Free Christmas Present for Everyone!

MongooseMatt

MongooseMatt

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Staff member
Holiday season is upon us, so it is time for the annual Mongoose tradition of a free Christmas download for everyone who has supported us over the years - and we have something special for you this time, the biggest one yet.

Orbital Reds is a free Traveller... Paranoia.... Travenoia mission, including everything you need to explore the utopia of Alpha Complex... using the Traveller rules set!

You can download Orbital Reds right here: https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/orbital-reds

Orbital Reds.jpg

The giant, underground city of Alpha Complex is a perfect utopia. Just ask its leader, an AI that calls itself The Computer that will execute anyone who disagrees with it. It used to ignore the aging orbital weapons platform high above it because The Computer tells its citizens that nothing exists beyond the dome of Alpha Complex. But now? A missile is pointed right at Alpha Complex, and something needs to be done before rich and powerful people get inconvenienced by too many poor workers dying. Ever wondered how people would feel being launched into orbit to deal with cannibal robots, nuclear missiles, a ship they cannot legally know how to fly, and aliens with enough tentacles that Japanese animators are getting sweaty? It is time to find out.

Orbital Reds is an adventure for Traveller set in the funniest dystopia around, Alpha Complex from the game Paranoia. It uses the same rules from the Traveller Core Rulebook but players take roles as Paranoia’s Troubleshooters (complete with a brand new Troubleshooter career - will you be a Bootlicker, Secret Traitor, or are you Gonna Die Soon?) trying to protect their dystopia utopia from an old weapons platform in orbit. It would be best if the team knew what space and orbit mean, but ignorance is not just bliss here. It is a survival trait.

Will the Troubleshooters be able to save Alpha Complex without dying? Oh wait. They get five extra clones to use should they die on the mission. Uh, can they save everything without dying too much?
 
You’ve let the cat out the bag with this one.

So, can we expect a full line of Traveller/Paranoia books and whereabouts does Alpha Complex fit into Charted Space?
 
Hmm - I've just ordered this. It didn't appear on the list of my downloads, so I tried again. Still not there. Sorry, I've ordered it twice which possibly messes up your stats.

Still not on my list of downloadable pdfs though.
 
TrippyHippy said:
whereabouts does Alpha Complex fit into Charted Space?
Click to expand...
The Traveller rules support more than just Charted Space, and this is an example of that. Alpha Complex is not in the OTU setting. Every extended backstory of Alpha Complex that I've seen, places it on a future Earth that did not evolve the way Terra did in Charted Space.

Having read through this adventure, I would like to suggest a few points of errata:

1) On pages 4-5, it should be mentioned that Treason Stars reset to 0 when a clone dies. The next clone is not presumed traitorous. (Otherwise, 5 stars would mean new clones would be shot as soon as they show up, so the narrative effect of having multiple clones - allowing PCs limited survival of arbitrary death - would be mostly lost.)

2) On page 6, middle paragraph on the right side, the second of the two instances of "called Peeper" should be deleted.

3) On page 17, it might be worth prompting the Referee to make sure the Troubleshooters all get onto the station. If the docking clamps were not installed, or docking is not performed, only the two vacc-suited Troubleshooters can cross the distance without dying. This can very quickly and easily mean that everyone but those two is trapped aboard the rocket; not even death will let them cross (if no one thinks to bring the clone printer over). This, as certain Less Famous Game Designers put it, is Not Fun.

4) On pages 26-27, the aliens' desire to get the Troubleshooters to sell gear is explained. Except...officially, Alpha Complex does not use money. Officially, the goods could only be "sold" for nothing. It might be worth explaining that the aliens will accept trade goods, barter, or whatever else the goods are exchanged for - and that the aliens say they have the ability to demote Troubleshooters should they allow the goods to be taken without recompense. Also, it might be worth making it explicit that they hand over the password to the missile computer once the Troubleshooters sign. (Currently, the text says they have the password to make sure the humans talk to the aliens, but it says nothing about when the aliens hand over the password - and if the aliens don't hand over the password, there's no point in talking to the aliens from the perspective of doing the mission.)

5) On page 33, it is suggested that Basic Training can be either service or assignment skills. The clear intent, given the actual skill tables on page 34, is that basically everyone will choose assignment skills. Existing careers go for one or the other, not both, so it would be in keeping with current style to pick only one - probably assignment skills, given the repetition in the service skills (which leads to situations that some might say are unclear: no other career potentially gives the same skill more than once for basic training, so some might wonder if these are meant to stack, when they probably are not).

6) Also on page 33, where the advice is to "Congratulate the player for somehow losing at a roleplaying game.", that misses a classic Traveller beat. I recommend replacing it with, "Congratulate the player for recreating the classic Traveller experience of death during character generation." (If this adds another line, there are column inches to spare in the next column.)

7) On page 35, in the Ranks and Bonuses table, lose the SOC+2s. Yes, PCs aren't normally supposed to be able to advance pre-adventure, but if they do (which this table assumes), then anyone getting to Orange or Yellow clearance immediately jumps to the top of those ranges - and, worse, there's a chain reaction starting with Green. Get to SOC 10, get Green clearance, get SOC+2, you're SOC 12 - which means you're now Blue clearance, so you get SOC+2...the chain ends at SOC 18 Violet clearance, still short of SOC 20 Ultraviolet clearance but somehow getting to Green should not be a fast track to Violet.
 
kvanboskirk said:
Where can i find the bio on WJ MacGuffin? Will he be putting out more crossover material?
Click to expand...
I suspect it isn't a real person.

"A MacGuffin is a plot device, coined by Alfred Hitchcock, for an object, goal, or event that drives the story forward and motivates characters but is ultimately unimportant to the audience, serving mainly as a catalyst (like stolen papers or a secret formula) that characters pursue, with examples including the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction or secret plans in North by Northwest."
 
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