Traveller Classic: where is the setting?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Drifter

I dunno, there are only a couple of good movies in that setting. I'd skip it and go watch Firefly.

I'm confining my reply to noninteractive fiction that was around when 1st edition Traveller was published.

[Whitestreak]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I'm confining my reply to noninteractive fiction that was around when 1st edition Traveller was published.

When I started playing LBB Traveller (right after it came out), the lack of an "official" setting never seemed to bother any of us. We used movies and novels as sources for our games.

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.

[Blue Ghost]

What Mike said. Traveller initially started as a "GURPS Like" sci-fi RPG where you created the setting, though there were allusions to a loosely defined one in the basic books.

Currently, if you look at the GURPS or T5 CD/hardbound book, you'll note a very developed setting and background that's been evolving over 30+ years.

But it's important to note that even though the Imperium and all its neighbors and their collective histories are a solid B.G. for your game, you don't really have to use them, but it's there as a default if you need some kind of backdrop to serve the players in the adventure.

Traveller really is fun game. DND in space is what one game vendor at the Stanford University Shopping Center called it, only instead of griffins and dragons (which you can create with the animal encounter chart) you encounter exotic alien critters and bad guys who may be human or some other race.

Have fun >:)

[robertsconley]

This is a brief article about what referees did just after the release of Traveller

The Burgess Shale Period of Traveller

I write about it on my blog here

http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/20...traveller.html

from reading various accounts over the years about what people did, most campaigns revolved around one or two sectors with small empire, federations, etc. Even after the advent of the Spinward Marches, the hints in the various early adventures lead some to conclude the Imperium wasn't that big as it ultimately turned out.

[Anaraxes]

Where is the setting? Mostly coreward of Sol. The popular Spinward Marches sector is also a bit spinward.

http://travellermap.com/

[thrash]

Originally Posted by robertsconley

Even after the advent of the Spinward Marches, the hints in the various early adventures lead some to conclude the Imperium wasn't that big as it ultimately turned out.

Note that the proto-OTU Imperium wargame talks about the [Vilani] Imperium as having 70 star systems. I seem to recall a project collapsing the Third Imperium into four sectors: Spinward Marches, Core, Solomani Rim, and one other.

Over years of trying to make sense of canon, I've come to the conclusion that the "default setting" for Really Classic (i.e., pre-High Guard) Traveller is what the OTU calls the Long Night.

[Mike Wightman]

Originally Posted by thrash

Note that the proto-OTU Imperium wargame talks about the [Vilani] Imperium as having 70 star systems. I seem to recall a project collapsing the Third Imperium into four sectors: Spinward Marches, Core, Solomani Rim, and one other.

I remember a few of us messing around with something like that over at CotI ten or so years ago.

Over years of trying to make sense of canon, I've come to the conclusion that the "default setting" for Really Classic (i.e., pre-High Guard) Traveller is what the OTU calls the Long Night.

Now that is a really interesting idea.

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by thrash

. . .
Over years of trying to make sense of canon, I've come to the conclusion that the "default setting" for Really Classic (i.e., pre-High Guard) Traveller is what the OTU calls the Long Night.

That could make an interesting campaign -- someone trying to make it in the later years of the Long Night, or even during the early years of the Third Imperium but far beyond its reach.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by thrash

Note that the proto-OTU Imperium wargame talks about the [Vilani] Imperium as having 70 star systems. I seem to recall a project collapsing the Third Imperium into four sectors: Spinward Marches, Core, Solomani Rim, and one other.

Over years of trying to make sense of canon, I've come to the conclusion that the "default setting" for Really Classic (i.e., pre-High Guard) Traveller is what the OTU calls the Long Night.

I think this makes a lot of sense. It also makes things interesting for the PCs in light of some of the adventures in Patrons.

[Knockman]

Thrash - just wanted to say that your 'The Nature of the Imperium' is a great resource. Well done.