Solo Traveller campaign starting on a blog

[sztrave]

I haven't played an RPG in 15 years, and the only one I did play in the 80's and 90's was Traveller (CT and MT). I am a lurker here. I kept collecting Traveller stuff on the chance I will sometime play again. Life is time poor with 2 small children and so I thought of Star smuggler (Dwarfstar Games). But then someone recently posted to the solo gaming yahoo group about solo Traveller, did a lot of web surfing and ditched Star Smuggler replay for Solo Traveller. I hope to detail how it goes, what works, what doesn't etc and blog the experience for the years it will likely take to play out a campaign. Here is the link to the blog:

http://shauns-solo-traveller.blogspot.com.au/

Not much there yet - subsector overview, some tables and a long post on the mechanisms I hope to use. But this week I will actually roll up the main character and start adventuring!

-shaun

 

[selunatic2397]

I added your blog to my favorites and will be following your adventures...thanks for sharing with us!

 

[Frankymole]

Sounds interesting. I got a few different web links for solo Traveller rules / ideas, some time back. But what is this Yahoo solo gaming thing like? Are there any particular point or threads I should look out for?

 

[sztrave]

The solowargame yahoo group is at:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SoloWarGame

It varies a lot on solo content from miniatures to boardgames to rpgs. Not a huge throughput but interesting nevertheless. I don't think there is any content on Solo Traveller - someone posted a question inquiring on any ideas and that set me off.

 

[ShapeShifter]

I've been in that group for a couple of years, but, from what I can recollect, it's mostly historical solo wargaming, and I cannot remember much if any RPG content or specifically Traveller content. Featherstone's book on solo wargaming may have some material which can be mined and heavily adapted to a sci-fi or fantasy campaign, but it would be a stretch, IMHO.

 

[Higgipedia]

If you're time poor, I might suggest looking to Google+ as an option for gaming. While I maintain a (somewhat) bi-weekly D&D game face-to-face, I run a Mongoose Traveller game weekly and play in a CT game every other week.

While it's not as good as face-to-face, it's easier to coordinate schedules when you have a pool of players worldwide to work with.

 

[Ezann]

Wow, Star Smuggler! I think I've still got a copy somewhere myself.

I'm going to be following your Solo Traveller blog -- I've thought of doing something like this myself (not blogging it, just playing solo). I've always been fascinated with the way that the Traveller rules make solo playing so viable. I'll be watching with interest. It might even kick-start me into actually doing it myself.

 

[nDervish]

'Tis the season, it seems... I've just restarted a solo game I began some years ago, back when MgT was hot off the press. Rather than one PC in a Type S, though, I've got four of them with a Free Trader. Still, I'll be keeping a close eye on your blog for ideas - I've already downloaded Star Smuggler and will be looking at incorporating that.

Looking over your blog, I see that you've dismissed the Mythic GMulator as being too narratively-focused, but it's really not. It's just a tool for answering yes/no questions when you're not sure of them yourself, no more, no less. While it can be used by itself as a freeformish system, the book often mentions that MGE can be used to set up situations which are then resolved using a more detailed rule set and this is included in some of the examples ("...and then they play out a combat using the rules of their other RPG"). Definitely worth taking a closer look at for solo gaming if you haven't already done so.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

If you're time poor, I might suggest looking to Google+ as an option for gaming. While I maintain a (somewhat) bi-weekly D&D game face-to-face, I run a Mongoose Traveller game weekly and play in a CT game every other week.

While it's not as good as face-to-face, it's easier to coordinate schedules when you have a pool of players worldwide to work with.

Or, you can try a play-by-post, as we did for the Official 30th Anniversary CT Play-by-Post game several years back. It was loads of fun.

 

[jappel]

All Travelling is good Travelling! Hope you have fun with it - and do look into the virtual tabletop options!

 

[sztrave]

Time Poor as in no time for 3 hours of activity. in a row. At the moment I have two small children and devote a lot of time to them before they go to school and get caught up in all of that. Yes, I realise you get even less free time from school onwards! So I can usually find 15 mins here and there during the week, and sometimes even a hour. But it is normally after 8pm. But when they get to school age, I will be happy to leave them for hours at a time and devote myself to the hobby. Just me, understand everyone is different. Looking forward to after the next few years when the youngest hits school. I do play the odd 3 hour game here and there, so not all bad. But it does stop getting involved in regular play. Email sound intriguing.

 

[sztrave]

..oh, and I'm likely to use the mythic yes/no question thing sometime. I do really like that about Mythic - changing from probability of lots of actions to probability of yes/no. It really helps solo play. But I unlikely to get into the tables that go with it. It does have some nice narrative stuff in it that I still am tempted to try out later.

 

[Ridley]

My Solo Traveller Website

www.accessprotocol.wordpress.com

 

[Timerover51]

I've been in that group for a couple of years, but, from what I can recollect, it's mostly historical solo wargaming, and I cannot remember much if any RPG content or specifically Traveller content. Featherstone's book on solo wargaming may have some material which can be mined and heavily adapted to a sci-fi or fantasy campaign, but it would be a stretch, IMHO.

Don/s book has some useful ideas when it comes to using a deck of cards to randomize events and encounters. I have adapted that to some other games. Also, Tony Bath's Wargame Campaigns has some good ideas for using a deck of cards to determine encounters and other possibilities.