Adventure chaining in the Reach

[mavikfelna]

Ok, I've started my 13 year old twins on their first real Traveller game, after years of playing our basic d20 lite fantasy and sci-fi games.

We're starting with Flatlined, since I like the way it introduces things slowly and you don't really need to know anything about the game system or setting since it lets you introduce everything reasonably slowly. But, I'm setting it on Marduk, since I want to play with all great stories in the Reach adventures, Borderlands and all the stuff in Drinax/Sinadal stories, and I'm hoping we can do this as a long campaign.

So here's my thoughts to start, Flatlined starts it out, but rolls directly into Marooned on Marduk. Instead of a shuttle crash to start Marooned, the mining site in Flatlined is instead an illegal site run by a corp with contacts with the Oghma raiders. It is still a mining site, but that's a cover for the corp to use it as a transfer site for the low passengers to be transferred from the Oghma to the corp, before they are then shipped off to labs for use as test subjects.

So once they survive the mining site and hopefully gather a little bit of intel, they'll begin the trek across the outback of Marduk to somewhere close enough to civilization to affect a rescue ala Marooned.

Once they get rescued, the downport administrator will introduce them to the Lysani Lab's admin, who has an issue that they could help with and earn a way off world. And we move to Death Station.

I don't plan on letting them get ahold of the Calypso, so they are going to need to acquire a ship around this point, and I like High N Dry, but I'm not sure where I can put it in the Reach. I was thinking GeDeCo could be who hires them, and maybe have a Type A2 or something similar instead of a scout. An alternate idea, though I haven't actually read the adventure yet, just the quick descriptions, is Theories of Everything. Since there is a perfectly good labship at Marduk already, maybe they get hired aboard after it's cleaned up and repaired, or the actual labship from the adventure comes into the system just in time to hire the characters. I think we could do the whole set of Reach adventures at this point, though I need to read though them and get some idea of the through line for the story, and at some point during that set run High N Dry.

Any body have thoughts or suggestions? Any good idea on where to put High N Dry if I do do it?

 

[Limpin Legin]

Any body have thoughts or suggestions?

I wouldn't necessarily play Traveller by pegging one milestone along-side another milestone, like you are forcing yourself to go from Marduk to the Borderlands via Lysani's Lab. Because you'll end up putting hours into prepping your material, only to find the players whizz through it without prompting for investigation. Instead, I would fathom the pathos and the skills required for the adventure, and then test whether players are into that - so, I would end up starting with any available adventure, depending on what the players think they are into.

Any good idea on where to put High N Dry if I do do it?

I just make a few notes on the adventure, then virtually rewrite it to suite the next available, nearest fit planet that the players are likely to encounter. High N Dry needs an inactive volcano and a nearby camping shop, as far as I can remember. So, some good survival and athletics skills I would suggest may come in handy. When I did High N Dry, I rewrote the mountain climb section to be like the Eagle Mountain climb chapter in Call of Jurez as that sort of inspiration meant a lot to me at the time.

 

[mavikfelna]

I wouldn't necessarily play Traveller by pegging one milestone along-side another milestone, like you are forcing yourself to go from Marduk to the Borderlands via Lysani's Lab. Because you'll end up putting hours into prepping your material, only to find the players whizz through it without prompting for investigation. Instead, I would fathom the pathos and the skills required for the adventure, and then test whether players are into that - so, I would end up starting with any available adventure, depending on what the players think they are into.


I just make a few notes on the adventure, then virtually rewrite it to suite the next available, nearest fit planet that the players are likely to encounter. High N Dry needs an inactive volcano and a nearby camping shop, as far as I can remember. So, some good survival and athletics skills I would suggest may come in handy. When I did High N Dry, I rewrote the mountain climb section to be like the Eagle Mountain climb chapter in Call of Jurez as that sort of inspiration meant a lot to me at the time.

I don't know what Call of Jurez is, but basically I'm doing the same, though not completely rewriting I'm at least cutting out a lot of the intro parts and adapting the frame of the story into our narrative.

My boys are both fairly different from from each other. G likes combat and action sequences, while T is more of a roleplayer and puzzle solver. But they usually manage to mesh fairly well and both seem eager to keep playing so I'll keep at it. Both of them like tension and horror vibes though, which is good for Flatlined and Death Station especially.