Classic Traveller: Show the entire sector map, or not?

[EdOWar]

Out of curiosity, for those who have played classic black book Traveller (sans Third Imperium), do you let the PCs see the entire starting sector map? Or do they need to explore (or otherwise discover) the sector for themselves to see the entire map?

I'm thinking of letting the players start with only a small portion of the map, a few neighboring systems for example. The rest of the sector map would have to be discovered somehow. They may know that other systems exist somewhere in the sector, they just wouldn't know the exact coordinates or their relation to other systems. I'm also envisioning a setting that doesn't have a strong, centralized government handing out star charts to everyone.

Or do you think this kind of information should be common knowledge for people who make their living flying spaceships? Am I creating problems that might hamstring the campaign from the start?

Many thanks.

[Piper]

Nov 1, 2020 18:45:20 GMT -6 EdOWar said:

Or do you think this kind of information should be common knowledge for people who make their living flying spaceships? Am I creating problems that might hamstring the campaign from the start?

I feel it should be commonly available to players. I use the real world analogy of a good atlas or earth globe. Most US citizens have only the vaguest of ideas where, for example, Viet Nam is located (“Hmmm ... gee, I don’t know. Somewhere in SE Asia, I think”) but could probably access a map or globe and find it fairly quickly. So, I play with PC groups having pretty good knowledge of their home sub sectors, a general knowledge of adjacent sub-sectors, basic knowledge of the sector (or number of sub-sectors equivalent to same in the case of border areas), and a vague knowledge of the region.

[coffee]

If they have the Library program on their ship's computer, they should have access to the whole map. But that doesn't mean it should be entirely accurate...

[tec97]

There would have to be some good reason for this type of veil of ignorance to make sense if you’re talking a traditional interstellar campaign setting.

[makofan]

I'd let them access the whole travellermap.com site, then tell them some of the data could be 100 years out of date, and even if up-to-date, may have been reported inaccurately, or even altered deliberately. So they would have a general idea, but never be 100% sure

[EdOWar]

Thank you for your responses. I'm thinking of a setting that is comprised of independent worlds, petty kingdoms and pocket empires. There's no centralized government to hand out star charts, so information would be scarce.

But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be older charts, charts that may have become less accurate over time. I think this is the direction I'm leaning now.

Many thanks.

[Punkrabbitt]

Think "Hitchhhiker's Guide To The Galaxy;" sure, your local pocket empire that sold you a refurbished far trader with a library data program did the best it could, but the world data past the UPP for a planet 30 parsecs away might read "mostly harmless."

[Punkrabbitt]

Also, don't overlook the possibility that your TL11 library data wasn't hacked and altered three decades ago by the neighbouring pocket empire's TL13 cyber-warfare team during that 4-month trade dispute...

[makofan]

Nov 3, 2020 15:13:07 GMT -6 EdOWar said:

Thank you for your responses. I'm thinking of a setting that is comprised of independent worlds, petty kingdoms and pocket empires. There's no centralized government to hand out star charts, so information would be scarce.

But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be older charts, charts that may have become less accurate over time. I think this is the direction I'm leaning now.

Many thanks.

I am currently running a homebrew campaign set on the frontier of a stagnating empire. 20 parsecs across a rift that has just a few guiding worlds, is an unexplored globular cluster that the disaffected or restless or ambitious sons and daughters of the empire are exploring. All they know is the UPP of the explored worlds on the fringes

You can check my approach here if you like
www.tapatalk.com/groups/makofan/traveller-1977-f100/

[EdOWar]

Nov 3, 2020 18:44:26 GMT -6 makofan said:

Nov 3, 2020 15:13:07 GMT -6 EdOWar said:

Thank you for your responses. I'm thinking of a setting that is comprised of independent worlds, petty kingdoms and pocket empires. There's no centralized government to hand out star charts, so information would be scarce.

But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be older charts, charts that may have become less accurate over time. I think this is the direction I'm leaning now.

Many thanks.

I am currently running a homebrew campaign set on the frontier of a stagnating empire. 20 parsecs across a rift that has just a few guiding worlds, is an unexplored globular cluster that the disaffected or restless or ambitious sons and daughters of the empire are exploring. All they know is the UPP of the explored worlds on the fringes

You can check my approach here if you like
www.tapatalk.com/groups/makofan/traveller-1977-f100/

Thank you for the link. There's some great resources there. I appreciate it!

[makofan]

It is my youngest campaign, and so isn't fleshed out very much. I hope to kick it into gear at some point

[coffee]

Nov 3, 2020 15:13:07 GMT -6 EdOWar said:

Thank you for your responses. I'm thinking of a setting that is comprised of independent worlds, petty kingdoms and pocket empires. There's no centralized government to hand out star charts, so information would be scarce.

But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be older charts, charts that may have become less accurate over time. I think this is the direction I'm leaning now.

Many thanks.

Ah. I didn't know that when I replied earlier.

Here's the thing about star charts: The star is still there, regardless. You can see that, and according to some sources (I may have gotten this from 4th edition) you can tell if there are worlds there from parsecs away. So they'd still have some information.

Let us know how this goes, I'm always interested in other people's games!

[tkdco2]

I use my own setting instead of the official Traveller universe.

[EdOWar]

Nov 4, 2020 8:44:00 GMT -6 coffee said:

Nov 3, 2020 15:13:07 GMT -6 EdOWar said:

Thank you for your responses. I'm thinking of a setting that is comprised of independent worlds, petty kingdoms and pocket empires. There's no centralized government to hand out star charts, so information would be scarce.

But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be older charts, charts that may have become less accurate over time. I think this is the direction I'm leaning now.

Many thanks.

Ah. I didn't know that when I replied earlier.

Here's the thing about star charts: The star is still there, regardless. You can see that, and according to some sources (I may have gotten this from 4th edition) you can tell if there are worlds there from parsecs away. So they'd still have some information.

Let us know how this goes, I'm always interested in other people's games!

That's a good point. As long as a planet has a reasonable tech level they would be able to see other stars. At the very least, those in the same sub-sector. I guess that settles it then: they can see the sub-sector map, but the data may be quite out of date.

Many thanks.

[rsdean]

www.space.com/30417-parallax.html

So I would fall in the camp of giving the players at least the star map, even if the data one might have about the planets and populations is unknown or obsolete. Looking at the article above, it appears that the techniques of using geemetry to calculate heavenly distances was available in classical times on Earth (Tech level 1), though it was presumably the lack of accurate instrumentation that kept the first star distance measurements until 1838 (TL3). If you imagine a society that is big enough to be able to support astronomers (no pop 3 planets...) and cares (e.g., knows that their ancestors flew between the stars to get ‘here’), then they should have a reasonable idea of the stellar neighborhood if their TL is 3+.

[EdOWar]

Nov 7, 2020 5:25:37 GMT -6 rsdean said:

www.space.com/30417-parallax.html

So I would fall in the camp of giving the players at least the star map, even if the data one might have about the planets and populations is unknown or obsolete. Looking at the article above, it appears that the techniques of using geemetry to calculate heavenly distances was available in classical times on Earth (Tech level 1), though it was presumably the lack of accurate instrumentation that kept the first star distance measurements until 1838 (TL3). If you imagine a society that is big enough to be able to support astronomers (no pop 3 planets...) and cares (e.g., knows that their ancestors flew between the stars to get ‘here’), then they should have a reasonable idea of the stellar neighborhood if their TL is 3+.

Great article. Thanks for posting that.