See this post for sample Traveler PC write ups (Savage Worlds).

After figuring out what you want for characters and enough of the setting to start letting players know what to expect, it’s time to start thinking about more specifics.

In a modern day setting, it’s the differences that the players need to know. Depending on how many you have, it’s easiest to group them into some general categories. I like to use, Technology, History, Environment, and Society.

Using Travelers as an example and based on show dialogue, the future has experienced multiple environmental disasters that led to changes in society. Stories of underground cities, rationing, and possibly very different societal norms (marriage restrictions, etc). There are also extreme advances in technology including superconductors, advanced AI, and of course traveling technology. During the series we’ve seen force fields, nano-tech, advanced drugs, and other “near” technology.

Travelers are required to hide their advanced technology and knowledge of current events, while preventing environmental and societal issues. These restrictions are spelled out in the Protocols that every traveler sent by the Director must follow:

1. The mission comes first.
2. Never jeopardize your cover.
3. Don’t take a life; don’t save a life, unless otherwise directed.
4. Do not reproduce.
5. In the absence of direction, maintain your host’s life.

Taking these pieces and looking at the series episodes, you can determine what drives a Travelers episode and use that to plan your game. Individual episodes are mission driven with personal interaction a consistent complication. Missions are a variety of tech build/destroy, personal societal change, and environmental change. The most interesting missions are a combination. For example, build a device to stop an environmental change. Even more complex episodes involve other groups (Faction, etc) that are trying to stop missions or find out and stop other travelers. These are generally used to move the overall plot and introduce plot twists.

Here’s a simple example mission:

Goal: prevent a militant militia from attacking a university gathering and killing a scientist responsible for discovering a prominent computer technology.

Twist: one of the militia members is related to a travelers host and could learn and reveal their cover.

Complications: personal commitments mean that one of the team must either bring a sibling along or leave them alone in a dangerous place. The meeting draws national press, and the team needs to keep out of site of cameras. The scientist refuses to leave her research, and the team must safely remove and store it.

Advantages: team is given a device to blackout broadcast transmissions for a short time over a short area. However, using it could reveal themselves to the Faction or law enforcement.

Additional ideas: Start the mission in the middle and use a flashback sequence for each PC to explain how they got there. The team should know exactly when the militia attacks, so start a countdown clock to move the action forward.