Guiding the players to the adventure

[Leitz]

Maybe an NPC movie crew offers MCr 1 to use the ship and AR as a prop for an upcoming block-buster?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Maybe an NPC movie crew offers MCr 1 to use the ship and AR as a prop for an upcoming block-buster?

57th century? Or three decades ago?

 

[Lord Iron Wolf]

A few things come to mind.

Starships: during a week in port refuel & refit are done to keep the ship running smoothly. Even frontier ships like scouts and far traders need this care. Plus faster service means higher cost.

Pirate raids on isolated communities. Starships coming down outside the star port are suspicious and the police/local armed forces are heavily armed and jumpy when they fly in to investigate.

Smuggling is suspected with the characters bringing in contraband and/or avoiding taxes. The ship will be impounded until the investigation is finished. (Not a quick process!)

Ship's weapons are heavier than many local forces can muster. Local settlements can be ravaged before any response can be effected.

No decontamination wash to keep a xeno-parasite, fungus, pathogen from ravaging the local ecology/population.

Air Raft: fog and low cloud cover, aerial predators, jungle & forest canopies hiding ground features, boots on the ground type missions, interactions with locals needed.

Air rafts are delicate and you can't sleep on them. ATV's are mobile, armored camps in hostile wilderness or situations.

These are just a few ideas to make an ATV the best choice. Just set things up so the ATV is optimal.

 

[creativehum]

How do you encourage PCs to use an ATV to get to the adventure site (and this have those nifty animal encounters and such)...

I wanted to address this particular point, because I think it's an interesting topic.

In my view, and I only just realized this thinking about it, the animal encounters don't matter until they can matter.

That is, if the PCs can fly over the landscape in an air/raft and avoid animal encounters -- good for them! That's what an air/raft is for and if they have one they should be using it to do just that.

The animal encounters are there for when the the PCs might encounter animals. Sometimes the PCs will be in circumstances where they can dodge the animals, and other times they cannot. And that is fine.

For example, even if the PCs have an air/raft to travel to a destination it can be lost, stolen, damaged, and whatnot while they are out in the wilds. I'm not saying the Referee should work to make this happen, by the way, so he can bring the Animal Encounter tables into play. I'm saying that in course of circumstances it might come to pass that that the PCs no longer have the air/raft available to them. In this case the Animal Tables come out.

i know you are using Classic Traveller, and I think one of the brilliant things about Classic Traveller is that it provides the Referee with an incredible set of tools to support his imagination during play. But there will be times when certain tools will have greater impact than others. But when you need them ("Guys, the air/raft is shot... we're going to have to hoof it back to that last town and see if they have the parts we need...") then you have them.

Keep in mind as well that many of the encounters are flying creatures, some of which might cause a PC party trouble.

And finally (and I think I mentioned this over at the Classic Traveller G+ thread) but an Encounter doesn't have to mean "attacks the party." If an encounter is rolled while the PCs are flying over the landscape they might see a beast making its way to an unaware miner's camp, attacking a convoy, or pursuing some aborigines of the planet. In any of these cases the PCs now have a choice to get involved. In all of these case they now know something more about that the world (there are miners, there are caravans, there are aborigines) as well as a look at some of the beasts that dwell upon it.

I know Frank has seen them, but here is a post called What We Mean When We Say “Encounter” on my blog about this matter. And here is another post called More On the Value of Tables, Improvisation, and Lack of Plot which discusses how the tables of Classic Traveller help the Referee generate content on the fly -- which in turn generates adventure on the fly. (It includes ideas from Mike Wightman's posts here on COTI.)

 

[atpollard]

I like the little things in life. The open top air raft being one of them. So what about when there is an overcast sky and it starts to drizzle. The old man sitting on the porch removes his pipe and casually comments "supposed to rain on and off all day."

The characters are soaked to the bone and shivering slightly as they finish loading supplies into the air raft. One of the NPCs suggests "Maybe we should take the ATV and drive."

Every day isn't warm and sunny with a gentle breeze ... even here in Florida!

[Sometimes its those darn swarming insects ... open your mouth to say something in an air raft and you swallow a bug.]

 

[ffilz]

I wanted to address this particular point, because I think it's an interesting topic.

In my view, and I only just realized this thinking about it, the animal encounters don't matter until they can matter.

As usual with all the times I stumble on how to work something in Traveller, some reflection and maybe prodding from others makes me realize that it really isn't a stumbling block...

So yea, the animal encounters tables are a tool, one of many, and a major point is that they remind the Traveller GM that adventure may lie in a simple animal encounter, that blasters and space ships are not the entirety of play.

Frank

 

[ffilz]

A few things come to mind.

Starships: during a week in port refuel & refit are done to keep the ship running smoothly. Even frontier ships like scouts and far traders need this care. Plus faster service means higher cost.

Pirate raids on isolated communities. Starships coming down outside the star port are suspicious and the police/local armed forces are heavily armed and jumpy when they fly in to investigate.

Smuggling is suspected with the characters bringing in contraband and/or avoiding taxes. The ship will be impounded until the investigation is finished. (Not a quick process!)

Ship's weapons are heavier than many local forces can muster. Local settlements can be ravaged before any response can be effected.

No decontamination wash to keep a xeno-parasite, fungus, pathogen from ravaging the local ecology/population.

Air Raft: fog and low cloud cover, aerial predators, jungle & forest canopies hiding ground features, boots on the ground type missions, interactions with locals needed.

Air rafts are delicate and you can't sleep on them. ATV's are mobile, armored camps in hostile wilderness or situations.

These are just a few ideas to make an ATV the best choice. Just set things up so the ATV is optimal.

Several good ideas there. I will consider some of them to set up more reason why it's a good idea to use the star port. Sure, sometimes players will decide to take the risks, and sometimes they will want to visit that world with no starport (Class X). In that case, a wilderness landing will be their only option.

Frank

 

[creativehum]

As usual with all the times I stumble on how to work something in Traveller, some reflection and maybe prodding from others makes me realize that it really isn't a stumbling block...

So yea, the animal encounters tables are a tool, one of many, and a major point is that they remind the Traveller GM that adventure may lie in a simple animal encounter, that blasters and space ships are not the entirety of play.

Frank

It's kind of an echo of how I misread the Classic Traveller rules years ago:

I saw a skill description for Vacc Suit, for example, and thought "Oh, my job as Referee is to provide situations where the Players get to use their Vacc suit skill." But that just froze me up because then my job was about moving the Players from die roll to die roll to use their specific skills.

But that wasn't the right of it at all. The job of the Referee is to provide obstacles and situations, and that will often tumble to situations, and those situations will often entail using skills (though sometimes not) for Throws.

The point of the Vacc Suit skill description isn't to make sure to have Vacc suit skill rolls. The point of the Vacc Suit skill description is to have the Vacc Suit skill available for use when it is appropriate.

Other parts of the text make this clear. But if we focus too much on one passage of Classic Traveller we think the game is about that thing.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

It's kind of an echo of how I misread the Classic Traveller rules years ago:

I saw a skill description for Vacc Suit, for example, and thought "Oh, my job as Referee is to provide situations where the Players get to use their Vacc suit skill." But that just froze me up because then my job was about moving the Players from die roll to die roll to use their specific skills.

But that wasn't the right of it at all. The job of the Referee is to provide obstacles and situations, and that will often tumble to situations, and those situations will often entail using skills (though sometimes not) for Throws.

The point of the Vacc Suit skill description isn't to make sure to have Vacc suit skill rolls. The point of the Vacc Suit skill description is to have the Vacc Suit skill available for use when it is appropriate.

Other parts of the text make this clear. But if we focus too much on one passage of Classic Traveller we think the game is about that thing.

I remember those games. Bingo-style play. Lot's of dice rolling. Lots.

Now, in a 4-hour session I'm in, dice might be used 4 or 5 times for tension. Dice rolling shouldn't be just for rolling sake.

 

[Spinward Scout]

57th century? Or three decades ago?

"In space, no one can hear you play Traveller"?