Proto-Traveller
- Thread starter Jeffr0
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I was going to post that last link myself 
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=10687
the changes to the forums have seriously affected the formating of the tables unfortunately.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=10687
the changes to the forums have seriously affected the formating of the tables unfortunately.
I've been rolling up my own proto-Traveller universe where I use MGT for characters and CT Starter/TTB for combat & equipment.
It has only subsectors, 2 main subsectors and bits of 4 - more bits of the 2 to traling than to spinward.
It would be somewhat unstable - coreward subsector wanting to take over the rimward one. I would take a bit from Golan's 2 Visions of Empire thing but scale it down to use Humans, Vargr and Darrians (maybe I'd use the Solomani for the coreward subsector) and maybe Aslan.
Which bits of my setting do you intend to use?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Sandbox settings like this are great fun.
My advice would be don't plan too much. Let your players explore and make stuff up as they explore - they may do stuff or make stuff up that spurs your imagination.
My advice would be don't plan too much. Let your players explore and make stuff up as they explore - they may do stuff or make stuff up that spurs your imagination.
As far as the ship design rules: http://www.the-children-of-earth.org/CTRdl1.html
All put another way - the Imperium was seen as the bad guys, so their rules and laws were there to be broken, and their assets to be "liberated" for use by those more deserving... they were simpler times
I've just finished a rather extensive, chronological re-read of all my older, Proto-Traveller materials (including my favs, PPnd JG) and I cannot understate how much I agree with this. I spent some time really *remembering* what those old games from Junior High School and High School looked like. Aside from all the relatively juvenile nonsense, it really was a pretty dark Imperium.
D.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I remember a campaign where the players actively sought out the Ine Givar to join up - they viewed them as a 'Star Wars rebels' like group rather than terrorists.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Here is something from S3:SM that has been totally shelved by later authors:
what a setting it could have become
An empire on the wane, political dissent, rebels, external threats...
what a setting it could have become
That's a pretty good clue as to what kind of game the players want - Rebels vs. the Empire.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Absolutely. I'm currently reading the MtG Spinward Marches book, in the middle of the Third Imperium introduction. Like every description of the Imperium I've ever seen, the 3I runs like a well oiled, benevolent machine. They collect their taxes, leave everyone alone, and everything they touch fine. The problems that exist on worlds within their borders are caused by the people living on those worlds -- and since they don't interfere with the worlds within their borders (as per policy) their hands are simply clean.
My own thinking about RPG setting is that you need settings ripe with situation -- stress points of society, politics, monsters, something -- that allow the PCs a gap to enter and do things.
While all the planets of the Imperium allow for situation individually, the way the Imperium is described it always feels more like they could easily show up and handle any problems, keeping the peace as they see fit. (And by the way, keeping the peace is exactly how they are described. I can't hep but read the as the most benevolent massive government ever created.)
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
My proto-Traveller universe is built from the descriptions in CT adventures 1-3. My Imperium is much less benevolent and a much darker place than the third Imperium morphed into.
Colonists being shipped from the interior to colonise new worlds on the frontier - often against their will.
INI kidnapping psionic races from within and beyond the Imperium for secret research projects.
Megacorporations buying proxy governments in order to exploit whole systems.
The subsector dukes IMPTU will sponsor 'trade wars' and planetary unrest/dissent in rival subsectors in order to jockey for the position of sector duke, meanwhile the sector duke happily encourages this rivalry in order to maintain his/her status.
Colonists being shipped from the interior to colonise new worlds on the frontier - often against their will.
INI kidnapping psionic races from within and beyond the Imperium for secret research projects.
Megacorporations buying proxy governments in order to exploit whole systems.
The subsector dukes IMPTU will sponsor 'trade wars' and planetary unrest/dissent in rival subsectors in order to jockey for the position of sector duke, meanwhile the sector duke happily encourages this rivalry in order to maintain his/her status.
I've been rewatching Blake's 7 recently and the I think B7's Federation would give anyone a nice feel of a more corrupt Imperium.
This isn't your Star Trek Federation. Slave labour, political authoritarianism, but with high-stakes manoeuvrings among senior political/military leaders, populations on hi-tech worlds kept in line through tranquillisers in the air and water... that kind of thing.
I would love to do a B7 campaign using CT. The worlds as seen in the programme would fit CT worldgen quite nicely - there seem to be a lot of places with a few hundred or a few thousand inhabitants at quite low tech levels.
A Series 4 type setting would be perfect - the PCs are outlaw crew of a pretty ordinary ship (Scorpio rather than Liberator) out beyond the Federation's shrunken borders (post-alien invasion), trying to throw a spanner in the works of / keep one step ahead of the Federation's Pacification Programme as it rolls across the subsector, while pulling off some grand larceny on the side. There is even a baked-in reason to keep moving on from world to world.
Most of the B7 crew were Others (Vila needs Electronics-4 and some Streetwise; Avon needs Computers-4 plus some Electronics and maybe Forgery; Gan, Brawling and Medic); Scout could get reskinned as Smuggler for Jenna (Pilot, Navigation); Army could get redone as Guerrilla for Blake (he needs plenty of Leader, some Tactics and some gun skills). Tarrant would be straight-up Navy.
The more I think about it, the more Classic Traveller looks like Blake's 7: the RPG - except B7 came out a year later!
Enoff
SOC-13
[thumbsup]
Mike, you really ought to write it up, in a non-copyright-violating way.
Alternately, you really ought to write it up as a submission to Imperiallines.
Alternately, you really ought to write it up as a supplement for Mongoose Traveller.
Or all three.
... You know, I used some similar elements for Deneb Sector (squabbling dukes). For them, it goes back to the
Barracks Emperors period.
I like this. I really, really like this.
Also, to paraphrase...
"The Pax-D didn't do what we thought it would."
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Sounds like something from Thomas Hobbes.
I use role-playing games to get away from the Real World for a while, not ones that make it even worse than it is. Against that, it does conform with Calvin's viewpoint.
I use role-playing games to get away from the Real World for a while, not ones that make it even worse than it is. Against that, it does conform with Calvin's viewpoint.
But I suspect it allows acts of unabashed heroism to have greater effect than a brooding Calvinist perspective might.
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