Since I posted a report of a Classic Traveller session, we've got in a bit more play.
At the end of the first session, the PCs had just made contact with the people they were to deliver their high-tech medical equipment too, as part of a clandestine bio-weapons program. But before the next session could properly start, a fourth player needed a couple of characters:
The session started with a group of PCs - including the noble Sir Glaxon - walking through Byron when they come across a clearly ill and somewhat delerious young woman (Alissa, of course) on the street, who sees that they are well off and asks them for help. After some interaction and inquiry they agree to take her back to their ship's boat (I think she offered to serve as a bodyguard) but the customs officials won't let her through without a scan (because of her evident illness), and the scan reveals that she is infected with the Enlil virus (ie the raw material from which the bio-weapon is being developed).
This PC introduction was a little bit tricky. As referee I had to find a way to get an "injured" and broke ex-Marine into the action. But I didn't want to completely burn the player. As the events above unfolded, we gradually established a backstory for the PC - after she faked her injury, she was hospitalised at a naval base station orbiting the nearby world of Shelley. She remembered being visited by Marine Lt Li, but then nothing until she awoke inside a cold sleep chamber feeling pretty awful. She had let herself out of the chamber and found herself in a warehouse; and she escaped from the warehouse to find herself in they domed city of Byron, where she'd been on the streets until the other PCs found her.
With the diagnosis of viral infection, the PCs hauled out the hi-tech medical kit they had acquired in the first session and set about producing a cure and an innoculation. (They also made checks to see if they'd been infected - my memory is that they all passed.) They cured Alissa, and all but one (Roland) was successfully vaccinated.
With Alissa healthy again, she was able to give the authorities the location of the warehouse she'd escaped from. The PCs joined a police team that raided the warehouse, which was full of cold sleep berths, and also captured an ATV attempting to flee carrying more such berths. (This was one of those moments where the modern vs fantasy setting aspect kicked in hard - I was expecting the PCs to stage their own raid, and got a bit of a surprise when they decided to take the matter to the police instead.)
Some time while all this was happening, I'd also let Roland's player know that - while the other PCs were out meeting Alissa and then taking part in the raid - he had noticed that the group who had taken possession of the hi-tech medical cargo hadn't loaded it onto another ship, as expected, but rather had loaded it onto an ATV and driven it out of the dome onto the inhospitable surface of Byron. When this was reported to the other PCs - which is to say, when this became a focus of discussion among the players - I was pleased to see that the Nancy Drew spirit showed itself, and they decided to undertake their own investigation.
They had brought their ATV from their ship down to the surface in their ship's boat, but wanted to find a local driver and guide. So they went off to a local pub (a hive of scum and villainy, ironically called "The Outworlder") where they thought such a person might be found. And lo and behold, sitting at the bar and tossing back sulphurics (the local drink) was a gruff soldierly type who knew his way around the local area in an ATV - Max Attack.
My attempts to start a bar-room brawl by having the bartender hassle Xander, the ex-pirate PC, failed; but Vincenzo, the gambling Baron, was able to make a small amount of money in a backroom game. Max signed on, and grabbed his duffle full of ex-military surplus weapons, and they somehow got them all into the starport (I can't remember now how exactly they did this). Max then grabbed more of his gear from his starport locker (which included a crate of 20 hand grenades, although he didn't bring the full crate along for the mission).
The players also knocked off the credits for protective suits and oxygen tanks, to deal with the corrosive environment outside the dome.
Meanwhile, Tony - the merchant jack-of-all-trades PC - had been doing some work on the interior of the ATV to create compartments for hiding weapons. So they duly hid their gear, spun some story to the customs officials at the exit from the dome (I think they said that they were heading off to do some archaeological investigation, looking for alien artefacts) and then headed out.
Using a slightly ad hoc mix of the vehicle reliability rules and the animal/event encounter rules, plus some improvised rules for tracking the other ATV, we resolved the journey across Byron. A lot of rolls guarantees some fails, and at one point they got lost and so used Electronics plus Jack-o-T to repurpose a communicator as a satellite uplink so they could get GPS coordinates. After about a week out of the dome, with their rations running low, they were able to find the outpost the other ATV had travelled to (by having Tony put on his vacc suit and climb to the top of a mountain to look around).
I felt this exploration episode suffered a bit from a lack of tight resolution mechanics, with nothing like a skill challenge or similar "closed scene" resolution; but also not the in-fiction structure that gives Traveller interstellar travel a similar de facto character.
The session ended with the group approaching the outpost. Our next session was the assault. I'll put that in another post.
At the end of the first session, the PCs had just made contact with the people they were to deliver their high-tech medical equipment too, as part of a clandestine bio-weapons program. But before the next session could properly start, a fourth player needed a couple of characters:
Maximillian McMillan (known to friends and comrades as "Max Attack") is a 4-term Colonel of the Byron army. With a UPP of CAE394, his player describes him thus at the top of the PC sheet: "Not very smart and no social graces; everything he has learnt is from an army manual. A real grunt." He has skill in three types of shooting (handguns, rifles and SMG), plus electronics, ATV and gambling.
Alissa wanted to become a surgeon but was drafted into the Imperial Marines. She faked an injury to muster out (ie failed her first term survival roll by 1) and so is 20 years old. All her skill rolls came up the same, so her only skill is cutlass-4. She also has DEX C, and we figured that she spent her two years in the Marines as a competitive fencer. With zero terms served to completion she also had zero mustering out rolls, and so no money.
Alissa wanted to become a surgeon but was drafted into the Imperial Marines. She faked an injury to muster out (ie failed her first term survival roll by 1) and so is 20 years old. All her skill rolls came up the same, so her only skill is cutlass-4. She also has DEX C, and we figured that she spent her two years in the Marines as a competitive fencer. With zero terms served to completion she also had zero mustering out rolls, and so no money.
The session started with a group of PCs - including the noble Sir Glaxon - walking through Byron when they come across a clearly ill and somewhat delerious young woman (Alissa, of course) on the street, who sees that they are well off and asks them for help. After some interaction and inquiry they agree to take her back to their ship's boat (I think she offered to serve as a bodyguard) but the customs officials won't let her through without a scan (because of her evident illness), and the scan reveals that she is infected with the Enlil virus (ie the raw material from which the bio-weapon is being developed).
This PC introduction was a little bit tricky. As referee I had to find a way to get an "injured" and broke ex-Marine into the action. But I didn't want to completely burn the player. As the events above unfolded, we gradually established a backstory for the PC - after she faked her injury, she was hospitalised at a naval base station orbiting the nearby world of Shelley. She remembered being visited by Marine Lt Li, but then nothing until she awoke inside a cold sleep chamber feeling pretty awful. She had let herself out of the chamber and found herself in a warehouse; and she escaped from the warehouse to find herself in they domed city of Byron, where she'd been on the streets until the other PCs found her.
With the diagnosis of viral infection, the PCs hauled out the hi-tech medical kit they had acquired in the first session and set about producing a cure and an innoculation. (They also made checks to see if they'd been infected - my memory is that they all passed.) They cured Alissa, and all but one (Roland) was successfully vaccinated.
With Alissa healthy again, she was able to give the authorities the location of the warehouse she'd escaped from. The PCs joined a police team that raided the warehouse, which was full of cold sleep berths, and also captured an ATV attempting to flee carrying more such berths. (This was one of those moments where the modern vs fantasy setting aspect kicked in hard - I was expecting the PCs to stage their own raid, and got a bit of a surprise when they decided to take the matter to the police instead.)
Some time while all this was happening, I'd also let Roland's player know that - while the other PCs were out meeting Alissa and then taking part in the raid - he had noticed that the group who had taken possession of the hi-tech medical cargo hadn't loaded it onto another ship, as expected, but rather had loaded it onto an ATV and driven it out of the dome onto the inhospitable surface of Byron. When this was reported to the other PCs - which is to say, when this became a focus of discussion among the players - I was pleased to see that the Nancy Drew spirit showed itself, and they decided to undertake their own investigation.
They had brought their ATV from their ship down to the surface in their ship's boat, but wanted to find a local driver and guide. So they went off to a local pub (a hive of scum and villainy, ironically called "The Outworlder") where they thought such a person might be found. And lo and behold, sitting at the bar and tossing back sulphurics (the local drink) was a gruff soldierly type who knew his way around the local area in an ATV - Max Attack.
My attempts to start a bar-room brawl by having the bartender hassle Xander, the ex-pirate PC, failed; but Vincenzo, the gambling Baron, was able to make a small amount of money in a backroom game. Max signed on, and grabbed his duffle full of ex-military surplus weapons, and they somehow got them all into the starport (I can't remember now how exactly they did this). Max then grabbed more of his gear from his starport locker (which included a crate of 20 hand grenades, although he didn't bring the full crate along for the mission).
The players also knocked off the credits for protective suits and oxygen tanks, to deal with the corrosive environment outside the dome.
Meanwhile, Tony - the merchant jack-of-all-trades PC - had been doing some work on the interior of the ATV to create compartments for hiding weapons. So they duly hid their gear, spun some story to the customs officials at the exit from the dome (I think they said that they were heading off to do some archaeological investigation, looking for alien artefacts) and then headed out.
Using a slightly ad hoc mix of the vehicle reliability rules and the animal/event encounter rules, plus some improvised rules for tracking the other ATV, we resolved the journey across Byron. A lot of rolls guarantees some fails, and at one point they got lost and so used Electronics plus Jack-o-T to repurpose a communicator as a satellite uplink so they could get GPS coordinates. After about a week out of the dome, with their rations running low, they were able to find the outpost the other ATV had travelled to (by having Tony put on his vacc suit and climb to the top of a mountain to look around).
I felt this exploration episode suffered a bit from a lack of tight resolution mechanics, with nothing like a skill challenge or similar "closed scene" resolution; but also not the in-fiction structure that gives Traveller interstellar travel a similar de facto character.
The session ended with the group approaching the outpost. Our next session was the assault. I'll put that in another post.
