[Surprise Interest/Nostalgia] I didn't know I liked pre-made setting material.

[Poppyseed45]

In general, through most of my roleplaying "career" I've been the GM, and one of the things I liked doing was coming up with whatever stuff I needed for the setting I was using, and not necessarily using the stuff from the book for it. In my old AD+D days, I drew maps of places. For Traveller, I generated my own star systems and the like. In almost every "urban fantasy" game, I'd create a town or city for things to be set, made up all the politics and the like, and went for it. I thumbed my nose at meta-story and featured NPCs and the like; that was for the less-awesome-than-me.

And now, as I've discovered, I am not that guy anymore. Just got the Classic Traveller Supplements 1-13 Reprints today in the mail. Finished a major bit of work and took a break for lunch, reading the book. When I ordered the thing, I'd really just wanted the Supplement 4 (Citizens) and Supplement 6 (76 Patrons). I was sort of "meh" about the rest.

But reading it, I realized - the Sector descriptions ROCK. And the Library Data entries are just awesome. Have to dig more carefully, but there you go. I'm starting again at 1001 characters and I find myself happily looking through the lists of characters (and that's all they are, 2-line lists of stats and skills).

It's strange to me, given how I felt about things even a few months ago. Is this a function of age (soon 37!)? Or just tiredness and not wanting to do the heavy lifting anymore? Or something else? The minimalist old writing style? I have the Classic Books 0-8, but never in my life saw any of the supplements, so for them, there's no direct nostalgia factor; in fact, I'd shunned them, as I described above.

Anyone discovered the same? Love charts and pre-made settings and all sorts of maps and diagrams? Pretty sure I'll be heading towards a Classic Trav game in a few months now.

 

[saundby]

For me it's cyclical. I always enjoy mining published material. At first I could never use it straight because of players who read it and memorize it before I run it. But that's not such a problem now.

i rarely run published campaign material, but when I do I enjoy it. The appeals are that it takes less time and work, it forms a basis of common experience with other player groups, and it's fun to see what can be done within the provided framework. I usually start running a published adventure or campaign when there won't be time to prepare for a game otherwise.

The game materials also look different when you're using them rather than just mining them. Which makes them fun to read again, from a different perspective.

 

[LeperColony]

I love background material. For me, a lot of the fun of RP settings is trying to imagine how things could work in the universe to support in game assumptions. For instance, I recall somewhere there was some huge dispute about whether or not piracy makes economic sense in Traveller. For me, the fun thing is assuming piracy exists in Traveller, since canon says it does, what sorts of conditions have to exist in the OTU to make it feasible. So I like background materials not only for whatever value they might hold in game play, but also as thought exercises.

As far as using them in play, I definitely make use of published settings when I play RPGs. Rarely do I run it exactly like it says, but rarely do I discard it entirely. I've never been a big fan of published adventures though. I might steal the idea, but that's about it.

 

[saundby]

...For instance, I recall somewhere there was some huge dispute about whether or not piracy makes economic sense in Traveller...

Hehe, piracy is one of the perennial Trav disputes. It's not disputed somwhere, it's disputed everywhere!

Personally, I take your view. The rules say it's there, the next step is to figure out why, when technically it appears impossible. Clearly, it's not a technical problem, IMO.

I hope this doesn't re-start the discussion. Wait, here are some other places to read up on and discuss the piracy thing:
Piracy in Traveller
Piracy Redux
The Politics of Piracy
A Different Paradigm for Naval Warfare (and maybe piracy?)
Pirates, Ahoy!
Piracy as Government Policy
Pirate Ship Size
Private War - Noble Warfare?
Privateers and Gentlemen - Piracy in Proto-Traveller
Boarding Actions - Do Those Really Happen?
Do the Citizens of the Imperium Accept or Reject Piracy?
So, Who Actually Builds Corsairs?
A Piracy Paradigm (one of my favorite piracy threads)
Every Single Traveller Holy War

 

[Poppyseed45]

I love background material. For me, a lot of the fun of RP settings is trying to imagine how things could work in the universe to support in game assumptions. For instance, I recall somewhere there was some huge dispute about whether or not piracy makes economic sense in Traveller. For me, the fun thing is assuming piracy exists in Traveller, since canon says it does, what sorts of conditions have to exist in the OTU to make it feasible. So I like background materials not only for whatever value they might hold in game play, but also as thought exercises.

Exactly! Doing that now with nobles over in the In My Traveller Universe section - after all, now that I've read the essays and the like, canon OTU says there are nobles who do stuff. We also know that people with both noble titles, and those who were actual "ruling" nobles can muster out and go adventuring. So, what does that take to make the logical or plausible? Been having fun I tell you.