I almost hate to ask, but what is the Galaxiad setting?
Traveller's direction; history and future
- Thread starter Blue Ghost
- Start date
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
The hints in the T5 book point to the Galaxiad being, or starting at, Imperial Year 1900.
Hmm, it sounds pretty bad if what I read is truly what is planned;
http://www.traveller5.net/GalaxiadIntroPublic.pdf
There's no setting established in this. It's just another set of morality plays with nothing really pertaining to anything about the new setting.
A "threat to the universe" story arc? Please tell me this isn't so.
http://www.traveller5.net/GalaxiadIntroPublic.pdf
There's no setting established in this. It's just another set of morality plays with nothing really pertaining to anything about the new setting.
A "threat to the universe" story arc? Please tell me this isn't so.
Yes, M1900 is the startpoint for Galaxiad. Several things are being bandied about.
There will be hop drives and antimatter. The ramifications are being bounced by Marc off certain focus groups.
If one is willing to port the hob drive in, and based upon what's in T5, that shouldn't be that hard, it's likely to be still fairly recognizable and useable with non-T5 editions, exp. CT and MGT. Some elements are going to be eye openers... Others will be comfortably familiar.
Well, whatever. I grew up with the CT stuff, and that's what I know best. I've always wanted to write and publish stuff that would stretch the Tech and Science such that players armed with ACRs and the like, standard Imperial equipment, would really be challenged.
It sounds more like a realization that Traveller tech, the science fiction itself, need to be upgraded for new generations of players.
Neat.
I'm curious why this didn't happen earlier.
It sounds more like a realization that Traveller tech, the science fiction itself, need to be upgraded for new generations of players.
Neat.
I'm curious why this didn't happen earlier.
My first exposure to Traveller was the boxed set of Books 1-3 back in the early 80s. It was over a year before my brother and I bought any supplements.
But that was fine, because the game came with a complete build-your-own-universe toolkit. We rolled up subsectors using the world building system, designed ships using Book 2 and we were off exploring the region of space we had created while paying our way using the trading system.
Even later on, the official sectors were way down the list of our preferred purchases. IIRC we got Mercenary first, then High Guard. The actual Imperium was something we read about peripherally from games magazines and reviews, but it was years before I played in the official traveller setting. When I did finally get Supplement 3 I was badly disapointed, it was just lists of game stats I could easily have rolled myself using rules I already had. In hindsight I understand it was really just there to link together all the published adventures, it was a part of a greater whole.
For me, the build your own universe aspect of Traveller has always come first because that's what you get in the basic rules. The OTU is a secondary thing that obviously has informed and even constrained the rules design but is entirely optional. In fact in using it you're just turning the world generation system into a set of lookup tables.
Simon Hibbs
Is it a generational thing? Back in the day, I first learned AD&D (1e). When I was ready to start DMing I wanted to do SF rather than fantasy so created a free-wheeling AD&D campaign in space ... with Daleks (and players who had never seen Dr Who). I bought JTAS 6 and 8 (7 was sold out) and added some of that in too. I don't remember seeing anything that said I could or could not do that. We all did crazy Frankensteinian mashups back then and we didn't need permission.
Having said that, my introduction to Traveller was through the OTU. It was that which attracted me. I do find the Traveller rules support the OTU setting better than other rules do and I guess I'm primarily an OTU fan rather than a Traveller fan. Of course YMMV, any setting with any rules is valid if you and your players are having fun. But for my own selfish desires: more OTU material, please. After all these years I'm still having a ball with the it.
Yeah, me too. I actually do love the OTU, but I can't say that I had the same kind of affinity for it as I do for say classic 1960's Star Trek, which I absolutely love as both a TV series and setting. The OTU, and I can only speak for myself, is a cool backdrop if you need it for a gaming session.
One of my favorite scenarios to run was FASA's hotel penthouse hostage situation using Snapshot rules. I could bring in G-carriers, gunships, terrorists of all sorts, and the fire fights really got out of control. One time the terrorists had a couple of Apache like gunships, and strafed the suites with the PCs in them (they escaped) as starport security looked on, helplessly. That session was a lot of fun. But nowhere did the Imperium or its neighbors enter the game. That session might have been a bunch of Federation red shirts storm a hotel penthouse held by a bunch of Klingons, Orions or Romulans. Or maybe even Flash Gordon verse the minions of Ming the Merciless. The setting, for that session, wasn't pertinent.
I like the OTU for what it is, but I wonder what's in store for it.
No, because, being in the same generation as you, I knew a great many who would rather play a game designed for space play than modify a different one into a space game.Is it a generational thing? Back in the day, I first learned AD&D (1e). When I was ready to start DMing I wanted to do SF rather than fantasy so created a free-wheeling AD&D campaign in space ... with Daleks (and players who had never seen Dr Who). I bought JTAS 6 and 8 (7 was sold out) and added some of that in too. I don't remember seeing anything that said I could or could not do that. We all did crazy Frankensteinian mashups back then and we didn't need permission.
Having said that, my introduction to Traveller was through the OTU. It was that which attracted me. I do find the Traveller rules support the OTU setting better than other rules do and I guess I'm primarily an OTU fan rather than a Traveller fan. Of course YMMV, any setting with any rules is valid if you and your players are having fun. But for my own selfish desires: more OTU material, please. After all these years I'm still having a ball with the it.
I'd say maybe 10% of the GM's I have ever talked to shifted major genres* within a single ruleset.
And, since 1977, it really hasn't been needed unless you're dead broke, either. The major genres have been largely covered since about 1977...
Tolkienian Fantasy: D&D (1974), T&T (1975)
Space Fantasy: Met Alpha (1975), Starfaring (1975)
Science Fiction: Traveller (1977), Starships & Spacemen (1978)
Western: Boot Hill (1975)
Non-Tolkienian European Fantasy: RuneQuest (1977)
NearModern/Modern action/espionage/merc/gang: Gangster! (1987)
Asian: Swords & Sorcerers (1978), Bushido (1978)
Animal: Bunnies & Burrows (1976)
By 1981, there were dozens of games in print. By 1984, hundreds in print, and dozens no longer in print.
Most of the people I've heard of stretching across genres have been in areas where only D&D and one or two other games had made it over... The rework what you have period seems to end about 5 years after D&D becomes popular in an area, when other games are available — some local, some imported — in other genres.
* by major genres, I mean groupings like: Sci-Fi, Western, Tolkienian Fantasy, Arthurian Fantasy, Asian Fantasy, Modern (Action/Espionage/Merc/Gang), Supers.
David Johansen
SOC-12
But T4 IS the best version of Traveller! It had huge production issues and errata but it had really good character creation and combat and was easy to pick up and get into. The task system was okay, or at least it worked fine for us. I even liked the ship design and vehicle design in Central Supply Catalog. FF&S for T4 was a disaster, as was Emperor's Vehicles.
And CT was my first edition and I played MT and TNE. I really wish TNE had been envisioned as a generic sf game and not a Traveller edition. It could have been really great but the ties to Traveller actually held it back.
And yes, you can fiddle with the CT tables to get what you want. A laser pistol has revolver ranges, penetration and damage but gets 100 shots of a hip pack or 10 shots off a magazine sized power cell. A light sabre has the armor penetration and damage of a laser rifle but the range of a broad sword.
And CT was my first edition and I played MT and TNE. I really wish TNE had been envisioned as a generic sf game and not a Traveller edition. It could have been really great but the ties to Traveller actually held it back.
And yes, you can fiddle with the CT tables to get what you want. A laser pistol has revolver ranges, penetration and damage but gets 100 shots of a hip pack or 10 shots off a magazine sized power cell. A light sabre has the armor penetration and damage of a laser rifle but the range of a broad sword.
I never did any T4, but wanted to. I looked through the books, read some, didn't like the tech (suddenly there were vehicles that needed airfoils in the light of grav tech to stay aloft, which went counter to CT and MT, and suddenly the weapons were tweaked to something that fell into that kind of frame; there was better technology in previous versions, so why introduce new weapons that seem inferior?).
I put Traveller down in 1989, but then briefly dipped my big toe into in the mid 90s, then put it down until 2001 when I registered for this site.
In all that time the two things I liked about it were it's "build your own universe" dichotomy aligned with a pre-made-setting if you chose to draw on it.
What I didn't get was why "virus" was introduced (I'm guessing it was a play on the Y2K issue) combined with the net going public from the 80s. I didn't get it partially because I didn't read about it at first. And then when I did read about it, I just shrugged my shoulders at it again. It was another MT-ish Rebellion scale calamity for the Imperium to deal with. If I had read more about it, I might have tried to run a session in the milieu.
I put Traveller down in 1989, but then briefly dipped my big toe into in the mid 90s, then put it down until 2001 when I registered for this site.
In all that time the two things I liked about it were it's "build your own universe" dichotomy aligned with a pre-made-setting if you chose to draw on it.
What I didn't get was why "virus" was introduced (I'm guessing it was a play on the Y2K issue) combined with the net going public from the 80s. I didn't get it partially because I didn't read about it at first. And then when I did read about it, I just shrugged my shoulders at it again. It was another MT-ish Rebellion scale calamity for the Imperium to deal with. If I had read more about it, I might have tried to run a session in the milieu.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Virus has had a lot of water under the bridge already. It has been making a subset of Traveller fandom mad for more than 20 years. Some are mad because it seems completely implausible technologically, others are mad because it "blew up their Imperium" beyond repair. You'll get some who say that the New Era arrived too soon after such devastation.
Very little other than reading all of TNE and 1248 can hope to sway the detractors, and it won't work for many; they remain too angry.
Virus was intended to be one of the tools that would bring some of the missing SF tropes to Traveller. To work in that way, of course, it had to be explained. Which backfired.
The truth remains that the Imperium died in 1117 or so. MT and the persistent coverage of 'what had been' by DGP was a lengthy Wake, and only with Survival Margin and TNE did someone think to finally hold the funeral and bury the corpse. DGP spending so much effort to show us the last and greatest years of the Third Imperium made the death of that Imperium even harder to take. But that sort of nostalgia is part of what makes the New Era work. Just like the PCs, the players *know* that things used to be better, and can work to make it that way again.
Or maybe they'll just play in 1105 forever. That's fine too.
Very little other than reading all of TNE and 1248 can hope to sway the detractors, and it won't work for many; they remain too angry.
Virus was intended to be one of the tools that would bring some of the missing SF tropes to Traveller. To work in that way, of course, it had to be explained. Which backfired.
The truth remains that the Imperium died in 1117 or so. MT and the persistent coverage of 'what had been' by DGP was a lengthy Wake, and only with Survival Margin and TNE did someone think to finally hold the funeral and bury the corpse. DGP spending so much effort to show us the last and greatest years of the Third Imperium made the death of that Imperium even harder to take. But that sort of nostalgia is part of what makes the New Era work. Just like the PCs, the players *know* that things used to be better, and can work to make it that way again.
Or maybe they'll just play in 1105 forever. That's fine too.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
T4, on the other hand, is placed at the dawn of the Third Imperium. TL12 heading into TL13. a time of bringing thousands of diverse worlds together under the new Imperial Umbrella. The Vilani tendency to never change mostly squashed by cutting the Vilani core off from most of its former subjects, stirring in Terrans to taste, and simmering for 1800 years.
Every world will have those old traditions and technologies to look at, but on more than a few, 1800 years is plenty of time to need new solutions and make them. Some will want airfoils on their grav vehicles for additional control, some "just because". Vland probably never stopped making Beowulf and Akkigish hulls, but elsewhere you will see other designs.
T4 is a different type of "dawn" era than TNE or 1248, but they share a lot of characteristics and play styles.
Every world will have those old traditions and technologies to look at, but on more than a few, 1800 years is plenty of time to need new solutions and make them. Some will want airfoils on their grav vehicles for additional control, some "just because". Vland probably never stopped making Beowulf and Akkigish hulls, but elsewhere you will see other designs.
T4 is a different type of "dawn" era than TNE or 1248, but they share a lot of characteristics and play styles.
But ultimately one wonders how penultimate each of those segments is. I remember the fanboys droning on and on about the pitfalls of anything other than CT. I happen to like MT not because it pushed the Imperium forward (which to me didn't really matter one way or the other), but because the rules were improved (or that was the theory).
The "Rebellion", to me, was just another lavish backdrop for Referees and players to revel in. A civil war that spanned the empire was a device to churn creative juices to greater creativity. But it wasn't required anymore than any of the Frontier Wars or psionic purges.
It seems to me that addressing higher tech and better presentation are the solutions to seeing a healthy future for Traveller, but I think a lot of high, ultra, and magic-tech, has been addressed through the GURPS supps (non-Traveller I mean). And SJ Games and DGP have much improved the rough sketches from mister Keith (the sources of some of which are suspect).
Free advice from me (as I guess I'm apt to give); rather than improve the OTU, it might have served Traveller well to hack the high tech levels, and discover what they were all about.
What does a personal-disintegrator actually do? Fusion pistols? Dune-tech personal shields? "portable" personal transporter technology? Stage III civilizations that harvest stars? Not that any of those specifics are neccesary, but one wonders if instead of Rebellion, or even Beltstrike or Tarsus, what Traveller would have been like with a supp like "Traveller; Tech Level 20", or "Traveller; Tech Level 35", and describe things that Avery now considers verboten territory for the OTU; time travel, parallel (mirror) universes and the like.
I mean it's neither here nor there, but I think if Traveller had stuck with a LEGO Brick build-your-own-universe construct, in addition to building its OTU, things might have worked out a little bit better. These various threads I've started might not have happened.
Oh well.
The "Rebellion", to me, was just another lavish backdrop for Referees and players to revel in. A civil war that spanned the empire was a device to churn creative juices to greater creativity. But it wasn't required anymore than any of the Frontier Wars or psionic purges.
It seems to me that addressing higher tech and better presentation are the solutions to seeing a healthy future for Traveller, but I think a lot of high, ultra, and magic-tech, has been addressed through the GURPS supps (non-Traveller I mean). And SJ Games and DGP have much improved the rough sketches from mister Keith (the sources of some of which are suspect).
Free advice from me (as I guess I'm apt to give); rather than improve the OTU, it might have served Traveller well to hack the high tech levels, and discover what they were all about.
What does a personal-disintegrator actually do? Fusion pistols? Dune-tech personal shields? "portable" personal transporter technology? Stage III civilizations that harvest stars? Not that any of those specifics are neccesary, but one wonders if instead of Rebellion, or even Beltstrike or Tarsus, what Traveller would have been like with a supp like "Traveller; Tech Level 20", or "Traveller; Tech Level 35", and describe things that Avery now considers verboten territory for the OTU; time travel, parallel (mirror) universes and the like.
I mean it's neither here nor there, but I think if Traveller had stuck with a LEGO Brick build-your-own-universe construct, in addition to building its OTU, things might have worked out a little bit better. These various threads I've started might not have happened.
Oh well.
The T4 tech paradigms were taken straight from TNE. Since the setting was limited to TL 12, there was "no reason to include" TL 13+.
Both elements were retconned to be somewhat less alien from CT/MT with FF&S2 and Emperor's Vehicles.
My biggest gripes with T4 were the CGen being 1 skill per year, the multi-die task system, the lame personal combat system, the bad editing, and the Tl12 limit. Any one, I could cope with. all 5? Too much effort to retcon. And that's without the "Roll or Pick" instructions in CGen skill tables that lead to massive abuses and badly broken characters.
For those who didn't know other prior editions, T4 probably worked just fine; for me, it was mediocre, and my players absolutely detested it.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Maybe I had better explain my earlier comment. Basically, it is more an issue of why not allow for adventures written and published for Traveller that have nothing to do with what is now the official Traveller universe.
Besides, one problem I have always had with limiting the first Jump Drive to Jump-1, or one parsec, is that a drive like that does not get you anywhere. Proxima Centauri is 1.3 parsecs away, so either you have a variation in the actual range of a jump or you really are working with Jump-2 at a shorter distance.
Or use Supplement 3 as the stars that are out there, but all are unsettled, have no known human population, starports are all X, and put in the starting point for your exploration somewhere in the Trin's Veil sub-sector.
Deal with the anomaly of the Scouts having a very low survival rate, but in the official Traveller Universe, what do they have to explore? The Imperium has a border with the Zhodani, the Vargr, the Hivers, the K'kree, the Vegans, the Solomani, and the Aslan, with the Sword Worlds and Darrians for added spice. What unknown planets are they checking out? Ones in the Vargr Extents? Those I could see having a low survival rate, but is the Imperium really going to be prodding the Vargr like that? If you have a mis-jump in the Imperium, given the longest one will be 36 parsecs (officially, I do not follow that rule and allow for mis-jumps from one side of the Imperium to the other), if end your mis-jump near a planet, you already have the basic data on it, and likely there is someone there to help out. Mis-jumps into Deep Space simply means that the party dies.
Besides, one problem I have always had with limiting the first Jump Drive to Jump-1, or one parsec, is that a drive like that does not get you anywhere. Proxima Centauri is 1.3 parsecs away, so either you have a variation in the actual range of a jump or you really are working with Jump-2 at a shorter distance.
Or use Supplement 3 as the stars that are out there, but all are unsettled, have no known human population, starports are all X, and put in the starting point for your exploration somewhere in the Trin's Veil sub-sector.
Deal with the anomaly of the Scouts having a very low survival rate, but in the official Traveller Universe, what do they have to explore? The Imperium has a border with the Zhodani, the Vargr, the Hivers, the K'kree, the Vegans, the Solomani, and the Aslan, with the Sword Worlds and Darrians for added spice. What unknown planets are they checking out? Ones in the Vargr Extents? Those I could see having a low survival rate, but is the Imperium really going to be prodding the Vargr like that? If you have a mis-jump in the Imperium, given the longest one will be 36 parsecs (officially, I do not follow that rule and allow for mis-jumps from one side of the Imperium to the other), if end your mis-jump near a planet, you already have the basic data on it, and likely there is someone there to help out. Mis-jumps into Deep Space simply means that the party dies.
timerover; (my last comment for a while); well, this was the dichotomy I was trying to relate to everyone in this thread and previous threads. Is it the setting or the rules that take precedence?
When I started, it was the rules with some salt and pepper seasoning in the form of the Imperium, which was loosely defined. Nowadays it's the Imperium that takes precedence instead of the rules. I think the two could have gone hand in hand, although the OTU eventually would have taken a back seat to the rules, but all that would have been contingent on how successful the game was as a do-it-yourself kit to create gaming sessions with familiar venues.
I think what you're asking is that it could, but now the thing that's holding Traveller together is the giant super-setting that encompasses all editions, and not just the basic "throw 8+ to Hit on 2d6".
I think regardless of what happens to the setting in the future, I'll always be stuck in the CT 1100 to 1120 setting, Spinward Marches. If some super alien race comes to wipe out the IN, well....okay. Big deal. If something else happens, then it's more setting tweakage that may or may not work.
Setting verse rules? I like the OTU, but as someone who wanted to write for the game, I found myself perpetually stymied by the hard-science limitation, and a failure of the game to address other sci-fi tropes that Traveller was supposed to feed off of and address at some point.
Whatever. Me go sleep now ... ugh!
When I started, it was the rules with some salt and pepper seasoning in the form of the Imperium, which was loosely defined. Nowadays it's the Imperium that takes precedence instead of the rules. I think the two could have gone hand in hand, although the OTU eventually would have taken a back seat to the rules, but all that would have been contingent on how successful the game was as a do-it-yourself kit to create gaming sessions with familiar venues.
I think what you're asking is that it could, but now the thing that's holding Traveller together is the giant super-setting that encompasses all editions, and not just the basic "throw 8+ to Hit on 2d6".
I think regardless of what happens to the setting in the future, I'll always be stuck in the CT 1100 to 1120 setting, Spinward Marches. If some super alien race comes to wipe out the IN, well....okay. Big deal. If something else happens, then it's more setting tweakage that may or may not work.
Setting verse rules? I like the OTU, but as someone who wanted to write for the game, I found myself perpetually stymied by the hard-science limitation, and a failure of the game to address other sci-fi tropes that Traveller was supposed to feed off of and address at some point.
Whatever. Me go sleep now ... ugh!
That is already allowed for. Mongoose licenses Traveller on very liberal terms and there are a handful of small publishers turning out Traveller compatible material either with alternate settings, or designed to be generic. Check out Jon Brazer Enterprises or Terra-Sol Games LLC on Drivethru. There are others I think, but those are the ones that come to mind and there have also been others in the past.
Going back to your earlier post -
> Basically what I am saying is that the canon is too rigid...
It's only rigid if you let it be. For your own campaign you have always been free to do whatever you like with thesetting, up to and including tossing it out completely. Even if you look at official publications, we've had several very well supported major deviations from the classic CT setting. The Rebellion and TNE completely ripped up basic elements of the setting. Massively divergent OTU variants are a published fact.
Simon Hibbs
Last edited:
We're getting there. Marc has been having rather long discussions for a few months now about TL 17 thru 21. There are game-changers here. And he knows what he wants for the higher 20s; those change the game yet again.
He pretty much has to nail down a few important issues soon. Otherwise I won't be able to write up the operational guide for the TL 17 Beowulf Mk III for Imperiallines.
I think in that famous interview that was posted some years back, Avery stated that as Traveller was developing people wanted more background material, so that's the direction they went; i.e. more about the Imperium and its neighbors as opposed to new general technologies, weapons and general settings. So it makes sense that things have happened the way they have. Maybe now the game can catch up to its imitators that have done knock offs of the Traveller scheme of things.
