Recycling RPG Style
OK, OK…you get it. It all started a long time ago…that Alternity game or StarDrive…something like that was where this Twilight Sector Campaign idea got started. So StarDrive…been there done that…liked it then/didn’t like it then…dead system, move on (yeah I killed another one, somebody stop me before I kill again!)…enough already, how did this setting you’re peddling start, how’s it different, why should I care?
Well at the conclusion of an 11 year campaign in the Twilight sector I was left with reams of material on the Twilight Sector. With the death of my campaign I began to feel a little like one of Larry Niven’s Pak Protectors who had lost their tribe of breeders. I had the urge to keep going but not the tribe to protect. For a while I did what any self respecting Protector would do, no I didn’t literally commit suicide, I just withdrew from gaming. For a solid six months or so I didn’t game at all. Then that old itch started to return. I tentatively dipped my toe back in the water by playing some in the RPGA Forgotten Realms campaign. That was fun. Then I started to run a few games for them. That was fun, but, and I’m not in any way knocking the campaign, there isn’t a ton of room to be creative there. Well maybe I could write for them! So I offered and got a lecture like a 16 year old with a new license asking to use Dad’s car. Not just anybody was allowed to write for the campaign. Oh well I tried I thought, but the protector instinct in me wouldn’t let me give up. I had to find something creative and useful to do in gaming. Then it hit me. I could compile my old Twilight Sector Campaign and release it as a free StarDrive supplement. They do stuff like that on alternityrpg.net (ANet) all the time. Eureka! I had discovered my Pak calling.
I set to work compiling the setting. As the project progressed I realized that I still loved the setting and had stories to tell. That wasn’t going to happen by releasing a free PDF and I found out Mongoose Publishing was re-releasing Traveller and with an open license no less. Traveller was a name that took me back (I know you’re sick of the reminiscing but trust me its relevant) to the start of my role playing career. I discovered the little black box in 1979 only months after I’d discovered the little white box. Having been profoundly influenced by Clarke, Niven, Heinlin and Asimov back in my weekly reader days, long before I discovered Tolkien, I was overjoyed to find a game which would allow me to play Science Fiction. Well I could sign up for the Logo License and I’d be good to go to start translating the Twilight Sector into Traveller. And so it began.
So the Twilight Sector Campaign Setting Sourcebook you will hopefully soon be purchasing 
, grew out of an 11 year long StarDrive campaign. However with the rewrite necessary to remove StarDrive specific references (we don’t want to get in no pissing matches with the big boys just yet) and create a setting as I imagined it, I along with Matthew Hope my co-writer, were able to bring a totally fresh perspective to the setting. That’s what we’ll be talking about in the next installment, some of the design angles we took to create this setting, keeping what we liked best while including some exciting new elements.
I’ll leave you today with a preview of the cover of the Campaign Setting Sourcebook, titled: Cybil Mar, Through the Open Door by Mattes Laurent from Avatar Art. If you haven’t tried them they’re great and can bring your characters to life. Give’m a try!
