Are you sure about that? I think 1001 Patrons and the actual "Citizens of the Imperium" supplements suggest personae from other settings. I think it's even mentioned in the big black book (where, I can't remember, but it's there).
What area would you like to see T5 set in.
- Thread starter Gray Lensman
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Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
AFAICT T5 will be more setting-free than CT.
It's all by way of import, not adjusting rules to alternate settings.
No worries. The T5 rules do not have an embedded setting, beyond the implied constraints of the Traveller system of course.
Marc also has been planning, even plotting, a setting for T5. I'm sure he can be talked into putting a bit of it into a section in the core rules as an example. But first things first - he is typesetting the rules, and I'm eager to see a 1.0 release.
Marc also has been planning, even plotting, a setting for T5. I'm sure he can be talked into putting a bit of it into a section in the core rules as an example. But first things first - he is typesetting the rules, and I'm eager to see a 1.0 release.
saundby
SOC-14 1K
Oh, good.
Because I'm working on a TL-0.5 campaign now. I don't want my players telling me their neolithic-cusp characters get Vacc Suit skill 'cause the rules say. :rofl:
I've always seen Traveller as a generic rules set since I first read it in '77. It has some assumptions built in, but those assumptions weren't too far off track for a fair bit of SFnal book mainstream from the 50s to the 70s. Viz the many inspirations for the game. Plus, RAW was not the icon then it is today. Traveller 1.0 (CT LBBs 1-3) was very modular, making it easy to do such things as I did (dropping in Doc Smith ships with inertialess drives and flashing bus bars) or as MgT has done (B5 alternate star drive, etc.)
Compared to Metamorphosis Alpha (some fun rules but settings limited by rules limitations to being an SF-ish fantasy game), Traveller was far more "generic", if your idea of generic SF leans more toward Harry Harrison or H. Beam Piper than Gene Roddenberry.
Anyway, I'm in favor of things as Whipsnade says WRT embedded milieux. Examples drawn from the primary one, plus others to show there's not just one, as examples not codifications. I'm really liking the flexibility these rules promise--a bit of TL juggling will allow just about any fiction world to work.
But the rules are a toolkit as they stand. A prebuilt setting (or several) is going to be necessary for the busy ref to get a game rolling. Starting with worldbuilder/armorbuilder/etc. isn't going to work for many.
Because I'm working on a TL-0.5 campaign now. I don't want my players telling me their neolithic-cusp characters get Vacc Suit skill 'cause the rules say. :rofl:
I've always seen Traveller as a generic rules set since I first read it in '77. It has some assumptions built in, but those assumptions weren't too far off track for a fair bit of SFnal book mainstream from the 50s to the 70s. Viz the many inspirations for the game. Plus, RAW was not the icon then it is today. Traveller 1.0 (CT LBBs 1-3) was very modular, making it easy to do such things as I did (dropping in Doc Smith ships with inertialess drives and flashing bus bars) or as MgT has done (B5 alternate star drive, etc.)
Compared to Metamorphosis Alpha (some fun rules but settings limited by rules limitations to being an SF-ish fantasy game), Traveller was far more "generic", if your idea of generic SF leans more toward Harry Harrison or H. Beam Piper than Gene Roddenberry.
Anyway, I'm in favor of things as Whipsnade says WRT embedded milieux. Examples drawn from the primary one, plus others to show there's not just one, as examples not codifications. I'm really liking the flexibility these rules promise--a bit of TL juggling will allow just about any fiction world to work.
But the rules are a toolkit as they stand. A prebuilt setting (or several) is going to be necessary for the busy ref to get a game rolling. Starting with worldbuilder/armorbuilder/etc. isn't going to work for many.
My only problem with an iteration of an OTU is that I don't think most players really mine it all that much. We used it as background setting, but our group never hob-nobbed with nobility, nor turned the tides of major events in the Imperium. To us that was utterly silly and stupid.... and I'll throw in egomaniacal and overblown 
It's nice to know where the major races are, who does what, and the local geography, but how important is it that Aslan-Solomani relations are at an all time low? Or that Grandfather maybe making a special guest appearance on Vland because he's just PO'd right now?
*shrug*
It's nice to know where the major races are, who does what, and the local geography, but how important is it that Aslan-Solomani relations are at an all time low? Or that Grandfather maybe making a special guest appearance on Vland because he's just PO'd right now?
*shrug*
The setting, unless it's a new millieux, is unlikely to sell the game.
The Grognards already have more setting available than can be carried in a large pilot's case. The Newbs already have GT and MGT sources for M1100 & M1125-NoRebellion. And can get the materials for the others cheaply.
Or go back in history. Milieu 800 -- Psionic Suppressions; Milieu 600 -- Civil War; Milieu 400 -- Age of Expansion; Milieu 200 -- Age of Exploration. Lots of adventure and excitement to be had.
I'm particularily fond of Milieu 400. It's the time when the Spinward Marches really were as open and undeveloped as the early CT material implied (before we found out that The Marches had been settled for almost a millenium and that Imperial and Aslan traders had crisscrossed Trojan Reach for 700 years). I did a writeup of The Outrim Frontier (subsectors N and O of the Spinward Marches and subsectors B and C of Trojan Reach) in Year 400[*] for JTAS Online and have a couple of half-finished other settings for Milieu 400 (In Mora subsector and on Regina) on back burners.
[*] Essentially the old CT adventure Leviathan backdated to a time when Egyrn and Pax Rulin concievably could actually have been substantially unexplored. With some extra setting material and plot hooks.
Hans
You could do Ziru Sirka or Rule of Man as well; how well something is written, artwork and how much material is available is how well it will sell. The caveat of the past is that how the history turns out is known, though I don't think large arc's or metaplots necessarily make for good adventures. Some things like the rebellion or virus just become a plot device to accomplish something, which isn't always a good way to move the story along. An RPG is storytelling and players being part of the story, but you don't have to be the ones taking the ring to Mount Doom.
The future appeals to me in that it moves beyond a lot of grognardy arguments and towards a higher TL, in essence what is sci-fi to me.
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
But introducing another new era will fragment the fanbase even further. It's barely holding together now...
Oh sure. I just tend to stay in the Spinward Marches.
Doesn't bother people who play in historical settings here on Earth (Every one technically a Traveller setting, BTW
), and we know a great deal less about Traveller's history than is known about Real Life history. Hans
Doesn't bother people who play in historical settings here on Earth (Every one technically a Traveller setting, BTW
Hans
From a player perspective, sometimes one feels a bit ripped off when you lose the high tech goodies of the higher TL's (which also happens in normal Traveller on low tech planets).
I think some years back Avery stated in an interview that people wanted background material. I think by that people weren't buying the adventures to find out about the Imperium, but more or less to buy adventures. The adventures themselves had Imperial flavor, but people wanted the adventure which included the setting, and not so much the pure setting itself. That's just my take.
That is why I bought the adventures, to run as adventures, the Imperium was cool, but some people get obsessive and weird about the Imperium.
That's precisely what I like about the adventures. They're adventures. The imperial flavor is nice.
I bought them mostly for the setting info. I had A0-A13, and have run A0, A1, A3, A8, A12, and A13. Never bothered with RUNNING the others, just raiding them for canon.
All of my groups just ran them as generic space opera fare. I think that, more than anything else, was the implied flavor of original CT. And I think that's how most people ran them.
What are the A-series of books? I've never heard of them. Was that for T4?
What are the A-series of books? I've never heard of them. Was that for T4?
A is short for "Adventure"
And, as I've said before, I didn't know ANYONE treating Traveller as a generic set of rules until the mid 90's. AFTER TNE came out.
