Your Traveller Vector

[robject]

Vector. A quantity described by both magnitude and direction.

Where have you been, where are you now, and where are you going, related to Traveller?

So many of us have played Traveller for years and years. For some, it may have spanned multiple stages of life. This means your preferences for Traveller and the way you think about Traveller are likely to have changed. How have they changed?

 

[rust]

Where have you been, where are you now, and where are you going, related to Traveller?

When I began to play Traveller, almost exactly thirty years ago, I was inter-
ested in mercenary-type adventures and lots of combat action. When I grew
tired of this, I turned to ship building and space combat, and then to fleet
actions.
Finally I grew tired of any military stuff, and since then I played Traveller as a
game of exploration, more and more including fields like diplomacy, economy,
and the like.
Currently, as mentioned elsewhere, I use Traveller as a kind of "history game",
playing the important events in the history of a single colony, with world buil-
ding and society building and development, diplomacy and economy as impor-
tant as the more common adventurous activities.
Where I will go from there ... frankly, I have no idea. Of course, one day my
Pharos IV setting will also become uninteresting, and I will have to move on
- but in what direction ... ?

 

[mondokhan]

Mondo's Vector

I too have played for many years and yes I have had sublte changes along the way.

When I first played Traveller I played rather than Ref. I have always prefered sci-fi to fantasy but alas my friends back then were the opposite. Every Traveller campaign was doomed to fail. There just was not enough space treasure chests to find...grrrr.

I tried as Ref but met the same problem. Ct was just too dry for my group way back then. If the game did not have oodles of built in flavor they lost interest fast. But a few of them were on my side and as we grew older and moved around the group changed. I have always had the ability to make my campaigns last long (years), but could not get any sci-fi game to last with the old group.

Now a couple of my old friends are near me again (we all have moved). With them and some new old friends are having much more success. We are all old gamers and sci-fi lovers. We like sci-fi more than Sci-fantasy so that dumps Trek and Star Wars. (Flames are coming for that I know...). I started reffing in the late mega traveller era (rules era that is) with this group. I was surprised, but the campaign took off and lasted 3 years. This followed with New Era, T4, and the T20 campaign is 1 1/2 years old and still going. They like t20's inherit flexibility.

Changes.
I started with merc like scenarios due to the original groups love of combat.
I graduated to exploration, but found my current group loves my wheels within wheels intrigue style. Thus now most my campaigns are based on small time players slowing finding themselves in a big time mystery and/or problem type of story.

My current group also loves ships. Combat is fun in space but not predominant. They just love the idea of a ship. Usually they are small with the biggest one being 600t. They love slowly tweaking it to give it their own stamp. By that I don't mean ancients tech, just changing the ship or making one slowly that fits them. I accommodate this and make it part of the backdrop.

Various intrigues are my mainstay. I mix in small scale and large scale politics with some mercantile, merc, bounty hunting, alien plots, or exploration depending on the campaign. My current group is more cerebral than my last so combat is not as important. Sometimes they just talk the clues all night long. We have introduced some of our children though (finally old enough). They need a bit more combat and I have had to add more in to keep them focused.

I sadly don't get to play much. I am by far the best ref of the group and do most of it. They are getting better and ref off games during breaks while I write up the next sections. I do have a friend that loves the Hero system (I don't like super heroes) and with hero Traveller I might get him to ref me some time....so for his b-day he got the game. Hint...

We also have enjoyed the internet and use OpenRPG every Friday so we can continue gaming from afar. Heck we sometimes even use it in the same room for our quartely meets (budcons we call them).

Bit long and rambling, Mondo

 

[far-trader]

Long story short my Traveller vector is probably a circle.

I (the center loci) have not changed much re gaming while Traveller went through a number of versions (the arc) ending up (with T20) pretty much back around to CT and that's what I'm playing with now.

GT was a tangent at some point on the circle, which I never really went off on.

T5 and RTT are for the moment moot points for me. It remains to be seen how if at all they affect my own Traveller vector.

I may stop here back at the beginning, or continue on around the circle again, or just jump around the points on it at whim.

 

[JAFARR]

My father said "Once a Marine (USMC style), always a Marine." I say once a Merchant, always a Merchant - with a passion for info gathering.

 

[Supplement Four]

So many of us have played Traveller for years and years. For some, it may have spanned multiple stages of life. This means your preferences for Traveller and the way you think about Traveller are likely to have changed. How have they changed?

Started with Starter Traveller. CT. Absolutely loved it.

Moved quickly to MT. Used to think it was superior until I understood it. Loved the task system--the UTP is what sparked my interest in task systems.

Recognized that MT had lost some of the "charm" of Starter Traveller, but I kept with MT because it was newer (and perceived to be superior because it was newer).

TNE came out, and I hated it. Never played a single game of TNE. Re-wrote the rule book once using the MT task system.

I had forgotten what drew me to Traveller in the first place.

Back to MT I went....



(Big lull in Traveller gaming, playing other games)

Was playing a MT campaign when T4 arrived. I was excited as hell. I was a puppy dog, wagging my tail. On the surface, T4 seemed to have that CT charm. The campaign converted, and we played a multi-year T4 game.

And, we found a lot of problems. I tried to fix many of them.

After having, what I thought, were two not-so-good Traveller editions, this is where my distrust of Traveller editions began.

I wasn't interested in GURPS, so I never went with GT. I dislike d20, so I didn't go with T20 either. THero, MGT, and T5 are all, really, unnecessary in my opinion.

I had "re-discovered" Classic Trav. I remembered every thing I liked about it. I studied CT until I knew it like I know the back on my hand.

It's THE game.

It's the only edition I'll ever need.

 

[dean]

Adrift in jumpspace until school is finished, I fear.

 

[boomslang]

Where have you been, where are you now, and where are you going, related to Traveller?

[curmudgeon]

After much consideration of this very issue of late, I'm going to go with "widening gyre". [Kudos if you don't have to Google that.]

It's not so much that my interests have changed, but more that since 1977, Trav itself is slowly moving away from me with each new incarnation...

What drew me to Trav originally -- the opportunity for creative storytelling about Humaniti's future -- is being left further behind every year, so I remain in my Burgess Shale CT ATU and write fiction in lieu of rounding up new players. I really could not care less about new weaponry or rules for jamming sensors or the latest oh-so-realistic vehicle design system; when is the last time you even heard about -- nevermind got to actually play in -- a Trav campaign that had even a glimmer of epic or even merely heroic quality about it?

[And no, Firefly/Serenity doesn't count.]

I've told Marc in as many words: the appeal of Trav is not in the rules, it's in the stories. Screw the rules; Trav is a setting, not a game system.

I dutifully buy the books and even playtest when asked, but I'm otherwise tending a dying flame from a Lost Future...

[/curmudgeon]

 

[aramis]

A series of loops...

I started with CT (TTB and Deluxe). I tried Spacemaster, came back to CT.

I then found 2300, and it became the new baseline... Then I hit MT. I was hooked. I dabbled in TNE, came back to MT, dabbled in more TNE, came back to MT, Dabbled in T4, back to MT.

Then came T20. I'm proud of my part, and it runs a lot like MT... but I hybridize the two now.

I may piece together my "version" after the SRD comes out.

And for me, Traveller isn't the setting. It's the rules assumptions of CT & MT. Nothing else really is Traveller... but T20 comes close, and it's too early to tell on MoTrav or T5....

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

For me, it's from CT to MT and back again. However, I'm a whippersnapper who started as late as 1981. Metaplot-wise, I still have to read up on the Rebellion. I've been putting it off for two decades now...

However, given an enthusiastic group who neither a) despair of simple math nor b) obsess over complex math, I'd cycle back to MT.

CT and MT are almost two different games, but I like both. It's true that CT's lightness can feel liberating, but it's also true that the MT task system is amazing.

No offense to Hunter, but while I'm totally fine with 3.x corebooks only, T20 is a tad too crunchy for me. I would play it in a heartbeat but not GM it.

 

[Icosahedron]

I think my vector follows the Chinese '500 year plan' of a slow, steady expansion.

Thirty years ago, before the OTU was published, I created my own Earth-centred ATU, borrowing ideas from Blakes 7, Star Wars, Star Trek and others. The group I started playing with were uber-munchkins, so combat was the order of the day, but behind the scenes I slowly developed MTU with background and house-rules. The group split and I continued development in a gaming vacuum for a decade, expanding CT rules as I saw fit.

Then I discovered the Internet, and found that during my exile, Traveller had gone through a couple of reincarnations, and the OTU had metamorphosed from an 'example suggestion' to a doctrine. Since then, I have steadily collected as much second-hand material as I can, and I've also pulled in material from other SF game sources - particularly Shadowrun - to feed piecemeal into my unique version of Traveller, which I'm now running as a PBEM. I use the material I like and discard what I don't like.

For me, Traveller is not about the setting (which post-dated the rules) nor the rules (which have undergone numerous changes) but the assumptions. The Jump Drive, the STL communications, the little guy trying to make a difference; the non-setting stuff that spans all the versions.

And it's about my maverick TU, which is Traveller as long as I say it is.

 

[Plankowner]

My vector is a Chaotic Great Attractor...

Started in 1977 with LBB1-3 in a box. GM'd and played in several variations of the Terran Empire while developing my own region (about a sector in size, but this was before sectors existed). After High School, I fell away from actual play, but kept buying the LBBs, through 6, then fell away from RPGs all together as life took over. During the Post HS years, I sampled Star Frontiers, Space Opera, Traveller:2300 and several others, but none caught my attention like Traveller.

Jump forward 25+ years and I found a friend at work who was BIG into RPGs, D&D mostly, but others as well. He got me searching the web and I found the Traveller Webring and COTI.

In the last 2 years, I have been rediscovering my love of Traveller. Embracing the changes in the setting through MT, TNE:1201 and now TNE:1248. My rules of choice never really changed, mostly because I never used anything but CT.

I have been involved in some of the other playtests that have come up in the last two years. I am involved in the Terran Praesidium game that Bryan Gibson is developing as well as the Translight game that MJD is working on.

Lastly, I was involved in the Mongoose Playtest and even got my sons involved in some of the Playtest material. That, and the TNE:1248 books have inspired me to the point where I am going to GM a game for my sons and their friends starting in June.

So, I have drifted around, but in the end, I returned to Traveller and the Spinward Marches. I am also still developing my ATU, which I see as an alternate setting, not an alternate game. I have even figured out how to shoehorn it into the official timeline.

My latest goal is to put my setting together enough to publish something in Stellar Reaches. (lofty goal that may not get anywhere...)

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

You know, reading all this makes you realize how in some ways the internet didn't just enable but in a sense actively shape people's reconnection with the hobby. Like many people I was out of it (the hobby, that is) throughout the 90s, and when I got back online, not only did I rediscover my CT love, I also wizened up about a whole load of other games that had passed me by back in the day, which in turn put the CT love in perspective.

 

[sabredog]

When I first started Traveller I was very much into the sword and blaster type of science fiction. Poul Anderson’s Flandry and Van Rijn… John Carter of Mars…Jerry Pournelle’s Codominium…Mote in God’s Eye, etc. So my universe-from-scratch was more swash and buckle than hard sci-fi. I did though allow it to be heavily influenced by the Cold War zeitgeist so it always was about Empires facing off aginst eachother with a DMZ running down the middle that allowed for spies/smugglers/adventurers to profit and hassle eachother. Overall it was a pulp universe.
As I got older and the universe evolved I added High Guard and Striker to the mix. This allowed me to nuts with gearheading and expanded the whole mercenary line of adventure. Corporations hired them for exploiting the newly found worlds in the uncharted subsectors, freelancers could take up the cause of the downtrodden. Again, I was influenced by what I read and this go around it was the Dorsai series and Hammer’s Slammers. After a while I lost the original Space Opera feel I used to have and it all got so big that I realized I was basically using the players to help me write a huge future history but it lacked soul. It stopped being fun to the players even though I had a blast.
I ran some other games for a while, but the one that really got me back on track was Call of Cthulhu. THE pulp adventure and mystery game if done right. It helped me develop my narrative and plot design, and since casualties are so alarmingly high in that game it helped me de-emphasize combat and all that; instead work on character development and –gasp!- roleplaying.
SO after a short hiatus I scrapped all but the original framework and hung a new tapestry on it all. Now the old Terran Confederation had fought it’s last fight against the evil alien Askorrian Empire to exhaustion and either had to crumble to assorted squabbling independent worlds and alliances, or become a strong empire of it’s own – though smaller. The Friedland Coalition came into it’s own and formed the core of the First Terran Empire. I expanded the DMZ and rolled out the Merchant Prince and Scouts rules. I expanded all the world and systems with those and started running more merchant and exploration games. The influences here were my original ones as I tried to get back to what it was that made the game fun for the players – not just me. It’s all more dramatic and mysterious now, wild n’ wooly but with civilization close enough to run for cover if the players stir up something they wish they hadn’t.
Now I’m ready to start another campaign.

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller is my rule set of choice for when I want to try to run a new sci-fi setting - usually based off a book, TV or a film.

Traveller is the rule set I have written the most house rules for.

The proto-Traveller setting is my default universe to play in.

Traveller is the game my nephew will shortly be introduced to (starting him with D&D).

 

[Merxiless]

Well, to be perfectly honest and open about it all...

Traveller was my first RPG. Not D&D. I discovered it at age 11, in 1977.

I didn't really understand vectors, but over time, I got it, and liked space combat, albeit between two free traders (written out on index cards), and swapping out software packages seemed agonizingly slow.

But I had a few guys in the neighborhood that played it.

We then moved on to Gamma World (which we all really enjoyed) and AD&D.

But Traveller was much more of an adult taste. In high school, I'd sit in the library and roll planets, and subsectors, just basically learning what does what where with respect to gravity, atmosphere, etc.

When I Enlisted in the Navy, and went to bootcamp, The Traveller Book, and 2d6, one red, one white, went with me. By the time bootcamp was over, I had a new subsector, then got transferred to San Diego.

I Put up an ad for Traveller, no response for a month. I put up an ad for D&D got a group within a week.

So we played D&D.

Not until I transferred to a ship in 1988, did Traveller really thrive for me. If I recall correctly, By then Grand Survey was out. That jusat became my bible, it added so much...not until Gurps 3e Space, was it replaced.

We had Traveller games 3 nights a week on the messdeck, in a little 6 X 6 alcove with a book-shelf and a table, called the Crew's Lounge. We were it, along with a guy that read the bible, that after a few months, joined our campaign.

I think it was the best experience I've had with Traveller, right there.

Age 22-25, clear mind, regular pay, and nightly, I'd go to the upper weather decks of the ship and imagine I was on a star cruiser, sailing the sea of stars, inspired, then I'd run the game. I miss those days.

Then game Desert Storm, and no time for anything. Our ship went into the yards, and we played Red Storm Rising on a commodore 64, as a "hula Hoop Craze" kind of deal.

Then Paragon Software...Such a mixed bag. We liked the game, but the game was broken. we used those programs for Character generation, but the old magic wasn't there.

Left active duty, moved to Dayton, and entered college, to study Physics, all inspired by Traveller, those long ago days of Vectors, at age 11.

Only ever found 2 or 3 guys here that played Traveller, but those guys were Harold Hale, his friend John (played 2 sessions with them), and my best friend Mike.

That was about 1995. Around then, or slightly after, I got involved in Galactic 2.4. It rekindled my interest in Traveller.

But still not a lot of players, and my health started failing, making it tough to concentrate.

I was so eager about Megatraveller. But it was full of holes. I realized that game designers were not all the gods of rules I'd made them out to be...

I became very critical of game systems after that. I tried to make MT work, ended up just using UTP, and the advenced careers in CT.

TNE was a flash in the pan, that seemingly killed GDW. I won't say I wept, but it was pretty close.

Challenge gone?
No more TNS?

How the hell did this happen? These are SMART GUYS!

I had been a Twilight:2k fan, but I never really saw the need for "House Rules" I guess they pioneered the d20 5 years or so too early.

I liked the idea of what TNE wanted to do, but it didn't have the far flung white dots on black Keith overall "Style" that The Traveller Book did for me.

Imperium Games...I still have all of T4, and multiple copies of the core book, in the hopes that I'll get a Traveller group going again. With errata, I like that character generation the best, seconded by MegaTraveller.

These days, I play around with Galactic 3_4 every 6 months or so, telling myself, I'll get up the energy to recruit people in Dayton.

But I see the community as too fractured, too divisive to many trolls, too much sniping at Marc.

I wish I could end this on a higher note. But it ends up the game itself is there. Just that the players aren't, not to me.

Not like it was in the 80's.

I've thought, I'll write a Traveller Novel. But I'm not holding my breath.

I'm not burned out, but coming back here is a 3 months on, 3 months off experience. Maybe T5 will work.

In the meantime, I'm collecting Cheap T4 books, from Ebay, and telling my (currently playing Spycraft 2.0) game group, "Yeah, Traveller, This summer, or Fall." I've been saying that for 2 years now.

It's not that it's hard to generate a subsector...JimV hooked me up on that account. Just that my concentration is shot to hell, and traveller is not a hack& Slash game, and required tight plotting, like a novel...Or at least, That's how I've seen it played best.

The thing that keeps Traveller in mind is at it's core it's dirt simple, and with 4e on the horizon, I wasted a lot of money on d20, over the years.

I've got all editions of Traveller and 90% of the stuff that was done by licensees.

Turns out my favorite Traveller is:

The Traveller Book
Grand Survey
Judges Guild Starports
First In
Mer Prince
The Classic Reprints.

But it all sits there.

Maybe I'll tell the guys about a game I'd like to run this fall...About a free trader, under fire...

Hard to say.

Interesting responses. We run the gamut, certainly.

 

[R_Chance]

Started with CT in 1977... meandered off into Space Opera (which always struck me as somebodies homebrew Traveller game that tried to cover all the sci fi bases) and back to CT. On to MT (minus the Rebellion -- I liked my 3rd Imperium), disliked TNE (the system and the setting) stuck with MT. Dallied with T4 as reading material, and later GT and T20 as well. I've never found a reason to abandon MT (with a helping of CT on the side) gamewise. Still going to keep reading new versions of Traveller and, in all likelyhood, playing an old one. Messed with numerous other Sci Fi RPGs along the way and over the years but I keep coming back to Traveller.

 

[Stainless]

I started in 1977 with CT. I can still remember buying it as a schoolboy, then sitting down in the bus station on that hot Adelaide afternoon (in the 40 degC range) and discovering a whole new universe. I bought everything else as it came out, including FASA, DGP, etc. However, I only ever GMd. When MT came out I also bought into it. I hated the Rebellion idea but absolutely loved the task system. It was my first exposure to a task system and it was a revelation. Regretably, life got too busy and responsible to allow roleplaying any more, so I left all RPG's behind (around the late '80s I think).

Now I'm older and better off, I've returned to RPGs and the first thing I looked to was Traveller. I bougth the reissued CT books. Then the MT CD-ROM and started a campaign with some friends. Well, I still like the MT task system, but the errata just does my fusty old brain in. It took me some time to get up to speed with what had happened to Traveller in all those years away, and after ony two gaming sessions, I diverted to GT as the best option. I bought up big. After banging away at the GURPS 4e rules, I decided this was just too crunchy and convoluted (needlessly so).

Traveller has sat on the backburner while I played in other games (CoC, Conan, Tekumel) and I learned the BRP system (the Edition Zero is fab!, and as much crunch as I want). I recently invested in the Hollow Earth Expedition (and am currently running a BRP version of it), which I also can't recommend enough. My exposure to HEX and BRP has pulled me back to the "simple is elegant" mindset.

This, now I have MGT, I think I've completed a circle. It's CT enough, plus updated enough to be just right (I feel like Goldilocks). I really have been that impressed with MGT. Now, time to dust off the old campaign and rally the troops!

 

[jcrocker]

Wow, I've been playing Traveller for 20 years, and I'm a newbie...

We were playing a D&D campaign, and during a break one guy showed us this neat game he had for his IBM, Spaceflight? Or Starflight? A couple of us said, 'you know, this makes me want to play a sci-fi RPG' so I started looking around.

So I picked up MT - great framework, not much support. I found a few CT books in bargain bins, and Challenge magazine was great. But a lot of MT was stuff I adapted from CT or just made up myself, and it took a lot of time to put together.

At first I hated the ideas behind TNE, but the rationale made sense to me - MT was this ossified giant wearing down over the ages, a "war of great big change" where not much changed in places, while TNE swept it clean and started over. And the supplements were great, you could actually play a campaign without having to do everything yourself. Of course, I still wanted to do parts of it myself, but now it was an option instead of being almost mandatory. Our TNE campaign lasted a lot longer than our MT one, partly because I didn't have to spend a lot of time putting things together.

I was disappointed with a couple of the T4 supplements I picked up. GT books were great - I've got 8 or 9 and I'll never use them for Gurps, but for sourcebooks for whatever rules set I do use.

 

[Greg]

I started with The New Era in its heyday. I loved it (and still love it). Golan2072 nailed it in his review way back when: there is an urgency in the writing. (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=7501)
All that and Fire, Fusion & Steel.

I eventually realized that GDW had actually published a game set in the era before TNE, but it was long out of print and that was that. I fell out of RPGs for a couple of years, so I missed the Imperium Games debacle.

When I went to college I was exposed to GURPS and heard about GURPS Traveller, although nobody was playing it and I never managed to start a game. I started collecting it anyway, along with the CT reprints when they showed up.

When I started grad school I happened to fall into a CT group, which I'm still with. Very retro. We just rebooted the campaign after (re-)discovering that the trade rules are broken.

I picked up Interstellar Wars when it came out and I believe it is the best version of Traveller published to date, for a variety of reasons. Haven't had a chance to play it yet. With one Traveller campaign ongoing, it'll be tough to make time.