Deepnight revelation or project bayern for exploration mechanics

[Zhangar]

Hi all.

First time posting on the forum so apologies if this has already been discussed somewhere and I've missed it.

Im looking at running a solo exploration game, creating systems and planets as I go using the world builders handbook and great rift box set. This is going to be one or two characters on a small ship just heading off to see what happens.

I havent seen either box set outside of the promotional material but would either Deepnight Revelation or Project Bayern have any game system mechanics (not already covered) that would add to a solo play session. Im not looking at the story aspect but more the functional mechanics. For example a detailed ship system breakdown and maintenance/repair system (with resource gathering) or planetary points of interest generator to kickstart random storylines.

 

[ottarrus]

First off, WELCOME to the board and Traveller.

To start on your great voyage of discovery, you'll have to decide which rules set you want to use. The Deepnight series is based on the Traveller OTU and uses the Traveller Core Rules.
The Bayern campaign uses the 2300AD rules. These are similar to but very different from the Traveller Core. For one thing, it's a lower TL. For another, many of the whizz-bang technologies are not present... there is no artificial gravity, for example. There is also less published material for the 2300AD rules to support your game.

The second thing to note is that both Deepnight and Bayern are based off of capital ships. The Deepnight Revelation is a 75k ton converted cruiser, while the Bayern is 6000 tons [but is similar in play scale, given the tech limitations of 2300AD - it's a 'small ship' milieu].

From a practical budgetary standpoint, I would suggest the Deepnight box set. I'm aware that you're looking for game mechanics, not playing the campaign, but the Deepnight box will save you from having to buy the 2300AD box in addition to Projekt Bayern.

Now, NONE of my comments here should dissuade you from your project. It's YOUR Traveller Universe for your game, do what you want.

I hope some of this has been helpful. If you have any questions, ask them. The board here is pretty responsive.

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

Bundle of Holding have the entire 2300 2e series, including the core rules, for just over $30. It's all PDF, but the price can't be beat if 2300 is your preferred setting. Sale is on for the next 17 days as of this posting.

 

[Zhangar]

Thanks for the advice Ottarrus. And wow Talon that's an amazing find on the Bundle of holding...glad I asked haha!

 

[ottarrus]

Thanks for the advice Ottarrus. And wow Talon that's an amazing find on the Bundle of holding...glad I asked haha!

That IS a great deal!
One small caveat: 2300 is an alternate universe, it isn't in the OTU. It is an extension of the old GDW game Twilight 2000 and proceeds into a future from a theoretical World War Three. It's ENTIRELY different from the Third Imperium of Traveller.
That being said, I'm a huge fan of the 2300AD setting. If I didn't already own all of it, I'd be entirely down with the Bundle. But in an effort to save you some hard-earned gaming gold pieces, for your project Deepnight and 2300AD are an either/or proposition.
Mind you, if you want to join me at the deep end of the fan boy pool there's plenty of room!

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

I have the original 2300 setting and wasn't a big fan (I like a more advanced sci-fi setting) but for $30 I'm finding it difficult to pass up and add a little variety into my Traveller campaigns.

 

[Vormaerin]

There's a lot of very good ideas in Mongoose version of 2300 that can be used in Traveller. Depends on what your interests are. Yes, you have stutterwarp instead of J2 + M-Drive. But there's a wealth of ideas for doing TL9-12 stuff that is easy to use, not to mention cool ideas for more worlds.

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

There's a lot of very good ideas in Mongoose version of 2300 that can be used in Traveller. Depends on what your interests are. Yes, you have stutterwarp instead of J2 + M-Drive. But there's a wealth of ideas for doing TL9-12 stuff that is easy to use, not to mention cool ideas for more worlds.

SOLD!

 

[Saladman]

Im looking at running a solo exploration game, creating systems and planets as I go...

Solo, by Zozer games, has a section on doing exactly this. It is nominally for Cepheus Engine, but compatibility is very high.

Im not looking at the story aspect but more the functional mechanics. For example a detailed ship system breakdown and maintenance/repair system (with resource gathering) or planetary points of interest generator to kickstart random storylines.

However it's not exactly all this. It does have its own approach to the story aspect, lacks a maintenance/repair system using gathered resources*, but nails the final part.

*This would indeed be an awesome thing to have, for group play as well as solo, but its a very particular ask to expect to find in any particular book.

 

[Geir]

However it's not exactly all this. It does have its own approach to the story aspect, lacks a maintenance/repair system using gathered resources*, but nails the final part.

*This would indeed be an awesome thing to have, for group play as well as solo, but its a very particular ask to expect to find in any particular book.

Exactly that is available in the Deepnight Revelation Referee Handbook: A chapter on Resource Management (including gathering raw material off planets) and a chapter on Repairs and Maintenance. Up front there is a Points of Interest table that can be used as adventure seeds.

DNR* is a record-keeping nightmare, though. I made an overly complicated Excel workbook, as is my wont.
*Yes, that's my abbreviation for it. My wife is a nurse; she uses the same abbreviation for something entirely different.

 

[metlk]

Exactly that is available in the Deepnight Revelation Referee Handbook: A chapter on Resource Management (including gathering raw material off planets) and a chapter on Repairs and Maintenance. Up front there is a Points of Interest table that can be used as adventure seeds.

DNR* is a record-keeping nightmare, though. I made an overly complicated Excel workbook, as is my wont.
*Yes, that's my abbreviation for it. My wife is a nurse; she uses the same abbreviation for something entirely different.

Entirely different, and yet somehow entirely fitting! Lol!

 

[Zhangar]

Thanks for the all the responses. Looks like I'll be getting both sets !

Great recommendation with Hostile and Solo. What Ive started doing is collecting all the ideas and tables I like together to create my own universe manual, I guess you would call it. Stripping out the bits I'm personally not interested in but bigger up the other parts.

It's very satisfying and i'm super excited to see how it plays out at the table.

Im going to be honest, I wish I found this game years ago haha

 

[Zhangar]

Slightly off topic question...

But am I right in assuming that I ran retrofit any ship into another role as long as all the requirements are met within highguard.

My thought is to retro fit a very banged up express packet (adventure class book) strip out common room, second stateroom etc so to be able to install life/mineral scanners and the like and make it a jump 4 single person explorer.

 

[Condottiere]

Minor refit.

 

[ottarrus]

Slightly off topic question...

But am I right in assuming that I ran retrofit any ship into another role as long as all the requirements are met within highguard.

My thought is to retro fit a very banged up express packet (adventure class book) strip out common room, second stateroom etc so to be able to install life/mineral scanners and the like and make it a jump 4 single person explorer.

You're not pulling the major components [J-drive, M-drive, Power Plant or Computer], so it's a 'minor refit'... it'd only take month or two
OTOH, that's gonna be a pretty claustrophobic barge. And the pilot is gonna have to be the paragon of IISS multi-tasking... He'll need Pilot, Astrogation, Electronics Sensors, and Engineering at minimum to fly the ship as a competent explorer.

 

[Zhangar]

Perfect, I thought it was a minor refit. Just wanted to check I wasn't missing something obvious lol

 

[Epabaa]

If you're looking at the HOSTILE series and Solo by Zozer Games you may have already found this, but if not: check out the Explorers supplement for HOSTILE. It (like several of the HOSTILE thematic supplements) includes rules for a solo mini-game based on scouts exploring new worlds, looking for exploitable resources and colony sites. (Then, you can play out the solo minigames in Colony Builder to set up and run the new colony, Roughnecks, for prospecting, or Crew Expendable, for managing the crew of a cargo transport.)

Explorers works well with Zozer's Dirtside supplement, which gives more detailed mechanics for planet-side travel, wilderness survival, and encounters.

As for Traveller-specific materials, as Geir posted above the core Deepnight Revelation books do contain systems for ship maintenance and living off the land via wilderness resupply. There does appear to be some discrepancy in the Traveller 2e books about provisioning - what is the standard endurance for a starship in terms of life support, and how does that translate into displacement tons of cargo if you want to carry extra stores. I think because the standard Traveller game loop presumes a ship is visiting a starport every few jumps and so reprovisioning is abstracted into the periodic maintenance and life support costs.

You may find that the Foreven Sector on travellermap.com makes for a good exploration area, since it's a full sector (16 subsectors) of space with star system locations mapped but virtually no published canon details, leaving it open for you to fill in the blanks. You will eventually run into the
Far Frontiers sector to spinward, or Vanguard Reaches and Beyond sectors to spinward/rimward (detailed in the Spinward Extents setting book), so if you want a more open frontier (and you want to play in the OTU setting) you may want to look at the sectors along the Solomani Rim (described in the Rim Expeditions book).

Finally just a quick plug for my favorite unofficial, detailed-but-not-too-detailed world generation system, RTT Worldgen. I find it a nice alternative when the World Builders Handbook gets a little overwhelming (to say nothing of the awesome depth of detail that is Jon Zeigler's Architect of Worlds!)

Have fun, let us know how it goes!

 

[Epabaa]

Oh one more thing about 2300AD and Project Bayern:

Bayern does have some campaign tools for tracking the total elapsed time and travel distance as the mission proceeds, but the book specifically notes that these are really more for the referee to provide atmosphere for the players, and aren't meant to be a guide to specific resource-and-replenishment tracking along the way. The Mission Profile book states that the ship has more than enough supplies on board to last the whole mission, so efforts to resupply at strange new worlds or efficiently manage the recyclables are more for use as plot hooks for episodes in the campaign rather than mechanics for a quantitative resource management minigame.

 

[Zhangar]

If you're looking at the HOSTILE series and Solo by Zozer Games you may have already found this, but if not: check out the Explorers supplement for HOSTILE. It (like several of the HOSTILE thematic supplements) includes rules for a solo mini-game based on scouts exploring new worlds, looking for exploitable resources and colony sites. (Then, you can play out the solo minigames in Colony Builder to set up and run the new colony, Roughnecks, for prospecting, or Crew Expendable, for managing the crew of a cargo transport.)

Explorers works well with Zozer's Dirtside supplement, which gives more detailed mechanics for planet-side travel, wilderness survival, and encounters.

As for Traveller-specific materials, as Geir posted above the core Deepnight Revelation books do contain systems for ship maintenance and living off the land via wilderness resupply. There does appear to be some discrepancy in the Traveller 2e books about provisioning - what is the standard endurance for a starship in terms of life support, and how does that translate into displacement tons of cargo if you want to carry extra stores. I think because the standard Traveller game loop presumes a ship is visiting a starport every few jumps and so reprovisioning is abstracted into the periodic maintenance and life support costs.

You may find that the Foreven Sector on travellermap.com makes for a good exploration area, since it's a full sector (16 subsectors) of space with star system locations mapped but virtually no published canon details, leaving it open for you to fill in the blanks. You will eventually run into the
Far Frontiers sector to spinward, or Vanguard Reaches and Beyond sectors to spinward/rimward (detailed in the Spinward Extents setting book), so if you want a more open frontier (and you want to play in the OTU setting) you may want to look at the sectors along the Solomani Rim (described in the Rim Expeditions book).

Finally just a quick plug for my favorite unofficial, detailed-but-not-too-detailed world generation system, RTT Worldgen. I find it a nice alternative when the World Builders Handbook gets a little overwhelming (to say nothing of the awesome depth of detail that is Jon Zeigler's Architect of Worlds!)

Have fun, let us know how it goes!

Wow, thanks for the indepth reply! You're right about the explorers and dirstside supplements. Ive been using them to try fleshing out the class of survey details for a solo generation protocol.

I will definately look into Foreven Sector and the Spinward Extents book. It sounds like a great away to did into the unknown and slowly build up to deeper exploration missions.