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.
