An interesting thread on RPG Net referring to a series of blog posts. Just in case anyone missed it.
Running CT with just LBB 1-3
- Thread starter Takei
- Start date
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Hi,
I'm the guy who wrote the blog.
The core of the blog is posts I originally made on this thread here on CotI. I think my views are cleaned up and better organized at the blog.
I've reworked some of the posts for the blog. I've also added new posts. And links to other bloggers in the same spirit of what I'm writing about.
I'm currently running a weekly game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess for some friends. (A kind of dark, weird fantasy setting in 17th century Europe.)
But Classic Traveller is our backup game if we don't have a quorum. We are in the middle of playing the Chamex Plague right now. I'm looking forward to going deeper into building my own setting and having a blast prepping it.
I'm the guy who wrote the blog.
The core of the blog is posts I originally made on this thread here on CotI. I think my views are cleaned up and better organized at the blog.
I've reworked some of the posts for the blog. I've also added new posts. And links to other bloggers in the same spirit of what I'm writing about.
I'm currently running a weekly game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess for some friends. (A kind of dark, weird fantasy setting in 17th century Europe.)
But Classic Traveller is our backup game if we don't have a quorum. We are in the middle of playing the Chamex Plague right now. I'm looking forward to going deeper into building my own setting and having a blast prepping it.
salochin999
SOC-13
Cool, i'll be having a read of that.
Reading your blog is what brought me back to CoTI for a look around. I drop in at irregular intervals so missed your original posts here
Your blog has certainly piqued my interest in generating a subsector or two straight from my 1977 LBB 3!
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Reading your blog is what brought me back to CoTI for a look around. I drop in at irregular intervals so missed your original posts here
Your blog has certainly piqued my interest in generating a subsector or two straight from my 1977 LBB 3!
Awesome! Thanks folks! Glad it's of interest!
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I had my suspicions it was your blog when I read it on rpg.net forums
It's a very interesting read and I'm looking forward to future posts.
It's a very interesting read and I'm looking forward to future posts.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Just so we're clear, I am in no way against using other materials produced for Traveller. (Nor did I choose the title of this thread.)
As noted in one of the posts, if you opened up my Classic Traveller box you would find:
Book 1-Characters and Combat
Book 2-Starships
Book 3-Worlds and Adventures
Book 4-Mercenary
Supplement 1-1001 Characters
Supplement 2-Animal Encounters
Supplement 4-Citizens of the Imperium
I have Book 4 for additional weapons and inspiration from mercenary campaigns, Supplements 1 and 2 to make my life easier as a Traveller Referee, and Supplement 4 for the options they offer players.
And I'm reading through Striker right now, with the hope of using it in my Traveller game.
For the purposes of this series of posts, however, I am only focusing on the original Traveller rules. I don't know if you have a chance to read the posts. But I'm examining the tools, the rules, and the implied setting found in the game in Books 1-3. For two years Books 1-3 were the only books available apart from Book 4-Mercenary and Supplement 1-1001Characters. (From Summer 1977 to mid-ish 1979. 1979 brought Book 5-High Guard, Supplement 2-Animal Encounters, as well as the first Adventure book and the JTAS.)
The point of the series is not to exclude books but to see what is in those three often ignored books. What sort of game was it before several years of setting material (which was never part of the Books series) got squeezed into the game?
But I'm all for people picking and choosing whatever books and materials that create the game they love to play. What I am against is the notion that someone is obliged to somehow cram all materials published into the game. Not only do I think there's too much material to be productive, much with contradictory and has no business being crammed together
That all said, I do have a soft spot in my heart for playing with just the original six services. As a teenager I was fascinated by rules set that produced experienced veterans with a set of skills that prepared them for adventure. I could also see, in a very intuitive way, how such men and women could meet up after mustering out, decide that they had no desire to go back to humdrum lives in civilization, and chose instead to head off into unknown parts to make their fortune. The struck me as a kind of contrast to how their characters in my Dungeons & Dragons game often seemed to choose the path of being a hero and joined with others in a somewhat willy-nilly fashion. For the time being, but I get a chance to run Traveller, I'll continue to use the basic six services because that is my sweet spot right now.
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casquilho
SOC-13
This is a very important point. I believe this about many of the games I own. Traveller, AD&D, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, etc. Lots of options, but in order to create my vision I have to limit what I add and do not add.
Great Point for sure.
Oh and I really like the blog posts. Some wonderful thoughts in there.
Frankymole
SOC-12
Some interesting thoughts on World Generation and other parts of the original rules. This post was shared as a link on Facebook by Marc Miller:
https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/tag/traveller-out-of-the-box/
https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/tag/traveller-out-of-the-box/
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
What???
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
Wow. That's pretty cool. (I met Marc at the FASA offices years ago. Always seemed like a great guy.)
Moreover, he linked to the entire series of Traveller: Out of the Box posts, which is awesome.
Moreover, he linked to the entire series of Traveller: Out of the Box posts, which is awesome.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Dunno about that. By Book 6 the setting is certainly showing up in the Books in less meta and more explicit references.
I do agree about looking through Books 1-3 again, though, and even comparing the three editions of that material within CT. The 77 edition is different from the 81 edition, and again from Starter/TTB.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I've always seen it as the dungeon master recreating a setting that meets, if possibly exceeds, the players' expectations.
As regards the influences on D&D or Traveller, this seems to me more dependent on what the DM and players have read or are reading; I know I deliberately sought out some of the books and authors on the recommended list(s), that I might have otherwise ignored or overlooked.
Since I to tend over-emphasize the military aspects of Traveller, Pournelle is the primary influence for me, with Space Vikings, early Weber Honorverse, Forty Kay, Star Wars, Star Trek, BSG Revisioned, Aliens, Flandry and so on as close secondary influences.
There's a starkness that comes across from Classic Traveller, that seems softened in Mongoose, much like the pulp basis for Traveller didn't allow that much descriptive narration, as nowadays we can experience from film and television.
As regards to D&D, alignment, is implicit, even if you may not explicitly state so. How players deal with it, does form a substantial part of the story.
As regards the influences on D&D or Traveller, this seems to me more dependent on what the DM and players have read or are reading; I know I deliberately sought out some of the books and authors on the recommended list(s), that I might have otherwise ignored or overlooked.
Since I to tend over-emphasize the military aspects of Traveller, Pournelle is the primary influence for me, with Space Vikings, early Weber Honorverse, Forty Kay, Star Wars, Star Trek, BSG Revisioned, Aliens, Flandry and so on as close secondary influences.
There's a starkness that comes across from Classic Traveller, that seems softened in Mongoose, much like the pulp basis for Traveller didn't allow that much descriptive narration, as nowadays we can experience from film and television.
As regards to D&D, alignment, is implicit, even if you may not explicitly state so. How players deal with it, does form a substantial part of the story.
creativehum
SOC-14 1K
You are correct about that, and I was wrong.
In 1983, with Book 6, the OTU is finally stapled into the rules.
By 1980, HG 2E, the Imperium is firmly a concept within the rules mechanics for character gen.
