Referee How-To: Starting A Traveller Campaign...
Although I've been involved with Traveller since I was first introduced to it in 1985-86, I've only relatively recently had the experience of running a longterm Traveller campaign. As many of you know, I've run one campaign set in an ATU. In that adventure, the party represented the primary crew of a scientific exploration cruiser exploring the unknown. That campaign lasted a year, and then I started my current Fourth Imperium campaign, which has run for a year and a half and is still going. The Fourth Imperium campaign is based originally on those tidbits released pre-playtest by MJD on the 1248 timeline, and the first chapters of the playtest files, and has grown with the development of the playtest. In the current campaign, characters are members of the Imperial Covert Services Bureau, a remnant of a pre-existing intelligence agency that reports directly to the Emperor. Not nearly as powerful or influential as IRIS in the 3I, the ICSB fills a similar role in being the Emperor's Eyes and Ears.
Over the course of running both campaigns, I did pick up a few details or suggestions on how to approach starting and running a Traveller campaign, and figured that if I posted them here, others might also contribute their experiences and the results might aid new Traveller referees. Please feel free to review what I've posted and share your thoughts on running a game.
My first and perhaps best suggestion: If you are having trouble finding gamers that are interested in a regular weekly Traveller campaign, try going for a once-a-month game. While people may have an issue with setting aside a weekday evening or some portion of a weekend for "yet another game", they can more often make time for a once-a-month commitment. Only when I tried this did I successfully attract a regular gaming group for Traveller.
Okay, with that behind us, the first piece of actual gaming advice I'd suggest is to get a decent idea of the overall area you would want to game in. Do you want to run a campaign that primarily focuses on a single subsector, a quadrant, a sector, or even a domain? My first campaign covered a subsector, and my current campaign covers a quadrant so far. Myself, I have found that I like focusing on quadrants, but I'm not ruling out taking the game to a full sector. Quadrants give me more choice than subsectors, but not so much that I am not overwhelmed. As I get more familiar with the area, though, a sector may not be that big a step. But if this is your first campaign, I'd suggest staying with a subsector or quadrant, at most.
Look over the astrography of the area you've selected for your game. Make a few short notes about the interstellar governments, aka polities, located within that region of space. Take a copy of the map, and highlight Jump-1 mains so that you can see where most trade occurs. Use a second highlight color to indicate Jump-2 routes that connect the Jump-1 mains. Isolated areas unreachable by Jump-2 often see very little cross-traffic, something worth noting when you are planning adventures later.
Note High Population worlds, as well as other worlds of interest, such as Amber Zones, Red Zones, high Law Levels and high (and low) Tech Levels. Knowing where the different things are gives you a sense of what kind of adventures might unfold for you. Try writing a brief paragraph about each of these worlds (or at least three-five of them) as an exercise for your imagination. (It also gives you Library Data entries for the future.) This helps give you some background from which to expand your game in the future.
Now that you have an idea of what the general area looks like, start small. You can't fit the entire OTU into your first gaming session, nor should you try. Choose a smaller locale, a world with a Class D starport perhaps, where the starport is probably no bigger than your local airport, and it's easier for players to focus on the more limited amount of options. As they adventure, they'll learn more about the worlds around them, one step at a time, and won't be overwhelmed.
Scale will always be an issue, and may cause you some concern and possible even Referee's Block. In that case, try scaling down everything in your head. Unless your adventure calls for it, the players aren't going to be sending their characters everywhere on Planet 1028. To them, Planet 1028 is simply another starport and perhaps a city associated with it. If you don't feel like developing the system more than that, that's still okay. It's easier to think in terms of cities and airports than worlds and parsecs. When your imagination gives you more, feel free to create adventures that exploit that, such as a great pseudo-dinosaur hunt on Planet 1129, that garden world with the primitive lifeforms. Ultimately, the characters only experience adventures one "room" at a time, so don't feel compelled to design and detail every location. Just detail what you need for the adventure, and whatever else suits your fancy. In time, the details will grow, and the game will become more than the sum of its parts. When you see the players talking about the game's details and pulling various facets from their previous adventures, you'll know you're at that point, and it becomes easier to plan and run adventures.
As you come up with adventure ideas, make notes somewhere to refer to later. Even if you can't use them as you had originally planned, the concept might mutate down the road into something else that will add to your gamers' Traveller experience.
Okay, I think this will do for starters. I'll add some more to this later. I hope others do, too.
Enjoy,
Flynn
Although I've been involved with Traveller since I was first introduced to it in 1985-86, I've only relatively recently had the experience of running a longterm Traveller campaign. As many of you know, I've run one campaign set in an ATU. In that adventure, the party represented the primary crew of a scientific exploration cruiser exploring the unknown. That campaign lasted a year, and then I started my current Fourth Imperium campaign, which has run for a year and a half and is still going. The Fourth Imperium campaign is based originally on those tidbits released pre-playtest by MJD on the 1248 timeline, and the first chapters of the playtest files, and has grown with the development of the playtest. In the current campaign, characters are members of the Imperial Covert Services Bureau, a remnant of a pre-existing intelligence agency that reports directly to the Emperor. Not nearly as powerful or influential as IRIS in the 3I, the ICSB fills a similar role in being the Emperor's Eyes and Ears.
Over the course of running both campaigns, I did pick up a few details or suggestions on how to approach starting and running a Traveller campaign, and figured that if I posted them here, others might also contribute their experiences and the results might aid new Traveller referees. Please feel free to review what I've posted and share your thoughts on running a game.
My first and perhaps best suggestion: If you are having trouble finding gamers that are interested in a regular weekly Traveller campaign, try going for a once-a-month game. While people may have an issue with setting aside a weekday evening or some portion of a weekend for "yet another game", they can more often make time for a once-a-month commitment. Only when I tried this did I successfully attract a regular gaming group for Traveller.
Okay, with that behind us, the first piece of actual gaming advice I'd suggest is to get a decent idea of the overall area you would want to game in. Do you want to run a campaign that primarily focuses on a single subsector, a quadrant, a sector, or even a domain? My first campaign covered a subsector, and my current campaign covers a quadrant so far. Myself, I have found that I like focusing on quadrants, but I'm not ruling out taking the game to a full sector. Quadrants give me more choice than subsectors, but not so much that I am not overwhelmed. As I get more familiar with the area, though, a sector may not be that big a step. But if this is your first campaign, I'd suggest staying with a subsector or quadrant, at most.
Look over the astrography of the area you've selected for your game. Make a few short notes about the interstellar governments, aka polities, located within that region of space. Take a copy of the map, and highlight Jump-1 mains so that you can see where most trade occurs. Use a second highlight color to indicate Jump-2 routes that connect the Jump-1 mains. Isolated areas unreachable by Jump-2 often see very little cross-traffic, something worth noting when you are planning adventures later.
Note High Population worlds, as well as other worlds of interest, such as Amber Zones, Red Zones, high Law Levels and high (and low) Tech Levels. Knowing where the different things are gives you a sense of what kind of adventures might unfold for you. Try writing a brief paragraph about each of these worlds (or at least three-five of them) as an exercise for your imagination. (It also gives you Library Data entries for the future.) This helps give you some background from which to expand your game in the future.
Now that you have an idea of what the general area looks like, start small. You can't fit the entire OTU into your first gaming session, nor should you try. Choose a smaller locale, a world with a Class D starport perhaps, where the starport is probably no bigger than your local airport, and it's easier for players to focus on the more limited amount of options. As they adventure, they'll learn more about the worlds around them, one step at a time, and won't be overwhelmed.
Scale will always be an issue, and may cause you some concern and possible even Referee's Block. In that case, try scaling down everything in your head. Unless your adventure calls for it, the players aren't going to be sending their characters everywhere on Planet 1028. To them, Planet 1028 is simply another starport and perhaps a city associated with it. If you don't feel like developing the system more than that, that's still okay. It's easier to think in terms of cities and airports than worlds and parsecs. When your imagination gives you more, feel free to create adventures that exploit that, such as a great pseudo-dinosaur hunt on Planet 1129, that garden world with the primitive lifeforms. Ultimately, the characters only experience adventures one "room" at a time, so don't feel compelled to design and detail every location. Just detail what you need for the adventure, and whatever else suits your fancy. In time, the details will grow, and the game will become more than the sum of its parts. When you see the players talking about the game's details and pulling various facets from their previous adventures, you'll know you're at that point, and it becomes easier to plan and run adventures.
As you come up with adventure ideas, make notes somewhere to refer to later. Even if you can't use them as you had originally planned, the concept might mutate down the road into something else that will add to your gamers' Traveller experience.
Okay, I think this will do for starters. I'll add some more to this later. I hope others do, too.
Enjoy,
Flynn
