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.

 

[Ragnar60]

You can actually start a long campaign on Marduk, without even having to start the Drinax campaign at all. Here is how I would do it:

1. Flatlined. The PC's were grabbed on Torpol, to be sold to either Oghman slavers or Lysani Laboratories (Death Station) for experimentation.
2. Gods of Marduk. The PC's need money to survive. Later crude addition to the island carvings suggest a ship may have come down into a nearby mountain.
(3. Forerunner) (TAS Product) Particularly useful if you have a Psion PC, but otherwise useful for gaining PC's cash to leave Marduk. Also makes the big companies motives even more questionable, especially if you make the patron, Butler Chemicals! Set on the farming enclave on the continent next to Marduk downport.
4. Death Station. Brilliant adventure which proves that there are worse entities in the Reach than Oghman Raiders / Slavers!
5. & 6. Shore Leave & Delicate Matter (Cepheus Engine Products) PC's go to Torpol to retrieve their possessions from Starport lockers and perhaps get revenge / justice on their kidnappers! Good time to introduce Sal Dancet (Drinax) as the dead Noble in Delicate Matter is a Drinaxian Diplomat. Dancet also tells them about a possible Drinaxian ship that went down on Marduk 200 years ago, that Drinax would like back.
7. & 8. Reach Adventure 2 (Theories of Everything) & Borite (POD Book 1 Patrons & Encounters) Chance to crew a ship, see more of Marduk and Sindal sub-sector and really loath Oghmans! Return to Marduk after rescue perhaps goes wrong.
9. Reach Adventure 1 (Marooned on Marduk) First Oghman attack on Marduk Highport. Proves there are survivors on Marduk's continents as well!
10. People of the Sun (Cepheus Engine Product) The PC's should have quite a reputation by now and are recruited to investigate a possible Sindalian site on one of the inhabited islands. Shows how low some of Marduk's natives have sunk, thanks to the Sindalians!
11. Temple of the Ancients (Cepheus Engine Product) Similar to 10. above, but shows how ancient, advanced and different (alien) the Sindalian Empire was, compared to today.
12. Reach Adventure 8 (Makergod) Second much larger Oghman attack on Marduk Highport. Have the PC's on the station, having to fend off Oghman Raiders. Perhaps let them capture an A2 Far Trader (with 2 Twin Pulse Laser / Sandcaster Turrets) that the Raiders came from. Great story about cultures not being homogenously good / evil! Great chance to free the Reach from Oghman Raiders! Marduk Highport is badly damaged and all streamlined craft have to use Marduk Downport!
13. High 'n' Dry. Set it on Marduk. The PC's work out that mountain in the carvings in Gods of Marduk is Mount Salbari in the farming enclave. The rail journey from the Downport becomes a boat journey. The racism against Vargr can remain, to make Gedeco look a lot less benign! The Scout turns out to be an damaged Harrier (as per POD Book 1) but also with a non functional jump drive (damaged). Missile warheads from the magazine can be used as seismic charges.
14. Taking of Port Meropis (TAS product) Pirates from Theev attack Marduk Downport, hoping to seize supplies, ships (Harrier) etc. Highport unable to help. PC's maybe able to seize the parts to repair the Harriers Jump Drive from the pirates or make enough money to buy them. If the PC's used ship shares to repair the Jump Drive, then the Harrier will be the number one target on the ground!

Months of campaigning here. By now the PC's should be somewhat famous in the Reach!

TAS products can be found on Drive Thru RPG, as can Cepheus Engine products which are Traveller adjacent and very cheap!

 

[Endie]

You could also use Operation Choke Point from Gregg Wilson, which has the players hired to blockade the Theev deep space fuel dump that is also used in the first main PoD adventure (Honour Amongst Thieves). It's a whole 3 bucks from DTRPG: https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/232538/Operation-Choke-Point

 

[mavikfelna]

You can actually start a long campaign on Marduk, without even having to start the Drinax campaign at all. Here is how I would do it:

1. Flatlined. The PC's were grabbed on Torpol, to be sold to either Oghman slavers or Lysani Laboratories (Death Station) for experimentation.
2. Gods of Marduk. The PC's need money to survive. Later crude addition to the island carvings suggest a ship may have come down into a nearby mountain.
(3. Forerunner) (TAS Product) Particularly useful if you have a Psion PC, but otherwise useful for gaining PC's cash to leave Marduk. Also makes the big companies motives even more questionable, especially if you make the patron, Butler Chemicals! Set on the farming enclave on the continent next to Marduk downport.
4. Death Station. Brilliant adventure which proves that there are worse entities in the Reach than Oghman Raiders / Slavers!
5. & 6. Shore Leave & Delicate Matter (Cepheus Engine Products) PC's go to Torpol to retrieve their possessions from Starport lockers and perhaps get revenge / justice on their kidnappers! Good time to introduce Sal Dancet (Drinax) as the dead Noble in Delicate Matter is a Drinaxian Diplomat. Dancet also tells them about a possible Drinaxian ship that went down on Marduk 200 years ago, that Drinax would like back.
7. & 8. Reach Adventure 2 (Theories of Everything) & Borite (POD Book 1 Patrons & Encounters) Chance to crew a ship, see more of Marduk and Sindal sub-sector and really loath Oghmans! Return to Marduk after rescue perhaps goes wrong.
9. Reach Adventure 1 (Marooned on Marduk) First Oghman attack on Marduk Highport. Proves there are survivors on Marduk's continents as well!
10. People of the Sun (Cepheus Engine Product) The PC's should have quite a reputation by now and are recruited to investigate a possible Sindalian site on one of the inhabited islands. Shows how low some of Marduk's natives have sunk, thanks to the Sindalians!
11. Temple of the Ancients (Cepheus Engine Product) Similar to 10. above, but shows how ancient, advanced and different (alien) the Sindalian Empire was, compared to today.
12. Reach Adventure 8 (Makergod) Second much larger Oghman attack on Marduk Highport. Have the PC's on the station, having to fend off Oghman Raiders. Perhaps let them capture an A2 Far Trader (with 2 Twin Pulse Laser / Sandcaster Turrets) that the Raiders came from. Great story about cultures not being homogenously good / evil! Great chance to free the Reach from Oghman Raiders! Marduk Highport is badly damaged and all streamlined craft have to use Marduk Downport!
13. High 'n' Dry. Set on Marduk. The PC's work out that mountain in the carvings in Gods of Marduk is Mount Salbari in the farming enclave. The rail journey from the Downport becomes a boat journey. The racism against Vargr can remain, to make Gedeco look a lot less benign! The Scout turns out to be an damaged Harrier (as per POD Book 1) but also with a non functional jump drive (damaged). Missile warheads from the magazine can be used as seismic charges.
14. Taking of Port Meropis (TAS product) Pirates from Theev attack Marduk Downport, hoping to seize supplies, ships (Harrier) etc. Highport unable to help. PC's maybe able to seize the parts to repair the Harriers Jump Drive from the pirates or make enough money to buy them. If the PC's used ship shares to repair the Jump Drive, then the Harrier will be the number one target on the ground!

Months of campaigning here. By now the PC's should be somewhat famous in the Reach!

TAS products can be found on Drive Thru RPG, as can Cepheus Engine products which are Traveller adjacent and very cheap!

Thank you, this is fantastic! Depending on the various module costs, it may take me a bit to collect them all, but this will keep us busy for a long time and looks to be a fairly interesting campaign.
Our previous sci-fi campaign ran about 2 years in a setting based on the setting my friends and I built back in high school in the 80's and it was a lot of fun, but somewhat disjointed because I was making it all up on the fly. That, and the fact that I let G talk me into too many power ups early on for his sentient robot, is why I think they were eager to switch to Traveller and try something new. This campaign path should help keep me on track and organized and help keep them from getting over powered early on.
And using the Harrier for High N Dry is a brilliant idea!

 

[mavikfelna]

You could also use Operation Choke Point from Gregg Wilson, which has the players hired to blockade the Theev deep space fuel dump that is also used in the first main PoD adventure (Honour Amongst Thieves). It's a whole 3 bucks from DTRPG: https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/232538/Operation-Choke-Point

Cool! I will check it out. Looks like there are a lot of good resources for a Reach based campaign even beyond the excellent stuff put out by Mongoose.

 

[Ragnar60]

Thank you, this is fantastic! Depending on the various module costs, it may take me a bit to collect them all, but this will keep us busy for a long time and looks to be a fairly interesting campaign.
Our previous sci-fi campaign ran about 2 years in a setting based on the setting my friends and I built back in high school in the 80's and it was a lot of fun, but somewhat disjointed because I was making it all up on the fly. That, and the fact that I let G talk me into too many power ups early on for his sentient robot, is why I think they were eager to switch to Traveller and try something new. This campaign path should help keep me on track and organized and help keep them from getting over powered early on.
And using the Harrier for High N Dry is a brilliant idea!

Most of these are really cheap, a few bucks at most. You could probably get all of them for $60-70. If they want a ship earlier than High "n" Dry, make them fight for it or out think the opposition!

 

[Endie]

Cool! I will check it out. Looks like there are a lot of good resources for a Reach based campaign even beyond the excellent stuff put out by Mongoose.

There is also the Mystery of BT-SHT 365, by Christopher Wilson, which has a whole bunch of problems but which you can strip ideas from. Problems include:

- It's incredibly childishly-named. Like I wince even typing it. But some 13 year olds may love that...
- Much more importantly, it has unpleasant themes in it which are pretty unsuitable for 13 year olds, and which are poorly handled (including murder-r*pe, sexual assault and non-consensual impregnation in which, if I remember rightly, the party are invited to help.
- The maps are awful!
- The balance of the rewards is way off: like "here is a thousand-ton, J-4, 6G, armour 14 destroyer (albeit with a comically-bad weapons mix) for the party: it's fuelled and ready to go!"

All that said, there is a good, old-fashioned hook and a decent story buried (deep) in there which, with some work, can provide decent adventures for the Travellers. But I'm not really recommending it. Seth Skorkowsky has a series of reviews of it where he talks about some ways that you can improve it, but he was positive overall.

There is also Fire Beyond the Border by @Pyromancer. I like it and the production standards and writing are better than the above, but it is a bit pricer than most TAS adventures: almost three times the price of the excellent Glorious Empire-related adventures The Tktk Convergence and Iron Spine by @MongooseChris which are also based in the Reach.

 

[Ragnar60]

There is also the Mystery of BT-SHT 365, by Christopher Wilson, which has a whole bunch of problems but which you can strip ideas from. Problems include:

- It's incredibly childishly-named. Like I wince even typing it. But some 13 year olds may love that...
- Much more importantly, it has unpleasant themes in it which are pretty unsuitable for 13 year olds, and which are poorly handled (including murder-r*pe, sexual assault and non-consensual impregnation in which, if I remember rightly, the party are invited to help.
- The maps are awful!
- The balance of the rewards is way off: like "here is a thousand-ton, J-4, 6G, armour 14 destroyer (albeit with a comically-bad weapons mix) for the party: it's fuelled and ready to go!"

All that said, there is a good, old-fashioned hook and a decent story buried (deep) in there which, with some work, can provide decent adventures for the Travellers. But I'm not really recommending it. Seth Skorkowsky has a series of reviews of it where he talks about some ways that you can improve it, but he was positive overall.

There is also Fire Beyond the Border by @Pyromancer. I like it and the production standards and writing are better than the above, but it is a bit pricer than most TAS adventures: almost three times the price of the excellent Glorious Empire-related adventures The Tktk Convergence and Iron Spine by @MongooseChris which are also based in the Reach.

Fire beyond the Border is what I would recommend, if you don't want to start POD after leaving Marduk. The PC's will be famous enough to be given the task at Marduk. I would suggest having them escort the young Noble to Fist rather than Tobia. From there it is one jump to Lilgan where you can run the adventure in the back of the Borderlands sourcebook. After that I would suggest running the Mongoose 1st edition adventure Counterweights and Measures, which starts and ends on Lilgan. After that the Broker on Lilgan can refer them to another Broker on Argona, which will start Reach Adventure 5 (The Borderland Run). This will take the party eventually to Tyokh, which is one jump from Kteiroa where you can run Friends in Dry Places. Friends in Dry Places and Gods of Marduk are both in the Drinaxian Companion! From Kteiroa it is one jump to Drinax and POD or Shadows of Sindal!

 

[Endie]

Fire beyond the Border is what I would recommend, if you don't want to start POD after leaving Marduk. The PC's will be famous enough to be given the task at Marduk. I would suggest having them escort the young Noble to Fist rather than Tobia. From there it is one jump to Lilgan where you can run the adventure in the back of the Borderlands sourcebook. After that I would suggest running the Mongoose 1st edition adventure Counterweights and Measures, which starts and ends on Lilgan. After that the Broker on Lilgan can refer them to another Broker on Argona, which will start Reach Adventure 5 (The Borderland Run). This will take the party eventually to Tyokh, which is one jump from Kteiroa where you can run Friends in Dry Places. Friends in Dry Places and Gods of Marduk are both in the Drinaxian Companion! From Kteiroa it is one jump to Drinax and POD or Shadows of Sindal!

I forgot Counterweights and Measures: very good call.

 

[mavikfelna]

There is also the Mystery of BT-SHT 365, by Christopher Wilson, which has a whole bunch of problems but which you can strip ideas from. Problems include:

- It's incredibly childishly-named. Like I wince even typing it. But some 13 year olds may love that...
- Much more importantly, it has unpleasant themes in it which are pretty unsuitable for 13 year olds, and which are poorly handled (including murder-r*pe, sexual assault and non-consensual impregnation in which, if I remember rightly, the party are invited to help.
- The maps are awful!
- The balance of the rewards is way off: like "here is a thousand-ton, J-4, 6G, armour 14 destroyer (albeit with a comically-bad weapons mix) for the party: it's fuelled and ready to go!"

All that said, there is a good, old-fashioned hook and a decent story buried (deep) in there which, with some work, can provide decent adventures for the Travellers. But I'm not really recommending it. Seth Skorkowsky has a series of reviews of it where he talks about some ways that you can improve it, but he was positive overall.

There is also Fire Beyond the Border by @Pyromancer. I like it and the production standards and writing are better than the above, but it is a bit pricer than most TAS adventures: almost three times the price of the excellent Glorious Empire-related adventures The Tktk Convergence and Iron Spine by @MongooseChris which are also based in the Reach.

Sounds like mystery isn't for us.
I'll check out Fire Beyond, but if it's that expensive, it's unlikely I'll get it any time soon. Still, if we're going long enough, I'll probably pick it up at some point.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[mavikfelna]

Fire beyond the Border is what I would recommend, if you don't want to start POD after leaving Marduk. The PC's will be famous enough to be given the task at Marduk. I would suggest having them escort the young Noble to Fist rather than Tobia. From there it is one jump to Lilgan where you can run the adventure in the back of the Borderlands sourcebook. After that I would suggest running the Mongoose 1st edition adventure Counterweights and Measures, which starts and ends on Lilgan. After that the Broker on Lilgan can refer them to another Broker on Argona, which will start Reach Adventure 5 (The Borderland Run). This will take the party eventually to Tyokh, which is one jump from Kteiroa where you can run Friends in Dry Places. Friends in Dry Places and Gods of Marduk are both in the Drinaxian Companion! From Kteiroa it is one jump to Drinax and POD or Shadows of Sindal!

I'll look at Fire Beyond, but I need to watch cost for the moment. Sounds like it's a good adventure though.
I'll look through my bundles, I may have picked up Counterweights some time ago. If not, I'm assuming it's still available on DriveThruRPG?
I'm really looking forward to Borderland Run. I read through it a good while ago when someone mentioned it as good for a lead in to PoD and just love the story. I don't know how my boys will react to it though. We're still working on social role playing and you really need to do that to bring out the best in this story. But as a big Aslan fan, I really hope they can get into it.
I've not looked at Friends yet, but there are a lot of adventures that came with PoD and the supplements. That bundle was a terrific deal and I'm glad I got in on it.
Thanks for all the great advice and suggestions!