How do you use canon material?

[Cymew]

Hi guys!

I have been thinkig about how to handle the published material about the imperium when I start to play Traveller again.

How do you use it? There are rules for designing worlds in many versions of the Traveller rules, but all the empire is mapped out and the UWP (or whatever it is called in your system) can easily be found, in books or on the web.

How do you play? Do you play in the published worlds, or do you let your players roam around the the outlands so you can use those cool tables for rolling up new worlds?

I kind of find the setting a lot more static and dull than when I last looked at it. Maybe it's all those RPGs of the 1990's with worldspanning plot-arcs that have changed my view of things...

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Cymew:
Hi guys!

I have been thinkig about how to handle the published material about the imperium when I start to play Traveller again.

How do you use it? There are rules for designing worlds in many versions of the Traveller rules, but all the empire is mapped out and the UWP (or whatever it is called in your system) can easily be found, in books or on the web.

How do you play? Do you play in the published worlds, or do you let your players roam around the the outlands so you can use those cool tables for rolling up new worlds?

I kind of find the setting a lot more static and dull than when I last looked at it. Maybe it's all those RPGs of the 1990's with worldspanning plot-arcs that have changed my view of things...

Actually, I found returning to the CT Imperium a HUGE relief after the hackneyed plot devicing and heavy handedness of so-called "meta-plots", but YMMV. The key thing is that if one focuses on small scale stuff, bits and pieces in a small patch of space (such as MJD's excellent Linkworld's Cluster), then the wealth of canon is available as back-drop to enrich ones game. If on the other hand, our hero's have the secrets of hyper-jump technology by the end of the second adventure, you are pretty mutch committed to making up your own setting... which is of course what we all did before the Imperium arrived, but part of the appeal of playing Traveller now is precisely that rich tapestry that is easily available.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

 

[Shadowdancer]

Well, it depends. If the players are just passing through the system quickly, or just looking for favorable trade factors, then I'll pretty much stick to the canon material.

But if I intend the system to be the location of an adventure, and I need to make some changes I will.

Usually, I look at the canon UWP of systems near where the players are currently and see if I can make the adventure work on one of them. Most of the time I can, or I can make changes to the adventure to fit the UWP.

But sometimes there are specific requirements, so I may have to make changes to the UWP, or to the system. Usually I can explain this as "the UWP came from an old survey that hadn't been updated recently." However, that doesn't always work.

I have, on occassion, even been known to eliminate entire gas giants and/or planetoid belts from systems to better accommodate my adventure plans.

I try not to change the existing star maps, however. If I need to place systems in a specific arrangement relative to each other, and I can't find something existing that works, then I move the players out past the edges of the map to an area where I have more control.