Idea for a TA or Avenger PDF supplement?

[Maladominus]

Inspired by another recent thread, my idea:

Create a PDF supplement that consists of buildings and/or habitable floorplans for use in the Traveller SF universe! Does a compilation of this stuff even exist?? Would there be a need for it in RPGs like Traveller? Sure!

Examples of what I'm talking about:

Floorplan #1: Starport Tower Hi-rise Apartments (TL12 world). The perfect "summer residence" for those rich Traveller adventurers.


Floorplan #2: Skyport Restaurant, "The Vargr Moon Cafe", with a scenic view of startown.


Floorplan #3: Hotel Aella, aka "The Regina Grand Duchy Hotel" (owned by the Aella Aledon Imperial family, the family of Duke Norris Aella Aledon, distant cousin to Emperor Strephon Aella Alkhalikoi). Located in the posh "business district" of Regina's starport city.


Floorplan #4: "Kfrez'noughaar Cafe", a seedy dive that is legendary in Vargr space. Despite its ungainly appearance, it is said that many merchants, traders, smugglers and pirate lords occassionally patronize the Cafe as a place to find the most lucrative business deals... legal or not.


Floorplan #5: "K'Kree Burger Bar & Grill". There are no K'Kree that come anywhere close to here. And is that really a hamburger they are serving you? Or did you simply believe that it was a hamburger? In any case, Floorplan #5 provides an excellent location for a bar room brawl or an important liaison with Traveller patrons!


Floorplan #6: Bio-research Laboratory (TL14). Perfect for an adventure involving the infamous SuSAG megacorporation. What's in that top level of the local bio-research tower? What are they hiding in there? A secret project? An illegal psi-drugs program? A new project for Combat Stims? Let the adventurers find out!


These are just examples of what I'm thiking of, but the possibilities are endless. The important thing is that all the floorplans should be instantly useful for ANY Traveller campaign or setting (with little modificication, like changing the name of the hotel, etc). I'm sure others can think of lots of other great ideas for floorplans.

 

[RandyT0001]

Sounds like the beginnings of the next "deckplans" contest.

 

[Maladominus]

Wow, great thought Randy!

A Deckplans Contest would be even better... as they are generally free for everyone to peruse. =)

 

[kaladorn]

There are a number of products out at either DriveThruRPG or RPGNow that are generic attempts at this. I think it would be nice to have a rules neutral product that does this (maybe have some stat blocks for key people in various systems or in an appendix, have some key bits of info for the place using the generic BITS skill system as a guideline for difficulties, etc).

The one issue would be getting a common look and feel for floorplans. If you could define some standard grids and provide some common icon libraries that might go a long way, but everyone will want to use their own favorite tool and no two sets of floorplans will look similar.

The guys doing the aforementioned generic stuff must all use the same software and they have used tricks to make the plans commonly scaleable. We'd need to do that too. You'd want to print several out and have them sit side by side looking just fine.

Plus you'd want to do the floorplans with a look to printing without exhausting ink cartridges.

But in principle, yes, this is the exact kind of thing I'd love to see. Typically I think when these things have been done by others, they do one big or several small locations in one book. A big high tech hotel, a big research facility, a big high rise office block - each as their own release. A few small taverns or small shops as a release. Etc.

You could also take an approach taking a page from the inspiration of the 'deck plan vignettes' and produce a supplement just with small chunks of a larger city - places where 'nuggets' or 'scenes' in an adventure may be run rather than doing full facilities. That's an alternate, but still useful approach.

The nice thing about doing this in a way that separates out the rules aspects is it might be saleable (if you wanted it commercial) or at least useful (if non-commercial) to people beyond just Traveller players. Doesn't everybody in a modern or future game need bars, star/airport concourses, shops, and so on?

 

[Berg]

Originally posted by Randy Tyler:
Sounds like the beginnings of the next "deckplans" contest.

Excellent Idea Mal, and this is the way to go...

As Kaladorn suggests, establishing some standards would be good... and since it would be a contest, you could set them, Mal

P.S. Welcome to the GRiP Boards, Kaladorn

 

[flykiller]

Create a PDF supplement that consists of buildings and/or habitable floorplans for use in the Traveller SF universe!

well ....

I tried doing something like this earlier. a couple of problems immediately became obvious, the most significant being the very large number of illustrations that would be necessary. bars, lobbies, corridors, docks, command centers, jails, sewers, street corners, wilderness - there's no end to it. and several variations of each will also be necessary - one can't just pull out the same bar graphic every time the players are in a bar. one has to find a way to limit the subject matter in order to make the task manageable.

 

[kafka47]

How about instead of deckplans, we have an book of Traveller inspired art? The size of good sized coffee table book is what I would have in mind, in case, it is wildly successful and we want to go deadtree...

Much like the thread that I posted a while back, save get the artists that wish to contribute to the book. Have them add a Sunburst or two or a Solomani symbol and if we are lucky get someone to draw decent Aslan, etc. As I would love to see what Luis Royo or some of the good folks out there can do with a Traveller theme.

This way take what was previously proprietary with the artist alone and convert into a document that more can share and enjoy. Develop a Short Story to accompany the art, and have artists render what they imagine the story looks like. The short story would then serve a springboard for an adventure, in turn, leading to an Epic Campaign.

 

[Malenfant]

How about instead of deckplans, we have an book of Traveller inspired art?

well there was the SPL 2007 Calendar that had some pretty good art in it...

http://www.spicapublishing.co.uk/ecomcart/list.php

A POD art book would be interesting, but expensive. DP9 have done PDF artbooks, but I dunno how successful they've been.

 

[kafka47]

Damn good art, Malenfant. I really like Andrew et al. contribution to a better illustrated Traveller Universe. However, as I said, I would envision this as a much larger product and one capable of generating spinoffs and reinvigorate the different lines.

 

[Valarian]

How about Trading Ships of the Imperium to go with the fighting ships? There could be an image, a deckplan, and a history of various trading ship classes. From the small trader to the larger subsidised merchant craft. Various designs could come from the different areas of the Imperium. The book could be done so that it's rules neutral, or it could provide stats. To be really useful CT and T20 stats would be good for me.

 

[Malenfant]

why not head over to the Avenger board and suggest this sort of thing there? They're far more likely to produce it right now than QLI.

 

[kafka47]

Well, as much as the Avenger board is fun to hang out in, Mal. This board has now extended beyond T20, if you haven't noticed. I believe that hanging out at both boards is useful and this board has evolved into the place where all forms of Traveller get freely discussed and as it the main link from any "Traveller RPG" search people usually start here.

 

[Malenfant]

I'm not saying it isn't. It's just that the reality of the matter is that Avenger is actively developing material for Traveller, and QLI isn't. It makes more sense to talk about new ideas for supplements over there, where someone might be in more of a position to make them a reality.

 

[Michael Taylor]

In the 1248 era, small merchant ships has already been published (1248 Starships 1: Small Merchants). It does not have large ships in it, but that may come in the future for the 1248 era.

 

[Michael Taylor]

The next 2 1248 PDF titles will be Rangers and Raiders: dealing with corsairs, SDBs, escorts, patrol ships in 1248, and then a Solomani small ships book. There is also the first 1248 adventure i'm working on: Guardian. It's been half completed.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Michael Taylor:
The next 2 1248 PDF titles will be Rangers and Raiders: dealing with corsairs, SDBs, escorts, patrol ships in 1248, and then a Solomani small ships book. There is also the first 1248 adventure i'm working on: Guardian. It's been half completed.

Rangers & Raiders, eh?

Schweet title Name & topic. Gotta add that to the Library ASAP!

 

[MJD]

Although I do visit here fairly often, I normally only answer queries on the Avenger boards for obvious reasons.

But just to make it clear - Avenger cannot publish T20 materials. We were discussing a licence from QLI a while back when Hunter dropped out of sight again. Until he's around long enough to talk about this it's not an option.

But we are amenable to rules-neutral ideas.

 

[Valarian]

Originally posted by MJD:
... Avenger cannot publish T20 materials. We were discussing a licence from QLI a while back when Hunter dropped out of sight again. Until he's around long enough to talk about this it's not an option.

And this is why, Malenfant, I made the suggestion here on this forum - rather than the Comstar/Avenger forums. MJD can't at present publish material for T20. As this is the ruleset I use, I would like more material for this ruleset, rather than having to convert from Classic Traveller.

I'll just have to be patient, like the rest of us here, and wait for Hunter to come back permanently. I'm sure that once he has resolved the many troubles he's been subjected to over the last couple of years, he'll want to get back to QLI.

In the meanwhile, I'll support QLI through the purchase of existing products (when I can afford them) via DriveThruRPG.