General Is there any concise summary of Traveller setting lore to help potential players?

[Tiikeri]

Hi,

I lost a new player because when she went to read up on Traveller she got tired of doing internet detective work to be able to answer questions like what race did she want to play and wtf is a Spinward Marches.

Yes, tiikeri almost had a new player. It was like poe in altered carbon saying "I have a guest..."

Anyway, she was quite interested but she couldnt take researching obscure websites to figure out the relationships between the races and empires, how technology worked, and so on.

Is there a concise noob friendly source i can direct potential players to?

How does all of you handle bringing players who have never heard of traveller up to speed?

 

[mike wightman]

I used this to start off my last Third Imperium based game:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=36222

It gives the players enough of an overview and then we can fill in details as the game progresses.

 

[Timerover51]

Hi,

I lost a new player because when she went to read up on Traveller she got tired of doing internet detective work to be able to answer questions like what race did she want to play and wtf is a Spinward Marches.

Yes, tiikeri almost had a new player. It was like poe in altered carbon saying "I have a guest..."

Anyway, she was quite interested but she couldnt take researching obscure websites to figure out the relationships between the races and empires, how technology worked, and so on.

Is there a concise noob friendly source i can direct potential players to?

How does all of you handle bringing players who have never heard of traveller up to speed?

Which Traveller setting are you playing in? That has a major effect on what sources you might use to put a handout together. Personally, I would say to go through the Classic Library Data books for most of your stuff. If you are not using Classic, it is going to be a bit more complicated.

 

[Tiikeri]

Classic Traveller was the intended setting.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I believe mister Marc Miller has a primer posted on Far Future to orient new prospective players. I think it may also be available on DriveThruRPG.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Hi,
Is there a concise noob friendly source i can direct potential players to?

How does all of you handle bringing players who have never heard of traveller up to speed?

I beg to differ with the other grognards. There is no single concise sourcebook, not in the way I believe you are looking for. The Library Data sources / books just dont cut it. If I may, by example another setting: Forgotten Realms and D&D 3.0/3.5

There is a Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Book. It has a "big map", allows you generate nuanced characters from all over the planet Faerun of different races and cultures. talks of the general history and gods and its rules variations, prestige classes, etc. different from the "standard" rules of the PHB, DMG and and MM Core Books. Even details of cool or important places and people Elminster is a xx lvl Wizard, The Open Lord of Waterdeep,

Within that there are region sourcebooks, racial splat books, magic books and such detailing an aspect of the setting.
City of the Spider Queen, Sons of Gruumsh
Unapproachable East, City of Splendors: Waterdeep, Underdark
Magic of Faerun, Faiths and Pantheon
are some examples....


We have the equivalent of racial splat books (the Alien Modules) that tells you how to generate and roleplay an Aslan or Vargr or etc. or etc.
We have the equivalent of regional sourcebooks (The Sector Sourcebooks) with their own focus, places, minor races (Vegans, Sword Worlders, et. al), UWPs
Tech books (Element Class Cruisers)

BUT

Traveller does not have an equivalent main campaign book of the Third Imperium SETTING in the Golden Age in a similar format to Forgotten Realms had done with the planet Faerun as a whole.
Nothing in one spot that says :
Here, generate any of the Major Races (except maybe K'kree I don't need to generate the whole Herd/Family :devil, here is how you play one. Want more info? Found in Name of Alien Module #
Exploration campaigns. Kinda like this in The Great Rift Region, Want more details? Get The Great Rift
Deneb Sector is a Sector of petty nobles vying for supremacy...
Frontier? The Spinward Marches is yada ada yada. Want more info? Buy...
The Imperium is headed by Emperor Strephon (Age:xx UPP xxxxxH Skills:yada yada). Archduke Dulinor (Age:xx UPP xxxxxG Skills:yada yada), Archduke Craig (Age:xx UPP xxxxxG Skills:yada yada) etc. run regional groups called Domains.... Interestingly an up and comer Duke Norris (UPP xxxxxF yada yada) lots of flavor text to suck in a new player.
This is what is desired, yes?

 

[Tiikeri]

Yes.

Think about it this way.

Star wars has a paradigm. It goes roughly like good mystical knights and plucky rebels fight a militaristic bad guy empire in a science famtasy setting filled with ecletic alien races blasters and laser swords.

Expanse goes a crew of misfits navigate the treacherous political and cultural currents of a humanity divided between a militaristic dynamic mars, a screwed up overpopulated bureaucratic earth, and a hard edged radical revolutionary outer planets alliance while exploring a cosmic anomaly.

Traveller goes well, a crew of misgits or a mercenary battalion or a bunch of unemployed soldiers or an aristocrat or a trader crew or a secret agent or a talking dog whos a priest of a talking dog supremacist religion or racist earth fascists can pretty much do anything they want in several empires which are neither good nor bad excep the racist earth fascists or they can hang out on the frontiers which are the way they are because of 3000 years of lore history based on roman history. Get it?

Its hard to explain traveller to someone who has never heard of it, who cant read UPPs and so on, who isnt going to buy and read through the library data supplements, and who isnt going to spend hours reading the traveller wiki when she can play star wars or star trek or firefly or some other game which provides an encapsulated summary of what the game is about and where the player fits into it.

I made handouts and so on, directed her to the traveller wiki, gave her some other links, but people arent going to read through all that unless they already know and love traveller.

 

[Tiikeri]

Another complication is the changing of generational perceptions. People under 30 think post apocalyptic setting means some zombie tv show instead of thermonuclear World War 3. They didnt see Aliens, they didnt see Outland with sean connery, they didnt see bladerunner, they didnt read jerry pournelle, andre norton, heinlein, or other classic scifi, and they think vampires sparkle.

In othrr words, they are unfamiliar with the cultural knowledge that traveller is grounded in. That cultural knowledge is lived experience for us, but it is history for them, history they didnt have to study in school.

 

[Tiikeri]

And one more thing.

We probably discovered traveller in small easily absorbed pieces, little black book sized pieces. Ok spinward marches came out, its 4 bucks at the game store and about as long as an oversized pamphlet. Oh, the newest double adventure is out, ill read it during lunch. We absorbed traveller over time.

Now traveller is 40 years of canon over 7 versions of the game. How is a potential new player going to sift through wikis, websites, forums, etc when a lot of it is so old it doesnt show up on google searches? I just checked now and only the traveller wiki could provide info IF someone wanted to spend hours sifting through it.

 

[coliver988]

And one more thing.

We probably discovered traveller in small easily absorbed pieces, little black book sized pieces. Ok spinward marches came out, its 4 bucks at the game store and about as long as an oversized pamphlet. Oh, the newest double adventure is out, ill read it during lunch. We absorbed traveller over time.

Now traveller is 40 years of canon over 7 versions of the game. How is a potential new player going to sift through wikis, websites, forums, etc when a lot of it is so old it doesnt show up on google searches? I just checked now and only the traveller wiki could provide info IF someone wanted to spend hours sifting through it.

This is really the key - start small. They don't have to know everything (and I doubt there is anyone who actually does) about Traveller. They are playing a character just as in any other game. Create some background or have the players create what background they want, then fit it in and grow your universe around that. Somewhere on this forum someone indicated that they had each player go through character generation and basically design the world they grew up in. This was not OTU but if you want to stick with OTU, start with what sort of world they want to start out on, find something that matches in the area you want to play in.

I am always overwhelmed when starting new games - playing Shadowrun the next 2 months. Everyone else has played it before, knows the setting and details. I know nothing about it other than a little bit of research, and came up with a background that I passed to the GM. We'll do character generation in the first session and she will be wrapping her game universe around what I came up with. Some may not fit and we'll figure a way to either make it fit or change it entirely. The point is: I am starting small and the character will grow as I learn the aspects of the game universe.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I learned one LBB/supplement at a time also so I understand that. These are different times now. I think it is more the idea about about player (and gamemaster) immersion / commitment to playing a tabletop game and continuity. Television series for example make "series bibles" (I think that is what they are called) to give writers the constraints as to what is canon and what is heresy. In RPGs, large Campaign Setting books fulfill that function for a player and their character and for gamemaster and their verisimilitude.

Even more so than in fantasy campaigns, the characters should have and thus the players need to have more knowledge of the universe around them. Our so-called "Travellers" are generally not "1st level novices who have never even been outside of their village" They range from those novices to 46+ year old veterans of careers that took them across star systems or forced the larger Imperial culture upon them. We oldsters know, and in universe the characters should, do but not necessarily newer/younger players:

• Merchants need to know what standards apply to trade. If you are a T4 grognard, you know about the Office of Calendar Compliance and the Bureau of Standards still around?
• Do Imperial Marines swear an oath to defend the Imperium or the enact the Emperor's will and defend him FIRST. What is tthe difference? Gotta look in Agent of the Imperium for that.
• Imperial Navy? Planetary navy? My friend told me about that in High Guard. I don't have that book Its all the same thing, right?
• What do you mean I cannot just sell my Scout Ship? I thought it was mine.
• I have been in the Noble career for 7 terms and have SOC F. The Core rulebook says Im a Duke. What do you mean I'm not the Duke of Spinward Marches Sector? Can't you just say I am and not this NPC Duke Norris?

 

[Tiikeri]

In RPGs, large Campaign Setting books fulfill that function for a player and their character and for gamemaster and their verisimilitude.

Even more so than in fantasy campaigns, the characters should have and thus the players need to have more knowledge of the universe around them

Yes, they need a campaign setting book to tell them what exists and what doesn't exist in the universe. They need to know who the races are and how they relate to each other, and what roles characters have in the world, so they can pick one for their character, something that they have a vibe how to play. Forgotten Realms does that. Everyone knows that humans hate orcs, orcs hate humans, regular elves hate drow elves, and drow elves hate everybody, this empire is good, this empire is bad, and so on. You can give a player one book or direct them to one link so they can get a good idea about the world their character will soon inhabit and what is reasonable for that world.

Milieu 0 did something like this for T4. It said here's the situation, the new 3I is expanding and encountering pocket empires, and here are the character careers. This is what's happening in your world, and here are the roles characters play within the world. That enabled players to say hmm I want to play a military explorer for the 3I, or I want to play a buccaneer from a pocket empire trying to thwart the 3I.

Megatraveller tried to do that with the Rebellion, but no empire was good, some were just worse than others, and everything balanced out so no one would win and darkness descended on all in the end. It was wholly unsatisfying and not something that was going to engage new players, and it still wasn't in a dedicated setting book unless you count the Rebellion sourcebook which still depended on knowing Traveller to make sense of it.

Forgotten Realms was in plain English that someone can just read even if they know nothing about D&D, and then there's the high quality art that engages a lot of players. They see it and think that's cool, I want to do that. Traveller relies so much on UPPs UWPs and other efficient codes that potential players can't glance at and get a sense of what Traveller is about.

Traveller needs a campaign setting book, like Mr. Rancke did for GURPS Sword Worlds, or DGP did for the Solomani Sphere in Solomani and Aslan. There's no one central sourcebook for the Imperium, which is the most important thing in the setting. It doesn't go well when I have to refer potential players to DGP books which are out of print, or a GURPS Traveller book, or a JTAS article to help them understand the most important society in the setting.

 

[aramis]

I beg to differ with the other grognards. There is no single concise sourcebook, not in the way I believe you are looking for. The Library Data sources / books just dont cut it. If I may, by example another setting: Forgotten Realms and D&D 3.0/3.5

Note that D&D 5 does NOT have such a product, and that the book for 3.x made significant mechanical changes to characters. It was a cash grab as much as anything else. (AD&D FR was a boxed set of maps... with a relatively thin book, and few changes mechanically.) SCAG is mostly character gen, with a thin bit of overview of the setting.

The 3I setting is best covered by, IMO, by the descriptions in Traveller Hero. It's got a good overview, covers the various milieux.

Second best is the GT core. In both cases, tho', the setting is being ported to different games.

The CT books to do so are Book 0: Introduction to Traveller, and Supplements 8 and 11, library data A-M and N-Z.

The MT core has a good bit of setting in sidebars in the PM, and a rich library data book. Unfortunately, the Ref's library data is in the same cover as the Player-facing. There is some difference from CT, but 95% of the CT library data is in unchanged from Sups 8&11, and most of the changes are taken from other CT sources.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Thx aramis I stepped away. Examples were my next comment!

 

[Blue Ghost]

* snippage *

BUT

Traveller does not have an equivalent main campaign book of the Third Imperium SETTING in the Golden Age in a similar format to Forgotten Realms had done with the planet Faerun as a whole.
Nothing in one spot that says :
Here, generate any of the Major Races (except maybe K'kree I don't need to generate the whole Herd/Family :devil, here is how you play one. Want more info? Found in Name of Alien Module #
Exploration campaigns. Kinda like this in The Great Rift Region, Want more details? Get The Great Rift
Deneb Sector is a Sector of petty nobles vying for supremacy...
Frontier? The Spinward Marches is yada ada yada. Want more info? Buy...
The Imperium is headed by Emperor Strephon (Age:xx UPP xxxxxH Skills:yada yada). Archduke Dulinor (Age:xx UPP xxxxxG Skills:yada yada), Archduke Craig (Age:xx UPP xxxxxG Skills:yada yada) etc. run regional groups called Domains.... Interestingly an up and comer Duke Norris (UPP xxxxxF yada yada) lots of flavor text to suck in a new player.
This is what is desired, yes?

Isn't adventure 0 supposed to be an introductory to the OTU? It's a mini-scout campaign IIRC, which I may not.

 

[Timerover51]

A combination of Book 0, Understanding Traveller, and Adventure 0, Introductorv Adventure The lmperid Fringe, sort of gives some idea, but not all that much unless you also tape into the Library Data books for added background.

 

[aramis]

Isn't adventure 0 supposed to be an introductory to the OTU? It's a mini-scout campaign IIRC, which I may not.

Yes and no...

The library data is very limited, the Zhodani and Aslan character rules are schematic (and that the polite phrasing for it)...

It's enough to run with, but it's not a good setting overview. (Nor, for that matter, is supplement 3. We thought much better back in the day of much less than is standard now.)

 

[mike wightman]

There wasn't a setting as such in the early days.

There was a suggested setting, with very sparse details.

By cobbling together the bits from various early pre-Library Data books I was able to describe the setting in less than a page in enough detail for a group of Travellers beginning their adventures in a frontier sector.

The Library Data supplements add a lot more detail to the setting, and the setting info in The Traveller Adventure fill in more, but that means more books to read.

 

[Tiikeri]

I'll have to confine players to a single subsector then create a short concise handout to describe that subsector setting, with comments that reference a larger setting. Within a single subsector, I can easily create a story dynamic that the players can be for or against, so they have a narrative footing for their conception of their local area of space.

Once they're enjoying the game and feel comfortable, I can give them the option to travel to other subsectors and then parcel out setting info as they need it.

 

[mike wightman]

That's pretty much what I did for the handout I produced as detailed in the thread I linked to earlier.

The lmperium is a strong interstellar government possessed of great industrial and technological might, but unable, due to the sheer distances and travel times involved, to exert total control at all levels everywhere within its star-spanning realm. It encompasses 281 subsectors and approximately 11,000 worlds. Approaching 1100 years old, it is the third human empire to control this area, the oldest, and the strongest. Nevertheless, it is under strong pressure from its neighbouring interstellar governments, and does not have the strength nor the power which it once had.

On the frontiers the lmperium allows a large degree of autonomy to its subject worlds calling only for some respect for its overall policies, and for a united front against outside pressures. Extensive home rule provisions allow planetary populations to choose their own forms of government, raise and maintain armed forces for local security, pass and enforce laws governing local conduct, and regulate (within limits) commerce. To monitor the space lanes, the lmperium maintains a Navy. Because these forces can never be everywhere at once, local provinces (subsectors) also maintain navies, as do individual worlds.

Defence of the frontier is mostly provided by local indigenous forces, stiffened by scattered lmperial naval bases manned by small but extremely sophisticated forces.

Conflicting local interests often settle their differences by force of arms, with lmperial forces looking quietly the other way, unable to effectively intervene as a police force in any but the most wide-spread of conflicts without jeopardizing their primary mission of the defence of the realm. Only when local conflicts threaten either the security or the economy of the area do lmperial forces take an active hand, and then it is with speed and overwhelming force.

At the spinward edge, 120 parsecs from the original centre of the Imperium, the Marches represent one of the furthest extents of exploration and domination by Imperial forces. Lying adjacent to territory of the Zhodani Consulate and the Vargr Extents, this region is a site which has seen conflict and intrigue.

The hub of new development in the Spinward Marches is the Regina subsector. Located at the very edge of the Imperium, it serves as a contact point with the Vargr to coreward and the Zhodani to spinward; the result is considerable trade activity through the starports of the region.

The lmperium has been suppressing political dissent in order to keep peace in the Regina subsector.

A reward has been offered by the subsector government for the location of a senator who has been missing since 1102.

A recent uprising at Feri (0405) has cut the Imperial communication jump route from Regina (0310) to Efate (0105).

The government of Roup (0407) has made a subsector-wide call for surplus starships to supplement its local forces. There has been no opposition from the subsector government.

The Forboldn Project is the primary colonization project within the Regina subsector. Originally conceived in 987 to utilize the resources of Forboldn (02081, the project began its execution phase in 1089, shortly after the Fourth Frontier War. Large numbers of colonists were recruited and shipped in cold sleep from the Imperial core, with arrival times set from 1110 to 1120. Simultaneously, preparations on Forboldn began, with detailed planetary surveys to pinpoint resources and initial building projects to prepare industry and quarters for the arrival of colonists.

Interdicted worlds are interdicted because the lmperium is trying to conceal its mistakes in social and political planning.