Intimate Ship Encounters - 'We've Met Before..."

[Mithras]

Hi,

Inspired by an article in JTAS I've written up a simple system of ship encounters for my games in Vilis Subsector, where ships are named and can be encountered again and again, building up relationships, trust, familiarity, etc. In essence, giving the subsector some real LIFE, rather than Type R, Type A, Type C, anonymity...

Its easy to do this with Vilis, and other districts of the SM since this is a frontier region - unthinkable on the Solomani Rim!

Essentially I have 6 Ship Encounter Codes, applied to worlds based on criteria that I've not mentioned in the PDF and will not bother you with here.

Then its simply a matter of checking those codes when you roll the 1d6 for an encounter. I'm also thinking of porting in the wonderful 'deck of cards NPC personality system' from 2300 and Space:1889 that could give my captain's some life!

Have a look at my PDF here: http://www.geocities.com/zozergames/ship-encounters.pdf

 

[Icosahedron]

Just curious, I haven't seen any 2300 material, is the 'deck of cards personality system' related to the one Charles Grant developed for his Hyboria games back in the sixties/seventies, or is it something completely different?

 

[aramis]

Don't know, but it was used in Twilight 2000 (1st edition) as well.
Hearts are romance
Diamonds are wealth
Spades are power*
Clubs are violence*

A-10 are increasing importance; Ace is notable for lack, 10 is overwhelming; faces are specials. Joker is other. (EG, Queen of Clubs is coward, Jack of Diamonds is money waster, etc & IIRC)
*may have these two backwards

 

[Icosahedron]

Just curious, I haven't seen any 2300 material, is the 'deck of cards personality system' related to the one Charles Grant developed for his Hyboria games back in the sixties/seventies, or is it something completely different?

Oops, my bad. The old memory again. It was Tony Bath in the fifties!

Yeah, there are strong similarities there, Aramis, thanks.

 

[Icosahedron]

Hmm, I've now read that pdf. Looks good. You 'could' adapt it for more densely populated regions.

Perhaps following an encounter in a busy system you could roll snake eyes to reroll on a 'serendipitous meeting' chart, an 11-66 list of ship names that can be created and added to as the game progresses. If you build up a list for each system including names from other lists, you could map out where your acquaintances roam.

 

[BlackBat242]

And when you see the same ship in the 5th consecutive system....

 

[Mithras]

And when you see the same ship in the 5th consecutive system....

you know you're being folllowed ...

No, seriously, that's why I put in roll randomly or select, to avoid such strangeness.

 

[Icosahedron]

Not strange at all - you both happen to be on the same trade route. Maybe it's an opportunity to engage in a partnership deal, cargo sharing, whatever - after which the GM can guarantee that the two ships travel together...

Sounds more like an adventure opportunity than a problem - especially when compared with Traveller's intrinsic rule discrepancies.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Could get a nice bit of rivalry going - both crews trying to get the best cargos and jump out first.

 

[whartung]

I don't know why this wouldn't work in an area with more heavy traffic.

I mean, I've bumped in to old friends at concerts with 50,000 people. The other 49,999 are simply noise but somehow we managed to connect spontaneously.

Or, even today, without first hand knowledge, but anecdotally, I'm sure there are truck drivers that hook up and cross paths regularly at assorted truck stops along their journeys, even though there are (obviously) thousands of truckers out there.

Now you have the detail of the initial encounter to start the relationship. But once established, I think it could work quite well.

And even as is, you could still use it in a large traffic area simply by noting "You notice that the 'Saturn 5' is in port again, didn't you see them about 3-4 months ago?"

 

[Mithras]

The whole idea was to foster these relationships/rivallries etc; but I do regonise BlackBat's concern. If you have a Jump 2 Scout, and every jump meet the same Jump 1 subsidised merchant, then somethings wrong! So random, unless commonsense dictates otherwise ...!

 

[Icosahedron]

Hmm, I've now read that pdf. Looks good. You 'could' adapt it for more densely populated regions.

Perhaps following an encounter in a busy system you could roll snake eyes to reroll on a 'serendipitous meeting' chart, an 11-66 list of ship names that can be created and added to as the game progresses. If you build up a list for each system including names from other lists, you could map out where your acquaintances roam.

And when you see the same ship in the 5th consecutive system....

Actually, BlackBat's concerns would probably never materialise. Under the sort of modification I initially proposed, ie you roll for encounter and on snake eyes (or some such) you potentally recognise the ship and roll again on a 11-66 table, the chances of rolling the same ship twice in succession are about 1 in 2000. If it happens and the meeting is impossible, the GM makes you roll again. I don't see a problem.