Do you pick the adventure before the PCs?

[Steve Geddes]

This came up in discussion with a friend of mine and we’re pretty much diametrically opposed.

When running a traveller game based around prewritten adventures using the default “life path” character generation method, do you select the adventure (or campaign) before you know who the PCs are?

Or do you wait to see what group gets put together and then determine which adventure will suit them?

 

[NOLATrav]

If I’m using pre-written adventures, I usually try to line up two or three of them, figuring out ways to hook/link them together outside of whoever the PCs are. Then I use career events and backgrounds to hook/link the PCs into one of them. Whichever one has the most opening hooks is the one I start with.

So I’m in the first group, pick the adventures and then see how the PCs can fit in. After the first couple adventures we’re in the sandbox and anything goes.

 

[Vormaerin]

If it's a LONG adventure or one with a special starting condition like Leviathan, Drinax, or Deepnight, then I'll give the players some guidance as to what's suitable for the campaign that's more strict than the usual. But otherwise, I rewrite the adventures to suit the characters I have.

Its pretty rare that standard generated adventurers won't fit an adventure, unless the adventure specifically requires the PCs to have or not have a ship. Its really only the special premise campaign modules that put any restrictions, in my experience.

 

[Saladman]

I never actually used a lot of prewritten adventures. Which is a shame in one case, since I'd love to run Pirates of Drinax. If I did I'd tell the players what the basic premise was so they could make informed choices about careers.

In a more open campaign, I obviously do tailor some missions around the skills, contacts and reputation of the party. At the same time I'm quite happy to sometimes drop in a side mission that just is what it is, and see what they make of it.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, pregenerated characters for a one shot adventure should be sufficiently differentiated to suit the players' more specific tastes.

My view is that at short notice, it's the dungeon master who picks the adventure.

 

[NOLATrav]

I never actually used a lot of prewritten adventures.

I should clarify that I’m the same, they are rare for me to run. But if I’m considering it I like to have a couple in my back pocket and let the players have free reign with char gen.

 

[Steve Geddes]

Yeah I dont use prewritten adventures much either - so my style is usually to cater the stories to the groups.

I was curious what peoples style is if you pick an adventure. Essentially, Do you tell them you're running Drinax and make it work whatever, or do you wait until a perfect crew for a Drinax game emerges?

 

[KimmieElise]

This came up in discussion with a friend of mine and we’re pretty much diametrically opposed.

When running a traveller game based around prewritten adventures using the default “life path” character generation method, do you select the adventure (or campaign) before you know who the PCs are?

Or do you wait to see what group gets put together and then determine which adventure will suit them?

I give players options about what type of campaign they want to play before the campaign. If they want to play the classic Free Trader type campaign, and pre-made adventures fit I will run them. If they want a merc campaign and pre-made adventures work, I will run them. Mostly, though I give players a scenario, generate the NPCs, places and any relevant gear and turn them loose. This means giving them a lot of leeway to go where they want and do what they want. I do a lot less plot creation and a lot more people, places, and things creation. Invariably, at some point the PCs will kind of find a niche and I run with that. I generally have no end goal in mind when I start a game. I let the PCs pick it.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yeah I dont use prewritten adventures much either - so my style is usually to cater the stories to the groups.

I was curious what peoples style is if you pick an adventure. Essentially, Do you tell them you're running Drinax and make it work whatever, or do you wait until a perfect crew for a Drinax game emerges?

Full themed campaigns pretty much require some pre planning of characters. But, more importantly, they require buy in from the players. If you really want to run a Naval Campaign or a Mercenary Campaign, that better be on your campaign pitch to your players. Drinax, Deepnight, Beltstrike, Skandersvik, Traveller Adventure, etc are all pretty "this is what you are doing" for a quite a long period of play time. If your players aren't expecting to be merchant adventurers, or belters, or a naval bridge crew, you'll have more problems than whether the characters are suitable.

If you mean adventures in the sense of "I wanna open the campaign with Flatlined and see where it goes from there", then you don't really need to do anything with characters and probably not much with the players, except maybe letting them know that initial gear acquisition will be after the first adventure.

 

[Steve Geddes]

I’m mainly curious about how others do it (largely because my friend and I had exactly opposite thoughts on what was “obviously” best).

As a general rule, the only prewritten things I’ve run in recent years have been Paizo APs. If I were to run an equivalent traveller game (Drinax or Deepnight, I guess) it would definitely be with player buy in.

our point of difference was with something like High and Dry - whether it makes sense to think “that’s a good starting adventure to kick off the next campaign with”, regardless of PC makeup. Or whether it’s best to wait for a perfect group of PCs (one where a PC has a scout ship, for instance).

 

[Galadrion]

What is "best" is highly situational, even more subjective, and probably not at all as "obvious" as it might appear. That said, I really have no real opinion on the "character first/adventure first" question, because I almost never use published adventures as anything more than either inspiration (in which case the players aren't going to see a copy of said adventure anywhere around me) or distraction (in which case, they will see it around me... and if they're foolish enough to take the bait, read the adventure hoping for illicit clues, and take any planted lures, well, they'll earn the "rewards" of cheating).

 

[Vormaerin]

If you like the adventure, I think High & Dry is good either way. If no one in your group got a ship and a ship based campaign is one that you want to run, then High and Dry is a way to get them a ship. If you have a scout who rolled up a scout ship in chargen, you can use High and Dry as a fun way to explain them having it.

The players' ship status is really the only thing in any amber zone or published (non campaign style) adventure for Traveller that is really dependent on character make up. There are very few that turn on a particular skill that the crew might not have. A Dagger at Efate is difficult to run if the characters don't have a ship, while Safari Ship is not ideal for a group that already has a ship.

I think that whether you run prewritten adventures or not is a red herring. Published adventures, and Traveller ones in particular, always need to be tweaked and adjusted for the situation in your campaign unless you are running a one shot. And the same question about writing the adventure and then getting characters or getting characters and writing the adventure applies to non published stuff, too.

 

[Steve Geddes]

With homebrewed/emergent stories, every adventure except the first is written/selected after the characters are. (And in my case the first is always written after session zero too).

My inclination was to treat prewritten adventures the same way - to get the group created and then dig through my library to choose an adventure that suits.

it was only after speaking to my friend that I even considered doing it the other way around - which he seemed to think was pretty obvious/common/intended.

 

[paltrysum]

I inform the players of what I intend to run so they can (optionally) take a stab at making characters who will have a lot to do in the adventure. If it's a ship-oriented adventure, they typically try to fill out crew roles. If it's trade-oriented, someone tries to get Broker skill. For exploration-themed adventures, some environmental skills are sought out. Etc. If they don't play along, I still try to mold events so that each of the characters has something fun and engaging to do. It doesn't always work, but then, the referee-player compact requires both sides to collaborate.

For a great piece on what to do when players refuse to play along, look no further than Seth Skorkowsky's 13th Warrior video:

 

[Vormaerin]

With homebrewed/emergent stories, every adventure except the first is written/selected after the characters are. (And in my case the first is always written after session zero too).

My inclination was to treat prewritten adventures the same way - to get the group created and then dig through my library to choose an adventure that suits.

it was only after speaking to my friend that I even considered doing it the other way around - which he seemed to think was pretty obvious/common/intended

I dunno about that. But Traveller doesn't distinguish between "campaigns/Adventure Paths" and regular adventures in its terminology like some games do. So that could be causing some confusion. Those adventure path like scenarios like Skandersvik or full campaigns like Deepnight are never going to happen without some kind of pre-planning. So I think it's clearly intended for those kinds of scenarios.

But your 76 Patrons/Amber Zones/High N Dry type short adventures, I would think that no one would really expect to tailor characters to those outside of a one shot with pregens.

 

[KimmieElise]

My approach to campaign design is generally to create factions and NPCs more than anything. I will pick a starting world for the campaign and start detailing in the various factions for each world as my intuition leads. I tend to make sure the factions within the local government are covered, any significant criminal organizations, any important religions, any Imperial Nobles who have fiefs on a world, any major business interests, and anything else I can think of. Usually, when I create a faction I write a little about their ideology and goals and usually create a faction which is against the first faction entirely or in part. Competition and conflict make good stories. I try to make any local Scout or Naval bases factions of their own, along with the local Starport Authority. A paragraph on each faction is enough to get started.

After creating factions, I start creating important figures in each faction. Usually 2 or 3 is enough for each faction and you don't even have to do but a rudimentary description of them. What matters is their individual ideology and motivation within their faction. Some NPCs within in a faction might be rivals or even enemies.

The faction and people creating process makes it easy to create adventures. Even if you do a 76 Patrons/Amber Zone style adventure, you already have some framework. If you're patron is a retired pirate who had his now legit business raided by armed assailants and wants to know who did it so he can take revenge, you can draw on your factions. Who might a pirate have angered who would take this sort of revenge on him? Well, this business faction A might be someone whom the pirate stole a cargo from years back. Person X in this business faction already has a vindictive streak and little respect for laws. There we go. There is the who-done-it and why. Maybe the raiders who hit the pirates business were a special ops group from Mercenary faction D? I have already written how they have teams of covert ops who do not operate in a strict military manner, and who do jobs that might be illegal. The rest is locations and lesser NPCs.

 

[Vormaerin]

Okay. I was just answering your original question.