General Interplanetary campaigns

[boomslang]

The Canadian TV series "Starhunter" was set in our solar system... I've only seen the first season, but the twenty or so episodes visited every planet, or moons of the gas giant planets, except Venus.

They sort of improved the SFX when they re-edited and re-released the whole thing as Starhunter Redux a couple of years ago. They even brought back key cast members and re-shot a re-written version of the series ending.

The second season (of either version) involves numerous cast/character changes, but also takes the opportunity to introduce a nice twist to the whole setting: because of overlapping jurisdictions and newly-introduced personal/professional relationships, the ownership of the Tulip comes into dispute, with the principal characters generating three competing claims among themselves. :CoW:

@jackleg
Also, in terms of self-contained one-system adventure settings, do not overlook the CT boxed adventure settings Tarsus and Beltstrike; both provide detailed star system information, locations, and storylines. I have used each of then on occasion over the years for short, but full, campaigns that do not require me to dig out and pore over a subsector map while repeatedly thumbing through the various procedural-generation checklists in Book 6 on a regular basis. They are kind of the gold standard for such things among the official/licensed publications.

@leo
On a different note, no list of reasonably hard sci-fi, intra-solar-system bounty hunting TV-plus-movie series would be complete without mentioning the anime classic Cowboy Bebop, of course.

So yeah, single-system adventuring is definitely an option on the table.

And there is then always Firefly (and Serenity), which brings us full circle.

 

[Lord Kilgore]

do not overlook the CT boxed adventure settings Tarsus and Beltstrike; both provide detailed star system information, locations, and storylines.

These have long intrigued me. Excellent reminder/suggestion!

 

[kliner]

Yes, my unofficial campaign on the traveller wiki is tech 7, and in one system. I love the expanse BTW

 

[Proneutron]

Now with the TV show The Expanse, it shows a story could be within one system.

GMs were doing this since the release of Traveller. I've done several over the years. I've played in several with other GMs. This is old hat and not new to the game.

 

[Werner]

GMs were doing this since the release of Traveller. I've done several over the years. I've played in several with other GMs. This is old hat and not new to the game.

The Alpha Centauri system has two Sunlike stars and a red dwarf, the red dwarf has Proxima b and c (a small gas giant) in the campaign I'm planning Proxima b was renamed Aurora, and the gas giant was renamed Boreas, around Alpha Centauri A are several planets, the most important of which is Athena, a Super Earth sized terrestrial planet (size 9), the gravity is only 1.04g however due to its lower density, I made it with the help of Universe Sandbox.

Around Alpha Centauri B orbits the OTU planet Prometheus, with Universe Sandbox again, the density came out higher than normal, as the planet is size 7, but the gravity is 1g. Due to its higher metal content, there was a gold rush to the planet as soon after the Jump Drive was invented in My Traveller universe, and due to its proximity to a small gas giant Polyphemus, it became the official main world of the Prometheus System, Athena took second place and it sports a class B starport to Prometheus' class A starport.

All three planets have billions of inhabitants each, and all three are under military occupation by the Imperium along with the Terran system. There are a group of pirate/rebels that are sympathetic to the Solomani cause and resent the Imperium's occupation forces, they think of themselves as latter day "Robin Hoods", but they also keep much of the loot they steal to themselves.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I been using Orbital for MgT.

 

[Vile]

As per the previous posts there are plenty of examples in media of star system stories. There is really very little difference in terms of adventuring content, as in-system travel doesn't have to be any faster than interstellar travel, and at your end points you have locations - planets, towns, star/spaceports, etc.

I ran and played in a long-running multi-referee near-future in-system campaign back in the 80s with a company of planet-hopping mercenaries (their spirit lives on in DB Game Design's Ares Dragon class Mercenary Cruiser book). Never ran out of ideas, just time to play!

 

[Straybow]

There was another article in JTAS No 18 called "Travelling Without a Starship" by J. Andrew Keith.

We stumbled onto the idea ourselves playing retired scouts with a Courier. Can't wait for that dream spec lot of radioactives or gems forever. A sweet deal came up for something too big for our cargo, so we thought, "Just find another tramp to take it as a cargo lot for Cr1000/ton."