"Second Life... in Spaaaaace!"
The point of Traveller
- Thread starter DMC64
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"Second Life... in Spaaaaace!"
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I'm pretty sure there is a game out there that has done just this, and I don't mean T20 
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
This is the difference with Traveller. It is really scenario based rather than a true long play RPG in the sense of D & D or MMORPGs. The character is generated with advanced skills in place along with other traits and is then played in a scenario.
If you want to repeatedly use the character there is little in the way of them "advancing" as in D & D built into the game. At best it's an add-on to the game.
You also have options to play it more like a board or miniatures wargame. You can have fleet battles or make large military units and fight over a planet if you want. In this sense it is somewhat like Sid Meier's Alpha Centuari or Masters of Orion for example.
Like many miniatures wargames a lot of the rules are left up to the players / referee to establish. That's nothing new to long term miniatures players however.
So, if you really wanted to play characters long term you'd have to homebrew a means to turn the character generation system into one where as you play you get skills based on what your character does rather than you getting to choose your skills at random like in most RPG.
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
That was my response, yes.
I had been recruiting players to Traveller using that very concept: PCs can do absolutely anything they want in Trav as long as they are ready for the consequences. Mike had to go and prove it in the most mundane way he could find.
well ... how? traveller characters already start out fairly advanced in years, advancing in levels adds to those years. and given that traveller is "realistic", skill acquisition is not merely a matter of rapid experience (you swing a sword a bunch of times, you get better at it in a month or two), but of hard grinding experience and training (you spend a few years in a yard, you learn how to install power plants, if you successfully apply yourself and if your supervisor approves, etc). and the skills are not always exciting. in d&d you get your charisma raised, hey, you command an army! in traveller you get your social standing raised, hey, you ... don't necessarily command anything. in d&d you kill stuff all day long and the peasants love you. in traveller you kill anything and there might be a large amount of high-level attention focused on you. in d&d you reach level 9 and mercenaries flock to you and you build your own little keep in the uninhabited wilderness. in traveller you reach ss 14 and claim your own planet - if the local nobility approves, if you have the resources, if you don't have noble-level competition, etc.
and above all, in d&d increasing levels means increasing hit points, but in traveller hit points don't change. in traveller a 10 year old girl with a pistol and a random shot can kill a 50 year old mercenary commander with a dozen battles experience.
the concept of levels simply isn't part of the traveller framework.
"Also, I can kill you with my mind." - River Tam to Jayne Cobb
ManOfGrey
SOC-12
For just a minute...forget the numbers.
If I may, for just a minute…forget the numbers. Never mind whether it’s Dungeons and Dragons, or Traveller. Forget the dice, forget the character sheet, forget the rules.
And tell a story.
Your imagination is the limit.
The point of Traveller, as least as far as I’m concerned, is to tell a story – an interactive one. One in which the players have a hand in determining the ending. One in which the players can catch the Referee by surprise and take the story in any direction they want. One, that by the end of the night, everyone can enjoy, reminisce, and use as a seed for the next story.
But this isn’t news. I’m sure everyone understands this most basic of premises. But, maybe…just maybe…we sometimes forget that behind all the rules, the canon, and (in D&D’s case,) just how many experience points that monster we just slayed was worth.
Create a plot, and suck your players in. They often surprise you where they might take your story when you give them half a chance. I know mine do.
And let us know how it goes. I, for one, would like to hear.
Good luck!
If I may, for just a minute…forget the numbers. Never mind whether it’s Dungeons and Dragons, or Traveller. Forget the dice, forget the character sheet, forget the rules.
And tell a story.
Your imagination is the limit.
The point of Traveller, as least as far as I’m concerned, is to tell a story – an interactive one. One in which the players have a hand in determining the ending. One in which the players can catch the Referee by surprise and take the story in any direction they want. One, that by the end of the night, everyone can enjoy, reminisce, and use as a seed for the next story.
But this isn’t news. I’m sure everyone understands this most basic of premises. But, maybe…just maybe…we sometimes forget that behind all the rules, the canon, and (in D&D’s case,) just how many experience points that monster we just slayed was worth.
Create a plot, and suck your players in. They often surprise you where they might take your story when you give them half a chance. I know mine do.
And let us know how it goes. I, for one, would like to hear.
Good luck!
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Since the question is framed around the matter of progression because I think progression does exist in Traveller -- it simply isn't expressed mechanically. It is instead expressed through details that were part of RPG play from the beginning.
1. Something to think about OD&D (which has been kind of lost) is that one did not simply gain levels to gain levels. One gained levels to gain property, clear lands, build fortresses. There was an end game: power and property. Leveling allowed you to make sure you had the strength to do this.
2. Traveller does not assume that the Players are rising toward power and property. They might choose to, but it is not defined.
3. This is part of the issue: Classic Traveller is not only open ended in terms of end game goals for the the Players, it does not actually list possible game goals. The end game goals can be any number of things. They can be about power, trade, military operations, political conflicts, scientific mysteries to be solved. Note that many of these things can be mixed and matched in many ways -- just as they might have been in an old D&D game on the way to building an maintaining a castle. But what we're talking about is the overarching goal. (At least at the start of play, to get the Players into the gears of play.)
4. Note that with B/X D&D, it was not enough to have "levels" to hold the focus of the Players. Keep on the Borderlands introduced the Players (and their characters) to an outpost of civilization near a series of caves with dangers and mysteries. The module does not assume that the PCs will pursue one agenda or another -- there are several mysterious and rumors to pursue. But it is an environment, caught up in a situation, which provides opportunity for the PCs to pursue. That point is, levels are not enough: We're pattern making creatures and we want to know why we are doing what we're doing. Levels tracked the ability to explore new, stranger, and greater dangers and mysteries. But the key thing is, when the Referee plunked new players down the Keep on the Borderlands, they weren't focused on levels. He offered them rumors and tales of dangers and treasures and mysteries to explore. The Players would pick a direction on behalf of their characters, and boom, we're on our way into a campaign.
5. I'm currently Refereeing a campaign with a B/X retroclone set in 17th Century Europe. Before play I crated a rumor table without about 50 items. Each PC on the first night got a new rumor, and each time a new PC arrives, he gets a rumor. I have no expectations what rumors the PCs will pursue. All I did was try to offer them suggests of mystery or treasure that sounded intriguing. They chose to pursue whatever they wanted. (They could have gone and done anything else, by the way.) The point is, what pulled them forward was not leveling... it was the slim suggestions of mysteries to explore that pulled them forward. More importantly, the rumors are tied together -- so the more they explore, the more they begin to discover the larger conflicts at hand in the weird fantasy Europe I have created. (Again, what they choose to do about these discoveries is up to them.)
6. Notice what both Keep on the Borderland and my rumor table do... they help provide focus. If you drop a bunch of players into an endless setting without any options, the choices involved are infinite and decision paralysis can set in. Now, note: this isn't in any way advocating railroading. The two examples I've offered so far do not dictate choices. But they do provide choices for the Players to choose from. What the Players decide to do about these choices (pursue them, ignore them, whatever) is up to them.
But this goes to the subtle distinction I'm about to make:
The point of Traveller as a whole is all the notions set forth in the posts above. But the point of Traveller play is also what you and your players choose to make it about.
[cont'd]
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
[cont'd from previous post]
7. If you have the Classic Traveller CD-Rom, then you have Book 0: An Introduction to Traveller. I highly recommend reading it. It's really good! It discusses how the Referee should start small and make one subsector at the beginning of play. The point is not to swamp the Referee or the Players with more information or setting than they can handle.
Here are some pertinent quotes, but I really recommend the whole thing.
From the First Steps section:
Later, in the Campaign section, we find this:
Now, you might not know yet what you’re players want. (They haven’t played yet! They may not know what they want!) Which is why the next section is so important. But I’ll suggest the key now: Provide an environment full of situation that allow the Players to choose what direction they want their PCs to go.
Okay, so now you have a setting you are interested in (as the Referee, you better be interested in it!) and you can start to see how there might military conflict, trade, conflict, political conflict, as well as any sort of exploration found on worlds off the beaten path. You can begin to flesh out more details, or leave it vague for now. But what I would recommend is coming up with a couple of dozen rumors that you can hand out to the Players per the rules. In this way, you give the Players a nugget of something they can pursue if they wish. And, in this way, when you see what kinds of things they are interested in, you can build more of that.
8. You may have noticed that my focus is a) offering things I’m interested into for the Players to root about in; b) pay attention to what the Players are interested in. Because if the Player buy-in isn’t there, then their interest and focus will not be a strong. But if they are interested, they will push forward on their own. Thus, the progress of playing your particular game of Traveller will come from the Players making progress toward the things they want.
9. As the Players reveal wha they want, you can open up the world more, reveal more, offer more for the Players. If they’ve been interested in political intrigue, offer them a bad guy that does something so heinous that they want to take him down. “Progress” is progress in getting closer and closer to making that happen. If it turns out that they want to build a trade empire, give them a pirate that harasses trade on their trade route. Progress is making efforts toward hunting the pirate down and stopping him.
10. Again, all of these things things can fold into each other. There will be politics and trade issues. And over time goals might change. As the Players find out more about the setting, they’ll make new goals — and thus have new measures of “progress” to move through. They might need to do a job for a Patron to get cash for some device they need. Or they might need to sneak into a pirate base to gather intel on the lord who is sponsoring them. Or whatever.
11. Thus, my thesis is this: the point of a Traveller game is determined by the progress in what goals the Players choose for themselves. I don't see a point for Traveller in the abstract in this regard. Only for your specific game. Whether it is “Get off this rock we’re marooned on,” or “Free the people of Zaton-329,” or “Kill the bastards who murdered our lord,” or “Find the ancient temple with diamonds as big as fists,” as the Players get their PCs closer and closer to these goals, they are making progress.
7. If you have the Classic Traveller CD-Rom, then you have Book 0: An Introduction to Traveller. I highly recommend reading it. It's really good! It discusses how the Referee should start small and make one subsector at the beginning of play. The point is not to swamp the Referee or the Players with more information or setting than they can handle.
Here are some pertinent quotes, but I really recommend the whole thing.
From the First Steps section:
Notice that the text is aware that Traveller can go in a zillion directions. Already the text is suggesting you find focus.
Later, in the Campaign section, we find this:
Now, you might not know yet what you’re players want. (They haven’t played yet! They may not know what they want!) Which is why the next section is so important. But I’ll suggest the key now: Provide an environment full of situation that allow the Players to choose what direction they want their PCs to go.
Okay, so now you have a setting you are interested in (as the Referee, you better be interested in it!) and you can start to see how there might military conflict, trade, conflict, political conflict, as well as any sort of exploration found on worlds off the beaten path. You can begin to flesh out more details, or leave it vague for now. But what I would recommend is coming up with a couple of dozen rumors that you can hand out to the Players per the rules. In this way, you give the Players a nugget of something they can pursue if they wish. And, in this way, when you see what kinds of things they are interested in, you can build more of that.
8. You may have noticed that my focus is a) offering things I’m interested into for the Players to root about in; b) pay attention to what the Players are interested in. Because if the Player buy-in isn’t there, then their interest and focus will not be a strong. But if they are interested, they will push forward on their own. Thus, the progress of playing your particular game of Traveller will come from the Players making progress toward the things they want.
9. As the Players reveal wha they want, you can open up the world more, reveal more, offer more for the Players. If they’ve been interested in political intrigue, offer them a bad guy that does something so heinous that they want to take him down. “Progress” is progress in getting closer and closer to making that happen. If it turns out that they want to build a trade empire, give them a pirate that harasses trade on their trade route. Progress is making efforts toward hunting the pirate down and stopping him.
10. Again, all of these things things can fold into each other. There will be politics and trade issues. And over time goals might change. As the Players find out more about the setting, they’ll make new goals — and thus have new measures of “progress” to move through. They might need to do a job for a Patron to get cash for some device they need. Or they might need to sneak into a pirate base to gather intel on the lord who is sponsoring them. Or whatever.
11. Thus, my thesis is this: the point of a Traveller game is determined by the progress in what goals the Players choose for themselves. I don't see a point for Traveller in the abstract in this regard. Only for your specific game. Whether it is “Get off this rock we’re marooned on,” or “Free the people of Zaton-329,” or “Kill the bastards who murdered our lord,” or “Find the ancient temple with diamonds as big as fists,” as the Players get their PCs closer and closer to these goals, they are making progress.
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I always thought the point of Traveller was to have fun.
More accurately, I feel adventures themselves are the point.
Role-playing games are participative fiction. Chandler's private eye Marlowe never levels up. He never gets rich and he never gets more toys. He just slides from one story to the next. And most of the time he just comes out even. But readers enjoy the ride.
If players don't enjoy the ride, it's a story problem.
More accurately, I feel adventures themselves are the point.
Role-playing games are participative fiction. Chandler's private eye Marlowe never levels up. He never gets rich and he never gets more toys. He just slides from one story to the next. And most of the time he just comes out even. But readers enjoy the ride.
If players don't enjoy the ride, it's a story problem.
I always thought the point of Traveller was to have fun.
More accurately, I feel adventures themselves are the point.
Role-playing games are participative fiction. Chandler's private eye Marlowe never levels up. He never gets rich and he never gets more toys. He just slides from one story to the next. And most of the time he just comes out even. But readers enjoy the ride.
If players don't enjoy the ride, it's a story problem.
Role-playing games are Interactive Story telling. The GM describes a scenario, the players describe how they react, some dice are rolled, and the GM tells them what happens. The point of it is to have fun and create something together.
Just remember - meaningful choices make for the best stories.
Not always happy stories — my most memorable character was killed in under 4 hours of play — but stories where choices mattered.
Give them meaningful choices and memorable characters to interact with, and everything else is gravy.
Oh, and ships, in a great many ways, are characters in the stories.
And welcome!
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
I love it and how did you pull that off with classic traveller? I am still figure out how Solo
Willie Dewitt
SOC-11
Haven't really thought of this before, but I think adults and kids would see a typical Classic Traveller campaign and setting very differently. At least mine. Both adults and children can have a sense of wonder about space, but where kids are probably picturing Star Wars and Buzz Lightyear, as an adult I get chills at the concept of travelling impossible distances through vast empty space to insanely distant and mostly uninhabited places. The sense of distance you get from the film The Martian times infinity. Even with all the science and theory we have, it still boggles the mind. That thrill of great distance and vast nothingness and taking a long time to get there is why I want to do Traveller. I want to emulate what is happening in the setting of Alien so much more than that of Buck Rogers.
Not that kids should not be introduced to it of course if that is what the adult wants to run for them, but at least Classic Traveller seems so much more an adult game, with less of what kids love about Sci Fi concepts.
Not that kids should not be introduced to it of course if that is what the adult wants to run for them, but at least Classic Traveller seems so much more an adult game, with less of what kids love about Sci Fi concepts.
Agreed. My kids are happy to play D&D (and related games), Call of Cthulhu (though they don't "get" the 1920's setting, and mostly enjoy "haunted house" stuff), and the like.
I've tried Traveller with them, but they are unenthusiastic. Having said that, my teenage son enjoys discussing tropes and world-building, and CT 3I provides a lot of grist for those conversations. (To be honest, most of my relationship with Traveller over the years has been thinking and talking about the setting rather than getting to play the game....)
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