My crew operate on a Type R so there are usually passengers to manage. I use randomness to determine whether the jump is a formality, an opportunity for a vignette or (as universally hated by players anxious to get to destination X) a mini-adventure.
If you imagine twenty or thirty people cooped up in a small submarine-style space with nothing to do for 7 days, you'll realise that in the absence of military discipline, there's a problem to manage : "The devil makes work for idle hands."
Vignettes include:
- a personality clash: maybe a passenger tells the engineer that the ship is shabby or two passengers sharing a room demand separate rooms in the otherwise fully-booked ship. An old military commander tells the engineer to get a haircut and shape up;
- a medical emergency: nothing serious, maybe a toothache, perhaps appendicitis. Or going for the real deal, norovirus with a juicy quarantine as soon as the port authorities realise what the ship's brought in;
- a software glitch: nothing serious but takes Computer-2 to know that for sure. I make these technical so that the players can stretch their jargon glands. As it is dismounted, Manoeuvre-1 errors with a stack overflow at line 37 so the navigator has to describe the implications to the players while the players keep straight faces and nod sagely - Mornington Crescent in space;
- warp party: going supersonic was a thing on Concorde, why not in traveller? Anything to keep passengers busy and entertained. The routine of a passenger would revolve around meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner and the steward would try to theme each dinner and lay on something special for the light speed club and the night before disembarkation. I'd get the steward to describe the dish to the passengers just for lulz;
- Kids. In between meals the steward still has to keep passengers entertained. If there are children on board, it's doubly important. I ask the steward what events he has lined up for the kids and if he draws a blank, they become a nuisance for the passengers;
- common training opportunity : seriously, real people wouldn't train like machines - they'd be bored and jaded particularly in the knowledge that every other week is wasted in hyperspace. Maybe a passenger has a real insight into a skill that another player finds genuinely useful.
- Lurve. It doesn't have to be requited but some of the best fun I've had with players stems from unrequited love. It's hard to describe an NPC to a character in a way to make them fall in love but it's the easiest thing in the world to have a love-pest on board who has a same-sex crush on a particular crew member;
- Escaped wildlife. My crew sometimes carry livestock in the cargo bay. It needs to be fed and watered and kept secure. If wildlife escapes and starts running around, I usually keep it benign - lots of fouling and mess everywhere but never a Zarg - that's too cliched.
- Dangerous goods. Some cargoes are hazardous and if planes can be brought down by oxygen generators so spaceships can have problems too. A fire in the cargo bay gives players three choices : go into denial, fight the fire (hazardous) or depressurise the bay by opening the doors to space;
- Training Exchanges. Many educational establishments pay crews to place undergraduates on board for training. So a trainee navigator is overseen by the real navigator and is brought up to scratch. I would put some young buck/old buck clashes into the mix to test the navigator's patience;
- False hijack. So one passenger seems to have a secret friendhip with two others and they're acting suspiciously. The security officer is on edge and has his body pistol ready for action. When it kicks off, it turns out to be nothing more than some cruddy love triangle that's been perpetuated on board. This really works well if you can get the security officer to shoot a passenger and then realise in hindsight how dumb a decision that was;
- The guided tour. The player who takes the part of the engineer really rose to this when it was presented. A party of school children from a public school were being ferried to a field trip on a garden planet. The teacher suggested a tour of the ship with follow up homework. The engineer waxed for twenty minutes while the rest of the players dozed off. He kept the drawings of the ship he got from the pupils in a book and was very put out when they went missing;
- Power failure. So the power goes out and the passengers start feeling their way to the lounge looking for answers. Panic hovers just below the surface and some clown thinks it is clever to suggest it might be connected with the dangerous alien lifeform he knows about in the cargo bay. It's only ever a war of words between crew and clown as role-playing in the dark is a frustrating experience for players, but it's fun when the lights come on again ten minutes later.
- EVA. There should never be a reason to spacewalk when in hyperspace. Is it even possible? When it becomes a dire choice between risking death by not going outside or risking death by going outside, one player must make the ultimate choice for the good of the ship. Just even sorting out who that is can be fun. For the sap who volunteers, I usually take them out of the room and tell them this : "You are instantly out of communication with the ship. Hyperspace is the most beautiful thing you've ever witnessed. Discretely choose a psionic skill at medium rank and tell me what it is. But it's your secret and it will fade if you share it with other people."
