Traveller players, explain yourselves! [+]

[pemerton]

I don't think this got posted yet:

Work directly off rolled results regarding any aspect of the situation, including composition, distance, and reaction rolls … but which also requires solid notions of where the characters actually are, where they are going, and what they are trying to do. Those notions come from the sociological and ecological details of the planet and whatever region you’re in, but also from plain old play-statements intersecting among GM and player authorities. . . .

I was surprised at how minor the concept of small-business management is. Yes, the characters might be in debt or in some kind of economic crunch, but they don’t have to be. And the many play-mechanisms like patronage, encounters with rich people, and the economics of perfectly legitimate hauling and trade would turn it into merely a feature, not the center of play. Play as instructed and provided for in the text is much more about an unexpected crisis arising from sociology and ecology.​

I would add that sociology and ecology interact - eg how does one make sense of a world with Atmosphere B or C (corrosive or insidious), population 8 (so here are 100s of millions of people on this world), tech level 3 (and so early industrial technology at best), a Class C starport, and government 6 (a captive or colonial government)?

There are indefinitely many answers, but all of them are going to have to be constrained by, and have regard to, what those planetary stats tell us about the sociology and ecology of that world. And if the PCs encounter a patron, whatever that patron wants them to do should flow in some fashion from the decisions made about this world, and the other worlds that it is connected to (eg via proximity, commercial space lanes, etc).

 

[aramis erak]

I don't think this got posted yet:

Work directly off rolled results regarding any aspect of the situation, including composition, distance, and reaction rolls … but which also requires solid notions of where the characters actually are, where they are going, and what they are trying to do. Those notions come from the sociological and ecological details of the planet and whatever region you’re in, but also from plain old play-statements intersecting among GM and player authorities. . . .​

​

I was surprised at how minor the concept of small-business management is. Yes, the characters might be in debt or in some kind of economic crunch, but they don’t have to be. And the many play-mechanisms like patronage, encounters with rich people, and the economics of perfectly legitimate hauling and trade would turn it into merely a feature, not the center of play. Play as instructed and provided for in the text is much more about an unexpected crisis arising from sociology and ecology.​

The trade system is pretty hard to make money at on routes, especially if one doesn't houserule to KCr1 per parsec for multi-hex jumps. It's been beaten to death as a topic over on COTI... about every 5 years...
The idea is that PCs need to keep hustling for side jobs to have stable income, not that T&C be the main game.

I would add that sociology and ecology interact - eg how does one make sense of a world with Atmosphere B or C (corrosive or insidious), population 8 (so here are 100s of millions of people on this world), tech level 3 (and so early industrial technology at best), a Class C starport, and government 6 (a captive or colonial government)?

Them people need not be humans.

There are indefinitely many answers, but all of them are going to have to be constrained by, and have regard to, what those planetary stats tell us about the sociology and ecology of that world. And if the PCs encounter a patron, whatever that patron wants them to do should flow in some fashion from the decisions made about this world, and the other worlds that it is connected to (eg via proximity, commercial space lanes, etc).

Also heavily constrained by the willingness to add NIL to various worlds. Some GM's force themselves to take those extremes and put humans there, because they don't have aliens in their TUs... while others won't put humans anywhere that isn't shirtsleeve at least part of the year and have aliens on everything even slightly odd.

 

[dragoner]

I will also do population is space habitats, the game doesn't say anything about it, though it is realistic to use. Probably more so than any shirt-sleeves environment for Humans.

 

[aramis erak]

I will also do population is space habitats, the game doesn't say anything about it, though it is realistic to use. Probably more so than any shirt-sleeves environment for Humans.

I tend to avoid orbitals as major population centers, myself.
I'm more prone to NILs. And using the "Anything but human" (Dragon, Feb 1982, pp. 45-48) or "Make your own Aliens" (Dragon, Jul 1981, pp, 7-8) for new ones.

 

[dragoner]

I tend to avoid orbitals as major population centers, myself.
I'm more prone to NILs. And using the "Anything but human" (Dragon, Feb 1982, pp. 45-48) or "Make your own Aliens" (Dragon, Jul 1981, pp, 7-8) for new ones.

Here is an interesting graphic someone made:

For aliens I offer Flynn's Guide to Alien Creation to the players if they want it, and have a system similar Valerian, or B5 where they can come from.