Dancing around the preferences that I have for role-playing games is something that I’ve been engaged in for far too long. This weekend, I’ve resolved to begin making steps towards running a science-fiction game which blends the Traveller aesthetic, the grounded rules of GURPS, and the emergent methodology of experiential role-playing.

My vision is for a Traveller-inspired exploration campaign set in the early years of the Third Imperium setting as published in T4 by Imperium Games in 1996. This game would be powered by GURPS and draw on published materials including the GURPS Traveller books.

The idea is to use these materials as a framework for gameplay but not feel bound by them as a canon. This would be “My Traveller Universe”. The stellar maps and library data from Traveller are a great resource but I want to feel free to update my vision of the far future drawing on my own tastes and real-world technological changes since 1996.

Characters would all be recent recruits into the IISS (Imperial Interstellar Scout Service) embarking on missions which deploy them into “the Outback”, the region of Known Space that is far beyond even “the Fringe” of Imperial territory. This is space that remains unexplored since the fall of the Long Night 1500 years before.

The game will begin with the insertion of the team onto a single world just at the fringe of current Imperial exploration. The first mission is to extract a known pre-Night interstellar vessel from a world that has not yet recovered space flight technology. Repair and refitting of this starship will then offer a suitable means to explore deeper into the subsector.

The team is also tasked with making their way to a specific system to recover a particular forgotten lost technology and return it to the Imperium. Operating on rumours and limited information, the team will need to explore the wider subsector of space that they are deployed to and identify a means to achieve their covert primary mission.

The crew will be formed from a wide range of Imperial personnel chosen for their mix of training. Each person needs to provide starship operations skills but might also bring other training or experience to the team. The IISS recognises the value of taking people who might not fit in with more restrictive environments.

All of this is geared towards meeting the preferences that I am recognising and learning to name. For starters, given that I already have a face-to-face group running and am unlikely to find half a dozen new players who both want to play GURPS and enjoy science-fiction, it’s necessary to set up an online game:

• Regular, stable bi-weekly session time
• Online group
• Role-play as the primary focus of the game
• Open world emergent gameplay
• Powered by GURPS

I want to make gameplay as easy and accessible for players as possible. In this, I would prefer either new players to GURPS or, at the very least, players who are not going to nit-pick over the minutia of options in the rule system. I play with the Basic Set toolkit in a flexible manner and don’t want to delve into myriad supplements.

I’m ideally seeking players who want to take part in and can commit to long-form play. This is a game with a strong exploratory focus, both of setting exploration and character discovery through play. What’s out there and who exactly are these people through whose senses we are seeing this universe?

Easy-to-prep-and-run gameplay is paramount for me and is probably the greatest challenge that I face as Game Master. While I have explored a boatload of ideas in theory, and developed some experience in the fantasy games I’ve run over the past two years, science-fiction gaming in this style is a new proposition.

Right now, I am browsing the source material and seeking to drill down on a starting sub-sector of Known Space. Once I’ve prepped a starting world, I’ll hawk out to find the players. We’ll work on characters and then we’ll let the dual forces of setting and player interaction drive play. From the first mission, I’m curious to see where the game takes us.

Game on!