More Traveller
Jan. 28th, 2006 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stevekensonIt's been a long time since I spent all afternoon on a weekend tinkering with some RPG thing that wasn't in any way work-related, but today my percolating Traveller ideas would not be denied. The stack of reference materials I've been digging out of storage continues to grow: books from all the various incarnations of Traveller, prinout sector maps, PDFs, and scrawled notes. Things are taking shape. It's fun!
I've decided to go with a Milieu 0 setting: sometime in the first few decades of the founding of the Third Imperium. I'm also strongly considering building a coherent map of the borders of the Imperium at that time, sketching in a few details outside of it and placing "here there be dragons" elsewhere and considering all bets off in terms of Traveller canon. So, I might include the K'kree or the Zhodani, for example (two races I happen to like), but who's to say the Zhodani Consulate has to be near the Spinward Marches, or that there even needs to be a Spinward Marches? I can also include aliens and other fun bits from other scifi settings and materials I like (Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, etc.).
One thing spacefaring settings and campaigns say to me is exploring the unknown (boldly going, and all that) and it's hard to do that in the "modern" Third Imperium. Everything is mapped out, and Imperial space is hemmed-in by surrounding stellar powers. There's very little in the way of a "froniter". Starting at the beginning of a Third Imperium opens up that frontier, while still retaining the feel of a long-settled universe. I like the idea of re-discovering worlds isolated by the Long Night and carrying the light of civilization back out to the stars and all that.
That probably means a scout/survey game rather than the classic Traveller "free trader" model (AKA "shadowrunners among the stars," or "doin' crime" in Firefly parlance). Probably just as well, since I'm not all that interested in motivating the characters with profit, dealing with cargos, passengers, and so forth. It cuts off some plot options, but the PCs can still function as couriers from time to time, assigned by their Imperial bosses to lug some needed supplies or top-secret whatsis across a few parsecs.
Hunting for some good printable sub-sector map forms before dinner... oh, never mind, found 'em.
I've decided to go with a Milieu 0 setting: sometime in the first few decades of the founding of the Third Imperium. I'm also strongly considering building a coherent map of the borders of the Imperium at that time, sketching in a few details outside of it and placing "here there be dragons" elsewhere and considering all bets off in terms of Traveller canon. So, I might include the K'kree or the Zhodani, for example (two races I happen to like), but who's to say the Zhodani Consulate has to be near the Spinward Marches, or that there even needs to be a Spinward Marches? I can also include aliens and other fun bits from other scifi settings and materials I like (Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, etc.).
One thing spacefaring settings and campaigns say to me is exploring the unknown (boldly going, and all that) and it's hard to do that in the "modern" Third Imperium. Everything is mapped out, and Imperial space is hemmed-in by surrounding stellar powers. There's very little in the way of a "froniter". Starting at the beginning of a Third Imperium opens up that frontier, while still retaining the feel of a long-settled universe. I like the idea of re-discovering worlds isolated by the Long Night and carrying the light of civilization back out to the stars and all that.
That probably means a scout/survey game rather than the classic Traveller "free trader" model (AKA "shadowrunners among the stars," or "doin' crime" in Firefly parlance). Probably just as well, since I'm not all that interested in motivating the characters with profit, dealing with cargos, passengers, and so forth. It cuts off some plot options, but the PCs can still function as couriers from time to time, assigned by their Imperial bosses to lug some needed supplies or top-secret whatsis across a few parsecs.
Hunting for some good printable sub-sector map forms before dinner... oh, never mind, found 'em.
