CT Only: A Good Introductory Adventure to CT?

[daryen]

Imperial Fringe gives you a reason to Travel. And if you start in the right subsector (cough, Regina, cough, Aramis, cough, cough), there are plenty of adventures ready to go that the Referee doesn't have to make up. You get money from the Imperial Fringe PLUS money from any other adventure on the World you visit along the way.

Like I said: a setup premise.

But you don't even need any of those other adventures unless everyone needs a break. Just starting with Regina or Aramis gives you three red zones each, for a total of six. All of which are easily accessible with your J2 scout ship. The problem is that all you are given is a map (of the entire Spinward Marches) and the UWPs. Making sense of any of it and detailing the worlds is all on the GM with no assistance or hints.

 

[Vargr Breath]

" Making sense of any of it and detailing the worlds is all on the GM with no assistance or hints."

You make that sound like a bad thing.

 

[Vargas]

Unless the encryption is specifically limited to allow breaking as needed.

This gets into that realm of the Clipper chip in the 90s; folks won't accept a government reading it's mail. And a government looks really bad doing so and will likely not want to go out of its way to apper such. (The Solomani are an exception). Folks will also figure out some kind of end around. I'm guessing there are a whole lot of banned websites in China that get accessed everyday. And there's stenography. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography). Use a one time pad, the most secure crypto there is, and bury your content in an innocuous letter or business report. The best you can do is track the metadata used to route the mail.

Last, limited encryption that is breakable isn't just breakable by a government, there are a whole lot of people that'll take up the challenge for funsies. A friend once pointed out that AES is probably one of the most tested algorithms ever because there is a world of people trying to defeat it.

Now, in a game setting, obviously, do whatever works for you. Heck, an adventure can revolve around getting access to a computer with enough horsepower to "crack" it.

 

[daryen]

" Making sense of any of it and detailing the worlds is all on the GM with no assistance or hints."

You make that sound like a bad thing.

Definitely not a bad thing. However ... for a first time experience that is a LOT of effort required of someone who is just learning the game.

In the case of the actual presentation of Imperial Fringe, it can be quite daunting. It came as part of the deluxe boxed set, including Books 1-3 and a color map of the Spinward Marches. The only setting information available in the box was the color map and the extremely long list of UWPs provided in Imperial Fringe. It is a very tall task to ask of a first-time referee to make up the entire setting based on only that map and those UWPs.

Now, if they had included the actual "adventure" information of Imperial Fringe within The Traveller Book as a basic setup and limited the scope to just the red (and maybe amber) zones in the Regina subsector, that becomes way more reasonable. Every world has a one-paragraph tidbit and there is context for the subsector as a whole. It is a much more limited scope effort of just three (or five if you include the amber zones) and at the end they still end up with the use of the scout ship. Yes, the referee still has to make everything up, but the scope is much more reasonable, and there is other information to help give the referee inspiration besides naked UWPs.

 

[mike wightman]

Death Station - I know I posted this a few pages/years [eek - almost a decade] ago but...

it is now free, and has been for a while, thanks to the folks at Mongoose.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[kilemall]

This gets into that realm of the Clipper chip in the 90s; folks won't accept a government reading it's mail. And a government looks really bad doing so and will likely not want to go out of its way to apper such. (The Solomani are an exception). Folks will also figure out some kind of end around. I'm guessing there are a whole lot of banned websites in China that get accessed everyday. And there's stenography. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography). Use a one time pad, the most secure crypto there is, and bury your content in an innocuous letter or business report. The best you can do is track the metadata used to route the mail.

Last, limited encryption that is breakable isn't just breakable by a government, there are a whole lot of people that'll take up the challenge for funsies. A friend once pointed out that AES is probably one of the most tested algorithms ever because there is a world of people trying to defeat it.

Now, in a game setting, obviously, do whatever works for you. Heck, an adventure can revolve around getting access to a computer with enough horsepower to "crack" it.

There is also the relative horsepower between TLs- quantum computers will likely make modern encryption near real time crackable.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Definitely not a bad thing. However ... for a first time experience that is a LOT of effort required of someone who is just learning the game.

In the case of the actual presentation of Imperial Fringe, it can be quite daunting. It came as part of the deluxe boxed set, including Books 1-3 and a color map of the Spinward Marches. The only setting information available in the box was the color map and the extremely long list of UWPs provided in Imperial Fringe. It is a very tall task to ask of a first-time referee to make up the entire setting based on only that map and those UWPs.

Now, if they had included the actual "adventure" information of Imperial Fringe within The Traveller Book as a basic setup and limited the scope to just the red (and maybe amber) zones in the Regina subsector, that becomes way more reasonable. Every world has a one-paragraph tidbit and there is context for the subsector as a whole. It is a much more limited scope effort of just three (or five if you include the amber zones) and at the end they still end up with the use of the scout ship. Yes, the referee still has to make everything up, but the scope is much more reasonable, and there is other information to help give the referee inspiration besides naked UWPs.

I guess a lot of -"a good introductory game", depends on if it's introductory to just the players, or also the referee. A good referee who knows Traveller can go a long way with just bare UWPs. A good introductory game for new players should not overwhelm them with new ideas, giving them time to learn the system, and then hooking them so they want to do more.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Now, if they had included the actual "adventure" information of Imperial Fringe within The Traveller Book as a basic setup and limited the scope to just the red (and maybe amber) zones in the Regina subsector, that becomes way more reasonable. Every world has a one-paragraph tidbit and there is context for the subsector as a whole.

It is easy to overlook that neither the wiki nor Travellermap existed then.
The source texts for them sometimes did, but weren't free and might not have been available everywhere.

With them, A0 is much more viable as a "starter" campaign than it would have been when originally published.

 

[Vargas]

There is also the relative horsepower between TLs- quantum computers will likely make modern encryption near real time crackable.

Quantum computing is good against some algorithms, asymmetric ones like RSA, but is no better at symmetric ones, like AES, than current computers. Sorry, it's an area of interest to me.

See link for background: https://josephsteinberg.com/which-types-of-encryption-will-remain-secure-as-quantum-computing-develops-and-which-popular-ones-will-not/

Always, always, always, don't let the real world interfere with your gaming if you and your players don't want it to!

 

[Spinward Scout]

Making sense of any of it and detailing the worlds is all on the GM with no assistance or hints.

There's a ton of tools out there for a new Referee.

Traveller Map

Explanator

Travel Time Calculator

UWP decoder - Traveller Tools II

Classic Traveller: Making a World from the Universal World Profile

The modern Mongoose stuff is great, too!

Behind the Claw

Bu and Embla’s Guide to Starports of the Marches

There's a lot to help.

 

[Grav_Moped]

There's a ton of tools out there for a new Referee.

Traveller Map

Explanator

Travel Time Calculator

UWP decoder - Traveller Tools II

Classic Traveller: Making a World from the Universal World Profile

The modern Mongoose stuff is great, too!

Behind the Claw

Bu and Embla’s Guide to Starports of the Marches

There's a lot to help.

Now, there is. Some of it is even free! But you need it know where to look for it, and even that exists to be looked for.