On 4 Apr 2016 at 18:32, Freelance Traveller wrote:

> In this case, I don't mean the Traveller rule book(s); I'm referring to
> novels and series of SF that you've read and enjoyed.
>
> What novels or series have you read that you could see a Traveller
> campaign being run in? How would you have to tweak the rules to make the
> story universe work, and what "knock-on" effects do you see? Does the
> universe in question seem to be conducive to one kind of campaign over
> another? Why do you feel that the universe is suitable for Traveller?

I went with off the top of my head, then started scanning thru the
list of authors I've got stuff from)

Well, Andre Norton's SF novels tend to be stuff that would fit the
Traveller rules, if not the Imperium backgrounds. And while there are
some internal contradictions if you compare some of the books/series
to each other thy are mostly the sort of thing that you can ignore
for a gaming background.

The series that starts with Sargasso of Space is a good example. Free
Traders going about their business and having things happen.

Poul Anderson's stuff could be used, but then again it's stuff that
the Traveller background comes from.

Both of the above had a lot of *concepts* borrowed, but their
*backgrounds* are quite swipable and different.

A. Bertram Chandler's Grimes books would be a tricky fit because his
FTL drives are a lot weirder. and there are several varieties as
well.

If you want to drop in a very different take on Psi in your games,
drop the Zhodani and add in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover. No
Darkovans aren't that likely to have psi, but the Terran Empire(?) is
scared of it. They learned the hard way why Darkover has the Compact.
<eg>

John Brunner's stuff isn't that well known these days. But one of his
concepts deserves stealling. The "Zarathustra Refugee Planets".
Basicly, it was discovered that a moderately populated world's star
was going to go nova (or something). Far enough in the future that it
*might* be possible to relocate the population. But not far enough to
be very organized.

Ships were still launching packed to the limit of the life support
(and some beyond) as the star went up. From the nightside of course.

Translated into Traveller terms, they had to jump before they cleared
the shadow cone of the planet. Thus, lots of misjumps. And it's
likely the radiation and spacetoime effects of the nova didn't help.

Result? lots of ships got lost along the same vector (well, spread of
vectors) And since the planet was near the edge of "known space" the
planets they wound up on (the ones that got lucky) weren't discovered
for a long time. So you've got some unintended and totally
unpreparted colonists due to having to lland with messed up ships
anddf make the best they can of it.

Made for some interesting planets.

C. J. Cheryh's stuff could be tweaked a bit to use Traveller. The
drives are rather different, but still workable. and she has
*wonderful* aliens, as well as several different human polities that
are very different.

Hal Clement's books can be raided for fun planets to drop into a
campaign. Though Mesklin is just a *bit* over the top. :-)

Keith Laumer's Retief books might be an interesting background for a
game. But keep Retief himself out of them, please!

The Liaden books by Sharon Lee & steve Miller are another setting
that could be fun.

Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant series & Vatta's War series are a
couple more fun setting possibilities. The Familias series even has
anagathics and problems with them (political as well as medical)

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com