Toward a Philosophy of Traveller

[aramis]

I'm sorry to disagree with what seems to be practically everybody else, but it's perfectly possible to run a Traveller campaign where the PCs stay on the same world all the time (though possibly with the odd excursion to neighboring worlds).

Even when campaigns involve traveling, it's quite often not the the raison d'etre for the PCs. Free traders travel because they have to trade, mercenaries travel because they have to get to the war, troubleshooters travel because they have to get to the trouble, naval crew... well, they jump from system to system, but it's not really what I think of as travel.

I wonder... how many campaigns really involve a group of drifters with no goal beyond seeing what's on the next world? I've never run any myself, nor participated in one.

Traveling is certainly a major Traveller trope, but omitting it doesn't turn a campaign non-Traveller.


Hans

Agreed. I ran an entire campaign where no one left the building, let alone the world.

Many a merc game is essentially set on a single world.

My "Take and Hold Until Relieved" Marines campaign was set on a single Zhodani world. Heck - just the Tavrchedle complex and surrounding valley. Like any Falkenberg's legion story, the half a chapter off world is just a chance to get some non-standard gear.

 

[creativehum]

Agreed. I ran an entire campaign where no one left the building, let alone the world.

I'd love to hear more about that! (Maybe here, maybe on another thread?) But I really want to hear more.

 

[aramis]

I'd love to hear more about that! (Maybe here, maybe on another thread?) But I really want to hear more.

The PC's were the board of directors of a corporation. The campaign was very "high level resolution"... We would then wargame out some of the Security contracts. The PC's never left the corporate tower in Regni.

 

[creativehum]

The PC's were the board of directors of a corporation. The campaign was very "high level resolution"... We would then wargame out some of the Security contracts. The PC's never left the corporate tower in Regni.

Sweet!

 

[Matt123]

Just to add my 2 credits. In addition to all the points made so far, Traveller is also about setting.

I don't mean the OTU, although that is important as an exemplar. More the ability to create a living setting with political, military and commercial influences going on that affect and give context to the Travellers adventures.

In this regard I count the ability to set-up games such as 5th Frontier War as a back drop and have the Travellers involved in a much grander adventure.

Much of this is provided by supplementary material, not strictly needed for Traveller. What Role-player wants High Guard and TCS? But without it you lose an option for creating games at a scale greater than the PCs, even if you only cherry-pick the bits you want and discard the rest.

Traveller includes the ability to design and/or partake in a grand Sci-fi Space Opera. It might be argued that the rest (for example communications at the speed of jump) is merely mechanics to facilitate the design a grand setting for the purposes of a good gaming session.

 

[Reban]

Humanity. Humans are recognizably and unapologetically twentieth century humans. There is no transhumanism; cyborging; or any such. Any of that is a rare exception, not the norm

That one just jumped right out at me as not being Traveller to me.

First I'm a twenty-first century human, if I want to play a twentieth century human I'll play a historical setting.

Transhumanism; the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology exists in Traveller.

It's not the shiny chrome in your face kind, but the subtle kind that enhances psionics, creates anagathic drugs and gives rise to Minor Human species that are modified to suit their environment.

Its my experience of Traveller that a lot of the high tech transhuman style sciences are allowed to fade into the background to emphasize the human story over the technology story.

Cyborging is not the norm granted, but the attitude to cyborging, that it equates with a loss of humanity is an important note, which again is there to push the human story to the forefront.

Maybe there is a difference between me and those that came to Traveller in the 70s through the LBBs and continue to play in the 70s style sci-fi setting.

 

[Blue Ghost]

It has been my opinion that cyborgs, and aspects thereof, have been a largely (albeit briefly) unaddressed issue in Traveller.

Current science on human evolution says that we're about as evolved as we're going to get, and that if we go back to some of our paleolithic ancestors, some of them were much taller your average human, or even basket ball player. While others, say neandertals, were more husky and stocky in appearance, with slightly different characteristics. But the speciation of humans, or protohumans, took place hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Traveller, at best, reaches 3000 years into the future, and I think there's word that newer supps will go a few centuries further, but that's hardly time enough for humans to "evolve" significantly. We see what geographical distances can do to physical traits, but the basic design and intellect seem to be fairly universal in design and performance.

Ergo; I don't think natural evolution is an issue, but biomechanical interfacing already is today, and so there should be something to at least touch on it for the players and Referee.

 

[Selandia]

I'm sorry to disagree with what seems to be practically everybody else, but it's perfectly possible to run a Traveller campaign where the PCs stay on the same world all the time (though possibly with the odd excursion to neighboring worlds).

....

Traveling is certainly a major Traveller trope, but omitting it doesn't turn a campaign non-Traveller.


Hans

Right, "traveler is about travel" but you can run a Pocket Empire campaign from your Palace or a Merchant Prince campaign from the Spire of Commerce building.

Is traveller or GURP the best RPG to run a neolithic revolution campaign?

Should you not D&D your medieval/fantaisy?

What about getting Rail Baron for your merchant prince?

Why the hell should I use Traveller if I am not star travelling?

Any body that hate me and want to kill me from high blood pressure resulting from critical over laughter just have to seriouly said:

Traveller's OTU provide all the elements of the macro economic background of the worlds you adventure on and all the details relevant to the economic of shipping.

have fun

Selandia

 

[robject]

Its my experience of Traveller that a lot of the high tech transhuman style sciences are allowed to fade into the background to emphasize the human story over the technology story.

Cyborging is not the norm granted, but the attitude to cyborging, that it equates with a loss of humanity is an important note, which again is there to push the human story to the forefront.

This is not unreasonable. Then, Traveller certainly is very light on things like that, for the sake of the human story.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Mister robject, is your initial opening post official edicts of Marc Miller wanting to get back to fundamentalist Traveller, or is that a take on how you see Traveller as per your conversations with Marc Miller?

 

[Frankymole]

Well, I remember Avery's interview, that occasionally gets linked or posted here every few years or so, where he said that stories tell us something about ourselves. Classic Trek is a sort of police show with thematic overtones, and Traveller somewhat imitates that...

The multi-millionaire patron who owns a yacht, maybe is ex-military, maybe is from some royal or noble house in Europe, who may or may not be part of the team, is reflected in Traveller.

Adventure shows have a myriad of patrons, from "The Persuaders!" in the 1970s using international playboys coerced into resolving "above the law" crime cases for a retired judge, to the A Team undertaking covert missions for a different patron each week, right back to Sir Francis Drake privateering for Queen Elizabeth. Oh, and they travel - to a new location, probably a new country, every week. Such is adventure - whether in the past or in the (far) future.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Adventure shows have a myriad of patrons, from "The Persuaders!" in the 1970s using international playboys coerced into resolving "above the law" crime cases for a retired judge, to the A Team undertaking covert missions for a different patron each week, right back to Sir Francis Drake privateering for Queen Elizabeth. Oh, and they travel - to a new location, probably a new country, every week. Such is adventure - whether in the past or in the (far) future.

Well stated. I've never seen nor heard of "The Persuaders!" before. Most interesting.

60 Minutes has done a few expose's on private parties funding efforts over seas. One of the more significant was a couple of brothers who ran a high end yet low profile business, and were helping to fund the Northern Alliance after the Taliban came to power. The movie "The Dogs of War" is said to be based off of a real operation in an unnamed African nation. A whole host of other examples.

 

[creativehum]

Regarding the purpose of this thread:

While I haven't spoken to robject independently of any thread posts, quote opens the first post of this thread...

Originally Posted by Bill Cameron
There are design assumptions underlying Traveller which were used to create a corpus of rules. Those rules were then used, imperfectly, to create the official setting. Further clouding the picture is the fact that not all of the rules published under the Traveller rubric were crafted with the Traveller design philosophy in mind.

That's why I'm suggesting we return to first principles. Identify the underlying Traveller design philosophy, vet all existing Traveller rules against that philosophy, craft additional Traveller rules using that philosophy, and then use that expanding body of Traveller rules to create multiple Traveller settings. Multiple settings which move far beyond the OTU.

I think it's important to keep those opening paragraphs in mind. I think the general idea of the thread is this:

Traveller is many things to many people. (Which is awesome and fine!) But as many people make it many things with Traveler, they expand it in new ways and often get frustrated the rules don't work or don't do what they want them to do. They then blame the rules for failing. But it seems to me odd, and it seems it seems odd to both robject and Bill Cameron as well.

Instead of saying, "I've stretched this game from its original intent, and look, these rules don't work," this thread is about asking, "What did the original rules want to accomplish? What was the original design philosophy and what sorts of play/story was it designed to engender?"

At least as an exercise, the idea is to go back and find what one could do really well with the underlying philosophy of the design.

This might not be everyone's cup of tea. But I think this is what robject is after and what he started the thread for.

 

[creativehum]

Adventure shows have a myriad of patrons, from "The Persuaders!" in the 1970s using international playboys coerced into resolving "above the law" crime cases for a retired judge, to the A Team undertaking covert missions for a different patron each week, right back to Sir Francis Drake privateering for Queen Elizabeth. Oh, and they travel - to a new location, probably a new country, every week. Such is adventure - whether in the past or in the (far) future.

What I'm about to post is going to reveal me as an idiot -- which many of you might already think of me as -- but here we go:

Until I stumbled across and started reading the Dumarest books, I think I'd been missing a core conceit of how Traveller was designed to work. (This essay goes into the link between Dumarest and Traveller at length.)

Now, keep in mind, I've heard of the A-Team analogy to Traveller for years. But I never watched the A-Team and so the analogy never meant anything to me. I was, in fact, not much of an episodic TV kind of guy. I liked feature films more, with a sense of beginning, middle, and end, and the way a single story takes a character from one place and reshapes him in his adventures into something else.

But reading Frankymole's post this morning, with Dumarest already in my head, and now thinking about A-Team again, it's like this light bulb went off finally.

Because I'm a writer, I often think it teams of story structure. A feature film will be structure different than an episodic tv episode which will be structured differently than a long-form TV drama. Each has its own needs in terms of what kinds of stories and what kinds of characters will work effectively.

And when setting up RPGs I've often found it helpful to have analogies for the kinds of stories at stake: is a session like an issue of a comic boo? A TV episode? A novel? A short story? Not that there is a 1:1 correlation at all, but just something to hang the thinking on as an analogy.

It never occurred to me as clearly as this morning that (I think now) Traveller play really is like the episodic structure of the A-Team or the Dumarest books. I'm talking here now about the structure specifically, though things like Patrons fit in easily as well.

Structurally, each world is the focus of an adventure, with a beginning, middle, and end. The characters go in, get the thing done, and come out the other side having succeeded or failed, having gained more than they lost, or vice versa. And then they go to the next world and do it again.

The need for an overarching history or political set up justifying the existence of an interstellar environment need only be the slightest gloss, since that is not what matters. What matters is having a) an interesting world with a specific environment; b) a job or situation that has to be dealt with that the Player Characters sign on for; c) the resolution of that thing; and then d) moving on from that world to the next, without any concern for the previous world or the surrounding worlds, since the real focus for the structure of RPG play is: The next world, the next job/situation, the resolution of that situation, move on again.

I'm not saying, by the way, this is THE way to play, nor that YOU have to play this way. I'm saying when I look at Books 1, 2, and 3 or Basic Traveller it all seems kind of dopey-obvious. When I read Traveller the first time I was reading Dune at the same time, and conflated the idea of really, really richly detailed worlds where a huge novel could take place -- dozens of such worlds. But looking at the A-Team and Dumerast, what one really needs is the sketch of a world and a strong conflict in a situation that will let the PCs go to town on an adventure... and then move on again.

Each adventure, over x-number of sessions, would form a short novel or an episode of episodic TV. And then we pick up the next novel or start the next episode, and we're at a new location, with a new adventure, without much concern for what had happened previously or the larger political/economic/social scope of the worlds around the world where the new novel or episode was set.

Honestly, I don't even know if I'd like to Referee a game this way. I like richer, detailed political/economic/cultural settings! And I like the PCs affected by what was happening to them and had happened to them (more like a long, stand alone novel or feature film.) Still, I'm looking this finally feeling like I get part of the underlying philosophy of Traveller for the first time.

***

A side note about Patrons: In both Dumarest and A-Team, the patrons are what I might call "Worthy Patrons." They are people in need who I think would be worth helping. The people that are causing them trouble are people I'd like to punch in the face. Part of what bumped me in the Traveller patron setup was that the patrons often came across as people I'd like to punch in the face. I always found that problematic and so I backed away from the Patron system. I now have some new thoughts about that because of this morning's light bulb moment.

 

[Frankymole]

The above posts make very interesting reading. Not to bash any particular Traveller settings or materials, but I think this is why the doings of the highest political figures and vast changes in history are all very well, but didn't work for me when pursued (e.g. by HIWG) at the expense of detailing their effects at normal adventurer character (PC) level. Such background often ignores the "who" part of Traveller: the travellers themselves. The perspective and emphasis must be primarily on them. At least in the main RPG, not in the boardgames like FFW and Invasion: Earth.

 

[creativehum]

I think this is why the doings of the highest political figures and vast changes in history are all very well, but didn't work for me when pursued (e.g. by HIWG) at the expense of detailing their effects at normal adventurer character (PC) level. Such background often ignores the "who" part of Traveller: the travellers themselves. The perspective and emphasis must be primarily on them. At least in the main RPG, not in the boardgames like FFW and Invasion: Earth.

I concur with this 100%.

 

[hdan]

Traveller play really is like the episodic structure of the A-Team or the Dumarest books. I'm talking here now about the structure specifically, though things like Patrons fit in easily as well.

That's how I want to run my next Traveller campaign.

Each session is an "episode", with a new world, patron, etc. Naturally there can be "to be continued..." episodes that stretch multiple sessions, but the goal should be 1:1, and will likely always begin with realspace precipitation, and end with activating the drive.

 

[rancke]

Each session is an "episode", with a new world, patron, etc. Naturally there can be "to be continued..." episodes that stretch multiple sessions, but the goal should be 1:1, and will likely always begin with realspace precipitation, and end with activating the drive.

I admit that this is a perfectly valid campaign model, and almost certainly the original one envisaged by the original writers. No argument there.

It's just that I have a big problem with this model, and that is that it requires that with every adventure you leave behind the world you were on before and jump to a new one, rendering pretty much everything you've experienced in the old adventure useless -- the people met, the friends and enemies made, the insights gained, the background details learned, the background details worked out by the referee and not learned. Instead of a rich and detailed game world that grows richer and more detailed with each adventure, you get a succesion of generic cardboard cutout worlds where it makes no difference if the adventure is set on Regina or any other rich agricultural world.

I much prefer the Traveller sandbox model with a subsector or two's worth of systems to the Dumarest model.


Hans

 

[creativehum]

I admit that this is a perfectly valid campaign model, and almost certainly the original one envisaged by the original writers. No argument there.

It's just that I have a big problem with this model, and that is that it requires that with every adventure you leave behind the world you were on before and jump to a new one, rendering pretty much everything you've experienced in the old adventure useless -- the people met, the friends and enemies made, the insights gained, the background details learned, the background details worked out by the referee and not learned. Instead of a rich and detailed game world that grows richer and more detailed with each adventure, you get a succesion of generic cardboard cutout worlds where it makes no difference if the adventure is set on Regina or any other rich agricultural world.

I much prefer the Traveller sandbox model with a subsector or two's worth of systems to the Dumarest model.


Hans

I agree with you on this, Hans.

The very things that you list as being lost in the "episodic" model are also the things I would hate to lose as well. In fact, they are the reason I'd like to play!

And it's not that playing with a sandbox model can't be done. But I can see how the contents of Books 1, 2, and 3 are really designed for, and will be strong with, the episodic model.

I think this is why I couldn't quite see that this was exactly the game as it was written to be played. It really isn't the kind of thing that turns me on. It's a strange revelation, seeing that the thing I've been trying to sort out by digging down might not be the thing I wanted. Which is great to see, but a surprise!

 

[Matt123]

While the A-Team/Dumarest model is valid as portrayed here, it does not require the absence of a story arc connecting across several sessions. I mention this not because it is new, story arcs have been used for decades in role-playing games and tv series, it just seems absent from this discussion.

Story arc could be as simple as getting the Free Trader paid off or as complex as the PC's discovering the random bad guys and impediments they encounter are not so random and there is a Boss they need to uncover and deal with.

Story arcs cover two or more adventure sessions. The only thing preventing their use in Traveller is the GM (I would typically expect the GM to have a story arc in mind, but also the flexibility to change it as the game matures).