CT Setting: The High Frontier (G. K. O'Neill)?

[SatyrArt]

I'm inspired to play the 1977 version of CT, fairly Out-of-the-Box style.
But in a desire to push away some of the Clark-tech, while still being authentic to the period Marc wrote CT in, I have found myself drawn towards Gerard O'Neill's High Frontier.

But I find it peculiar that I don't already see much about that as a setting for CT, either published or made by other enthusiasts.
So far, the closes TTRPG resources I've seen on it are the GURPS "Transhuman Space" series, and the Zozer Orbital setting made for the Cepheus SRD.
Note: I am curious about the upcoming Mongoose Pioneer RPG: Explore the Solar System product.

Have I overlooked any High Frontier TTRPG products?
Has anyone in the forum ever tackled this approach before?
Has anyone found their CT experience stunted with the removal of the FTL game mechanic?
Has anyone supplemented it's game rules function with an STL substitution (ie alternative charts already made).

 

[whartung]

Traveller is all about FTL. That's the core mechanic, actually.

While near earth and inner system work is well within the realm, that's not what the game originally was about. Originally it was about getting out past 100D and on to the next adventure.

Where D&D had inns and dungeons, Traveller has Starport and Ancient Sites, or hidden science labs.

Even when revisited in 2300, the solar system "wasn't big enough", and people (and players) were pushed out to the stars. Certainly a tighter system, travel wasn't has ubiquitous as regular Traveller, but detailing out orbitals wasn't really "the game" either. It was getting to the frontier to do more Western style themes.

We'll see what happens with the new Mongoose project, but inner system work is going to be tough to not get very dystopian, very political, locked down habitats, rigid corporations in a very (very) dangerous environment. Travel is not cheap. Travel takes a very long time. And it's not just t-shirt world adventure, it's miss a step and your vacc suit blows a seal due to lunar dust. And you're dead. Or blind. Or something else awful.

Traveller lets you get away from all of that, into exotic worlds with exotic beasts and secrets. Inner system stuff is all poverty, grueling labor, bad contracts, addiction, very rich people, and just stuff you can't really get away from. No picket fences and happy middle class families. It's 21st century Earth, with all of its issues, and you're still trapped here.

 

[SatyrArt]

Traveller is all about FTL. That's the core mechanic, actually.

While near earth and inner system work is well within the realm, that's not what the game originally was about. Originally it was about getting out past 100D and on to the next adventure.

Where D&D had inns and dungeons, Traveller has Starport and Ancient Sites, or hidden science labs.

Even when revisited in 2300, the solar system "wasn't big enough", and people (and players) were pushed out to the stars. Certainly a tighter system, travel wasn't has ubiquitous as regular Traveller, but detailing out orbitals wasn't really "the game" either. It was getting to the frontier to do more Western style themes.

We'll see what happens with the new Mongoose project, but inner system work is going to be tough to not get very dystopian, very political, locked down habitats, rigid corporations in a very (very) dangerous environment. Travel is not cheap. Travel takes a very long time. And it's not just t-shirt world adventure, it's miss a step and your vacc suit blows a seal due to lunar dust. And you're dead. Or blind. Or something else awful.

Traveller lets you get away from all of that, into exotic worlds with exotic beasts and secrets. Inner system stuff is all poverty, grueling labor, bad contracts, addiction, very rich people, and just stuff you can't really get away from. No picket fences and happy middle class families. It's 21st century Earth, with all of its issues, and you're still trapped here.

Thanks.
Have I overlooked any High Frontier TTRPG products?
Did you ever tackle this approach before?
If you did, was your CT experience stunted with the removal of the FTL game mechanic?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Keeping things in the solar system, as "slightly harder than usual Sci-Fi (that's still not too hard of SF)" can get you close to a Traveller feel. Jump (interplanetary travel) takes longer than a week, and you have FTL radio (ok, it's exactly as fast as light, but in a Jump-less Traveller context it acts that way). Ramp up fuel burn rates for maneuver drives and the "physics" part might be a close fit.

The societal stuff can be as dystopian or utopian as you wish, or anywhere in between. And that bit is partly political, partly a matter of present trends in SF (and/or trends of previous eras of SF), and partly the maturity/experiences and expectations of the players and referee.

 

[mike wightman]

I am going to disagree with whartung here, Traveller is not all about FTL, it is about travel from adventure to adventure . That travel need not be FTL at all...
I have run near future games set within the solar system with week to months long travel times between worlds, asteroids and moons.

Inspirations - Cyberpunk near orbit + deep space, GURPS terradyne, Outland

I repurposed the jump drive as being an in system nuclear thermal reaction drive with each rating being 0.5g acceleration and fuel duration being hours, so 10% fuel would last 1 hour. The m-drive became a high thrust combat drive rated 1 to 6 g.

One major change you notice is that while it may take a ship a month or two to travel to Mars, communication lag is only minutes,

 

[SatyrArt]

Traveller is all about FTL. That's the core mechanic, actually.
[ ]
Where D&D had inns and dungeons, Traveller has Starport and Ancient Sites, or hidden science labs.
[ ]
Inner system stuff is all poverty, grueling labor, bad contracts, addiction, very rich people, and just stuff you can't really get away from. No picket fences and happy middle class families. It's 21st century Earth, with all of its issues, and you're still trapped here.

Funny, I always thought 8+ on 2D6 was the CT "core mechanic" But I take your point. To truly embrace Marc's intention ("Traveller is necessarily a framework describing the barest of essentials for an infinite universe."), the choice to deliberately confine a game to the Solar System cuts your game off from fully 1/2 of the fun tools he provided.

I disagree with your assumptions about an inner system theme, though. The whole point of my OP is about using the O'Neill vision, which incorporates a (almost quaint) positivity about the use of orbital colonies and improved conditions on Earth, is that it refutes the contemporary dystopian concepts our cultures have adopted in the past 30 years.

Of course, there's a huge appetite in TTRPG for that approach too. Otherwise Zozer's Hostile, and Tuesday Night Games' Mothership, wouldn't have skyrocketed in popularity over the past 3 years.

 

[SatyrArt]

I have run near future games set within the solar system with week to months long travel times between worlds, asteroids and moons.

Inspirations - Cyberpunk near orbit + deep space, GURPS terradyne, Outland

I repurposed the jump drive as being an in system nuclear thermal reaction drive with each rating being 0.5g acceleration and fuel duration being hours, so 10% fuel would last 1 hour. The m-drive became a high thrust combat drive rated 1 to 6 g.

IMO Increasing the travel times, and invoking the underlying complexities of STL, could always be gamified to be simple and unobtrusive (Like Mothership's Shipbreakers Toolkit does). And my notion is that a variety of longer travel times could just as easily become sources of valuable storytelling tensions.

To that end, thanks for your own "nuclear thermal reaction drive" changes. They seem to be a simple way to apply in-system travel without reinventing the wheel.

Also, thanks for the GURPS Terradyne tip. I've no idea how I missed that one.

 

[SatyrArt]

The societal stuff can be as dystopian or utopian as you wish, or anywhere in between. And that bit is partly political, partly a matter of present trends in SF (and/or trends of previous eras of SF), and partly the maturity/experiences and expectations of the players and referee.

Yea, a great many TTRPG players seem to be either seeking or expecting some form or dystopia-in-space vibe these days. I was originally considering using Mothership or Zozer's Hostile, because it is put forth as "gritty" and also because I want to present outer space as dangerous. But then I read through the material for both games and found myself bored with the monotonous undertone of "the corporations are in charge, the corporations are evil, and there's an alien Jason Voorhees (with acid for blood) skulking in the air ducts." <Yawns>

In contrast, Marc's work is much more neutral, with room for any variety of themes to emerge. This is because he was writing his rules in reaction to science fiction literature, NOT the science fiction in movies. And that is what drew my attention to his 1970's publishing contemporary, Gerard O'Neill.

 

[whartung]

I have run near future games set within the solar system with week to months long travel times between worlds, asteroids and moons.

How did you handle the months long travels in your games?

 

[mike wightman]

A month passes uneventfully and you prepare the burn needed to orbit your destination, pretty much the same way I handle the week long jumps of Traveller or warping to another system in Star Trek, or hyperdriving across half the galaxy in Culture... space travel is boring (until something goes wrong)

unless something is going to happen en route the transit time is downtime, the characters can read, study, practice, and carry out all the checks and maintenance the ship requires (if they are crew).

 

[RossWinn]

There was High Colonies a near future SFRPG that dealt with system colonization. It has its roots in cyberpunk and SF like Allen Steel and John Varley. It has its own system, but I’m not above strip mining a game.

 

[SatyrArt]

There was High Colonies a near future SFRPG that dealt with system colonization. It has its roots in cyberpunk and SF like Allen Steel and John Varley. It has its own system, but I’m not above strip mining a game.

Oh yea, that's right!
They did a remake of the classic High Colonies that came out around the same period as CT.
Thanks for the reminder.

 

[mike wightman]

The latest version is published bu Columbia games and use a modified Harnmaster/BRP rule system. There is an adventure for it too.

 

[SatyrArt]

The latest version is published bu Columbia games and use a modified Harnmaster/BRP rule system. There is an adventure for it too.

Yea I just bought it. I already had a pdf of the original on another PC. I dismissed it a while back because it was set in a dusty old Cold War era post-armageddon theme (which was all the rage back then). Gonna give it a new look over.

 

[SatyrArt]

There was High Colonies a near future SFRPG that dealt with system colonization. It has its roots in cyberpunk and SF like Allen Steel and John Varley. It has its own system, but I’m not above strip mining a game.

Thanks too, for the author recommendations. For no real reason, I happened to overlook Allen Steele. '

 

[whartung]

Are those recent? I haven't read any Steele since I think the third? Coyote book. I'm pretty sure I've read everything up to that.

 

[RossWinn]

Are those recent? I haven't read any Steele since I think the third?

He’s still writing.