Traveller is a classic science fiction system first released in 1977. In its original release it was a general purpose SF system, but a setting was soon developed called The Third Imperium, based on classic space opera tropes of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, with a slight noir tint. Though it can support a wide range of game types, the classic campaign involves a group of retired veterans tooling around in a spaceship, taking whatever jobs they can find in a desperate bid to stay in business, a la Firefly or Cowboy Bebop.
What do your groups do to get adventures/missions/quests/jobs?
Well, they just got on the wrong ship...and got drafted
Jaxon Roberts
bump
Andrew Phillips
>What do your groups do to get adventures/missions/quests/jobs?
I made up an NPC fixer, a disreputable Birrin trader named Shylock who moonlights as a tramp trader captain but in reality deals almost exclusively in smuggling guns and drugs. He has a ship made out of an asteroid called the Floatforest Moon and just generally shows up when the PC's are down on their luck to offer them a deal which is at best suspicious on the surface and is in reality enough to get them put in front of a firing squad if they're caught. (e.g. "Hey! Friends! Sorry about that business last time with the firearms. No, how was I supposed to know they were real and not deactivated facsimiles for a museum? That's what I'd been told! Anyhow, I've got this shipment of nuclear waste--no, totally spent, definitely not weapons grade!--I've got to get to my contact such-and-such by next month, but I'm busy right now, if you could just take it off my hands...")
mostly some GM stuff i posted in the wrong thread.
Noah Myers
this is the traveller thread mate, it's traveller stuff...
Cameron Flores
Are there any good character gen programs/sheets? I'm getting a few hits on a search, but I'm unsure if any of them are worth a shit at all.
Noah Gomez
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Brandon Lopez
In the Cepheus engine, during character creation, does recieving multiple rank 0 skills add up to higher skill ranks? Like if you have computer 0 from your homeworld and computer 0 from you basic training does that end up as computer 1? Sorry if this is explained somewhere and I missed it.
Grayson Anderson
They are not intended to, but it is not unusual as a house rule.
Zachary Campbell
Ah, the 70s. That's a book cover from Andre Norton's Solar Queen series, one of the primary sources for Traveller's Merchant career.
Ryan Barnes
No. If you receive another computer 0, you ignore it. That's partially why homeworld basic skills were removed in MgT 2e.
Austin Sullivan
Part of the reason they removed home world skills in MgT2E was because of their rule "you have to take all home world skills", assuming that you would roll up your homeworld or pick one from the campaign subsector, and the frequent issue of " what do you mean I have to take four home world skills? I only get three of them!" Or a world with no trade codes (not unknown if it ends up with just the right UWP). I usually ran with "pick two trade codes, then pick your education".
Aaron Richardson
Would Traveller be a good system for running a game set in the Starbound universe?
Nicholas Cruz
though you can certainly use other NPC and campaign tools in Traveller.
Camden Thompson
Not really. Most of starbound is building stuff, which does not translate well. Now, a colonists game (or trouble shooters that wander between colonies), is very possible. Hell, Startopia could be done (you're the staff of Space Station 14, a trading hub. Deal with it).
Julian Murphy
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Juan Rogers
I think it could work. Traveller already has mechanical allowances for hyperspace drives like in Starbound. I think a more jarring problem is that the tone's different--Starbound's more of a lighthearted game where any death's offscreen and when you kill people they don't die so much as get beamed up. People are bullet-sponges that take a ton of damage to kill. Traveller, on the other hand, tends to lend to more of a CoC deal in its combat mechanics; combat is dangerous, messy, and potentially very quick.
It'd be interesting to see the post-Ruin universe fleshed out, story-wise, though. Starbound's very weak on that front, and playing it as a tabletop would give you a lot of opportunity to say exactly what happens in the chaotic power-vacuum after Earth and the Protectorate is gone.
Logan Evans
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Jaxson Morgan
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Henry Martinez
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Colton Campbell
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Charles Clark
Fuck yeah Solomani Here's your peaceful diplomacy you bug-eyed bitches
Wyatt Diaz
Getting excited for Traveller again, my group asked me to run a campaign for them after I described it and showed them the character builder. What do you recommend for good 1-shots to possibly build a campaign around if they like the system?
Jonathan Ortiz
It's also an innately silly idea. Does everyone from a waterworld necessarily have to know Seafarer? They could have been born on an island, or in a self-contained underwater city and have no understanding of seamanship.
It would not be difficult to imagine a character that has none of the skills listed for their homeworld.
Gabriel White
If you're really starting with it all 3-6 of you, then that's easy. > Job offer: Engineering/J-drive skilled employer and his pilot (or not, depending on what the players have) are looking for cheap and discreet security to escort a group of scientists to an only recently discovered, low-profile excavation site. > One way or the other, meet a small group of cannon fodder pirates there who end up fighting PCs to the death > cue Traveller on-land combat > congrats, you now have a little ship. It's probably in disrepair and not very big, but you still have one. And employer pays you as well. > Even if players don't like ship, it allows them to travel to a good starport and can be sold for money to help finance whatever ship they really want (along with ship shares)
Isaiah Sanders
Read through The Traveller Adventure, even if you don't run it. It is a set of episodes, from single session up to several each depending on player and Referee drive. Some are clearly components of a campaign that drop into a longer narrative, while others are interesting, inciteful, or just excuses for violence that are not necessary to the longer narrative. The examples provided, mixed in with sessions inspired by the JTAS Amber Zone scenarios, should give you lots of ideas.
If you want a launching one-shot that has a blend of elements, look into the earlier JTAS issues for the Amber Zone named Food Runner.
Connor Johnson
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Asher Cooper
So I'm trying to make a thing in MgT1, and I'm wondering: Was there ever a reason given for the fact that there are no Bay versions of Pulse Lasers and Beam Lasers? Do lasers not scale up well for some reason I'm unaware of?
