Payn's Ponderings Traveller Editions

[MattW]

All the various Traveller systems are good, but it's the world-building that makes them interesting. Most follow Classic Traveller; they have a very stable and semi-feudal interstellar Imperium as the backdrop.

Megatraveller is "The Decline and Fall of the Imperium" during a multi-sided civil war. Some people found it a depressing idea, but it did open up all sorts of scenarios . My group enjoyed fighting petty warlords, rescuing refugees, and setting up safe havens.

Traveller: the New Era is set several decades AFTER the fall of the Imperium and has a big problem with plausibility. The final collapse of the Imperium was brought about by a sort of AI rebellion. It has THE VIRUS which can add (evil and/or eccentric) Artificial Intelligence to any computer or robot. It gets worse. The simplest piece of electronics might secretly contain VIRUS "eggs" and could infect a more capable computer. The mechanism of producing AI was... not plausible. I suspect that most referees changed that particular part of the background.

However, TNE has one really important characteristic: TNE was wonderful for the gearheads. I spent far too much time playing with the supplement "Fire, Fusion and Steel"; it had rules for designing everything. I also recommend the 'Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide'.

 

[payn]

All the various Traveller systems are good, but it's the world-building that makes them interesting. Most follow Classic Traveller; they have a very stable and semi-feudal interstellar Imperium as the backdrop.

Megatraveller is "The Decline and Fall of the Imperium" during a multi-sided civil war. Some people found it a depressing idea, but it did open up all sorts of scenarios . My group enjoyed fighting petty warlords, rescuing refugees, and setting up safe havens.

Traveller: the New Era is set several decades AFTER the fall of the Imperium and has a big problem with plausibility. The final collapse of the Imperium was brought about by a sort of AI rebellion. It has THE VIRUS which can add (evil and/or eccentric) Artificial Intelligence to any computer or robot. It gets worse. The simplest piece of electronics might secretly contain VIRUS "eggs" and could infect a more capable computer. The mechanism of producing AI was... not plausible. I suspect that most referees changed that particular part of the background.

However, TNE has one really important characteristic: TNE was wonderful for the gearheads. I spent far too much time playing with the supplement "Fire, Fusion and Steel"; it had rules for designing everything. I also recommend the 'Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide'.

Nice! My next posting will be about Traveller settings. I'll be sure to reference this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ironically, as with most such cases, I'm least interested in Traveller and its descendants for settings; its the basic mechanics and support (in the form of tables and such) for situation generation I like. (I still use their tables for generating the local wildlife in other games when useful and adapt to them.)

 

[payn]

Ironically, as with most such cases, I'm least interested in Traveller and its descendants for settings; its the basic mechanics and support (in the form of tables and such) for situation generation I like. (I still use their tables for generating the local wildlife in other games when useful and adapt to them.)

I do love Traveller for its ability to help generate all sorts of elements for your game. Its very homebrew friendly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I do love Traveller for its ability to help generate all sorts of elements for your game. Its very homebrew friendly.

Yeah. The only issues that tend to come up (and this is a problem with almost all generic SF games) is the technological assumptions baked in.

 

[payn]

Yeah. The only issues that tend to come up (and this is a problem with almost all generic SF games) is the technological assumptions baked in.

True, but I also find Traveller to be one of the easiest to hack and workaround in this dept.

 

[dragoner]

Played since '79; instead of MegaTraveller, we played 2300, and then Twilight 2000. I did wind up a game of Classic not too long ago, The Traveller book is print-on-demand at drive thru for $20, quite a deal. I did play mgt1e from 2009 to within a few years ago. It's a decent add on to classic, it helps to know classic, due to some missing rules. I used to make a ton of starships for it, and am doing it again for Cepheus Engine, which is where I am at now, messing about with Cepheus Engine, the srd rules are pay what you want on dtrpg: Cepheus Engine System Reference Document - Samardan Press | Cepheus Engine | DriveThruRPG.com

 

[payn]

Played since '79; instead of MegaTraveller, we played 2300, and then Twilight 2000. I did wind up a game of Classic not too long ago, The Traveller book is print-on-demand at drive thru for $20, quite a deal. I did play mgt1e from 2009 to within a few years ago. It's a decent add on to classic, it helps to know classic, due to some missing rules. I used to make a ton of starships for it, and am doing it again for Cepheus Engine, which is where I am at now, messing about with Cepheus Engine, the srd rules are pay what you want on dtrpg: Cepheus Engine System Reference Document - Samardan Press | Cepheus Engine | DriveThruRPG.com

Creating starships is one thing I have not really ventured into. Typically, my games have been in the Spinward Marches or Trojan Reach where the ships are usually traders and cutters and nothing too militaristic.

I did grab the Cephus package for Foundry and switching it up to run Traveller (pretty easy). Im still trying to get the hang of Foundry, I've been running just discord and using excel files for my PoD game.

What differences does Cephus make, and do you like it better than Mongoose?

 

[Thomas Shey]

If I remember I'll try to compare Cepheus Deluxe (which is similar but not identical to basic, being by a separate company) to Mongoose since I have them both on my tablet (though as I recall, there's a Mongoose v2 that either did or is just about to drop).

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

I'm happy to see Cepheus and even 2300AD mentioned in this thread.

Traveller is an important branch of early traditional RPG development because of how it builds characters that broaden their abilities and skillsets, instead of making them exponentially powerful through level-ups. Certainly not the only instance of such a system, but very important in how it showcased this design space.