CT Only: The Rules as Tools of Play

[salochin999]

creativehum

The sources for Traveller are printed short stories and novels from the 50s and 60s. And if you look at the covers there are plenty of space suits (and domed cities!)

Yes exactly - it might have been looking at retro sci fi pics that gave me the idea. They're always running around in space helmets.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/2d/da/59/2dda59d93c889267fc067533aef7fac5.jpg

I'm not saying those films / shows I mentioned inspired Traveller", I'm saying there's a visual disconnect between "breathable" scifi like Star Wars / Firefly etc and non-breathable scifi like a lot of the retro stuff and films like "The Martian" where the environment is a major antagonist.

Either is fine but I think it's a setting feature worth thinking about in advance and if a GM decides on the non-breathable option then show the players pics like this to get their heads straight

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/25/fb/9d/25fb9d07fee26e6e6698ac61f778cb7d.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/11/94/f1/1194f1a66df49007476f81bf94b2bbd0.jpg

.

I agree Traveller isn't hard sci fi but I'm curious what made people think it was as I've seen it described that way many times and have said it myself without ever really thinking it through.

.

Moreover, I think the game of Traveller I end up running will have a touch of nostalgia to it

yes

 

[creativehum]

I agree Traveller isn't hard sci fi but I'm curious what made people think it was as I've seen it described that way many times and have said it myself without ever really thinking it through.

Just hours ago, while walking my dogs, I asked myself these very same questions.

I'm reading Stars My Destination this evening, and just read this passage:

Between Mars and Jupiter is spread the broad belt of the asteroids. Of the thousands, known and unknown, most unique to the Freak Century was the Sargasso Asteroid, a tiny planet manufactured of natural rock and wreckage salvaged by its inhabitants in the course of two hundred years.

They were savages, the only savages of the twenty-fifth century; descendants of a research team of scientists that had been lost and marooned in the asteroid belt two centuries before when their ship had failed. By the time their descendants were rediscovered they had built up a world and a culture of their own, and preferred to remain in space, salvaging and spoiling, and practicing a barbaric travesty of the scientific method they remembered from their forebears. They called themselves The Scientific People. The world promptly forgot them.

More of this, please!!!

Back to the rules: I know the above passage would make the teeth of some people grind. But the Main World generation rules exist to create this. We roll X100459-8, let's say,'and voila! We brainstorm this outlandish setting... Which otherwise should not exist and probably doesn't make sense.

The PCs end up here in need of supplies. The Referee rolls for reaction.... And we're off to the races...

 

[mike wightman]

I think the following are reasons why some described Traveller as hard:
no ray guns
maths formula for calculating travel time for ships
designing ships requires addition and subtraction

 

[creativehum]

I think the following are reasons why some described Traveller as hard:
no ray guns
maths formula for calculating travel time for ships
designing ships requires addition and subtraction

Can't say you're wrong about the, Mike.

Especially when you consider that the release of Star Wars: Episode IV and the release of Traveller overlapped. (May 25, 1977 and July 22, 1977 respectively.)

I don't think it's controversial to say Star Wars had a big impact on both pop culture and on what people thought Science Fiction was supposed to be.

So here's this movie that's been out for two months -- a movie of whiz-bang flying around, star ships 5,000 feet long, "blasters," "light sabers," people jumping between worlds without effort, instantaneous communication between the stars, a farm boy ends up leading an attack in a craft he's never flown -- taking the world by storm, imprinting in everybody's eyeballs and hearts, "This is science fiction in space!"

And during this initial rush of excitement the Traveller RPG drops at Origins '77. You read it and in light of the cool movie you saw lsat week, and it is cool in its own way, but in a way that is the opposite of Star Wars.

Space travel is methodical and slow, mapped out with mathematical formulas. Communication between the stars is limited to travel speeds (which is not only the opposite of Star Wars but archaic for 1977!) There are laser rifles (with bulky power packs), but no blasters, no light sabers. In fact... there are submachine guns! Shotguns! Spaceships cap out at 5,000 tons... and only if the TL of your setting allows ships to get that big! Space combat isn't whiz-bang flying around, but feels more like an old school naval game, using string to calculate changes in vectors! Your character gathers experiences which define his skill set for the journeys to come. And, oh, yeah... combat isn't situation to pump up the adrenaline and blow off some steam, but where you can easily die.

In contrast to Star Wars, the text of Traveller might make it seem like it is a very different thing. And, in many ways they are. Star Wars is a love letter to the old Flash Gordon serials, while Traveller is a love letter to the Golden Age of print 50s and 60s Science Fiction.

Because they seem in contrast to each other, if one sees Star Wars as soft (and lord knows it is) then by contrast, with its calculations and vectors and slow communication and more familiar weapons, must be hard.

Moreover, at their hearts, Star Wars and Traveller are drawing from two different wells. Star Wars is a story about youth and endless possibilities. Traveller begins with experienced characters and adventuring in the universe is a series of choices amid limitations. (This ship can only go so far, this weapon is really effective against this armor but not that one, mortgage payments, one can die...)

One is about moving from one cool image to the next as quickly as possible (Flash Gordon!). The other is about having to think through making the best decisions possible, with whatever tools and skills are at hand, suboptimal options, within unique, exotic and puzzle box-like environments. (Golden Age SF).

***

Of course, one of these things is a game. And the genius of Traveller is that offers all this decision making and puzzle-solving to the players via their PCs.

Seen in this light, even the travel time table isn't about hard SF. It's really a kind of sideways movement rate chart found in ant RPG of the time. "If one jumps into system, how long is one exposed? If one is trying to jump out of system, how long is one exposed?" What sort of world is one jumping to? The bigger the world, the longer one is exposed to danger. Will the crew need to get to a gas giant for fuel for lack of a suitable starport? How with this affect risk? Time taken to get to the world? Should it be done before or after reaching the Main World? What are the circumstances at hand? Might the crew have to bugger out fast? Or is getting directly to the world a priority?

The point is, this stuff isn't there to make it hard science. It's there to make it an RPG experience. It is in the same school of thought that produces encumbrance rules, movement rates for exploring dungeons, tracking rations and torches and so on.

Because, if one reads the inspiration material (not the source material, but the inspiration material) for this game from 1977, one finds that all of it is a kissing cousin to the feel and tone of Star Wars. It has strange, unique, and outlandish aliens and alien worlds. It relies on combat and violence to move the plots along. There are daring deeds and adventure. Romance and riches. There are differences, and they matter: the Golden Age heroes depend on thinking their way out of problems much more (and take pride in their thinking). But this kind of take on the material is why it is well suited for RPG play of the Old School variety. Yes, this gives it less whiz-bang sensibility than Star Wars. But that Hard SF feel is more of a patina than anything else, allowing the Players to be smart, solve problems, and take risks baed on their decisions.

 

[creativehum]

Rumor Tables

Rumors were part of the Patron Encounter Tables in the 1977 and 1981 editions of LBBs 1-3, but there were no separate Rumor Tables rules. Adventure 1 introduced a Rumor Table into the Traveller product line. Full Rumor Table rules were then introduced in both The Traveller Book and Starter Traveller.

I didn't list Rumor Tables in the list in the original post of this thread (since I was only joking over Bks 1-3 when I drew the list up). But I would definitely fold them in if I were to draw the list up again.

One of the things that often baffled players of Traveller (especially later players) was this question: "What do we do?"

Having rolled up characters, (often securing a ship in the process), the Referee would unfurl a map of the Spinward Marches and ask, "What do you do?" But the Players, having no context, really didn't know how to begin, what to do.

The Patron Encounter table was supposed to help in this regard. And it does! It's a really good idea! By meeting a potential employers the players are given direction and focus.

But here's the thing... the players might not know at first that's what they are supposed to do and it might feel slightly alien. And, more importantly, players are often an ornery lot. They don't want to be told what to do. And this makes sense! Making decisions is the crux of RPG play for players. So, when a Patron says "Do this for this amount," it might feel like they're being pushed into a certain direction (which they are). They players might respond poorly or not engage at all if this is the only method of engaging with the setting.

This is where the Rumor Table comes in. Rumors demand nothing, but they do intrigue. They invite the players to pursue them of their own accord, in their own way. They can be dealt with now or later. They encourage decision making from the players. How they go about pursuing them is their business, to handle as they wish.

So, if every new character starts play with one randomly rolled rumor, the group has several avenues of investigation and adventure to pursue. This gives them focus and an immediate connection to the setting they own.

 

[aramis]

Can't say you're wrong about the, Mike.

Especially when you consider that the release of Star Wars: Episode IV and the release of Traveller overlapped. (May 25, 1977 and July 22, 1977 respectively.)

I don't think it's controversial to say Star Wars had a big impact on both pop culture and on what people thought Science Fiction was supposed to be.

Star Wars certainly shows its impact in the early Whide Dwarf articles. One of which includes stats for blasters and laser swords in book 2 tables.

But to discount the 1 year later, and much more film time, Battlestar Galactica? Yes, that does get a bit controversial. BSG was, in the 78-82 era, every bit as influential as Star Wars. Not only a theatrical movie, but also a TV series (with the same footage becoming 3 episodes)...

Both are Big Ship, Strong Starfighter, Aircraft Dogfights in Space. Both have novelizations early on. And that's where they go different. BSG is lots of sublight with never-shown and rarely-mentioned jumps; each system is apparently in isolation. And it's mentioned that the 12 colonies were in one big system.

Star Wars, like CT, barely mentions anything other than the world. BSG, like later Traveller, makes use of whole systems.

BSG was, for its day, amazingly good. If it had cost half as much per episode, it would have been retained; it's ratings were surprisingly good for the era, beat only by the top sitcoms within the US.

And, to be honest, BSG was more of an impact on my Traveller play than was Star Wars.

WIthout both, I don't think the bigh ship universe would have had nearly as much traction.

The other big influence was Star Trek - in 1975-77, Star Trek was on a revival. It was airing in syndication and doing well, generating multiple novels and multiple "in setting" manuals (SFTM, SF MRM, ST Chronology of Spaceflight, lots of 3rd party uniform and field manuals). Star Trek was medium ships - well bigger than Bk2, but not the mosters of BSG nor Star Wars. And we saw no fighters. (The first mention of fighters was in DS9.)

I'd like to think the '79Buck Rogers was an influence, but I know it really wasn't. it's '79 appearance is interesting - the Draconia isn't nearly as big as it looks - medium ship, and it's the Draconian flagship. We have also easy travel, multiple worlds mentioned per system (but ignoring them for Earth), and blasters. It did reinforce the need for HG, if only to get bigger ships. But it can be generally discounted (it's ratings were lower than BSG's, but it was FAR cheaper; in the first actual episode, it recycles 2 FX shots from BSG!). It had far less fan impact. Oh, and it had slightly more than twice the screen time of BSG. But no novels, a short run comic, and was fighting its own backhistory because it was a total reimagining.

 

[creativehum]

To be clear, I'm not discounting any influences to what people did with Traveller after the game's initial release, whether it be GDW, White Dwarf Magazine, or people playing ay home with just Books 1-3. Clearly people were going to (and should!) grab whatever inspirations turn them on.

And clearly some of that inspiration was going to come from sources after the text for Traveller was finished and sent of to the printer. Inspiration doesn't stop.

I was pointing out the contrast in inspiration from sources before Traveller's release and after. Certain elements of the game's assumptions and rules are easier to understand if this distinction is made.

 

[salochin999]

I was pointing out the contrast in inspiration from sources before Traveller's release and after. Certain elements of the game's assumptions and rules are easier to understand if this distinction is made.

I think that's the thing - most of the later visual context is still around but some of the earlier visual context like those old book covers has faded somewhat.

It might pay Mongoose or T5 to try and re-inject updated versions of some of that retro visual context through the art they use.

http://faculty.etsu.edu/gardnerr/sputnik/Mars-and-beyond-domes.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ThRFQ-oOXT0/hqdefault.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/27/article-2238944-163A0780000005DC-558_634x373.jpg

 

[creativehum]

I think that's the thing - most of the later visual context is still around but some of the earlier visual context like those old book covers has faded somewhat.

Well, that and people reading some of those original stories. That's a pipe dream, I know.

But if you look at Victor Raymond's quotes in the second and third posts in this thread you'll see that back in the 70's, when there were no sourcebooks or settings for D&D or Traveller, yet people knew what to do with the games.

(Note that Supplement I: Greyhawk and Supplement: II Blackmoor were not "settings" for D&D in the term we use now. The booklets are actually stuffed with new rules, monsters, and classes, with Greyhawk offering no information about Gygax's setting, and Blackmoor providing details about one adventure environment from Arneson's campaign.)

In fact, the "sourcebooks" were the short stories and novels the creators of D&D and Traveller drew on while making their games. (See articles scattered around the internet about a Appendix N.)

When I refer to these short stories and novels as "sourcebooks" I don't mean it as we mean it today: a nailed down, internally consistent setting that we're supposed to explore.

Instead these stories and novels that everyone knew at the time provided a spring well of ideas for the Referee to draw from both in prep and on the fly during play. The tales and characters and settings provided a bedrock for the kind of adventure fiction and setting material to be created at the table.

This was the state of the hobby back in the day:

"When I initially began creating adventure material I assumed that the GMs utilizing the work would prefer substance without window dressing, the latter being properly the realm of the GM so as to suit the campaign world and player group."
-- Gary Gygax

"When I was asked by TSR to do my World of Greyhawk as a commercial product I was taken aback. I had assumed most DMs would far prefer to use their own world settings."
-- Gary Gygax

"Remember that the original concept for Traveller was very GURPS-ish: a generic system that could emulate every possible part of SF. And in the first year, we did very little support beyond the basic rules. It was only after we started writing adventures that the Imperium started taking shape as a real background."
-- Marc Miller

It was understood that the people picking up these games in the 70s had read and loved the gene fiction floating around in paperbacks and magazines, that they would be referencing them to build their own settings and adventure material.

I understand why publishers saw the advantage in creating bucketloads of source books. But I am conflicted about whether or not they helped the fun of actual RPG play.

 

[whartung]

I understand why publishers saw the advantage in creating bucketloads of source books. But I am conflicted about whether or not they helped the fun of actual RPG play.

Well, for a rather broad segment, they enabled play at all. Many a group lived off of published adventures and modules, as that let the GM be more arbiter and mechanic rather than creative world builder, which takes a lot more work than simply running a module.

Back when first introduced to D&D, all we did was dungeon crawls. It was almost always staring down at a geomorphic map with the player picking a direction and saying "what do we see down this hall". Any "adventure" was whatever was spontaneously concocted room by room, with the overarching theme being "are we having good time" vs some long story arch.

Random monsters with random treasures.

I distinctly recall the players opening a room and I (as GM) rolling that it was occupied by Footpads. "WTH is a Footpad?" So, I on the fly made up these disk shaped creatures that caused their own style of mayhem that the players succinctly dispatched.

Later, I learned that "Footpads" were low level thief's.

So, the settings are very important to a segment of the game playing population. Many folks like to play the game casually. Half the time as GM I was reading the module as they played through it.

 

[creativehum]

Well, for a rather broad segment, they enabled play at all. Many a group lived off of published adventures and modules, as that let the GM be more arbiter and mechanic rather than creative world builder, which takes a lot more work than simply running a module.

Back when first introduced to D&D, all we did was dungeon crawls. It was almost always staring down at a geomorphic map with the player picking a direction and saying "what do we see down this hall". Any "adventure" was whatever was spontaneously concocted room by room, with the overarching theme being "are we having good time" vs some long story arch.

Random monsters with random treasures.

I distinctly recall the players opening a room and I (as GM) rolling that it was occupied by Footpads. "WTH is a Footpad?" So, I on the fly made up these disk shaped creatures that caused their own style of mayhem that the players succinctly dispatched.

Later, I learned that "Footpads" were low level thief's.

So, the settings are very important to a segment of the game playing population. Many folks like to play the game casually. Half the time as GM I was reading the module as they played through it.

Hi,

I'm making a distinction between adventures/modules and "settings."

An adventure can be dropped into any setting. An adventure is content that the PCs can interact with directly. A setting is lots of detail that the PCs might never interact with.

Amber Zones in the JTAS were useful because they provided inspiration for Referees. As were the Adventures and Double Adventures.

I can build my own setting and drop the adventures into them. Sometimes it takes a little work. But it works. (I'm currently running a regular game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess using LotFP modules. But how they all fit together, why what's going on at the setting level is all my doing.)

I have nothing against play aids to make the Referee's life easier.

* * *

However, here is an example of "setting":

In JTAS #4 (1980) GDW publishes the article Emperors of the Third Imperium.

This is only setting. There is no way for the PCs to interact with it. And as a Referee the details are only of use to me if I am using GDW's setting. (Note the flexibility of most of the adventures and early Amber Zones, which are not limited in this way.)

That article, to me, is when the Classic Traveller product line went off the rails.

* * *

Please note how you describe playing: Making random rolls and improvising from them. And, as you say, "The 'adventure' was whatever was spontaneously concocted room by room."

Please note upthread how Mike says random NPC encounters would kick off the focus for a whole campaign.

Please note these rules:

* Random Rumor Encounters table
* Random Patron Encounters table
* Random NPC Encounters table

Note how each of the can convey, easily and seamlessly, the setting the Referee has created. Especially if the Referee creates Rumor, Patron, and NPC Encounter tables specific to the tone and feel of his subsector. He is saying with these tables: "These are the kinds of people in this subsector -- the powerful, the weak, the king makers, the desperate, the social classes. These are the conflicts at hand. These are the mysteries and prizes scattered across the stars. This is the history and culture."

All of this is imparted by direct interaction by the PCs with NPCs. This is magical.

Moreover, just as in your game, it is organic. The setting gets built out through the accretion of details that, in turn, build adventures as you go.

This, I think, is how Classic Traveller is supposed to be played. Why do I think this? Because of the rules printed right in the books.

I quoted Chris Vermeers blog in the fourth post of this thread:

In the standard CT campaign, the characters will be pursuing ways of making money. Usually, this is through trade and commerce, which often does little more than pay for the ship the characters travel in, and frequently enough not even that. As a result, the players are on the lookout for Patron encounters, which can result in more adventurous activities and higher payouts compared to the time taken. Normally, Patron encounters occur once every three weeks on average (in port, as the weeks spent in Jump don't count for such encounters). The other sort of encounter that can result in payouts is the Rumor. Rumors occur around seven times in every twelve weeks, but most are not useful for getting paid. The third sort of adventure is the sort pre-designed by the Referee, but those are dependent on the specific Referee's campaign and not regular at all. I would suggest that most come about as a result of the Referee judiciously using regular Rumors and possibly Patrons in any case...

So, the basic structure of play in CT is based around random encounters, but the specifics of those encounters were designed to be the seeds of adventure - the Patron especially, but also the Rumor. Other encounters, such as Legal, Random, and Animal, were intended to be either color or a tax on time spent, or both. In some cases, Random encounters were apparently intended as a possible adventure hook (fugitives, for instance), which would require a flexible and improvising Referee.

In a typical CT session, the players would set their characters to doing the boring things that paid the bills - finding cargo, usually - but could find them embroiled in events involving bandits, fugitives, law enforcement (rightly or wrongly), or people looking for help (Patrons). They might also find Rumors that could lead them toward some sort of possible payout, like treasure maps in D&D. In any case, their intent to stay safe and paid could be overrun by events around them and the temptations of even greater paydays.

This points to a specific sort of adventure design, not based around plots and stories, that was set aside. Sadly, my favorite edition of Traveller was overrun by adventures that were not well-suited to the game, ones that tried to impose a story on the players. What CT (and MegaTraveller) really needs are Patrons, locations, and adventures that are the object of Rumors. It also needs deep background, so that the players can get their characters involved in wider situations - but those sorts of extended adventures work best when they arise out of the adventuring group interacting in their own particular ways with that wider background.

I think Vermeers has the right of it. (It's really worth reading those four paragraphs carefully.) And he is describing exactly how you and Mike say you play. And this sort of play is supported by using the rules as tools of play.

And none of this has anything to to with buying into any specific "setting" built by someone else. In fact, books upon books of published setting run counter to this style of play. Because in the example you give, your "footpads" would have been "wrong."

 

[whartung]

Please note how you describe playing: Making random rolls and improvising from them. And, as you say, "The 'adventure' was whatever was spontaneously concocted room by room."

Please note upthread how Mike says random NPC encounters would kick off the focus for a whole campaign.

Please note these rules:

* Random Rumor Encounters table
* Random Patron Encounters table
* Random NPC Encounters table

Note how each of the can convey, easily and seamlessly, the setting the Referee has created. Especially if the Referee creates Rumor, Patron, and NPC Encounter tables specific to the tone and feel of his subsector. He is saying with these tables: "These are the kinds of people in this subsector -- the powerful, the weak, the king makers, the desperate, the social classes. These are the conflicts at hand. These are the mysteries and prizes scattered across the stars. This is the history and culture."

You're talking about far more involvement of the GM than what I was doing. Those tables came out of whatever D&D books we were using at the time. I, as the GM, wasn't "creating" anything so much as facilitating play. My creativity was mostly limited to conveying what the dice rolls said.

The basic experience was interesting as simply running the mechanics of the game was fun for us. With the modules, the party would just "show up" at the dungeon entrance just like the players just "showed up" at "GO" in Monopoly, because that's where the game started once you got done fighting over who gets the Race Car token.

On the one hand, prepared setting can be constraining. But on the other hand, they provide a tableau on which the Referee can corner off their little section of the world. They get to import whatever infrastructure they need.

The difference between something like D&D and Traveller is that D&D is done in basically remote, lawless places (mostly), so the characters have mostly carte blanche as to what they can do and how it's done.

Traveller is modern civilization with annoying laws, lawyers, procedures, bureaucrats, and politicians. And you can only "live on the edge" so long before you have to head back to civilization to get your star ship fixed, or your car fixed, or to buy more ammo, or whatever "Thing You Can't Do Without Interacting With Society" happens. Heck, in D&D, you just picked your new armor and weapons off the ground as you went forward.

The point is, that for many, people don't want to create societies and a busy world, they simply want to play in one.

Just like pre-built freight cars and miniature houses for Model Railroading. You can start with a pile of scale strip lumber, buy a kit of various stages of finishing, or buy complete models.

In D&D, where things are more isolated, it makes sense to publish to different modules, completely unrelated with little ties to overarching settings. With a sophisticated interstellar society, that doesn't wash as much. That's what made TNE attractive, is that it gave ref's 3 distinct areas in differing stages of chaos and structure to adventure in. The more chaotic the area (i.e. the Wilds), the more free form and free reign the refs and players had.

For Traveller, it simply made more sense to have an guiding galactic view to work within rather than redesigning and rebuilding the societal rules for each and every adventure.

 

[creativehum]

Hi whartung,

I'm sorry I misrepresented your style of play, Please note that Basic Traveller already has Random Patron Tables and Random NPC Encounter tables already in the rules. The Referee does;t have to create anything.

Please note that while the OTU describes a civilization of laws, lawyers, procedures, and bureaucrats, that;s not what the World generation system creates. The average Law Level is 5. A subsector created by the rules will be predominately a wild frontier. Now, if someone wants a very bureaucratic space civilization for their RPG adventures, more power to them. (I don't get it. But it's not my problem.) But that does't change the fact that there is a fundamental disconnect between what the OTU is and the riles in the game.

Finally, I still have no idea how all the source material helps a Referee in a concrete way during play, If I open up GURPS: Behind the Claw and read three paragraphs about an entire planet (mostly about two companies and a shipping yard) I honestly don't see how that helps me spin an evening's session of play more so than using the tools in Basic Traveller to generate an evening of play. I honestly don't see it. How are vague summaries like this:

Colada is a pleasant and forgiving world, with vast
pastures given over to the rearing of beef cattle. The population
is thinly spread about the globe, with few settlements
over 1,000 inhabitants, except for the startown.

By contrast to the rest of the world, Colada startown is
notoriously dangerous, with some areas being virtual no go
areas for the police. Almost anything can be bought in
the startown, but the trick is living long enough to get out
with it. Matters are so bad that a number of minor subsidiary
downports (class I or II) have appeared, and produce is
either taken directly to the highport or else flown
into "safe" areas within the main downport.

...more productive than the Referee spinning details off the top of his head based off the UWP and random rolls for a Patron and NPC encounters? Seriously, there's nothing unique, useful, or particularly useful about those two paragraphs. Random rolls and winging it would have to produce something more interesting.

 

[whartung]

How are vague summaries like this:
...more productive than the Referee spinning details off the top of his head based off the UWP and random rolls for a Patron and NPC encounters?

I dunno, seems like theres a lot of detail in those two paragraphs. Startown is bad -- REALLY bad. Law Level 0 bad. (Which may or may not be represented on the UWP).

These suggest that the encounter tables for "safe" Startown and "unsafe" Startown would be pretty much diametrically opposite of one another. In safe Startown you might see other ship members, local vendor, patrolling law enforcement. In unsafe Startown you might see a Cutthroat, Cutthroat, Cutthroat, or a Dead law enforcement.

Out of Startown, looks like the bulk of who you will encounter are ranchers or involved in ranching, and willing to tell you far more than you want to know about the cattle market, cattle hygiene, the diversity and range of market cattle, Jersey's vs Holsteins, etc., and how they can't get water on the high range, and those damnable free grazer taking to the good meadows.

It also details some of the extra bureaucracy involved in getting goods to port, because of the problems with Startown.

Now, you may well have been able to off the cuff come up with this many details in the midst of a gaming session. But there are also people who don't do that well. Those people enjoy little details like this, and find it easier to flesh out and work within this more limited scope than a blank slate of 154,000,000 sq Km of planet surface, of which 40% is land with 100K to 900K population, clean air, and, oh, no machine guns please.

Did you ever consider that it seems that the market is actually rather gorged with folks who write up settings and details and sell them to other folks, rather than folks simply downloading white box, generic OGL D20 and running off to make their own world from whole cloth?

I've found as a rule, there are far more consumers of content than creators. Perhaps you're the former, and blessed with the creativity and time and motivation to stitch it together in to a cohesive whole. But, considering myself, and, organically, others that I see just in the large, that's not the case for most people. So, folks like me kind of like this stuff.

I enjoy the nits of the Imperium. I, having mentioned this before in other threads, long ago, was quite taken aback when the 5FW started, as chronicled in JTAS #9. Seemed like a pretty big deal at the time.

 

[salochin999]

I think both are true. On the one hand a lot of people don't have the time or creativity to come up with a lot of adventure hooks but also at the same time the published stuff often tends to be more touristy than adventurey.

For example

Colada is a pleasant and forgiving world, with vast
pastures given over to the rearing of beef cattle. The population
is thinly spread about the globe, with few settlements
over 1,000 inhabitants, except for the startown.

add

The workforce includes a large contingent of transient drifters so work on the ranches is usually available and the standard contract is built around this: room and board and a little spending cash plus an 8K lump sum at the end of six months.

A lot of workers quit early because they find the scale of the great plains unsettling. This leads to a lot of stranded Travellers at the star town with some cash but not enough to leave. Others quit after seeing the native worms who tunnel underground and erupt to swallow cattle whole. Higher paid but highly dangerous contracts are also available as wormguards.

There is also a rumor that a 3I research expedition has been approved to study the worms.

By contrast to the rest of the world, Colada startown is
notoriously dangerous, with some areas being virtual no go
areas for the police. Almost anything can be bought in
the startown, but the trick is living long enough to get out
with it. Matters are so bad that a number of minor subsidiary
downports (class I or II) have appeared, and produce is
either taken directly to the highport or else flown
into "safe" areas within the main downport.

add

Apart from the danger inherent in any startown that has a lot of drifters looking for cash to move on there is a rumor that somename corporation from Gram are trying to pressure the Rancher's Council into getting rid of the Council's own subsidized merchants and giving them the shipping contract instead.

#

Personally I like that level of detail with multiple hooks and then a random patron or encounter has something to riff off.

 

[creativehum]

At the same time the published stuff often tends to be more touristy than adventurey.

"Toursisty."

Thank you. In one word you've nailed down why the 3I as a setting (both in the descriptions and as a setting) seems so bland to me.


whaerung,

I think we're going in circles.

I already made it clear I buy and use published material, so I'm not surprised at all that here is a market for it.

What I am surprised by is two posts back you saying that making up random encounter tables would be more effort than you would put into a game. But then state that the setting I quoted is valuable because it could have different encounter tables. But where would the tables come from? They're not in the book. The Referee would have to make them anyway.

I think there are useful products and not particularly useful products. I think the Adventures and Double Adventures in the Classic Traveller line were for the most part useful. But the endless pages of worlds that read like tourism brochures? Not so much. That's all.

Now, if a Referee is willing to do the work of spicing up the environment and building the tools to plug the PCs into encounters that's something else. But at what point is the book better than simply spinning the details out using the tools in the rules?

 

[Vargas]

That article, to me, is when the Classic Traveller product line went off the rails.

Wow.

Personally I would set it much later than that, probably when DGP came in. (I count Signal GK as an early indicator).

 

[flykiller]

"Toursisty."

Thank you. In one word you've nailed down why the 3I as a setting (both in the descriptions and as a setting) seems so bland to me.

well ... maybe it's because you're touring it instead of using it. "bland"? good grief, a vast churning mix of humans, psi-slaves and talking dogs all scheming and maneuvering and fighting for their share of the pie across 440 (official) worlds (not to mention everything ELSE in every single star system!) (not to mention anything that might pop up from the past several thousand years!!) via corporations, navies, intel agencies, merchant princes, rogue nobles, capital ships, ai, and who knows what else! get on a boat and hit it!

"bland" my ***.

 

[creativehum]

churning.

Honestly, after 1981 I never saw the churning. The politics of the Imperium -- even in the Spinward Marches -- seemed quite stable except for some corporate espionage.

As I've stated in another thread, it to an invasion from another polity to stir things up.

But look, if it works for you, that's great! My own reading is that I'd have to introduce a lot of setting busting premises and details to make the kind of setting I'd want.

But here's the bigger thing: A thread started about the rules themselves falls down the same rabbit hole of becoming about the Imperium.

I surrender.

 

[mike wightman]

An example.
Many years ago I read the introduction to Marooned/Marooned alone. I ran the game as described.

A while ago I re-read the introduction and thought to myself - the introduction would make a better adventure than the actual adventure as described.

So I dipped into the random encounter tables etc to flesh it out and ran the events of the introduction - it turned into a game that ran several sessions. I generated systems as needed, no need for official subsector maps or the like.

I don't think we mentioned the Imperium once during the game.