Jump Space

[Reynard]

Just like movies and tv, it's that fade out- fade in time to the next destination unless the referee has something special planned such as the chamax finally getting out of its 'secure' confinement or that living silicon chip is missing and the ship's systems are acting up lately. Watch Passengers for adventuring while travelling between the stars.

Game mechanic wise, it's a good in game way to perform functions outside adventures such as medical procedures and rest for the sick and injured, quiet time to advance skills, information analysis and tactical/strategic planning for the next part of an adventure, vehicle and equipment repairs and maintenance from adventure damage and special interactions with NPCs on board.

 

[mike wightman]

If you don't role play at least some of the jump then as soon as the referee says 'while you are in jump space...' the players know instantly something important is up.

By roleplaying some of the time spent in jump space then you can have relatively unimportant stuff most of the time, and when you do have an adventure seed for during jump it surprises the players.

If you gloss over the whole jump experience you may as well have the characters in stasis or drugged for the jump.

 

[Redcap]

If you don't role play at least some of the jump then as soon as the referee says 'while you are in jump space...' the players know instantly something important is up.

By roleplaying some of the time spent in jump space then you can have relatively unimportant stuff most of the time, and when you do have an adventure seed for during jump it surprises the players.

If you gloss over the whole jump experience you may as well have the characters in stasis or drugged for the jump.

I'll generally gloss over jump space interludes, but every so often I'll make sure they keep things rolling with routine things like ship maintenance (if they don't do it, I'll take note of it, and you know what'll happen then :devil: ), update PC training (skills updates), and so on; entirely depends on the pace of the game that I'm aiming to maintain, really.

 

[aramis]

Last night, I skipped jump as we have a SOP for jump space, and they had no passengers. Just a cargo of radioactive contaminated copper wire... 100 Td of...

acquired from the Police of Wypoc...

 

[Ulsyus]

If a bit of storied or random encounters evidenced, it was a challenge to me, the Referee, to wing a suggested happenstance, adjudicate PCs planning, fix a broken system or component, repair a device, weapon or armor. Fix the coffee machine in the galley. Have a role-play moment between characters, passengers, VIPs. Check for jumpspace weirdness, (see File: Lanth Abyss) and train up a chosen skill with help from the ship's computer and Library. Have a corporate meeting. Debate a moral issue before jump precipitation when it will be too late then. Tune a system taken offline during jump. Prepare First Meal to the delight of crew and passengers. Bake a final day cake or other dessert. Earn a Steward tip by kissing Charisma tail. Check on the Low Passengers sleeping. Crunch the ship's accounts. Celebrate a character's birthday with a party in the cargo bay. Check the Library for speculative cargo options at the next world.

These things are all dice-worthy skill checks. Any of these topics can be winged ad-lib at a moment's notice to keep a week in the hole interesting.

Ditto in our games. It'd still depend on what was going on though, but if the group are running a ship, then that's such a significant part of the existence of the PCs that it deserves some attention.

I also got them to go through the process of travelling to the jump point, planning and executing their jumps, then transiting to the next stop.

I worked up this checklist of tasks to perform. We used the full version for a while until they really got into the swing of being ship-borne Travellers again. I then shortened it as per the task list at the bottom. When something significant happened, we'd go back to the full task list and play it out, which at the right times generated a lot of tension.

I also had a bit of a proforma list of things for them to do before setting off and at ports, but didn't regularise it like this. Pakkrat's list of things to do above would be a good starting point for a series of generic rolls to make while en-route. The fun is in deciding what's happened when a mishap occurs...

 

[Carlobrand]

Last night, I skipped jump as we have a SOP for jump space, and they had no passengers. Just a cargo of radioactive contaminated copper wire... 100 Td of...

acquired from the Police of Wypoc...

I think I'm missing some key detail.

 

[aramis]

I think I'm missing some key detail.

They used a streetwise roll to find a cargo when broker failed to. So it wasn't necessarily legit... and (as noted in my Landgrab writeup), the Police of Wypoc are more than just police - they also are the army, EMS, fire, and public health agency... so they bought a load of evidence stolen from the evidence lockup by corrupt cops.... who are funding undercover work by selling evidence post-conviction to off-worlders...

 

[Carlobrand]

If you don't role play at least some of the jump then as soon as the referee says 'while you are in jump space...' the players know instantly something important is up.

By roleplaying some of the time spent in jump space then you can have relatively unimportant stuff most of the time, and when you do have an adventure seed for during jump it surprises the players.

If you gloss over the whole jump experience you may as well have the characters in stasis or drugged for the jump.

There is at the other end a risk of boring the players with routines that fail to engage them. I'll admit that I as DM have always been a bit weak at making such moments engaging, and I feel that coercing their attention with the threat of some potential calamity on a failed roll for routine shipboard life only covers my own weakness as a game master. It may be a "tell" to only focus in when things are about to get interesting, but it plays to my strengths and I very definitely have their full attention when I go there.

 

[mike wightman]

I'm not saying you should role play the entire week in real time

I usually ask:
how is your character filling in free time?
are you getting to know the passengers/crew at all - many a role playing session has come out of this
any specific maintenance or just general stuff
that sort of thin. Just enough to cover up any plot I want to throw at the players.

 

[Border Reiver]

God forbid playing out the whole week. Definitely play some interaction with any passengers aboard, try not to make the players too paranoid about them in case they decide to space them.

Cargoes can be fun in jump space too. Especially if there's more than what's on the manifest or it needs special handling.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

(•) It Depends...

 

[Gray Lensman]

they bought a load of evidence stolen from the evidence lockup by corrupt cops.... who are funding undercover work by selling evidence post-conviction to off-worlders...

I just read this, Very unique, and stolen as well

I usually task the players to tell me how they are using the time. Ship's Crew = Maintenance/Training Simulations, PAX = Sims/gathering info, ect, lot's you can do depnding on circs

 

[Ulsyus]

God forbid playing out the whole week. Definitely play some interaction with any passengers aboard, try not to make the players too paranoid about them in case they decide to space them.

I learnt while playing CoC to at the right time make the normal seem strange and the strange seem normal, and the players will be as paranoid as hell about what's going to happen next. When I've done that while they're confined within the vessel in jump space it's almost turned a bit Agatha-Christie-And-Then-There-Were-None-ish.

 

[Ullarsskald1957]

"Do a synopsis of each day, allowing the players to interrupt and interject actions and activities." - most usual, but, depending upon scenario, any of the other 6 choices as necessary to move things along.

 

[Spenser TR]

Ha

Like many of you, I do "as plot or players call for." But in the event neither those things makes a strong recommendation as to what happens, I came up with some tables ( here in my external blog: Random event tables - a week in jumpspace ) that seem to go over well with players. The tables are varied enough so they add a little color to what might be an otherwise skip-over part of our session.

I either roll myself and let them know, do some work on the details so I can develop the results into further story details, or I let them roll and see where it gets them. Good times.

 

[kilemall]

Jumpspace activities in most cases should be like the lighter subplot in a Star Trek show. Comedic relief, character dev, troublesome child/friend/pet/robot/paramour, etc.

Or, the entree to a possible new adventure via the rumor/patron path.

 

[Fovean]

In most cases we gloss over the jump and the PCs get a few things done, usually healing and planning. But every fourth or fifth jump something happens to remind them that jumpspace can be dangerous.

@Spenser TR - thanks for the excellent tables! Bookmarked!

 

[BwapTED]

I'm thinking my next Traveller campaign will use jump drives that move through interstellar space.

There is no 'jump space.'

Jumps are FTL leaps across interstellar distances. Insert space-fold technobabble.

It still takes about a week of time to complete a jump (for the ship and crew), but the actual FTL transit is just a fraction of the overall jump process.
How small a fraction, I haven't decided.
It might take more or less time depending on computers, navigator skill, maybe other factors.

Activating a jump drive prematurely is a bad idea. The vessel will misjump or maybe even just be erased from existence.

The main consequence of this is that it's going to take longer to escape battle or pursuit by jumping out of the system.

 

[aramis]

I'm thinking my next Traveller campaign will use jump drives that move through interstellar space.

There is no 'jump space.'

Jumps are FTL leaps across interstellar distances. Insert space-fold technobabble.

It still takes about a week of time to complete a jump (for the ship and crew), but the actual FTL transit is just a fraction of the overall jump process.
How small a fraction, I haven't decided.
It might take more or less time depending on computers, navigator skill, maybe other factors.

Activating a jump drive prematurely is a bad idea. The vessel will misjump or maybe even just be erased from existence.

The main consequence of this is that it's going to take longer to escape battle or pursuit by jumping out of the system.

Logically, there are three kinds of restriction...
1 is the drive takes a week to spin-up.
2 is the jump takes a week, but the crew don't experience it
3 is the jump threshold is about a week out.

if 1, then the whole cycle is accelerated, as you thrust while accelerating out.
if 2, nothing changes except the risks of hijack/barratry
if 3, the pirate threshold is further out, and ships with a second jump can escape pirates.

 

[BwapTED]

Thanks!

I'll revive the 1977 thread before I derail this one with the tangent.