Traveller players, explain yourselves! [+]

[MGibster]

Explain myself? Look, I found the freetrader Beowulf just floating out here. I don't know what happened to the crew! Those patches of blood were all over the ship when I arrived! This salvage is fair game, bucko!

 

[Kobold Stew]

Explain myself? Look, I found the freetrader Beowulf just floating out here. I don't know what happened to the crew! Those patches of blood were all over the ship when I arrived! This salvage is fair game, bucko!

I honestly can't think of any game-text more evocative than the cover of the CT box.

 

[Autumnal]

What... they're just trying to play their way up to the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers and ideally MLB! Arkansas Travelers - Wikipedia

Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.

I'm keeping an eye on this, because I've been thinking about a solo Traveller game for a while. I haven't really played since around 1982 when my friend who was into it joined the Navy and we lost touch. I'm also sure I spent way more time rolling up characters than I ever did actually playing.

Pull up a seat. Just check the footrests for slumbering kitties.

The Fall of Tinath, I believe, was a starter adventure in the Starter set.

Thank you! That sounds pretty interesting.

What I enjoy with the background system and also why it works so well with the mechanics for linking a PC to other PCs is it somehow made my character a hub of how everyone is interconnected. Everyone had had an adventure with Hob at some point in their life and ended up reconnecting with him. It also is good for figuring out what your character would know due to their experience - there have been times where Hob being raised on powered-down, lifeless capital ships has come in handy, such as deducing the general layout of spacecraft of unknown designs.

Makes good sense. Those are valuable things for both GMs and players.

Love me some mongoose 2E Traveller. Typically, I run a lot in the Trojan Reach with Pirates of Drinax sandbox in particular.

I find the small clean up makes classic run a bit smoother for my tastes. I also really love the folks running Mongoose.

So tell me about the Reach and the sandbox. I am staggeringly envious of Gareth Hanrahan’s talent, but not everything great my tiny mind and all its quirks. Could it work for someone who doesn’t like a lot of fighting?

There they found and alien city, that was populated but dying, sealed off from the surface.

The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl!

This is all random, put the initial situation together, throw out some adventure hooks, and mostly vibe off the player actions.

I’m love when a good start just keeps giving and giving.

IWanting to re-capture that feeling but using new mechanics, my buddies and I wrote Diaspora, a FATE game designed to recreate the boogie-ing around space in a small spaceship feel that CT provided. If you are open to a less old-school game, it scratches the itch.

I’m a big fan.

And, I might as well mention, Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series of books just screams Traveller to me, as various bands of well meaning misfits struggle to endure a harsh universe. (The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is the first in the series.)

I bounced off them, but they’re in my pile to look at again when some present stresses let up.

 

[Autumnal]

Explain myself? Look, I found the freetrader Beowulf just floating out here. I don't know what happened to the crew! Those patches of blood were all over the ship when I arrived! This salvage is fair game, bucko!

Uh huh. Sure, buddy. Driver’s license and registration, if you please.

 

[jdrakeh]

In the somewhat recent past I played in a short-lived Mongoose Traveller campaign and a one-shot of the Risus Traveller variant, Freelance Traveller.

The Mongoose Traveller campaign ended early because one person didn't understand the risk vs reward nature of careers during character creation (he ended up with a slightly imperfect character, threw a tantrum and quit) and two others didn't grasp the lethality of Traveller combat (their characters died because they tried playing Traveller like D&D, after which they hit the eject button). With only two of us left, the campaign folded.

The Risus one-shot was actually quite good (I mean, Risus is quite good). It was set in the New Era setting and involved salvaging a ghost ship (with actual ghosts). Very Event Horizon, minus the hell and damnation angle. Some of us were bound to die, but we were okay with that since it was a one-shot and we'd been told going in that chances for PC death were high. We used an alternative rule for one-hit deaths, which I can't recall the specifics of right off the top of my head.

 

[MGibster]

Uh huh. Sure, buddy. Driver’s license and registration, if you please.

I'm not driving, I'm traveling! (They still have sovereign citizens in the future, right?)

 

[Autumnal]

The Mongoose Traveller campaign ended early because one person didn't understand the risk vs reward nature of careers during character creation (he ended up with a slightly imperfect character, threw a tantrum and quit) and two others didn't grasp the lethality of Traveller combat (their characters died because they tried playing Traveller like D&D, after which they hit the eject button). With only two of us left, the campaign folded.

I’ve been on both sides of the table for that, as (I imagine) have many others.

The Risus one-shot was actually quite good (I mean, Risus is quite good). It was set in the New Era setting and involved salvaging a ghost ship (with actual ghosts).

Now that sounds darned cool. I imagine a Third Imperium group somewhere between the Esoterrorists and the 40K Inquisition, facing secret threats.

 

[Autumnal]

I'm not driving, I'm traveling! (They still have sovereign citizens in the future, right?)

I imagine even destroying planets couldn’t guarantee their elimination.

 

[jdrakeh]

I’ve been on both sides of the table for that, as (I imagine) have many others.

Yes, I think those are walls that many people hit when new to Traveller, despite warnings.

Now that sounds darned cool. I imagine a Third Imperium group somewhere between the Esoterrorists and the 40K Inquisition, facing secret threats.

We were more blue collar working stiffs, but employed by a large corporate salvage company (so we had some high tech gubbins). It was more like Ghost Ship or Virus than 40k.

 

[dragoner]

I’m love when a good start just keeps giving and giving.

That game went on forever (in a good way), once they found their groove and were pursuing their own objectives.