Tips for Traveller Online Campaigns?

[Jetrock]

I recently launched a Traveller campaign, originally intended as a one-shot fill-in for a weekly long-distance D&D campaign run by a friend using Discord for chat and RollD20 for gameplay. I used to run a lot of Traveller in the 1980s and 90s, with a short-lived attempt at a GURPS Traveller game in the mid 2000s, and never really stopped buying the books and reading up on the game universe. As a result, I am thus very rusty at being a GM, but apparently it was so well received they asked me to continue the game the following week (the D&D DM had to delay another week due to a class) and it may well turn into an "alternating" campaign between D&D when the regular DM can run a game, and a Traveller campaign that I run when he can't and I can. The players are all brand new to Traveller, and so far introducing them to the Third Imperium setting is a pleasure. I'm running Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition, as it suits my free-form "the rules are just there to propel the game narrative, move fast and keep it fun" GMing style, but the adventures I have run so far are old Keith Bros' scenarios from "Wanted: Adventurers!" and "Lee's Guide to Interstellar Adventure," which work very well for the standard Traveller "murderhobos in space" campaign assumption I'm used to from my days running LBB era and MegaTraveller.

And this leads to my question: Discord is good for verbal/video communication, but limited for "virtual tabletop" purposes other than showing people maps using the share-screen function, and RollD20 is very D&D specific. Does anyone have any hints for running virtual Traveller campaigns; online tools, preferred platforms, or other tips & advice?

 

[Hairy Jim DeGriz]

you are not alone...

and never really stopped buying the books and reading up on the game universe.

 

[drl2]

Traveller on VTTs is kind of a mixed bag right now.

• I think Fantasy Grounds is the only place where there's official support in terms of being able to use the rulebooks, adventures, etc. in digital form (if you want to buy it), but there's also a subscription fee attached. The FG user interface is, er... not particularly popular, but I haven't used it myself so I can't really comment beyond that.
• Roll20 has an MgT2e character sheet you can use with a free account. It mostly works once you get used to which tab everything is on. It's Roll20, so it's essentially the no-frills base-model Toyota Camry of the VTT world.
• FoundryVTT has an available system called TwoDSix which can be easily configured to play a number of, as the name suggests, 2d6-based games. There are easy instructions for setting it up for Mongoose. Comes with compendiums of items for Cepheus, many of which are close enough to their Traveller counterparts to be brought over with minor changes so you can e.g. just drag-and-drop equipment onto character sheets. The person who developed this is improving it regularly and supports it pretty actively on his Discord channel. This is the route I'll be going when I (finally) get around to running some Traveller games online.

 

[Vernonator]

Take a look at Owlbear Rodeo, it's a very light VTT - really there to display the map and tokens and thats about it. Do everything else via discord or paper/pencil/real dice. We use it for AD&D now and have used it for Traveller in the past.

 

[Nightwind1]

Take a look at Owlbear Rodeo, it's a very light VTT - really there to display the map and tokens and thats about it. Do everything else via discord or paper/pencil/real dice. We use it for AD&D now and have used it for Traveller in the past.

I will strongly second this. I love Owlbear Rodeo. I'm hoping 2.0 will be even better.