Piracy
- Thread starter c_osborne
- Start date
Make it tough. As in round up the merchants, stick em in a room, power down the ship.
Anyone tries to break out, gun 'em down.
They allowed themselves to be boarded, they lost. They are pretty much at the mercy of their captors.
Make 'em hate the vargr, so that they want to go after them to get their stuff back / revenge.
Or make it so that with a lucky break, they can do an even battle perhaps with some losses. but with the idea, they know the risks. If they go for it, all or some might die.
Really it depends on how hard core you want to be.
it's just like a field combat only now their ship is on the line.
Anyone tries to break out, gun 'em down.
They allowed themselves to be boarded, they lost. They are pretty much at the mercy of their captors.
Make 'em hate the vargr, so that they want to go after them to get their stuff back / revenge.
Or make it so that with a lucky break, they can do an even battle perhaps with some losses. but with the idea, they know the risks. If they go for it, all or some might die.
Really it depends on how hard core you want to be.
it's just like a field combat only now their ship is on the line.
Chad,
I re-read the adventure in question and now have questions about your questions!
First, the Vargr use one of the corsair's small craft to send their boarding party over to the players' ship. To my mind that means the Vargr are going to fly the players' ship to a point where the corsairs can loot it at their leisure. So, the boarding party is not going to immediately rush about stuffing cargo out of airlocks and into their small craft. They'll be planning on taking control the crew, the bridge, and engineroom first and then begin pawing over the contents of the hold.
The encounter does take place near a gas giant and the corsair does hide for a bit on a moon or within a ring. The Vargr probably plan on taking the players' ship so such location and do their 'shopping' there.
Second, what ship are you players using? There's an option of them being aboard the Spinward Rebellion (a neat looking, non-Marava, far trader) or the Sword Worlds 'blockade runner/smuggler' they may have captured during the completely D&D-ish scenario on Collace (1 and Spoiler Alert).
Which ship the players are using will guide the choices both they and the Vargr make. If it's the deceptively civilian Spinward Rebellion, the Vargr will be somewhat lax and easier to fool. If it's the decidely paramilitary blockade runner/smuggler the Vargr will be on their paws and harder to fool.
Third, the Vargr corsair will still need to be dealt with. It defeated the players' ship, or at least threatened defeat well enough to make them 'surrender'. The players may kill or capture the corsair's boarding party but now what? I'm not sure about T20 ship combat, but in HG2, the corsair's laser battery will get THREE rolls on the critical hit table with each penetration. No group of players should be stupid enough to risk that.
Because the corsair is still out there, the players' hidden Marines should take great pains to capture the Vargr boarding party so that the party can then be used as bargaining chip. In return for the return of the boarding party and small craft, the corsair would allow the players to refuel and jump away.
The timing of this trade is tricky. For instance, the players would have keep all if not part of the party until just before jumping. The captured boarding party could be carried back into their small craft and it set adrift while the players maneuver to keep the craft between themselves and the corsair's lasers. There are other methods to try also.
Fourth, the presence of the other group of pirates aboard the x-boat tender can be used by the GM in the ancient 'rabbit from the hat' method.
YMMV.
Have fun,
Bill
1 - Spoiler Alert:
The planetary president of a hi-tech world with a population numbering in the billions is assassinated and - true to T20's goofy heroic cinematic format - a party of complete unknowns who just arrived in a far trader are tapped to help with the investigation and apprehend the suspects.
Yeah right, pull the other one.
That's T20 in a nutshell. Traveller nitty gritty? Never heard of it!
Bill,
It's a little more complicated than that. [many more spoilers coming up] My players missed the Vargr encounter at the gas giant, because they fueled up at the starport. (And yes, the assassination deal was slightly cheesy, but I tweaked it a bit to make more sense.)
So if the players miss the Corsair at the first location, it is inserted again at a later location in an asteroid field at a pirate base (the aforementioned XBoat Tender) near a location where another ship has been brutally attacked. However, in this situation, it is pretty much assumed that the players will either A) have switched the transponder codes on their ship to identify themselves as Imperial Navy, or B) have the Blockade Runner with them. Mine had neither, so I had to wing it.
The players followed the script pretty much, but when they approached the pirate base, the pirates had MUCH better sensors, so they were picked up early and scanned. Then when they got closer, the pirates attempted to communicate with them (still following the script).
So the players, having just seen the remains of the brutal attack, and now seeing that they have two potentially threatening ships on their hands, start looking to back away. They decide they need to provide a quick cover story. Unfortunately they were too quick, and the cover story... now this is the funny part... was that they are a simple merchant ship carrying a load of machine parts to another system.
So, given the nature of the pirates, they sent the Corsair to check it out. Now from that point, I'm running it pretty much like the original encounter with the pirates.
So, at this point (we play online at Rondak's Portal between tabletop sessions), they are on the Spinward Rebellion. The XBoat Tender is 100,000 km away. The Corsair approached and sent the ship's boat over with a pilot and the security crew. They did a quick look-see, and bought the captain's story.
So the pilot returned to the Corsair with the ship's boat, and the pirates are preparing to shuttle the cargo (two g-carriers, an air-raft, and some crates hastily disguised to look like machine parts as part of the cover story) over.
The PCs finally saw that their hopes of the Corsair boarding aren't coming to fruition, so they turned on the security crew and were able to regain control of their ship without alerting the Corsair.
So... I'm waiting to see how they handle it from here.
Chad
It's a little more complicated than that. [many more spoilers coming up] My players missed the Vargr encounter at the gas giant, because they fueled up at the starport. (And yes, the assassination deal was slightly cheesy, but I tweaked it a bit to make more sense.)
So if the players miss the Corsair at the first location, it is inserted again at a later location in an asteroid field at a pirate base (the aforementioned XBoat Tender) near a location where another ship has been brutally attacked. However, in this situation, it is pretty much assumed that the players will either A) have switched the transponder codes on their ship to identify themselves as Imperial Navy, or B) have the Blockade Runner with them. Mine had neither, so I had to wing it.
The players followed the script pretty much, but when they approached the pirate base, the pirates had MUCH better sensors, so they were picked up early and scanned. Then when they got closer, the pirates attempted to communicate with them (still following the script).
So the players, having just seen the remains of the brutal attack, and now seeing that they have two potentially threatening ships on their hands, start looking to back away. They decide they need to provide a quick cover story. Unfortunately they were too quick, and the cover story... now this is the funny part... was that they are a simple merchant ship carrying a load of machine parts to another system.
So, given the nature of the pirates, they sent the Corsair to check it out. Now from that point, I'm running it pretty much like the original encounter with the pirates.
So, at this point (we play online at Rondak's Portal between tabletop sessions), they are on the Spinward Rebellion. The XBoat Tender is 100,000 km away. The Corsair approached and sent the ship's boat over with a pilot and the security crew. They did a quick look-see, and bought the captain's story.
So the pilot returned to the Corsair with the ship's boat, and the pirates are preparing to shuttle the cargo (two g-carriers, an air-raft, and some crates hastily disguised to look like machine parts as part of the cover story) over.
The PCs finally saw that their hopes of the Corsair boarding aren't coming to fruition, so they turned on the security crew and were able to regain control of their ship without alerting the Corsair.
So... I'm waiting to see how they handle it from here.
Chad
Since everyone has been so generous with advice so far, I'm going to ask for a bit more.
The captain and a few marines have managed to stow aboard a g-carrier the pirates are stealing. I'm assuming they'll probably make it into the hold of the other ship.
So, if you were the captain of that other ship, how would you deal with the situation once you learned you had hijackers aboard?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I've got some ideas, but I'm not sure if I'm making things too hard on them or not.
Chad
The captain and a few marines have managed to stow aboard a g-carrier the pirates are stealing. I'm assuming they'll probably make it into the hold of the other ship.
So, if you were the captain of that other ship, how would you deal with the situation once you learned you had hijackers aboard?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I've got some ideas, but I'm not sure if I'm making things too hard on them or not.
Chad
If the hijackers were in violation of a surrender, and spotted after being brought on-board capture or kill them, and dump them while in jump. Make certain the "bill of sale" is signed, first.
If they were discovered later, they are stowaways... deal with in that manner.
If discovered before being brought aboard, gently heat the G-carrier to about 150°C. retain for a few hours...
If they were discovered later, they are stowaways... deal with in that manner.
If discovered before being brought aboard, gently heat the G-carrier to about 150°C. retain for a few hours...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Run the ship's anti-hijack program.
Get as many crew to secure area of the ship as you can and then evacuate the air in the rest of the ship.
Turn off the acceleration compensators in the rest of the ship and then accelerate at 3G, throwing the ship about wildly - switching the grav plates on and off as you do so.
Get as many crew to secure area of the ship as you can and then evacuate the air in the rest of the ship.
Turn off the acceleration compensators in the rest of the ship and then accelerate at 3G, throwing the ship about wildly - switching the grav plates on and off as you do so.
Chad,
Devil's Advocate Mode on...
This is getting sillier by the moment. Your players blithely wandered into weapons range of not one - BUT TWO - ships larger than their's. Next, they 'took out' a security crew that is bound to have scheduled check-ins with the corsair. And now, they've slipped a handful of players aboard a g-carrier in the hopes they'll get aboard a corsair where they'll be even more outnumbered.
Briliiant.
Have you had them 'roll up' new characters yet? That is a completely serious question.
Ask yourself these questions and answer them honestly:
1) Are the Vargr stupid?
2) When the corsair tries to make the next scheduled contact with their boarding/security team on the players' ship, what happenes next? Someone barks into the comm panel in the hopes it will fool them?
3) Why wasn't the boarding/security team in constant contact with the corsair? (see question #1)
4) If the Vargr don't check with their boarding/security team; because they are apparently too stupid to do so, and the few players stowed away in the g-carrier manage to disable the corsair; because the Vargr are too stupid to open the hold to vacuum, or play grav pong with the internal grav plates, or not wander aimlessly around their ship in ones and twos to be picked off without raising an alarm, if all that complete nonsense occurs, what will the OTHER SHIP do to the players?
GM: Wow, you miraculously managed to knock off the security party, sneak aboard the corsair, avoid the more numerous crew, and put the corsair out of action! Now, what are you going to do about the X-boat tender that can blow you away any second?
Player: I'll put on my wizard's hat...
Railroading is a constant complaint among players and rightfully so. Railroading can go two ways however. Stacking the deck against the players and making them do things they don't wish to do. Or stacking the deck against your campaign and not holding the players to the consequences of their in-game acts and decisions. You're guilty of the latter, you're 'railroading' a happy outcome for your players.
This isn't D&D. This isn't d20. This is Traveller and it has an entirely different play style. PCs get killed in Traveller. There's no bag o' gold and friendly cleric to perform a quickie resurrection here.
Traveller weapons and Traveller NPCs can kill PCs in an eyeblink. Play Traveller with the same D&D/d20 'PCs can mow down thousands of NPCs and make silly decisions without suffering the consequences' mindset and your Traveller sessions will be nasty, brutish, and short.
Yes, your players may be using essentially the same rules they use when playing fantasy. However, this is a different setting and it requires a different style of play.
And yes, the adventure is poorly plotted. The PCs were supposed to encounter the corsair alone and not in consort with the tender. The suggested resolution of the planned encounter; board and kill the Vargr, would work. The same solution does not work in the alternate encounter sadly. (In the suggested plot, the Vargr captain of the tender even warns the PCs against attacking his vessel because it is too powerful.)
Your players could have thought their way out; give the Vargr the cargo in the hopes they'll be let go, or immediately ran away; either by m-drive or misjump. Instead, they fought in kneejerk d20 fashion. Now they can die in Traveller fashion.
They've taken out a boarding/security party and are now trying to damage the corsair. Do you really think the Vargr are going to let them go after those actions? Unless the Vargr are too stupid of course.
Your players are dead, not all at once and not immediately, but they're dead all the same. Unless you decide to railroad more happy endings like the stupid boarding/security team and the stupid Vargr who didn't check the g-carrier.
Devil's Advocate Mode off...
The others have made excellent suggestions about how the Vargr corsair captain will deal with boarders. Let me make one more.
He opens ship-wide announcement circuit and ties in the feed from the players' ship's bridge. He then gives the boarders a countdown. Surrender in X mintues or hear the consequences. He then prangs one of the Spinward Rebellion's drive nacelles as an example. If the players onboard the corsair don't surrender in the time alloted, they get to hear as the corsair's lasers methodically shreds their vessel from fore to aft killing everyone left aboard.
Welcome to Traveller.
Have fun,
Bill
P.S. Pirates, both historical and modern day, depend heavily on their reputations. They employ a very simply 'carrot or stick' approach. Surrender, so they can make off with your goods without a fuss, and you'll live. Resist, out of misplaced ideas regarding your strength, and you'll die in very unpleasent ways.
Devil's Advocate Mode on...
This is getting sillier by the moment. Your players blithely wandered into weapons range of not one - BUT TWO - ships larger than their's. Next, they 'took out' a security crew that is bound to have scheduled check-ins with the corsair. And now, they've slipped a handful of players aboard a g-carrier in the hopes they'll get aboard a corsair where they'll be even more outnumbered.
Briliiant.
Have you had them 'roll up' new characters yet? That is a completely serious question.
Ask yourself these questions and answer them honestly:
1) Are the Vargr stupid?
2) When the corsair tries to make the next scheduled contact with their boarding/security team on the players' ship, what happenes next? Someone barks into the comm panel in the hopes it will fool them?
3) Why wasn't the boarding/security team in constant contact with the corsair? (see question #1)
4) If the Vargr don't check with their boarding/security team; because they are apparently too stupid to do so, and the few players stowed away in the g-carrier manage to disable the corsair; because the Vargr are too stupid to open the hold to vacuum, or play grav pong with the internal grav plates, or not wander aimlessly around their ship in ones and twos to be picked off without raising an alarm, if all that complete nonsense occurs, what will the OTHER SHIP do to the players?
GM: Wow, you miraculously managed to knock off the security party, sneak aboard the corsair, avoid the more numerous crew, and put the corsair out of action! Now, what are you going to do about the X-boat tender that can blow you away any second?
Player: I'll put on my wizard's hat...
Railroading is a constant complaint among players and rightfully so. Railroading can go two ways however. Stacking the deck against the players and making them do things they don't wish to do. Or stacking the deck against your campaign and not holding the players to the consequences of their in-game acts and decisions. You're guilty of the latter, you're 'railroading' a happy outcome for your players.
This isn't D&D. This isn't d20. This is Traveller and it has an entirely different play style. PCs get killed in Traveller. There's no bag o' gold and friendly cleric to perform a quickie resurrection here.
Traveller weapons and Traveller NPCs can kill PCs in an eyeblink. Play Traveller with the same D&D/d20 'PCs can mow down thousands of NPCs and make silly decisions without suffering the consequences' mindset and your Traveller sessions will be nasty, brutish, and short.
Yes, your players may be using essentially the same rules they use when playing fantasy. However, this is a different setting and it requires a different style of play.
And yes, the adventure is poorly plotted. The PCs were supposed to encounter the corsair alone and not in consort with the tender. The suggested resolution of the planned encounter; board and kill the Vargr, would work. The same solution does not work in the alternate encounter sadly. (In the suggested plot, the Vargr captain of the tender even warns the PCs against attacking his vessel because it is too powerful.)
Your players could have thought their way out; give the Vargr the cargo in the hopes they'll be let go, or immediately ran away; either by m-drive or misjump. Instead, they fought in kneejerk d20 fashion. Now they can die in Traveller fashion.
They've taken out a boarding/security party and are now trying to damage the corsair. Do you really think the Vargr are going to let them go after those actions? Unless the Vargr are too stupid of course.
Your players are dead, not all at once and not immediately, but they're dead all the same. Unless you decide to railroad more happy endings like the stupid boarding/security team and the stupid Vargr who didn't check the g-carrier.
Devil's Advocate Mode off...
The others have made excellent suggestions about how the Vargr corsair captain will deal with boarders. Let me make one more.
He opens ship-wide announcement circuit and ties in the feed from the players' ship's bridge. He then gives the boarders a countdown. Surrender in X mintues or hear the consequences. He then prangs one of the Spinward Rebellion's drive nacelles as an example. If the players onboard the corsair don't surrender in the time alloted, they get to hear as the corsair's lasers methodically shreds their vessel from fore to aft killing everyone left aboard.
Welcome to Traveller.
Have fun,
Bill
P.S. Pirates, both historical and modern day, depend heavily on their reputations. They employ a very simply 'carrot or stick' approach. Surrender, so they can make off with your goods without a fuss, and you'll live. Resist, out of misplaced ideas regarding your strength, and you'll die in very unpleasent ways.
Bill,
Thanks for the post, it was quite fun to read. Unfortunately, the advice was a little too late for me to use, but it's pretty close to what happened. When the Vargr hadn't heard from the security crew after a reasonable amount of time (they were supposed to be tying up the crew and coming to help with the cargo), they called them on the comm. The PCs had the comm., and tried to pretend it was broken. The Vargr sent in a scout to investigate, with another not far behind watching. The marines grabbed the first scout, and the second one reported back that all was not well. So the boarding action never happened. Instead, the pirates smelled the rat, and have threatened to destroy the ship if the crew and marines do not take a launch and get off the ship. (I figure they really want to profit from this, but they're past being fooled.) Since the pirates had forced the PCs to shut power off to weapons and drives, the PCs are sort of hosed. If they try to run or fight, they're most certainly dead. If they truly surrender, I've considered letting them go, minus their ship, but I've also considered that the pirates might be upset about that dead security crew.
Chad
Thanks for the post, it was quite fun to read. Unfortunately, the advice was a little too late for me to use, but it's pretty close to what happened. When the Vargr hadn't heard from the security crew after a reasonable amount of time (they were supposed to be tying up the crew and coming to help with the cargo), they called them on the comm. The PCs had the comm., and tried to pretend it was broken. The Vargr sent in a scout to investigate, with another not far behind watching. The marines grabbed the first scout, and the second one reported back that all was not well. So the boarding action never happened. Instead, the pirates smelled the rat, and have threatened to destroy the ship if the crew and marines do not take a launch and get off the ship. (I figure they really want to profit from this, but they're past being fooled.) Since the pirates had forced the PCs to shut power off to weapons and drives, the PCs are sort of hosed. If they try to run or fight, they're most certainly dead. If they truly surrender, I've considered letting them go, minus their ship, but I've also considered that the pirates might be upset about that dead security crew.
Chad
Chad,
Glad you liked it! I almost forgot to put the Devil's Advocate Mode warning announcements in it! Just think how that would have gone over! Eeek!
Shame your players lost the Spinward Rebellion. It's a nifty ship and a niftier set of deckplans. They can hightail it for Inchin proper now. I suppose a naval patrol can collect them next, although this will scupper the rest of the adventure at Singer.
At least they lived!
Have fun,
Bill
Glad you liked it! I almost forgot to put the Devil's Advocate Mode warning announcements in it! Just think how that would have gone over! Eeek!
Shame your players lost the Spinward Rebellion. It's a nifty ship and a niftier set of deckplans. They can hightail it for Inchin proper now. I suppose a naval patrol can collect them next, although this will scupper the rest of the adventure at Singer.
At least they lived!
Have fun,
Bill
Chad,
Oh bugger... I'm so sorry, Chad. Here I was goofing around while your players were committing in-game suicide. Sorry.
Need some quick and/or introductory adventures? Flynn's Stellar Reaches pdfs have quite a bit. You'll find links to download them here at COTI. Jeff Zeitlin's www.freelancetraveller.com has loads of adventures and amber zones and don't forget to check out Berka's site too.
As a GM you never know what the players are going to do. Maybe some anecdotes are in order?
- I had a group in Twilight's Peak actually shoot at the Droyne warriors! I guess I'd set the scene too effectively and the players were really twitchy. When the Droyne low berths began hissing open, not one, not two, but three players in a five-man party emptied their ammo clips into the shadows. (To be fair, Alien had been shown on the messdecks recently.)
After some fumbling about, I 'railroaded' a somewhat 'happy' ending; the players simply woke up in the Octagon without any weapons. The tunnel was sealed too. They got back to the starport, eventually, to find their ship impounded and themselves under arrest. It seems nearly everyone on the planet vanished just about the time the players were down in the catacombs...
- During a session in which I'd beefed up Death Station, the players' leader got angry and 'solved' the problem by venting the lab ship to vacuum. No one the party had been badly hurt, but the leader (they were a small IISS party from a visiting scout/courier) was bruised after being tossed by one of the effected lab ship crewmen.
He didn't want to bother with anything and refused to listen to both the other players and me as an NPC. He cleared the lab ship alright, and killed several innocents the group was 'supposed' to find and rescue.
One was a relative of a marquis I'd planned on introducing as an occassional patron. The marquis became an occassional enemy instead.
- While playing(1) in Across the Bright Face, I managed to get myself killed through utter stupidity. We'd made it across Dinom, escaped two ambushs, and had plenty of fuel to get to the port through two other hexes, YET I argued for a shortcut through the city of Rhylan with statements like We're in a laser armed ATV, what can go wrong?. Idiot.
I convinced everyone and convinced them again when we ran into rioting. I remember being worried about running into another armed party from the Workers Revolutionary Party after Streen's breifcase and was certain they'd be patrolling the port's xtrality fence.
We ran into rioting, didn't turn back thanks to me, were attacked a few times, and I used the laser drill to break up those attacks which caused more attacks. Idiot.
To operate the ATV's laser cannon, the gunner must stand up in the gunner's hatch. Guess who eventually took a laser rifle shot to the vacc suit helmet? Yup, the idiot who thought it would be safer to fight our way through a riot-torn city!
- Very early in my Traveller career, I had a party in one of the Knunir scenarios decide to ram a shuttle into the orbital prison ship in order to rescue the senator.
Need I describe more?
Have fun,
Bill
1 - Early I got to play, but got stuck GMing more often as time went on.
Oh bugger... I'm so sorry, Chad. Here I was goofing around while your players were committing in-game suicide. Sorry.
Need some quick and/or introductory adventures? Flynn's Stellar Reaches pdfs have quite a bit. You'll find links to download them here at COTI. Jeff Zeitlin's www.freelancetraveller.com has loads of adventures and amber zones and don't forget to check out Berka's site too.
As a GM you never know what the players are going to do. Maybe some anecdotes are in order?
- I had a group in Twilight's Peak actually shoot at the Droyne warriors! I guess I'd set the scene too effectively and the players were really twitchy. When the Droyne low berths began hissing open, not one, not two, but three players in a five-man party emptied their ammo clips into the shadows. (To be fair, Alien had been shown on the messdecks recently.)
After some fumbling about, I 'railroaded' a somewhat 'happy' ending; the players simply woke up in the Octagon without any weapons. The tunnel was sealed too. They got back to the starport, eventually, to find their ship impounded and themselves under arrest. It seems nearly everyone on the planet vanished just about the time the players were down in the catacombs...
- During a session in which I'd beefed up Death Station, the players' leader got angry and 'solved' the problem by venting the lab ship to vacuum. No one the party had been badly hurt, but the leader (they were a small IISS party from a visiting scout/courier) was bruised after being tossed by one of the effected lab ship crewmen.
He didn't want to bother with anything and refused to listen to both the other players and me as an NPC. He cleared the lab ship alright, and killed several innocents the group was 'supposed' to find and rescue.
One was a relative of a marquis I'd planned on introducing as an occassional patron. The marquis became an occassional enemy instead.
- While playing(1) in Across the Bright Face, I managed to get myself killed through utter stupidity. We'd made it across Dinom, escaped two ambushs, and had plenty of fuel to get to the port through two other hexes, YET I argued for a shortcut through the city of Rhylan with statements like We're in a laser armed ATV, what can go wrong?. Idiot.
I convinced everyone and convinced them again when we ran into rioting. I remember being worried about running into another armed party from the Workers Revolutionary Party after Streen's breifcase and was certain they'd be patrolling the port's xtrality fence.
We ran into rioting, didn't turn back thanks to me, were attacked a few times, and I used the laser drill to break up those attacks which caused more attacks. Idiot.
To operate the ATV's laser cannon, the gunner must stand up in the gunner's hatch. Guess who eventually took a laser rifle shot to the vacc suit helmet? Yup, the idiot who thought it would be safer to fight our way through a riot-torn city!
- Very early in my Traveller career, I had a party in one of the Knunir scenarios decide to ram a shuttle into the orbital prison ship in order to rescue the senator.
Need I describe more?
Have fun,
Bill
1 - Early I got to play, but got stuck GMing more often as time went on.
Yes, players tend to do funny stuff now and again. Maybe being the GM just gives me too different of a perspective. What looks obvious to me often turns out to be the last thing they would have thought of. Of course, in all fairness, I tend to have my share of problems as a player too, including overlooking the obvious at times.
I've seen the adventures in freelancetraveller, and some of them are good, but I guess what I'm asking for is more along the lines of a specific recommendation from someone who can see the problems my group is having. Some way to teach them the ropes without turning them off too much by beating them over the head with their mistakes.
They seem to do better with personal combat than with space combat, simply because PCs are usually outgunned when it comes to ships, and they would prefer to have the upper hand once in a while.
I'm considering drafting something of my own up, from some interesting ideas I've read here on the forums, but if there are some good adventures out there I can learn from, I'm open to suggestions.
Chad
I've seen the adventures in freelancetraveller, and some of them are good, but I guess what I'm asking for is more along the lines of a specific recommendation from someone who can see the problems my group is having. Some way to teach them the ropes without turning them off too much by beating them over the head with their mistakes.
They seem to do better with personal combat than with space combat, simply because PCs are usually outgunned when it comes to ships, and they would prefer to have the upper hand once in a while.
I'm considering drafting something of my own up, from some interesting ideas I've read here on the forums, but if there are some good adventures out there I can learn from, I'm open to suggestions.
Chad
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
My very favourite introduction to Traveller adventure has to be Death Station - it's available through ebay or by getting the FFE short adventures reprint.
The latter may be worth getting anyway because there are a lot of adventures in it that take an evening or two to play out, and you can set them nearly anywhere.
A brief precis is the PCs are hired to investigate what is going on on a Lab Ship that hasn't made contact for a while...
The latter may be worth getting anyway because there are a lot of adventures in it that take an evening or two to play out, and you can set them nearly anywhere.
A brief precis is the PCs are hired to investigate what is going on on a Lab Ship that hasn't made contact for a while...
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
A patron encounter is also a good way to introduce them to Traveller. There are some good ones in the latest version of Stellar Reaches. You can work out a planet/starport, some NPCs and just let things flow - of course, deciding which option you want based on how the game is proceeding....
(I agree with the short adventures as an option, too.
)
(I agree with the short adventures as an option, too.
Michael Schulz
SOC-12
If you are going to go with a brand new, from scratch, adventure, is there anyway you could tie it into the fate of the last party? Although I've never had to wipe out an entire party, I'm a big fan of tying things together when possible.
For instance, the new party could start off working for an insurance firm investigating the fate of the Spinward Rebellion. Or they could be trying to collect the reward on one of the Corsairs who has been spending their booty rather conspicuously. Something like that allows the players--if not the PCs--some form of revenge. And potentially it opens up the chance for a few ongoing stories.
Besides, then the first party didn't die in vain...they just set up some of the drama for phase two of the campaign.
For instance, the new party could start off working for an insurance firm investigating the fate of the Spinward Rebellion. Or they could be trying to collect the reward on one of the Corsairs who has been spending their booty rather conspicuously. Something like that allows the players--if not the PCs--some form of revenge. And potentially it opens up the chance for a few ongoing stories.
Besides, then the first party didn't die in vain...they just set up some of the drama for phase two of the campaign.
Chad,
You mentioned your players doing better with one type of combat instead of another type of combat. Are they playing Traveller for combat? If so, you need to give them a mostly combat adventure.
Our Olde Game can be played in many ways. Most boil down to one of four catagories; Mercs, Traders, Scouts, and Rogues. (A lot of adventures combine these four in various ways.) The adventure you were playing was a Trader adventure with a dash of Merc thrown in. Your players approached it as if it was a typical, purely Merc type, D&D/d20 affair; swing a sword, cast a fireball, then count up the gold pieces and XPs.
Let's face it, nearly all D&D/d20 stuff is nearly pure Mercs with just a little something else. Have they ever played traders in a caravan? I'll bet they guarded a caravan, but I'd be surprised if they traded as part of one. Furthermore, the only time they 'explore' or 'scout' anything is to either loot it or size it up their next attack.
Classic Traveller had a plethora of interpersonal skills that had nothing to do with violence; liaison, streetwise, carousing, interrogation, etc., and every other version followed that lead. In your D&D/d20 campaigns, when was the last time your players bargained with anyone other than an armorer, smith, or magician? When was the last time they dealt with a NPC as a person and not as a target? Interpersonal skills in D&D/d20 mainly consist of lopping off heads.
Their previous RPG experiences have taught your players to see role-playing as a kind of man-to-man wargame. That's fine. I'm an old wargamer and one of my longest lasting campaigns was definitely a Merc type. What you need to do is give them the sort of campaign they're used to; Merc, and then slowly introduce the other Traveller types; Trader, Scout, and Rogue, in tiny doses. It's almost like you're weaning them!
Cad Lad's suggestion is an excellent one. Dispatch your players and their new characters on a mission to find out what happened to the Spinward Rebellion. They can be the Mercs; aka marines, assigned to the mission while the NPCs take care of the stuff they don't find interesting; space combat, logistics, etc. Stuff them aboard the Gazelle-class close escort in the adventure and let them loose. They can board suspected ships, raid pirate bases, and generally kick ass to their hearts' content while being exposed to some other fun ideas.
Have fun,
Bill
You mentioned your players doing better with one type of combat instead of another type of combat. Are they playing Traveller for combat? If so, you need to give them a mostly combat adventure.
Our Olde Game can be played in many ways. Most boil down to one of four catagories; Mercs, Traders, Scouts, and Rogues. (A lot of adventures combine these four in various ways.) The adventure you were playing was a Trader adventure with a dash of Merc thrown in. Your players approached it as if it was a typical, purely Merc type, D&D/d20 affair; swing a sword, cast a fireball, then count up the gold pieces and XPs.
Let's face it, nearly all D&D/d20 stuff is nearly pure Mercs with just a little something else. Have they ever played traders in a caravan? I'll bet they guarded a caravan, but I'd be surprised if they traded as part of one. Furthermore, the only time they 'explore' or 'scout' anything is to either loot it or size it up their next attack.
Classic Traveller had a plethora of interpersonal skills that had nothing to do with violence; liaison, streetwise, carousing, interrogation, etc., and every other version followed that lead. In your D&D/d20 campaigns, when was the last time your players bargained with anyone other than an armorer, smith, or magician? When was the last time they dealt with a NPC as a person and not as a target? Interpersonal skills in D&D/d20 mainly consist of lopping off heads.
Their previous RPG experiences have taught your players to see role-playing as a kind of man-to-man wargame. That's fine. I'm an old wargamer and one of my longest lasting campaigns was definitely a Merc type. What you need to do is give them the sort of campaign they're used to; Merc, and then slowly introduce the other Traveller types; Trader, Scout, and Rogue, in tiny doses. It's almost like you're weaning them!
Cad Lad's suggestion is an excellent one. Dispatch your players and their new characters on a mission to find out what happened to the Spinward Rebellion. They can be the Mercs; aka marines, assigned to the mission while the NPCs take care of the stuff they don't find interesting; space combat, logistics, etc. Stuff them aboard the Gazelle-class close escort in the adventure and let them loose. They can board suspected ships, raid pirate bases, and generally kick ass to their hearts' content while being exposed to some other fun ideas.
Have fun,
Bill
Thanks everyone. I hadn't thought of tying it back. I'm sure the players would love to meet that Corsair again!
I hadn't really thought about it before, but yes, the group tends to be pretty Mercenary as far as mindset goes. A few people have tried true role-playing and even trading, but the majority tends to get bored with that and want to kill something, so it does end up being mostly combat/wargaming.
The big problem for me is that combat heavy games tend to have high body counts (on boths sides), which isn't a lot of fun after a while. On the other hand, we've heard complaints about endless strings of combats, so there is some room to grow in that direction.
I hadn't really thought about it before, but yes, the group tends to be pretty Mercenary as far as mindset goes. A few people have tried true role-playing and even trading, but the majority tends to get bored with that and want to kill something, so it does end up being mostly combat/wargaming.
The big problem for me is that combat heavy games tend to have high body counts (on boths sides), which isn't a lot of fun after a while. On the other hand, we've heard complaints about endless strings of combats, so there is some room to grow in that direction.
Chad,
There's nothing wrong with running combat heavy campaigns, nothing wrong with it at all. After all, what was the first book published for Traveller after the Original Three? Mercenary.
The problem arises when you're used to playing combat heavy campaigns with less 'nitty-gritty' or 'realistic'(1) rules than Traveller. As I've said, and your players may have recently learned, combat in Traveller is far more deadly than the combat they're used to.
One trick I used as a GM in merc sessions was to have a pool of PC 'replacements' on hand. These spare PCs were actaully NPCs on the same mission with the players. When a player was killed or wounded badly enough, they simply took over one of the NPCs on hand. Sometimes I let them choose, sometimes I had the dice do the choosing.
Naturally, these 'spares' weren't your ordinary NPCs; with NPCs you can get away with a handful of stats and basic skills most of the time. These NPCs went through the same chargen the PCs did, so they had the same stats and skills they did. It is a bit more work; I'd even ask players to 'roll up' 1 or 2 characters for me to file away, but it well worth the effort.
One nice side effect; other than having ready made replacements for a player who got unlucky, was that the players began treating the NPCs much better! Instead of the usual cannon fodder/red shirt attitude, the players actually cared about the NPCs as much as the PCs. After all, that NPC may be your PC in another session! Better not have him charge the plasma cannon, right?
Let me ditto Cad Lad's excellent suggestion again. Link your next campaign back into your last campaign so your players can kill some corsairs!
Have fun,
Bill
1 - Yeah, more 'realistic' despite psionics, gravitics, jump drive, etc. ,etc., etc. LOL! Hardly 'realistic' at all really!
