Traveller Space Opera
- Thread starter rancke
- Start date
Traveller players begin as ordinary folks but the essence of any campaign is to build characters up. While this may not be reflected in the stats the characters accumulate, it is reflected in the challenges that the Referee begins to throw at them. No longer is it the lone alien on the spaceship drifting in the void...now it is planetary invasion. No longer do they get job offers from startown barman but the planetary governor. Everything is about building the right scale over time.
Exactly true! Its a lot of fun to see how even players used to the experience level systems adapt to the added challenges later in a campaign and stop worrying if they are of a "high enough" level. They get more creative, and I think it provides more potential for real role-play.
Plus, there are also a lot of space opera heroes who are not all that difficult to model by players simply by forcing the players to just be heroes. Reward daring action, give the players a break if they are not whining and giving up! I think I've so skewed the law of averages at times IMTU by giving really daring, creative players who were willing to sacrifice all to save the day enough breaks that somewhere an entire planet's luck vanished in one instant and it blew up!
Don't forget sidekicks and connections! Where would Flandry be without his faithful butler Chives to save him from certain death by showing up in just the knick of time with blasters blazing?
And good space opera also requires a good chemistry in a core group of players who understand you are running space opera, not 2001. If the players don't "get it" then whey will just get frustrated and think you are out to get them. I learned that the hard way.
So I guess I'm saying that running CT as space opera really doesn't require jiggering the rules so much as just altering your philosophy of how to play it.
Plus, there are also a lot of space opera heroes who are not all that difficult to model by players simply by forcing the players to just be heroes. Reward daring action, give the players a break if they are not whining and giving up! I think I've so skewed the law of averages at times IMTU by giving really daring, creative players who were willing to sacrifice all to save the day enough breaks that somewhere an entire planet's luck vanished in one instant and it blew up!
Don't forget sidekicks and connections! Where would Flandry be without his faithful butler Chives to save him from certain death by showing up in just the knick of time with blasters blazing?
And good space opera also requires a good chemistry in a core group of players who understand you are running space opera, not 2001. If the players don't "get it" then whey will just get frustrated and think you are out to get them. I learned that the hard way.
So I guess I'm saying that running CT as space opera really doesn't require jiggering the rules so much as just altering your philosophy of how to play it.
I thought GURPS 3e Traveller could take care of such matters? Characters could be larger than life with it, no? Or did you want to stay within Classic Traveller?
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Realize: a large part of Traveller fandom rejects GT outright, and another chunk sees it as "severely variant"... and rules-wise, it's totally non-authoritative, being totally mechanically GURPS.
Under MT, I fond I could up the Space Opera quotient by making the attribute divisor 3 instead of 5 for attribute task contributions. I kept the +8 DM limit.
Though that's not why I'd like to stick to CT rules in the present case. I'm not one of that part of Traveller fandom (However large it may actually be). I do not reject GT outright but rather accept or reject elements introduced by GT on their own merits. I do not consider it severely variant; indeed, for historical purposes up until the Change Point (the point in time when the OTU and the GTU parts ways, some shortish time prior to 132-1116), I consider it just as canonical as CT or any other Traveller version, and even after the CP there are lots of OTU details that can be inferred. As for the rules... well, I don't believe that the rules are what makes something Traveller and something else not Traveller, but it's true that I think it was a big mistake to adapt the Traveller Universe to the GURPS rules when necessary, instead of the other way around.
No, I just thought it would be fun to see what could be done within the framework of the CT rules "feel".
That's an interesting idea. I'll certainly try it out if I ever get the opportunity.
Hans
