Mongoose Traveller Crossover: Alden Colony

[mbrinkhues]

Sorry, but we have been playing Traveller for thirty years now, and you may
well leave it to us to decide what we consider limited or boring ... :rofl:

Otherwise, critique is of course welcome, but in this thread your attitude is
not. There are dozens of other threads where you can be as negative as
you like, so please do me a favour and leave this one alone - thank you.

If you ask for critique and opinions you get negative and positve. Live with it, die with it or do something in between.

And IMHO that setting IS boring.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

Seems folks here don't understand the concept of critiquing. Let me help you out:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/critique

 

[rust]

If you ask for critique and opinions you get negative and positve.

No problem with that, as long as it is constructive it is most welcome.

Grumpy negativity, however, is not, so consider yourself "unasked" for your
opinion, and since you do not like the setting it is irrelevant anyway.

Have a nice day, but please spend it on some other threads - thank you.

 

[tbeard1999]

Well, that might be a good reason for threadcapping, one less MGT fan here...

But if you want critique:

It's a bad setting! It's an unimaginative junkyard of pieces cobbled together and recycled from various universes of so-so quality that don't really mix all that well tacked onto a base setting that has been done to death in books, films and TV-shows. Doing a setting is more than kitbashing parts with barely filed of serial numbers together and hoping it works.

The premise itself is extremly limited and boring, basically it's "Sim City with RPG rules" and that gets really boring really quick

I'm not bothered by the cliches in the setting -- I've always found Traveller to be a mass of Sci-Fi cliches myself.

However, I didn't see much in the writeup that would be exciting for me or my players. But then, my Traveller campaigns feature copious amounts of automatic weapons fire, so maybe it's just us...

If I was going to run such a setting, here are some things I'd add:

1. Several groups of indigenous primitives -- all mutually hostile, all of uncertain trustworthiness and all in possession of some critical resource that requires the PC to obtain (by force, diplomacy or some combination).

2. Limit supply of advanced weapons/ammo. Force PCs to husband those resources.

3. I'd leave the starship wreck in a bad place (like the volcano), have it occupied by hostile natives who aren't bothered by the volcano. Then, have some critical widget break, requiring a salvage mission to the starship wreck.

Just some random thoughts.

 

[rust]

However, I didn't see much in the writeup that would be exciting for me or my players. But then, my Traveller campaigns feature copious amounts of automatic weapons fire, so maybe it's just us...

Yep, I understand where you are coming from.

However, our group probably has had an overdose of mercenary and similar
scenarios in the past, and for quite a while we have now been more interes-
ted in diplomacy, politics, trade or "heroic engineering".
Therefore the native wildlife will probably provide the only targets for the
characters' weapons, at least during the early phase of the campaign.
If the players should ask for more action (which I do not expect), there are
always some nasty human or alien pirates, raiders or simply criminals that
can be recruited to provide a diversion.

Thank you for the ideas. I am not yet sure about the natives, but I will
limit the supply of weapons and ammunition.

 

[rust]

This is what a planetary data sheet in our setting looks like, at least at the
start and without the population data.

Planetary Data Alden

Alden is the moonless third planet of the K3 V star Linali in a system with
seven planets. The Linali system is located ca. 63 parsec corewards of the
Sol system.

Orbital Radius 0,60 AU
Orbital Eccentricity 0,15
Axial Tilt 8°
Length of Year (T-Standard) 108 days
Length of Day (T-Standard) 21 hours 50 minutes

Diameter 10.948 km
Density 4,66
Mass 0,54 T
Surface Gravity 0,73 G

Thin atmosphere, not breathable, slightly toxic, no ozone layer
Composition: Nitrogen 74 %, Carbon Dioxide 24 %, Others 2 %
Pressure 0,70 atm
Mass 1,02

No surface water
Polar Icecaps 12 %
Subterranean Aquifers

Climate: Cool
Average Temperature ca. 5° C

Volcanic Activity: Low
Tectonic Activity: None

Surface Area ca. 376 million square kilometers
Northern Icecap 8 %
Southern Icecap 4 %
Highlands 33 %
Sand Desert 17 %
Circumference ca. 34.377 kilometers

Biosphere: Complex multicellular life forms with incompatible biochemistry

Natural Resources: Unexplored


In the case of Alden I disregarded hard science a bit by introducing complex
life forms on a planet with an atmosphere of nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
My handwaving for this is that the local creatures have developed a kind of
"biochemical electrolysis" (sorry, I do not know a good English term) that en-
ables them to gain oxygen from the carbon dioxide.

To make things somewhat more difficult for the colonists, the native creatu-
res have an incompatible biochemistry: The colonists cannot eat them.
Of course, the creatures also cannot digest the colonists, but this does not
stop them from trying it.

 

[rust]

And this is what a typical short description of a starship looks like in our set-
ting:

Colony Ship „Jeremiah Alden“
The „Jeremiah Alden“, built in 2261 by the Luna Yards, was a civilian 2,000
dton ship with a standard hull.
The drive section consisted of a Type J hyperdrive, a Type K maneuver drive
and a Type K fission reactor, giving the ship a hyperspace speed of 1 parsec
per day and a normal space acceleration of 1 G. The ship carried reactor fuel
for 2 years.
The bridge was equipped with a Computer Model 2 and Basic Sensors.
There were 5 single cabins and 10 double cabins for the crew of 25, the colo-
nists travelled in 500 low berths. Other important rooms included a briefing
room, a library and three laboratories for chemistry, geology and biology.
The „Jeremiah Alden“ carried a 90 dton Shuttle attached to its hull, the Cargo
holds enabled it to carry 3,313 dtons of cargo (plus 67 dtons on the shuttle).
The cost of the ship was 516 million Credits.

 

[rust]

And a first "skeleton draft" of the background universe's timeline:

Solar Alliance Timeline

2085 - The Earth Alliance is founded during a global economic crisis to replace the United Nations.
2097 - The first Lunar colony is estalished.
2103 - The first Martian colony is established.
2122 - Independence movements in several nation states cause an internal crisis.
2131 - Brazil's decision to leave the Earth Alliance starts the Civil War.
2133 - The Alliance forces win and end the Civil War.
2147 - Indian scientists develop the first jump drive.
2152 - The first human colony on the planet Hope is founded.
2157 - Alliance scouts establish the first contact with the Carud [Narn].
2183 - The Earth Alliance is renamed Solar Alliance.
2218 - The Solar Alliance governs sixteen human colonies.
2234 - An attack by unknown raiders completely destroys three rimward colonies.
2249 - Alliance ships establish the first contact with the Yiskir [Droyne] that leads to the Yiskir War.
2250 - Carud diplomats negotiate an end of the Yiskir War.
2263 - The Alden Colony Project is started.

Meanwhile I also have some first drafts of the setting's important maps, but
they are not good enough to upload them.

Well, that's it for the moment. The other material I have (mostly notes on
the setting's technology, some creatures, etc.) is written in German, and I
am too lazy to try to translate it.

The next steps will be to expand and improve the existing material, and then
to create the important non-player characters. For the latter I will mostly
use Spica's Career Book 1, which has a very good selection of the kind of
civilian careers the colonists are most likely to have.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Well, that might be a good reason for threadcapping, one less MGT fan here...

But if you want critique:

It's a bad setting! It's an unimaginative junkyard of pieces cobbled together and recycled from various universes of so-so quality that don't really mix all that well tacked onto a base setting that has been done to death in books, films and TV-shows. Doing a setting is more than kitbashing parts with barely filed of serial numbers together and hoping it works.

The premise itself is extremly limited and boring, basically it's "Sim City with RPG rules" and that gets really boring really quick

Less hostility, please. He can do whatever he likes IHTU.

 

[nightlamp]

Sounds like the makings of a fun adventure, rust! From your draft, the background universe looks promising too.

Having recently read Harry Harrison's Deathworld, I can't help but wonder more about what sort of creatures inhabit this dry and hostile planet... Keep it up!

 

[Thoth-Amon]

Very nice material. Wish i was playing in this campaign. Keep the information coming. Good stuff!

 

[rust]

Thank you very much, nightlamp and thoth-amon.

Creatures ... I have just started working on them.

Since Alden has no oxygen atmosphere and therefore no ozone layer, most of
its creatures stay below the surface most of the time, to avoid the high le-
vel of ultraviolet radiation.

Two somewhat typical examples for what the colonists have to deal with are
the Sand Creepers and the Copper Fiends, both based upon creatures from
JBE's Creatures of Distant Worlds series - I use the original stats, but have
changed the descriptions to adapt them to my setting.

Sand Creepers are "worms" (no desert world without sand worms ... ) that
live and hide beneath the desert sand and attack any potential prey they can
locate with their vibration sense. The small ones are just a nuisance, they on-
ly damage a person's boots or environment suit, but the really big ones - up
to 15 meters long - are quite dangerous. Of course, they cannot eat a human
because of the differences in the biochemistry, but they stubbornly keep try-
ing.

Copper Fiends are small "tentacled rats" that obviously need pure metals, es-
pecially copper, for their biochemistry. They tend to gnaw through whatever
contains more than small traces of those metals, for example vehicle parts,
habitat hulls, equipment and machinery of any kind. From the point of view of
the colonists they are far more dangerous than the sand creepers, because
of the technology malfunctions and even hull breaches (remember: exotic at-
mosphere) they can cause.

These two are not exactly innovative ideas for a desert world setting, but I
wanted to start with the obvious "ecological slots" before adding more inter-
esting life forms. I intend to do that with Samarran's "Flynn's Guide to Alien
Creation", which offers a lot of useful options for such creatures, but I have
not really started to design anything with it yet.

 

[Strangelove]

So the animals use a chemical process to break the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen? Are you planning on them using the carbon for anything in their body or is it a waste product?

 

[rust]

So the animals use a chemical process to break the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen? Are you planning on them using the carbon for anything in their body or is it a waste product?

I think (but did not do any kind of research yet) that the animals will use only
a part of the carbon for their metabolism, but that much - if not most - of it
will be a waste product.

Since one of the players is a biology freak who loves to play a scientist cha-
racter, I usually leave most of such details for his character to "discover" (=
for the player to invent) during some off-time research project, and then al-
low the player to count this research time as skill training time for his charac-
ter.

I see it as a way to increase the players' involvement in the setting to offer
them only a "framework" and enable them - through their characters - to fill
in many of the details themselves, and to reward the players who do so.

Of course there is also an egoistic streak to this, because the players usually
like a setting that includes many of their own ideas and creations - and I ha-
ve less work to do.

 

[Whipsnade]

Rust,

This setting of yours is intriguing and it doesn't deserve to be eventually lost among the old threads.

Would you consider writing up a few pages describing it and then posting that document to the File Library here?


Regards,
Bill

 

[rust]

Would you consider writing up a few pages describing it and then posting that document to the File Library here?

Thank you very much.

Right now I am still at a very early design stage, too early to write anything
"final" about the setting, and the basic idea needs a couple of adventures
to determine whether it will work well enough, but after that, and spare time
permitting, I may well try it.

 

[rust]

Here is a first draft of the first of the important NPCs of the setting, the lea-
der of the Colonial Office team:

Colonial Office Team

All private colonization projects of the Solar Alliance take place under the
watchful eyes of the Colonial Office, which sends a small team of usually five
specialists to each new colony: An administrator-supervisor, two members of
the Exploration Service (= scouts) and two security specialists of the Alliance
Patrol (= police officers).

While the supervisor has the task to „advice“ the colonists concerning all ad-
ministrative, legal and organizational matters, the explorers are there to actu-
ally help the colonists and to train them in some of the skills necessary for
the survival on their new home world, and the patrol officers are the law en-
forcers of the new colony.

A good Colonial Office team can make the difference between a failed coloni-
zation attempt and an almost perfect start into a bright future, a bad or simp-
ly incompetent team can turn the colony project into a nightmare for all in-
volved.

The Alden Colony had mixed luck, because the supervisor is likely to cause a
lot of problems, while the scouts and patrol officers are experienced, compe-
tent and determined to make the best of a bad situation.

Pavel Vitasek
Supervisor, Colonial Office
Age 34, Galston, 4 Terms (1 University, 3 Corporate/Legal)
Str 6, Dex 7, End 6, Int 8, Edu 8, Soc 6
Admin 2, Advocate 1, Carousing 0, Computer 0, Deception 1, Driver 0,
Instruction 0, Investigate 1, Melee 0, Steward 0, Streetwise 0, Trade 1,
VaccSuit 0
1 Contact (Alden Enterprises)

Pavel was born on Galston, the only asteroid belt colony of the Solar Alliance.
He attended the local university and then joined the administrative and legal
branch of the Colonial Office, where he has been working for 14 years.
Pavel sees himself as an expert in almost everything, as well as a one person
internal security agency responsible for finding and reporting each and every
minor infraction of the Colonial Office regulations. He is far more dangerous
with a law than with a pistol, and he uses his varied skills to get rid of the
competition on his way up the career ladder.
During one of his assignments he made friends with a manager of Alden Enter-
prises, and his contact convinced Jeremiah Alden to ask for Pavel as his colo-
ny projects's supervisor. Being quite happy to see Pavel go, his superiors
granted the request.

Pavel was created with Jim Geldmacher's Pre-Enlistment Education PDF (the
University career) and Spica's Career Book 1 (the Corporate Citizen / Legal
career).
Pavel's home world Galston is based upon Glisten, as described in GURPS Tra-
veller Planetary Survey 4: Glisten.

 

[rust]

And back to more native creatures ...

The common "theme" of the native animals of Alden will look like this, based
upon "Flynn's Guide to Alien Creation":

Alden Creatures

Basic Traits (all life forms)
Armoured
Atmospheric Requirements
Desert Adaptation
Hibernation
Radiation Resistance

Description (typical life forms only)
Warm-Blooded
Two Genders / Gendermorphic
Live-Bearing
Bilateral Body Symmetry (6 limbs / 3 pairs)
Slow Movement / Burst of Speed

Senses (typical life forms only)
Low-Light Vision
Acute Hearing
Poor Scent
Vibration Sense

There will of course be variations and exceptions, but the majority of all the
native creatures will have the majority of these traits, both the ones I will
design and the ones I will take from other sources and adapt to this "templa-
te".

 

[rust]

Playing with Skills ...

A few notes on how I plan to adapt the Mongoose Traveller skill system to
the Alden Colony setting.

Deleted Skills
Two skills will not be used in this setting:

Battle Dress (not used, becomes Vacc Suit skill)
Jack of all Trades (gives the player a free choice of any one other skill)

Additional Skills
Three skills will be added to the list of skills:

Instruction (from Mercenary)
Prospecting (from Beltstrike)
Recruiting (from Mercenary)

Modified Skills

a) Engineering Skills
Depending on the character's career, the Engineer skill will be available as
either Space Engineer (the skill described in the core rules) or Planetary
Engineer (with specialties like Construction, Habitat Systems, Robotics).

b) Science Skills
The Science skills and specialties are quite important for this setting, and I
plan to rearrange them to better fit the needs of the campaign:

Basic Sciences (Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics)
Life Sciences (Biology, Ecology, Genetics)
Planetary Sciences (Geology, Hydrology, Meteorology)
Social Sciences (as in the core rules)
Space Sciences (Astronomy, Astrophysics, Planetology)

Xenology Specialties
The relations with alien species will probably become an important part of the
setting, because in the long run the colonists are likely to have more con-
tacts with their (as yet undiscovered) alien neighbours than with the core
worlds of the Solar Alliance.
Therefore the way a certain skill is used by or applied to a certain alien spe-
cies can be chosen as a specialty, for example Diplomat (Yiskir) or Medic (Ca-
rud).

Cultural Skills
Some of the skills will become „cultural skills“ of the Alden Colony. Every colo-
nist will be expected to have them (or learn them soon after his arrival), and
all characters born on Alden will learn them as a part of their basic education:

Computers, Drive, Mechanic, Navigation, Survival, Vacc Suit

These skills could also become the six Service Skills of an Alden Colonist ca-
reer, provided that the campaign runs long enough to make such a career
useful.

 

[rust]

The Order of Saint Brendan

The Alden Colony's next visitors after the carrion eating Mulagi (Pakmara) will
be the missionaries of the ecumenical Order of Saint Brendan (patron saint of
seafarers and, in this setting, spacefarers).
These missionaries will arrive in their order's flagship, the "Saint Brendan", to
deliver some urgently needed supplies and to generally help the colonists, in
a spiritual way as well as in very practical ways - most members of the order
are skilled craftsmen or scientists as well as priests.
Of course, the missionaries will expect the colonists to be thankful and to at-
tend religious services in return for the help, and for some less religious colo-
nists (or those of a non-Christian faith) this will very much look like "cringe
or starve".

The basic idea of this encounter (it will not be a full sized adventure) is to
demonstrate to the players the extremely difficult situation of the colony and
to give them another opportunity to use their social skills, this time in order
to prevent a division of the colony along religious lines, a "takeover" of the
colony by the (quite well meaning) missionaries or a conflict between the Co-
lonial Office team and the missionaries.

And it is also intended as a reminder that the characters should concentrate
on efforts to make the colony more independent from offworld support as
soon as possible to avoid any kind of "foreign influence" in their affairs.

Again, these are just some first ideas, things may well change when the de-
tails are designed.