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White Dwarf Reflections #19
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<blockquote data-quote="Wofano Wotanto" data-source="post: 9674189" data-attributes="member: 7044704"><p>What Bolongo said is correct but ignores some realities of the module's production. As the first-ever stand-alone Traveller adventure the format is odd - both over-detailed and under-detailed at once. The four pages of "suggestions" don't include the minimalist stats for the NPC crew which come later on (50 being the regular military guys, and 20 being prison guards for one scenario). We have much fancier maps and descriptions than a modern "small dungeon" would, with four different variations:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A rusting hulk in a scrapyard</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A fully operational model that you're going to be seeing only from confinement unless a small safari crew can mange to defeat its pinnace and marine complement and then elude pursuit from the parent ship</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An immobile prison ship with a reduced but watchful guard crew that you need to escape from</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An apparently intact vessel that doesn't respond to hails, isn't maneuvering, and seems to have had four of its crew take a fatal spacewalk sans vac suits</li> </ul><p>There's also rather a lot of Galactic Encyclopedia entries for things veteran Travellers don't need much any more, and a description of the Regina subsector many people these days have memorized. </p><p></p><p>So arguably too much background info for 2025 gamers but more reasonable in 1979, and not enough detail in the actual gameplay sections because expectations back then were that improvising plans to (say) escape a prison ship was most of the fun. I played in in '79 and later years and found most of the "suggestions" enjoyable but undercooked, dumping a lot of the load on the GM compared to modern expectations. For a GM who wants lots of elbow room that can be great, but for others it will feel like loads of unwelcome extra prep work.</p><p></p><p>There's also fact that the "battlecruiser" here is really not what you expect when you hear the word, and is utterly dwarfed by the later Azhanti High Lightning - and that's just a frontier cruiser, not exactly the pride of the Imperial Navy. Kinunirs are puny, barely escorts in fleet terms. That makes them more useful for interacting with a single even smaller ship with a handful of PCs aboard, but it also raises some awkward questions about how they wound up with Black Globe Generators, which are legendary top-secret supertech in this setting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Wofano Wotanto, post: 9674189, member: 7044704"] What Bolongo said is correct but ignores some realities of the module's production. As the first-ever stand-alone Traveller adventure the format is odd - both over-detailed and under-detailed at once. The four pages of "suggestions" don't include the minimalist stats for the NPC crew which come later on (50 being the regular military guys, and 20 being prison guards for one scenario). We have much fancier maps and descriptions than a modern "small dungeon" would, with four different variations: [LIST] [*]A rusting hulk in a scrapyard [*]A fully operational model that you're going to be seeing only from confinement unless a small safari crew can mange to defeat its pinnace and marine complement and then elude pursuit from the parent ship [*]An immobile prison ship with a reduced but watchful guard crew that you need to escape from [*]An apparently intact vessel that doesn't respond to hails, isn't maneuvering, and seems to have had four of its crew take a fatal spacewalk sans vac suits [/LIST] There's also rather a lot of Galactic Encyclopedia entries for things veteran Travellers don't need much any more, and a description of the Regina subsector many people these days have memorized. So arguably too much background info for 2025 gamers but more reasonable in 1979, and not enough detail in the actual gameplay sections because expectations back then were that improvising plans to (say) escape a prison ship was most of the fun. I played in in '79 and later years and found most of the "suggestions" enjoyable but undercooked, dumping a lot of the load on the GM compared to modern expectations. For a GM who wants lots of elbow room that can be great, but for others it will feel like loads of unwelcome extra prep work. There's also fact that the "battlecruiser" here is really not what you expect when you hear the word, and is utterly dwarfed by the later Azhanti High Lightning - and that's just a frontier cruiser, not exactly the pride of the Imperial Navy. Kinunirs are puny, barely escorts in fleet terms. That makes them more useful for interacting with a single even smaller ship with a handful of PCs aboard, but it also raises some awkward questions about how they wound up with Black Globe Generators, which are legendary top-secret supertech in this setting. [/QUOTE]
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