Not much to say tonight very dull set up work

 I have a firm idea of the campaign's opening scene but I need to figure out how long it take a message to back and forth from the Spinward Marches to the Solomani Rim. I also need to look at the folio adventure from the MegaTraveller Referee Screen to give the Adventurers a homeworld.

More on Cepheus and changes to the 3I

 Even using the Cepheus rulebook to try and stay organized I already missed something. Under Benefits I wanted to mention the right of return for Imperial careers. At the end of any Imperial career you can ask to be returned to your world of enlistment and the Imperium will ship you there via cold sleep. People refer to this as return postage.

On to the Noble career. The reason this is an NPC career for me is I see them as being tied to a place not traveling. So the Emperor is at the top for the whole Imperium, Arch Dukes have a domain, dukes have a sector, Counts have a subsector and finally Marquis are special agents of the throne, Barons have a world they are responsible for and Knights and Lords work for one of the other nobles, Technically all nobles owe personal fealty to the Emperor who asks them to serve another nobles. Because the Imperium is not an actual feudal government what do the Nobles actually do and what are they responsible for? I view them with naivety and ignorance of an American looking at the United Kingdom's Royal Family. They are the living embodiment of the realm that don't directly rule but have enormous influence. All other powerful organizations in the Imperium are wary of the nobles who can show up almost anywhere and putter about, No company, world government or service branch are going to say no to a visit from a noble without risking the attention of the Imperium. This would allow for an immense amount of corruption balanced by the fact the "job" is solely based on the personal whim of higher ranking nobles. The other thing they are responsible for is to hear citizen's petitions. One of the benefits to being a citizen as opposed to a subject is you can always petition a noble for assistance, the noble has no obligation to provide it just to listen to you. 

Book Two: Starships and Interstellar Travel

The biggest change pure fluff J drives and M drives create fields that effect a volume irregardless of mass. So this is why there are letter drives and standard hulls that is the fields the science can create. 

I am not a big fan of the specific trade goods table preferring the book 7 cr tl code but until I actually start playing I doubt I am going to make any changes for a while. 

Only Imperial citizens can own a jump capable ship and only military ships can have bay weapons and screens.

Book 3 Referees

Every inhabited world in the Imperium has a starport and Imperial Consulate which are located on the estate of the world Baron and pays rent to the noble. This sets them apart from the world government and allows the noble to have a substantial income separate from all the competing interests within the Imperium. Anyone arriving or leaving the world is required to visit the consulate and non-landed nobles are required to pay a courtesy visit to the Baron's office in case their services are needed. I am still of two minds on what tech level means. Is it the highest common tech of local produced goods or the average tech of goods readily available? Or is it the highest tech on the planet writ large? I am leaning toward the average level or readily available goods. The Imperium is overwhelming concerned with economic activity so information they produce is geared toward that so it is most likely what the IISS reports. Communication routes map out what in MT terms are the safe zones they will by and large be the most economically important worlds so naval patrols are frequent and piracy will be very low. The further away from a route the greater the risk. Worlds can only have non-jump vessels so and important system will be well patrolled but less populated systems rely on the scout service S/Cs on mail duty for most patrolling. That is not to say there isn't a naval presence off the xboat routes just far most infrequent.

And that is it for a pre-play scan of the rules. I want to play so I didn't go into the rules like I did before because I am not making my own universe just tweaking GDW's. Tomorrow I hope to generate a character and do a scene or two to get a feel for solo play to see how much I like it.

I have more stuff but I hesitate to say I am better prepared

 So I have my     laptop

                            External CDROM

                            Classic Traveller CD

                            MegaTraveller CD

                            T5 CD

                            Cirque for T5 CD

                            Cepheus Rulebook

                            Official imperial sunburst dice

Of course before I can use any of them I need to set down what my 3I is like. I don't think the changes are to drastic but I want to set them down so I know them before I start. Most of them are only conceptual any ways. I am going to go through Cepheus Engine Book section by section to organize my thoughts because my tiny brain can't do it without help

Book One: Characters

Characteristics: Intelligence is the speed which you can process info. Education is the breadth of your knowledge. Social Status is capped at 9 during character creation because I view the Noble career as an NPC one.

Career: Some services are Imperial some are not. If a character does not serve in an Imperial service are subjects those who do are citizens. When switching careers you don't roll benefits but they count toward the number they are due at the end of their final career.

Benefits: I like the concept of the separation games from earlier posts so I am continuing it. The final 6 months of their final career they are put on a kind of a traveling circus with the end goal of increasing enlistment for the various services, providing entertainment and a sense of belonging to a united Imperium. No one gets a ship as a benefit.

Aerospace Defense is a non-imperial career

Agent is an imperial service

Athlete is an imperial service the Imperium has a entertainment service designed to improve a sense of unity amongst citizens and subjects.

Barbarian is a not an imperial career

Belter is an imperial service

Bureaucrat is an imperial service

Colonist is an imperial service

Diplomat is an imperial service

Drifter is not an imperial service

Entertainer is an imperial service much like athlete

Hunter is an imperial service only citizens can own or operate jump capable ships

Marine is an imperial service

Martine Defense is not an imperial service

Mercenary is an imperial service

Merchant is an imperial service

Navy is an imperial service

Noble is an imperial service more on this later

Physicians is an imperial service as many worlds do not have a large enough population to produce or attract enough medical professionals.

Pirate is not an imperial service

Rogue is player choice for whether or not they acted on the behalf of the government or on their own.

Scientist is an imperial service

Scout is an imperial service

Surface Defense is not an imperial service

Any receipt of a ship on mustering out instead get a +1 to a stat of the players choice or skill 1 in a skill they do not have chosen by player.

Thats it for this shift 

The internet really is forever

 So I recently saw something about Traveller and got the itch to do a solo play. Poking about I found my old blog which survived the end of G+ and the other stuff Google has done over the past 11 years. And the past 11 years haven't been great but I survived and am doing okay which is all I feel like saying about why I haven't posted anything.

The previous posts had the end goal of having a setting and house rules that could be quickly explained to a online group and play on Roll20. Now however I don't think I am going to try and find a group. I work the overnight shift Friday through Tuesday making the logistics unrealistic. Also I don't have to explain the setting and my own prejudices to anyone else. It also avoids the problem of players missing the story or being uninterested in it;. So that gets us to needing to answer the 5 basic questions. Who? What? Where? When? and Why?

Who is me running a group of characters. This offers the huge advantage of being able to grow or shrink the party as I need to. Not having the books with me right now I can't just whip up some right now as much as I want to. My plan is to start with one character and Adventure 0 from Traveller Deluxe. 

What is the Cepheus Engine. I haven't really looked at the rule sets since the blog posts of yore but not much of my gaming preferences has changed so I suspect it is still the rules I want to go with. That being said I have a ridiculous amount of traveller stuff in dead tree and digital and I will be using pieces when I can.

Where is the Third Imperium specifically the Spinward Marches and the Regina subsector. Not having to explain what changes I will be make before I start playing is the prime reason for this choice but the mass of fluff available for this setting is another.

When is one I am working on. Most probably I am going to go with just after the 5th Frontier War. This time period is pretty well covered and allows for all kinds of situations in the aftermath of a major war with the weirdness of the jump drive universe. There is a temptation to go with the T4 setting. Of all of the published ones it is the one I liked the most. Going through them T1 is one I am going with more or less, MT was a to much of a change even though I like the idea of core, fringe and wilds areas and will be incorporating into the campaign. My idea is that the Imperium only cares about the economic value of a world and the further from a valuable world the less anyone would care. TNE I can't really see using anything from this. Why adventure in a Sci Fi setting where technology is possessed by murderous demons. 1248 has the lingering problem of possessed tech although it has some very cool stuff. T20 could have been a cool setting of all the settings I have the least amount of stuff for this one and really don't like the rules. I don't own Mongoose's version or any of their stuff so I have no opinion on them. GURPS traveller is a gold mine of info about the Spinward Marches fluff wise even if I won't use any rule stuff.

Why is the tricky question. I don't know how to social media so I doubt anyone else will ever see these so why post my dumb articles. Well most of us play RPGs to tell a story and I am no different. Only doing it in my own mind isn't as satisfying as writing it down. I am not going to use a pen and paper to write my thoughts and poor attempts at writing so I might as well use a computer. If I am using a computer I might as well use the free google services so as long as I have internet I can putter around with this. At least until my tiny brain get distracted by something else.