Hello, I'm somewhat new to the system (having never played it before) and was thinking of running Chamax Plague with some of my friends and was wondering if anybody had any tips or suggestions for me?
Chamax Plague is a good, if brutal, introduction to
Traveller. After more than 30 years the deadly nature of
Traveller combat still makes the game different from most RPGs and combat against the Chamax should get that point across to your players rather quickly.
1. how long will this adventure probably take, will it probably take more than one session.
You can easily do it in one session. I've done so at game nights. I usually drop the rescue of the survivor aboard the pinnace and make it part of the back story; i.e. it's something the players are told about when they're hired to take the rescue party to the planet.
2. how many players does it work best with?
Four to six
with NPC redshirts. As Robject suggests, the worried fiance Cal Yotisk is a perfect tool for you as the GM to quickly "teach" the players about the dangers associated with the Chamax.
3. I was thinking of recommending to the players that they watch the first two alien movies and possibly starship troopers to get them in the feel of things. Is this a good idea and if so anybody have any other suggestions as to media to direct them to?
That's a bad idea. First, other than the original
Alien movie, those movies involve
military personnel. The PCs in
Chamax are not marines or mobile infantry, they're a free trader crew. They're armed as a free trader crew and not as marines or mobile infantry.
Second, your players are going to come away from the movies with preconceptions about how to "handle" the Chamax. The Chamax are not the Aliens or the Bugs from those movies. The Chamax work differently, act differently, and present different dangers than the Aliens or the Bugs. You want your players to react to what you're telling and showing them about the Chamax and not to make assumptions based on what they've seen in movies featuring Aliens and Bugs.
Case in point: At a convention I watched players tie themselves up in knots because of preconceptions. There's a published
2300AD adventures dealing with what seem to be vampires. The "vampires" are actually victims of a bio-terrorist plot, but a lifetime of preconceptions from books, television, and movies about vampires had the players leaping to unsupported conclusions, ignoring what the GM was telling/showing them, and generally wasting their time. The session was very disappointing because the players' preconceptions had them acting as if it was a
Vampire: The Masquerade game rather than
2300AD.
Finally, it was during a
Chamax Plague session that I as a GM was the most surprised by my players' actions. After a failed attempt to enter the grounded subsidized merchant/lab ship, the players used their ship's sandcaster to blast a huge number of Chamax into a thin gruel.
However you decide to run things, you're sure to have fun. Please let us know how it turns out.
