Proto-Traveller

I like the idea of a proto-“Traveller.” Smaller-scale scenarios focus on the characters and gradually builds out the setting. It also helps limit what some role-players might or might not know about the Traveller universe.

I’ve been thinking about similar sandbox-style adventures for my next D&D5e adventuring party in my homebrew campaign world.

I like the idea of pocket empires against big ennemies. For this reason i prefered the Space Opera setting

Diaspora and SJ games Interstellar Wars also deals with a smaller setting. Space is big and I think thats the problem with most scif games.

I like the idea myself, a small compact Traveller Universe that you grow a bit in play. Lots of room for customization, small organizations that are struggling to exist, and so on.

I like to start small, and slowly reveal a larger picture to the players. I usually have at least a vague idea of the larger picture for myself … but I don’t really reveal it to the players. It lets them start out with a “small setting” that doesn’t overwhelm them … but feels less ad-hoc as the campaign progresses, because everything already fits together in the bigger picture.

For example, due to a previous thread here, I’m looking at a setting based on the Virga setting (large bubble of air with small rings and asteriods inside, and an artificial star … only mine is more fantasy based and less steampunk … but also a lot of techno-fantasy elements that make it sort of half fantasy half space opera).

In my four, there are four small planetoids around the artificial star. About the size of our moon. They have earth-like gravity near the surface, but quickly drop off to micro-gravity … keeping them from pulling the atmosphere out of the rest of the bubble. The players will start off in a standard-ish fantasy game on one of the planetoids … which will eventually lead to dealing with an invading undead army. That part will seem a lot like elements from The Mutant Chronicles (Dark Symmetry Citadel near one of the poles, which is a landing point for the Dark Legion). That gets them “off planet” as they try to track the Dark Legion to it’s source. That will get them exploring the bubble a little bit … which will eventually lead them to one of several interface points along the inner surface of the bubble… one of which has been taken over by the Dark Legion. That will get them outside of the bubble, and into a setting that is more like a cross between Warhammer40k and The Mutant Chronicles (and probably some hints of Star Wars) … so they will have gone from strong Fantasy, to Fantasy with hints of Space Opera, to Space Opera with hints of Fantasy.

The last stage is still rather vague in my head … it doesn’t need any fleshing out right now, as long as I have the broad strokes in place. But having it all in mind lets me start with that feel of a small introductory setting, that slowly evolves itself into a more grand setting.

So, my answer is: I like a hybrid between the two, but not in a way that reads like “a medium size setting”. I like a setting that at any stage feels small and new. But, every time you think you’ve pushed to the edge of the current setting, you find out it’s actually a small piece of something much bigger … and that was designed from the beginning to have all of those pieces fit together sensibly.

I’ve used a semi-OTU (aka “OTU+”) for years but recently decided that when I start playing that game again I’m going with a much more ProtoTraveller version of the game for MTU. As a long-time and heavily invested collector of Traveller, I’ll always love the OTU, but it has just gotten to hard to run the sorts of games I love in it.

D.

I’m an OTU guy. I don’t often use capital ships other than as window dressing, but I like the big story. I like extrapolating on canonical information and taking minimal info (like a UWP) and building it into an interesting concept within the OTU framework.

Two main reasons for all this:
1. It makes me feel like I’m collaborating with someone on a story, which is something I enjoy doing. Heck, RPing is collaborating on a story.
2. I like the fantasy that my players’ characters exist in a universe in which other referees’ players also exist. Even though it’ll never happen, I like the idea that a crossover could happen or that their stories are merely alternate timelines from my own. It gives it a meta feel that I enjoy.

I would do a proto-Traveller story, but only because I wanted to have the frontiersy backwater feel. Somewhere in the distance, capital ships, alien races, and huge empires would loom even if they never would appear “on screen” in my story.

I remember the various Proto-Traveller discussions on CotI, but somehow reading your article above has just inspired a new ATU idea in my head: it’s Proto-Traveller for the humans because they’re just at the beginning of their interstellar exploration and colonization, but there are older (some much older) nonhuman civilizations out there, too. So exploration is still a Thing, because humans haven’t explored very much and nonhumans don’t just give that kind of information away for free, and there is not a huge amount of background lore for new players to learn in order to fit in, for the same reason: the huge galactic history is there, but humans don’t know much of it, and learning new stuff is part of the game.