So,
I'm going to be starting up a Mongoose Traveller campaign here soon.
I'm hoping the great and wise of the RPGsite can school me on what the hell I just got myself into!
So, for everybody out there, share you insight, tips, tricks, resources, strategies and tragedies for a newbie Traveller Ref.
Thanks in advance!
I don't know anything about Mongoose's version. The most basic trick is to roll up a million NPCs and keep them on file. If I were starting Trav now I'd think about making my own sub-sectors instead of using the OU.
Traveller can go in a million billion ways, so it's hard to give solid advice. Great game if you enjoy a certain sort of bookkeeping.
Quote from: droog;249905The most basic trick is to roll up a million NPCs and keep them on file.
droog speaks truth. Even though it will deviate from the Mongoose version, try using
this website (http://www.signalgk.com/cgi-bin/ctcg.pl) to instantly roll up scads of characters that will be close enough to the current ruleset for you to fudge as Referee.
Traveller is the one game where I improvised just about every game session I refereed. A lot of it probably had to do with the circle of players I had with me, but I'd go into a session with a small handful of general ideas, then would follow the players' lead and generally make up character encounters along the way to see how they'd react in turn. It was easily the most consistent fun I ever had in roleplaying.
!i!
Rumors. Lots & lots of rumors.
Inaccurate, complete fabrication, and occasional truth. Every foray into a port bar should turn up a couple.
Quote from: Ian Absentia;249957droog speaks truth. Even though it will deviate from the Mongoose version, try using this website (http://www.signalgk.com/cgi-bin/ctcg.pl) to instantly roll up scads of characters that will be close enough to the current ruleset for you to fudge as Referee.
Yeah, it looks like those characters translate directly. Bookmarked!
I'm totally going to use that for statting up passengers and such.
Damm cool link. Thanks.
In addition to lots of characters, keep a bunch of ideas for patrons on index cards. The old 76 Patrons supplement saved my butt a few times when I was less than prepared for a session; Mongoose has a new version of this out (760 Patrons?) and there was a thread here on the RPGSite that had a few more.
If you're thinking of having the PCs explore alien worlds, either gen up some animal encounter tables yourself or get ahold of the Animal Encounters supplement. It probably won't happen often unless you're running Scouts, but when it does, it's good to be prepared!
The JTAS CD-ROM from Far Future is a gold mine for ideas, too. It's relatively cheap, and every issue has some inspiring gem.
Quote from: Ian Absentia;249957Traveller is the one game where I improvised just about every game session I refereed. A lot of it probably had to do with the circle of players I had with me, but I'd go into a session with a small handful of general ideas, then would follow the players' lead and generally make up character encounters along the way to see how they'd react in turn. It was easily the most consistent fun I ever had in roleplaying.
my experience as well. i learned to wing my sessions really fast when it came to traveller. of course, if you're not letting them have a starship in the beginning, or they don't end up with one from chargen, it keeps your options smaller.
i'd say figure out where you want the action to be, have a few possible plots and npc's ready, and see where they go. pretty standard advice for any sandbox game (at least that's how we ran traveller, anyhoo)
Quote from: KrakaJak;249901So,
I'm going to be starting up a Mongoose Traveller campaign here soon.
I'm hoping the great and wise of the RPGsite can school me on what the hell I just got myself into!
So, for everybody out there, share you insight, tips, tricks, resources, strategies and tragedies for a newbie Traveller Ref.
First are you going to run it using your own background or use the 3rd Imperium? I am going to assume your background although some of this applies to the 3rd Imperium as well
Roll up two subsectors side by side.
Note all the high population planets.
Write a short paragraph on each placing them in the context of your background (Empire, Federation, Free Space, etc)
Find any high tech plants (the highest ones you rolled )
Make notes on them.
Find all class A and B starports
Make notes on them.
Each of the three levels of notetaking will get progressively shorter as there is considerable overlap.
Scan the remaining plants pick out 4 to 8 that grab your attention.
Make notes on them.
Look at your notes and come up with two to four "plots" that ties one or more locales together.
For each of the planets you have notes make up four "patron" encounters for each. They should start as one sentence each and be self contained in respect to the major plots.
Come up with 6 to 12 general patron encounters that can be placed anywhere in your settle. Make them flexible like (set in a seedy starport, etc)
Make up a rumor chart with 10 to 20 items that feeds the players into what you prepared.
Then use the NPC resources that were suggested to make a list of NPCs. Assign them to the various items you created above.
Look at your notes and decided where recurring NPCs will occurs. (Captain of the subsector Revenue Patrol, Custom Offical, Badger the Broker, etc). Probably need 6 to 12 of them. Give them a paragraph description in addition to their stats.
This should take about four evenings of Prep for two sub sectors probably two to three evenings for a single subsector. Each subsquent subsector will be slightly less time to prepare as you can reuse elements.
After your first adventure (or before if you are going to railroad it) evaluate the players actions and decide if any sites will be needed for the next session. Prepare it like however you do your Fantasy RPG module.
Traveller is VERY amicable to the use of Computer Software to generate many aspects of the game. In the 80s on a TRS-80 I would make printouts of a hundred random entries of what every type (subsectors, animal encounters, NPCs, etc) scan the list and pick out the ones I would be using.
Whatever you do don't just accept the first thing that pops out. Relying on totally random results leads to nonsense at times. The Traveller Charts are good but not that good.
The point of all this is to make a "kit" that you can pull out whatever you need for your campaign without spending a boatload of time in prep. Once the kit is formed then running traveller is pretty much responding to what your players do.
Hope this Helps
Rob Conley
STEP 1: Roll up some planets.
STEP 2: Translate UWPs into living, breathing worlds.
STEP 3: Come up with a few excu- er, reasons for your PCs to go there.
That's not all you hafta do, but it'll help!
Thanks Estar and Rotwang!
Both of those posts have actually been very helpful :D
Posted in Mobile Mode
Start small, you only need to roll up a few planets or start with a small pre-generated map.
Quote from: RockViper;250587Start small, you only need to roll up a few planets or start with a small pre-generated map.
Depends on the campaign. Traditional Traveller merchants or mercenaries usually needs at least one or two subsectors as starship travel is a important feature. A subsector or two is large enough to give the PCs without being overwhleming to the beginning referee.
I've started the game 1 sub-sector "statted" and about 7-8 planets detailed. We're learning the rules as we go.
Still need to get all the spaceship stuff down, so I can create some new Standard Builds. All but one of the ships in the book don't do it for me or fit any of the major interstellar players so far.
I'm playing it in my own setting. The main difference being there is no Imperium, but there are a few intergalactic governments and many interplanetary alliances. Think of Earths different nations, but at an intergalactic level.
I need more NPC motivations. 760 Patrons is pretty good for that, but it seems to work best, on the fly, when I'm all out of ideas.
KrakaJak, tell us about the players you have lined up for the game currently so we can give you some customized suggestions.