Well, I can't. Because the underlying assumptions of "an adventure" where the players are either/or a) told what to do; b) assumes their choices and the path of adventure, are not how I Ref.
First of all, remember that I'm talking about a house game in the following comments. I've played my share of one shot and convention games and they all suffer -- in my view -- from the same problem: The assumption that the Players will be invested in whatever is going on for those four hours. Now, sometimes this isn't a problem, and it's magic. But when it is a problem, man, is that a grind. (If not, in the stories Blue Ghost has shared, really awkward.)
I don't really want to play that way anymore. I want my players to have lots of freedom as to what to do with their PCs.
So,
Traveller at home, with several sessions to play:
Rules as Written:
Patrons: Remember that in Book 3 and in Supplement 6, the Patron rolls are random rolls. More importantly, the PCs always have a choice to take the job or not. This second point is vital. The PCs can walk away from a job offer, ply the lanes making speculative trade (or working passage), looking for new work, a new roll every week.
What jobs they take or don't take reveal the character of the PCs (and the Players!). But the way the game is written the Ref doesn't show up with "an adventure" -- we find out what job the PCs are willing to pursue, and which of those they aren't, and we go from there.
The Fallout of Rules as Written:
I really can't stress the above points enough. It is how the Patron system was designed to work. Whether or not people used it that way is another matter.
But there's lots of implications of using this system.
1) Having overly detailed plots and adventures worked out makes little sense, since the upfront cost of writing up scenarios which can be turned down on a whim makes little sense. (That Refs arrived with very detailed adventures is why Players often assumed they had to take an adventure, whether they were interested in it or not. Either the Ref was explicit or applied social pressure to say, "This is it guys. You have to agree to assassinate someone or there's no game tonight.")
2) Given point one, one must then accept the fact that
Traveller play is
much more improvisational than one might think by looking at published adventures. But then, look at the bulk of
Traveller's adventures! They are thin in detail by the standard of most other RPGs game lines. This is confusing, at first, I think, until one realizes that most
Traveller adventures offer Situation to spark crisis, opportunity, and choice -- and then everyone hangs on for dear life as the adventure is created on the fly.
[Note: If the Players and the Ref make sure to end a session after an adventure wraps up by finding and accepting a new job from a Patron, then, of course, the Ref has time to go write up an appropriate adventure. I'm not always sure how practical that is.
3) Fallout from Choices: However, not all is lost. If one removes expectations of a) what the PCs will say yes or no to, and b) any explication of scenario or plot for "an adventure" one falls back on the fallout from choices, putting new threats and opportunities in front of the PCs.
For example, if the PCs decide to assassinate someone, then they have to make plans built off of Ref's information. Then, as they move forward, things will go wrong, or right, and new problems will arrive.
But keep in mind, other options are available. The PCs might decide to warn the target. The PCs might just walk away from the whole crazy mess. In either case, the person who might have been their patron is now their enemy. And this is awesome! They have a new slew of potential allies or enemies.
The trick is to keep letting this roll forward, with new complications, threats, and opportunities arriving in unexpected ways, letting the PCs make new choices, and so on.
The mistake I made in my youth reading the
Traveller material was assuming the adventures were "closed" -- that is, that they had a beginning, a middle, and end. Rather than starting with a situation, letting the PCs get into trouble, and rolling forward until a new big situation arrived. Because, after all,
as long as the PCs are engaged in shenanigans and trouble, all is well. It doesn't matter if there is "an adventure" -- the PCs are having an adventure. And that's the point.
4) You'll note that everything I've typed so far blows past any concerns about published modules. I'll lay my cards on the table: Years ago for White Wolf Magazine I wrote a series of articles called The Interactive Toolkit. And one part was called "Why Do Modules Suck." The short version of the essay is that the since the PCs (via their Players) have to be invested in the module, there's no way for a module to work since some guy sitting in an office at West End Games has no clue who your Players are, so there's no way he can come up with a module that he knows will intrigue them. Moreover, since most modules in the late 80s through the 90s were all about building really specific "stories" that the PCs had to follow, the Players actually had very little agency about what choices their PCs could make. They couldn't say, "Let's go warn the target of the assassination," a third of the way through the adventure, since that would blow up the last two thirds of the module the GM had paid for. [Note: Of course, they could do that, and some GMs would roll with it. But then why buy the module.]
I also wrote these modules years ago. I know two things: People wanted them, and they kept publishers in business (and thus put money in my pocket). So I see why they were made. What I'm saying is, "Are they good for the table if they remove agency and choice about moral dimensions form the table?" I say, nope.
This means I'm blowing past all formally structured modules, as well as DGP's Nugget System and more. But I point you back to the Classic Traveller adventures -- the Adventures, the Double Adventures, the Amber Zones in the JTAS. It is
crazy how little they describe. They are inspirations for situation and little more. And when they try to get too specific they become a kind of sad railroad of the sort I don't like very much.
So, an Example:
Across the Bright Face has a terrific situation for play. The PCs get hired as body guards. There's nothing criminal about that.
But then we flesh out the situation. Why are the miners throwing off their shackles now? Where did the weapons come from? My own instinct: Off world interest are funding the miners in a home of stealing the world away from its corporate control. The PC's Patron dies and we... don't know what the PCs will do.
Certainly getting off world ASAP is an option. But they could end up working as a covert team to help destroy key elements of the worker revolt. Or they might decide the conditions on Dinom are terrible and the miners are right and side with the miners. If several NPCs and social situations are built up from both the miner points of view and the corporate security points of view, the PCs might get pulled into deeper into the conflict because they might choose to care or get involved. The PCs might get captured by the miners and offered a chance of escape in return for something else. The PCs might accept or not. They might take the deal, but as a ruse. At that point getting off ASAP isn't the adventure. Or they could just end up being cold-hearted badasses and doing exactly what they have to do to survive and get off world. Honestly, I don't care. I want to find out who the characters are from the choices they make. The adventure grows from what the PCs choose to do.
And no matter what they do, if there are off-world interests at play on Dinom, the moment they get off world these factions will have an interest in the PCs. These interests will see them as enemies or allies. There is a cold-war going on between noble and corporate interests, the situation on Dinom is not yet resolved, and either faction might want to get more help from the PCs... or shut them up. The PCs might run to a faction offering help to get the other faction off their backs. They might just flee, with agents of the aggressive faction on their tails. And so forth.
The Ref's job is to take note during play of what they Players do take an interest in, what they do care about, who they choose to declare an enemy and friend, who they help, who they shoot without question, and build these factions up in terms of organizations and specific PCs. And these become the new threats and opportunities.
The point is, the PCs will make their own choices. And those choices will have consequences. And from one situation -- body guards losing their client at the start of a revolt on a mining colony -- weeks of play sessions might get spun out. This, in turn, depending on how the Ref builds out the web of conflicts about Dinom and the importance of the revolt on Dinom, could be the springboard for an entire campaign. (And the revolt should matter because... well, w
hy not? Why put the PCs there if what is happening doesn't matter?)
So, to answer your question: I have to sidestep your entire premise. Because I don't like the idea of arriving with "an adventure" and expectations of what the Players will do.
Now, if the Players are just immoral, immature assholes, I won't play with them anymore. But that's not the question on the table. We're talking about scenarios -- what are they, how to run them, their nature. And the above is my answer to that subject.
