02-05-2016, 08:56 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Toronto, Canada
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Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
The basic books (B01-03) don't have any real detail about the Third Imperium, the standard setting for Traveller. There's maybe some hints of it, in the information about the various services and the social ranks, but not much.
Which book explains the setting? |
02-05-2016, 11:33 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
The CT books 1-3 were designed to offer you the chance to make up your own setting.
The Imperium was the setting GDW used to show off what you could do. The Imperium itself is mentioned in the introductions to LBB4 and LBB5, and details are forthcoming in the early adventures, Kinunir, Research Station Gamma, and Twilight's Peak. The library data in those books underwent a bit of revision as the official Library Data Supplements (A_M and N-Z) were produced. By the time The Traveller Book was produced the Imperium setting was included in the book. |
02-05-2016, 02:44 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
Parts of the setting are explicit in books 1-3: the five services, titles of nobility, the Traveller's Aid Society. Presumably a Classic Traveller universe other than the Third Imperium would still include these in one form or another.
In Books 4 and 5, "the Imperium" was just a short-hand way of saying, "a remote, centralized government, globally strong but locally weak." It wasn't any particular Imperium at that point, and other settings were still possible. Book 6 was the first to embed "the Imperium" as a necessary feature rather than an option. May I suggest The Nature of the Imperium? I compiled it to try to make sense of the questions of what is the Third Imperium really? and where is that written in canon? |
02-05-2016, 03:36 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
Parts of the setting are implied - they are not explicit. There are many possible settings you could design with exactly the same tropes.
The navy career isn't the third Imperium Navy, the marines isn't the third Imperium Star Marines (note that MWM refers to the IN marines as Imperial Star Marines...), I've even seen multithread discussions about if an Imperial Army even exists (it does). The careers are generic tropes of science fiction character types. CT encourages referees to come up with their own settings, but yes I agree that similarities would exist between settings if you stick to the terms in the book. |
02-05-2016, 03:39 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Chicagoland
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
John Larson, you may enjoy a series of blog posts I've been reading that explore the 1977 edition of Traveller. Among other things, some of the posts touch on exactly the topics discussed in this thread.
Here's the first one: https://talestoastound.wordpress.com...-of-the-box-i/
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GMing Since 1982. |
02-05-2016, 04:46 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Toronto, Canada
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
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02-05-2016, 07:02 PM | #7 | |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
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02-05-2016, 07:38 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Los Angeles
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
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02-05-2016, 10:59 PM | #9 |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
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02-06-2016, 05:01 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Elk Grove, CA
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Re: Traveller Classic: where is the setting?
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Heck, I played in a campaign that it took nearly two months of real time for most of the players to find out that our tramp merchant ship was captained by Deno Solo, whose brother was a fairly well known smuggler. Peter, of course, is correct. It would have been very hard for any of us then to use a TV series, 30 or so years in the future, as a source. |
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old school, traveller |
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