Did a Traveller demo yesterday, didn't turn out as expected. Only one person showed up, so we did character creation for him and started a campaign. He rolled up a Noble who controls a small start-up colony and has a rival of the previous colony administrator and an evil younger sister with suitor as enemies. Oh, and this is all near the Zhodani border, so the colony is considered a client state and not a full member of the Imperium.

I'm writing up the entire world using Grand Survey and Grand Census still, but it and the subsector should be a lot of fun.

Did I mention that I'm allowing the Noble to have nuclear missiles?

We need more Traveller threads.

So this sounds more than just a one shot? Using Dynasty? Bringing in other players, free land for veterans could attract a decent cadre, that and maybe a rogue thought police or two.

Quote from: jeff37923;789044Did I mention that I'm allowing the Noble to have nuclear missiles?

Sounds like a hoot! Do keep us posted.

Quote from: dragoner;789055We need more Traveller threads.

Can I get an Amen!

Quote from: dragoner;789055We need more Traveller threads.

So this sounds more than just a one shot? Using Dynasty? Bringing in other players, free land for veterans could attract a decent cadre, that and maybe a rogue thought police or two.

It was going to be a one-shot demo, but now it is a biweekly campaign. I may use Dynasty, I don't know yet. I have to see what my Player wants to do with the colony, if he just wants to use as a home base and freewheel around the subsector then it may not even come into play often.

As far as bringing in other Players, it is an open table with plenty of room.

EDIT: While it seems haphazard, this is what I usually do in games I run. I let the Players make decisions on where they want to adventure with their characters and then I provide them. I am a Referee who reacts to the Players' direction, I do not have any kind of overarching campaign plot I need to run them on, just a sandbox that gets filled in as the game goes along.

Quote from: jeff37923;789062It was going to be a one-shot demo, but now it is a biweekly campaign. I may use Dynasty, I don't know yet. I have to see what my Player wants to do with the colony, if he just wants to use as a home base and freewheel around the subsector then it may not even come into play often.

As far as bringing in other Players, it is an open table with plenty of room.

EDIT: While it seems haphazard, this is what I usually do in games I run. I let the Players make decisions on where they want to adventure with their characters and then I provide them. I am a Referee who reacts to the Players' direction, I do not have any kind of overarching campaign plot I need to run them on, just a sandbox that gets filled in as the game goes along.

You can use Dynasty and the Zhodani module, that's cool.

I have found that players want something somewhat open, but not so open that they look at each other and say what do we do? I'll bait a bunch of hooks and see what they take, usually they are happy picking something and going with it for a while. But like your game, seems it found direction during chargen.

Quote from: dragoner;789071You can use Dynasty and the Zhodani module, that's cool.

I have found that players want something somewhat open, but not so open that they look at each other and say what do we do? I'll bait a bunch of hooks and see what they take, usually they are happy picking something and going with it for a while. But like your game, seems it found direction during chargen.

(I'm answering similar questions on multiple feeds, so if it looks like I am repeating myself - that is what is going on.)

I have to say, if we wanted, the entire campaign direction could have been mapped out in character creation. That is one of the strengths of Mongoose Traveller.

For example, the Player's Noble was an administrator of the colony on Marisa starting out, during which time he inherited a yacht and did such a good job that the colonists found him to be a great leader that caused his evil younger sister and her suitor to become his enemy. After eight years of that, he became a dilettante and drifted around enjoying the Good Life, gaining an ally of a Party Bro. He then recontacted the colony on Marisa only to find that the current administrator has been badly abusing the colonists, so he returns to politics and has the abusing administrator ousted by the Imperial Colonial Office and the Ministry of Colonization, gaining a rival. The feudal technocracy of the colony has three factions - the majority that supports the Player, the minority that supports the former administrator, and the fringe group that supports the Player's evil little sister and her suitor.

All done during character creation using only the Core Rulebook.

I know you talked about nukes somewhere else. It seems there has been a shift in Traveller that the Imperial Rules of War apply to nukes in general, an not just their use. I was in another conversation and the question of radiation came up, which I have a tendency to say it is just another explosive in space, because there already is a fair amount of background radiation.

The last two sessions....

Session two was us sitting down and hammering out the details for Marissa, and the Baron's colony of Kriegerport.

Marissa orbits the small gas giant of Tomei (temporary name), which orbits the primary M4 V star, which itself orbits a DM dwarf remnant star with its own planetary system. Marissa orbits Tomei in the same amount of time it takes Tomei to orbit its primary star, which led to a 1:1 orbital resonance. Marissa is half the diameter of Earth with an atmosphere twice as dense and slightly tainted by high oxygen. The average temperature is -14 degrees C, but it is about 10 degrees at the equator - where the colony is.

Weather is fun! Marissa has fog like the Pacific Northwest during Spring and Fall, snow during Winter when it gets down to -15 degrees at the equator, and balmy Summers of about 22-25 degrees when the moon is about 1.6 million km closer to the primary star. Storms are the order of the day as Spring becomes Summer and Fall becomes Winter.

There are 11 tectonic plates on the world with oceans covering 73% of the surface. It is an active world with Summer that has occassional quakes and a few volcanoes, but also much mineral wealth brought to the surface by this tectonic activity.

All this was done in a single session using Book 6: Scouts and Grand Survey. We both randomly rolled and chose what we thought would make the most interesting world.

Kreigerport is near a riverbank with a class D starport and the 600 colonists living in prefab shelters and some plascrete homes. Many are farmers using native edible plant life and other plants grown under UV lights (an M4 V star puts out light that is too red-shifted for most native Earth plants), while some are trappers and furriers who hope that clothing made from here will find a market amoungst the fashion conscious at court.

Our first adventure was short, since he had to go to work afterwards. A Zhodani scoutship had been detected entering the system. It was challenged, claimed a misjump, and requested to refuel at the gas giant, then be allowed to jump out. This was granted. At the jump limit, the ship showed signs of damage, then released some objects, that were fired upon by the scout. The ship then jumped outsystem.

The Baron took some local militia with him in his yacht to investigate. It took 27 hours to match orbits with a Zhodani escape pod that had taken some glancing hits by a beam laser. Inside was a lone occupant in a vacc suit that was brought onboard. As the crew was taking him to the autodoc, he regained consciousness just long enough to say, "I request political asylum."

The Baron granted it.

Next session is this Saturday.