Leif's DISCONTINUED GURPS Traveller Game, Recruiting Thread

[Shayuri]

As for my character, I was thinking perhaps...and this is just brainstorming...she is in possession of a dinky free trader type starship that does backwater trade between Vargr worlds and Zhodani fringe colonies. This is the 'exile' I spoke of earlier. The ship comes with strings though...she doesn't really own it. Her family does, and through them, the Zhodani Consulate. She's basically free to do what she wants with it, as long as she doesn't break any Consulate laws in Consulate space. She travels under an assumed name and is cut off from family resources in every way other than the starship.

I'm thinking that perhaps she lets Herr Doktorr rent some cargo space for his mobile laboratory, with the stipulation that he doesn't interfere with cargo or passengers she takes on. A little revenue stream always helps after all.

Then, if the Consulate wants a very low-key, under-the-radar investigation of increased examples of psionic activity among vargr, they just send their agent to rendezvous with the ship, with orders she can't ignore to take this guy where he needs to go and not ask any questions. If they're feeling very generous, perhaps they even pay some for it.

 

[Leif]

That all sounds good. But, actually, I was thinking of letting you have access to a much higher-end ship, something like an Empress Marava 200-ton Far Trader with 10 staterooms, 49 cargo, and two turrets. Makes 1.1G, so not that good at sub-light speeds, but it makes Jump 2, though. Crew is: Captain/Pilot, Navigator, sensor/commo guy, steward, and two engineers.

Or maybe a Lady of Shallot class or Vanderbilt class Yacht, but that's gonna require more crew than a comfortable-sized adventuring party. Could use npcs though....

Or, you know, there is always the ship I told Scotley about that made him want to be Zho in the first place. Hmmm, I'll have to look that one up later in the day today.

 

[grufflehead]

Scotley hasn't chimed in with any character ideas yet. As it is *his* game (or at least his suggestion) then I'm going to hold off making any more developments so as to minimise the chance of stepping on any of his ideas. And if he was set on an engineer type, then I'll come up with another idea.

 

[Insight]

In case anyone is interested - and this mainly just concerns my character - here's what GURPS Traveller has to say about cybernetics:
[sblock=GURPS Traveller Main Book]Prosthetics to replace damaged or defective body parts are common throughout the Imperium (where technology permits). Prosthetics that enhance performance beyond Human norms are viewed as scandalous in most of the Imperium (especially those which do not resemble the body part replaced) and are illegal in many places because of their obvious potential for criminal abuse (many worlds still harbor what used to be called a "Frankenstein complex"). Most of the larger passenger starship lines require passengers with any prosthetics to register them before boarding (even some normal prosthetic replacements can interfere with ship systems - so it is claimed). Free traders, of cours, are not always so picky. As a rule, the more an implant resembles its biological prototype, the less likely its user is to be hassled. An artificial hand covered in synthetic skin would be acceptable; a chain saw would not.

Another potential problem is if someone accumulates too high a proportion of cyberware in their body, they may be classified as a robot, and subjected to regulations which restrict robot-carried weaponry. Robots are considered non-sentient beings in the Imperium (at least under current laws) and do not have the same rights as more meat-oriented citizens.

Imperial technology is fully up to the manufacture of body enhancements, and many Imperial Research Stations are undoubtedly secret factories for the manufacture of cyber implants for use by Imperial intelligence agencies. Megacorporations are also capable of making such devices, and undoubtedly do so more often than they care to admit publicly.

Note that neural interfaces to computers are not forbidden by most worlds, but most such implants are designed to allow read-only access to public information databases (and they do not always work equally well everywhere).[/sblock]

... and Biotechnology:

[sblock=GURPS Traveller Main Book]The Vilani, for reasons explained elsewhere, were very backward in certain of the biological sciences. The Solomani, however, have made great advances in geneering (genetic engineering), especially cloning. The Solomani have genetically altered several Terran lifeforms to bring them up to sentience, including dolphins and simians (gibbons and orangutans). While genetic alteration of Humans is frowned upon by most cultures of the Imperium, it has been known to occur (the minor races known as the Iziri and the Wuan, for example).

Several worlds within the Imperium have created what are effectively minor races through manipulation of their genetic code. Often, this was to adapt them to conditions on a specific world to make colonization easier; sometimes, the rationale was more unusual. It is uncommon for these geneered minor races to be found more than a few parsecs from their homeworld in any significant numbers.

Some worlds take a different view and biotechnical regulations are not an uncommon feature of many local planetary law codes. The only Imperial regulations deal with identity: no person may change their genetic makeup with the intent to commit a crime or defraud, and all present and past genetic codes must be noted in the Imperial identity document.[/sblock]

 

[Insight]

That all sounds good. But, actually, I was thinking of letting you have access to a much higher-end ship, something like an Empress Marava 200-ton Far Trader with 10 staterooms, 49 cargo, and two turrets. Makes 1.1G, so not that good at sub-light speeds, but it makes Jump 2, though. Crew is: Captain/Pilot, Navigator, sensor/commo guy, steward, and two engineers.

Or maybe a Lady of Shallot class or Vanderbilt class Yacht, but that's gonna require more crew than a comfortable-sized adventuring party. Could use npcs though....

Or, you know, there is always the ship I told Scotley about that made him want to be Zho in the first place. Hmmm, I'll have to look that one up later in the day today.

As long as it has a bar or somewhere Doc can ply his Bartender skill, I'm fine with whatever!

 

[Leif]

In case anyone is interested - and this mainly just concerns my character - here's what GURPS Traveller has to say about cybernetics:
[sblock=GURPS Traveller Main Book]Prosthetics to replace damaged or defective body parts are common throughout the Imperium (where technology permits). Prosthetics that enhance performance beyond Human norms are viewed as scandalous in most of the Imperium (especially those which do not resemble the body part replaced) and are illegal in many places because of their obvious potential for criminal abuse (many worlds still harbor what used to be called a "Frankenstein complex"). Most of the larger passenger starship lines require passengers with any prosthetics to register them before boarding (even some normal prosthetic replacements can interfere with ship systems - so it is claimed). Free traders, of cours, are not always so picky. As a rule, the more an implant resembles its biological prototype, the less likely its user is to be hassled. An artificial hand covered in synthetic skin would be acceptable; a chain saw would not.

Another potential problem is if someone accumulates too high a proportion of cyberware in their body, they may be classified as a robot, and subjected to regulations which restrict robot-carried weaponry. Robots are considered non-sentient beings in the Imperium (at least under current laws) and do not have the same rights as more meat-oriented citizens.

Imperial technology is fully up to the manufacture of body enhancements, and many Imperial Research Stations are undoubtedly secret factories for the manufacture of cyber implants for use by Imperial intelligence agencies. Megacorporations are also capable of making such devices, and undoubtedly do so more often than they care to admit publicly.

Note that neural interfaces to computers are not forbidden by most worlds, but most such implants are designed to allow read-only access to public information databases (and they do not always work equally well everywhere).[/sblock]

... and Biotechnology:

[sblock=GURPS Traveller Main Book]The Vilani, for reasons explained elsewhere, were very backward in certain of the biological sciences. The Solomani, however, have made great advances in geneering (genetic engineering), especially cloning. The Solomani have genetically altered several Terran lifeforms to bring them up to sentience, including dolphins and simians (gibbons and orangutans). While genetic alteration of Humans is frowned upon by most cultures of the Imperium, it has been known to occur (the minor races known as the Iziri and the Wuan, for example).

Several worlds within the Imperium have created what are effectively minor races through manipulation of their genetic code. Often, this was to adapt them to conditions on a specific world to make colonization easier; sometimes, the rationale was more unusual. It is uncommon for these geneered minor races to be found more than a few parsecs from their homeworld in any significant numbers.

Some worlds take a different view and biotechnical regulations are not an uncommon feature of many local planetary law codes. The only Imperial regulations deal with identity: no person may change their genetic makeup with the intent to commit a crime or defraud, and all present and past genetic codes must be noted in the Imperial identity document.[/sblock]

Again, Insight and EVERYONE ELSE!! -- Typical Traveller canon regarding who can and cannot do what with technology may or may not apply in this game/world. But, having said that, all of what you have quoted, Insight, sounds quite reasonable to me, or at least most of it. If I contradict portions of that information later, it is not by accident, it's because I want some things to work differently.

Scotley hasn't chimed in with any character ideas yet. As it is *his* game (or at least his suggestion) then I'm going to hold off making any more developments so as to minimise the chance of stepping on any of his ideas. And if he was set on an engineer type, then I'll come up with another idea.

Scotley has mentioned something about this to me:

Its all good. I'll try to chime in shortly. I guess I could fill the weapons officer/comm/sensor role in the crew. Since Shayuri is part of our Zhodani spy on the psionic Vargr contingent it makes sense for us to have someone with some advanced comm tech skills to send and receive secure messages with the Zhodani bosses. I guess he'd have to arrange regular shipments since long range comm doesn't really exist.

And about the 'no long range com' thing see my comments above to Insight and in previous posts to Shayuri. But what Scotley says is probably accurate in general. (Hmm, gotta dig out my old physics books and try to see what all will be necessary for a 'sub-space' communications array, and whether it is conceivable that they've gotten the size of such critters down to where they can comfortably be mounted on a ship....

 

[Leif]

As long as it has a bar or somewhere Doc can ply his Bartender skill, I'm fine with whatever!

For you, Doc, we'll "make it so!"

 

[Shayuri]

Well, the problem with communication in Traveller is that you can't shine signals through jumpspace, and it's the only known way to get things faster than light.

If you want a "hard" science FTL comm, I'd suggest some kind of device using entangled pairs of particles. It would have an abysmal bandwidth...messages would basically have to be sent in binary, one bit at a time...but it would be absolutely, utterly secure and the transmission speed would be instantaneous at any range.

I'd suggest basing its size and weight on the size and weight of a particle beam weapon, and the cost would likely be astronomical.

Honestly, it might work better as Ancient tech. But if you need FTL comms for the story, a quantum entanglement comm has a certain Traveller feel to it.

 

[grufflehead]

A question about Psionics then. I read the section in the GURPS 3rd Ed book. Can any of us be psionic? Did you only want 1, or none at all? I've got an idea for something but it's not quite like anything in the book that I can see, and Vargr are supposed to be capable of having abilities so it would theoretically be possible. Would that go against the background idea for the game (i.e. if the Zhodani are spying on Vargr with the talent, would having one on the crew be good/bad/stupid?).

On the brainstorming front, here's something a bit left field so ignore if it's not at all what you want, or tweak bits if it suits. So far our prospective character ideas are engineer, medic, comms officer and pilot. Given Leif suggested that we might be on a ship of a decent size (rather than something like Serenity) there would be more crew.

So...what about having a (small) squad of marines on the ship - enough for at least one each (and a plot device to replace them if required). If one of our 'jobs' involves something a little more fighty than the crew would like, then we switch hats and play one of the marines. Build them on much lower points, but they potentially get lots of cool stuff from some of the other sourcebooks. If they get hurt, we've got a top doc (!) to put them back together/killed and we either need enough of a pool to replace, or a way of getting more.

Or, and this might be more fun, to give it more of a Star Trek sort of vibe, maybe we can mix and match the party. I'm thinking this might work in an Ars Magica kind of way (if anyone is familiar with that) where rather than having a Magus and a bunch of 'grogs' (I believe they were called), we've now got a 'named character' or 'star', and 'supporting cast' or 'extras' each.

If the situation warrants it, one of more of us can play our main PCs, and the others play extras - let's say the 'mission' is to recover a downed shuttle which has crashed on one of the Sword Worlds. We need muscle to fight our way to the base, the engineer to fix it, and the pilot to get us the hell off that lump of rock. 2 extras, 2 stars.

There will be some situations where we all play our main characters, and some where it's just a tear up and we load up the grunts with heavy weaponry and have at it.

 

[Leif]

Well, the problem with communication in Traveller is that you can't shine signals through jumpspace, and it's the only known way to get things faster than light.

If you want a "hard" science FTL comm, I'd suggest some kind of device using entangled pairs of particles. It would have an abysmal bandwidth...messages would basically have to be sent in binary, one bit at a time...but it would be absolutely, utterly secure and the transmission speed would be instantaneous at any range.

I'd suggest basing its size and weight on the size and weight of a particle beam weapon, and the cost would likely be astronomical.

Honestly, it might work better as Ancient tech. But if you need FTL comms for the story, a quantum entanglement comm has a certain Traveller feel to it.

Very well then, we'll stick with the Accepted Traveller Canon that comm is ordinarily limited to light speed (c), but we'll also say that a device of the Ancients (quantum entanglement doo-hickey) has been discovered that has the potential to allow practically instantaneous comm across vast distances. It won't be in common usage yet, but it's out there and some folk can get it. (Gotta give you something to work for, don't I?)

A question about Psionics then. I read the section in the GURPS 3rd Ed book. Can any of us be psionic? Did you only want 1, or none at all? I've got an idea for something but it's not quite like anything in the book that I can see, and Vargr are supposed to be capable of having abilities so it would theoretically be possible. Would that go against the background idea for the game (i.e. if the Zhodani are spying on Vargr with the talent, would having one on the crew be good/bad/stupid?).

On the brainstorming front, here's something a bit left field so ignore if it's not at all what you want, or tweak bits if it suits. So far our prospective character ideas are engineer, medic, comms officer and pilot. Given Leif suggested that we might be on a ship of a decent size (rather than something like Serenity) there would be more crew.

So...what about having a (small) squad of marines on the ship - enough for at least one each (and a plot device to replace them if required). If one of our 'jobs' involves something a little more fighty than the crew would like, then we switch hats and play one of the marines. Build them on much lower points, but they potentially get lots of cool stuff from some of the other sourcebooks. If they get hurt, we've got a top doc (!) to put them back together/killed and we either need enough of a pool to replace, or a way of getting more.

Or, and this might be more fun, to give it more of a Star Trek sort of vibe, maybe we can mix and match the party. I'm thinking this might work in an Ars Magica kind of way (if anyone is familiar with that) where rather than having a Magus and a bunch of 'grogs' (I believe they were called), we've now got a 'named character' or 'star', and 'supporting cast' or 'extras' each.

If the situation warrants it, one of more of us can play our main PCs, and the others play extras - let's say the 'mission' is to recover a downed shuttle which has crashed on one of the Sword Worlds. We need muscle to fight our way to the base, the engineer to fix it, and the pilot to get us the hell off that lump of rock. 2 extras, 2 stars.

There will be some situations where we all play our main characters, and some where it's just a tear up and we load up the grunts with heavy weaponry and have at it.

Very cool ideas! What do the rest of you think about this? I tend to favor using one group or the other, not mixing and matching, but some may come to like the "extras" more than their first pc, so we could work it that way too so that everyone is playing his/her preferred character? Ideas? Comments?