Where are we playing this?

Let's make World.

We might not be able to answer these till we know the characters. How they turn out will heavily affect some of these and change what will be interesting.

What you can be thinking about in the meantime, though, is:

How large a scale do we want to set for our initial sandpit?

If we have a ship our answers will be different, but maybe only in terms of scale.

Do we want to keep the game focused into a smallish area, exploring the details of the closeby systems and planets?
Or do we want to jump off far away and explore previously uncharted systems? Possibly more superficially exploring, and making first contact before moving on?

A spaced out setting of constant new worlds will require some work to make the known NPCs (Enemies, Rivals, Contacts, Allies) work, but I can see ways to involve them. I assume this group wants to play with this part of the system. We can also see how many such NPCs we end up with from character creation.

We can start with the world (or system) we are on (or in), and see how it plays. Then we can branch out to other sectors, or nearby worlds based on how it goes (you may have to run far).

Do we want to 'discover strange new worlds', or are we more interested in 'discovering strange new people in our backyard'?

This might depend a lot on how the characters and their histories turn out. If everyone ends up having been far-travelled Scouts who know a lot about the universe (from a mapping perspective), for instance, our natural stories might be different to if they are local-yokels seeing the universe for the first time. (Are they Han, or are they Luke?)

If we do more than one or maybe two Terms, I don't think the system caters for 'inexperienced' characters, but let's see how it goes.

If the PCs were involved in wars, we need to have borders and (previously?) hostile neighbours.
Players can choose to be in the military, or they may be drafted. If a draft happens, that means active war, if not, they could have served during peace-time, you can choose, if their Events don't choose for you.

How close are we to the core worlds do we start?

Do we want to operate in the capital or on the outer rim?

The nature of the characters may dictate this for us.

I don't believe we have a Ship?

I think ships are a big part of this game, how do we want to handle this?

We Could start without a ship. Maybe limit ourselves to local troubles and need to book passage to get to other worlds/systems?

We could go the default route and build a ship together and pay for it over the course of play. This need to pay for ones' ship is often a driving force for our Travellers play and action.

If we don't want to have to deal with forty years of ship payments we could arrange some other way of getting ship, but there will always be a cost, if you steal it you may be wanted, if it is issued you may have a 'master' (like the Scout Ship Benefit).

We could make the first job be getting a ship or your own (as payment or as the job).

Two(?) of you each have a Ship Share? That could play into your getting one.

A ship as a reward sounds interesting. But ships are very expensive, so the first mission will be a tough one.

It might not be free of cost. You might still need to pay off half the loan, or you may be wanted or make enemies, or you may just 'have use of' the ship rather than owning it. These are just options if we don't want to go the regular route of paying off a ship as we play.

I have a less-than-half-formed idea about a mission recovering the 'missing' scout ship. That will be very dependant on whether TrailHead is interested in exploring that 'unknown' from their history. It is merely a simple way to link the other two's 'ship shares' with their lack thereof but keep everyone 'equal' in the 'ownership'. It might still 'belong' to the Scout Services, or it might be 'stolen from Scout Services' depending on how Benny feels about continued dealings with them. (Benny may have been found drifting in the ship's boat or something).

The 'A-Team' idea also sparked an idea about you all having a higher-than-average TL ship for some reason (I can think of a mission to get one), if we want to do that. It might cause constant and ongoing complications when trying to get it serviced and such, and attract a lot of attention.

Just vague ideas.

Tech Level (TL)
We need to decide what TL we are wanting to play in.

I don't see anything in our chats so far to suggest we are in a particularly high or low Tech setting. Of course the part of space we are currently in --or grew up in-- might be a few steps away from the norm.

Looking at the list on pages 6 and 7, I would say we are not below TL10 (what with the robot helpers we spoke about), but I think it could be interesting to set this between TL11 and TL12 "early, experimental terraforming; no Jump-3 but rumours of it; 'battlefields' are still a thing but becoming nonviable and messy"?

We can always start in --or move to-- an area that is different.

What do we think? What do we want to see?

I would prefer the lower of the 2 (TL11), just because I think that will be better for me to ease in. I'm not clear on how much we"ve seen of the galaxy. Is the Navy/Army bound to one world, or an organisation that travels to other planets with different TL's. I find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that TL14 war vessel can visit a TL5 planet and just wipe the entire planet out.

Maybe I just haven't read enough of the book yet.

You were in the Navy, you tell us.
We could also cap it at TL10, if you want. Many of the places you might visit could be a level or two below (or above) the 'setting average').

I just saw the note that Earth is TL7, so even TL10 is higher than I thought.

Setting things lower than TL9 means no 'gravity manipulation' or 'jump' so we would be dealing with much more intimate stuff and would therefore need to know more about the tech we deal with, stuff that the 'sufficiently magical' technology of higher levels allows us to handwave away.

I am liking TL10, now that I have adjusted my understanding.
Agreed. We can say there are no (known) TL14s around. We can say that TL11 is the highest anyone has even heard of and you all don't have access to that yet.

I agree with starting at the lower end. Even lower than TL11 is fine by me, as long as there are other locations to go to that are higher.

I guess you could even have a TL 7 village on a planet with TL 12 large cities, no? Even if the technology is there, not everyone has access to it or wants to have it.
Kinda like the aboriginal tribes or the Amish on earth.

So, the question might be: TL9 or TL10?

If we start TL9 I think we will may have to move up to TL10 soonish to keep going? Does anyone have any idea what the book suggests/assumes as a default? I can look later.
Now much higher? We can set a range that we are interested in.

We can always change this upwards later if we want to. Adjusting downwards is doable but much harder.
Yes. I am not a fan of single-biome planets (desert or forest planets, for instance). I have spent a fair bit of time working out ways to explain their existence, though, since they do simplify gameplay.

It is possible that higher TL cities are planet-spanning, so once the dominant society is high enough there may not be any more pockets of lower tech. We can see. Lower tech could be outlawed in some places. A lot of lower tech is 'bad for the environment' and once electric cars are mainstream, running cars on fossil fuels might become illegal... Crazy idea, I know, but this is Sci-Fi. :)

Planets and Star Systems!
We will need to make some Planets and Systems to play in.

Maybe we each want to roll up a random system or two? Or pick some options from the lists that we think are interesting and we can start to populate the universe?

I glanced at https://zhodani.space/stuff/generators/random-subsector-generator/ and it might be a way to get started, though we may have to fight to keep it within the TLs we establish (I don't see a way to limit it). There may be other random generators more suited to our needs.

If you want to just shout out things that appeal I can work on incorporating them into a (few) system(s).

Depending on our ship-situation at the start we may not need to bother with too much just yet.

How about the space equivalent of the Bermuda triangle, where strange things happen and people get lost?
Sector BL4K

How detailed do we want to be here? I guess we'll each have a home planet and maybe a couple of planets we've been to in our life. Other than that, should we say how many planets are in our current solar system? Do we define what's on them, which ones are habitable, which ones have aliens (if any)?

Er... Yes?

Say whatever you want. We can smoosh it all together and make sense of it later. Some things might not turn out to be true.

Provide as much details as you want.

Even at TL9 we have Jump technology, so we have access to other solar systems (or sectors, or whatever). We don't need to define how many of anything, we can see what we have and work it out and discover more as we go.

Uh, I picked a TL11 laser pistol as one of my Scout benefits (I rolled a weapon, and that’s what I picked.) If we go with a lower TL, that’s fine but I’ll need to downgrade my weapon.

Benny met and made a contact with an alien, so we need at least one alien culture. I’m okay with interpreting the "alien" culture as humans that are not part of our society, though, if the group doesn’t want aliens.

I do like the edge of charted space and edge of friendly space events that Benny had. I like the idea of exploring the unknown. So it could be cool to spend some time in known space then go exploring to solve the mystery of Benny’s blackout and to meet up with his alien contact. Not that I expect the game to revolve around my character, to be clear.

Not necessarily. Why did you keep this weapon? It might be very high tech and worth keeping. Maybe the Scout Services have access to TLs above everyone else? Airshark also has a TL11 Laser Pistol (from the Navy) so those might be sources of higher tech stuff than civilians can usually get?

These might also just be 'very nice examples of weapons' so they act as TL11 even if they were made by TL9 people?
You get to tell us about that.

I think that was the only mention of 'aliens' in the Character Creation?

Maybe --and this is just me spitballing-- they are the only 'aliens' we know of, and that is why they are special enough to be mentioned? This does make them rather special, whereas having more aliens (and the contact is what is special) makes them less significant to the story. We can decide how they fit.

@Airshark, @TheGenerator, @TrailHead:
Everyone should give a little feedback on just how alien our aliens should be. Both for this Contact and for all alien interactions going forward. (might need its own thread)
Sound good to me. What does everyone else think? We can easily adjust this as time goes by.
Did you see the offhand note I made about that being a way to get a 'free' ship? If you are interested in doing that early we can look at that more. If you want to keep it a mystery for a while longer (delaying is always a risk in PbP) we can do something else.
How's that for an out of context quote? :)

We can take it in turns being the center of the active story.

That could be a cool mission. Get to that ship and find out what caused the black out. Could be a hidden base on a nearby planet or something.

Could we use a ship part to rent a ship for 1 mission?

Another option: Vague mentioned stealing a ship. How about we stole one to get away from whatever happened on Benny's planet. We know they'll track us eventually, so we need to get to the abandoned ship and take that one instead.
That way we can just leave the stolen one behind :P
I'm fine with that, but I would change it to the only technologically advanced aliens. So there are aliens we know of, but they are more like animals to us. Primitive and primal beings. They've probably been categorized for the most party. We can think of some spacy names like "Methane bugs" or "Crolon flesh rippers".

If we do this, do bear in mind that Benny did not own that ship, so it would still be owned by the Scout Services, and they might want it back and be even more interested in the answers to the question of what happened (their interest may be in keeping it quiet, of course).
'ship part' being 'Ship Shares'? We can work something like that out.

Ship Shares are not money (hence you can't convert them to money) they (page 48).

Ship Shares are some 'controlling interest' in a ship, so Benny's first-hand experience could count as his 'share'.

You might need to take out a loan to finance the recovery mission, some shady organisation might approach you to do it and have a controlling interest of their own.

Options abound, but only if TrailHead wants to explore this.
It was not 'abandoned' it will be more complicated than that. But sure.

---

A term/distinction often used for this is 'sophont'. Presumably the universe is filled with 'alien creatures', but not all of them can be 'negotiated with'.
This is always a worry with these types of discussion. The first thing suggested tends to get more traction than it deserves because people go along with it.

Do you want to do that? We can just as easily have a universe teaming with alien intelligence, like in Trek-Wars.
Those poor things are harmless, but vilified because of their misunderstood name. );

I don't really mind whether or not there are many alien races. Just as long as we're not the only sentient things on every planet we go to. Whether we meet other humans or aliens is less significant to me. Along with exploring, I'd like to have chances to do some diplomacy and trading.

I agree, I would not want our PCs to be the only sentient beings on every planet we go. I would expect we'd meet other humans most places... since the alien my PC met was on the fringe of chartered space. I'm interpreting chartered space as chartered by humans. I would also like chances for us to do some diplomacy and trading.

I also agree that it would be cool if there are (alien to us) non-sentient creatures on various planets that we may have to deal with. Maybe helping a human settlement deal with an influx of migrating critters or animal attacks. Or simply some creature being an obstacle or challenge to overcome in pursuing some unrelated objective.

I assume they have spread everywhere. I can not promise they will all that sentient, I have met some humans.
The book has its own interpretation, but if we are not using the setting from the book, don't worry too much about its use of such words.

However, that interpretation seems reasonable. That terms is fairly generic.
Me too. Will do.
Sounds good. I am having ideas.
Indubitably.

Not weighing in a lot on this conversation. Not really my forté. But I didn't read anything I didn't agree with.
I like the different types of aliens idea. In my mind Aliens are a smarter species, but this is better.

I have some thoughts but haven’t had the bandwidth to get them written down yet.

I don’t think there’s a scout ship out there waiting for us to find. Benny was found drifting. Presumably the ship was rescued along with him. And it’s likely he wasn’t the only scout aboard. Trying to track down his crew mate or mates could be a quest. We could assume the scout service kept us apart after the incident so we couldn’t compare notes to cover something up.

We could assume that the alien contact and the adrift with no memory were separate but related. Maybe Benny went back to the fringe of Chartered/friendly space to revisit his alien contact but others of his contact’s society intercepted him. Let’s say the aliens are psionic and wiped Benny’s memories and those of his crew mate’s.

Understood. Has work settled a bit? No rush, though.
We can make it work either way. It is up to you.
That was 12 years ago. We can look into that if you want, but it probably is no longer a high priority if it has been left this long. Maybe you can tell us if any of them made it. You could declare when we meet people or end up in a situation, that someone there is one of your old crew, (with similar wiped minds?).
Cool.
We can. If we don't want to decide now, we can leave that mystery till later.
Can do. If you want to have that be a fact. We can still leave the mystery of 'why' open for discovery.
Are you wanting to go back there soon? Do you want to start there?

---

Tell us about these 'aliens'. You have first say, then we can chat about the nature of 'alien' in this setting.

Moving this forward
I think we should maybe move this forward and not rely on TrailHead to provide these answers right now. We can set our starting point in a human sector and revisit their 'Alien' Contact when time permits.

Ship
Since we are not getting Benny's ship, do we want to build one of our own, or pick something reasonable from the book? You will have to pay for whatever you get, so I won't impose limits (unless it turns out I am wrong and have to:), though we may need to adjust some aspects down to the TL we are playing at (TL10? TL9?).

This need to pay for the ship is often a driving force in Traveller, it spurs us to engage in Trade, which leads to movement which leads to adventure. If the players are really not interested in that aspect of the game (which might, of course, mean this is the wrong game) I can easily arrange for you to get a ship you don't have to pay for... with Credits. Let me know.

Trade Worlds
@TheGenerator: You indicated that Trade was high on your interest list for this game. I started working on making a sector and worlds, but found it unsatisfying on my own and did not get any feedback from the players when I asked for input. I am not sure I want to lay out a sector on a hex grid, I usually use point-crawls rather than hex-crawls, but that can curtail the ability to look at Worlds within reach and compare Trade Codes and do Speculative Trade.

We can generate a random Sector, or work together to make some worlds, or we can say what sort of world we are wanting to go to and build them just before we get there.

There is also the option of using the official map and worlds, or some part of that, (see https://travellermap.com/), and I will need to read up on the setting. There is not a lot in the book I have, and I don't often use premade settings, so that would not be my first choice, and it probably won't fit with the (tentative) worldbuilding we have established so far.

The ship
I feel like I don't really know enough about the game to know what makes a good ship. So a basic one from the book seems like a good option. Which ones would fit our budget?

Trade
I did pick trade as my priority, but not so much for the trade aspect as the social interaction/factions aspect of it. While I enjoy exploring, I wouldn't want to hop from one uninhabited planet/environment to the next. Though, trading seems like a good source of income and a great reason to go to new places.
I prefer this method, personally. I have a feeling a high percentage of any map we make would be unused. Is there some kind of in-between option? For example everyone creates 1 planet with a few aspects and those are planets we know are 'in the neighborhood'. Not too specific, but something we could use in conversation and OOC ideas.
Something like: Xenon 8: desert planet, lava lakes, underground fauna and flora, home to 3 colonies.

In general
Since we're a bit bogged down in the world creation, I think it might be better to just get started with what we have and fill in the blanks as we go along. Is that an option?

From what has been discussed in this group before, it seems like everyone is happy to go with each other's ideas. I guess that's part of the reason for it taking a while, everyone is waiting for someone else to make a decision and then say "That sounds good, let's do it that way" :D
So I think we can assume if anything needs to be changed or added later on, we're happy to make it work as a group.

If you have any specific questions you're struggling with, please post them. If you need someone to bounce ideas off of, feel free to PM me or message me on discord for a faster paced conversation.

Some questions we hadn't answered:
- TL --> see dice roll
- Aliens --> Can we do a sort of warm-up mission, a tutorial with maybe 1 fight and some social rolls. This mission can then lead us to a new one where we have to find out more about aliens? I think it's more fun to play and find out.
- Skill package --> I'm going to look at which fits us best. (or rather, worst, so we can fill in some skill gaps)
- How do we know each other? --> I think the easiest way to do this is to say we all worked together on something in the past. However, we did have some ideas with the linked events. Those work as well. (why not both?)

Edit: Still rolling 1's :P

It will depend a lot on what sort of game we wanting to play. A Scout/Courier or Free Trader might be best unless we want more guns. I assume a Free Trader is the 'default'?
That depends on your 'budget'. You will need to make enough money to pay off whatever you get (unless you don't) so the more expensive they are the more you will need to work on getting money.

I can not comment on how much you can make, it does look like, if you play your cards right and get a bit lucky, you can make millions quite easily (possibly too easy (possibly so that players don't get frustrated)). Whatever the players decide to aim for we can make possible (I can always complicate your trade with adventures if you are making too much).
Yes, the need to trade is often what leads to all the other things in the game. Trade is not the goal (once you earn enough to retire, why don't you retire?). Without the need for trade, it can get silly saying why you are travelling and getting into adventure. 'Exploration' only goes so far to explain such things, and is usually done for 'reasons of trade'. Military campaigns can get away from the trade dependence, but that does not seem interesting to any of us.
Yes. We can decide where we start, define that world, then, when we are ready to move to the next world or star system, we can design that system together.

If someone wants to explore a particular type of system, society, or event, they can say so and we can make the appropriate place.
We do need certain basics before I can make start, things like TL and if you have a ship.
i have TRIED. :)
See? :)
TL 9 has me thinking that your having a ship with these newfangled Jump Drives makes you a valuable asset.

I can see you 'exploring' and making contact (again) with colonies that left 'earth' a long time ago on the older style of generation ships, bringing them news and valuable new technologies, finding how they have adapted (evolved some might call it) to suit their new circumstances.
50/50 this time though. :)
That is simple. Unless there are objections we can just go with that.
If we are recruiting more players they might fill some gaps already. So take a look, but we may wait till we have everyone before making a final decision. We can also hire people (NPCs) to fill gaps.
Let's leave this for now. Where we start can be all 'human' and we can see how things progress.
Sure. Knowing whether or not we have a ship will make a difference. Maybe, if we don't 'buy' a ship, or as part of that purchase (for some discount) the first mission is to get/collect the ship?

If we pick up our ship mid-mission, maybe we don't know all the details about it. So we can discover later that is has things we had not thought to add. ("Oh, it has smuggler's hidden compartments?", or "We can make it refine fuel if we add a < whatsit > to the < thingymabob >... if only we had some Engineering...").

That's basically how America was discovered. (Not counting the ppl who already lived there :P)
I know, but the questions are hard :(
That's what the dice want you to think!🤫😨
That sounds fun! :) We could even roll on a table of TL# stuff if we want to and see how that shapes the story.

No, let's not count them... (and they possibly came over from Siberia/Asia anyway. And for similar reasons. :)
... Else they do not matter. :)
True. And those dice were pretending to be coins, and so is inherently untrustworthy.
Not sure what 'table' you are referring to, but we could do. We can make use of the Quirks table as well (page 188) but that is probably more useful at the start than for later discoveries.

We'd have to create one

VagueGM, Airshark and The Generator - Sorry I have been missing for so long. Work and family obligations have been filling my days from early morning to late at night. I’ve been meaning to post something for a while. I finally have a moment to write you this morning at the supermarket as I await delivery of my groceries to my car. I don’t foresee a change in my schedule anytime soon. So, with regret, I feel I must withdraw from this game. Thanks for inviting me to play a longer form game with you. I really enjoyed rolling up a Traveller and was looking forward to playing this with you. Best regards, TrailHead

Sorry to hear that, you will be missed.

If your schedule ever improves, come back and rejoin us.