How would you set up a Spinward Marches campaign?

[Poppyseed45]

Our old campaign ended this past weekend and as the primary GM, I'm thinking on the next campaign. I've given the group two choice, one of which is Classic Traveller. I've got the Spinward Marches supplement, and I'm entranced with the thing and want to use it. I'm also planning to use the 3I, because I'm lazy and don't mind having the setting assumptions already baked in the rules.

Also, Trav strikes me as the game originally built for sandboxes, that is, you give the players a nudge in a direction or two at the start, and watch them go, with their own plans eventually becoming the focus, rather than a "plot" by the GM.

With that in mind, how do you build your Traveller campaign? How do you run it? Random Patron rolls and animal encounter tables? Overarcing plot? Assume that I'm going to run the "traders in space" campaign. How do you start such a thing? Or do you skip that and have some sort of "mission" setup? Or what?

 

[Gray Pennell]

If your players are good with the sandbox approach I would just make tons of Patrons, worlds and NPCs then let life just take its course as they trade across the Marches. Now I would think of some nice stories to get them into trouble. What about competition, maybe some pirates, how about smugglers or a noble with a beef against the pcs.

 

[Poppyseed45]

Well, I actually have no idea how they will react to the sandbox thing, but that's what I want to do. And your idea is pretty good - mostly, gotta set up some patrons and other npcs to occasionally start trouble. It's good.

Which sector would you start in, for that matter? Glisten? Regina?

 

[Gray Pennell]

I am a fan of Five Sisters because its a backwater subsector where trouble can take place. The problem with the subsector is that the worlds are far apart and a jump 3 ship is really needed. The best players get at the start is jump 2. For my spy campaign I loaned them a jump 3. Speaking of jumps one thing to keep in mind when you run traveller time matters especially when its a trading campaign.

Players will spend a week in space and than upwards of a week maneuvering to a source of fuel than refueling before going back into jump space. Most of you adventure will take place while the ship is being refueled so you really just have to fill a week and move them on. The week in jump space can be handled easily with the you jump and your there. I have tried to use jump time to build character backgrounds. I have players practice skills and one random player (I roll) shares a background story. This is great for players who like to do backgrounds sucks for players who dont care.

 

[rancke]

With that in mind, how do you build your Traveller campaign? How do you run it? Random Patron rolls and animal encounter tables? Overarcing plot? Assume that I'm going to run the "traders in space" campaign. How do you start such a thing? Or do you skip that and have some sort of "mission" setup? Or what?

Mongoose has just reissued The Traveller Adventure. I haven't seen it myself, but I have the original, and it is a very good campaign (as long as you can come up with a plausible reason for the frankly unbelievable way the PCs decide to commit a major crime on behalf of a chance-met stranger).

If you want to take advantage of work done by others over the years, you could do worse than get a sunscription to JTAS Online (only $20 for a 2-year subscription) and start in Regina subsector. There are a lot of adventures, amber zones, and setting material to be found there. (I wrote some of them myself, so I'm biased, but I think there's a lot of good stuff to be used directly or mined for ideas).

There is even an introductory campaign aimed at both referees and players that are unfamiliar with the 3rd Imperium setting, but it is set in a single spot (Regina Startown) to prevent information overload until people have grown used to the setting. The campaign is in the form of about a dozen different articles. To find them all, just search for 'Regina Startown'.

I have occasionally thought about organizing a companion campaign based on a free trader, but there are so many other things to do.


Hans

 

[Old_Dr_Skull]

I've just started a Spinward Marches campaign in the last month, so I can answer this one in the concrete.

I picked a world more or less at random to start. It ended up being SKULL in the Lanth subsector, because I liked the name. For the first adventure, I went to the Drudge Report website on a given day and picked out the 4 most outlandish headlines and weaved them together into an adventure fitted to Skull's local conditions.

I also found an adventure I liked over at Freelance Traveller, called "Dismal Luck". I had to move it from the Solomani Rim to the Spinward Marches, and found that Heroni in the Rhylanor Subsector fit the bill. I used a few patron encounters to move the players from Skull to Rhylanor, and the adventure itself got them to Heroni.

Finally, I decided to have a evil mastermind behind many of the adventures, and created a supervillian based on Fu Manchu to be the ultimate enemy

 

[shield]

District 268 is a good beyond the frontier region. If you can get hold of them the CT box sets Tarsus and Beltstrike are excellent. The Traveller adventure is also excellent - either the original or the new Mongoose version.

You could also try the Spinward Encounters by mongoose. It has patron encounters for every subsector of the marches + 16 longer amber zone.

Cheers
Richard

 

[kafka47]

District 268 is a good beyond the frontier region. If you can get hold of them the CT box sets Tarsus and Beltstrike are excellent. The Traveller adventure is also excellent - either the original or the new Mongoose version.

You could also try the Spinward Encounters by mongoose. It has patron encounters for every subsector of the marches + 16 longer amber zone.

Cheers
Richard

Ditto the Spinward Encounters.

But, when I did the Spinward Marches Campaign, I was influenced by T2000 of demobilized soldiers trying to make their way home from crate city. So, the whole T2000 that takes them from Europe to America and back again fit really well with the metaplot of SMC.

 

[shield]

Yes a perioidic mustering out is a good way to get PCs with former imperial service together. They get mustered out on the same day, at some base in the back of beyond.

That could be a good detached duty scout mission. Recall a scout and his ship to transport a bunch of people who have mustered out to a world on the xboat route where they can get transport home.

 

[Hyphen]

I've got the Spinward Marches supplement...

Which one?

Pick from:
- Supplement 3: The Spinward Marches
- The Spinward Marches Campaign
- TNE: The Regency Sourcebook - Keepers of the Flame
- GURPS Traveller: Behind the Claw: The Spinward Marches Sourcebook
- The Spinward Marches (Mongoose Traveller)



OK, now for a better response. I'd say, first pick what "theme" you want for your campaign. AFAIKT, the standard ones are:
(a) no starship - good if you want to get them used to the setting, and have them contained rther than running around without you having to keep "rezzing" the universe before their eyes;
(b) scout-ship based - Adv 0 stuff, general explore with hazy "surveying" role driving the movement;
(c) merchants ship, usu. tramp (free) trader but sometimes a far or even deep trader - think Firefly;
(d) small starmerc band - for gung-ho types who haven't yet learned how lethal Trav combat can be...

Within this there comes the other "flavour": do you want:
(a) a to be stuck one one world - well, it's a pretty big place, just lookat the Earth^k^k^k I should say, _Terra_ for an example of how big;
(b) a hub-and-spoke campaign, with one world as a base and adventures radiating out from there;
(c) a there-and-back again campaign, like the whole Trav Digest story arc (but travel back and forth along the Spinward Main willl do);
...and I can't remember the others (this was back in _Challenge 27_ or so, still packed away somewhere... anyone else have it handy?

Then when you get down to individual scenarios, you can use the classic (and yes, I mean CT) Basics - Push - Pull - Gimick - Enigma framework, with (my recommendation) it broken into DGP's "nugget" format for a storyline (just make sure you have red herrings, sidetracks, and branches - real player choice - built in).

Have fun storming the castle!

 

[Poppyseed45]

Which one?

Pick from:
- Supplement 3: The Spinward Marches

Why, the only one that matters, comrade?

In any case, thanks all for the advice so far. Just trying to get my head wrapped around subsectors and the like. District 268 is looking pretty good.

Had an idea on the train home today. Two different "campaign" types, which I'll present to the players. Based on my description here, again, where to start and what with?

1. Campaign One: "Standard" Traveller - PCs are people just mustered out of service with a ship and a blob of debt to pay off (the group will be 6 players, so it can't be a detached scout, unless they REALLY like each other). You know the sorts of adventure - robbing someone this week, saving some backwater the next. Characters are built from Book 1 and Supplement 4, maybe with a few house rules here and there (like colleges and academies, and 2 skills per term for those in careers without rank advancement, since they can't get position and promotion skills).

2. Campaign Two: "Mass Effect/Special Circumstances-like" - what I mean is, players are either Imperial Navy or Imperial Marines. They serve on a ship (depending on how they roll up characters, as the commanders, or as the "shore" team). They're job is to the the quiet when you need it, yet face-punching Imperial presence in that subsector. All human of course. Characters from Book 4 and Book 5 (for all those juicy military details). Probably steal a ship from Traders and Gunboats, or build something from HG.

So, yeah, starting adventure ideas? And where to start? We've covered Number One a bit, can we hit Number Two? Unless you've other ideas for Number One?

 

[Hyphen]

2. Campaign Two: "Mass Effect/Special Circumstances-like" - what I mean is, players are either Imperial Navy or Imperial Marines.

Doh! Forgot that one: the "still in service" campaign. A variant is where the PCs are in the employ of a local noble who either sends them off on missions or comes with them. (At a convention I once played an undercover Strephon, post-assassination. Never had a chance to try it, but a Milieu 0 version of ol' "Cleon II was here" would be an interesting campaign to try.)

 

[shield]

For type 2 where they are still in service - a patrol cruiser or small base personnel. You can get search and rescue jobs, pirates and refugees, the occasional ine givar terrorist, lost / confused aliens, general criminals - imagine a murderer gets caught on a low tech low pop world with a scout base. The PCs are important base crew - they may end up trying the murder as a disinterested party or saving them from a lynching.

If they are crew of a small base, they could get involved in trade talks with local govts etc. as well as dealing with the imperial admin - nothing should strike terror in the hearts of imperial personnel like an audit. There is a very funny short story by Eric Frank Russel about an inspection on a heavy cruiser and the efforts the crew make to pass the audit including begging / borrowing equipment and even faking the destruction of stuff they can't find anymore.

 

[PhilB]

There is a very funny short story by Eric Frank Russel about an inspection on a heavy cruiser and the efforts the crew make to pass the audit including begging / borrowing equipment and even faking the destruction of stuff they can't find anymore.

Can you recall the title of the story / which collection(s) it's in, please?

Thx.

 

[tbeard1999]

I'd steal the plot of CT Adventure 0. A 20 year survey of the Spinward Marches is probably too much for a campaign, but you could have the players hired to do a survey of a single subsector (or cluster of worlds). That would give them the opportunity to get familiar with the entire subsector and also furnish them with the requirement to move about. You could tighten things up by requiring them to create a survey plan ahead of time. This would let you plan adventures more easily. As a refinement, allow them to deviate from the survey plan, but they forfeit some pay. (Since communications travel at the speed of travel, they would need to regularly visit a system with decent mail delivery).

 

[rancke]

2. Campaign Two: "Mass Effect/Special Circumstances-like" - what I mean is, players are either Imperial Navy or Imperial Marines. They serve on a ship (depending on how they roll up characters, as the commanders, or as the "shore" team). They're job is to the the quiet when you need it, yet face-punching Imperial presence in that subsector. All human of course. Characters from Book 4 and Book 5 (for all those juicy military details). Probably steal a ship from Traders and Gunboats, or build something from HG.

So, yeah, starting adventure ideas? And where to start? We've covered Number One a bit, can we hit Number Two? Unless you've other ideas for Number One?

I ran a long and successful naval campaign set in Five Sisters Subsector once. The players (four of them), each had three characters, an officer, a crewman, and a marine. They started out in a Gazelle, then transferred to a Fiery, did a stint on a Q-ship, and then went on to a Kinunir when the lieutenant who was the captain got promoted to Lt. Commander. At the time the campaign petered out I was planning to transfer them to a Chrysanthemum.

The three PCs per player allowed them to mix and match a party for every situation: bridge crew for ship encounters, officers for diplomatic dinners, a junior officer and crewmen for away teams, marines for boarding actions, etc. Especially after they left the Gazelle and were in ships big enough to have some NPC crewmembers. It's a great convenience to have NPCs that can be left behind to stand anchor watch or take along on a party as "horseholders".

Every game year I rolled for promotions and skills (but not survival) according to the tables in HG. I fudged the promotion rolls for the officers[*], but the rest and the NPCs I played straight. If one was promoted, I tried to keep him aboard (e.g. by transferring an NPC and promoting the PC into his spot), but if that wasn't possible, the character was transferred. I kept track of transfers and a number of rival ship captains and rolled for their yearly results as well. One ex-PC even became a PC again when the party transferred to the Kinunir.

[*] And used service feuds and blatant patronage of rival NPCs to keep the ship's captain from be promoted every time he had a spectacular triumph. Readers of naval fiction will know what I mean.​

(Up until the Kinunir the crews were small enough to keep track of them all as individuals, but I had planned to concentrate on a core group of perhaps a score of NPC crewmembers for the Chrysanthemum).

By ringing the changes like that, every player got to be in charge on different occasions. And when the PC captain was killed, the 1st officer was promoted to his spot (without a promotion roll), the 2nd Officer moved up to 1st, and the player who'd played the captain got a character that became the new 2nd officer.


Hans

 

[Gray Pennell]

Oh if your doing type 2 and these are new players why not run them through a military training course. I did this to teach my new players are version of Striker/AHL. I set up a training field and had them do hand to hand combat, then traget practice, vehicle qualification (airraft, cutter and I think one took water) and ending with a tactical range against droids as simulated Zhos. If you stretch it into a 2 game day scenario you can get an overnight bar fight in. You can also do other skill teaching here and mission briefing. Its a good scenario and allows you to introduce players who havent actually met. I also set up player background going back to college/enlistment.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I would think that a sector campaign would get overwhelming very quick. Somebody had mentioned just making a subsector campaign, and I think that that is a much more manageable situation. Unless you skipped a lot of worlds in a sector, it would take more than a decade to run a sector campaign.

If it's a CT campaign, you've already have the Aramis subsector fleshed out in The Traveller Adventure, some of the Regina subsector was fleshed out between The Traveller Book and all of the adventures set in that subsector, and Rhylanor and Lanth have a bunch of adventures for those subsectors, too. That gives you a whole quadrant of a sector, which is much more manageable.

Still, just with the Regina subsector alone, you're looking at 32 worlds. You could probably get a years worth of gaming out of that one subsector.

 

[aramis]

I would think that a sector campaign would get overwhelming very quick. Somebody had mentioned just making a subsector campaign, and I think that that is a much more manageable situation. Unless you skipped a lot of worlds in a sector, it would take more than a decade to run a sector campaign.

Having had several campaigns that ran through 12 of the 16 subsectors each (and 14 of the 16 between the two), a lot of how big/small it needs be is dependent upon the nature of your players and their travel. I've had some groups for whom a single subsector is too small.

 

[Mithras]

My advice? Pick a subsector. Choose a starting world. Then create at least one adventure idea/patron for the 15 or so worlds adjacent to that world. Have a strong NPC associated with each adventure (either patron or ally or friend in need), creating NPCs as they go and helping to fill out your TU when they return to the same world.