Twilight's Peak and Traveller Tuesdays

Well, my Traveller Tuesdays group has failed to precipitate from Jump Space, and must be declared lost.

But I've been able to gin up some support for a different Traveller game, this time based around "Legend of the Sky Raiders". (The last one was a sandbox campaign loosely based on "Twilight's Peak", but running wit Mongoose Traveller rules.)

I'd be going back to Classic Traveller, with which I had some success running "Death Station" a while back.

I'll keep "Rule 68A" as a tool for general task throws, but run everything else "by the book". But I won't forget to use the "draw!" rules this time. The fact that CT has what amounts to a combat's initiative system mentioned as almost an afterthought does make one scratch one's head.

Traveller Tuesday, Session #1

We had our first gameplay session of the "Traveller Tuesdays" campaign today over lunch. With only an hour to play there are limits to what you can get accomplished, but the group got pretty far - they established reasons to travel together, where their next stop is, and cleared any legal hurdles to departure. Now, they need to pick up passengers and crew, and take the sky.

Next week if all goes by schedule, I'll introduce them to their passengers and available cargoes, guide them through a gas giant refueling dive and fire the jump drives for Jenghe! Here are some highlights of the session:

• The crew of the newly refurbished and registered Karman Brevit, or K.B. for short, having been given the runaround for a while about their Exit Visa (I decided to spare the players actually RUNNING the "Exit Visa" scenario), were blowing off steam at Regina Startown.
• The recent death of a major econo/political figure (actually one of the players) has the system on high alert, which is part of the reason that the K.B. has been denied Exit Visa. Duke Norris swore vengeance on whoever killed "his great friend, Sir Charles Ponzi" and appears to be using Ponzi's "death" to advance Norris' own political ends. 
• The "dead" character's accomplice (a doctor of no mean abilities) approached the crew seeking passage offworld, but found that the crew, while willing, was not able to travel yet. In return for passage, the doctor had Sir Ponzi (still incognito) assist the crew in clearing up their legal troubles. A Diplomacy briefing from Ponzi (with a ridiculously high effect) assisted the engineer's next meeting, and after a few tense minutes (and 50Cr slid to an officious but receptive admin), the K.B. was given a 48 hour launch window.
• However, the crew of the K.B. is still broke, and cannot afford to outfit their ship yet. They decided to carry some passengers (the two incognito players were unamused but decided to not draw further suspicions on themselves) and plan to make a deal with the local starport supply clerk against future earnings. (In essence, they'll get X% value once they prove they have boarded their passengers, and the tickets will be surrendered to the harbor master on the next world.)

Notes:

The Karman Brevit is a 40 year old safari ship originally converted into a Far Trader, then captured by pirates, and now "rebranded" as a legitimate trader, though with only J-1 capability. A measely 5MCr will fix that drive up though. Three players scored a "Merchant Ship" (5 ship shares), so I let them take a 40 year old ship "for free".

Mongoose Traveller didn't keep the (IMHO excellent) MegaTraveller concept that starship drives are composed of modules, and that you need a certain number of modules to get a certain level of performance out of any given hull displacement. So, I've decided to retrofit the concept. The KB's jump drive is composed of 3 units, 5MCr each, which in concert can propel the ship 2 parsecs per jump. However, one of the modules is damaged beyond repair (in fact, they had the useless hulk of it removed during refit), the ship has the equivalent of a Type-A drive, and until another jump module is acquired, they can only achieve 1 parsec per jump. Each additional jump module they install will give their 200dt hull another parsec of range, but they'll need to convert 20 tons of cargo into fuel for each module and add another power plant module to provide the energy required.

As a side note, I decided a Ship Share is 4%, rather than 1% of a ship's cost. So a single "ship" result (5 shares) is effectively a downpayment on a new ship, and 25 shares (5 "ship results) get you a ship free and clear. 20 years of age is equal to 5 ship shares. Which means a 100 year old ship is effectively free, but will be in such poor repair that it is essentially junk.

Twilight's Peak Preparations

I have a large-sized group willing to subject themselves to my attempt to referee (what Traveller calls "Dungeon Masters") the Classic Traveller Adventure #3, Twilight's Peak.

Hopefully none of my players will google the adventure and get spoilers. I'll avoid spoilers on this blog as well.

I am still deciding if I'm going to use Classic Traveller+DGP Task System or Mongoose Traveller. I'm sure I'll continue to angst about it until the game starts, and none of the players has expressed a preference yet.

The setup is simple - the players are captain and crew of an old merchant starship, the Empress Nicholle, which is just about to set out on a trading journey down the local branch of the "Spinward Main". The Spinward Main is a chain of star systems with no more than one parsec between any two systems in the chain. The 'main meanders and branches around the sector, and provides a slow and steady route for inexpensive Jump-1 capable ships to traverse. "Tramp" freighters are the lifeblood of those marginal backwaters that the big boys with their fancy high-jump number drives just jump over.

The Empress Nicholle is of a class of ships known as "Far Traders", which means that she can make 2 parsecs per jump - In theory. Unfortunately, her jump drive is old and run down, and can only make Jump-1. To fix (really, replace) her drive will cost 3.5 million credits, which is a whole lot more money than the crew has lying around. Getting that money is the owner's primary reason for taking on this trade mission. The rest of the crew will have their own reasons, but will also be expecting to make money.

The plan is simple: cruise down the 'main, looking for sweet deals and bulk cargo when there are no deals, and maybe (ok, definitely) do some "odd jobs" to cover for the inevitable dry runs. If they get lucky, they'll find leads relating to even more wealth. The Empress can theoretically carry passengers, but there are few enough staterooms that most will be occupied by the crew. Still, passengers often pay lots of money, and it could be worth it to double-bunk for a few dozen extra Kilocredits from time to time. You never know.

Being an "old school game", this will be a semi-linear sandbox. Semi-Linear, because their ship in its current condition can only go further down or back up the 'main, and will have only a few branches to choose from. "Sandbox", because though I plan to have possible encounters and patrons planned out for each world they visit, there are very few if any "must do" missions in the story line. (There *is* a story line though.)

I'm going to rely on the players to handle the ship's finances on their own. I'll tell them their costs and present mercantile opportunities to them, but aside from the crew charter, it will be up to them to decide how they want to split things up. Since only the captain has an ownership stake in the ship, I suspect the first order of business might be to work out how they intend to save up for their new jump drive, and if other players will "invest" their own cut in the venture. (Spoiler alert - they are not going to be able to make enough money hauling bulk cargo to buy the new drive.)