I put this to a few of you privately, but now I’d like to get wider input. Let’s posit a hypothetical high school, a faculty member there who’s played RPGs before, but never any version of Traveller. Somehow the game has come to her attention, and she thinks it’d be great to run for the students in her club. She’s long since gotten administration approval for the club and she has students chomping at the bit to play this scoff game they’ve heard about.
Some assumptions in our case:
- They can print out materials with impunity
- There’s some budget for “materials,” but not a lot. Students are expected to shoulder some of the individual costs
- The teacher/facilitator running the club has plenty of RPG experience, just not with Traveller
- None of the students has any more than a passing familiarity with Traveller, but might very well know about other scifi games
- The club meets once a week after school for 3-4 hours, at school
- The club can keep in touch via online resources - email, a wiki, a simple site the teacher has set up for the club
- They’re looking for campaign-style play; while they might do a few one-offs to shake down, they’ll move to regular characters and recurring campaign elements at some point
- “Canon” is not a concern of theirs
- Setting hasn’t been determined, but sandbox, Third Imperium, and anything else appropriate is on the table.
THE QUESTION: which version of Traveller would be “best” for the club?
I’m not sure what “best” looks like, exactly. I feel it’s probably some confluence of lower cost, easily-understood materials ( although I’m not sure this is really true; maybe kids in the club would like to dig in ), and maybe online support in the form of forums or sites where a Referee with questions could look things up... but I'm open to this evolving.
Some assumptions in our case:
- They can print out materials with impunity
- There’s some budget for “materials,” but not a lot. Students are expected to shoulder some of the individual costs
- The teacher/facilitator running the club has plenty of RPG experience, just not with Traveller
- None of the students has any more than a passing familiarity with Traveller, but might very well know about other scifi games
- The club meets once a week after school for 3-4 hours, at school
- The club can keep in touch via online resources - email, a wiki, a simple site the teacher has set up for the club
- They’re looking for campaign-style play; while they might do a few one-offs to shake down, they’ll move to regular characters and recurring campaign elements at some point
- “Canon” is not a concern of theirs
- Setting hasn’t been determined, but sandbox, Third Imperium, and anything else appropriate is on the table.
THE QUESTION: which version of Traveller would be “best” for the club?
I’m not sure what “best” looks like, exactly. I feel it’s probably some confluence of lower cost, easily-understood materials ( although I’m not sure this is really true; maybe kids in the club would like to dig in ), and maybe online support in the form of forums or sites where a Referee with questions could look things up... but I'm open to this evolving.