Some IMTU stuff

[aramis]

... we've got Proto useful, if not Proto throwback, materials being put out by GDW and, more importantly, authorized third party publishers after 1980.

Again, that's why I think Proto in the form of a mindset or tenor lingered on well past 1980.

Not from GDW, really. S10 is useful only because the library data in it can be ignored.

A5 is barely OTU.
A6 looks to be "growing" the sizes. 2000Td cruisers, 1000Td destroyers.

A7 might be a throwback...
A10 SS is clearly big-business imperium.
A8, 9, & 11 are also that same Big Business 3I...

Oh, and the canonical "O3 Major" is in A7... p 46. "Off-dirt rank". Which is, by the way, out of sequence...

 

[BwapTED]

The Imperium of pOTU is often portrayed as the bad guys. Corrupt nobles, political prisoners, a much darker setting in general.

Corrupt nobles, political prisoners, and a 'much darker' setting sounds like what I recall of Megatraveller.

Was there a short period in the early 80s during which most Traveller materials presented a 'good guy Imperium' and/or a comic/light setting?

 

[aramis]

Corrupt nobles, political prisoners, and a 'much darker' setting sounds like what I recall of Megatraveller.

Was there a short period in the early 80s during which most Traveller materials presented a 'good guy Imperium' and/or a comic/light setting?

Think of the pOTU as MT's "Lucan's Imperium" being the way the whole imperium operates. The pOTU Imperium is clearly the bad guys, in the same way Lucan's Imperium is.

The later, Neutral (neither good nor evil) 3I is much less dark.
Even darker are some of the 3rd party adventures and supplements from the early period. Scouts and Assassins comes immediately to mind.

 

[BwapTED]

Think of the pOTU as MT's "Lucan's Imperium" being the way the whole imperium operates. The pOTU Imperium is clearly the bad guys, in the same way Lucan's Imperium is.

The later, Neutral (neither good nor evil) 3I is much less dark.
Even darker are some of the 3rd party adventures and supplements from the early period. Scouts and Assassins comes immediately to mind.

The whole thing? Dang, son.


I'm inclined to go 'gray' on the Imperium. But light or dark or in-between, the Imperium IMTU does not usually interfere much with the internal affairs of member worlds, so long as no challenge to the imperial system is mounted and the trade flows. Yes, there are small wars. Rival nobles even duke it out with huscarls and mercs.

An 'evil Imperium' game would be fun for a 'rebels against the Empire' kind of game, but that's not the direction my players seem inclined to go.
IMC, the Imperium runs the starports. That's the main way for players to interact with the Imperial authorities. The extrality line has come into play once already. Tariffs and fees are collected at the starports.

The Navy goes after smugglers and pirates. 'Smuggler' means anyone who bypasses Imperial starports to import and export goods and people, and 'pirate' covers everything from ship-jackers to rebels with starships.
I use a draft. Details vary a lot by world and service.

 

[Timerover51]

Think of the pOTU as MT's "Lucan's Imperium" being the way the whole imperium operates. The pOTU Imperium is clearly the bad guys, in the same way Lucan's Imperium is.

The later, Neutral (neither good nor evil) 3I is much less dark.
Even darker are some of the 3rd party adventures and supplements from the early period. Scouts and Assassins comes immediately to mind.

If I had viewed the original Traveller books in that light, they would not have interested me. Therefore, I respectfully disagree with your characterization. As for MegaTraveller being dark, I would fully agree with that, which is why I have little to no interest in it. As for the New Era, that is even worse.

 

[aramis]

If I had viewed the original Traveller books in that light, they would not have interested me. Therefore, I respectfully disagree with your characterization. As for MegaTraveller being dark, I would fully agree with that, which is why I have little to no interest in it. As for the New Era, that is even worse.

Noting the following in another thread...

First thing is tell players how you run your games. I do not allow illegal activities for player characters except under exceptional circumstances.

You'd be hard pressed to run many of the classic Traveller adventures.

It's not implausible you would ignore the darker overtones due to a less pessimistic view of the world than many. I'll note that the earlier 3rd party stuff picked up on them, and ran with them. Couple that to the wildly popular Star Wars, the cult-favorite Battle Beyond the Stars, the rather popular Falkenberg's Legion novels... you have a number of dark-empire influences reinforcing the theme of a corrupt empire and criminal protagonists.

I'll also admit that I didn't see the "darker side" of the Traveller setting until many years later... but then, I didn't buy most of the adventures until the late 90's. (In HS, I had A3, A7, A8, A12, and TTA - A3 and A12 had alien races, A7 had deckplans, and A8 was a birthday gift. TTA was for the alien generation as well.) And the only 3rd party stuff I had was the 4-sector block from Judges Guild - my then FLGS didn't carry anything but GDW, DGP, and JG stuff for Traveller.

The Paranoia Press and GW stuff is also dark, as is much of the Judges Guild stuff.

 

[mike wightman]

Lol - the first adventure in the first adventure asks the players to break into a shipyard and conduct industrial espionage.

Sort of sets the tone...

Read the Kinunir, Research Station Gamma and Twilight's Peak - there are loads or references to a despotic Imperium and plenty of adventure seeds that ask the players to do illegal stuff.

TTA starts with an adventure to steal a necklace and smuggle a wanted criminal off world. At various stages throughout the adventure the players become involved in breaking and entering (several times), a jailbreak, industrial espionage, assisting sex slavers, assisting terrorists, piracy (sorry trade war) and of course the worst crime of all - psionics.

 

[BwapTED]

The recent game involved the PCs' coming up with and carrying out a plan to run guns to a band of submarine/pirate/guerillas on a water world.


Later, one of them committed a senseless murder.
If you will…
Setting:
Law level nine world; the starport has recently been badly damaged by a terrorist micro nuke. Both the local gov’t and starport Imperial authorities are on edge. (The PCs know about the law level and the recent attack)
Cameras are visible in many public places, East Germany (or London) style.


Action in sequence:

Soon-to-be-murderer has found himself unarmed because he forget to remove his personal weapons from the lot he sold the rebels (The other players thought it was pretty funny when he tried to buy them back and was asked to pay double—which he refused).
PC in question buys an illegal, one shot ‘antique ‘ (overpriced black powder zip gun), gets a room at a cheap brothel, and shoots a hooker. Why? It appears he was angry that the other PCs had earlier thwarted his attempt to shoot a weird but seemingly harmless alien that was following them.

PC flees the scene of the crime, smoking gun still in hand. Passes under camera.

Cut to posh bar where other PCs are enjoying some drinks, looking for patrons, and watching TV. Newsflash: offworlder wanted for murder, downtown brothel’’. CCTV footage shows their business partner running out of a building holding a smoking gun.
Yeah.

They were to the starport in record time, where they cashed in high passages to the furthest planet on the flights list.

The murder made it across the extrality line ahead of the local cops only to be detained by starport authorities. The clerk who now stood as the highest ranking Imperial official (the attack scrubbed his higher ups) looked ta the case and basically told the PC “I don’t want more trouble. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t turn you over to the locals.’

The players good reason was a massive bribe, which got him a deal for summary conviction on lesser charges (disturbing starport, impeding commerce, yadda, yadda) of low passage to an Imperial prison moon for a ‘short stint, be over before you know it.’
He made his roll and didn’t end up a corpsicle. Now he’s trying to bribe his way off the very unpleasant prison moon. Ever seen Midnight Express?