Where's a good place to start?

[dostergaard]

Hi All!

I'm new to Traveller, sort of. Actually, I bought the Deluxe Traveller boxed set somewhere back around 1980 and facing a lack of willing players I entertained myself with generating characters, worlds, ships, etc. until that faded and was replaced by other activities. Alas, that old boxed set fell victim to one of my wife's basement purges back before our last move.

I stumbled across the T20 site which renewed my interest. I played an Alternity (Dark*Matter) campaign with a group from work who are also into AD&D3e and might be likely victims for T20 Traveller leveraging their familiarity with the d20 mechanics.

So, I bought the CT books 0 - 8 reprint and TA#1 and have started getting reacquainted with Traveller. So I'm back to generating characters, worlds, ships, etc. My wife wonders what I'm doing sitting at the kitchen table rolling dice and scribbling strange annotations on a pad of paper after she and the kids have gone to sleep.

During my first flirtation with Traveller, "Canon" was just something players might get killed by. (sorry, bad joke) Now I see a lot of messages and sites concerned with reconciling adventures, ship designs, etc. with the Traveller canon. I'm a little overwhelmed by all the material and history that has been developed in a couple of decades.

After all that, here is my simple question. While I'm waiting for the release of T20, where should I start to look for appropriate background material from which to prepare some adventures and provide some background for my unsuspecting vict- er, players?

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dean O.

 

[T. Foster]

For one-stop shopping, your biggest bang for the buck would probably come from FFE002 "The Classic Supplements," which includes Supplements 3 & 10 (The Spinward Marches & Solomani Rim) for canonical settings, Supplements 8 & 11 (Library Data A-M & N-Z) for canonical background info, and Supplements 5, 7, & 9 (Lightning Class Cruisers, Traders & Gunboats, & Fighting Ships) for canonical ships & flavor text. Depending on your ambition/finances, FFE003, FFE004, and FFE006 (The Adventures, The Short Adventures, and the Journal of the TAS 1-12) all provide lots more canon in rough, undigested form for you to wade through (much, but not all, of which was eventually compiled to form the aforementioned Library Data).

Other helpful sources are the GURPS:Traveller rulebook (which repeats/updates most of the Library Data) and/or the MegaTraveller Imperial Encyclopedia (ditto) and Referee's Companion (which includes longish canonical essays on robots, corporations, and aliens). Alas, the latter two are long out of print, but still show up on eBay pretty frequently.

But really I wouldn't advise getting too hung up on canon. If you subjugate your own creativity to worries about what someone else has already said or done, then the canon is defeating its own purpose -- it's there to stimulate your imagination, not to stifle it. Unless you're sumitting something for publication, no one need ever know if you deviate from 'official' fleet structures and uniform styles, or even basic history and physical laws! Steal the bits you like and nevermind the rest.

 

[dostergaard]

Originally posted by T. Foster:
But really I wouldn't advise getting too hung up on canon. If you subjugate your own creativity to worries about what someone else has already said or done, then the canon is defeating its own purpose -- it's there to stimulate your imagination, not to stifle it. Unless you're sumitting something for publication, no one need ever know if you deviate from 'official' fleet structures and uniform styles, or even basic history and physical laws! Steal the bits you like and nevermind the rest.

Thanks for the pointers.

FFE002 has been on my shopping list and from what you've written it seems like a good plan. The other item I thought about was FFE004 "Double Adventures." Not knowing where T20 will be going and being unfamiliar with the "Gateway" region (which I think I read about somewhere in connection with T20) I didn’t know whether to invest much in the classic Traveller materials or wait for T20.

The group that I'll try to recruit will likely do a little research on their own and I'd like for what they find to be not too far off from what I might provide them myself.

Thanks again.

Dean O.

 

[phydaux]

FFE002 "The Classic Supplements" is well worth your money even if only for "Library Data." As far as a setting, you can go with the Gateway sector (once it comes out) or the Spinward Marches. My favorite treatment of the Spinward Marches is GURPS:Traveller Behind The Claw. The map isn't as good as it could be, but it has much more detail on the various systems and worlds.

 

[Mår Ekkertsen]

In my opinion the best place to look for inspiration for your Traveller campaign has always been your local paper (and the New York Times) if your town is truely small.

But more in line with what I guess is your real motives might I suggest a trip through www.webbrain.com with Traveller as your starting place.

 

[T. Foster]

Originally posted by dostergaard:
Not knowing where T20 will be going and being unfamiliar with the "Gateway" region (which I think I read about somewhere in connection with T20) I didn’t know whether to invest much in the classic Traveller materials or wait for T20.

Gateway Quadrant was originally detailed by Judges Guild in their licensed Traveller products from the late 70s - early 80s. By the time Atlas of the Imperium was published by GDW (c. 1984) all the JG material was officially de-canonized and the sector maps redrawn from scratch. Other than those maps and the (very rare) 4th/final issue of Digest Group's MegaTraveller Journal, nothing else had really been done with Gateway Quadrant until Hunter et al. began working on T20.

So, if you read through the Library Data to get the Big Picture view of the Imperium, its history, and its neighbors, and take a look at the maps on Anthony's Maps Site* (which are much better than those in the now-long-oop AotI anyway), you'll know just as much about Gateway Quadrant as any of the rest of us (T20 playtesters excepted), which should be more than enough to allow you to convincingly fake it until the T20 Milieu book comes out this fall.

It's also worth noting that if you do pick up FFE004, you'll find that most of the Short Adventures (although all given specific locations in the Spinward Marches or Solomani Rim) are sufficiently small-scale and self-contained that they can easily be relocated to any other world with similar UWP characteristics -- in Gateway Quadrant, your own homemade TU, or wherever.

*On this map Gateway Quadrant is the four sectors on the far right edge in the middle: Ley, Gateway, Glimmerdrift Reaches, Crucis Margin. Crucis Margin seems to still have the old Judges Guild map/data, but the other three are all 'canonically sound.'

 

[dostergaard]

Thanks to everyone for all the great pointers.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned these forums! The response to my questions have been terrific.

Now I've got a plan and good pointers to great resources.

Don't be surprised if I pop up again and ask more questions.

Thanks.