America 1600 Campaign setting

[Madarin Dude]

Just to get away from the normal traveller universe and get some new ideas into a campagn setting I came up with this.
There are 4 small empires they all knwo about each other and between them is less developed or underdeveloped worlds. The 4 powers know about each other and while not openly hostile to each other they are very competitive. So they try to one up the other powers and get bases or trade rights to soem of the undeveloped worlds.
the idea came to me while watching a pirate movie. The undeveloped areas are the Americas and the Carribean. The powers at the time were Spain, Britain, France and Portugul with a few others they are compeating for power and influence in the new world.
I think this woudl be a great idea for a campagn setting with letters of mark pirates buccaneers mercenaries and the like. A change from one monolithic imperium and alien cultures make all the cultures accessable.
A reason for the setting coudl be post new era there are 4 powers that come to play. Then they have to compete for the wild area in the center.
There are many things tht coud come into play. Your players coudl be heros in one of the pocket empires and hunted in another another might be trying to contact you to make a deal.

 

[TKalbfus]

D20 Modern Past has a setting suitable for this. I thought you were referring to the book written by Eric Flint called 1632, where a little town from modern West Virginia is mysteriously transported back in time and into the heart of Germany during the 30 years war in 1632. The weapons from the Swashbuckling era of d20 past and D20 modern would be suitable to recreate this setting.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Mostly I want to just give the political struggles in the Americas at the time and transfer them to a Traveller setting. I do mean using normal traveller tech tl 9-14 or so. But I like the Idea of licensed pirates and various powers vying for control but none getting to the point of a true war.

 

[kafka47]

Well, if it is Aztecs in the Far Future you want be sure to check out Signal GK toward the end of the run had some interesting commentary and historical parallels with the 1600s.

I applaud your daring the 1600s, I think would make a perfect backdrop for the First Imperial Civil War whereas the Solomani War of Liberty has parallels with the American War of Independence...although, picture if half the States lost (maybe, the Southern States) which would act as a bulwark against Yankee expansionism forcing a rewrite of the history books.

 

[Whipsnade]

Mandarin Dude,

Hmmm... a very intriguing idea...

I'm wondering how closely you could 'port the political struggle bits from the 1600s Western hemisphere into a far-future setting.

Just a few points to remember...

- The powers you mention are fighting a low intensity war with each other in the Western Hemisphere, but back in Europe they are very circumspect with each other. That might be a nice bit to steal. Have the Four Powers crammed together 'cheek by jowl' within their 'home' territories while all are active in territories distant from that 'home'. They'll do and allow things 'out there' that they'll never do or allow 'back home'.

- Thanks to the Pope, Spain 'legally' owns the whole shebang. Portugal 'owns' Brasil for the same reason. France, being Catholic, is supposed to abide by this. Britain is the outlier. Find so way for one power to have the initial claim to the region, a claim the others must ignore or work around.

- Aside from the Pope thing, Spain does have the lion's share of colonies, no one else comes even close to the number of cities, ports, and other communities Spain has in the New World. Despite Spain's huge lead in colonies, she is still spread woefully thin throughout the region. (ForEx - Despite legally owning the territory for centuries, Spain didn't offically settle San Francisco until 4 July 1776! Response to a bloody Navajo revolt and reconquest in the early Spanish colonial period took over a decade.)

- Many of those Spanish colonies only pay lip service to their fealty to Spain. Again a nice bit that can water down your Lead Power's perponderance in colonies.

- Spain is weakening relative to the other powers in Europe. And not just relatively either. Thanks to failures in the Low Countries, split inheritances, a failed economy, and other issues, by mid century Spain will no longer be the hegemon in Europe.

I think you've picked a winner!


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Madarin Dude]

It is a rich tapestry too. I think it woudl be interesting to make a few takes on the native cultures in the Americas at the time too. Namly the Aztecs as mentioned before. There is a lot of possibilities for player involvment in many low intesity conflicts between the colonial powers while officiallly they are at peace. Might be a fun map to make. All the real powers like Bill said close together. The real adventure lies in the frontier with the new colonies.
It is an interesting time considering all the films and books and games about it. To keep the feel of the game the way I would liek I would want to limit the size of starships. Maybe to 2K ton. Get away form the behemoths. Maybe a campagn rule that that is the maximum amout of volume that can be sent into hyperspace at one time.

 

[deadlock]

Greetings and salutations,

This is something else you may wish to consider. The naval power of these four countries in the 1600s. England was prone to have powerful guns on its ships and Spain had a lot of ships. Not sure about France and Portugal though. Do not forget the pirates that were about then. They were a power unto themselves.

Not sure how accurate this information is since I just started looking into it.

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Hmmm...does this sound like a New Era setting to anyone else?

Picture this: there's a cluster of worlds that are linked together by a Jump-1 main, with everything else nearby Jump-2 or farther away. That makes them "cheek to jowl", as Bill puts it. They were all hit hard by Virus, but were habitable and managed to survive the Collapse with substantial populations intact. Perhaps one or two Jump-1 capable ships even survived, and managed to range back and forth along the main and keep the worlds from regressing into religious or technologically elevated dictatorships.

Now, it's 90 or so years later, say about IY 1210. All of the worlds have developed or redeveloped Jump-2 or better technology, and are starting to expand out into the remainder of the subsector. They all need/want colonies to provide an economic boost or sources of relic technology, but there are only a limited number of worlds out there. War "at home" is not much of an option, since each world still has a fairly large Jump-1 fleet that doesn't have anything better to do than sit around and get ready to retaliate against any move on their homeworld. However, out in the unorganized colonies in the Wilds, anything can and does happen, as long as there's a fig leaf of "plausible deniability".

For extra points, one of the worlds in question was the subsector capital under the old Imperium, and still claims the right to govern all of the systems in the subsector.

There could be low-level conflicts out among the colonies between the worlds, rebellious colonies that might start feeling more connection to their new homeworld than to a "mother world" that only sends a ship once every few months...and once you've spent some time emphasizing the divisions between the different colonizing worlds, you can toss a major vampire fleet into the region and see how the PCs react to suddenly having to foster unity.

Dunno if you're interested in putting this in the OTU, but if you are this might be an interesting way to do it.

 

[mike wightman]

Why can't the different empires try to place their own colonies on each world discovered?

Take a leaf out of Traveller 2300 about the early colonisation of space was split between major powers. Thus settlements from more than one power were established on the colonies.

Nice ideas everyone

 

[Chaos]

Originally posted by ChaserCaffey:
*snip*

One word: Coooool.

 

[TKalbfus]

Lets see how we would transfer it.

Earth is Europe.
Earth is still divided into nations and the reason they don't fight with each other on Earth is because each power has nuclear weapons. The powers vying for space colonies could be as follows:

North American Federation (Canada, United States, Mexico)

European Union

China

Pacific Federation (Japan, Australia)

Russia

Those are the 5 major powers. The Jump Drive is a recent discovery and all 5 of the powers are just beginning to use it to plant colonies.

There are 74 Star System within 21 light years of Earth. Of those star systems only a few are really suitable for colonization. The Leading contenders are ...

Prometheus - Orbits Alpha Centauri A - 4.4 light years from Sol.

and

New America - Orbits Delta Pavonis - 18.6 light years from Sol.

These two systems have Earthlike planets with advanced ecosystems comparable to Earth's. Turns out that the Terrans weren't the first humans to settle thse planets. There was the Vilani Empire, An Empire that collapsed before terrans ever settled space, but Vilani did leave colonies on both Prometheus and New America, although those aren't the names the Vilani gave those planets. Unfortunately for the original colonists, the collapse of the Empire left them stranded on their respective planets, they could not repair their star ships and they could not even maintain their tech levels as most of the items they used were manufactured on a distant planet, and they had to make due with what they could manufacture locally mostly due to the mercantile situation that existed before the collapse of the Vilani Empire. A few wrecked star ships still orbit the primaries of each system, some of these have jump drives and maneuver drives that still work and if made to work would be more advanced than the technology the terrans have. Native terran Tech is limited to TL 9 with Jump-1 drives, but the Vilani spaceships have up to Jump-3 and possible higher. Terrans are [presently trying to duplicate items of Vilani technology that they presently find in space. The Vilani humans found on Prometheus and New America have descended to savagery with tech levels ranging from 0 to 2. The most advanced of these natives have gun powder, wooden sailing ships, and a written language, the more primitive have medieval, Bronze age, or stone age technology. The most Advanced societies of New America have TL 2 and are only now just beginning to cross their oceans in wooden sailing ships, just as this is happening the Terrans establish their own colonies on the more savage continents of New America, the Tech Level 2 Nations which also have their own colonies on the savage continents aren't too happy with this competition and the Savage TL 0 humans are caught in the middle. The fact that the native TL 2 nations still practice slavery is a problem for the Terran colonists, although the number of terrans on this planet is small, their TL 9 technology pretty much establishes them as the dominant powers on the planet. The Tech Level 2 "Old World" powers are the most dangerous of the native inhabitants; they have a written language and a rudimentary science and are quick studies. Some of them have acquired TL 9 technology and know how to use it, mostly from unscrupulous terran traders looking for a profit, and from competitor nations looking to give some other terrans problems with the natives.

Both Planets are roughly Earthlike although alien in most respects; they are biologically compatible with humans. Other forms of Earth life exist here including horses, dogs, cats, and agricultural livestock, everything else is native to this planet and quite alien in detail although the general forms are similar to life on Earth.

The closer colony is Prometheus. Prometheus has tech level 1 native society with medieval technology, including swords, horses, suits of armor and the like. This planet also has its more savage continents with TL 0 inhabitants. The thing about Prometheus that makes it important is that it has a higher percentage of heavy and precious metals than Earth does, this has produced a gold rush of sorts that has been monopolized by one or two nations which have established colonies at the major mining sites in the system. The other nations of Earth and the corporations involved are jealous and have set up privateer and piracy operations to prey upon the "treasure ships" that ply space between Prometheus and Earth.

Also the Vilani Empire is not quite dead, they have contracted somewhat before the Terrans got here, but they're out their somewhere and their decaying empire can still represent a formidable threat once contact is established with the terran colonists.

 

[TKalbfus]

I think having just two Earthlike planets within a 21 light year radius promotes more competition between the powers. Prometheus is kind of an analog to South and Central America and New America is an Analog of North America. New America was of course named and first settled by the North American Federation. Who ever first invented the jump-1 drive is the first power on the scene for Prometheus.

 

[kafka47]

When I was thinking of the Aztec model with Signal GK in mind.

I was thinking what if Cortes lost and the Europeans succumbed to some sort of tropical disease (unlike the native population in the real world) which kept the European powers at bay and away from the Aztec heartlands. Forcing the Pope and others to negotiate directly with the Aztecs? A power struggle breaks out between the Traditionalists and the Christian factions within the Aztecs. Europe is forced on the margins as each side in the Civil War acquires European technology & know-how. Enter China whose grand Admiral wants to expand China's influence beyond South East Asia...

Pretty soon the Aztecs realize that their enemies lie outside their borders...

This could all be played out in the Dag. sector in either a Hard Times milieu or TNE.

 

[Madarin Dude]

One other thing I wnated to do was limit the size of naval vessels. This is to give the flavor of the privateers and pirates a little more weight. It coudl be due to treaty or limit on the size annything sent into jumpspace. I　was thinking around 2K ton.
One of the things about it too is having native people there. Not only does it bring mor ecolor but makes for potential allies in our low intensity conflict like the French Indian war would be an analogy. (allhtough a bit later in the mid 1700's.

 

[ChaserCaffey]

Originally posted by Madarin Dude:
One other thing I wnated to do was limit the size of naval vessels. This is to give the flavor of the privateers and pirates a little more weight. It coudl be due to treaty or limit on the size annything sent into jumpspace. I　was thinking around 2K ton.

Better to have some kind of technological limitation, since historically treaties limiting the size of warships haven't done very well. The only major example I'm aware of, the Washington Naval Treaty of the 20s, was covertly broken by both Japan and Germany before the outbreak of World War II and was ignored by pretty much everybody after the war began.

If you're chucking the OTU, you could put an absolute upper limit on what can go into J-space, which would do it quite nicely. If you want a contrast between "secure" home space and wild colonial areas, you could allow any size of ship to be built with Jump-1, but restrict the size of J-2 and higher ships. That would yield fleets of large ships in home systems and along J-1 mains, but restrict travel farther out to smaller ships.

Alternately, if you're running this in the New Era or after some kind of similar Collapse/Long Night type scenario, you could simply decree that none of the powers has the infrastructure to build large starships at this point. Of course, that could set off fierce competition for colonies whose resources would allow them to develop the infrastructure they needed...

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by kafka47:
Europe is forced on the margins as each side in the Civil War acquires European technology & know-how. Enter China whose grand Admiral wants to expand China's influence beyond South East Asia...

Adding China to the mix is a good way of messing with the setting to ensure it doesn't get too familiar.

I would consider going with the original European colonisation model, and then throwing in the Chinese partway through the campaign to fubar everybody.

I'm not going to bother to assess the historical possibility of this happening, as it's simply not relevant, but the factors that prevented it were social and political, not technical.

I'll leave the Travellerisation of this possibility to the individual GM...

 

[TKalbfus]

ChaserCaffey said,

Better to have some kind of technological limitation, since historically treaties limiting the size of warships haven't done very well. The only major example I'm aware of, the Washington Naval Treaty of the 20s, was covertly broken by both Japan and Germany before the outbreak of World War II and was ignored by pretty much everybody after the war began.

If you're chucking the OTU, you could put an absolute upper limit on what can go into J-space, which would do it quite nicely. If you want a contrast between "secure" home space and wild colonial areas, you could allow any size of ship to be built with Jump-1, but restrict the size of J-2 and higher ships. That would yield fleets of large ships in home systems and along J-1 mains, but restrict travel farther out to smaller ships.

Alternately, if you're running this in the New Era or after some kind of similar Collapse/Long Night type scenario, you could simply decree that none of the powers has the infrastructure to build large starships at this point. Of course, that could set off fierce competition for colonies whose resources would allow them to develop the infrastructure they needed...

I thought I just supplied a plausible explaination for this. This setting occurs just before the Vilani contact the terrans. The Jump-1 drive has just been invented. I've fiddled with the history just a little bit. Instead of the terrans causing the collapse of the First Imperium, the First Imperium has been rotting from within for quite some time over a period of thousands of years. Consequently, territory that used to be part of the Imperium is not any longer by the time the Terrans reached it. In other words the 'Long Night' began before the Terrans made contact with the part of the Vilani Empire that's still kicking. In Alpha Centauri and Delta Pavonis, the Terran colonists have time to pick over the ruins of the former Vilani Empire. Of most interest to the terrans are the derelic starships still in orbit about the planet, installations in space and on airless planets. The vacuum tends to preserve things that the weather on a planet would tend to destroy. From derelics, terrans can aquire greater than Jump-1 drives, although they don't know how to produce them. All the terrans know how to manufacture is the Jump-1 drive, the Maneuver-1 drive and at tech level 9, they don't have artificial gravity just yet, and since they can only accelerate at 1-g they don't really need it. TL-9 also eliminates all the plasma guns and fusion guns from the arsenal, and gives the primitives on the planet more of a fighting chance, and keeps the challenge level more interesting for the colonists. The "natives" on the planets are decendents of former Vilani subjects who were left behind when the Empire contracted.

Once the Vilani find out about the expanding Terrans, they aregoing to get "interested" in this region of space once more. Formerly the part of the Vilani Empire that still exists has assumed that they have already conquered all that was worth conquering, and did not perceive any other technological civilizations out their worth bothering about, the expanding terran civilization changes that assesment, and their fleet will eventually return and try to absorb the terran colonies and Earth into their Empire, but in the meantime, the terran powers compete with each other in attempts to exploit the resources and the people of the two planets they have discovered so far. It is cheaper to operate on an Earthlike planet with native inhabitants already on it that they can exploit, rather than send miners in starships to airless bodies to dig out ore. the multi-million dollar costs of brand new starships (the only ones available at this moment) are serious issues. The corporations and rich people who buy these starships can only afford to send relative handfuls of Earth people to thse planets, compared to the number of natives that already reside there. Therefore the terrans try to coopt the natives by offering them technology that gives them advantages over their rivals. this means that the terrans are raising the tech level of each planet's native population, by putting laser rifles in the hands of savages, and teaching them how to use them, and perform minor repairs on them if given spare parts. Since the natives cannot duplicate this technology, they remain dependent of their terran benefactors and must do their bidding if they are to receive more of these items.

 

[TKalbfus]

By the way, Jump-1 can go as far as jump-6, it just takes 6 times longer. A jump-1 starship can carry extra jump fuel, a higher jump number starship would still have to carry this same amount of fuel. the only difference is that a jump-1 ship would need to make 2 jumps to cover 2 parsecs than a jump-2 starship.

 

[Madarin Dude]

TK the limit I was talking aobut was tonnage. Keep ships under 2k tons. The idea was tossed aroudn I liek the tech restriction. Soemthing to the effect of current jump technology will not allow a stable jump bubble above 2.5K tons. The reason is to get more of a classic pirtate tale type of setting. A 400 ton corsair could get the jump on a navy ship and win a battle with luck and skill. But if you are in a 400 ton corsair and they are in a 500Kton Tigress dreadnaught then there is no chance at all.
TL 9 sounds cool in fact that might be a interestign way to run a campaign.

 

[TKalbfus]

One limiting factor would simply be cost. Were talking about the governments of Earth here and corporations. A 800 ton Mercenary Cruiser costs 409,395,000 credits, a Traveller Credit is roughly equivalent to 3 dollars making the Merc Cruiser 1.2 billion dollars in today's currency, That is the typical price of a nuclear sub or destroyer, yet this Merc Cruiser can carry a platoon of Soldiers as it has 25 staterooms. You can probably cram 50 in there if you have shifts and sharing of living quarters. $1.2 billion is not a paltry sum. Each of the major powers I've listed may have a few hundred of such ships. Each ship would have to be justified as a major taxpayer expense. Buying a Starship used it not an option, as all the ships are new. Buying a starship for a private company is kind of like buying a 747 passenger jet today, except it holds fewer passengers. Low berths are available, and so the majority of passengers probably travel that way. Delta Pavonis is 18.6 light years away, and it takes 5 jumps to get there or at least a 35 day journey. There are probably other systems it would want to stop in for refueling purposes, as carrying 5 jumps worth of jump fuel would not leave much room for passengers and cargo. I use The Starflight Handbook, which has a list of nearby stars within 21 light years, or about 6 to seven Jumps from Earth to the furthest star here. Coordinates are listed in 3 dimensions, so chances are their are a few stops along the way that aren't directly in line to the destination, figure about 6 to 7 weeks in total for a one-way trip to Delta Pavonis. Since Starships travel at only 1 parsec per day, the costs of passage are about triple of what are listed in the book. High passage is Cr30,000 per parsec, Middle passage is Cr24,000, and low passage is Cr3,000. The reason for this is that there are no Jump-3 ships that could compete with the Jump-1 ships that are the only ones in service. It takes 3 times as long on average to go a certain distance than it would in the standard Traveller Universe. Since a starship takes 3 times as long to deliver cargo and passengers, its not available while its enroute to deliver other cargo. Starships are expensive, and monthly payments must be divided by only 1/3 the paying passengers and cargo that can be delivered in a standard Traveller campaign, so naturally the Merchants charge 3 times as much to cover their costs. Higher prices mean fewer passengers and cargo and hence fewer starships are built. This all means that no one has the funds to build a dregnaught. A carrier might carry about 8 fighters, and it is a small affair that can land on planets. Infact just about all starships can land on planets. orbital facilities that can handle starships that are incapable of landing are expensive, and investors want to obtain the most use out of their starships to they give them all landing capabilities to maximize their flexibility. You can use the Solar System, in my Solar System campaign to represent Sol in this setting. Many system ships in the Sol system don't have the capacity to land. Getting system ships to other star systems is difficult, as they must fit inside the cargo holds of starships, and the system ships that can't land are usually very big. Much of the military resources remain within the Solar Systems, there are large battleships that can't jump which reside there. The militaries of the 5 major powers aren't terribly interested in spending billions of credits to protect a relative handful of colonists. Usually the standard starships within the Traveller handbook are the most they would commit to, which are basically Patrol Cruiser and Mercenary cruisers. Most of the stuff that needs protecting from enemies is in the Solar System, and within the Solar System most people live within the radius of the asteroid belt. Also due to the Sun's gravity, the outer asteroid belt is the distance one must travel from the sun before a safe Jump can be made, this overrides the 100 diameter rule from Earth for all planets within this radius. For different stars their are different radiuses dependent on Mass. The rule is the jump limit is where the gravity from the star equal's Earth's gravity at a distance of 100 Earth diameters. For most Sunlike stars, this means that one must leave the inner starsystem before a Jump can safely be initiated.