Security Walker

[OjnoTheRed]

In anticipation of starting a new MegaTraveller campaign, I'm anticipating a problem from some of my players.

You know the ones. Who lay their hands on Battle Dress and FGMP-15's at the earliest opportunities. Then blast everything in sight. Even on high law level worlds - although there the military is generally ready to assist.

What about within starports? Well, everyone's allowed to carry weapons there. But it would be nice for a behemoth to be following around those players with their fusion weapons and shoot-first attitude to be clear that there will be consequences to violence.

This vehicle is designed to be a relatively low-tech TL9 (hence easy to maintain), heavily armoured and sealed, with a range of sensors to assist the operator, and a weapon that can routinely penetrate Battle Dress. I'd love any comment. First go at craft design in a while.

If you're very nice to me, I'll have a go at a sketch as well.

I've hosted a PDF file on box.net here:

http://www.box.net/shared/mbleknpjzn

 

[sabredog]

What about just not letting them have FGMP's and BD? If the military are the only ones wearing and carrying it, and you'd have to take on some guy armed with it to get, then by definition it will be nearly impossible for the players to obtain.

If they try to get it by force they won't likely survive the experience. They can try to get it on the black market but since the referee controls that it just doesn't have to be available, or it can be prohibitively expensive and so rare it's not worth the trouble.

 

[aramis]

The starport is only LL3 for cased possession. Use local LL for use, with a minimum of 3, if they start USING weapons.

Generally, IMTU, every imperial A, B, or C starport has a platoon of Imperial Marine Assault Commandos (BDress, grav belts, GG & FGMP14) and a Company of Line Marines (CES, GAPC's, ACRs) for such emergencies, or at least 2x that in mercenaries. Unless, of course, that would exceed 10% of the local population. Then try squads.

Still, you start shooting up a starport, and you're going to get shot. Either by angry locals, angry imperials, or angry clients of the port.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

All good points, Aramis and sabredog, and I'll certainly use those approaches. It's a fine balance between completely controlling the situation as a referee and letting the players have fun. One of the problems with just banning the weapons or access to them is that for players who genuinely want to run a mercenary unit, access to markets where they could lay their hands on these weapons is a fair argument.

I mean, if they want to try a massacre at a Starport, I guess that's just a simple wargame in itself, we'll have fun playing out a battle. But it's not role-playing. It's more like Warhammer 40k (of which, yes, I collect Orks - no prizes for guessing where I got the inspiration for a one-man crewed walking behemoth from).

Both of those are great ideas as well. I guess in the Mega Traveller setting - with the coming of the Rebellion and later the onset of Hard Times - there seemed to me a need to fill a hole where we couldn't quite justify a good security presence at each starport - the most elite troops are probably already dead in Frontier regions.

There's another hole to fill as well. Take your local D starport: no real assets to protect but the locals might want some reliable, low-tech maintainable machinery. The only really hard-tech part of this walker is the fusion power. The rest could be maintained with electronics and mechanical skill, although not manufactured at less than TL 9. Also note the deliberate lack of gravitics.

The real problem I'm trying to anticipate is immature players who have been recently playing D&D and are used to slashing / blasting / etc. everything in sight. After all, "killing monstors" is what they think D&D is all about (including the DM). It's a very first person shooter way of orienting to an RPG.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Ahhhh! An on reviewing it discovered a mistake in the spec. The Power-to-weight ratio is actually 9.28 which is what I used to calculate the speeds, but left an old figure in the specification. I was reviewing the design to ensure it had enough armour to stand up to FGMP's and had to up it a fair bit.

And I forgot to say, thanks for the replies, guys. This community is pretty welcoming and passionate.

 

[BlackBat242]

It's a fine balance between completely controlling the situation as a referee and letting the players have fun. One of the problems with just banning the weapons or access to them is that for players who genuinely want to run a mercenary unit, access to markets where they could lay their hands on these weapons is a fair argument.

One solution is to allow access to BD, etc... but only once the proper Mercenary licenses are obtained and with the PCs employed by an incorporated Merc Company (They can start their own, you know...).




My players started with a single 300dt far trader (custom design due to more than 1 player rolling "ship" benefit), but quickly became bored with merchanting and wanted to start doing some Merc stuff. They found it hard to get weapons, etc due to lack of permits/contacts.

Then they decided to let the 3-term Terran Confed Navy* ex-fighter jock (rank 0-4, former squadron CO) contact a spook he knew "back-in-the-day"... a couple of Navy Intel Branch courior contracts later, and voila... Merc License came through, allowing them to buy the high-power stuff!

Of course, their first Patron turned out to be Navy Intel itself... leading to their having virtually an "unofficial contractor" status, with NavInt "suggesting" contracts and "advising" areas to bum around in... but they do get access to some nice hardware in return for cooperation in the occasional NavInt mission.



*My TU has the First Imperium not collapsing right away, with the Terran Confed holding the entire sphere rimward of the Hinterworlds/Glimmerdrift Reaches and Leonidae/Crucis Margin borders, and the Imperium holding onto the main part of its territory... right up until a final major war destabilizes both Empires and starts the Long Night.

The adventure took place about 150 years before that final 50-year conflict starts.

 

[Spinward Scout]

They can try to get it on the black market but since the referee controls that it just doesn't have to be available, or it can be prohibitively expensive and so rare it's not worth the trouble.

Or substandard, damaged, fake, very old, etc...

 

[aramis]

Or substandard, damaged, fake, very old, etc...

Or has a remote override code for "safety reasons." One which can be figured out by the starport authority from the serial number... which they check against the ownership papers on customs inspection.

 

[Icosahedron]

Ojno, the obvious answer is 'don't play with children',
but on a more practical note:

Is it a good idea to present these 'monster killers' with a ready-made 'monster'? Most likely they will open fire on it at the first opportunity and will complain bitterly if they can't kill it.

IMTU (admittedly an ATU) nobody other than frontline imperial shocktroops gets battledress or plasma/fusion guns. They are cutting edge military technology, still covered by official secrets, and will not be sold to anyone - including mercenaries and planetary governments. I look at them like nuclear missiles today - the powers that have them don't sell them and actively prevent others from building them even if the technology is available. (I treat nukes that way IMTU too).

Your players can have plenty of fun shooting things up with assault rifles or even laser rifles if they can get the appropriate permits, but the Referee can still wade in with better armed troops if things get out of hand.

IMTU, Starports are LL9, just like today's airports - you're less likely to be permitted weapons there than elsewhere on the planet - there's too much expensive collateral to get damaged. All weapons are treated as bonded stores. You want your weapons off the ship? Box em up and the stevedores will transport them to the security clearance at the extrality line for you.

By all means let your players have fun, but make sure you retain control.
Even in D&D, you don't get everyone starting out as 15th level. Use tech levels as your guide. Start out by arming your players at TL8 or 9, make sure their opponents are similarly armed, and don't let them get higher tech weapons until they've earned them.

Explain it to them like that, as 'levelling up' and they may quietly accept what you provide for them.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

Thanks Icosahedron, more great food for thought. I guess IMTU I'm sticking to more or less the OTU because I like the frontier style play that it suggests. Bitter complaints about a Battle Dress killer is a good point: maybe one way to prevent that would be to go over the details of this 'commonly known vehicle' IMTU so they understand what will happen.

Yeah, playing with children ... he he he. Ironically now that I've taken out my old Traveller stuff (kept it in a box for years for sentimental reasons), my 8 year old is taking interest in it. She was born in 2001 (turns 9 later this year) - GDW was out of business 6 years before she was born! But she's been happily rolling up characters and in a way is more mature than my role playing buddies because as a child she kind of 'gets' that this is about story telling not about killing monstors.

She's enraptured about every scrap of library data in the Imperial Encyclopaedia it seems at the moment (well, not the long lists of dates maybe or the names of all the Rebellion factions). For example, at my suggestion she's picked Regina as the homeworld for her first characters. She asked me what it was like. I looked up all the stats and saw it orbited a gas giant, and she wanted to know what it might look like in the sky (I think the answer is approximately 5 times the diameter of our moon). She then suggested that the people would have a party every time there was a "full moon" (or more correctly "full gas giant") it would easily be the biggest thing in the sky. She's eight!! Now THAT's role playing. No, I'm not going to work out the phases of a gas giant from the point of view of a satellite.

 

[sabredog]

Or substandard, damaged, fake, very old, etc...

oooooo....that's just evil!

But it would provide an interesting tangent adventure when the players try to find the guys who sold them the crappy gear and get their money back. :devil:

 

[Icosahedron]

She then suggested that the people would have a party every time there was a "full moon" (or more correctly "full gas giant") it would easily be the biggest thing in the sky. She's eight!! Now THAT's role playing. No, I'm not going to work out the phases of a gas giant from the point of view of a satellite.

You could figure out 'approximately' how often they would be and see if she thinks a party would be appropriate at that frequency. You could also see if she's figured that 'new moon' is equivalent to a solar eclipse, and what the people would do then, etc...

You could even help her make a simple three-body orrery for her 'homeworld', give her the orbital periods and let her work things out for herself. Great intro to geometry.

Nothing like preparing the next generation of Traveller players.