Re: Traveller != Imperium

Well, Shannon, I'm glad you asked.

You see, I've run a number of non-Imperium games and campaigns
(Traveller being my favorite game system).  I'll tell you about
a few of them.  I also still have background notes for some of
them.

Anyway, here are the scenarios:

o Post-Nuclear holocaust.  You've grown up in the wreckage.  There
  are mutant animals and such.  First Contact.  But the Aliens have
  a SECRET, which you must discover.  I ran this as a one-player
  campaign (before Traveller:2300 came out).  It started out more
  like Gamma World than Traveller.  Then the Aliens arrive and
  promise to make everything better.  Yet you don't seem to see any
  real progress, only a few tokens of Alien goodwill.  Why?  A bit of
  detective work is called for.

  One this this campaign did was give me experience creating animals
  using Traveller.

  I tried to give the feel of a broken Earth, after being blasted
  back into the Stone Age, with a few mutants thrown in for good
  measure.  The alien part caters to "detective" PCs, and could be
  eliminated entirely if you wish.  This campaign gives Traveller
  players a chance to play larger-than-life heroes, such as are often
  seen only in D&D-type games.

o Exploration mission.  Aiuconium (Ay-You-Ko-Nee-Um) has been
  discovered.  It is a stable heavy element which emits rays which
  stabilize nuclear reactions, making nuclear fusion a reality.  You
  are in an advanced Shuttle scanning the Moon for these ray
  emissions.  What you discover instead is a frontier cruiser.
  Another First Contact scenario, only this time you discover that
  the galaxy is at war and you must choose sides.  I recently ran
  the first part of this at a convention.  It went over pretty well.
  I made great use of impromptu skill rolls for this one.

  The cruiser had a definite Imperial feel, although this was not the
  Imperium.  This was kind of a choice of the lesser of two evils --
  an Empire which will plunder the Earth for its resources, leaving
  its people alone, or a Federation which will bring its technology
  to the Earth, but will bring it into the war as well, and actively
  "assimilate" us into its culture.  Real enterprising PCs might be
  able to find a way to avoid both and buy the Earth a few more years
  of anonymity.

o Another campaign I developed was non-Imperium, non-Earth, etc:
  You are a human from a free Federation, which has been plagued by
  attacks from a hostile alien race.  Eventually, open war breaks out
  between the two races.  The problem is that you don't know where
  the alien bases are -- they are a complete unknown.  Meanwhile,
  contact is made with another race, which promises to help you by
  leading you to the hostile aliens' capital.  What you don't know is
  that they are trying to manipulate the war so that both sides are
  destroyed and they can pick up the pieces.

  This is a kind of grand campaign, where the players get to make
  galaxy-affecting decisions.  One thing that's very important to
  this type of campaign is to provide LOTS of background material,
  most of which will never get used.  You also have to be able to
  "wing it" pretty well.

  As a point of interest: the characters in this campaign destroyed
  the first envoy from the "friendly" race, thinking it was an attack
  from their traditional enemies (they DID warn them with radio
  messages, but the envoy used a different method of communication).
  They then felt so guilty after learning of their mistake that they
  fell right into the trap unprepared.  They were so unconventional,
  though (and you would not believe the lucky skill rolls they made),
  that they managed to come through in the end.  As an example, when
  attacked by a type of battle cruiser/starbase, they realized that
  their long range fighter would never survive, so blasted their way
  into the hanger, then through interior walls until they got to an
  access shaft to the core (like what Lando Calrissian did to the
  second death star, only crazier).

I can't remember the other totally non-Imperium campaigns at this
time, BUT I'd like to point out another option: what about devising
your own sector/star/star cluster/whatever?

Here are two more background settings I have used:

o You are pirates in a star system on the edge of the Imperium.  You
  don't know about Imperial events, and don't care.  You live off of
  booty from passing ships.

  This is a fun campaign to run, and to be in.  I once played in one
  of these campaigns as a deposed barbarian chieftain, who was
  vicious with a sword.  The GM put us on an Ancients asteroid base,
  and kept trying to get us involved in Imperial matters.  We only
  paid attention to things that would help us in our piracy, ignoring
  the rest.  We didn't want that kind of campaign.  We were PIRATES,
  damn it, not research scientists.  That was lots of fun.

o You are in a star cluster called The Barrens.  They have a unique
  atmosphere which makes them a rather unpleasant place to live, and
  they have always been a bunch of backwater worlds, despite their
  proximity to the sector capitol of the Diaspora sector.  After the
  assassination of Strephon, they find that The Barrens are squeezed
  uncomfortably between Daibei, the Solomani Confederation, and the
  Imperial Marines (which have a base a few parsecs away).  Their
  solution -- ignore everything that is going on around them, and get
  ignored in return.

  I've set up two campaigns in this setting.  It is based in the
  Imperium (although I've made a few minor changes here and there),
  but they have no contact with it.  Each of the five worlds has a
  unique flavor to it, uncorrupted by Imperial tampering.

  "Travellers' Aid Society?  Are you joking?" -- you get the picture.

  I also took a great deal of latitude in the way things work when
  running these campaigns.

My point with the last two campaigns is this: if you place your
campaign appropriately, you can put it in the Imperial setting but
make it entirely your own, using only what you want from the
Imperium.

The advantage of the Imperium is the background knowledge you have
(it's tough to design a consistent universe, and keep it interesting).
Other good sources of background knowledge include using the Earth of
the near future (or present, or past), or books, or movies.

Star Wars is a good model for a universe, as is Star Trek.  I've done
some background work using both systems in Traveller.  You need to
use antimatter drives for Star Trek, but it works.  This was before
the proliferation of RPG's though.  Each of these now has its own
game system.  There are also a number of campaign possibilities in
the Foundation universe, although I have not worked on any of them.

*********
Gerald Williams
[email removed]
[email removed]
[phone removed]
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