Traveller Plot Themes

01. Courier Mission: The players are transporting a package containing goods or information. Alternatively,
they are hired to intercept the package. Subplots:

Medicine delivery
Valuable goods delivery
X-boat Mail Delivery
Contraband delivery

02. Enigma (Mystery): Something unexplained is going on, and the players have to find out what it is.
Subplots:

Cosmological anomaly
Economic plotting
Political plotting
Precursor (Ancients) ruins

03. Escort Mission: The players are bodyguards protecting a person while taking them to their destination.
Alternatively, they are hired to kidnap or kill the person or prevent them from reaching their destination.
Subplots:

Assassins
Double agent
Kidnappers
VIP Bodyguards
Military Courier

04. Exploration: The players are scouts, academics, or adventurers who want to find (or rediscover) uncharted
worlds. There are new cultures to encounter, exotic flora and fauna to catalog, and ruins and artifacts to
excavate and study. Subplots:

Lost (Sophont) civilization (Xenoarchaeology)

Precursor (Ancients) site (Xenoarchaeology)
Bestiary find (Xenobiology)
Scientific curiosity
Sophont contact (First contact)
Uncharted world exploration
Derelict ship

05. Heist: The players plan to infiltrate a secure facility to acquire information or goods. Alternatively the
players are hired to guard the facility before the target is acquired or retrieve the target after it is acquired.
Subplots:

Infiltration
Security detail (counter-espionage)
Spying (espionage)
06. Mercenary: The players are military veterans who have been contracted to serve in the armed forces of a
local or planetary government. Typical tasks would be to create and instruct a training cadre, lead or advise
units, or provide a corps of trained and experienced troops familiar with advanced technology. Subplots:

Alien invasion (defense)

Cadre training
Cold war
Dream ticket
Man vs. Machine (Virus)
Open warfare
Rebellion
Striker mission
Escort mission
Espionage

07. Merchant Free Traders: The players travel the stars trading and adventuring along the way in their very
own starship. Subplots:

Ally aid
Corporate espionage
Diplomacy
Interstellar trade
Megacorporation mission
Trade brokering (transpolitical)
Trade mission
Trade War

08. Patron: The players are skilled freelancers hired by a client to perform a job for them that requires their
particular skills and experience. Their performance affects their standing with the client and whether the client
will hire them for future jobs or recommend them to other potential clients. Subplots:

Consultants
Experts
Specialists

09. Rescue: People are lost or stranded and the players are tasked with recovering them. Alternatively, the
players are lost or stranded and need to either survive until rescued or make their way to safety. Subplots:

Black hole
Innocent civilian
Lost in Space
Megacorporation kidnapee
Military prisoner
Nova dilemma
VIP rescue
Derelict ship
10. Struggle against Nature: The players are pitted against an alien environment, with or without the help of
outsiders. Subplots:

Man vs. Nature

Signal GK / SOS
Stranded
Survival
Colony

11. World-hopping: The players are itinerant workers, interstellar business travelers, or tourists on holiday that
are always going to unfamiliar and exotic places. Subplots:

Banished
Entertainers
Escapees
Galactic Circus
Interstellar tourists
Itinerant workers
Outcasts
Peddlers
Refugees

12. World Building: The players are sent to an established world with the goal of technical level increase of the
planet. Subplots:

Star Port construction

Military Forces upgrade
Starship construction
Industrial upgrade (Industrial Revolution)
Increase raw material production