I’ve long had a whole jumble of ideas in my head for things I would change about the Traveller setting should I run my own campaign. I hesitate to claim they would be improvements. Many of my ideas would have Third Imperium fans snorting and sneering in derision, but they are changes that appeal to me and, hopefully, any prospective players. I thought it might be interesting for folks if I jotted down my thinking here as I fumble through my ideas and try to make them work.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by the Silk Roads, the trade routes that criss-crossed Europe and Asia stretching from as far east as China and as far west as Italy and even Denmark. I’ve long wanted to create a sci-fi setting that has a similar feel. To be fair, that’s pretty much how Traveller works anyway. Space is the desert, the planets and their starports are the caravanserai, relatively safe stopping points along the route. Still, I liked the idea of a long chain of stars (with offshoots) that connected a distant alien Empire (probably Zhodani or Aslan) to the Human Empire.
I drew out a map using an extremely long row of Traveller sector maps and dotted in several dozen stars. Then it occurred to me that the chances of my players ever visiting more than, say, a handful of them was very unlikely. Also, you can very quickly run out of ways to make planets unique, so limiting the number in the campaign is, I think, a good idea. Part of Traveller’s original campaign philosophy was to explore a single sub-sector which only had around a dozen planets. Indeed, some terrific advice I heard from Bob Loftin of the SAFCO Traveller podcast was to, when beginning a campaign, just stat out three planets and go from there. Also, I've always said that I'd take half a dozen thoroughly fleshed-out planets over several hundred that were just UPPs any day.
So I cut my map right down to one single, small section of the route in the centre.
As I say, fewer planets makes it easier to make them unique and for that, I like the Star Wars idea of the single biome planet. It’s completely unrealistic but you always know exactly where you are. If you’re in a desert, then you’re on Tatooine. Snow? Hoth. Orange clouds? Bespin. Of course that’s not so cut and dried now but that’s because the Star Wars universe has expanded exponentially. I like it as a concept, though.
Another idea I like is the Caravanserai. The small settlement alone in the desert that acts as a resting place, watering hole, shelter from the elements and a place to trade, meet and make deals. I like the idea of a station being a linchpin in the chain of stars as well. It’s the only way to get from one part of the chain to another.
I moved this back and forth for a good long while. I wanted the gap between stars to be 7 parsecs so that all ships had to stop at the Station en route but it meant that there had to be a four parsec gap on one side of the station and the chances of the players or anyone else having a J4 ship are unlikely. So then I made the entire span a J6 gap with a J3 gap either side of the station. J3 ships are also rare for PCs but possible. In the end I shortened the jump to the station to two parsecs either side because most common ships are J1 or J2. This means that a J4 or 5 ship can make the entire journey in one go but they are very rare and there are no J6 common ships. So the vast majority of ships can make the jump to the station but would have to stop off at the station to refuel and it’s reasonable to assume that the players would have a J2 ship. Indeed, they would have to for the setting to work at all.
As I drew the map, it felt more and more obvious that the station should really be the home port for the PCS. It’s the most unique part of the setting and is central, so I’ll probably start them there.
The station, I imagine, would be huge. Like an O’neil Cylinder with sprawling urban areas and arboretums and hive-like levels of varying quality of life. Very much like Babylon 5 or the Citadel in Mass Effect. It would also have fully artificial lighting as there would be no local star.
On the Human Empire side (South West) we have Osh (an asteroid belt settlement), Kucha (Forest (Endor/Kashyyk)), Ankara (an ocean world), Adana (Desert (Tatooine/Arrakis)), Aksu (Rainy - I imagine like Moth in For Love of Mother Not by Alan Dean Foster), Kashgar (Jungle (Yavin 4)) and on the Zhodani (or Aslan) side (North East) we have Urumqui (Snow(Hoth)), Hami (Mountainous), Jiuquan (Arid rock Corrosive atmosphere (Venus), Tashkent (Gas Giant with Bespin-like floating cities) and Turfan (Mushroom World). I might well swap some of these around. For example Jungle and Forest are similar so I might swap Kashgar with, say Jiquan. I’m not sure.
