New thought about the course of Traveller

[Blue Ghost]

I''ve played ST:RPG but can't really remember it but I did inherit my friend's Star Trek Starship Combat Simulator when he moved house which I used to play a lot until I bought Star Fleet Battles.

I agree with you about lack of adventures - they're more important to me than rules expansions. I'm not clever enough to come up with decent ones myself.
No, I think that's still the case. At least it is round here (Sheffield, UK). Though our biggest book shop does now have an "urban fantasy" section as well.

To me, and this is all hindsight mind you, Traveller is a kind of cops-and-robbers in space kind of game, with a smattering of special-ops sprinkled in here and there. Traveller's model, again this is my personal judgment, is based on the lifestyle of a certain kind of independently wealthy person who wants to do good, and finds themselves travelling overseas to intervene in local disputes.

The real world contemporary analogy is templated into the Traveller Rule Set, and ergo you get adventures about having to fight off natives or explore vast treks of territory, or even opponents who are pretty much like you and I, but you never get the adventure where, oh, say, you have to travel to the middle of a planet and find a bunch of dinosaurs or something.

I think part of it is because Marc Miller wants to push Traveller's real science edge, but I also think it's intentional because Traveller might be used as a training tool for criminologists. You'll see adventures about social and political uphevals, but you'll never see an adventure where some scientist drank his own elixer and is now fifity feet tall and rampaging in downtown startown-X.

Even so, Traveller can be fun. But I now understand why you don't see Star Wars or Star Trek kind of adventures published for the system. You don't see a team of adventurers jumping into a ship to confront "The Doomsday Machine" (though it would be most entertaining to see how they tackled that scenario). You don't see time travel plots, nor "evil robots taking over the world" kind of tropes. You don't see monsters invading a planet. Nor do you see strange super powered beings rampaging through Regina.

I kind of understand why now. Hell, it only took me what ... picked up the game when, in 79? 80? When did "Star Smuggler" come out?--because that was my "gateway drug". And here we are in 2014, and it's only now that I'm smacking my forehead and saying ... "Oh wow...is that why?!"

But, like I said elsewhere, even so, I grew up with the game like I did with my model trains, and it's a hobby I can put down. Ergo I've stuck with it.

Oh well. I should be sleeping. Tomorrow, I go back to shooting films...now in my 40s, writing for a quasi mediocre successful game, I wonder how this is all going to pan out.

...I sure could go for a double whopper with cheese about now...and a chocolate shake. That would make my life a whole lot easier

 

[SpaceBadger]

you never get the adventure where, oh, say, you have to travel to the middle of a planet and find a bunch of dinosaurs or something.

but you'll never see an adventure where some scientist drank his own elixer and is now fifity feet tall and rampaging in downtown startown-X.

You don't see a team of adventurers jumping into a ship to confront "The Doomsday Machine" (though it would be most entertaining to see how they tackled that scenario). You don't see time travel plots, nor "evil robots taking over the world" kind of tropes. You don't see monsters invading a planet. Nor do you see strange super powered beings rampaging through Regina.

And PTL for that!

I don't think it is so much a "science" or "cops/robbers" or "military" bias, so much as being a science fiction game rather than a space fantasy or 1950s-monster-movie game. Yeah, we have FTL drives and grav tech, but those are common SF handwaves - the rest of the stuff is supposed to at least sorta seem realistic enough to support Willing Suspension of Disbelief. It has to seem possible.

Your cited possible scenarios don't meet that standard (except maybe the robots... :smirk.

 

[tim_manley]

On the other hand, tabletop RPGs have now weathered their second, or maybe third, competitive "killer app". Magic the Gathering was the first, its cascade effects threatening the entire industry from within. Whether you count immersive video games in general and World of Warcraft specifically as one or two further competitors is largely semantics. It could also be argued that the OGL that accompanied D&D 3.0 was another such, but that was still a tabletop RPG, and ended up being a huge boon after a brief bottleneck.

Still the hobby is greying, or parts of it are. We are losing the first generation of RPGers already, but replacements seem to arise from the ranks of bored teenagers.

I'm training a new crew.

I have 5 kids, my two oldest (25 & 23) had zero interest. My 3rd (now 16) enjoyed the fantasy games. I've been running games for him and his friends for over two years now. And his group of friends have expanded their play into other genres (nothing sci-fi alas... but one of them is a firefly fanatic so I'm hoping to get him bit by the Traveller bug).

I have two younger (5 & 3) that want so desperately to play. So I have two more that I'll train up to replace the ranks of aging numbers... and my 5 year old is in LOVE with the old Star Trek cartoons (thank you Netflix). So maybe I have a future Traveller player on may hands....

 

[Blue Ghost]

And PTL for that!

I don't think it is so much a "science" or "cops/robbers" or "military" bias, so much as being a science fiction game rather than a space fantasy or 1950s-monster-movie game. Yeah, we have FTL drives and grav tech, but those are common SF handwaves - the rest of the stuff is supposed to at least sorta seem realistic enough to support Willing Suspension of Disbelief. It has to seem possible.

Your cited possible scenarios don't meet that standard (except maybe the robots... :smirk.

If you really strip down the setting and other "far future" adornments, you'll find that the scenarios are direct reflections of law enforcement scenarios here on Earth. Whether its corporations helping Mujahadeen freedom fighters in the 70s, or Greenpeace interdicting whalers, or even US Marines and Special Forces in Somalia, there's an analog in Traveller.

I think the closest Traveller comes to sci-fi is the Kinunir with the schizophrenic computer (minus the big lumbering obelisk floating outside the ship a-la 2001) and "Secret of the Ancients" where your players finally meet Grandfather, whose been pulling their strings the entire time.

I shrug at it now. I still like Traveller. But it seems like if you want some more challenges, then you need to look outside the established background canon.

 

[Vladika]

If you really strip down the setting and other "far future" adornments, you'll find that the scenarios are direct reflections of law enforcement scenarios here on Earth. Whether its corporations helping Mujahadeen freedom fighters in the 70s, or Greenpeace interdicting whalers, or even US Marines and Special Forces in Somalia, there's an analog in Traveller.

I think the closest Traveller comes to sci-fi is the Kinunir with the schizophrenic computer (minus the big lumbering obelisk floating outside the ship a-la 2001) and "Secret of the Ancients" where your players finally meet Grandfather, whose been pulling their strings the entire time.

I shrug at it now. I still like Traveller. But it seems like if you want some more challenges, then you need to look outside the established background canon.

Research Station Gama?

 

[mike wightman]

Adventure 1 - Kinunir corporate espionage, prison break, salvage vs hostile AI
Adventure 2 - RSG come to the aid of a refugee chirper and discover dirty goings on at an Imperial Research Station
Adventure 3 - Twilight's Peak trading and patrons with clues to the adventure eventually
Adventure 4 - exploration and trade in a brand new region
The early adventures don't exactly follow a formula - you could just use the rumours section in most of them to run a campaign and never stumble across the main adventure itself.
Mind you the Imperium was a much more vague entity and you had a lot more freedom to make stuff up.

I was flicking through my B0-8 BFB this morning and it is really noticeable how post HG2 the rule books are OTU Imperium specific rather than generic Imperium like setting as LBB1-5 had been.

 

[manley_t]

I've never run any if the published adventures. I've always used them for source material to support what I've made up. Some of my games have been rather sci-fi esque. I've done exploration of new planets and solar systems. I've run purely merchant games. I once ran a medical game where they were fighting against time to help cure a plague.

 

[Carlobrand]

... You don't see a team of adventurers jumping into a ship to confront "The Doomsday Machine" (though it would be most entertaining to see how they tackled that scenario). You don't see time travel plots, nor "evil robots taking over the world" kind of tropes. You don't see monsters invading a planet. Nor do you see strange super powered beings rampaging through Regina. ...

Eh??

Double Adventure 4, Horde/Chamax Plague: monsters invading a planet.

Traveller/New Era: evil robots - well, software - taking over the Imperium. Also lots of opportunities for "Doomsday Machine" scenarios.

I agree, a lot of Trav adventures are cops-and-robbers, also a lot of "solve the mystery" scooby-dooing, but there's the occasional bow to classic tropes. Might have been a better game if there had been more of that, but by its structure a lot of Trav revolves around how to get enough for your next mortgage payment or how to build your wealth, not exactly something that brings out the Forbidden Planet adventures.

Maybe, if we're going to talk about the future of Trav, we should move away from merchants and retired ex-fillindablanks trying to allay the boredom of their retirement years, and instead embrace active-duty scouting. Maybe we could focus more on the science fiction element if the adventurer is actually in the employ of government and tasked to explore the unknown. That was something of the premise of the initial adventure, the Imperial Fringe, and indeed threads of it remain in several of the adventures, but the whole business about meeting your mortgage payments maybe took us astray of that.

 

[robject]

Hmm, a Doomsday Machine adventure sounds like an interesting idea.

It might be best done in non-Imperial space. I've got "berserkers" in my ATU/Faraway Sector.

 

[Hemdian]

Maybe, if we're going to talk about the future of Trav, we should move away from merchants and retired ex-fillindablanks trying to allay the boredom of their retirement years, and instead embrace active-duty scouting. Maybe we could focus more on the science fiction element if the adventurer is actually in the employ of government and tasked to explore the unknown. That was something of the premise of the initial adventure, the Imperial Fringe, and indeed threads of it remain in several of the adventures, but the whole business about meeting your mortgage payments maybe took us astray of that.

Agreed. I don't think I've ever run a straight merchant campaign. For years I've been running campaigns based on active-duty naval personnel. And my last campaign revolved around a misjump into unknown space (I was aiming for something like Star Trek: Voyager but since I started Stargate: Universe also visited some of the same memes (but my campaign pre-dated that show)).

Meanwhile, don't forget a trilogy of adventures by Judges Guild ... The Border Prowler series (Amycus Probe, Rogue Moon of Spinstorm, and Darkling Ship) ... that was military/exploration based. Dra'k'ne Station involved exploring a giant abandoned ship. And 3Mann has recently published an English version of Hephaestus (originally a German adventure about a giant ship).

 

[mike wightman]

How's this for radical.

A complete setting reboot.

Or move the setting forward another few thousand years so some of the new toys in T5 can actually be used.

 

[Vladika]

How's this for radical.

A complete setting reboot.

Or move the setting forward another few thousand years so some of the new toys in T5 can actually be used.

All for it. Maybe then CT RetCons could be Retro RetConed away and...

Anyway, I believe you are correct in that to much new T5 goodies need a more advanced in the years setting.

 

[Hemdian]

How's this for radical.

A complete setting reboot.

Or move the setting forward another few thousand years so some of the new toys in T5 can actually be used.

I don't want a setting reboot. There's plenty of scope to build on what we have.

I seem to remember there was some talk at the start of the T5 beta for a setting based on the Julian Wars. This is a relatively undeveloped area/period ... so lots of new stuff. Adventures could be written that allowed PCs to be on either side of the conflict (and portray the other side is villains).

(And yet despite all the other settings available for Traveller right now, I still find myself drawn back to the Spinward Marches during the Golden Era.)

 

[mike wightman]

If you look in the T5 rules you will find a whole section on synthetic beings and robots - can't use them in the OTU though.

There are new drives that allow you to have a campaign that spans the galaxy - can't use them in the OTU though.

I want a setting that shows off the rules, that is how the OTU started life, as a sandbox to show how you could apply the stuff in the rulebooks.

As it is most of the cool new stuff in T5 doesn't fit in the OTU.

 

[SpaceBadger]

I have run a Scout-like exploration campaign; not active duty Scouts, but a crew put together by a development corporation to look for opportunities in a newly opened sector. The problem was to come up with activities for them that weren't just typical Traveller stuff moved out into the wilderness, or else exploration of unpopulated worlds, which you or I might like, but my players quickly got bored with (more about this campaign in another thread). I still think they would have gotten into it more if they had found one of the populated worlds and had to make contact, but at the time I was giving them a free hand as to where to go - maybe too big of a sandbox for them to find the fun stuff.

Another oldie-but-goody (I think) is like my current SBRD campaign; sure, they are a free trader crew, but making a pile of money isn't their main goal, so it isn't really a merchant campaign; the trading is just an excuse to travel and have adventures (yeah, Firefly-influenced somewhat).

It also makes a difference what you and your players like, and what you consider to be good science fiction. I like the works of Robert Heinlein (early), and Poul Anderson, and Larry Niven, and H. Beam Piper, and Allen Steele, and Lawrence Watt-Evans; none of these feature such craziness as a person growing to fifty feet tall, or an invasion by Godzilla (although Heinlein did a different kind of alien invasion in The Puppet Masters), or super-powered beings, but rather they wrote stories about people living in different situations due to advances in technology, but still dealing with human problems. That's the SF I like, and the kind of Traveller adventures that I like.

 

[whulorigan]

If you look in the T5 rules you will find a whole section on synthetic beings and robots - can't use them in the OTU though.

There are new drives that allow you to have a campaign that spans the galaxy - can't use them in the OTU though.

I want a setting that shows off the rules, that is how the OTU started life, as a sandbox to show how you could apply the stuff in the rulebooks.

As it is most of the cool new stuff in T5 doesn't fit in the OTU.

The "Far Future/Galaxiad" era supposedly takes place in Imperial Year 1900. Mant of the new T5 gadgets ought to be useable there (and I am guessing that is exactly why the era is being developed and set that far in the future).

 

[Blue Ghost]

Research Station Gama?

PETA's revenge against animal research.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Eh??

Double Adventure 4, Horde/Chamax Plague: monsters invading a planet.

Traveller/New Era: evil robots - well, software - taking over the Imperium. Also lots of opportunities for "Doomsday Machine" scenarios.

I agree, a lot of Trav adventures are cops-and-robbers, also a lot of "solve the mystery" scooby-dooing, but there's the occasional bow to classic tropes. Might have been a better game if there had been more of that, but by its structure a lot of Trav revolves around how to get enough for your next mortgage payment or how to build your wealth, not exactly something that brings out the Forbidden Planet adventures.

Maybe, if we're going to talk about the future of Trav, we should move away from merchants and retired ex-fillindablanks trying to allay the boredom of their retirement years, and instead embrace active-duty scouting. Maybe we could focus more on the science fiction element if the adventurer is actually in the employ of government and tasked to explore the unknown. That was something of the premise of the initial adventure, the Imperial Fringe, and indeed threads of it remain in several of the adventures, but the whole business about meeting your mortgage payments maybe took us astray of that.

The whole Chamax episode is interesting in that after a few hours of in game time, during the initial outbreak, you wind up with an army of soldiers whom you've picked up. So much to the point that you ought to be able to turn that alien bug invasion around. I wonder who play tested that adventure.

To me it always struck me as someone's attempt to comment on the then "killer bee" invasion of California.

 

[robject]

The whole Chamax episode is interesting in that after a few hours of in game time, during the initial outbreak, you wind up with an army of soldiers whom you've picked up. So much to the point that you ought to be able to turn that alien bug invasion around. I wonder who play tested that adventure.

To me it always struck me as someone's attempt to comment on the then "killer bee" invasion of California.

Noting first that the Chamax double adventure is a product of the Keith brothers, it should be no wonder that part of it is quite military-oriented.

"A modified portion of Horde was used as the official Traveller tournament at Gencon East, July23-26, 1981."

Inside flap of Horde, which is the 2nd half of the Chamax double adventure, where the players can scoop up with a number of loose fighting elements.

So apparently it was played at Gencon East. Further down the flap in the credits, I see:

Playtesting .... Tom B. Kokkelenberg, Wayne Allen Budwick, Michael Scott Messenger, and Jim Just. They playtested both halves of the adventure.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Huh, interesting. Well, maybe we ran it wrong in our group or something.