Throwing a traveller campaign where the players are a year away from friendly space, to give them the sense of isolation in a unfriendly universe.
I could use some inspiration for plot hooks, quests, etc. Story thread of past space game miadventures? I'll start first.
> Party hired by a agent of the Imperium to covertly bring her to a planet they're going to.
> Her job is to search for evidence of illegal activities.
> All they have to do is give a distraction for her to leave the ship, and stall so that she can make it back on.
> On the way to the planet they lock her in a room on the ship.
> Before they land, they ask the place they're supposed to help her sneak into, if they're expecting anyone. Then proceed to describe her.
> They land and are requested to disarm as they exit the ship heavily armed.
> Proceed to kill a security guard that comes and tries to take their weapons.
> Gun fight proceeds.
> They escape back onto the ship but not before they're hit a few times by anti-air.
> Proceed to attempt to murder the girl who they were contracted by.
> Little do they know, she's psionic and can teleport.
> She teleports, steals a vacc suit, and hides outside the ship for a few hours. She only has 6 hours of oxygen.
> Within those 6 hours one of the crew who was badly shot limps to his room and passes out. He later dies due to his injuries.
> The other proceeds to shoot up the ship's consoles while attempting to lock the other crew out of the bridge, before passing out.
> Well that went... so much worse than expected.
> All the party had to do was go to a nearby system, enter a nebula, and scan it.
> They go there.
> Tell them that there's massive interference around the location. The further they keep their ship from the location, the safer they would be.
> Of course they decide to land the ship RIGHT INSIDE THE INTERFERENCE.
> This of course is right after they decide rolling double 1's should constitute a critical failure.
> Ship nearly destroyed.
> They proceed to complain that the job was only willing to offer 6x the price, or another faction was only willing to offer 10x the original mission reward.
I really hate my core group.
>>43760547
>>43759344
I literally just cant even. More.
> They're offered free repairs (normally 1million credits) if they bring a alien back to its ship.
> Proceed to send someone who can't communicate with it to accompany it onto the 1 man ship.
> Person proceeds to shove his way past it and sit inside the ship.
> Alien tries fervently to get him off.
> Welp this planned encounter would of occured right after the alien got on its ship so I guess here it goes.
> Space pirates attack and demand they give them access to their computers.
> Crew proceeds to shoot first, causing space combat to begin.
> Their crewman gets stuck on the alien ship as they disengage.
> Alien proceeds to release repair drones and leave orbit.
> Alien planned on leaving to find its people on its ship, so it warped out of the system. With the player on its ship.
I don't know, I just think my players are trying to put themselves in the worst circumstances possible.
No more stories until others start posting. There has to be someone else who had a space faring game with a story to tell.
>>43762062
Gonna start a space campaign myself. Any utilities or tricks you can pass on to a new GM?
>>43764758
When in doubt, use more c4. Like literally, have an explosion nearby and a pirate raid. By not having them as the center of target, they aren't obligated to risk their lives unless they're thirst for a fight. Also make sure to emphasize that high paying jobs come from repeat customers. That's something my players aren't getting evne when I flat out tell them, no one wants to deal with random assholes who have a reputation of being assholes.
It's pretty difficult to think of things that's fun to do with a ship that isn't combat. What I like to do is force them out of their ship. Give them jobs where they literally have to use a vacc suit to get to a satelite or space station because of damages to it. Add solar activity giving hte risk of radiation. Add a nebula that blinds their sensors and their ability to jump.
Does no one like space adventures? Alright, one more then I give up.
> Crew finds a space ship attacked and badly damaged by pirates.
> Pirates are long gone.
> Ship is falling into the sun.
> They find a new PC in the dying ship.
> he decides to pretend he was just the janitor
> Wants to impress the crew when he's put to janitor duty.
> The crew happened to have a ton of blapes (Basically one eyed alien apes) on board that havent been cleaned up after in weeks.
> I tell him it'd take him about 1-6 hours to clean it.
> He wanted to clean it in minutes.
> He rolled at -2 because of that.
> Critical failure.
> Blape shit, EVERYWHERE.
>>43766335
Sorry nobody is posting bud. Gimme a sec and ill try and write something up from my traveller campaign from ages ago.
>>43765653
Something that's worked well in my games is go watch submarine movies. Hunt for the Red October, Das Boot, movies in that vein, then expand on them in a sci-fi setting. The party has to get from point a to point B, drop something off/pick something up/sneak in close to something big, then get out undetected. Make combat the absolute last resort and stress that if they are detected, if they do take that shot and don't put the target down in one hit, the mission is scrubbed and it's now about getting away before the armada runs them down and pounds them into scrap.
I ran one game where the players had to sneak into the middle of a DMZ style region of space, locate a derelict ship, and recover the computer core. I had the system mapped out, and modles to be them, the other fleets, space terrain, etc. The kicker is they couldn't go full burn or turn on active sensors or everyone in system would see them and then two large fleets would go nuclear at them and each other. The level of tension at the table was increadable, especially when they realized that they would have to go INTO the derelict to get the computer out. I'll green text that whole mission if there is enough interest.
>>43759344
>>43760547
what material are you using (besides core rules)?
I've been wanting to DM traveller for a while and I really appreciate you sharing your stories OP id post mine if I had any
On a slightly related note, I think its really dumb in the corerule book how it says the Captain of the ship places bets to see who survives the low priority passenger cryro unfreezing, like damn thats fucked up and weird, I wouldnt think all humans are this sadistic in the future
>>43766675
same fag as above posts i'd really like to hear it and I think OP might be back soom
same question to as >>43766724
>>43766766
Typing, story time incoming.
>>43766335
>>43766521
> have party of four mates playin mongoose traveller
> party face who has CRAZY high carouse skill, shitty thief, muscle, and me the mad scientist droyne
> shitty thief is sick so can't make it.
> for some reason decide to sub our friend in who has no idea how to play
> this session the ship gets boarded by baddies looking to steal our macguffin before we can deliver it for reward.
> I try and distract them saying I have it in my cluttered lab and try to use science jargon to keep em busy.
>Face tells me he has a plan(hes been making hella dosh and keeping an unknown amount for his secret reasons) so I just roll with it
> we have to keep them busy for five minutes
>eventually they get tired of listening to the shady lizard so they barge out and start looking around.
>new guy playing the shitty thief tries to backstab one of them not knowing there is no sneak attack in this system, he hits them for minor damage and they turn and blast him to negatives
>oops
>our face starts talking with their leader who is on our ship, is acting smug as fuck
>their ship could easily blow us into space bits, we're all wondering what he's got planned
> eventually the boss gets fed up and gives us one last chance
>feel a massive shockwave
>silence for a few seconds, then the boss turns on hia comms "you son of a bitch"
>our face had bought dozens of floating drones and filled them all with c4, thrown them out our airlock and had them fly to cover the enemy hull
>they were too small to get picked up on sensors but big enough to blow the enemy ship into Swiss cheese
>he then opens up the door to his stateroom(none of us were allowed to go in there)
> two very illegal combat drones with laser cannons fly out and turn three boarders into pink mist.
>we deal with the last of them and all realize our party face could now kill any/all of us, and was in control of all our money.
game pretty quickly fell apart after that but it was a fun session
>>43766724
Core rulebook, Mongoose edition. Expanding to use Military Vehicles (Supplement 6) Also use:
http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/tsg/ to roll planet generation because holy shit does it take forever. Then roll20 to list the planets and keep track of them in icons.
>>43766754
Yeah morbid humor of the lower class. I haven't really been making low berth as a risky process as long as there's a doctor when you awaken.
>>43759344
> Party hired by a agent of the Imperium to covertly bring her to a planet they're going to.
This seems impossible to mess up.
Anybody have any ideas or shortcuts when determining which tonnage to use for a ship based on fictional ships from other settings?
>>43766881
Some background. This game was run in Traveler with a fistful of homebrewed rules and tweaks. This part of the game took place in a region of space between two hostile empires known as The Corridor. For reasons not entirely known FTL jumps in this part of the galaxy were tantamount to suicide except along a specific route that went though three systems. On top of that The Corridor allowed quick access into the heartlands of both empires. The region had seen a number of wars fought over and in it without either side being able to hold it for long. In the end they both fortified their side as hard as they could and called it a draw. By the time the party were hired to go in and recover the computer core its was like a cross between the Korean DMZ, the Fulda Gap circa 1980, and the battle of Verdun. Green text time.
>As stated, the party gets hired to sneak in and recover the computer core from a Dreadnaught class flag ship that's been drifting since the end of the last round of fighting, about 2 or 3 years.
>Both sides have been sneaking spy drones and cruisers into the corridor since about 5 minutes after they said they wouldn't. Go figure.
>After evaluating their chances, the crew decides to try and go in the less risky way by jumping in waaaaaay out between stars and slow boating their way in. The jump was successful (just), though some minor damage to the nav comp and jump drive was encountered. More on this later.
>The crew elected to go in on passive drive and sensors. So while they were damn hard to detect without looking out a window and seeing them, they were slow boating it into the system and more or less blind to anything not banging away with active radar.
>The players were nervous when I set out the map and only set out the big obvious stuff (planets, star, moons, etc.)
1 of ?
>>43766916
sounds like a fool proof plan my question is
did you (OOC) know about all the stuff you narrate as have not knowing, or were you clueless both OOC and IC ? because i see this phenomenon in stories on /tg/ and im curious
>>43767134
>As they got into the outer reaches of they system they started picking up the radar emissions of at least three other ships.
>Yellow alert!
>They cant tell much from here, but they are not alone and odds are the other ships are not friendly.
>After a quick discussion, they decide the mission is still on.
>They know roughly where the derelict is, and fortunately none of the radar signals are near it.
>Feeling confidant they decide to do a quick directional sweep and see if they can pick up the wreck from where they are.
>I adjust the position of their ship on the map to show that they have a clear fix of their position and a handful of other items on the map that have been revealed.
>Awesome.
>One of the other objects lights up and starts moving towards them.
>Uh oh.
>I, as the GM, had another map in front of me with everything that was actually in system.
>They didn't know it at the time but they had just pinged the space version of an attack sub. It didn't know their exact location, but it had a heading.
>Red alert!
>The crew went silent again and hoped like hell they weren't about to get spaced.
>Fortunately for them the Kilo (as they took to calling it) didn't know what had pinged it and was operating under the assumption that it was another attack craft.
>About three hours of cat and mouse followed this development, 5 days in game.
>The players kept trying to shake off the Kilo while keeping an eye on it, neither of which was easy.
>The one thing that saved them was the large amount of debris in system, both pieces of wrecked ships and space junk.
>They finally shook off the chasing ship/lost sight of it by getting dangerously close to a comet and going dark for most of a day.
>I kept the pressure on the players all though this, moving random 'contacts' into the small bubble they could see on passive scan and constantly moving the other radar signals around the area they were in. They were being hunted and they knew it.
anyone ever read the gurps traveller line for flavor?
Bed time. One last shorty. I'll post more tomorrow if threads still here by nightfall.
> Party is trying to save some money
> Two of them are TAS members, so theyre entitled to free luxury class residence where ever a center is set up.
> they're having spas, manicures, the works.
> Remaining two decide to rent capsule hotel rooms. The cheapest thing they can find.
> The narrative constantly shifts from people in bathrobes being served on a platter to a capsule hotel where someone is jacking it in the corner, while the PC's there try to sleep.
>>43767357
Going through it for my campaign. I love the politics in it.
Are there any good floorplan tools out there? Something to make stuff like in FTL?
>>43767380
which books? I jjust got "behind the claw" today
>>43767317
>After motoring around the system quietly for almost two weeks in game, they arrive at the last known location of the target.
>Space be empty.
>After a quick debate the crew decides to risk another directed radar ping.
>A narrow band is chosen, fingers are crossed, and the button is pushed.
>There, at the edge of the band, is the target.
>Collective sighs all around.
>Another bout of sneaking, and the crew is at their destination.
>Unfortunately, nowhere on the ship to dock its shot to hell.
>Best the can do is "land" on the hull and have someone crawl in and go exploring.
>Bullets are sweated and straws are drawn. The results of which are ignored and the ships engineer is stuffed into an EVA suit and thrown out an airlock.
>A way into the ship is found and I spend the next half hour describing the sorry state of the hull and corridors as he picks his way though the wreck. I make a special point to describe the groaning of the hull he can hear though the soles of his boots.
>While this is going on I pass the player manning the sensors a note.
>He reads it and goes white.
>"Shiiiiiit! Two objects incoming! Cruiser hulls, running silent coming right for us!
>Kilo 1 and 2 were about two hours out and closing.
>Bricks were shat and it took a mighty effort on the part of the captain to convince the engineer to get on with it.
>Mostly he threatened to leave his ass if he didn't come back with the core.
>To ratchet up the tension at the table I set out an alarm clock set to 15 minutes. When the clock went off the cruisers would be in visual, and weapons, range.
>A slow motion sprint though nul gravity to the heart of the ship and some quick work with a cutting torch later, the computer core's primary memory was had.
>success!
>now they had to get out.
I should note at this point that both empires were on edge and it wouldn't take much to spark another war. A shoot out in the DMZ would likely do it.
anyone use http://www.amazon.com/Traveller-Supplement-Central-Catalogue-Roleplaying/dp/1906508437 ? i have the pdf and it has A BUNCH of shit like even black powder muskets lol
>>43767444
>once back aboard the engineer called everyone an asshole and the party pulled every trick they could think of to dodge the now entirely too close attack craft.
>After another two days in game of sneaking away with the other ships dogging their heels the captain decided he was done and ordered an FTL jump.
>"No doing, its broke."
>No one had thought to check on the red lights until just before the jump out, everyone was too busy stressing out the other ships.
>panic ensues, rolls are made, and the drive is fixed shortly after their luck runs out.
>Both chasing craft light up and burn hard towards them (They finally got a hard lock. Three weeks later....)
>The pilot panics and jumps "anywhere but here."
>With the nav comp not at 100%, plus the FTL shenanigans in this region, the jump didn't go as planned.
But that's another story.
>>43767526
Reading back over this I realize I skipped over most of the little things I did to build tension in the players and generally mess with their heads. tl:dr it took the players about an hour to come down and unwind from that adventure. Judging by how worked up they got, I'd say it was a successful mission on my part.
>>43767526
curious what were the "gunshots sweated" about?
>>43767543
That sounds like a shipton of fun, wish I could play in your group... but... were you prepaired to kill them??
does anyone have any good links to the PDFs for traveller? my incompetence fueled search failed.
>>43767416
Just the Source book someone posted in a pdf thread.
>>43762062
>Traveller, Pirates of Drinax campaign: PCs have a privateer crew and having heard of a downed Imperial "Treasure ship" they decide to investigate and look for a way to steal it. They encounter an Imperial escort ship that is guarding the damaged Treasure ship. Imperials scan the PC ship.
"QUICK ECM, JAM THEIR SCANNERS!"
(Note, so far there was no bounty on the pirate crew or their ship and the Navy ship would have let them past. Now they are suspicious.)
>The navy escort hails the pirates and demands identification.
The captain replies with what boils down to "YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY!"
>Navy ship explains that technically speaking they do have the authority, they ARE the authority.
The captain replies with what boils down to "I AM A SOVEREIGN CITIZEN! LEAVE US ALONE REEEEEEE!"
>Desperate battle between the PC's ship and the much stronger naval ship ends with the pirates barely winning. Navy ships is severely damaged and after one of the players suggests asking them to surrender they do so. Another player complains that since the GM said early on that the first attempt to make the navy ship surrender (when it had taken one hit that barely scratched the pain) was a failure he assumed that it was literally impossible to make them surrender and that the GM is basically cheating if he doesn't tell the players outright when it is possible for them to do something they haven't thought of.
>>43766754
The Low Lottery is an artifact of the origins of the Low Berth, which is the Dumarest saga. Low Berths in those stories are technically for livestock, not people, but desperate people make desperate choices.
>>43767612
Yup. I don't give my players no-win situations, but if they screw up its their funeral. Find a way out or start rolling new characters.
>>43767546
That was supposed to be bullets were sweated. I've been up for 26 hours, mental misfires are starting to happen.
>>43767773
what is low berth?? what is bearth
its in the rulebook but not in the index :/
>>43767645
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/lcajhdj00lsyo/MONGOOSE_TRAVELLER
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/puqo88hi0x9vs/TRAVELLER
jesus loves u
>>43767823
Thanks dude. I've been asking for them in the PDF threads.
>>43766754
Low berths are a bit silly.
If they are really lethal then the only people using them would be those who are extremely desperate and/or poor. But there are naval ships where some of the crew is kept in Low berths and then woken up when more "live" crewmembers are needed.
On the other hand, if you have a skilled doctor waking up the sleepers you get much lower odds of people dying.
Besides, considering the tech levels available you would think that people design better methods of freezing/thawing people that won't get them killed.
>>43767823
Low Berth is cold sleep. You travel as a popsicle. There is some risk to thawing you out at the end unless a skilled medical professional is present.
>>43767837
bro tip
start using 4pleb
http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/43101041/#43101041
>>43767852
whats the roll (or is it homebrew)
>>43767841
Naval Cold Watch uses a slightly different freeze. They take a great deal of care during the freeze process, allowing the wake up to be higher survival and quicker.
Standard Cold Sleep is the baseline. Easy to do with some risk at the end.
Emergency Low Berths are the opposite of Naval Cold Watch. Very quick to freeze as it may have to save your life as a ship is losing air, etc. The cost is that the thaw is much longer and must have a doc present.
Rolled 5, 6 = 11 (2d6)
Test
>>43767867
>whats the roll (or is it homebrew)
It varies with edition. For Mongoose it is on page 142: Roll 8+ modified by the attending doc's Medical skill and the frozen person's END. I would argue that you can also apply the time modifiers to make it an easier task.
traveller general, can we pull it off??
>>43767802
Derp, it just clicked what that question actually was.
The way I handled passive sensors is I drew a ring around the ship's model and, as objects entered the ring, I added markers and put arrows noting heading onto them. The players had no way to know if the markers were rocks, space junk, mines, other ships or probe drones. They had near misses with a couple of proximity mines and got buzzed by three drones during their time in system. They barely spotted the second drone in time to cut power and go dark. When they went dark they had to guess how long to stay down to avoid detection, they were freaking out that they would power up and see the drone right on top of them doing a detailed scan. The third time this almost happened, they powered back up just in time to see the drone turning away.
anybody play as an alien race before?
>>43768248
Sure.
>>43768311
which ones? the hivers seem so dope i wanna play them :(
>>43768248
Vargr and female Aslan are easily playable, the others are either difficult to play properly or liable to cause trouble to the party.
For Vargr, the ones that have grown among humans are easier to play as the cultural differences aren't that huge, but the "proper" Vargr who have grown among their own species only have a tight pack mentality and viable to change loyalties when a better leader appears or if their own boss/alpha makes a mistake.
The male Aslan are a bit too aggressive for the average trader party but might fit into a group of murderhobo adventurers.
>>43768248
No, but I played as a robot once, similar concept I guess.
>>43768025
I feel like interest is gaining, we were dead for what seems like all this year.
We just had our weekly session tonight, 4 PCs, and me.
PCs had just cleared the orbit of a desert world, they fought up against a 1000 ton destroyer and an 800 ton broadsword merc cruiser. The PCs had about 1200 tons of vessels in total, being supported by 3 Sol Sec T-Type Cruisers (They work for a solomani minister).
They focused fire on the destroyer, knocking out its sensors early on, and eventually it was destroyed, while the partially damaged merc cruiser jumped out.
anyway, this session the PCs descended to the surface of the desert world, to a facility where the cargo they're tracking is being taken to. They discovered a secret group extracting some chemical from living creatures, and tracked the product "additive K" to this system, and these exact co ordinates.
The PCs landed at the co ords and found a deep chasm in the ground and a freight elevator. As the chasm wasn't wide enough for a starship, they mounted 8 Sol Sec Marines into a G Carrier, and 2 PCs in battle dress accompanied them.
100m down this chasm they came to a landing, and disabled 2 turrets with the fusion gun on the G Carrier.
They landed and stormed the facility, up against 10 marines in combat armor (armor 12) and with heavy laser rifles (5D6+3) These guys weren't fucking around 2 of the sol sec marines (also in combat armor) were vaporized by heavy laser fire, while a further 3 were severely wounded. Both PCs were injured but between them and the 2 remaining marines, they neutralized the last of the facility guards.
They spent the rest of the session wandering around the surface (a methane world) dealing with methane breathers (mostly insectoid). The Droyne thief used his streetwise to track down a device to pop almost any lock with the swipe of a card, while the leader PC (a Vargr) hired an old et skeret (insectoid race I invented well known as mercenaries) to do a little reconnaissance.
>>43768248
My entire group are aliens.
Vargr Ex Agent: dour, controlling, diplomatic, highly tactical
Aslan Ex Agent: headstrong, loves melee with his broadsword, quite well integrated into imperial/human society, being able to repress his instincts well with regard to aslan honor. He's still been in a few honor duels though.
Constantly swigging sol cola (He bought 300 cans as part of a promotion - later he will realize the chemicals they've spend the entire campaign investigating are used in the production of sol cola - part of the reason the group they're dealing with is so well armed and have a few destroyers at their disposal: They're backed by a mega corp.)
Uplifted Dolphin Ex Dolphin Military (Marine): Not very intelligent but extremely resilient, and started the campaign with a battle dress so able to withstand small arms fire and grenades with no problems. favorite weapons are grenade launcher and flame throwers. Eats a lot of fish.
Droyne Thief: Completely evil and selfish, will hack his way into a random vessel, kill everyone inside with his superior stealth-4, and they proceed to space their corpses, clean up the mess, and take the vessel back to the rest of the PCs. He will then proceed to lie through his teeth and convince the rest of the PCs nothing happened and that he actually owns this vessel (or other such excuse) He has toned down on his old ways, and is trying to play it clean (with a little smuggling on the side) but I'm sure its not long until he gets himself killed or gets kicked out of the party. Its good though, gotta have some kind of party tension!
These guys just happened to be in the right place at the right time, prove they were an elite fighting force, and get work with a solomani minister. Otherwise I dont know HOW such a group of aliens managed to get hired by the Solomani Confederation.
I let the PCs choose which race they wanted to play, as by that stage I was confidant enough with my knowledge of the races to allow it.
>>43768701
What was it like?
How did you get away with it?
Reading the thread has gotten me interested in Traveller. What's the difference between Traveller and Mongoose Traveller? Is there a recomended edition? Any advice to new players/GMs?
>>43769283
Original traveller is called "Classic", came out in the late 70s, so pretty retro and in line with asimov syle sci fi. Excellent and solid little system, simulating an entire galaxy in 3 short books. (and then even more in the supplements)
Mongoose is a more recent version of classic, released in 2006. Its also pretty solid, and improves on and expands on a few things, and brings the game into the clarity of 21st century RPGs, and ditches the math in favor of ease of play.
Both great systems, I started with Classic (usually called CT), generating some characters and doing some mock combats / space combats. But quickly familiarized myself with mongoose. Its a great system. We've tweaked it a bit to make space combat a bit quicker, but mostly just use the rules as they are. The mongoose core book comes with everything you need to run traveller, from character gen to space combat to referee/GM information.
I would recommend looking through classic and rolling up some characters, maybe a try a combat or two, then switch to mongoose, do the same: generate some characters, try the system out, maybe build a starship (great fun) and try a space combat.
Good luck! its a pretty underrated sci fi RPG in this day and age, where everyone seems to be playing some kind of 40k themed sci fi if they aren't playing D&D. I've never met anyone else who ever ran or played traveller, and only one person who even knew of it.
I've always been a sci fi nut and so learned the system myself in order to teach my buddies, who welcome a change from D&D. They're at the point now where they're very comfortable with the rules and we just get on with it and have fun.
My advice for GMs would be watch a SHIT TON of sci fi: All the star treks, babylon 5, outland (1981), 2010 (1984), the first alien film, moon, gravity, the andromeda series if you can be fucked, obviously 2001 and blade runner, Pandorum, Sunshine, Avatar (kind of), the firefly series.
>>43765653
>literally
seriously did you literally just use literally twice in two literal sentences? Literally I swear that the word literally is literally replacing the word 'like' as the literal filler word for literally every idiot in the literal world.
Literally kill yourself
>>43769050
It was a Man-Sized Cargo / utility Robot my GM and I made, one of the PCs was playing a scientist / engineer who had ranks in cybernetics and robotics related sciences, one of the first things she did was upgrade my character's processors and memory banks so it had roughly average human Int / Edu scores.
She also made sure to modify the Asimov laws to turn my character into a loyal guard-dog rather than a steel cargo-hauling pacifist.
I wrote up a bunch of guidelines with the PC who was playing the Engineer, and our GM, creating a chain of command whose orders I would prioritize over others, and the creation of a syntax used to determine generally how my character should act in any given situation.
All in all, not a very difficult character to RP, loyalty is a pretty easy trait, the syntaxes were fun to detail though.
>>43769050
>>43769467
(Got a little bit too long, had to cut my post up)
An example: "Dispose of them" was a command which could not be completed without additional information "Dispose" Would mean to remove +urgency -Caution but "them" would require a clarification, thus my character would ask in return: "Which objects am I to dispose of?"
If the same statement was: "Remove them" I would need to ask for a method as well, due to the fact that "Remove" takes far lower priority than "Dispose" and implies that using my standard instructions for escalating force is not appropriate.
If the same statement was "Dispose of them Immediately" I would clarify nothing, and attempt increasingly violent methods to remove whatever objects seemed most obstructive to the commander's intentions.
-In one case, this was the captain's chair, as it was between our security officer and the stowaway he was yelling at under the command console, it was an object obstructing the conversation of our security offcer and was spoken with, threatened, beaten, and eventually ripped out of the floor and thrown out an airlock as our medic and security officer spent the same combat rounds trying to subdue the stowaway, and our scientist / engineer was laughing too hard to assist.
>>43769467
>>43769473
Very clever. It's like your character stepped out of an Asimov novel.
>>43769467
>>43769473
Looks like someone else read Prelude To Foundation and Forward The Foundation.
Next game you should make a an ugly mutant who uses mind control powers to get people to like him and take over the galaxy
>"Asimov's Laws"
>able to harm others without harming your positronic brain
Zeroth/10 would not rebuild galactic empire with
>>43766675
GOD DAMN IT IT SOUNDS GREAT JUST POST IT
>>43770147
GOD DAMN IT JUST READ THE THREAD
>>43769363
>>43769363
Bzzzt. The original three "little black books" gave you the tools to make and destroy characters, to make and destroy starships, and to make planets, sorry, no planet busters. You would have had to build your own galaxy along the lines of ST, B5 or whatever you like.
This is quite important if you want to roll your own universe.
The adventures and finally the Traveller Atlas then went into some detail about the standard setting "OTU" with the Third Imperium and its neighbours. Even there you have lots of room to fill in your own settings, albeit in a greater context.
Remember that Traveller aliens are alien and NOT, I repeat NOT, DnD's character classes. Aliens do not cooperate on a daily basis.
Also build in some flavour, like a restaurant chain that seems to be everywhere, and have small random-like odd things happen that seem to have no consequences at the time. Eventually they may grow into their own background. Yep, that is difficult to pull off for a novice, especially if you do not know your players. Some players have a tendency to invest silly effort into the small things instead of seeing the big picture.
Have fun.
>>43767176
We had no idea OOC or IC. Friend who did that tends to pull that kind of shit. Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's infuriating.
>>43767380
If you want FTL-style deckplans, you could use one of the custom ship tools and then just save a picture of the ship. Superluminal (http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24901) is the one everyone seems to use.
>>43771659
how did he do it then? passing notes to GM? or is it online
>>43768912
you use the supply central guide huh
>>43767076
The arcane art of descriptive geometry.
Have any ships you want converted?
>>43770455
>Aliens do not cooperate on a daily basis.
There are a couple different cases here. The nation states created by each of the major (and a number of minor) races are not going to cooperate all that readily. If they were going to be that friendly they wouldn't be separate nations.
However
The Aslan, Vargr, Bwaps, Virushi, and a long list of minor Human variants all have significant populations that have mixed with the Imperial (Vilani, Solomani, Sylean) Humans over time. For them cooperation is determined at a personal level. Imperialized Aslan or Vargr have no problems working with Humans, and many Vargr actually like working with Humans because it allows them to walk away from the charisma/dominance social structures of the Vargr at least temporarily. The Bwaps, Virushi, Answerin, Suerrat, etc have all be part of the Imperial community for thousands of years.
>>43774027
The Idris-M and Gladiator from Star Citizen, please.
>>43774157
There are similar arrangements in the areas dominated by the other Major Races as well. The Vargr and Aslan have a number of internal neighbors but aren't cohesive enough to have long term status for them. By comparison, the Zhodani, K'kree, Solomani, and Hivers have long-lasting stable states, with the other races present being "clients" or "partners" (in the case of the Hivers)
>>43774230
With that big open cockpit, that's *maybe* a 10 or 20 ton fighter.
The Idris M is, if that flying bridge is only one deck thick, probably in the 1000 to 2000 dton range.
>>43774371
Maybe a little smaller, based on this pic.
>>43774499
Based on the number of guns, it would need to be at least 600 dtons. One set of stats I saw said 140 meters long, which suggests a couple thousand dtons.
>>43774371
>flying bridge
>all the windows angled straight down at the Cadillac fore deck.
If anyone is an autist like me, Cthonian Stars has a number of ships designed with spin habitats and that sort of thing.
>>43774856
This stuff seems right up my alley. Thanks!
>>43774856
>spin habitats and that sort of thing
The choice between semi hard SF and free wheeling Space Opera is not always so easy.
>>43765653
>It's pretty difficult to think of things that's fun to do with a ship that isn't combat. What I like to do is force them out of their ship.
Out of the ship, off the Air-Raft, walking around in it...
One trick is to telegraph a "style" in some way. Sure, the PCs can make their patron's payment the easy way by staying in the ship and scanning, but maybe the patron has hinted at bonuses for close scans or samples, and you've hinted that things well beyond the pay-off are available if they'll get their boots muddy.
>>43779427
>>43773431
Mostly no. Only if the PCs ask for a certain weapon that isn't in the core book.
The Dolphins flamethrower is really the only weapons from the supply catalog, 6D6+3 damage iirc. so not really overpowered at all compared to a FGMP from the core book. (16D6 damage!)
Minor things like EMP grenades or Incendiary grenades I did grab from the CSC though.
>>43770455
>Aliens do not cooperate on a daily basis.
well the hiver federation is a loose federation of many different races. Aslan and Vargr are common in the imperium like the other anon said. I like to have some mixed species in my Sci fi, no sense having all humans everywhere you go. And I'm happy to have the PCs choose the race they want to play. The books have rules for playing alien races, so why not!
The races are very different, which makes for interesting dynamics within the party (and even within the crews)
I remember the Droyne in our campaign had a crew (which I generated and randomized some traits for) of unusually handsome / beautiful solomani.
Anyone who came aboard was gobsmacked by the beauty of the pilot, etc. but the Droyne didn't even notice, all humans probably look the same to him. Funny things like that make traveller even more interesting.
Becuase the crew are in a fairly mixed part of space, we end up having a variety of different races around, and that the way I like my sci fi, kind of like mos eisley: universe edition.
We even have a Hiver engineer crew NPC and an uplifted monkey gunner.
It helps get the players acquainted with the different races too, the hiver doesn't speak, and only communicates with feeler/tentacle movements and touch, but has a translator necklace, and has taken a human name of "John Smith" due to its name being a combination of feeler movements and touching.
>>43774614
Another set of stats says 239 meters long, which is gigundous.
>>43781958
A good top view helps. This ship has some scaling issues.
So the question is whether you want something exact or something that feels right.
>>43768025
Maybe a Sci-Fi or Space RPG general would work bestml. A lot of ideas cross pollinate.
I'll give the engines another bump, but I think the gravity well of Archive has us...
So i'm throwing a game of this together at this point, Any advice? its the first time any of us will be playing it, and the first time most of them have been in a space sci-fi setting. I have high hopes.
>>43785216
Do all character generation together and encourage connections between PCs. This is already part of the Mongoose edition, but it works well in all. Those connections need not be interpersonal; two military types may have been at the same battle ten years ago, for example, even if they didn't know each other at the time.
Expect some confusion. SF doesn't fall into a single trope set as easily as fantasy does, so your players may not know what to expect.
Use the heck out of the Patron system to drag your players around for a bit, and expose them to the setting in a way that they don't *have to* make big decisions until they think they can do so in an informed fashion.
>>43785216
Either generate or use Traveller Map to pick a smallish cluster of worlds; say a half dozen or so to start. Use rumors and news, and your patrons or other adventure draw, to drop details about *just* those worlds onto your players. Pic related (in the Spinward Marches). Use trope and cliche if you must, but getting the players to the point where they know the waterworld from the bucolic farm world and the megalopolis under the ground of Palique (no air up top...), and the sulfurous oceans of Tussinian. When they have a neighborhood they know, and have earned cash, friends, and enemies on all, they're ready for the rest.
>>43769555
Although I catch the reference to the Mule, I haven't actually read any of the Foundation series, seems like a very good read though.
And yeah, the Asimovian laws in Traveller are just programmed instructions, they can be changed fairly easily near as we could tell.
Important that any robot can be converted into a mindlessly obedient killing machine at a moment's notice, I guess.
>>43785663
One of the largest and oldest spacefaring cultures of the OTU, the Vilani, were only able to start civilization after the ancient warbots that ruled their world for 300,000 years finally ran out of power. They remain opposed to the idea of arming robots.
>>43774614
>>43781958
Official Statistics are:
Length 239m
Weight 1'610'110kg so 1'610 tons (But Dtons are a measurement of volume more than weight anyways)
6 Manned turrets
1 Unmanned turret
1 Capital-Class Spinal mounted Railgun
1 Capital-Class Missile Turret
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/aegis-idris/Idris-M
>>43785733
If that was common knowledge at our table, that game would have went far differently, thanks for the heads up though, I'll bring that up if we ever run Traveller again.
>>43785751
There's been an update to the Idris Model as well, a bit wider it seems, railgun has been made to look more blocky, like it's built into the ship rather than sticking off the keel.
>>43785903
I mentioned scaling problems. The inside concept art shows the fighter bay as big and spacious. Then it shows a control room that appears to be on one *side* of that bay, suggesting a lot more width than the exterior art. Thus the question posed in >>43782203
>>43785875
While the Vilani are trope-level conservative as a culture, individuals are not necessarily going to be slave to 20,000 year gone demons. The Imperium does have laws against arming robots, however.
>>43785957
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qexLUpQJPw8
The Morrow Tour shows some pretty good detail of the interior, not the whole thing though.
Also they have yet to compose and release the press version of the Morrow tour, because they run on Valve time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFF925ch09Y
And here's an old look at the old greybox model for the Idris.
Does anyone have a good way of keeping track of planetary information? I've tried doing a wiki but it ended up being more time consuming than helpful.
>>43786130
The tour helped a lot.
The final version of the Idris M Frigate (as opposed to the earlier concept as a Corvette) is easily several thousand dtons. The vehicle bay is three decks high, Main appears to be a single deck on top of that, and the flying bridge is above that. The prow which mounts the railgun in the military version hangs below the carrier deck.
I'm sure they have a deckplan all worked up, but it may be a while before that is seen publicly.
>>43786391
With personal electronics being what they are, a PDF or text doc per world that starts general and gets more specific the longer you keep writing probably works as well as any hyperlinked effort.
There are campaign tracking packages out there, but I've never looked into them in detail.
>>43767076
It is not easy at all. None of the good ships you might want to import are cubes or other handy geometric shapes that would let you easily estimate tonnage.
>>43770192
GOD DAMN IT I DIDN'T REALISE I HADN'T UPDATED THE THREAD AND HE'D POSTED IT ALREADY AND I MADE AN ASS OF MYSELF OKAY GODDAMN
>>43785751
Idris seems like it is a little light considering the Bismarck Class Battleship was 251m long, and weighed in at 41'000tons.
Then again, CIG has stated that they aim to adjust the stats at a later time, and that they are currently erroneous.
>>43767317
This story is super sweet, can you point me towards the mechanics used in playing this? I don't have time to start a Traveller game, but I could really use this idea in other games.
>>43786681
It really depends on how many pieces of art you have to work with, whether you have any solid scale clues or an outright statement of dimensions, and the complexity of the hull form. The Idris is moderately complex, but certainly not the worst I've seen. As an actual 3D model it is at least consistent once they stop tinkering with it. Some artists fail at perspective, leaving the interpreter with contradictory shape and location cues.
Bt comparison, the Idris just has a lot of shit hanging off of it.
Any more stories about Traveller campaigns?
Any good Youtube videos or Podcasts I should watch to get an idea of how it is run?
>>43789324
Most of the space mechanics were home brewed if this thread is still up when I get off work I'll type them up.
>>43791949
Close the Airlock is a fairly good podcast-broadcast Traveller RPG,
http://www.closetheairlock.com/
The game can be run similarly to the settings portrayed in Firefly, Starwars, Cowboy beebop, or even Legend of the Galactic heroes, but it completely depends on the style of game you want to play / run.
The Science is iffy, the Fiction is fun, the combat is lethal, and the possibilities are endless.
