tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
[Editor’s note: What follows is a transcript of a recent orientation talk given by Ty to his Traveller players. We interviewed several players who have played in many of Ty’s campaign and confirmed – off the record for fear of retaliation – that this orientation lecture was typical of his campaigns.]
Welcome to my Traveller campaign. Some of y’all have played in my campaigns before, what I’ll covering will be familiar. But you new guys need to pay attention. I intend to tell y’all exactly what kind of campaign you’ve gotten yourself into, what will be expected of you and what you can expect from me. At the end of my speechifying, if anyone wants to bail he can feel free to do so. Of course, we’ll point and laugh, but it’s a hard world.
First, let’s talk about you.
You guys are Big Damn Heroes, so act like it. You are not the bad guys. That’s me, not you. You can have a dark side, but massacring a convent full of helpless nuns will really piss me off. You can be a “reluctant Big Damn Hero” if you want, but you’d better be entertaining about it.
From time to time, you may have a “moral dilemma”. This means that you want to do something selfish and unheroic and get away with it. Well, if Mal Reynolds or Han Solo would do it, then you can probably can too. But the reverse is also true. So if you unknowingly steal the medicine destined for sick orphans, you’d better think hard about returning it, no matter how much it pisses off Corleone the Hutt.
Do the right thing, even if costs you. Hell, especially if it costs you.
Of course, a man’s gotta be realistic. But in general, confine your killin’ and thievin’ to them that deserve it and we’ll get on famously. It’s okay to forgive your enemies, but it’s also okay to shoot them dead.
Now, a few words to certain types of players.
You dark, brooding antihero types – there ain’t no Big Damn Anti-Heroes With Mood Swings in my universe. So, either get some Prozac and become a real Big Damn Hero or get the hell out of my game.
You angst-filled, navel-gazing Goth types…how the hell did you ever wind up here? What liar told you I’d put up with poseurs who are more concerned about their black nail polish than the optimum tactical use of a VRF Gauss Gun? Get out of my sight.
You drama-queens who speechify and Roleplay every little thing - the bus with the Goths has plenty of room. Bye.
Now, I encourage roleplaying. But not when it detracts from the games.
Now, some of you might object to being shoehorned into playing Big Damn Heroes. I understand…but I don’t care. See, I’m a lawyer – so I get my fill of pretentious, cowardly and selfish behavior every day. I play RPGs to escape from that crap, not to immerse myself in it.
So…what’s this campaign like?
If it's a book, it’s written by Kipling, Drake or Pournelle. It’s the Executioner, Destroyer, Co-Dominium or Casca series. It is not a Star Trek novel. It’s not the Yada Yada Sisterhood or whatever.
If it's a movie, it stars Chuck Norris, John Wayne, Sigourny Weaver, Sean Connery, and Humphrey Bogart. Directed by Sam Peckinpah and Joss Whedon. It’s Aliens, Alien, Outland, Casablanca, Tombstone, the Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai. It is not Sense and Sensibility, Thelma and Louise, Brokeback Mountain, or Steel Magnolias. It does not star Alan Alda, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Phil Donahue. It’s Full Metal Jacket, not Platoon. It’s 300, not Alexander the Great.
If a TV series, it’s Firefly or Babylon V. It’s not Star Trek: the Wimp Generation, Voyager or Enterprise. It might be Deep Space Nine or classic Star Trek on their most macho days. It is never the new Battlestar Galactica. Picard or any of the sissy-men from the new Galactica (i.e., all of them) wouldn’t last ten minutes in my campaign. Mal, Zoe, Sheridan, Ivanova, and Sisko would do fine.
If it’s food, it’s barbecue brisket and Budweiser, not tofu and wine.
So…what will you do?
You will fight desperate battles against overwhelming odds. You will often be outgunned. But you will be proud because you earned your victories and made your foe pay for his.
You won’t have time to anguish over the motivations of the bugs, because they have only one motivation – to kill you - and will be busily trying make that happen.
Things will break down. But I probably won’t arbitrarily take your stuff away. If you find a Big Damn Gun, you’ll probably get to keep it. You’ll probably need it…
Your ship is not the Enterprise-D with wall to wall carpet, touch screens, and doors that go swish. Your ship has metal decks, metal bulkheads, push¬buttons and thick metal hatches with wheels in the middle.
No antiseptic “warp drive” effortlessly whisks you about with a swoosh. Your FTL drive is a big, cranky machine with dozens of gyroscopes. It’s prone to breakdown and will turn you inside out if you get too close.
No clean, non-polluting, environmentally safe antimatter plant powers your ship. An atomic pile powers your ship and drives a nuclear thermal rocket.
Your sickbay is equipped with a bone marrow bank – ‘nuff said about reactor shielding?
If the plumbing breaks down, someone has to scrub the carbon deposits off the nuclear fuel rods with a Brillo pad. Reversing the neutrino stream doesn’t work here, Geordi.
OSHA never heard of my universe. Your ship would be right at home in a Sinclair Lewis sci-fi novel.
Guts count more than intelligence in this universe.
The universe rewards heroism, but heroes die. A lot.
So what can you expect from me?
I will be fair, but hard. If the dice decree your death, you die, unless I am in a great mood. And I'm never in a great mood. Or, unless I’m in a fair mood and you did something really cool. Maybe.
I probably won’t put you in a no-win situation, but I will cheerfully let you put yourself there.
If you die, take it in stride. Too many players equate being killed with being stupid. Not so. Brave people die. Unlucky people die. Smart people die. It happens and it’s nothing personal.
I hate cowards, unless they are really funny. Most aren't.
The risks are high, but so are the payoffs. You may achieve great things, save the galaxy, or acquire great wealth. But it ain’t easy. If you routinely run 20th level Fighter-Mage-Clerics with +5 Flaming Swords of Armageddon, you may want to, uh, lower your expectations. A lot.
Because I am hard, you will not like me. That’s okay, because I ain’t your friend. I’m the cold, pitiless universe and all those nasty things in it that want to kill you, suck out your brains, skin you alive and take all your Skittles. The only friends you got are each other…so remember that when you have the chance to sell your buddy out.
Your opponents will be tough and will act reasonably, given their capabilities and knowledge.
Many important people you meet will want to kill you. Some will be able to help you…and you need them. You’ll have to figure out the difference.
I’m a sucker for bold, dramatic actions, if done at dramatic times. So try something cool in dire circumstances. You might die, but then again, you might pull it off.
I’ll give you most of the breaks and I’ll resolve most doubts in your favor. Let’s face it, you need all the help you can get.
If you can tell me what you want your character to be, I’ll try to accommodate you.
Many of my rules can be broken without retaliation...but only if you do it in a very funny way.
TANSTAAFL.
***
I dunno. Is this a little too subtle? Have I fairly communicated the tone and expectations of this campaign. I haven't allowed concern for sensitivity to muddle the message, have I?
Welcome to my Traveller campaign. Some of y’all have played in my campaigns before, what I’ll covering will be familiar. But you new guys need to pay attention. I intend to tell y’all exactly what kind of campaign you’ve gotten yourself into, what will be expected of you and what you can expect from me. At the end of my speechifying, if anyone wants to bail he can feel free to do so. Of course, we’ll point and laugh, but it’s a hard world.
First, let’s talk about you.
You guys are Big Damn Heroes, so act like it. You are not the bad guys. That’s me, not you. You can have a dark side, but massacring a convent full of helpless nuns will really piss me off. You can be a “reluctant Big Damn Hero” if you want, but you’d better be entertaining about it.
From time to time, you may have a “moral dilemma”. This means that you want to do something selfish and unheroic and get away with it. Well, if Mal Reynolds or Han Solo would do it, then you can probably can too. But the reverse is also true. So if you unknowingly steal the medicine destined for sick orphans, you’d better think hard about returning it, no matter how much it pisses off Corleone the Hutt.
Do the right thing, even if costs you. Hell, especially if it costs you.
Of course, a man’s gotta be realistic. But in general, confine your killin’ and thievin’ to them that deserve it and we’ll get on famously. It’s okay to forgive your enemies, but it’s also okay to shoot them dead.
Now, a few words to certain types of players.
You dark, brooding antihero types – there ain’t no Big Damn Anti-Heroes With Mood Swings in my universe. So, either get some Prozac and become a real Big Damn Hero or get the hell out of my game.
You angst-filled, navel-gazing Goth types…how the hell did you ever wind up here? What liar told you I’d put up with poseurs who are more concerned about their black nail polish than the optimum tactical use of a VRF Gauss Gun? Get out of my sight.
You drama-queens who speechify and Roleplay every little thing - the bus with the Goths has plenty of room. Bye.
Now, I encourage roleplaying. But not when it detracts from the games.
Now, some of you might object to being shoehorned into playing Big Damn Heroes. I understand…but I don’t care. See, I’m a lawyer – so I get my fill of pretentious, cowardly and selfish behavior every day. I play RPGs to escape from that crap, not to immerse myself in it.
So…what’s this campaign like?
If it's a book, it’s written by Kipling, Drake or Pournelle. It’s the Executioner, Destroyer, Co-Dominium or Casca series. It is not a Star Trek novel. It’s not the Yada Yada Sisterhood or whatever.
If it's a movie, it stars Chuck Norris, John Wayne, Sigourny Weaver, Sean Connery, and Humphrey Bogart. Directed by Sam Peckinpah and Joss Whedon. It’s Aliens, Alien, Outland, Casablanca, Tombstone, the Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai. It is not Sense and Sensibility, Thelma and Louise, Brokeback Mountain, or Steel Magnolias. It does not star Alan Alda, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Phil Donahue. It’s Full Metal Jacket, not Platoon. It’s 300, not Alexander the Great.
If a TV series, it’s Firefly or Babylon V. It’s not Star Trek: the Wimp Generation, Voyager or Enterprise. It might be Deep Space Nine or classic Star Trek on their most macho days. It is never the new Battlestar Galactica. Picard or any of the sissy-men from the new Galactica (i.e., all of them) wouldn’t last ten minutes in my campaign. Mal, Zoe, Sheridan, Ivanova, and Sisko would do fine.
If it’s food, it’s barbecue brisket and Budweiser, not tofu and wine.
So…what will you do?
You will fight desperate battles against overwhelming odds. You will often be outgunned. But you will be proud because you earned your victories and made your foe pay for his.
You won’t have time to anguish over the motivations of the bugs, because they have only one motivation – to kill you - and will be busily trying make that happen.
Things will break down. But I probably won’t arbitrarily take your stuff away. If you find a Big Damn Gun, you’ll probably get to keep it. You’ll probably need it…
Your ship is not the Enterprise-D with wall to wall carpet, touch screens, and doors that go swish. Your ship has metal decks, metal bulkheads, push¬buttons and thick metal hatches with wheels in the middle.
No antiseptic “warp drive” effortlessly whisks you about with a swoosh. Your FTL drive is a big, cranky machine with dozens of gyroscopes. It’s prone to breakdown and will turn you inside out if you get too close.
No clean, non-polluting, environmentally safe antimatter plant powers your ship. An atomic pile powers your ship and drives a nuclear thermal rocket.
Your sickbay is equipped with a bone marrow bank – ‘nuff said about reactor shielding?
If the plumbing breaks down, someone has to scrub the carbon deposits off the nuclear fuel rods with a Brillo pad. Reversing the neutrino stream doesn’t work here, Geordi.
OSHA never heard of my universe. Your ship would be right at home in a Sinclair Lewis sci-fi novel.
Guts count more than intelligence in this universe.
The universe rewards heroism, but heroes die. A lot.
So what can you expect from me?
I will be fair, but hard. If the dice decree your death, you die, unless I am in a great mood. And I'm never in a great mood. Or, unless I’m in a fair mood and you did something really cool. Maybe.
I probably won’t put you in a no-win situation, but I will cheerfully let you put yourself there.
If you die, take it in stride. Too many players equate being killed with being stupid. Not so. Brave people die. Unlucky people die. Smart people die. It happens and it’s nothing personal.
I hate cowards, unless they are really funny. Most aren't.
The risks are high, but so are the payoffs. You may achieve great things, save the galaxy, or acquire great wealth. But it ain’t easy. If you routinely run 20th level Fighter-Mage-Clerics with +5 Flaming Swords of Armageddon, you may want to, uh, lower your expectations. A lot.
Because I am hard, you will not like me. That’s okay, because I ain’t your friend. I’m the cold, pitiless universe and all those nasty things in it that want to kill you, suck out your brains, skin you alive and take all your Skittles. The only friends you got are each other…so remember that when you have the chance to sell your buddy out.
Your opponents will be tough and will act reasonably, given their capabilities and knowledge.
Many important people you meet will want to kill you. Some will be able to help you…and you need them. You’ll have to figure out the difference.
I’m a sucker for bold, dramatic actions, if done at dramatic times. So try something cool in dire circumstances. You might die, but then again, you might pull it off.
I’ll give you most of the breaks and I’ll resolve most doubts in your favor. Let’s face it, you need all the help you can get.
If you can tell me what you want your character to be, I’ll try to accommodate you.
Many of my rules can be broken without retaliation...but only if you do it in a very funny way.
TANSTAAFL.
***
I dunno. Is this a little too subtle? Have I fairly communicated the tone and expectations of this campaign. I haven't allowed concern for sensitivity to muddle the message, have I?
