.

...which is worth remembering when we get too deep in the "important" details.

As for Foundation, I can't really base much on it because I've never successfully gotten past about page 20 of any of the books. Maybe I'm shallow, but it seems awfully dry and remote--too much concept and big picture, not enough character or plot. Or something. I'm much more of a fan of C.J. Cherryh and some of Ursula LeGuin's stuff. And the weirder Lem books.

 

[Dragoner]

Traveller has a lot of influence from Asimov, period, so anyhting to do with Traveller can be compared in a way to the Foundation series. I'll bet Marc was reading Pournelle's Falkenberg books when writing Mercenary, I know I was reading them at the same time.

 

[BytePro]

Heh - Rock On Dude! o:

I try to remember that part of the definition of 'player' is someone who will invariably only want to know the details you didn't make up.

That governor of the republic of whatever or that union what cha' called it... he's President of the Federated Alliance of Planets, the ones embargoing the People's Cluster... sure, whatever - he have a wife and kids? Where's the nearest brothel...​

Ha - read earlier Foundation books as a child. Wonder if they would have the same appeal today as they did back then... but do recall that they aren't really adventure or drama books and the character development is probably rather slow and shallow. Asimov books tend to be plot centric above all, with lots of characters and such, but without the drama to make them deep. But, I think I read every fiction book and most articles he wrote along with quite a few of his non-fiction. Don't think I've read anything since shortly after he passed, though.

C.J. Cherryh, especially the Merchanters series, really deals some good starship sci-fi and she's definitely about character development. Of course, her ships don't have anti-grav and her FTL is much different - but, IIRC, she actually call it Jump. (Though I don't think her books with that term appeared before Traveller - actually around the same time.)

Yeah Dragoner - Asimov and particularly Foundation definitely influenced the OTU setting. Though not so much the mechanics and setting independent stuff, and the OP is talking about an ATU that drops most of the Asimov flavor. Never used Mercenary very much - its also probably not to applicable to the OPs ATU - but, it certainly reminds of Jerry's books.

Seem to recall reading an article about the various authors (like Anderson and Tubb, besides those already mentioned) that influenced the authors of GDW's earlier material - and also one about how the original Star Wars movie influenced Marc and someone else to release Traveller.

 

[Dragoner]

Star Wars came out right at the same time as the original Traveller books and it was a GREAT movie, it is impossible to not be influenced by it and the far trader is the Millenium Falcon and I've seen a Keith pic which only could be Han Solo. I like reading about other peoples TU's, what they use and what they don't. I have my own Imperium 1133 which I have been threatening to post here, but is going through a substantial revison since I picked up the MegaTraveller and TNE disks.

 

[Cryton]

Star Wars came out right at the same time as the original Traveller books and it was a GREAT movie, it is impossible to not be influenced by it and the far trader is the Millenium Falcon and I've seen a Keith pic which only could be Han Solo. I like reading about other peoples TU's, what they use and what they don't. I have my own Imperium 1133 which I have been threatening to post here, but is going through a substantial revison since I picked up the MegaTraveller and TNE disks.

Totally understand the substantial revisions as I'm doing the exact same thing having picked up the TNE-2 disc myself.

 

[Dragoner]

There are some things very usable, and some things relatively absurd, I thought of moving things to 1248 or after, which I may do, but I had a reason for not doing so that I don't exactly recall at the moment (which might have been to not lose all the stuff written before). Really it seems that after 1124 the timeline ran out of steam.

 

[HiverLord]

Asimov's writing style has been described as "American Plain": lack of excessive detail (nit-picky stuff, I'd say), not too much character development, heavy into the current 'situation', and easy on most of the heavy science concepts (except as necessary for the plot/background). Heavy on broader ideas and concepts. (As others have stated here already...)

As a teen, I read and reread them probably five times in a two or three year period, and was always finding small items somewhere that escaped me at the time. (Of course, I was a teen, as stated... I hope my attention to detail has gotten a bit better since those days! lol!)

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

I found that when I read his earliest Foundation books I kind of really liked the limited amount of detail and all, because it allowed me to envision stuff in my "mind's eye" in a way that made sense to me. (For instance, I think I first read them about the time that Dan Rather was replacing Walter Cronkite on the CBS News, and Mr. Rather had made some public comments that had made him seem a bit brash and anxious for Mr. Cronkite to finally retire. I think because of that brashness I kind of ended up picturing Salvor Hardin as looking like Dan Rather.)

Anyway, in Mr. Asimov's later Foundation books he began to seem (to me) to start adding more bits of color that to me actually kind of messed things up for me, making it harder for me to picture things in my mind as I read.

Sometimes it was just something small, like mentioning several chapters into a story that some character had blonde hair, as typical of people from his planet (or something like that), where I had already been picturing him as being dark haired for the last several chapters. Or in another book, describing some young "punk" type minor characters as being dressed in short (knee-length?) britches, with a wide brimmed hat and pink sash, as well popular with young people at that time (or something like that).

I realize that neither of these were really that big a deal, but in some ways they did just seem to me to be in some ways, just random bits of color that really didn't add much to the overall story other than just messing up how I was already imagining the scene he was laying out.

Regards

Pat