An Atari-inspired Campaign for Traveller/ Cepheus Engine

I have been tinkering with a new campaign to play at home with friends and family inspired by my current binge of old Atari games and retro sci-fi. I wrote it specifically for Cepheus Deluxe: Enhanced Edition from Stellagama Publishing, but it should run with almost any form of Traveller with a few tweaks.

8 want something lighthearted that captures the kind of fantastical popcorn Space opera that you see in the premise of 80s SF movies like The Last Starfighter or in the manuals and comics that came with early console games.

The bad guys are vile, the good guys fly cool ships, and the stakes are very high. It is definitely not like the Third Imperium... although I decided to keep some of the best ideas of that setting.

Here's my pitch:

Cepheus: IRATA

A Light-hearted and action pact retro-futuristic campaign inspired by the Science Fiction film & video games of the 1970s & 80s for Cepheus Deluxe

Version 2600

Cepheus: IRATA is a science fiction campaign inspired by the light-hearted and action-heavy science fiction film and video games of the 1980s. Inspirations include:

Films: TRON, Silent Running, The Black Hole, The Last Starfighter, Battle Beyond the Stars, Space Raiders

Television Series: Battlestar Galactica, Space Rangers, Johnny Quest

Classic Video Games: Galaga, Solaris, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Yars’ Revenge, Elite

Modern Video Games: FTL: Faster Than Light, Wing Commander

Books: Space Viking, On Basilisk Station, Honor Among Enemies

It will be played using Cepheus Deuxe: Enhanced Edition, a clone of the classic science fiction role-playing game, Traveller. Elements and supplements from modern versions of Traveller may be used to supplement the game,

Players will assume the role of newly recruited members of a crew hired to escort five massive, highly advanced robotic freighters across several hyper-jumps by the mysterious Qod Megacorporation. The cargo and destination, a secret, and the crew kept isolated in an old pirate carrier ship inside one of the freighter’s support vessel slips.

The crew is equally mysterious, including fighter pilots and special engineers hired from all over the subsector with a range of backgrounds. The Carrier on which they are serving has a history of piracy and raiding, and some of its crew seem to be part of that original pirate crew, while the captain seems barely suited for the job.

The freighters themselves seem capable of operations only human pilots have a history of being able to do effectively… but the crew are to be kept away from the ship except when vital repairs are Required. It appears that it is structured to hide as much of their technology as possible. 

Why this captain? Why hire pirates? What is the Qod corporation transporting? How does this ship operate with so little crew? Why hide the inner workings of the ship even from  the people hired to fix it? Where is the cargo bound? Perhaps the PCs will be the ones to answer these questions. They may have to if you wish to survive the Voyage…

I've created a campaign document full of PCs, ships, xenofauna, house rules, and subsector maps that serve as the framework for the campaign, which I am sharing with you all here.

For each adventure I am working on, I am putting together a pamphlet style adventure module, which I am calling a cartridge for fun.

I am posting both my setting document and a sample cartridge on Google Drive to share with you all. If it sees a lot of interest or the campaign goes well  I will eventually pretty up the document and put it in a bundle with all the cartridges I generate up on itch or DTRPG.

Cepheus: IRATA v. 2600 campaign document.

Cepheus: IRATA Cartridge 2: Asteroids