Well: I've provided a fair amount of info on the local system, and while I know your general intent is to fuel up at the nearby gas giant: and I've provided the details of same, no one has since said they were using any of that.

You may not know this but from where I sit we've been playing for 3 weeks and not a single thing has happened.  

Our first choice has been whether to head in system or to feul up first.  Everyone who has answered agreed it was a no brainer fuel first.  Now we are waiting for fuel.  

If there were choices before now, sorry I missed 'em.

Yeah... I'm wondering if I botched the setup... and communications.  I've been trying to point out options when you ask to do "X", and "X" isn't going to work, pointing you in other directions... but the communication gap seems to simply end all further exploration of an idea, which is frustrating for me too, since that's not what I intend.  What would take five minutes at most to 'solve', expectations wise, takes days, by which point everyone wants to drop it and move on.


Hmm...  example?

So when you 'want fuel', I tell you how fueling works (20 trips, etc, when fatigue sets in, how long it takes to refine, etc...).  When I say that I'm trying to provide details so you can figure out how you want to do it.

It seems instead that you (group) want me to simply hand wave figuring out who is doing what, roll some dice, and tell you that you are all fueled up.


Another example:

Ras said he wanted to fix stuff, so I told him I needed priorities because each attempt takes time and resources (spare parts), and he... wanders off to do computer stuff in the shuttle, and nothing got fixed and I wondered if I missed something?


Normally I'm pretty absolutist on GMs not playing PCs characters, but I'm wondering if the way this format (again: I've never done PbP) means I'm... supposed to?    My usual MO is simply to provide the background, the setting and let players do whatever, though I did put you guys into a small box to start with (I did expect a LOT more player-to-player interaction! More than zero, anyway!).   Let me repeat that: As a GM I NEVER try to play Player's Characters, and as a player I walk away from games where the GM tries to tell me what my character did/does/is doing. Period.   So... am I supposed to do differently here? I'm flexible, I can learn! Swear!

Hmm... after I post this I'm going to scroll back through the thread and see if I'm simply mistaken, and I didn't leave a decently information full post for you guys on fueling... I'll edit this if I missed stating something important.


EDIT:::: I guess I could have stated 'you are at teh gas giant' and 'this is how you go about fueling'?  I can make that leap for you with a clean conscience.  Also, given the mix of characters (a bunch of guys who are good at shooting things in the face and not much else) maybe I should concentrate on just... giving you D&D style quests to do and provide some NPC crew for you guys to handle all the boring stuff of flying you from planet to planet?

The asynchronous nature of play by post combined with skill gates makes things difficult.  For example I wanted to fix that squid bot.  You seamed cool with it.  But I need fizz or Ras to fix it, and I have to wait a day for them to post. Before we even get to find out if they are going tobdo that or not.

At the gas giant same thing.  None of us who answered can fly the shuttle, so we wait.

Well, for many skills you CAN try to do things, but a -3 penalty is huge on 2d6...

... again: I got three Fighters in a game about flying spacey-ships and exploring!  Time to stat up some orcs!  



I keeeed!

I thought I was a paperwork guy?

PbP is notoriously challenging in this respect. Do NOT beat yourself up about this, part of it is the nature of the medium. That said, things are a bit gate-locked to less active PCs, and there is not enough "obvious" lateral solutions (or diversions ).

I have done EXACTLY the same issue as a GM here my first foray out, (which you can check out in this very subforum, 5e RAW Livonia's Lament). You are in welcome company, (I won't say I'm good, per se...) /flashes mischievous grin

My best advice, sprinkle more lateral to-do hooks and sandbox meanderings, in an effort to feed those interested AND KEEP MOMENTUM! I cannot stress that enough, momentum is *almost* everything. However, you have the challenge of "a ship," so enclosed spaces makes lateral poking around and tinkering hard. Refer back to Farscape or Trek, etc., (or even Star Wars ship downtime in the original films) for bag of tricks "things to while stuck on the bus/ship."

As for your writing, you are just like me, maybe even moreso, on the oblique hints and open ended nature. I hate "prompting" PCs into funneled choices, too. I think this is all a good thing, but it does not always translate well from table to delay-space PbP. As for solutions? If you find one, please share?!

The best I can offer is my own, what I call "PC macros," or automated response string. Basically I feed you my programmed go-to tactics for XYZ situation, and you run them until either I a) die, b) pay attention again and interrupt them, or c) they are such a gross breach of coherency the GM prompts me to get off my ass. Fimion is currently in one, "1000 yard stare: soldier zoning out, while zoning in, ready to snap into action."

We are kinda in a narrowed lock loop, all things considered. That is the biggest problem. It's a murder mystery with no clues, and now we're stuck in a room waiting for someone to open the obviously correct door. You could handwave it, but such is the nature of skill gates in a high tech world.

Yeah. One change I've already started making was to start providing things more openly, so I'm not waiting on players to pass information back to the rest of the group. I've already had that come up once or twice... answers (at least partial answers) that haven't gone to interested players... and yes, I am trying to think of alternate ways to pass that information on in other ways.

Anyway: As far as I'm concerned, you guys just take a couple of days scooping and refining fuel, leaving you topped up and hanging out in orbit around a gas giant in the outer system, listening to one-sided and frankly off-kilter radio chatter from in-system.  

There isn't a lot of signs of life out this far, but chances are that one of the others gas giants (There are four, you are out around Uranus orbit so to speak) is the primary fuel stop for the system.

Listening to the chatter while we fuel, how many sources of noise are there?  Where an earth sized planet and near orbit counts as one.

There is just the one set of chatter. It seems to be traffic control type talk, but it is entirely one sided.. .that is only one station seems to be talking to itself, and a lot of the words are being mis-used, normal commands you'd expect to hear are being said out of order or context and so forth.  It sounds almost like a bad parody of port-side chatter, minus the return chatter from ships you'd expect to hear.

Some of the challenges I see with our setup:

1. yea, none of us are ship crew, I tried to enlist in the Navy and failed... Fortunately Army offers some Engineering, so Ramirez is halfway decent as an Engineer.

2. I'm seeing a significant difference between the Books 1-3 Classic Traveller I've been running in and playing in with the number of engineering specialties (CT Book 1 has Computer, Engineering, Electronics, and Mechanical, Pilot and Navigator round out the minimal skill set to reasonably operate a starship, with a few other not always important skills like Gunner, Medical, Ships Boat, and Steward among maybe a couple others - I also just recently concluded ALL PCs have Gunner-0!).

3. As you are observing, the flow of information is slow, and sometimes the player with the PC who is critical to the next action doesn't respond. Sometimes it's best to just assume the PC will do what was asked, the key is to get some input from the other players so you're not deciding what the group is doing. As I am relatively new to Traveller PbP, this is definitely a trickier thing than the OD&D PbP I've been doing for some 10 years where the most you have to do is wait for a player to decide if they will jump into a fray if they aren't pulled into it, and even then, sometimes you know what a given PC would do based on past history.

4. That last is another point, I don't know if any of us know each other as players, and we're just getting started so we don't know the characters well, so we can't make assumptions based on past actions, or even knowing the player.

5. We're still learning what the play style will be here. I have seen Traveller run everywhere from only make skill rolls when something critical is at stake to rolling Vacc Suit skill several times a day to handle meal times, bodily functions, and such (ok, no I've never actually seen that, but some GMs call for more skill rolls than others). I suspect for PbP it's better to be on the call for fewer rolls than more, and require less detailing of actions rather than more.

That said, I think our situation is interesting...

Quote from: ffilz;1006125Some of the challenges I see with our setup:

1. yea, none of us are ship crew, I tried to enlist in the Navy and failed... Fortunately Army offers some Engineering, so Ramirez is halfway decent as an Engineer.

2. I'm seeing a significant difference between the Books 1-3 Classic Traveller I've been running in and playing in with the number of engineering specialties (CT Book 1 has Computer, Engineering, Electronics, and Mechanical, Pilot and Navigator round out the minimal skill set to reasonably operate a starship, with a few other not always important skills like Gunner, Medical, Ships Boat, and Steward among maybe a couple others - I also just recently concluded ALL PCs have Gunner-0!).

I ran into a similar problem in that I had assumed the 2e books were little more than minor updates to the 1e (with Ships and damage rules being the biggest, most obvious changes), only to find that I couldn't even fill out a character sheet properly because of "minor" adjustments to the skill system... some of which struck me as good ideas. I was sitting here having to fix mistakes I'd created simply trying to use the two editions more or less interchangably.

As for crew: Well, a ship does need an engineer! That's a pretty important crew position, as you need to roll engineering to Jump!  

But yes: More pilots would be a very good thing, if nothing else.   I should probably put a post up where i list common ship-actions and the skills necessary, which is a bit more 'on point' than the typical crew position roster. I mean: Having a medic is good, but frankly the closest person with any skill is better than the world's best doctor... in another star system.

Regarding Moving in system:

Due to the damage to your ship it will take four days to reach the inner system.  As you get closer the lag on the chatter will decrease, of course, and at no point in your approach will the voices on the radio indicate that they've seen you.

The world you are approaching is clearly habitable, terrestrial looking from orbit (lots of greens and blues, a wet world, and large enough to have decent gravity and the attendant atmosphere...), with a large rocky moon, a bit smaller than Earth's Moon for reference.  There is a second, smaller moon (more like a large asteroid) that seems to share the orbit of the larger moon, trailing it like a lost puppy.

As you get closer to the world you will start noting technological debris in orbit, almost a cloud of shards of metals and plastics, along with high energy weapon scars visible on the moon's surface, even from a considerable distance.

As soon as you get close enough I assume you begin using the ship's optics to visually scan the planet (and moon) for signs of life, habitation.    You can see molten twisted wreckage of habitats on the moon's surface, determing how long ago they were destroyed is beyond your ability.

On the planet you can see clearly the former Low-Port (ground side station of a space port), which was clearly slagged from orbit some time ago, nearby is a newer construction that appears to be a Low-Port, though no ships can be seen from orbit, and you don't see the usual surrounding city that you would expect even at a relatively minor port, no major cites remain at all, though you can see areas where ruins are being overgrown by vegetation.

One noteworthy thing you see, though it is difficult to credit it as real, is a large desert area, in the middle of which lies the broken shattered remains of a statue that, if you calculations are correct, once towered MILES in height, made of some sort of glassy substance, the spreading sands of the desert appear to be from the slow disintigration of the broken statue. What it once represented is impossible to tell, though a beautiful, if slightly disturbingly alien, face stares blindly into the sky.

Fimion will note that the face resembles that of the Eloi, though the statue shows no other signs of being an Eloi artwork.

Quote from: Spike;1006165I ran into a similar problem in that I had assumed the 2e books were little more than minor updates to the 1e (with Ships and damage rules being the biggest, most obvious changes), only to find that I couldn't even fill out a character sheet properly because of "minor" adjustments to the skill system... some of which struck me as good ideas. I was sitting here having to fix mistakes I'd created simply trying to use the two editions more or less interchangably.

As for crew: Well, a ship does need an engineer! That's a pretty important crew position, as you need to roll engineering to Jump!  

But yes: More pilots would be a very good thing, if nothing else.   I should probably put a post up where i list common ship-actions and the skills necessary, which is a bit more 'on point' than the typical crew position roster. I mean: Having a medic is good, but frankly the closest person with any skill is better than the world's best doctor... in another star system.

Now the problem is that Rodriguez doesn't have Engineering - Jump Drives...

Yea, I was looking over the differences between 1e and 2e in preparation for rolling up a character for another game...

Did everyone use 1e chargen, or just some of us? I did find some conversion notes that suggest how to "upgrade" a character from 1e to 2e.

Frank

Are we just flaoting along with out any futher repairs?  I had kind of assumed were were doing a bit of work but from your last post it sounds like you think were aren't fixing stuff.  

Ok.  So we are clear.  Alijandro will organise a repair roster.  

Priorities.  First - fix the repair bots.
Second sensors.  
Engines.
Weapons.
Shields.

Low hanging fruit can jump the cue.  Things that take few hours for major bennies.