Singularity is in the building! And... right back out the door via our good friends at the Royal Mail.
Last week, we unloaded eight pallets of Singularity slip cases and companions, and – because there’s no rest for the wicked – we turned right around and shipped them out to all of the backers. If you’re in the UK, the rest of Europe, Australia and other locations that we ship to directly from the Mongoose offices, you might already have your copy. Our good friends in the Americas will have theirs shortly.
If you supported the Kickstarter, you’ve already had a chance to look Singularity over in PDF format, and you know what I mean when I say that it is an epic campaign. It touches on dozens of Charted Space locales, tropes and plotlines, and whisks your Travellers across the Imperium and beyond. There is enough content for you to entertain your table for years!
While there is a baseline story to follow, and several story arcs to experience, Singularity is very much written as a sandbox campaign. Travellers must have the agency to do whatever they want, and Singularity does not stop them from making the campaign whatever they want it to be. The first act is the hook. It is a campaign in and of itself; the Travellers are hired to crew the most luxurious liner in the Core. They have the opportunity to transport the rich and famous along several historical cruise routes with all of the adventure, misadventure, and narrative opportunities you can imagine.
One of Traveller’s main tropes is that of the tramp trader (Free Trader Beowulf, anyone?) or subsidised merchant (for example, the March Hare of The Traveller Adventure) – buying prospective cargo at a discount at one port and selling it for (hopefully) big profits a parsec or two away on another world. Singularity Act 1: Sylean Dream runs a parallel campaign type, in which the Travellers focus on passenger transportation, not freight and cargo. Referees get to play the part of a rotating cast of characters, some of whom reappear later in the campaign.
Even if you never ran the rest of the campaign, you’d have the wild experience of flying a liner all over the Core, getting to know its worlds, making contacts and rivals, raking in big profits, and building your business. You might even see the Emperor! However, the story does not end there… It segues into Singularity Act 2: Renegade Minds, which is vastly different, taking the Travellers on a wild, out-of-body ride. It all wraps up in Singularity Act 3: The Glass Council, in which the Travellers put together all the pieces of the puzzle they’ve assembled – or they can bring down the house instead!
Like we said, it’s big. It’s epic. How does one manage such a huge storyline?!
The bold and determined will play it straight through, from start to finish, which we heartily commend, but an alternative route is to take an episodic approach. Run Sylean Dream to its dramatic conclusion and end on a cliff-hanger.
Remember when your favourite movie, book or streaming series has done that? I remember the long wait between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Probably not a day went by in my adolescent mind when I imagined what might come next. Or when I finished Fellowship of the Ring eager to see what would happen next to Frodo and Sam. One chapter ends, and you’re hungry for the next, but you can take a break between the two.
Letting your Travellers digest all the crazy stuff that happens in each chapter of Singularity will let them plot and plan, to get ready for the next big chapter. There are dramatic shifts in each act that make this approach work well. Take a break and jump into a shorter campaign or even another game, and then, with your Travellers’ appetites whetted by the first chapter and eager to see what comes next, they embark upon the second act, taking another break before the third.
Taking this approach has the double effect of making this epic campaign digestible and fresh. Each act is so different from the others that it will feel a lot like one of those epic series you’ve read or watched. And when it’s all done, with a completed the trilogy, they will have experienced a narrative like no other…
If you fancy taking a swing at running Singularity, you can pick it up right Here!
