Hi everyone,

I'm Participant 1, aka Beowulf.

I've been playing and GMing Traveller since it hit the UK, circa 1980. In fact I'm so old-school that MTU (My Traveller Universe setting) predates (publication of) the Official Traveller Universe, or OTU.

Supplements detailing the Universe Marc Miller playtested his rules in were not published until later.

The original rule set required the GM to create a universe as a background setting, using the Book 3 world creation rules. So I did. Then I kept going. When the other rule books came out, I designed weapons, starships, starsystems, robots, and adapted new houserules.

By the time MegaTraveller came out, I already had MTU the way I wanted it, so I used MT mainly for mining ideas and resources. I certainly didn't want to smash my setting and start again with TNE, so that was another mining exercise for me.

T4, T5 and Mongoose Traveller were essentially reinventing the wheel, so I didn't really get into them and I've remained primarily a Classic Traveller fan.

However, rules stay mainly behind the Referee's Screen. Traveller is more than a rule set and more than a setting. It's the way you play it that makes a Traveller game.

Greetings everyone,

My name is Participant 5, also known as Manric.

While Traveller was not my earliest Roleplaying experience (That was AD&D 2nd Ed.) MegaTraveller, the version I am most familiar with, is near and dear to my heart.

I actually am looking for resources on the Traveller universe, as I have been asked to run a F2F tabletop game and have decided that the group I would be running for has seen too many Sword and Sorcery style games and could do with a little hard sci-fi to expand their breadth of experience.

As far as Rpol is concerned, the PBP format is actually new to me, most of my Internet roleplaying has been Play-by-chat via IRC. but the majority of my RPG experience is Face-to-face across a table. However, all of my experiences with this community, so far, have been positive.

Hey folks, I started playing in the LBB era with only the vaguest universe to go with it.  I played and collected the various rule sets and settings over the years.  I have to say my favorites are TNE and the Classic Spinward setting.  That said I love the Reaver's Deep stuff that the Keith brothers did.

Hi all, P4 here!

Unlike everyone else so far I'm an almost complete newbie when it comes to Traveller, but I'm a big fan of RP/RPGs in general. I'm really enamored with both the scale of Traveller lore and the flexibility it has as a setting, along with the dedication of people in the Traveller community across so many years and variations!

I'd really appreciate help in my introduction to Traveller, as I've not done much more than peruse some odds-and-ends Sourcebooks that I unfortunately lost in a recent system-wipe, even though that was enough to get me to fall in love with it.

I'll do my best to be a good participant and not slow things down!

@P4:

Don't worry about not having experience -- everybody starts somewhere.  So long as you want to talk Traveller in some form you are most welcome here.  There's no real post rate, so don't worry about slowing things down.

There are places and there are places to get the books, but I don't know if we can mention 'em here (commercial advertising ist verboten on RPoL)  Search for Far Future Enterprises, as they should still be the rights holders to all things Traveller.  You might also look into our 0400 - Web Resources topic for more clues.

@Participant 6:  I have the old Keith Bros. supplement on Reaver's Deep somewhere, I think.  One of the web resources mentioned above has a link to a map of the OTU with good data on Reaver's Deep.  Welcome to the community!

I don't think providing links to a variety of commercially available resources constitutes commercial advertizing in that sense. I think the site rules are to prevent people selling stuff here. If the rules were yours and you were making money from advertizing them here, that would be a different matter.

Okay, so who am I? Well my real name is Nici. According to various "ITU" bits and pieces I have I'm also: Lieutenant the Lady Dame Andrea, Archduchess Antares, Viscountess Balzac, Marchioness Wenty-Ruu, K.C.E.G., C.G., S.E.H. Sounds way more impressive than it is. I just received my promotion to Lieutenant today along with my posting to the battlerider Agu. Apparently I'm a reserve Force Commander with the 4518th Lift Infantry as well. Do seem to get around a bit.

So I started playing Traveller back in 1977 when we had to chisel our own settings into the rock with sticks. I've got a few things published and currently writing a new minor alien module.

I have a rather hectic personal life and a certain lack of common sense. A partner who I sort of live with. We both live in different cities and shuttle between the two. I have a job which pays the bills, but it doesn't really take up much of my time. So plenty of free time.

Nici.

You may be right, but I've had indication to the contrary in the past.  Of course, the context was different.

Hello,

Aslanii here.  I collected the LBBs back when they first came out, by mail ordering them direct from GDW.  No one in town carried them.  It was sci-fi, that was all I needed to know.  Playing it though was challenge, never seen one of these critters before.  Took a long time to catch on.  Classic and sorta Mega Traveller fan.

Previous board wargamer for many years, still do when I can find the space.

Welcome, Aslanii.  Love your avatar!  I serve a calico we call Jewel. (She had a perfect black diamond on the back of her head when she was a kitten.)

Fellow wargamer here!  If you are ever near Waveland, MS, let's meet up.

I cut my teeth on Squad Leader.

An Aslani in disguise ...  Squad leader, I remember those days.  Now if I had space and time.

I am such a Newb compared to all of you!

Siofra, you have to start somewhere.  Crank up that jump drive and pull the red lever ...  Enjoy the ride !!

I played in a game where the ship's captain was a true blooded Vilani.  So, being a culturally interested human, my character had to bring up the (dreaded) Vilani formal opera singing, which the captain enjoyed. There we were trapped in jump-space while this cat-squawling noise reverberated thru the ship ...  Hearing protectors were mandatory.

Only in Traveller do we meet Vilani opera and live to tell about it.

Perhaps there are other tales of jump space life out there ??

As long as they don't make you drink the Vilani beer.

I played a very pure blooded and culturally Vilani spacer in a game with Siofra's player.  Kili had adapted culturally as a result of service in the IN but it was fun dropping the Vilani card in game.

Vilani opera... something like Vogon poetry set to music?

(RIP:  Doug Adams)

My pesonal favourite is lost Vilani art form of Kamminlu "several hours of meaningless poetry set to the wailing of tortured cats with the performers thrashing around like demented octopuses" how can you go wrong with that?
This message was last edited by the player at 08:47, Wed 20 Dec 2017.

Hello all.. I played Traveller way back when I was closer to zero then the wrong side of Fifty.  I enjoyed playing it.. along with many other RPGs; BD&D, AD&D, Bunnies and Burrows, Champions, Boothill, Top Secret, Gamma World, Fantasy Wargames, LOTR RPG, ETC. [If If I think of any important may add later]

   Sadly all those were played with a total of three players including the DM/GM.  As we got deeper into the Double Digits we ended up separating in distance and play slowed and stopped.

   So now for years my sole gaming enjoyment was building theoretical Campaign areas, until I discovered RPOL.
   I have here played OD&D, 3.0, .5, .75, L5R, maid..., Freestyle, But.. My RL schedule, and ability to predict stress levels in my job has pretty much killed my ability to play.

BUT.. I still sporadically build campaign area(s) for a stress reliever..  That is why I am here.

   The one thing that got my goat as for Traveller was the 2D star maps.  I built 21x21x21 sector star maps for traveller, and later stole the traveler planetary 20-sided icosahedron as a common D&D planetary shape.

   Lately I was using my 21³ sector maps for another game. The First sector map was A StarJammer map (3.75), which mirrored [as in identical system codes, in identical hex location and "height"] a second StarFinder (3.85). Coreward and anti Coreward are two other sectors. In the 3.75 plane the void is starjammer but each planet may be any of the DnD paxes [rule systems].  As I was thinking to mirror the core-ward sector with Boothill above and Gamma world below.

   I realized that I had the perfect mirror-plane for the other anti-corward sector Traveller.. .. "Champians".. Mundanes on one side and "magical" Heroes on the other?..

   Err.. Traveller.. yes, traveler.

   My only experience is with Classic.. and that was long ago.. But I am attempting to put together a Traveller 21³ sector.  And due to the collapse In the elemental plane of the Bubble wall of the Elemental morase hiding the survivors and descendants of the Gargantuan Elemental Titans the losers in the LAST, God titan war.  all the local planes have started to leak.

   Odd worm holes, other astral and geo-void like phenomena cause leakage of travel between planar sectors.

   So I am thinking of a traveler sector...

In reply to General (msg # 20):

Welcome, General!  It sure sounds like you had a close-knit group, even if it was a small one.  We're all here because we share a love of gaming, and a love of Traveller specifically.

21 X 21 X 21 implies you are using some sort of 3D Cartesian coordinate system?  That's a bit different for Traveller, but I played and refereed some Space Quest back in the day (the one by TYR Games that was written by Paul Hume, George Nyhen, and Robert Charette), and it used 3D Cartesian, so I know it can be done.  (And I know how to plot courses in such a system.)

Glad you are with us!

In reply to The Traveller (msg # 21):

I stayed with a hexmap but made sure the hexes would be able to hold a max of 8 single digits, "x" was centerline height, {1,2,--9,0} was high, {a,b,c,. . . h,j,k} no "i" to avoid confusing with "1".  Actual digit was black but color coded and alert statuses backgrounded the digit.  I rolled a die formula that gave me a partial bell curve of 1-7 then rolled a d20 to position each star, a system could have multiple stars.  This left out the "x" position, but I placed those myself to avoid to many isolated/(completely cut off) hexes.

   The actual system codes Index were on a seperate "chart" along with their name, and alliances if any.

In reply to General (msg # 22):

Publish, man, publish!  This sounds like a neat system.

Hello, I am #14, aka Altho. Hello,

I've been jumping along the Spinward main since the 70's. Was a very regular player for about 15 years, but life events took my local playing group away so it went dormant until I came across RPOL. I've run a few games here, and would welcome being part of a community of fellow players of this great game.

I started in wargaming, and went from there to D&D, but when I learned that there was a Science Fiction version of D&D, I jumped at it!

While I was very impressed by some of the elements from books 4+, for me, the heart and soul of the game was in the original 3 books, plus Citizens of the Imperium for characters and star ships. Always had a rough time with players in their scout ships or small freighters confronting the star-destroyer inspired behemoths of High Guard ship design.

Hoping to mine your collective brains and experience sets for anecdotes and ideas to incorporate into my nest foray into GM-ery here!
This message was last edited by the player at 14:32, Thu 09 Aug 2018.

Welcome, Ayor,

Sounds like you've chewed the same ground as some of us here, including me.  Next time you post your alias should be updated.

There are a fair number of GM, er, Referee types here, including some with way more experience in RPoL than me, and we'll all try to help you out as best we can, I'm sure.

I think I started with GURPS Traveller. Then fell in love with Classic when GDW published the floppy books. Now I lean towards Mongoose. But I will always be an apologist for the d20 Traveller T20. I can't help but love that edition.

They did a surprisingly good job adapting d20 to Traveller with T20.  I have some of the those books.