Home made stuff for RC.

[Dunia]

I am having a little problem: Since I bought TNE book in 1993/94 I have played/Refereed with my group (which, by a miracle, still hangs on now 14 years later)almost once every week and it is quite understandable that I am running out of ideas.

So if anyone would like to give me ideas how to push the timeline on, by sending me ideas from your own campaigns, I would be quite happy.

Currently, my players have left the RCES after 5 long years and started up two corporations, the first is a library (jumpstart project) that has opened up offices on all RC worlds, and three worlds that are under boootstrap. The other is a travel agency where they offer cheap travel throughout RC worlds as well as adventure trips for those who wish excitement in their lives (much as the thought with Safari Ships in Mega Traveller).

I am interested in almost anything.

 

[Gallowglacht]

Hard to suggest stuff as I don't know your players of how the campaign has gone or even their interests, and I assume in that time they have covered more than the players in my 3 campaigns. The stuff I do depends on what captures the players imaginations most, and the 3 groups have been different.

Apart from the standard stuff, I have used, forshadowed or will introduce any of the following; (Donnacha, Jenny, Morgan, Emma, Seamus, Bozzie and Finn stop reading......)

Cybernetically adapted third Imperial Marines hunting for new Virus strains in "far expeditions" of paired black-globe hidden ships;
Crichton a Virus from the bard site that is interested in genetics and plagues;
Clues that the Hivers didn't fall as far as they already had weaponised Virus and infact released some on the Solomani when they seemed to be recovering;
Independant minded Ithklur looking for human allies. Who speak French;
Tau like aliens nurtured by a mother/god strain Virus;
Killed off Sandman and introduced his 4 children instead. Far less clean cut, some resentful of humans, changed from too-easy acceptance of Sandman to far muddier water, 2 fled promise and want nothing to do with Coalition;
Made Oriflamme a bit more 3 dimensional, played up politics and teritorial pissing in Coalition;
Beefed up Soleeans, had them claim a link to Margarets Imperium and contact with a terrorist group on Oriflamme, who claim the same (and for there to be a link);
Know very little about "Children of Earth" and "Gabrielism" so made up stuff because I liked the names. The fact that the players ship used to be called Gabriel may or may not be a connection;
Guild captain who claimed to own the ex-Gabriel (now "Sword of Reason" a name I love. Much better than the "skylark" the other runner when the players where naming it);
An Ayanshi psychic who claimed to be able to predict probability by watching how a set of small ceremonial sticks fell (really messed with the players);
A Belter station that might serve as a base for PC operations if they want to take part in 'flammer expansion to the coreward of the Coalition (and the Hivers who don't want them there);
And some experience and contacts trading, if the players want to trade in the growing "safe zone" created by the RC. Plan to introduce new RC designs to contrast to the older classics, like a normal taders game;
A couple of "finders" that might them rich enough to build a ship capable of taking the Imperial Remnant back home to the Marches, if they wish.

What happens next depends on what the players want. They have been nudged around the Coalition and introduced to the elements that "make" TNE and different areas where different parts are emphasised, so wherever they go I have stuff ready to go, and that is the element concentrated on. And if that means they go away from one of the "hooks" that just gives me some NPC's with interesting tales to sare over a beer and a re-run of 2001, and the feeling that the Coalition is a real world where stuff happens even if the characters are not directly related.

Umm...in other words, it depends.

 

[jcrocker]

That is a great list! Thanks for sharing it.

 

[Gallowglacht]

No problem, thanks for the comp.

There is a typo or two. It should say that these are all from the current campaign. I also mix things up to keep them fresh. For example sometimes the Droyne are the ancients, sometimes the Geonee or Solomani. Sometimes the Hivers are long-sighted genuine helpers, other times they are the baddies, who are taking advantage so they can expand and "nurture" all of Humaniti (so still good guys to themselves). Sometimes K'Kree are reptilian, Ithklur changed to Kafers, Aslan "defelinated" (unless I go Solomani Ancient, in which case they are uplifts in denial).....

Finding out the secrets of the Universe is more fun if they arn't always the same.

 

[Dunia]

Thank you, mind if I steal a few things?

 

[Gallowglacht]

Ta failte roimh agat, please do take what you like.

How far did you get with Virus integration into the RC? I'm not yet sure how to go about it. My current plan it to drag them back to Aubine to talk before/be questioned by the hall of worlds. Flesh out some senators and parties, have them meet characters in private, and see how the players go about convincing the RC what to do in a way that doesn't drive Centrists and Federalists to loggerheads. The players actions on Promise, knowledge of Sandman strains and pressure from Solee should give them some influence.

Sudden thought, what is the name of the library and the characters who set it up? In case I feel like introducing it.

 

[Golan2072]

A few more ideas:

1) Let the RC internal politics develop. As the time goes by and the RC becomes more powerful, corruption and cynicism might be as much of a threat to the RC as pirates, violent neighbors and even the Virus. With too few ships for good communications and an ever-increasing comm-lag (as the RC grows and expands), some of the less ethical RCES or RCN captains might be tempted to do very, very bad things - knowing that they could easily get away with them. A rare democracy in the Wilds might be tagged as a dangerous TED (and then toppled by the RCES) for not agreeing to the local RC captain's trade terms; and TEDs who play along and trade at RC-favorable prices (or who bribe the right RC official) might be allowed to stay in power, oppress their population and harass their neighbors. The profits involved are enormous and so is the temptation. Other RCES captains, while consider themselves to be doing the right thing, might fall into very cynical actions after several harsh years on the frontier. This provides almost endless possibilities for a political campaign or even an RCES Internal Affairs Division campaign.

2) The Solomani might be up to no good. If you're using 1248, you could deal with advanced scouts and agents of the Second Rule of Man; in a non-1248 setting these would be similar agents of resurgent Solomani Hardliners. These agents would be attempting to manipulate TEDs towards a pro-Solomani stance, or to install Solomani Hardliner-type governments instead of these TEDs. Some of these agents might also be looking for high-tech salvage and/or Ancients artifacts...

 

[Scott Martin]

You should also look into some "Classic" SF like H Beam Piper - a lot of the TNE stuff is almost a direct take from his works ("Star Viking" published in 1962 for example - you'll note that the "Sword Worlds" (with appropriate world names) are present in that book, which predates Traveller by more than a decade...)

Good stuff for "bootstrapping" competitors to the RCES and some good politics for making the RCES degenerate if you so choose...

A link to downloadable books, some of which are *not* on project gutenberg
http://manybooks.net/authors/piperh.html

Scott Martin

 

[Badbru]

In one campaign I allmost had an RC civil war. The canon stuff written about the Soleans and the obvious war that was brewing with them was repugnant to the more "Dawn League" oriented members of the coallition, whose original goal was to return humanity to the stars. Thus opposition grew to the war along the lines of; we pledged to bring humanity back to the stars and what do we do when we first encounter another starfaring group? we go to war with them! insanity, vs the the Hawks faction allready represented in the books and Challenge mags material. It would have also incorporated all the Aubaine // Orriflamme tensions and mostly boiled down into an Aubaine v Orriflamme contest but not quite that simplistic. Ofcourse I was watching alot of Babylon5 at the time too

 

[Dunia]

Ta failte roimh agat, please do take what you like.

Thank you.

How far did you get with Virus integration into the RC? I'm not yet sure how to go about it. My current plan it to drag them back to Aubine to talk before/be questioned by the hall of worlds. Flesh out some senators and parties, have them meet characters in private, and see how the players go about convincing the RC what to do in a way that doesn't drive Centrists and Federalists to loggerheads. The players actions on Promise, knowledge of Sandman strains and pressure from Solee should give them some influence.

I did just that, the players were rushed to Aubaine in total secrecy together with "sandman" whom I did rename, as sandman is makes people think of the comic book series by neil gaiman.

Then they were severely debriefed and was taken before the Assembly of worlds, where I supprised my players. They thought it were going to be a centrist vs federalist verbal combat about this. Instead I made most Oriflammen agreeing with the Aubaini that the virus should be destroyed, Promise city nuked from orbit and relocate the resistance to the RC.
Some oriflammen oined with the Eos and fijan representatives and held a line that it would be bloody murder if the RC did something like this and that the RC should try to listen to the AI Cym. Other representatives had their own agendas.

Then it was up to the players to use their diplomatic skills to do what they thought would be the best choice. Strangely, they chose to go along the line that AI-Cyms are living beings and after Op Cosmic Fire the RC cant afford to wipe out a race, just because some of that race are murderers, then the humans of the RC should be convicted as murderers themselves.

Sudden thought, what is the name of the library and the characters who set it up? In case I feel like introducing it.

COALINFONET, CLASS: NEWSREPORT, DISTRIBUTION: PUSH, AUTHORITY CIN/RCSA DIRECTORS OFFICE AUBAINE (0738/AUBAINE, A78A884-C), 17/V/1205
KEYWORDS: LIBRARY OF KNOWLEDGE, RCSA, LIBRARY DATA, , PhD JENNY WAYNEST, PROFESSOR JANOV PELORAT, PROFESSOR DAWN SILAAN, NICOSIA

The Reformation Coalition Service Administration is very pleased to announce the foudation of a new era of the Reformation Coalition as the Library of Knowledge stands complete on Nicosia. This will be the centre of all the shared knowledge of the worlds of the Reformation Coalition, in order to prevent another collapse of the society in the future.
The initiative to build the Library, as it is locally known as, came from professor Dawn Silaan, of Selene University (Eos), professor Janov Pelorat of Brussman College of Trade and Economics (Aubaine) and Lady Jenny Waynest, PhD of the Hiver Technological Academy of Aubaine. Professor Pelorat was chosen to be the Head of the Library and rumours have floated that professor Silaan has been asked to serve as General Secretay Maggars personal science advisor.

In a press conference this morning at the Library on the island of Salini (just east of Maldaa City, Nicosia), professor Pelorat exressed his enthusiam about the future of the Library project: After 75 years of sitting dirtside, we have once again been given the stars, but even the sharpest minds forget things after this time. This is where the library comes in. Here we will gather as much information that we have to prevenet the civilization to fall into the dust again.
Lady Jenny Waynest continued: It is our goal that every memberworld will accept to have a Library in their system for a small anual fee. This fee will be used to train librarians, maintain the facilities and expand the level of knowledge Coalition-wide so that the next generation will not have to go through all that we have gone.
Professor Pelorat continued: The Library here on Nicosia was never meant to be the only one, we are not out to hold a dominance over information. Instead we were hoping that all worlds of the Coalition would like to fund libraries of their own so that it will be impossible that our knowledge dies, should one world fall. There are two main reasons why the first Library was built here on Nicosia and those are that His Eseemed Speaker, Limmian Poyentes, head of the Republic of Maldaar and the Church of the Galactic Spirit gave us this island to aid him and his people to once again reach the stars and become a part of the Reformatio Coalition, and two - we are scholars and we wished to avoid any allegiance with either the federalist or centrist block as a statement that the Library is unalligned politically.

Acording to professor Silaan, in transit from Nicosia to Aubaine: The Library will be a place where all information of technology, history, physical as well as sociological science and medicine will be stored. And it is our goal that it will contain everything from the technological blueprints of gravitic matrix technology to simple tourist information about the worlds and systems of the Reformation Coalition.

 

[IUnknown]

I have a group that is just starting up again after 10 years of no playing... anyway, I'm using the TNE rules but setting it back in the early interstellar wars and avoiding the whole virus thing.

 

[Jame]

I'm interested, in an off-and-on sense, in running a TNE campaign. Dunno if I'll ever get to it; my group is in an MT pre-Rebellion campaign (I may talk to the referee about using the TNE setting and either the MT rules or the new MGT rules), but this stuff is interesting. There is one problem: I only have the core rules book and have little idea what's going on after the campaign is able to begin.

So, I'm asking: (1.) do you guys mind if I take some of this, and (2.) what TNE books should I look for to advance my campaign, once I get enough energy and, more importantly, money to get them?

 

[jcrocker]

Path of Tears is a must - enough for many missions, and even several campaigns if you work a little at it. If you're on a budget and can only get one book, that is the one I'd recommend as your next step.

Of course, I think almost all of them are good - skip the book of NPCs unless you can find it for $5 or maybe $10.

Or if you want something with almost no prep work, go with Smash and Grab, several adventures ready to go.