Good intro to the Imperium

[Michael Schulz]

Hey all,

So I've been considering running a Traveller campaign set on the eve of the Rebellion using my favorite rule set (which many of you might find heretical). However, I've run into a bit of quandry. Is there a solid introduction to the Imperium that is new reader friendly out there?

The basic Mega-Traveller books (and I don't have the Rebellion sourcebook yet) contain next to nothing. Nor does the basic T20 book contain what I would consider to be a solid and engaging introduction to the setting. In fact the best pieces I've found so far have been in the TNE core book and it seems a little weird to use that as an intro to the last days of the Third Imperium.

Is there an excellent product that achieves this goal that I'm unaware of? What would you all recommend?

 

[jfetters]

Hmmm...

To an extent it depends on where in the Imperium you are running the campaign.

I always loved Survival Margin - the MT/TNE bridge sourcebook. It contains a collection of TNS reports that document the major events of the Rebellion starting with the assassination, as well as a write up of the political scene of the Imperium at the time.

Have you looked at the MT Imperial Encyclopedia yet? It is basically a collection of Library Data, but there are some good things in there. (IMO)

Another excellent resource, at least regarding the Imperial Core, is Traveller's Digest #9 from Digest Group.

 

[Michael Schulz]

Thanks for the suggestions, but I am picky-ly looking for the perfect intro for first timers with no experience with Traveller and little RPG experience.

Ideally, I'm looking for something that encapsulates elements of the culture and history of the Imperium in an easy to read/comprehend narrative. Survival Margin is great, but not something I would put in front of players to show how the Imperium worked. And the Imp Encyclopedia is just a little to dry and disconnected to use as a sales tool...

How's the GT core book?

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by Cad Lad:
Thanks for the suggestions, but I am picky-ly looking for the perfect intro for first timers with no experience with Traveller and little RPG experience.

Ideally, I'm looking for something that encapsulates elements of the culture and history of the Imperium in an easy to read/comprehend narrative. Survival Margin is great, but not something I would put in front of players to show how the Imperium worked. And the Imp Encyclopedia is just a little to dry and disconnected to use as a sales tool...

How's the GT core book?

Hi Cad,

I have been faced with that issue for the past half year since my Traveller play groups started up.

I started out by ignoring it.

The base assumption was that the characters where not history or political buffs and as such, they knew next to nothing about the verse they were in except for how to make a living and that government jobs had better pay/retirement packages.

When I stated that they were being vectored by a police cruiser, I left the players own assumptions in place without bogging down into the details of system vs sub-sector vs sector vs imperial police forces. I figured that the players would learn as they went.

It worked to a point. Overall, it was a success but, problems such as worlds that limited their populations rights vs the rights of the travellers, makes it obvious that two or more layers of citizenry exist. This 3 tier system is even more pronounced than that of the noble/serf dicotemy in the standard traveller cannon.

For example, a local noble, even though they are a local duke, is nowhere near the power of a sub-sector or sector duke and the duke of a domain is an order of magnitude above that. Now when you look at a non-royal. What is their citizenship? With some worlds described in various adventures/patron encounters, it is obvious that the local government exerts alot of direct control over the local citizenry. Now, are these local citizens Imperial citizens or local? If they are Imperials, why do they accept the secondary status in comparison to others? IMTU, the only imperial citizens where those who either had letters of nobility or who at one time where members of an imperial government unit such as the military or merchants. This allows for corporate governments and local governments to control their own people while only the few accepted into the Imperial forces became free citizens.

In the end, it comes down to your own vision of the setting, so, give it a shot to make your own writeup.

best regards

Dalton

 

[Jeffr0]

GT Corebook is pretty good-- depending on what you are looking for. There are some pretty good sidebars on history... and a bit of library data.... It is very much top-down. There are also some remarks about the lack of nano-tech and so forth.

To an outsider, it appears to be just enough info to drive them crazy. There's a subsector map of Regina in the book with no explanation (not even the usual UWP's)... and a giant map of known space with comment. There's pictures of Aslan and K'kree and Hivers and so forth... and library entries on them... but it seems impossible to see a living breathing universe behind all of the blurbs and datum.

To the noob armed with this book, he has just enough knowledge to be dangerous. He will wonder about all kinds of things that have spawned flame wars in the Traveller Community over the years... and if he starts posting on the web he will soon find out how embittered and touchy Traveller fandom is: his seemingly innocent questions will provoke all sorts of old feuds. This will be coupled with more advice on how to play Traveller than the noob can process.

Following these rude awakenings, the noob will either throw away the game or embark on a quest to find the true meaning of Traveller. He will buy Canon reprints and do doctoral theses on the development of the game. As he grows more obsessive, he will alienate the last few people that would bother to play games with him in the past. As he hunts down each piece of canon, he will purchase them whatever their cost and call in sick to work so he can devour it.

Ultimately, he will realize that his quest is pointless and fruitless. He's sacrificed everything in his mad desire for truth, but in the end he must realize that many of the Traveller community have gone on to become real scientists, economists, etc. just so they could have a better answer than the rest of the armchair gamer types out there. There's no way that he can hold his own in a debate with these sorts... and they're always arguing anyway.

No.

The Imperium doesn't exist. Traveller is the most fully realised space setting, sure... but to use the Imperium as a setting, you will have to answer so many difficult questions on your own that you might as well have started from scratch to build your own universe to begin with.

What? You have no idea where to begin? No problem! Use the Imperium-- go ahead, try! Then... everything thing that exasperates you and irritates you about it... CHANGE IT! GET RID OF IT! It's your universe. Take control of it. Don't justify your decisions. Ignore Traveller fandom. Rewrite the ruleset if you have to. And present the results to your players as _YOUR_ universe....

Ha. He-ha. Mu-ha-he-ha!

Ahem. (Cough)

The OTU and the Imperium exists only as a fiction in the mind of mostly freelance writers. No mere mortal can analyse the game at the level they are required to, and most of what they worry about has nothing to do with good game design anyway. They have to present a veneer of consistency just to keep Traveller fandom from flaying them alive. DON'T let your players know about any of this, or they will do the same to you! Steal and borrow from Traveller wherever it is helpful, but do not get caught up in the rest of this. Pain and misery and disaster lurk here.... Turn back while you still can!

AHA! Ha-ma-ha-ma-huh.... Hurm. Bidiby-bidyby-bidiby....

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Nurse! His medication is wearing off!

 

[daltoncalford]

Hmmmmm, now, Jeffr0, you may have hit on the very reason why there has been a need to change enough of the traveller imperium to end up with a totally non-cannon setting.

I have even gone so far as to create a totally new setting for my game rules, and I still have the gall to call it Traveller....


Maybe you need to be insane and a workaholic in order to fully appreciate this old game of ours.

best regards

Dalton

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"With some worlds described in various adventures/patron encounters, it is obvious that the local government exerts alot of direct control over the local citizenry. Now, are these local citizens Imperial citizens or local? If they are Imperials, why do they accept the secondary status in comparison to others?"

Whichever US state you're from, you're still an American citizen, but local laws vary from state to state - some may charge higher taxes, or allow gay marriages, or permit concealed weapons to be carried. This is similar, but on a bigger scale. The Imperium imposes a few laws on worlds (eg no slavery) but basically lets them govern themselves. In theory, unhappy citizens can complain to their noble or move elsewhere.

 

[Merxiless]

The Imperium can easily be described as "Star Wars, without Jedi."

Big, triangular ships with hundreds of guns. Legions of soldiers who land on worlds that do not follow Imperial Rule, and proceed to torch the place in the name of the Emperor.

The Emperor is a remote, distant figure, whose policies often take years to enact, so that Sector governors have near-unlimited control, within their own areas.

These guys are all played off, one vs. the other, so that no one Sector Duke can take power.

The above has worked for me for 25 years, and takes 2 minutes.

Everyone goes "Aha," and then they get a trader / smuggler / pirate ship, and start looking for planets selling spice.

* * * *

The Imperium can easily be described as "Dune, without Sandworms."

The Imperium can easily be described as "The Imperium. (And then the flavor of the Imperium conveyed by its actions on a local level.)"

The Imperium can be described as "Roman, with huge, mile-long starships."

Seems to me like it is best left for the answers to be discovered in-game, as everyone's Imperium is going to be different. (Including that of Marc Miller.)

 

[kafka47]

Signal GK (for a very different Imperium), Knightfall+Flaming Eye (still the adventures define the Traveller univere) & the MegaTraveller Journal if you want to adventure somewhere in the Safes are your best guides to MT universe.

Actually, the Star Wars analogy is beginning to give way to a Firefly dominated paradigm. Now, if you thought Serentity was shat (don't say that on this forum without fear of dismemberment) then check out the original series as it provides a much better representation of what a Traveller universe could be.

Quite frankly, I find my Traveller Universe is evolving toward a more Enterprise milieu where the Vulcan High Command & Starfleet are there just as the Imperium is but does not actively impact upon the players lives save to provide a code of conduct in an otherwise anarchic universe.

 

[hirch duckfinder]

I usually just pass on the essentials:

Humans got off earth around the year (I can never remember) to find the galaxy already crawling with humans.

After a while they figured out that a very powerful, now dead race spread humans and in some cases genetically modified them.

Show the players an imperium map and tell them the Imperium is a massive, loose empire of worlds who retain autonomy as long as they adhere to a few laws such as no slavery and they pay their tax and meet imperial defence commitments.

The are no communications faster than the speed of travel. This means it can take a year or two to get messages from edge to core. The imperium operates the x-boat network for the best possible commo. Show the players a star map and explain about jumps 1-6 and tell them that the string of numbers is called a world profile and gives stats for size, atmosphere, water, people, goverment, law level, technological level and some other stuff.

The imperium is bounded by other states, Solomani, Hivers, Centaurs, Vargr, Zhodani, Aslan. - Give a brief summary of the friendliness or otherwise of these according to era. There are many other races in the imperium.


Then I describe the world the players are on and the setup for the scenario. All the other details can come in play.

Has worked for me so far.

Cheers

 

[Merxiless]

Not having seen Serenity, or Firefly, I can't comment.

But not just Star Wars, there is some flavor of Asimov's Foundation series, plus Aliens, plus some other potential influences in there, though Foundation series is more for the hard core sci fi novel reader. Most of my players are D&D converts, who aren't avid sci fi fans.

I think it is best to just convey the setting, without all the specific mechanics of it.

The kind of stuff that if a Traveller movie was ever made, you'd get in the first 5 minutes...

A scout/trader/merc ship exits from jump, start the adventure.

That's really what most players are looking for, in my experience...

"What can I do to affect the setting?", and
"What tools and skills do I have?"

All of the politics, the alien races, the secrets of the Ancients, can be told as you go (if you are using the Canon).

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"Not having seen Serenity, or Firefly"

<speechless>

 

[aramis]

Firefly, especially disk 3, really looks like Traveller sans J-drives.

YMMMassivelyV, but it has fed my traveller fix for the last few months. (Traveller-hostile player group. GRRRR)

 

[robject]

Out of Gas. Ariel. Oh yeah.

A very concise description of Traveller is the first couple paragraphs of the Introduction (page 9) in The Traveller Book (probably verbatim from LBB1).

A good description of Traveller history and the Imperium can be found on pages 147, 148, and 149 of The Traveller Book.

On the MT side, it looks like the Imperial Encyclopedia has a couple of decent entries that have similar data: namely, "Third Imperium", and perhaps "Megacorporations".

 

[jfetters]

The Traveller Adventure also has a good intro.

However, as I read through the adventure, I am (again) struck by the thought that others on this thread have echoed - pretty much ignore anything past a mention of "feudalism in space - don't worry about it."

A good introductory adventure will probably need a lot of good detail about a local setting, so much that any questions about the Imperium would be answerable by one sentence answers.

A player can easily burn out by trying to drink from the firehose that is Traveller canon, especially when the adventure (probably) doesn't even directly address any meta issues. (Unless you are running something like Arrival:Vengeance, which should not be for new players anyway)

 

[mike wightman]

Here's a link to the Traveller background history from the FAQ section of Traveller Downport: http://traveller.downport.com/images/history.pdf

 

[mike wightman]

Oh, and here is the handout I give to new players.
It's adapted from the intoductions to Mercenary, High Guard, and Scouts.

Traveller is set in the sectors controlled by the Imperium, a remote central government possessed of great industrial and technological might.
Due to the sheer distances and travel times involved it is unable to exert total control at all levels everywhere within its star-spanning realm. As a result, the Imperium allows a great deal of autonomy to its subject worlds beyond the central Core systems.

Here on the frontier, in a sector called The Spinward Marches, extensive home rule provisions allow planetary populations to choose their own forms of government, raise and maintain armed forces for local security, pass and enforce laws governing local conduct, and regulate commerce (within limits). The Imperium asks for respect for its overall policies, and for a united front against outside pressures.

Defence of the frontier is mostly supplied by local indigenous forces, stiffened by scattered Imperial Naval bases manned by small but extremely sophisticated forces.
Conflicting local interests are often settled by force of arms, with Imperial forces quietly looking the other way, unable to intervene in any but the most wide-spread disputes, which threaten the security or the economy of the area.

The Imperium also maintains the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service, equal in stature to the Imperial Navy and Army, whose duties include exploration of and beyond the Imperial frontier, on-going mapping and surveying of Imperial territory, and the maintenance of interstellar communications through its express boat network.
The IISS maintains bases and waystations on many worlds in order to facilitate its mission.

Moving within the safety of the Imperium are the merchantmen. Whether free trader or megacorporation bulk tranport, tramp liner or luxury cruiser, it is trade and commerce which is the life blood of the Imperium.

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Oh, and here is the handout I give to new players.
It's adapted from the intoductions to Mercenary, High Guard, and Scouts.

<<BIG SNIP>>

Do you mind if I borrow that for my gaming project?

best regards

Dalton

 

[mike wightman]

I don't mind at all, please do