Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Traveller Campaign Brainstorming

I am thinking of starting a Traveller campaign soon. I thought I'd use this space to do a bit of a brain dump.

Chargen Rules: probably Classic Traveller as a basis, probably using Mercenary etc. extended character generation.

Starships: I am looking at using Paul Gazis's rules for star ships (no anti-grav is the big feature) and at least his star ship combat system. This would be a small ship universe. The one thing that might make me change my mind is using this system means not using the various deck plans out there.

Sector maps: I'm leaning towards a freeform map, not hexes. Gazis Traveller did not use such and in the past I have played with a freeform map.

World Generation: probably based on Book 3, however, recently I rolled up a bunch of systems, and the random results were rather limiting. I might jigger my own charts (but still use the standard UPP mechanism). I might generate a few systems using Book 6 level of detail.

Tech Level: keeping tech level lower, perhaps to 12 or so. Though I may end up with rather different lists of equipment since I am diverging on anti-grav and starship technology.

The following is a dump of elements I'd like to include, some of these are just names perhaps with a bit of detail. Names may be inspired by other source material but may not reflect the actual source.

Reavers Deep, Reavers. I like the name. I like the Reavers from Firefly.

Earth. I'm debating if Earth will be in my universe, if so, do I use any accuracy for nearby stars? If I start using accurate data, do I end up with a 3-D universe?

Rifts. I like them.

Vargr & Aslan. I've always been partial to kitties and dogs. I might not use Traveller stats.

Zhodane. I like psionic aliens (or not so alien), thought police, and all that.

Lizards. I like an intelligent lizard race.

Parsinians. Gazis cyborg aliens. They just sound cool and obnoxious.

That's all that crosses my mind right now.

4 comments:

Will Douglas said...

Sounds really good. I like to see people playing the original Traveller (I refuse to call it Classic; in my universe, it's the later editions that need modifiers, not the original).

scottd said...

Another Traveller/ RQ player-ref in Portland, I thought were a dead breed. I run a non-OTU game with dogs (no Vargr), cats (no Alsan), and big lizards as well..have since '77. Dunno how the free flow map thing would work, but at least as far as having Earth in there is concerned - I use the subsector Andy Slack came up with for Trav based on the maps from Trav:2300. 2D but it gets the job done without all the messy player complaints about where the right stars are and all that.
I have to sidestep all the detailed in-system data since I stick to the original generation system, but then nobody goes as far as Earth very often, either. It might happen more now that the Terran Confederation has collapsed and reformed as the First Empire but we'll see how much favor the players might want to curry ar court - or if they stay out on the frontiers blasting BEM's and dodging pirates like they are supposed to.

Anyway..saw your post on COTI, and since I'm in Beaverton and trying to get a regular group together i thought I'd drop you a line.

Unknown said...

I played in Gazis' Traveller campaign for many years, and found it wonderfully believable. Can't recommend it too highly. In fact, I wrote an SF novel set in his Eight Worlds (ONE SURVIVOR, Norton Creek Press, 2009, http://www.nortoncreekpress.com) because I liked it so much.

I'm also very pleased with his weekly airship-based serial adventure on http://www.paulgazis.com. "Airships, gallant gentlemen, and dusky island maidens!"

Frank said...

Hi Robert, glad to see you here. I've enjoyed your writeups from The Wild Hunt of your runs in Paul's campaign. And I see you live just down the road from me (in a relative sense...).

Paul is in the process of digitizing his rules information which is way cool, he has some good stuff.