In my gaming career the only sessions I could easily improvise were those for cyberpunk games. I could create a scenario with 5 minutes notice, and extend on the fly. I had a blast, and played alot.
More recently, with some old school D&D and now Traveller (players are my two sons) I've been putting off games alot, trying to come up with scenarios. They kept asking me ‘are we roleplaying tonight?’ and I’d have to let them down. Then I reread a very old White Dwarf article by Andy Slack called Backdrop of Stars (features in The Best of White Dwarf Articles Volume II 1983). What he prescribed in a way resembles the Random Patron Tables on pg 81 of the core rulebook.
When I had digested this method of scenario creation I found myself liberated. Now I'm not postponing games, sometimes we're adding an extra game in on a Monday evening to keep up! I have scenario seeds stacked up waiting to be played, or not, as the players choose. This is awesome.
This is the method, I'm sure most of you use this anyway, but for anyone new to Traveller, I will sketch out the method:
Firstly, know your worlds. Have a subsector or so, and a fairly good idea of what life is like on each one. I then create six scenario seeds for the world the players are about to visit.
For each one, I roll randomly for a patron. The charts on pg 81 will do, but so do the encounter tables on 76 and 82. Or … I can also use 760 Patrons, just pulling two characters out of there at random. Its what that book was made for. Personally I use the double patron list on pg 100 of the old Traveller Book (GDW). Next I roll a second patron or contact/enemy whatever. This becomes the target. Looking at my world, who is this patron? Why does the target interest them? What do they want and how does the target fit in? I often roll a random cargo. How does it fit in? Is it a cargo? Or simple a label for something that is causing the trouble.
Eg. Ubar, desert world. I roll Shopkeeper and Tourist. I know there’s an exotic looking carnivore on Ubar I called the Hunting Skreen. Surely the only thing a tourist would do here is hunt skreen… so what’s with the shopkeeper, the only thing I could think of selling to a safari tourist is a rifle. So where do the PCs fit in? Maybe the shopkeeper sold him a rifle that was faulty and he needs it back? Idea! Queue PCs joining the safari in desert ATVs, looking for an opportune moment to swap the rifles! That will do, with a bit more refinement to stop the plot falling apart, his wife accidentally sold the tiourist a customized high powered version, and he has no permits to sell a gun like that. He needs it back ASAP before the tourist or the guides on the safari find out.
I was a really great game, and both sons thought it was exciting and nerve-wracking, they’d never have got that close to, and interested in, the Ubar wildlife any other way.
Another 4 scenario seeds were just as easy to create. 10 minutes each, a months gaming in an hour. Each one lifts out an element of the game world, so that’s why I think its essential to have a basic knowledge of your world – in fact the more you know the better… just don’t detail too deeply or you can’t get creative with the scenario seeds, you find it difficult to ‘tie them into’ existing background.
Anyway – I recommend this method, use the tables in the core book, use 760 Patrons too, and 1001 Characters for insta-stats.
And you, like me, will have spin-off games in-between these scenario seeds you never expected. Far too much game for my game
Had to share!
More recently, with some old school D&D and now Traveller (players are my two sons) I've been putting off games alot, trying to come up with scenarios. They kept asking me ‘are we roleplaying tonight?’ and I’d have to let them down. Then I reread a very old White Dwarf article by Andy Slack called Backdrop of Stars (features in The Best of White Dwarf Articles Volume II 1983). What he prescribed in a way resembles the Random Patron Tables on pg 81 of the core rulebook.
When I had digested this method of scenario creation I found myself liberated. Now I'm not postponing games, sometimes we're adding an extra game in on a Monday evening to keep up! I have scenario seeds stacked up waiting to be played, or not, as the players choose. This is awesome.
This is the method, I'm sure most of you use this anyway, but for anyone new to Traveller, I will sketch out the method:
Firstly, know your worlds. Have a subsector or so, and a fairly good idea of what life is like on each one. I then create six scenario seeds for the world the players are about to visit.
For each one, I roll randomly for a patron. The charts on pg 81 will do, but so do the encounter tables on 76 and 82. Or … I can also use 760 Patrons, just pulling two characters out of there at random. Its what that book was made for. Personally I use the double patron list on pg 100 of the old Traveller Book (GDW). Next I roll a second patron or contact/enemy whatever. This becomes the target. Looking at my world, who is this patron? Why does the target interest them? What do they want and how does the target fit in? I often roll a random cargo. How does it fit in? Is it a cargo? Or simple a label for something that is causing the trouble.
Eg. Ubar, desert world. I roll Shopkeeper and Tourist. I know there’s an exotic looking carnivore on Ubar I called the Hunting Skreen. Surely the only thing a tourist would do here is hunt skreen… so what’s with the shopkeeper, the only thing I could think of selling to a safari tourist is a rifle. So where do the PCs fit in? Maybe the shopkeeper sold him a rifle that was faulty and he needs it back? Idea! Queue PCs joining the safari in desert ATVs, looking for an opportune moment to swap the rifles! That will do, with a bit more refinement to stop the plot falling apart, his wife accidentally sold the tiourist a customized high powered version, and he has no permits to sell a gun like that. He needs it back ASAP before the tourist or the guides on the safari find out.
I was a really great game, and both sons thought it was exciting and nerve-wracking, they’d never have got that close to, and interested in, the Ubar wildlife any other way.
Another 4 scenario seeds were just as easy to create. 10 minutes each, a months gaming in an hour. Each one lifts out an element of the game world, so that’s why I think its essential to have a basic knowledge of your world – in fact the more you know the better… just don’t detail too deeply or you can’t get creative with the scenario seeds, you find it difficult to ‘tie them into’ existing background.
Anyway – I recommend this method, use the tables in the core book, use 760 Patrons too, and 1001 Characters for insta-stats.
And you, like me, will have spin-off games in-between these scenario seeds you never expected. Far too much game for my game
Had to share!
- Like how we have a 19th century French writer using an 18/19th century German writer's list from a 17/18th century Italian (makes you wonder if the Italian got his list from someone else)! All being used for games in the 21st century!
