Would You Buy a Solo Traveller Product?

[Ishmael]

I also recall a game called B-17 bomber (which I never player). But I recall distinctly a "B-17 tournament" at a convention, with all these guys in the same room silently rolling dice to themselves.

by Avalon Hill...a nice game with variants for night missions and even Lancasters. Random events generated based on historical probabilities for intercepts by me109's, etc.

SPI had a nice solitare u-boat game too..."Wolfpack"

Actually, if one were to play a military/naval campaign in wartime that had similar missions as either of those, maybe similar mechanics/systems might be used. Played solitaire or used as scenario generators for games...

 

[castiglione]

Two more games I want to bring in because they take a tack that's partly different from the choose-a-path model:

1) Star Smuggler
2) Voyage of the BSM Pandora (SPI, from Ares magazine):

I think the Star Smuggler and Voyage routes are the ways to go IMHO due to the fact that this is...well, Traveller. Travellers travel.

I think the only way the traditional T&T solitaire might work in a Traveller context would be if the adventure involved the PC being hired for what is essentially a glorified "dungeon crawl", i.e. break into building and steal something and watch out for the armed guards...even then, you'd have to work in "alert levels" for the guards to reflect the "state" of the guards, i.e. 0 = guards unaware of a break-in up to, say, 5 = every guard in the building aware of a break-in, and busily strapping on body armor and grabbing something bigger than their side-arms.

 

[castiglione]

Here's a site for a company that sells solitaire adventures:

http://www.darkcitygames.com/

Each of them comes with quick-start rules which are basically a simplified version of TFT.

Two of the adventures are Sci-Fi adventures and it looks like Wild West adventures are on the way.

 

[jrmapes]

In case someone hasn't seen these yet - so you know what is currently available,

"Scout's Honour" here:

freelancetraveller.com/.../schonor.html

Then there was the MT adventure from Issue 18 of The Travellers Digest called "Dangerous Passage." It is a paragraph adventure like "Scout's Honour.""


Of course there is also Dave Cooper's "Travelling Alone" in outline format.
freelancetraveller.com/.../.../alone.html

Each of these have their strengths and weaknesses. And since this really hasn't been spelled out, here is a rundown (I hope fairly accurate - if not I welcome correction) in the differences and expectations in a nutshell.

The Outline/Flowchart system (like Cooper's "Travelling Alone") is great if you have a penchant for lots of creative story-telling and you like to write up your adventures - this is very similar to how many people do their character creation process and is really in a way just an extension from that. You, yourself, as the player must keep your interest up.

The Paragraph model (Scout's Honor/Dangerous Passage, T&T, et al) that has been so popular over time is geared away from those types of players (for the most part). These games are simple straight forward, read- roll- react, and be entertained by how the given story plays out based on your decisions and success/failure of your actions via dice rolls. Here they story that underlies the adventure must be good enough to keep you, the player's, attention.

The Outline system allows you to add as much or as little detail you want into your game.

The Paragraph system, the detail is fixed - only to change the next time you play (as long as you don't follow the same paragraphs each time).



As someone was talking about earlier about should solo adventures be made to emulate group play - In general, trying to do this and make it work is difficult. However the paragraph games above (IIRC, I know Dangerous Passage does, I haven't played Scout's Honor yet) are set up where the person playing can play multiple character. granted that is not "group" style since you are by yourself playing multiple character but it does allow for a group or team to all go on the adventure, not just one character vs. the world. Solo's can be one character vs. the world but doesn't necessarily have to be set up that way. I know many assume when you say solo game this is what is meant.

Sometimes a single character game is fun but I do like it where I can take a few characters along.

But I think the key thing here and that I am in agreement with, is that a game designed to run "solo" (single player) should not try to emulate group play. Play to the strengths of the Solo format and I think you will have a better game for it.

There is also a lot of discussion about doing something along the lines of a computer game (various types). I guess, for me, this is where something would jsut have to blow me away with how good it is to make me even take a look at it. I am not a Luddite as I take full advantage of the computer for most aspects of my Traveller games. But aside from simulations (flight sims, cardboard chit board wargames converted to computer for distance play, etc.) Computer games just don't do anything for me - especially those like NWN, Halo, EQ, FPS's, etc. The only computer games I have to this day on my system that I play semi-regularly are MegaMek (Map based Battletech for computer play) and Mechcommander II (Like Megamek but made to feel more "real"). I have played the java Traveller games and found them fun but again they are really simulations not typical computer games.

I think this may put me in a minority around here but being in a minority when it comes to liking computer games is a place where I usually find myself regardless of where I am.

I will say though that a java or hypertext (or whatever it was) online paragraph style adventure did catch my interest. Of course I did play a bit of Starflight and Megatraveller on computer and I still think it would be cool if something like those could be remade with todays programming abilities. But as I said most computer based games would have to be really really good to catch my interest.

Jerry

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Much agreement here, JRM & castiglione.

A solo adventure about e.g. a single scout doing his explorin' thing in a Courier, or maybe in a Donozev (bending crew rules a bit), would be a great Traveller fit.

Re. paragraph vs. flowchart: I'd *love* to be able to do the flowchart method because here you yourself are being actively creative, and it's fascinating to see an adventure unfold as you go. But I can't do it--I can't be both player and GM.

That reminds me... I haven't played it, but some people absolutely swear by the Mythic GM Emulator rules as a solution to precisely that problem.

http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/page14/page9/page9.html

 

[aramis]

I think you guys are making a good point. The feel and expectations can not be the same for a solo game and a game played with a group of people.

So when a person designs a solo game or adventure, they need to play to the solo strengths and not try to recreate the same experience as a group game.

Daniel

Convoy, for Car Wars, was an excellent solo adventure that ran even better as a GM'd adventure. (It had a GM's map and notes, in the pull-out.) Originally, it had been a GM Adventure only, but it was adapted (and quite well) for solo play. I've run it for groups 4 times. I've played it solo more than 7 times.

Aaron Allston's Autoventures line had two solos that also coule be GM'ed... Hell on Wheels was awesome.

 

[Merxiless]

Would an adventure in a Donosev be a problem because Grand Survey is DGP?

My wife is saying she'd love to try to write one of these solo adventures, Set on a Donosev, and see if anyone would enjoy it.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Doesn't the Donozev also appear in GT books? If so, that would seem to make it official canon.

 

[far-trader]

The Donny goes all the way back to CT Supplement 9 at least

 

[far-trader]

I think the Star Smuggler...

Speaking of Star Smuggler and seeing other links, has anyone linked SS yet? I seem to recall it being released to the public domain on the web as a pdf a while back. I'll go take a look for it later unless someone beat(s) me to it.

 

[Berg]

Speaking of Star Smuggler and seeing other links, has anyone linked SS yet? I seem to recall it being released to the public domain on the web as a pdf a while back. I'll go take a look for it later unless someone beat(s) me to it.

Yep, in this thread, post #18...

 

[castiglione]

This is kind of weird...all this talk about solo adventures has kind of inspired me to try to write one for MSPE.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Curse of the Jade Jaguar, vol.II!

 

[castiglione]

LOL...not exactly but one of the ideas I'm knocking around in my head is set in South America.

I think a Traveller adventure would be difficult except for a "patron hires you to break into building and grab loot/hostage/etc." type thing and there's not much that's unique to Traveller in a set-up like that.

 

[Morte]

I have no particular feelings either way on principle, it depends how good it is.

If something like this got released, and I saw loads of people posting "hey, that was fun", I'd give it a go.

 

[JAFARR]

I would love it for a computer. I got the 2 MT versions from an abandonware site, but had a lot of problems figuring out the controls as documentation was not avaliable.

I have an old solo SF game somewhere by a short lived company. It has been out of print almost before the ink was dry. If you do x, turn to paragraph #xx. You start out with a ship, a type of sub craft and 100 units of money. You have 1 month to earn your next ship payment. There were 2 main problems. Some of the paragraphs weren obviously wrong, and you had to roll for each event. You could not go to the starport and buy ship fuel. You had to roll for an event in each area you entered. After that was resolved, you rolled for the next one. If you did not roll a 7, you might take 3 dats just to make the contact that allowed you to buy fuel. Then you had to do the same for life support units.

Even so, the ideas were condusive to re-play. You had 6 map patterns to choose from for the systems. There were about 6 world map halves that were used to make all the worlds. World abc in system xyz is map halves A & C. You started with one stat that the npcs did not have - Luck. The first time playing your luck was 6. If you died, you bumped it up to 7 the next time. If you you survived long enough to pay off your ship, you bumped it down 1 the next time. It had varying tech levels and wealth levels for the worlds, etc.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Hey, that sounds like a rather interesting game. Can anyone remember the name?

BTW, text files for the MT games manuals are available here:

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/infocenter/swlist/winprogs.html

But I could have sworn I saw a fully scanned version for at least one of the games out there somewhere. On U-Dogs?

 

[kafka47]

No, I think buying solo Traveller is the thin edge of the wedge dominated by people who no longer seek out others. Put out an advert in a local library, join meetup, do something to get the word out but don't give up.

 

[pendragonman]

Besides, aren't the majoity of people who voted HELL YES basically people who buy almost anything Trav related.


(Pot to kettle, pot to kettle, come in kettle. BLACK, I say again, BLACK)

 

[Supplement Four]

I started playing through a James Bond rpg solo adventure last night. It's pretty cool--especially with the way the non-existent GM is handled.

The game comes with a "play mat" and two sets of cards. One set are called Action Cards, the other are called NPC cards. Everything is used differently throughout the game. (And, the replacement of the GM is done quite well.)

For example, the adventure begins as Bond floats over the tree tops towards a castle on the south coast of France, hanging from a powered glider Q had provided him.

10 Action Cards are drawn from the deck. On the play mat are boxes in which you stack cards. Four of the boxes are labeled A, B, C, and D. You put three cards each in box A, B, and C, and one card in D.

Then, you draw one more Action Card and put it in the play mat box called the "Basic Box".

Next, you turn over the card in the Basic Box and read the Action Number. Then, you turn over the first card in Box A. If Box A's action number is less than the number in the Basic Box, there is no incident. If the Basic Box number is equal to or higher than the Action card in Box A, then Bond is experiencing a problem as he glides towards the castle. It could be turbulence. It could be that he needs to maneuver out of the path of a search light. It could be that he's trying to keep from being seen by one of the guards below, etc.

In any case, a Piloting skill roll is required. If he makes the roll, Bond avoids the issue. If he fails the roll, all sorts of things could happen (based on a die roll and what the text says), from crashing the hang glider to being shot at by guards on the ground to being caught in the search light and the alarm being raised before he gets to the castle...etc.

Kinda neat, huh? Each box has a different DM associated with it. Any Piloting checks required from the cards in Box A are done at +2. Check required from Box B are done at +1. Check done from Box C require no DM to the Piloting roll. And the single card in Box D has a -1 penalty associated with it.







Later on in the game, the Action Cards are used differently. Bond was inside the castle, searching for some stolen top secret documents. The dice fell wrong, and guards showed up outside. There were four of them. Alerted, they drew their side arms, opened the door to the room, and flipped on the light. We went into combat.

Four NPC cards are drawn giving you the stats of each of the four guards. This card has everything, even the types of weapons the guard is carrying.

The player plays Bond but does not decide actions for the NPC guards. Instead, this is another function of the Action Cards. Each round, when it is the NPC's turn to move, an Action Card is drawn from him. On the card are instructions as to what the NPC will do.

As I played through this scenario, bond moved first. The first guard came through the door, switched on the light, and Bond popped his Walther PPK at him, grazing him. Bond still had another action for the round, so he took a shot at the second guard right behind the first and hit him too.

But, the second guard made his pain resistance roll. He's standing in the doorway with a Light Wound but still able to act. The first guard is at his feet, having failed his pain resistance roll, clutching his grazed arm.

With Bond's actions complete, I drew Action Cards for the three remaining guards (the fourth doesn't get a action this round because he failed his pain resistance roll when Bond grazed him).

The guard in the door way drew a card that had him flee! I thought that was rather appropriate, having stumbled into a room where someone in a black outfit and nightfinder goggles on his head starts shooting at you--when the guy in front of you goes down.

The next guard (#3) drew an Action Card that had him move to cover then fire. Again, how appropriate! So, he moved into the room, using a table for cover, and fired at Bond (miss).

And, with guard #4, his Action Card simply said he would fire at Bond, so I have in in the doorway, standing over the crumpled buddy.







My point is describing all this is to detail how involved a Solo Adventure can be. I mean, this was a pretty exciting round of combat--all of it handled without a GM.

Pre-round the guards got suspicious about a room (Bond probably left the door ajar), pulled their weapons, and entered to investigate. Bond heard their footsteps and was able to move behind a heavy oak table for cover, slip his nightfinder's up on his brow so that a flashlight of the room's light wouldn't blind him, and pull his Walther from his shoulder holster.

Note that Bond did not have enough time to put on his silencer. I would have preferred to do that as well, but I'd have to give up one of the other actions (move to cover, turn off nightfinder, or pull weapon at the ready). I couldn't afford to live without those actions, so I did without the silencer.

As the round started, Bond had initiative and shot at the first two guards.

One guard crumpled to the ground, and the guard behind him ran off--maybe to get help.

Of the last two guards, one ran into the room, crouched behing a desk at the other end of the room, and fired at Bond, while the last guard (who is also the ranking guard) simply stood in the doorway next to his downed com padre and fired at the intruder.







All this from a single round of play in a Solo Adventure! If a Traveller solo adventure is written, it needs to deliver this level of "fun".