I'm running a solitaire game through the Spinward Main, chasing the Twilight's Peak rumours. Its going very well so far, but the highlight has just been Across the Bright Face. What a brilliant solo game!
Because we are a free trader crew I had to tweak the mission a bit. Two teenage girls (the dead Arlent Streen's daughters) want off world, but first need a caseload of stocks and bonds in one of his ATVs at Medianne. My character plus 2 of my crew go along with them, get ambushed by workers at the ATV park and thus the game begins.
I liked the way 'pursuers' was a random event, the ref doesn't have to decide when to introduce them. They pursued me from Medianne, and I managed to loose them in the mountains by driving over rock. The toughest part of the journey was getting stuck in a dust pool. My 1st officer drove us in while I was sleeping, and when I took over I couldn't find a way out of a 3m deep pit in the centre of the pool. The 1st officer volunteered to go out in a suit to feel a way through the dust, and she managed that but her suit failed. It was touch and go. The PCs thought she was a goner, very tense. I managed to get the ATV out of the damn pit.
Later an avalanche buried us, smashing the visor and decompressing the ATV. None of us had Vacc skills, so choosing 3 to go out and shift rocks looked like a lottery. I went of course, one of the teenagers volunteered so did my second crewmate, a gunner. Their suits malfunctioned, one not holding air for longer than 4hrs, and the other overheating, with the teenager vomitting in her suit and passing out. But the rocks got shifted.
The characters weren't in great shape. One teenager had been shot and suffered bruising at the ATV park, the other had her head split open when the ATV hit the pit inside the dustpool. The 1st officer was wracked by guilt and exhausted from her time in the dustpool. I'd been lucky!
Getting closer to the starport and freedom now, and we it upon ATV tracks, speeding our escape across 300km (2 hexes). As if written to script, it turned out the next event was Pursuers. Putting two and two together meant I'd been following the tracks of one of my hunters! Unfortunately the three hexes before the starport were all Pursuer events, oh my god!
At the first encounter we tried a ruse, managing to sucker in the pursuers and disable their powerplant and gun with our laser and flare rockets. The next event of pursuer must have been a second ATV called in by the first. We tried a similar ruse, disabling their laser gun, but they were ready for us and wary. Our 1st officer was shot and wounded in the arm, and we were able to drive away toward the starport. With barely a couple of km lead we ran the next hex as a high speed chase that spilled into the starport as a gunfight foot chase through the terminal amongst riots and panicky citizens trying to get off-world.
I'd radioed ahead so our ship was ready to takeoff and one of the ship gunners covered our boarding with a shotgun.
And we got away ….
It was a great adventure, that, because of the dice of Destiny, was paced like a movie… I guess it doesn't always work like that though!
We had a lot of injuries, but everyone survived. I'd have hated to lose the 1st officer since she's my character's partner.
I'm wondering if any of the other Traveller scenarios would provide me with as much solitaire entertainment…?
Because we are a free trader crew I had to tweak the mission a bit. Two teenage girls (the dead Arlent Streen's daughters) want off world, but first need a caseload of stocks and bonds in one of his ATVs at Medianne. My character plus 2 of my crew go along with them, get ambushed by workers at the ATV park and thus the game begins.
I liked the way 'pursuers' was a random event, the ref doesn't have to decide when to introduce them. They pursued me from Medianne, and I managed to loose them in the mountains by driving over rock. The toughest part of the journey was getting stuck in a dust pool. My 1st officer drove us in while I was sleeping, and when I took over I couldn't find a way out of a 3m deep pit in the centre of the pool. The 1st officer volunteered to go out in a suit to feel a way through the dust, and she managed that but her suit failed. It was touch and go. The PCs thought she was a goner, very tense. I managed to get the ATV out of the damn pit.
Later an avalanche buried us, smashing the visor and decompressing the ATV. None of us had Vacc skills, so choosing 3 to go out and shift rocks looked like a lottery. I went of course, one of the teenagers volunteered so did my second crewmate, a gunner. Their suits malfunctioned, one not holding air for longer than 4hrs, and the other overheating, with the teenager vomitting in her suit and passing out. But the rocks got shifted.
The characters weren't in great shape. One teenager had been shot and suffered bruising at the ATV park, the other had her head split open when the ATV hit the pit inside the dustpool. The 1st officer was wracked by guilt and exhausted from her time in the dustpool. I'd been lucky!
Getting closer to the starport and freedom now, and we it upon ATV tracks, speeding our escape across 300km (2 hexes). As if written to script, it turned out the next event was Pursuers. Putting two and two together meant I'd been following the tracks of one of my hunters! Unfortunately the three hexes before the starport were all Pursuer events, oh my god!
At the first encounter we tried a ruse, managing to sucker in the pursuers and disable their powerplant and gun with our laser and flare rockets. The next event of pursuer must have been a second ATV called in by the first. We tried a similar ruse, disabling their laser gun, but they were ready for us and wary. Our 1st officer was shot and wounded in the arm, and we were able to drive away toward the starport. With barely a couple of km lead we ran the next hex as a high speed chase that spilled into the starport as a gunfight foot chase through the terminal amongst riots and panicky citizens trying to get off-world.
I'd radioed ahead so our ship was ready to takeoff and one of the ship gunners covered our boarding with a shotgun.
And we got away ….
It was a great adventure, that, because of the dice of Destiny, was paced like a movie… I guess it doesn't always work like that though!
We had a lot of injuries, but everyone survived. I'd have hated to lose the 1st officer since she's my character's partner.
I'm wondering if any of the other Traveller scenarios would provide me with as much solitaire entertainment…?
