CT Only: Very basic noob questions thread

[Willie Dewitt]

When last we left off our intrepid group were staying at the well-appointed lakeside condo of their loading company CEO benefactor and friend. Enjoying their vacation while waiting for character Jack Smink to take possession of his Free Trader (that they all were offered jobs on by him), they decided to throw a cocktail party for their few friends on the corn harvesting planet (the former captain of the Free Trader and CEO guy and his mistress). They put a little time and money into going into the township to buy upscale party clothes.

Also attending was Bryce and his GF. Bryce is a young a produce broker on the planet, and a friend and contact of both The Captain and CEO guy (sorry, I always forget names of some NPC’s. I do remember having him look like actor Jason Bateman and Bryce like James Franco). Bryce grew up on the planet, the son of a crop owner. Every couple of years there is an organized hunt of the wild dogs that run in packs on the planet, ancestors of a kennel operation hundreds of years ago before the harvesting was implemented. The dogs are harmful to the beneficial Tri-Lobed Hare, and the hunt keeps the numbers of these non-native animals from growing too fast. Bryce’s dad used to take him on the hunts, and since his father died he has gone out by himself or with friends. This year he wants to take his GF and make a nice couple of day camping trip in the cornfields out of it, and is looking to hire the characters as extra security. See, a certain kind of pack leader has evolved among the wild dogs. Called The Alpha Dog, these larger and more ferocious canines will tend to lead a pack of a dozen or more wild dogs that will attack people, so they can also be a threat to the farming operations. Bounties are offered, and of course Alpha Dogs are worth much more.

The first day mostly consisted of visiting the large and crowded Hunt Registration Camp for this zone, out in the fields. Hobnobbing at the temporary bar, a brief bit of fisticuffs with a drunken hunter, and weapon/gear seller window shopping (actually, some flak jackets were purchased, the first armor in the game), filled up the daylight. They set up camp in their assigned area, a wide dirt road among the corn fields near a massive, building size combine rig. One tent for Bryce and his lady, another for the PC’s.

The dogs are mainly daylight creatures, so after first light the hunt was on. The wild dogs are at the height of their population, so they are running around everywhere looking for those hares. You didn’t have to go far from the camp to find targets. Bryce, with several kinds of weapons (rifles, bows, crossbow, etc) had his fun as the characters guarded him and his girl in case of Alpha Dog attack, then in the afternoon the PC’s were allowed to get their own personal hunt on. The presence of an Alpha Dog almost always was precluded by hostility from his wild dog pack members; dogs with no Alpha avoided humans. So a couple of times players were tipped off to an imminent danger. That is, an approaching Alpha that was bigger and fiercer than the regular dogs. Nobody got badly hurt though, and they seemed to enjoy the otherwise easy turkey shoot for the day. The practice was welcome, as most were not really that well versed in weaponry (most of them Navy or Scout ex’s).

The whole point of the hunt was to give the players some action without forcing them into a particularly violent and deadly weapon confrontation. Trying to make those rare seeing as these guys are more working stiff than commando. So an easy yet action filled day helped break up the heavy role-play we’ve had in the campaign so far.

Session Four tonight. We are permanently losing one of our players, the gal who plays Serah the Katana Girl. So going to do my best so she can at least get some spaceship time (this is a space game, after all) before the character is retired or I take her over as an NPC (she is to be ship engineer, so may just continue her with the players consent.). More on this later…

 

[Willie Dewitt]

Ran a couple more sessions of Trav over the last few weeks. Was down to three players, but still had a lot of fun with it. Though I still have violent encounters be infrequent (only one in the last couple games, besides the "Morlock" encounter described below) being some friends of fallen criminals from the first session getting the drop on the characters in a darkened house, from which the party came away from fairly unharmed after a brief firefight) the players loved it. The role-playing practically making itself be in the forefront without pushing it. That's the main thing that I love about these sessions. Hack n' slash gamers would hate it the way I'm running it, but my folk love it. Good role-players!

They finally go on the Free Trader and took their corn haul to a distillery/brewery/factory planet two jumps away. With no place to fuel in the second jump they had to hit up a gas giant. That was quite fun, and I made it epic - playing the "Cleaning House Atreides" theme from Children of Dune as they came in and flew into the gas clouds for the skim. I had to assume the Scout had been part of a skim before, but the Navy and Merchant guys probably never had to experience. Came off like an epic encounter, without actually encountering anything .

Planetside, they got a good profit from the corn, selling it to an eccentric Distillery company owner ("Balderdash Brothers Spirits") who took quite a shine too them, inviting them to a big party full of eccentrics and booze company execs, and eventually sending them on a little mission to the shores of an underground "Booze Lake" (distillary run-off) to get a batch of a special enriched underground Agave, giving them the chance to Turkey Shoot some "Morlocks" (Indigent alcoholics who spent their days lounging around "Drunk Lake" and eating anybody who dared explore).

Plans were to continue on and spend more time on the planet, but fate has intervened. Seems our host has found a few new players for D&D, so time to set Traveller aside (for now) and carry on with our previous D&D campaign. But Traveller has been fun for all, so it will surely stay our go-to alternative for when we are missing a couple players.

 

[creativehum]

"That's the main thing that I love about these sessions. Hack n' slash gamers would hate it the way I'm running it, but my folk love it. Good role-players!"

Can you talk more about how you're running it. Specifically how you are encouraging the role playing?

(I believe early RPG PplY encouraged problem solving and exploration over combat as com at is very dangerous in D&D and Traveller.)

 

[Willie Dewitt]

"That's the main thing that I love about these sessions. Hack n' slash gamers would hate it the way I'm running it, but my folk love it. Good role-players!"

Can you talk more about how you're running it. Specifically how you are encouraging the role playing?

(I believe early RPG PplY encouraged problem solving and exploration over combat as com at is very dangerous in D&D and Traveller.)

I’ve always enouraged strong role-play (though don’t usually make it a requirement). Over the decades, whether friends or strangers, I tend to find people who will engage the material at whatever level you present it. No matter what I run, D&D, Champions, Call of Cthulhu, or other (generally old school games), I seem to have the ability to bring out that level of role-play. Again, good players can help.

The Trav characters ended up being fairly low in the personal combat skills. Level of rifle, or pistol here and there and a couple of them with knife. Probably due to them being Navy , Scout, and Merchant. No army or marines. And though they will take up weapons for a fight, almost every character seems more oriented towards business. How I described the galactic community (That I call The Continuum) as being very capitalistic seems to have helped that quite a bit I think. But also what they came away with during and after Char Gen helped immensely. A very high ranking marine officer and high SOC character who left his kushy life to go make his own way because of courtly intrigue with his family (he’s a Marquis). A merchant with a Free Trader and streetwise skills looking to make big scores for early retirement. Another naval officer (female, and the player moved to the East coast so sadly lost her) from a planet that kept a heavy Japanese-lineage identity for thousands of years who carries a katana and adheres to strict honor. And another highly intelligent and educated woman who went into navy and expected a shining career like the others and beyond, but after early non-reenlistment (she decided she had been sexually harassed by and officer who ruined her career - this to me was my favorite character, a real hard lucky tale) went into the Scouts out of anger and disappointment to float around space for a couple decades (I was allowing some second service enlistment).

I honestly think the players, used to “oh, I’m going to be a ranger” or “hey, I’ll be a cleric” were surprised by how much fun the Char gen was, and how they were encouraged to assume and extrapolate from the results, that they came out of it with even stronger connection to the characters than usual.
I think the fact that I pretty much approached any issue that required a skill roll, or any opportunity to make a friendly contact (they ended up befriending a couple CEO’s, a broker, etc) that can help them in the money making/saving process, as more or less a major encounter. I took it very seriously. So that when they accomplished something through smarts or a good skill roll, they felt the same feeling as if they had defeated a foe.

Tossing in some low lethality gunplay into the mix here and there, such as a friendly competition at a shooting range (for money of course) or acting as guards on a young brokers wild dog hunting trip where they got to do some shooting and faced only minor damage (but still, unlucky rolls and we’d have very hurt PC’s), has kept some level of action going. So in about 5 sessions they only had two actual encounters with similar armed enemies, including one in a living room where they were held dead to rights with guns on them, and came out of it smelling like roses due to some very lucky rolls (and in one case the Japanese-ish PC coming in the back door to get the drop on one of the baddies). This might bite them in the ass later though. They do kind of think of themselves as pretty tough at this point, but they have yet to encounter more than just fairly petty criminals and thugs. A good little group of trained soldiers would cut them down to size if they are not very lucky as they have been. And hey, luck runs out. Amiright? :devil:

 

[Willie Dewitt]

Have had a big enough group for my D&D campaign for many months, but with the holidays here more players will miss games. So hoping to continue with the Traveller soon!