Got Tripwire

apoc527 said:
Man, I'm going to have to buy the book solely to see what's so interesting about Page Ten.
It's right next to Page Eleven, and you have to fight through Page Nine to get there.

Honestly, though, as a scene it really does seem to paint the guys into a corner. If I were Refereeing that scene I'd have to pull in some major Deus Ex Machina action to get them out of the mire they end up in.

I mean Big Impie Navy Patrol Dropped Out Of Jump kind of Deus Ex Machina action.
 
Well "some loyalty to the imperium" is different to "willing to die/be captured by the zhos for the imperium on behalf of someone they have just met and cannot verify he is who he says he is ". Very poor hook there. My players just wouldn't bite unless told from the beginning that they are blindly ultra-loyal imperial agents - which ruins things in other ways.

Also, on page 13 on the last section, I find it completely implausible that the players will let their guest leave like that. Even if he does it seems unlikely that the "figures in the shadows" would leave without ensuring their task is complete. In fact, they would wait for a better moment tyo carry out their job so they could do just that. Everything I read is littered with implausibilities.

More in every section....

On page 14 - I can't realistically see the players "revealing enough to get her trust". Why would they. Certainly I couldn't rely on it. They are likely to be quite paranoid by this stage.

On page 15 - I find it unlikely that she knows about Daniel.

On page 16 why would the characters "reveal enough to gain his trust" Agai, they are far more likely to play it safe. Also why would they have 4 different environments? It feels like a gimmick inserted for the sake of it. There is no rationale.

on page 19 - the whole "get a job" bit is much too fragile. The process is much too complicated to do under pressure. And getting a job to meet someone doesn't make for good adventure. Especially after the previous few sessions spent meeting people...

...... in fact the whole adventure narative is extremely fragile and generally unexciting. I haven't read further yet but I already know that the amount of fixes required mean starting from scratch.

I don't mind the odd flaw in an adventure but beltstrike and tripwire are fundementally broken, despite containing good material in places.

When designing stuff - why not get feedback from people who know the game and then listen to it? Or just get MJD or BITS to do it. These guys have been doing it very well for many years.

Project Steel is great.
 
How is Tripwire as a sourcebook as opposed to pure adventure? I almost never use published adventures because I think it's really hard for any author to anticipate any given group of players' actions. For some groups, all the issues you've described might be nonexistent, but there might other ones.

Anyway, I'm more interested in the information on the Zhos and the areas of the campaign.
 
apoc527 said:
How is Tripwire as a sourcebook as opposed to pure adventure? I almost never use published adventures because I think it's really hard for any author to anticipate any given group of players' actions. For some groups, all the issues you've described might be nonexistent, but there might other ones.

Anyway, I'm more interested in the information on the Zhos and the areas of the campaign.

Good published adventure present situations which are complex, plausible and either allow the players choice or put them in situations (much like real life) where the realistic options are present but limited. They provide a sense that bigger things are going on "off camera". The characters can make choices within parameters. There should be a series of scenes of which some should be related to the main plot and some not - and the characters shouldn't always know which is which. All should be good and varied adventures within which the characters have agency but are led in the direction in which their characters would go if they were real people.

There are many good examples of this in the traveller field. Try MJD's linkworlds for one example.

On a positive note - I'm hoping that the style of material will suit Judge Dredd rather better than thitd imperium traveller.
 
I just plan to add a little bit, such as telling the characters he is trying to prevent a war, keep the Zhodani from getting a hold of a powerful weapon, or somesuch. Not the weakest part of the adventure in my opinion. Now finding a way to get them in to meet the cryptographer, that's a challenge.

There are quite a number of holes, but not insurmountable.

I just wish they'd hire me as a proofreader. Some of those errors make me wonder if ANYONE bothered to read it.

:roll:
 
Unfortunately the more I read and think about running it - the more unusable it seems (though I did find one scene which I though had good adventure possibilities - the gangland bit). I had a similar experience with beltstrike. I start by thinking of fixes, but these just uncover more problems.
While I am a seasoned traveller and will just carry on (buying adventures from people who I know can write them) I am concerned that beginning refs/players will set out full of good intentions and end up thinking that the game is poor, refs will wondfer what they have done wrong and players will want to play a different game.
 
I found piles of usable stuff in Tripwire. The Idea is solid which is why I picked it up anyway, to spark Ideas.

Same with Belt Strike (I do some Belt heavy adventures, especially in Demo's so it's handy), though Belt Strike also had the Belter Career stuff as well which my players jumped all over.

My thing is with a game product I look at it this way. Is it usable? Can I spark Ideas off of it? Will people have Fun with it. I think Tripwire, even with the plot holes, meets those requirements for me. Sure it's a bit of GM work, to flush it all out, but then, it ALL is GM work in the end.

~Rex
 
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