What makes the Traveller setting appealling to you? I don't care which version of the Traveller rules you're using; this is a question about the setting.

I've been invited into a friend's Traveller game. He's a good GM, and I've played in several of his games over the past 25 years, but this one is causing me to hesitate. Why? Because I just don't find anything interesting in the Charted Space setting. So, am I missing something? What makes the setting click for you?

Traveller's charted space is very much set up for planet of the week style games.  The broad Imperium gives continuity but each world is a new and unique situation.  The setting itself is open to adapting a wide range of sf stories.  Star Wars, Dune, and Alien can all be easily fit into the broader context.  A rebellion against the empire can be set during the reign of a bad emperor or just a bad sector Arch Duke.  A noble house can be given a land grant on a desert world that's the source of a valuable resource be it psionic drugs or anagnathics or both and have to deal with treachery and intrigues.  A ship's crew can pick up a deadly alien parasite that metastasizes into a killing machine.  Star Trek style exploration is harder to do but patrolling the border works well.  Especially on the  Solomani Rim or the Spinward Marches.

To my mind focussed settings work for short and focussed campaigns.  The Third Imperium is more like a kitchen sink D&D setting, you can drop just about anything into it.  You could even do a Warhammer 40000 inspired game involving a pocket empire where technolgy has declined and a horrible theocratic dictatorship has taken over.

Traveller's 'setting' is really in the system/world generation tables, it is very much a bottom-up, hex-crawl type game & setting. The Imperium is a very loose overarching conceit.

The appeal is inversely proportional to the amount of "canon Charted Space" used, either as a player or Ref. As a player much would depend on how closely (literally and figuratively) to Charted Space the Ref was going to run in: I find the setting more constraining the closer to canon one plays, and much more interesting the farther one gets from canon.

Do you know which sector or sub-sector the Ref is going to run in, or the basic premise of the game? A game premised on a freewheeling band of adventurers in Far Frontiers or Beyond sectors is very different from the same band on Capital, even hewing closely to canon.

Does the Ref plan to use any house rules for the setting, like expanded psionics or "space magic" (e.g., Flynn's Guide to Magic in Traveller, or any number of such variants for Cepheus Engine)? Or do you have any input into variant careers, cultures or species? I'd find it more appealing if I could introduce non-canon ideas (e.g., a Brother Battle inspired by Fading Suns, or a Priest of the Godstar from the Cepheus Engine product).

I agree with HappyDaze.  I know Traveller is popular, but I see nothing about it that makes me want to play it.   Other sci-fi settings have more interesting gimmicks.   

I've played Traveller a lot. What I actually liked about it was the hard(ish) sci-fi and the way the tech was set up. It all felt very believable and well realized.

It felt like it could be a viable future as opposed to something like Starwars or some other off-the-wall sci game. Not that there is anything wrong with that style either. Plus, you've got so much material to use and abuse.

Not my favorite rule system but it's certainly serviceable. I'd probably veer towards something like M-Space.

I always liked the Zhodani as a concept. A bunch of telepathic eugenicists who manage to build a stratified society where everyone is honest. It's nice and weird and gives them a cool "these guys are human but also alien" vibe.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 27, 2022, 07:46:29 AM
I've played Traveller a lot. What I actually liked about it was the hard(ish) sci-fi and the way the tech was set up. It all felt very believable and well realized.

It felt like it could be a viable future as opposed to something like Starwars or some other off-the-wall sci game. Not that there is anything wrong with that style either. Plus, you've got so much material to use and abuse.

Not my favorite rule system but it's certainly serviceable. I'd probably veer towards something like M-Space.

What is it about the tech you like? When I asked my GM, he said "It's not about tech, it's about people" which made me feel like the sci-fi was just going to be a skin over "retirees in their (space) winnebago."

The GM loves the character creation mini-game it has, and that part is a hard fail for me. I simply don't find it interesting or necessarily, and I worry that the "coolest" part of the game will be over before play begins.

Quote from: HappyDaze on August 27, 2022, 11:10:45 AM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 27, 2022, 07:46:29 AM
I've played Traveller a lot. What I actually liked about it was the hard(ish) sci-fi and the way the tech was set up. It all felt very believable and well realized.

It felt like it could be a viable future as opposed to something like Starwars or some other off-the-wall sci game. Not that there is anything wrong with that style either. Plus, you've got so much material to use and abuse.

Not my favorite rule system but it's certainly serviceable. I'd probably veer towards something like M-Space.

What is it about the tech you like? When I asked my GM, he said "It's not about tech, it's about people" which made me feel like the sci-fi was just going to be a skin over "retirees in their (space) winnebago."

The GM loves the character creation mini-game it has, and that part is a hard fail for me. I simply don't find it interesting or necessarily, and I worry that the "coolest" part of the game will be over before play begins.

Hah... That's quite interesting. I always found the character creation part of the game the most boring. I found it tedious to roll to see if you 'could' enter or stay in a particular career role. The characters all felt quite generic. So once I get that out of the way I'm good to go.

On the tech side, it is purely personal. It just felt realistic and I also felt you could see something similar in our own future. It was all based on some kind of theory. Rather than them thar' dilithium crystals. It's also not too high and won't overpower the players. That is to say, it's not easy for the players to acquire state-of-the-art tech.

Feels like you playing a gritty space adventure as opposed to a glossy high-tech sci-fantasy.

The Official Traveller Universe is a great place to start. Just pick what general kinds of games you want to run using the system and there is a subsector or sector made that you can use.

Can't find the perfect sector or subsector? Then there are rules that allow you to make one up. There is even a specific "Referee's Preserve" sector that you can use, it is called the Foreven Sector and can be downloaded for free here:

https://www.farfuture.net/FFEForevenSectorReserve2008.pdf

Is the Third Imperium too much or too little of an interstellar government? You decide. Officially, the Third Imperium governs the space between worlds but not the worlds themselves unless it must, which is left deliberately vague so that you can have the background you need for whatever games you wish to run.

As a Referee, you can tailor it to however you want. As a Player, you have got to trust the Referee. Do they run good games? Have you enjoyed their games? Then go for it! Do they suck as a GM? Can they only run lame-ass scripted dungeon crawls? Then you'd better pass on it.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 27, 2022, 02:56:52 PM
The Official Traveller Universe is a great place to start. Just pick what general kinds of games you want to run using the system and there is a subsector or sector made that you can use.

Can't find the perfect sector or subsector? Then there are rules that allow you to make one up. There is even a specific "Referee's Preserve" sector that you can use, it is called the Foreven Sector and can be downloaded for free here:

https://www.farfuture.net/FFEForevenSectorReserve2008.pdf

Is the Third Imperium too much or too little of an interstellar government? You decide. Officially, the Third Imperium governs the space between worlds but not the worlds themselves unless it must, which is left deliberately vague so that you can have the background you need for whatever games you wish to run.

As a Referee, you can tailor it to however you want. As a Player, you have got to trust the Referee. Do they run good games? Have you enjoyed their games? Then go for it! Do they suck as a GM? Can they only run lame-ass scripted dungeon crawls? Then you'd better pass on it.

What kind of high-tech stuff is generally available? What about non-human characters? I know that aliens are largely sidelined, and AI are not a common thing, so androids are pretty much out. Does the Imperium actually show tech or even social development,  or has it been largely stagnant for a long time?

While you say it can do anything (more for just having open spaces rather than having much nailed down), what does it do better than a more focused setting?

Okay, so Traveller postulates that the discovery of FTL and antigravity are just around the corner we're TL 8 they show up at TL9.  This assumption makes space travel relatively cheap and easy.  Laser weapons show up at roughly the same time but are too heavy to be used much by infantry as anything other than designating targets.  The most common weapons are slug throwers with advanced combat rifles and rocket assisted multipurpose grenades being the mainstays of most TL 8 - 12 armies.  The Imperium goes as high as TL15 with improved materials and techniques, gauss weapons and powered armour become standard plasma weapons are used by powered armour because they're basically fusion rockets and the recoil, radiation, and heat are prohibitive for unarmoured troops.  At the imperium's very peak a decent infantry plasma rifle is just becoming available.

Grav tanks armed with plasma cannon and with laser point defense systems are the standard from TL 9 on but they're fairly slow and lumbering at that point.  TL 15 grav tanks drop out of orbit at mach 2.5, and hug the earth at 300kph.

In space, ships use reactionless gravitic drives and jump drives, jump drives take a week to get anywhere always but at TL 9 you can go one parsec in that week and at TL 15 you can go six.  Travel is relatively slow.  There's no other FTL communications than courier ships.  There are no force fields but lasers are used to shoot down missiles and sand casters are used to difuse lasers.  Most warships are built around a huge particle accelerator or meson gun.  Advanced worlds have underground meson gun sites for planetary defense.  The armour is made of advanced materials that can take a hit.  Nuclear dampers project a field that stabilizes atomic nucli.  There are a handful of "black globe generators" that project a force field but you can't see out of it and if it absorbs enough fire to overload the capacitors they explode.

Medical science is quite advanced and clones, custom races, and biotech all exist.  The Imperium has deliberately avoided AI where possible.  There are institutes that study it but it's not a popular concept.  The Hivers and Villani use more robots.

The only teleportation available is psionic in nature and Zhodani elite teleport commandos are scary.  The ancients vanished 200000 years ago but left a few artificats around, personal disintegrators, force fields, planet buster bombs and all sorts of nasty things are still lying around from their final war.

Does the Imperium's tech really change though? It seems like it was ALWAYS around TL 14-15 as far as I've known. There doesn't seen like there are any ways to grow the tech that really matters. Even in the example above, a gun is a gun, whether it shoots bullets, plasma, or zappy light...it's still just a gun.

Quote from: HappyDaze on August 27, 2022, 04:57:05 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 27, 2022, 02:56:52 PM
The Official Traveller Universe is a great place to start. Just pick what general kinds of games you want to run using the system and there is a subsector or sector made that you can use.

Can't find the perfect sector or subsector? Then there are rules that allow you to make one up. There is even a specific "Referee's Preserve" sector that you can use, it is called the Foreven Sector and can be downloaded for free here:

https://www.farfuture.net/FFEForevenSectorReserve2008.pdf

Is the Third Imperium too much or too little of an interstellar government? You decide. Officially, the Third Imperium governs the space between worlds but not the worlds themselves unless it must, which is left deliberately vague so that you can have the background you need for whatever games you wish to run.

As a Referee, you can tailor it to however you want. As a Player, you have got to trust the Referee. Do they run good games? Have you enjoyed their games? Then go for it! Do they suck as a GM? Can they only run lame-ass scripted dungeon crawls? Then you'd better pass on it.

What kind of high-tech stuff is generally available? What about non-human characters? I know that aliens are largely sidelined, and AI are not a common thing, so androids are pretty much out. Does the Imperium actually show tech or even social development,  or has it been largely stagnant for a long time?

While you say it can do anything (more for just having open spaces rather than having much nailed down), what does it do better than a more focused setting?

Like I said, a lot depends on the Referee. Depending on what the group of players want, you can go full cyberpunk with the high-tech. Aliens are fairly well detailed because Traveller tends to hate "humans in funny rubber suits" so players should read up on an alien race to get the full enjoyment out of playing one (the Vargr and Aslan are not just dog-men and cat-men furries because there have been over 500,000 words written about each alien race over the years).  Artificial intelligence and androids have been around since Classic Traveller, though they are optional to the Official Traveller Universe.

Now social development is typically limited to individual worlds and is dependent on the definition of social development for that world. The Third Imperium (if the game is set there) is only concerned with the subjects set out in the Warrant of Restoration detailed below:

https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Warrant_of_Restoration

The Traveller wiki is a great resource.

Now, why is the OTU a better setting than anything else? Well, if you like science fiction and not science fantasy, then just about any setting can be placed in the Traveller universe. If you like science fantasy, then you are better off with Star Wars.

The advantage of not having every little detail nailed down is that it gives the Referee the wiggle room to be able to customize their Traveller universe to whatever they and their players want to play in.

The Third Imperium goes from 12 - 15 before it collapses.  At the end they're building primitive black globes, fusion rifles, dabbling in psionic tech and AI, and closing in on the 'hop drive' an exponential improvement over the jump drive.  The technological improvements are often to exisiting systems.  Megatraveller's vehicle design rules do a good job of showing this in the charts.  Your radio gets smaller, your armour gets tougher, your weapon gets more shots.

The tricky thing is that most of the worlds in the Third Imperium are TL 6 - 10.  That's generally representative of on world manufacturing capabilities though worlds with really low populations are usually outposts from higher tech worlds.  A big part of Traveller is rationalizing the weirder world code outcomes.  But the vital thing to understand is that the Imperium is really an economic hegemony controlled by a handful of high population TL 14-15 worlds.  One of the things that makes the setting playable is that not every world can hunt you down with fusion gun armed grav pods, the player characters have access to a technological advantage much of the time.

The artifacts and prototypes give the PCs something resembling magic item treasures.