Setting up a new campaign

[Brandon C]

I may be working up a new Traveller campaign in the near future. It will probably share a lot of similarities to my first Traveller campaign I ran around 1983-85: pocket empires some 600 years after a civil war destroyed the 3rd Imperium (yes, I was a bit ahead of my time .

Two changes i will make from the original are (1) larger pocket empires (the bigges was only 5-6 systems, this time 20 is more likely) and (2) a shorter period since the war (perhaps 300 years). No, there won't be a Virus

I also might just ignore the 3I completely in the background.

As a "small ship" universe" fan (largest ships approximately 5,000 tons) and to maintain a "frontier" feel, I will not have have high populations (any rolled 8-9 is reduced to 7 and any A is reduced to 8).

I probably will use Mongoose Traveller, although I am reluctant to buy High Guard just so I can cover ships from 2,000 to 5,000 tons (I could always use the drive potential table from Classic Traveller to get around this) and small craft. An alternative choice would bt GURPS Traveller (3e).

 

[Mithras]

Its very easy to to scale up the drive potential table in the Mongoose Core Book up to 5,000 tons and just keep rolling. Get that laser errata though.

 

[Cryton]

I may be working up a new Traveller campaign in the near future. It will probably share a lot of similarities to my first Traveller campaign I ran around 1983-85: pocket empires some 600 years after a civil war destroyed the 3rd Imperium (yes, I was a bit ahead of my time .

Two changes i will make from the original are (1) larger pocket empires (the bigges was only 5-6 systems, this time 20 is more likely) and (2) a shorter period since the war (perhaps 300 years). No, there won't be a Virus

I also might just ignore the 3I completely in the background.

As a "small ship" universe" fan (largest ships approximately 5,000 tons) and to maintain a "frontier" feel, I will not have have high populations (any rolled 8-9 is reduced to 7 and any A is reduced to 8).

I probably will use Mongoose Traveller, although I am reluctant to buy High Guard just so I can cover ships from 2,000 to 5,000 tons (I could always use the drive potential table from Classic Traveller to get around this) and small craft. An alternative choice would bt GURPS Traveller (3e).

Use the Traveller SRD from mongoose. It has the High Guard rules for ships 2000 Dtons + and its free.

http://www.travellersrd.com/content.../high_guard_srd/high_guard_srd-1-0_index.html

Then if you love whats there, buy the book. Thats how I did it. The book was worth it even though I had the SRD free.

 

[Brandon C]

Use the Traveller SRD from mongoose. It has the High Guard rules for ships 2000 Dtons + and its free.

http://www.travellersrd.com/content.../high_guard_srd/high_guard_srd-1-0_index.html

Then if you love whats there, buy the book. Thats how I did it. The book was worth it even though I had the SRD free.

Gracias.

I've been to that site before, but since the pages didn't scroll properly on my Kindle Fire, I forgot about it. Displays fine on my netbook.

 

[Brandon C]

Its very easy to to scale up the drive potential table in the Mongoose Core Book up to 5,000 tons and just keep rolling. Get that laser errata though.

I forgot I had the High Guard Shipyard program. I can use that to roughly gauge the ships over 2,000 tons (I have quite a few designs on another computer). For ships 2,000 tons and under, I can use the MgT system.

The PCs are unlikely to be involved in combat in anything over 2,000 tons, so a (slight) incompatibility is tolerable.

 

[Brandon C]

Looks like I've found a small group who wants a Firefly-like campaign using GURPS 3e. I'll need to to talk to the players in more detail, but I think Traveller with a little variant tech and a very different political landscape (so, just a tweak on what this thread was about) may eork.

 

[Fox's Master]

Firfly is a good way to go...

Several years ago my friend of 30 years created two different Traveller settings using Mongoose as the base. He ran a disgraced Agent turned Smuggler and I played an Investigator turned Private Eye. It had been years since we played Traveller, but admittedly, the most exciting part for me was CharGen. The vast distances between worlds; absolutely no skill advancement; and 30-yr mortgages on ships made playing too much like real life - Try to find a way to make money, pay down debt, and occasionally a combat scene or what have you. I pulled off a spectacular ending for his character, having introduced StarCraft-like element and I'm still moving forward with my character for a bit longer.

Six months ago, I had my friends roll-up Serenity characters. We had an absolute blast. The settings, coupled with the advancement were enough to seal the deal even if you didn't have combat. Don't get me wrong, Marc has built a magnificent universe - it's unfortunately not my taste any longer. Though, my friend and I may start a Kickstarter Project for a new RPG with a similarly-themed CharGen because it's quite comprehensive.

 

[DangerousThing]

Looks like I've found a small group who wants a Firefly-like campaign using GURPS 3e. I'll need to to talk to the players in more detail, but I think Traveller with a little variant tech and a very different political landscape (so, just a tweak on what this thread was about) may eork.

And in GURPS Traveller, you can pay for ships with character points.

I'll be playing a somewhat Traveller-like game in GURPS 4 in a few weeks, assuming that I can get the information from my dead laptop's hard drives. I think that only the screen is dead so it might not be too bad.

Have a good campaign!

 

[pennshome723]

I tell you, I use my own In-House rules set that I have GM'd now for 25+ yrs, out of my 37+ yrs of playing Traveller. That being said I also use my own Campaign designed and not the 3I as a standard rule of thumb.

Now one of my campaigns was based off a Ark that was launched from earth and went beyond their intended destination point. They eventually settled in a start system where they set up shop and discovered that their had been two different Alien cultures in that region of space and that they must of fought a war some 1,ooo years in the past and all that remains of them both are mostly ruins and wrecks.

The humans settled on their Earth like world, and discovered that in their new home system were two other planets that with some terraforming could also support human life. One was a Mars like world, and another was a frozen ice ball. Both worlds showed evidence of fighting on them by the ancient Aliens, and the worlds might of been damaged by that same fighting on a global scale.

Now the humans tech had a drive system that was not Jump drives, but like Aleins movie would take many many months if not years to travel between other start systems. That drive system was perfect for getting around within their new home system, and had allowed man to spread throughout that 7 planet system with it's many moons and two asteroid belts.

Now with being in the system for 101 years, mankind had settled on Primus (home world now in the new system) and had started to terraform the other two worlds, along with colonies and stations all over everything else in that system. Next they had been able to reverse engineer the Alien power source and their drive system. At game start there were very few proto-type drives working. A couple larger System Naval vessels, and some transport type ships that were called..."Carry-Alls". These special vessels could generate a field around the vessel and anything connected to it and in that field could "FOLD" with the vessel to another point in space. They had a range of 1-2 parsecs out. Thus started the real exploration of the systems around the new Home System. Thus a Scout ship would link up with a "Carry-All" and Fold to the destination system, and dropped off to do it's exploration. Then the Scout ship would be on it's own for a period, and at a specific point and time, the Carry-All would return to resupply or carry them away.

It made for a fun exploration campaign and the players did encounter other Alien races. Some were even space travellers, but no one had Fold drives like the Humans.