Leo Knight
Mongoose
Last Friday, I ran my first Traveller adventure in 20 years, using the new Mongoose rulebook. Our group has been playing pretty regularly for almost 30 years (since Traveller first came out). The evening started with chargen, then right into an introductory adventure.
Since I'm still learning the rules, and a little rusty as ref, we took it slow. We decided to take turns at each step of chargen. First, everyone rolled stats. I used 2D6, but any '1s' added in and rolled again, giving better than average characters. Then each player rolled a term of service, with me explaining things as we went along. They decided to each create 3 term characters, so they'd be on a par with each other, but not incur aging penalties.
Dan decided on a Corporate Agent. Most of his skills are in Computer, Investigate, and Streetwise. Rubin started in the Scouts, but had a mishap (failed survival roll). He wound up as a Pirate, and failed his last survival roll as well! One of the things I like about this new edition is the Events/ Mishaps tables, that give even more color to the lifepath. Rubin's forte is Piloting. Our third player, Ben, rolled up a Star Marine. Guess who the party gun bunny is. All in all, a well rounded group.
I had rolled up a subsector, and they all rolled randomly the same homeworld. I started them on the most forgiving world, a law level 0 freeport I named Lazar. They equipped ("Guns. Lots of guns.") and met their patron, a Hot Scientist Babe named Ayla Varesh. Much discussion ensued as to who would play her in the movie. She believed she had uncovered evidence of a crashed alien spacecraft in the system, and wanted the party to help her get to it and lay claim to its secrets. She had chartered a launch, but her two assistants were science types, and she expected trouble. Other parties had been sniffing around, and some of them didn't play nice.
They set off for the moon of a gas giant, which I hadn't named. I had planned on setting the adventure entirely on Lazar, but at the game table, it seemed silly that an alien spacecraft could crash on a planet with a class B port, a navy base and scout base, and not be found. So I decided on the fly that the crash happened farther out, and 60 years ago. Ayla had been sifting through old sensor records to pinpoint its location.
At 1G, they would take about a week to get to the moon. I couldn't come up with a name on the fly, so we digressed coming up with silly names for the giant and the moon. they used their sensor skills to monitor traffic, and Dan used his Computer 3 to sort through it to find any traffic headed their way. Of course, there were other interested parties. Dan wondered why something could lay hidden for 60 years, and now everyone knows about it, and the race is on. I froze for a second ("Illogical, illogical! Please explain!"), then said that oters knew of Ayla's interest, and had probably hacked her files. Thinking about it now, I have other devious thoughts ... heh, heh.
More soon.
Since I'm still learning the rules, and a little rusty as ref, we took it slow. We decided to take turns at each step of chargen. First, everyone rolled stats. I used 2D6, but any '1s' added in and rolled again, giving better than average characters. Then each player rolled a term of service, with me explaining things as we went along. They decided to each create 3 term characters, so they'd be on a par with each other, but not incur aging penalties.
Dan decided on a Corporate Agent. Most of his skills are in Computer, Investigate, and Streetwise. Rubin started in the Scouts, but had a mishap (failed survival roll). He wound up as a Pirate, and failed his last survival roll as well! One of the things I like about this new edition is the Events/ Mishaps tables, that give even more color to the lifepath. Rubin's forte is Piloting. Our third player, Ben, rolled up a Star Marine. Guess who the party gun bunny is. All in all, a well rounded group.
I had rolled up a subsector, and they all rolled randomly the same homeworld. I started them on the most forgiving world, a law level 0 freeport I named Lazar. They equipped ("Guns. Lots of guns.") and met their patron, a Hot Scientist Babe named Ayla Varesh. Much discussion ensued as to who would play her in the movie. She believed she had uncovered evidence of a crashed alien spacecraft in the system, and wanted the party to help her get to it and lay claim to its secrets. She had chartered a launch, but her two assistants were science types, and she expected trouble. Other parties had been sniffing around, and some of them didn't play nice.
They set off for the moon of a gas giant, which I hadn't named. I had planned on setting the adventure entirely on Lazar, but at the game table, it seemed silly that an alien spacecraft could crash on a planet with a class B port, a navy base and scout base, and not be found. So I decided on the fly that the crash happened farther out, and 60 years ago. Ayla had been sifting through old sensor records to pinpoint its location.
At 1G, they would take about a week to get to the moon. I couldn't come up with a name on the fly, so we digressed coming up with silly names for the giant and the moon. they used their sensor skills to monitor traffic, and Dan used his Computer 3 to sort through it to find any traffic headed their way. Of course, there were other interested parties. Dan wondered why something could lay hidden for 60 years, and now everyone knows about it, and the race is on. I froze for a second ("Illogical, illogical! Please explain!"), then said that oters knew of Ayla's interest, and had probably hacked her files. Thinking about it now, I have other devious thoughts ... heh, heh.
More soon.
