Favorite Traveller Game Moments...

[Burocrate]

I had two friends who were constantly causing hilarious events, despite thier best efforts to avoid yet another funny story. Back in the LLB days of Traveller Players A & B are single file sneaking through the dark coridors of an un-named location, and they are scared. Player C is missing and Player D was captured by a small group of robots!
They fail to hear a robot approaching from a side corridor and are surprised. The little robot has a built-in spotlight and blinds the two PCs. Player A states he is blindly retreating while Player B states that he is firing his SMG in full auto mode.

Player A: NO! NOOOO!
Player B: I got it, I got it!

<several really (predictably) bad rolls later>

Player A is down and nearly bleeding out, Player B is slowly being battered by a cleaning bot when he decides that another burst of auto fire is needed.

Player A: NO! NOOOO!
Player B: I got it, I got it!

Just to prolong the laughs I sent a Animal Control collect the two PCs and heal them in the vetrinary clinic.

Player B never did live down that incident AND he never went anywhere without that damned SMG!

 

[rust]

My favourite recent roleplaying scene involved a newly discovered race of
ape-like humanoids and a biologist character who was convinced that they
were uplifted Terran gorillas.

In order to prove his theory, all our biologist needed was a DNA sample of
one of the creatures, and therefore he decided to use his (meagre) social
skills to convince one of the creatures to allow him to take a sample.

Since our brave explorers did not know the language of the creatures, the
player had to make his character's request by pantomime, and he really
blundered in a very spectacular way - his gestures were not only mislea-
ding, they were "unsuitable for non-adults".

Moreover, the creature he intended to ask was female, and not completely
unwilling to do what the god-like space-man obviously was asking her for.

Her mate, the leader of the clan (think of a gorilla silverback ...), interve-
ned and obviously demanded some kind of explanation, and the gesturing
biologist blundered a second time by attempting to explain by pantomime
what he did not want the female to do.

With dozens of upset "gorilloids" around them, and unwilling to cause a
bloodbath, the other characters just stood there and watched the poor
biologist receiving the "physical lesson" of his life - the male "gorilloid"
stopped just short of killing him.

By the way, afterwards the relations with the "gorilloids" developed well,
and they are now valued friends and allies (and indeed uplifted Terran
great apes) - only a certain biologist has fits every time he meets one of
them ...

 

[tneva82]

Hum. We ran our first _big_ combat with 4 PC's(though to be honest 2 did most of the work. Remaining 2 were most of the combat pissed off that the troopers were almost 100m away while they had just their pistols...) against 20 troopers(mostly basic troopers but two lietnaunt and captain in the mix as well) and 3 APC's(one with nasty autocannon).

Background for this was that being caught in less than legal action(which had been forced due to yet another legal troubles) they were given sort of an ultimatum. Help goverment(planet had multiples of those) to invade another goverment and get full amnesty and status of heroes or be executed. Being trader-mercenaries without particular ties to the goverment they were asked to attack(which had blackmailed them in a first place) they agreed to do that.

First up they took out squad of troopers who were there to greet them after supposedly succesful mission. Caught by suprise they were quickly taken out. They took control of operator room which was mission goal and then came the reinforcements.

Was very interesting to fight it out. APC with turret(auto 4, 6d6. Dakka dakka dakka!) was taken out of equation by lucky hit from energy rifle that disabled the turret. Then came firefight between troopers and effectively two PC's. Thankfully both had combat armour(one got it when retiring, ex-infantry trooper, and one demanded for one in return from the goverment. Good choise as it turned out!) which was absolutly incredible. Both of them were being hit by some 2-4 assault rifle bursts each round and if it wasn't for the combat armour they would have been shredded to pieces(especially Arden who has only endurance 6...).

As it turned out they were almost on the brink of being overrun and survived mainly due to good luck(laser rifles in particular were particulary inaccurate. And the two hits they scored were well below average allowing them to survive!). I think I screwed up as captain of the troopers though. After intense firefight I split troops so that half were running to close in and half provided covering fire. Plan was to get close and spread out from that infernal RAM grenade launcher(that thing is just evil. Especially if at hand of somebody who can't seem to miss with that thing!!! Very "funny" when those grenades hit in multiples with pin-point accuracy) but while on the run they were bereft of cover provided by APC's...

In the end they had only some 8 troopers after PC's retreated to operator room. They blew out door and swarmed in. Arden(leader of group. ex-Admiral and carrying ACR) and Sverina(formed corporant agent with her gauss pistol) took out two of them and Cheit(sergeant major with laser rifle and RAM grenade launcher) used the underslung grenade launcher to stun two more. Remaining 4 decided it was high time to leave and PC's being almost out themselves were only too happy to comply.

Very funny encounter. Combat armour proved to be very useful(I think Arden's suit might just be non-working though...Two hits from laser rifle CAN'T do good for the armour!). You really want atleast ACR if you need to take one out. Assault rifle proved to be short on task(not that PC's complain about that mind you :wink: ).

And the rules went smoothly despite high number of troopers involved. Good job mongoose!

 

[Leo Knight]

I was running the second "Sky Raiders" adventure, so many moons ago, and had changed the setting to a world in my own tiny Traveller universe. It was a near- desert world named Marble Bar. Two of the PCs were on board an air-raft with a like number of bad guys. A firefight broke out (don't they always?). I had just seen "Nighthawks" with Sylvester Stallone, and decided the air-raft looked like the tram Rutger Hauer takes over, only without the hook and cable.

So there they were, shooting out windows, fighting hand-to-hand for the controls, wind blowing trough the shattered glass as they spun and dipped over the badlands of Marble Bar at 100kph

edit: the picture wouldn't link, so here's the Wikipedia listing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Island_Tram

 

[Charakan]

Back when we were kids I had a GM who used to base his scenarios on what SF movie he'd been watching recently, for us it turned out to be Jon Carpenters the Thing.

We were trapped with malfunctioning ship on an ice mining station on some godawful back water planet. There was a virulent alien in the form of a virus that mutated into forms of creatures that had hosted it in the past (just like the movie). Me and another pc were trapped in a rapidly decompressing air lock on the station while the other pcs were outside trying to break through the lock that had been damaged in a firefight with a virus possessed npc, arguing weapons drawn over the only vacc suit that hadn't been holed in the firefight.

The GM had ruled that the viral alien liked to keep itself hidden but would manifest itself when the infected subject was highly stressed.

My friends character suddenly split open and shapeshifted into some rabidly hideous alien monstrosity.

I replied deadpan "ok mate, you can keep the vacc suit!"