This went a bit better than I'd hoped, and got a lot more complex than I'd expected. Thanks for the opportunity!
I'm calling it a night for now, more to follow. Cheers!
A Day in the Life of a Traveller Gamestory
- Thread starter Spinward Scout
- Start date
I'm calling it a night for now, more to follow. Cheers!
Story:
Hour 189
098-1106 I.E.
1030 S.T.
41.2M km above
Boughene/Regina (Spinward Marches 1904)
Aboard Annic Nova
Spinward Poni broke out of Jump late in its 33-hour exit window -- we had almost given up on it, and were just waiting for Dame Irshinri to set the wheels in motion to ruin Feri's Imperial governors.
It didn't come to that.
Far from it.
Dame Irshmir's crew was fine, but would be much happier once they reached Boughene Station. The fund cites to fix Nova I and replace the two drones checked out. And while Windsor did in fact seize Island Two, they credited her with it's purchase price instead of its current value.
"Tomos," she tells me, "at this level it's not about the ship or the money, that's just scorekeeping. That was a twenty-one megacredit apology."
"Is it enough?" I ask.
"Only if they want it to be. That remains to be seen."
Hour 189
098-1106 I.E.
1030 S.T.
41.2M km above
Boughene/Regina (Spinward Marches 1904)
Aboard Annic Nova
Spinward Poni broke out of Jump late in its 33-hour exit window -- we had almost given up on it, and were just waiting for Dame Irshinri to set the wheels in motion to ruin Feri's Imperial governors.
It didn't come to that.
Far from it.
Dame Irshmir's crew was fine, but would be much happier once they reached Boughene Station. The fund cites to fix Nova I and replace the two drones checked out. And while Windsor did in fact seize Island Two, they credited her with it's purchase price instead of its current value.
"Tomos," she tells me, "at this level it's not about the ship or the money, that's just scorekeeping. That was a twenty-one megacredit apology."
"Is it enough?" I ask.
"Only if they want it to be. That remains to be seen."
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Participant's Notes:
1. I didn't expect to have to write for -- and keep track of -- that many characters! (I managed to forget about Engineer Jones entirely at one point...) Having to shuffle crew between the ship and dirtside meant nobody could sit on the sidelines, so I couldn't afford the space for as much character development as I wanted. Wish I'd been able to get a bit more out of Zaz, but I didn't want to step on The Pakkrat's toes by mis-writing his character.
2. Turning the starship encounters into a subplot that tied into the taxi shootdown went very well, I think. It just took a bit of wiki-walking to fill out the details.
3. I like to think I managed to convey some of Annic Nova's weirdness and awkwardness. Aliens gonna alien, sure -- but holy cow is that thing impractical in ways that someone would have fixed long ago out of sheer frustration.
4. That ship's main threat (spoiler, but I figure if you've read this far you know) looks a lot different after these last two years than it would have in 1977. At the time, it was one-and-done. Today? Now we know it wouldn't have stayed put in that room to start with (ventilation system, anyone?), and would probably have wreaked havoc on multiple worlds if it was handled the way players and referees would probably have dealt with it in 1977 -- not that those gamers would have known any better.
5. I hope the space combat scenes worked well. I was trying to show the vector-based nature of LBB2 combat, while avoiding making the whole episode either moot or a total party kill. Also, I think I worked up a pretty decent concept of operations for Annic Nova and Collector Ships generally (Cue up the Monty Python "How Not to be Seen" sketch).
6. We seemed to have severely disjoint impressions of the sociopolitical situation on Feri (revolt vs. balkanized war), but mostly reconciled them. I became convinced as I wrote it up that the war is still ongoing because Windsor wants it to be, as a pretext to maintain control over its populace. The other countries on Feri aren't necessarily any better, though -- they may be playing the same game on their own citizens too.
7. Fridge Horror moment: If the two decontamination teams (Scouts on Feri, Navy on Efate) managed to overlook a tree kraken, even a juvenile one, while scouring the ship for viral particles, something got stylus-whipped and there's a non-trivial chance there's still some of the plague virus on board. And it remains viable for months...
8. All in all, great fun. Thanks again to everyone!
1. I didn't expect to have to write for -- and keep track of -- that many characters! (I managed to forget about Engineer Jones entirely at one point...) Having to shuffle crew between the ship and dirtside meant nobody could sit on the sidelines, so I couldn't afford the space for as much character development as I wanted. Wish I'd been able to get a bit more out of Zaz, but I didn't want to step on The Pakkrat's toes by mis-writing his character.
2. Turning the starship encounters into a subplot that tied into the taxi shootdown went very well, I think. It just took a bit of wiki-walking to fill out the details.
3. I like to think I managed to convey some of Annic Nova's weirdness and awkwardness. Aliens gonna alien, sure -- but holy cow is that thing impractical in ways that someone would have fixed long ago out of sheer frustration.
4. That ship's main threat (spoiler, but I figure if you've read this far you know) looks a lot different after these last two years than it would have in 1977. At the time, it was one-and-done. Today? Now we know it wouldn't have stayed put in that room to start with (ventilation system, anyone?), and would probably have wreaked havoc on multiple worlds if it was handled the way players and referees would probably have dealt with it in 1977 -- not that those gamers would have known any better.
5. I hope the space combat scenes worked well. I was trying to show the vector-based nature of LBB2 combat, while avoiding making the whole episode either moot or a total party kill. Also, I think I worked up a pretty decent concept of operations for Annic Nova and Collector Ships generally (Cue up the Monty Python "How Not to be Seen" sketch).
6. We seemed to have severely disjoint impressions of the sociopolitical situation on Feri (revolt vs. balkanized war), but mostly reconciled them. I became convinced as I wrote it up that the war is still ongoing because Windsor wants it to be, as a pretext to maintain control over its populace. The other countries on Feri aren't necessarily any better, though -- they may be playing the same game on their own citizens too.
7. Fridge Horror moment: If the two decontamination teams (Scouts on Feri, Navy on Efate) managed to overlook a tree kraken, even a juvenile one, while scouring the ship for viral particles, something got stylus-whipped and there's a non-trivial chance there's still some of the plague virus on board. And it remains viable for months...
8. All in all, great fun. Thanks again to everyone!
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Finished that prematurely-posted post.
Apologies for the confusion.
Epilogue is two posts up.
Edit to add:
9. There's probably an entire campaign's worth of play that could be based on the county/subsector political intrigues of the coreward end of Regina subsector.
Apologies for the confusion.
Epilogue is two posts up.
Edit to add:
9. There's probably an entire campaign's worth of play that could be based on the county/subsector political intrigues of the coreward end of Regina subsector.
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All the character-name in-jokes (all links to Youtube):
Gunner: Annie Oakley. "Annie Get Your Gun" -- Squeeze (this also explains why she's a gunner/medic)
Gunner: Roland Thompson. "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" -- Warren Zevon
(...and my headcanon says he's from "Planet Claire" -- B-52s, because "Planet Claire has pink air/All the trees are red/No-one ever dies there/No-one has a head" except there is no canon world named "Claire".)
Engineer: K. C. "Casey" Jones. "Casey Jones" -- Grateful Dead
Captain: Tomos Puch. (The Tomos and Puch corporations each manufactured mopeds.)
Scout Doctor "Doc" Martin. Classic boots.
I'm gravely disappointed that I never had an occasion to have Ms. Oakley get injured so that another character could ask her, "Annie, are you ok? Are you ok? Are you ok, Annie?" (Alien Ant Farm cover version).
On a more serious note, I wanted a scene where she was retrieving the drones to "Call the Ships to Port" by Covenant. A lady goth gunner? An anachronistic lady goth gunner? Sure, just so I could have her in 0-G upside-down at the aft control console humming the chorus, "A choir full of longing / Will call our ships to port / The countless lonely voices / Like whispers in the dark" as the drones turn and head back towards the ship.
... while Roland is right-side-up, also using the same console to bring in other drones, quietly seething because she's so freakin' pretentious-- it's just drones, not the return of some epic colonization fleet!
Gunner: Annie Oakley. "Annie Get Your Gun" -- Squeeze (this also explains why she's a gunner/medic)
Gunner: Roland Thompson. "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" -- Warren Zevon
(...and my headcanon says he's from "Planet Claire" -- B-52s, because "Planet Claire has pink air/All the trees are red/No-one ever dies there/No-one has a head" except there is no canon world named "Claire".)
Engineer: K. C. "Casey" Jones. "Casey Jones" -- Grateful Dead
Captain: Tomos Puch. (The Tomos and Puch corporations each manufactured mopeds.)
Scout Doctor "Doc" Martin. Classic boots.
I'm gravely disappointed that I never had an occasion to have Ms. Oakley get injured so that another character could ask her, "Annie, are you ok? Are you ok? Are you ok, Annie?" (Alien Ant Farm cover version).
On a more serious note, I wanted a scene where she was retrieving the drones to "Call the Ships to Port" by Covenant. A lady goth gunner? An anachronistic lady goth gunner? Sure, just so I could have her in 0-G upside-down at the aft control console humming the chorus, "A choir full of longing / Will call our ships to port / The countless lonely voices / Like whispers in the dark" as the drones turn and head back towards the ship.
... while Roland is right-side-up, also using the same console to bring in other drones, quietly seething because she's so freakin' pretentious-- it's just drones, not the return of some epic colonization fleet!
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Once we got the location figured out, Feri turned out to be a good spot for excitement.
I didn't expect THE ANNIC NOVA of early Traveller fame or a large crew. I really suck at playing more than one character. I can barely play one.
But ANNIC NOVA was a cool 'feel' to the whole thing. Made me nostalgic for Classic Traveller.
Space Combat was cool and better than I could have done. The Unexploded reminded me a bit of an Amazing Stories TV episode.
Goober the Tree Kraken got into the ship while the Pinnace was refueling at the starport. The Fuel 'Bot pulled the hose out and Goober was attached to it, just the other side from where Smithe and his 'Bot was. Somehow he got into the Pinnace before take-off. Once onboard the ANNIC NOVA, he made his way by the smell of food to the Galley and snuck a piece here and there until he was found. He became the Ship's Pet.
Jon J. Smithe is a mix of 2 names of furniture stores in Chicago.
Buddy is just my thoughts on the early Robots in the movie I, Robot.
I've heard several of those songs and all of the bands. Very cool theme songs.
If you want to take over the adventures of the ANNIC NOVA, that would be cool. Smithe can take Buddy and Goober back to get his Scout/Courier and his Detached Duty service.
I didn't expect THE ANNIC NOVA of early Traveller fame or a large crew. I really suck at playing more than one character. I can barely play one.
But ANNIC NOVA was a cool 'feel' to the whole thing. Made me nostalgic for Classic Traveller.
Space Combat was cool and better than I could have done. The Unexploded reminded me a bit of an Amazing Stories TV episode.
Goober the Tree Kraken got into the ship while the Pinnace was refueling at the starport. The Fuel 'Bot pulled the hose out and Goober was attached to it, just the other side from where Smithe and his 'Bot was. Somehow he got into the Pinnace before take-off. Once onboard the ANNIC NOVA, he made his way by the smell of food to the Galley and snuck a piece here and there until he was found. He became the Ship's Pet.
Jon J. Smithe is a mix of 2 names of furniture stores in Chicago.
Buddy is just my thoughts on the early Robots in the movie I, Robot.
I've heard several of those songs and all of the bands. Very cool theme songs.
If you want to take over the adventures of the ANNIC NOVA, that would be cool. Smithe can take Buddy and Goober back to get his Scout/Courier and his Detached Duty service.
I for one would like to thank you all for this. I gave it a shot, thought “oh no, Annic Nova… really?” and then have been following ever since. A great read, and a great idea well executed. But I do wish The Pakkrat would have stuck around - what a great intro to an interesting character. Would have liked to have gotten to know that one more.
You’ve inspired a few ideas in me, let’s see if I have the courage you’ve displayed…
You’ve inspired a few ideas in me, let’s see if I have the courage you’ve displayed…
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Glad you liked it. You should definitely give it a shot. But you should probably do it in the Play-by-Post section. I think this is in the wrong folder.
Thank you for reading! I'm delighted that it worked for you too.
And I don't think I've said it yet in so many words, so I'll do it now: thank you to @The Pakkrat for contributing the character and his scenes.
Agreed -- I'm not sure you meant for it to be a play-by-post thread, despite what it became. A parallel "out-of-character" thread might have made it easier for non-participants to read, but I think it worked out well enough.
Also, I think the play-by-post section temporarily vanished in the forum platform transition, so it's for the best that you started this in the wrong place!
Feri worked well as a setting for this, especially once I realized I could mine the multiple layers of governance (and balkanized planetary government) for plot material.Once we got the location figured out, Feri turned out to be a good spot for excitement.
I didn't expect THE ANNIC NOVA of early Traveller fame or a large crew. I really suck at playing more than one character. I can barely play one.
But ANNIC NOVA was a cool 'feel' to the whole thing. Made me nostalgic for Classic Traveller.
Space Combat was cool and better than I could have done. The Unexploded reminded me a bit of an Amazing Stories TV episode.
Goober the Tree Kraken got into the ship while the Pinnace was refueling at the starport. The Fuel 'Bot pulled the hose out and Goober was attached to it, just the other side from where Smithe and his 'Bot was. Somehow he got into the Pinnace before take-off. Once onboard the ANNIC NOVA, he made his way by the smell of food to the Galley and snuck a piece here and there until he was found. He became the Ship's Pet.
Jon J. Smithe is a mix of 2 names of furniture stores in Chicago.
Buddy is just my thoughts on the early Robots in the movie I, Robot.
I've heard several of those songs and all of the bands. Very cool theme songs.
If you want to take over the adventures of the ANNIC NOVA, that would be cool. Smithe can take Buddy and Goober back to get his Scout/Courier and his Detached Duty service.
I'm pretty sure it would be easy to track the tree kraken's origin (there's the remains of Feri-native critters in its scat, which means it boarded from Feri and not one of the other worlds that the ship had visited) to clear up any doubts about the effectiveness of the decontamination efforts.
Yeah, I was casting about (no pun intended, but I'll go with it) for character names myself. I did give some thought to names for the planetside NPCs and the Dame, but after I realized I'd need more than just the engineer to make the narrative work, I got silly with the crew names.
That's a little "rougher" (or perhaps more "distressed looking") than I expected Buddy to look. I was thinking "humanoid, but reassuringly on the 'definitely a robot' side of the Uncanny Valley" rather than "really close to human-looking, but just enough 'off' that it's creepy".
You're welcome to take your characters off on their own adventures if you want (and your character's scout ship is right there! -- but you might have to go back to Scout Base Feri to do the paperwork...) It's an easy rewrite, I just need to declare that Scout Ketonic has some Astrogation skill and swap her into Jon's crew slot. [Oh, wait, that's the other character name in-joke. She's Miss Ketonic (Miskatonic) and it's a Cthulu Mythos (H. P. Lovecraft et. al.) allusion.]
I hadn't actually planned to write out the rest of the "Find the missing crew from Annic Nova" campaign. This scenario let me hit most of the "alien ship weirdness" and "how is this thing supposed to actually work?" points that I wanted to address (the minimum 8-person crew isn't quite enough!) There's still the "what would I fix about the ship if I had time and a reasonable budget?" issue, and I could develop some of the characters further. Still, as a solo project it's pushing the limits of what I want to take on.
So I'm working on the new ship with Smithe and Buddy and Goober.
I'm wondering where you got some of your rolls/checks from? You made it look easy. Like whether someone is Friendly or not. Ideas for Encounters. Where did you get all of that?
I'm wondering where you got some of your rolls/checks from? You made it look easy. Like whether someone is Friendly or not. Ideas for Encounters. Where did you get all of that?
TL;DR: Roll up something random, then keep asking "why?" and "how did it come to this?" until you've built The Big Picture as far as you need it to go.
Longer version:
I started out here working with CT rules since that's what I'm familiar with, then dragged in MgT2 where it contributed useful detail.
The reaction roll table is in LBB3 '81 p.27. I get a lot of mileage out of that.
The starship encounter tables are in LBB2 '81, p. 35.
In both cases I improvised a bit ("ok, what can I bring in as a +/-DM?"). The crowd-scene reaction roll was forced by your narrative (they're hostile and might turn violent, that'd have come from a roll of ___ , roll another task to attempt to thwart violence.) I basically just looked at the encounter table and reverse-engineered the situation (Riotous Mob results from a roll of [1,6] on the Random Person Encounters table).
The ship table is built around LBB2 and only includes ships from there so I treat it as advisory ("it says Free Trader, but what is there that's like a Free Trader that best fits this situation?") More to the point, it's an encounter table for a small-ship-universe: seeing a Broadsword is a Big Freakin' Deal when a Kinunir is a front-line battlecruiser, but decidedly "meh" when Azhanti High Lightning is a mildly-obsolete Cruiser. Still a big deal from a player-character perspective of course, but what it means for the situation is vastly different in a big-ship universe. Small ships, a Broadsword can change the balance of power in the ongoing war on Feri. Big ships, it's beefed-up security detail for someplace but not a game-changer.
And that's where I get ideas:
Someone blew up a grav taxi. Bomb? No, too simple. It's a missile. Ok, where did they obtain the missile, and who fired it? Do they have more? Why did they target the player characters, or were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time? How is the local government going to react (overreact...)?
There's a Type A Free Trader. Why is it outbound right now? (Does a Type A make sense in this system, or does it need J-2? Does where it came from have anything to do with why it's leaving now? Sure, why not?)
There's a Type Y Yacht. Who would own/use one? (Knight or so, Soc 11) Where are they from, and why would they be here? (check Travellermap and the Wiki...)
There's an SDB. That's got our name on it, doesn't it? If it's a 200-tonner out of LBB2 rules, maybe there can be a stand-up battle ending in an escape into Jumpspace. 400Td from LBB5? Can't be quite that simple, or it's going to be a total party kill. Has to be something different...
Almost every star system has a story almost pre-written in the description. Sometimes that's because there was a canon adventure set there, sometimes it's just implied by the world description. Boughene/Regina stood out as a place that didn't have much going on for it except for having a low law level, high tech level, and a class A starport. So being an open trading hub is a big part of its economy. If someone's importing high-tech weapons to Feri, that's where they come from. Then there was the Yacht encounter -- probably owned by a Knight. Boughene has ONE knight, so if they're "on the road" it's got to be for something important... but not something so urgent a J-2 ship is called for.
... and so on.
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Also, this starts with why your character (and entourage) are there in the first place.
One nifty frame for the crew of a Type S is an informal subsector survey. I can't recall where I saw it (thought it was the original Book 0 but it's not). Go to each world, verify its UWP. Geological/environmental stats won't change much if at all, and an orbital scan can confirm it. Pop, law, TL, and starport could have changed; these require checking on world and maybe some window-shopping. There's probably a payment-per-world arrangement, and you might be racing against another Scout who's surveying the same subsector...
One nifty frame for the crew of a Type S is an informal subsector survey. I can't recall where I saw it (thought it was the original Book 0 but it's not). Go to each world, verify its UWP. Geological/environmental stats won't change much if at all, and an orbital scan can confirm it. Pop, law, TL, and starport could have changed; these require checking on world and maybe some window-shopping. There's probably a payment-per-world arrangement, and you might be racing against another Scout who's surveying the same subsector...
Thanks for the great advice and ideas. I will definitely work on them.
I've already found that I don't do so well when I don't have someone to respond to. It's not that I can't create the stories - more that I just don't think to write them down. Or don't feel like typing when I get the ideas. I have to figure out how to change that.
Imperial Fringe was the Sector Survey. It took about 20 years game time. I thought if you shortened it to a Subsector reSurvey, you could add a lot of adventures along the way. A Sector Survey is daunting.
Went through my books again. Yes, it's Imperial Fringe, though I misremembered its scope.
It's basically, "Here's your Type S. You now have a reason to visit any and all worlds in the Spinward Marches. Go." Use the random encounter tables (starship and people and animals) as they come up, and there's your campaign. With the wiki it's a lot easier on the referee than it would have been back in 1981... Throw in as much or as little of canon 3I events as you want (if it really takes 20 years of game time, that runs through pretty much the entire 3I Golden Age onward) as additional inputs.
The bit about writing stories is the kicker, and at least for me I've figured out why it feels like I've hit a dead end (or at least a stopping point from which I'm not motivated to move onward) with the Annic Nova crew I've been writing for. It's the difference between logging an RPG session as narrative, and writing fiction. The dice can tell you what happened. They usually don't tell you why, though; and if it's just coming from random tables it's not telling you what it means and why it matters. Those are where creativity comes in -- either your own, or from someone else's writing (indirectly from fiction, or directly from a published scenario).
And specifically in this case, it's a different writing task. The 24-hours scenario was action (on-screen or off) and negotiation/bluffing, without a whole lot of character development. The voyage to Victoria/Lanth is going to be mostly interaction between 8 or so nominally friendly/allied characters over the course of 4 months. It's going to be all character development and not a whole lot of action.
Well, I can't wait to read it if you put it on the board. You'd find a way to make it fun.
I appreciate your confidence.
Fridge Brilliance:
I didn't realize it until recently (and long after I'd written it) that the Feri Nobility were pulling their punches. At their TL, the starport authority probably has a satellite array that can detect Jump Flashes. So, they'd know Annic Nova's actual location, give or take whatever vector the ship had carried through Jump.
But they didn't give that information to the local government, or correct them when they sent the system defense boat out on the wrong vector to take out the starship.
It might just have been about maintaining plausible deniability ("We had nothing to do with it -- if we had, they would have succeeded!"). On the other hand, they might have been trying to entrap the locals and things are now about to get real on Feri since they showed their hand. That assumes a remarkable faith in the ability of the PCs to escape, or at least a willingness to sacrifice them and the Dame from Boughene in order to advance their plans.
And, not needing a lot of thought but I'll add this for completeness: The Feri nobles can start to breathe a bit easier starting at about 7-8 weeks after these events. If the Dame had chosen to brief her travails to the authorities on Regina/Regina -- after consultation with Menorb (line of authority) and Efate (actual economic power at this end of the subsector) -- the inquiries from Regina could start arriving about then. They won't, because she kept quiet about it.
She still holds a grudge, but since Feri is a critical trading partner, is keeping that in check for now.
One other thing: the Annic Nova really needs an overhaul, since it has been a ghost ship (bouncing around on autopilot) for a while. How long depends on whether my interpretation of the wiki's description of an incident on Ylaven/Lanth (See under the spoiler in Post #78, particularly the footnote) is correct both on timing and relevance to Double Adventure 1. Might be almost a year since it's seen a shipyard, might have been a couple of decades...
I didn't realize it until recently (and long after I'd written it) that the Feri Nobility were pulling their punches. At their TL, the starport authority probably has a satellite array that can detect Jump Flashes. So, they'd know Annic Nova's actual location, give or take whatever vector the ship had carried through Jump.
But they didn't give that information to the local government, or correct them when they sent the system defense boat out on the wrong vector to take out the starship.
It might just have been about maintaining plausible deniability ("We had nothing to do with it -- if we had, they would have succeeded!"). On the other hand, they might have been trying to entrap the locals and things are now about to get real on Feri since they showed their hand. That assumes a remarkable faith in the ability of the PCs to escape, or at least a willingness to sacrifice them and the Dame from Boughene in order to advance their plans.
And, not needing a lot of thought but I'll add this for completeness: The Feri nobles can start to breathe a bit easier starting at about 7-8 weeks after these events. If the Dame had chosen to brief her travails to the authorities on Regina/Regina -- after consultation with Menorb (line of authority) and Efate (actual economic power at this end of the subsector) -- the inquiries from Regina could start arriving about then. They won't, because she kept quiet about it.
She still holds a grudge, but since Feri is a critical trading partner, is keeping that in check for now.
One other thing: the Annic Nova really needs an overhaul, since it has been a ghost ship (bouncing around on autopilot) for a while. How long depends on whether my interpretation of the wiki's description of an incident on Ylaven/Lanth (See under the spoiler in Post #78, particularly the footnote) is correct both on timing and relevance to Double Adventure 1. Might be almost a year since it's seen a shipyard, might have been a couple of decades...
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