Secrets of the Ancients: Ep 6. The Precursors – RPG Review

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The Travellers are sent into the distant past, discovering the true history of the Ancients Empire. This adventure is pretty experimental, employing new rules for characters using high technology and unconstrained by time or mortality.

Here are my tips, criticisms, and dramatic recreations in my Game Diary Review for the epic MgT2 Traveller campaign Secrets of the Ancients – Chapter 6: The Secret of the Ancients

You can buy Secrets of the Ancients on the Mongoose Publishing Website: https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/secrets-of-the-ancients
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Guest starring Jack the NPC

#ttrpg #traveller #rpg

00:00 Intro
01:58 Meet the Heroes
03:06 Spoiler Warning
03:22 Previously On
04:28 New Rules
06:59 The Precursors
11:19 Episode 1
16:24 Episode 2
19:57 Invasion
25:19 Episode 3
31:21 Episode 4
32:40 Back to the Present
34:16 Overall Thoughts

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45 thoughts on “Secrets of the Ancients: Ep 6. The Precursors – RPG Review”

  4. Your videos are always so informative and helpful… while remaining entertaining.
    I hope mine are as effective.

    I haven't even played Traveller except once… decades ago… and you make me want to play, again.

    Reply

  8. You know you're old when you remember Traveller back when the Droyne were just goofy space kobolds. Great presentation as always. I had my own well established campaign setting by the time Secrets came out, but I enjoy seeing others' take on the Traveller universe.

    Reply

  11. I ended this campaign the summer of last year, and the two chapters that were a blast to play was the visit to Alel with half the party acting like tourists and the other half desperately trying to avoid family drama they left Alil to avoid. The second chapter that was an absolute blast was this one. My group also completely embraced the precursor roles, and the experiences markedly changed them in future chapters, personality and how they viewed just about everything. Honestly Secret of the Ancients is still my favorite Traveller adventure.

    Reply

  25. What I like about this campagin is how much, and well, it expands on the simple adventure from the original Traveller rules 😄

    While not the same thing, I recently picked up the adventure "The Bayern" for the '2300AD" setting (a 'Hard Sci-Fi' setting using the modern Traveller rules, and also a update of some older rules/setting called "Traveller: 2300").

    It also expands the simple adventure from the original set into a whole campaign, and in an excellent way (won't do any spoilers, but anyone who wants to play Really Hard Sci-Fi should check out 2300AD).

    Reply

  30. Imagine coming back to reality after 8000 years away. Would you remember anything of your real life after all that time? Would you go into shock or go mad or be suicdal? I don't think you would just wake up and be 'oh that was interesting. what's for dinner?'

    Reply

  34. This sort of high-level project management, sorta kingdom-building style really appeals to me. Reminds me of Exalted a bit where you can have timeskips of years as places and characters develop.

    Spoiler below:

    I am curious though, could you go a bit more into why some of the characters' nations sold them out in the second half of chapter 2? It sounded like they positioned themselves as gods but were ruling relatively benevolently, or at least not tyrannically. How'd it happen?

    Reply

  41. My players turned the humans into these cavern dwelling artsy elf types early on because they were paranoid. Then the sun went bad and it was basically fine for their pet humans

    Reply

  42. The god-like leader of a galactic empire makes a bunch of clone sons, gives them their own districts and army, then they rebel leading to collapse of the empire.

    Where have I heard this before? 😉 (joking, there’s lots of obvious differences)

    Reply

  43. This was a fascinating episode and really highlights some of the things you can do with a TTRPG that just can't be properly done in other media. I'm looking forward to the next episode.

    Also, I highly approve of Seth giving those skills to the players upon completion of the chapter, I'm not sure why the module didn't have that built-in, as 8000 years of memories – even psionically-imparted ones – would have a major impact on who these characters were.

    Really, it's hard to argue that living for that long as someone else wouldn't result in them being that character more than their original selves, as they spent so much more time as those people than their original selves. Perhaps such questions are best left unpondered for the sake of sanity.

    Furthermore, I presume the One Four Seven of the past is the Seven of the present. It makes the most sense from a writing standpoint. I do wish the relationship between the players and One Four Seven was discussed a bit more in detail, given they had centuries and likely many opportunities to interact and perhaps even form a bond, which would add another layer of confusion and emotional complexity to his callousness towards the end of the chapter.

    Lastly… wth was up with those alien robots? Why did they specifically try to wipe out the Droyne and left the Vargur and Humans, for the most part, alone. Perhaps they're some sort of weapon developed by the Varsheen before they were wiped out? That would explain their targeted hostility, but that's pure speculation on my part. Hopefully the next chapters shed some more light on what actually happened, as I'm invested in this alien history now.

    Reply

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