Life Event - Ancient Artifact

[kristof65]

During PC generation the other night, one of the players rolled up a Life Event that says they've come into possession of an Ancient and/or Alien Artifact. I've got a couple ideas for this, but wondering what other GMs ideas are?

 

[EDG]

It doesn't have to be anything useful. In fact, it shouldn't be anything useful, because if there's so many working, useful artifacts lying around that PCs can have a chance of owning them then that's going to radically alter the setting.

I'd say it'd be better off as an urn, or a box, or a piece of decorative jewelry, or a fragment of armour, or something else like that - something to show off on the mantlepiece, but not actually use. The sort of thing that a museum would be interested in, but not the whole of Charted Space .

 

[AndrewW]

On the other hand it could be something useful that isn't game altering. Maybe something they don't know is useful but have to discover it, which could be an adventure all in itself. Maybe some organization is after the artifact and the players don't know why but those after it realize it has some sort of power or at least they think it does, this may not be at all what they expect. An ancient holy artifact that is reputed to restore youth, but this isn't in the way they think. Maybe it only gives the illusion of youth cosmetically without actually changing anything.

 

[Dave Chase]

Or not useful to the players, but useful to the GM, as in a plot device, something that several someone's want at X price.

Or something that only works in certain situations like it gets warm when in imediate danger or hums when certain things area round it.

But EDG has a good point. It does not have to be working object.

It could be an working object that no one knows how to operate, Until the GM needs it for a plot device.

Dave Chase

 

[zanwot]

I seem to remember in those special life events there are 2 distinct options along those lines : Alien or ancient(as in an ancient, not The Ancients) artefact, the other being a piece of Ancient Technology. Or the other way around *alien tech and Ancient artefact. Something like that anyway. Point is the alien one is not Ancient with a capital A I think.

Read again the two entries with this in mind. It should clarify things. So I would say he definitly does not get a piece of high tech equpiment, more like an alien equivalent of a rosetta stone if you are really feeling generous, but an exotic collector's item is fine.

 

[AdrianH]

An ancient device about which nobody knows anything is a GM's dream!

As an absolute minimum, it has lots of buttons. Someone presses one. The device starts flashing lights in a sequence while emitting a hum rising in tone. After a few seconds, the tone changes. Watch the players panic, especially if you roll a couple of dice and grin like a maniac. Decide for yourself how they will find out that the device isn't a WMD on build-up to planetary annihilation, it's a musical instrument.

Other possibilities include what appears to be a healing device, actually it's an execution device. It heals one person but causes harm to someone else. (Idea stolen from "Babylon 5".)

Or it's a communications device. You never know who's listening on the other one... Well, you as GM do. :twisted:

It could be an egg. A special combination of environmental factors are needed for it to hatch. By an amazing coincidence, that combination happens to the players. (Low pressure, high temperature, sudden vibration, and the egg is in the stateroom which just got hit by a missile. Now the players have an enemy attack and a baby alien to deal with...)

 

[alex_greene]

It could be a device that awakens a character's latent Psionic potential once activated - which is usually triggered by some major traumatic event in which the Artifact happens to be on the owner's person at the time.

Or then again, it might be more valuable for its writing. Examples of Ancient hieroglyphs are so valuable to ethnologists, that they prize documents written by Ancients above all other technologies - because there might just be a chance of getting hold of a document which actually tells them what some of those other technologies actually do.

Even if the item with writing looks to be important, though, it might not be. It could just as easily be an official notice, along the lines of "LOW GRAV AREA - THIS WAY UP - NO FLARGING IN THE BLUMGARG WITHOUT A CHAPERONE"

But until it is translated, nobody will ever know for sure ...

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'd suggest making it something very useful to the players... But that they don't dare use, because if the rest of the universe found out about it, they'd go to war to get it.

Like, say...

You could make it be a lightsaber, if you feel like doing a shout-out to Darth Flannel. I'd say make it like a broadsword - deals 4d6 damage (4d6+3 if you're feeling extra-generous) that completely ignores all forms of protection other than "don't be in the space this thing swings through" and has a Heft rating of -2, like a rapier, and of course, is the final word in gaining access to secured facilities.

It's nice, it's useful, and of course, players will want it. But obviously, they'll soon realize that if they ever use it, they had better plan to leave no living witnesses to identify them.


Could also just do the same with some kind of self-replenishing alien blaster. Give it an ammo count of, say, 20, regenerates two shots per round, autofire of 4, damage 3d6, ignores protection. (Or make a rifle that's similar, but more damage. Whatever.)



Getting away from weaponry, it could be, say, a device that looks like an ostrich egg. If wired to a ship's Jump Drive, it changes the J-Drive to a Teleport Drive or a Hyperspace Drive. Or maybe it's a hyperadvanced, self-breeding annihilation plant that can power a ship up to X size (where "X" is something "much bigger than what the players have now" through a hyperspace jump without consuming any fuel.


Or make it an alien artificial intelligence in a portable computer that learns how to speak the player's language and functions as a computer with a ridiculous Computer level rating (read: functioning as powerfully as the most advanced capitol ship computers in High Guard) and comes preloaded with a suite of ultra-high-powered alien programs, like Intrusion and such.


Obviously, all of these are things that the players would find very useful. And just as obviously, these are double-edged swords; if you use them, and people find out, they will come after the players; try to make them 'offers they can't refuse', or just outright skip the pleasantries and get right to having them killed for the artifact.

 

[EDG]

I'd suggest making it something very useful to the players... But that they don't dare use, because if the rest of the universe found out about it, they'd go to war to get it.

That's the problem. If it's common enough to roll up in a chart during character generation, then it can't be something that useful, or anyone would be able to find these artifacts just as easily.

Though if it's so useful that nobody dare use it, it's not really very useful is it .

 

[lurker]

Setting: The players are on a ship, The Pandora, trying to open an ancient cube shaped artifact.

Player 1: "See that groove going all the way around. I think the top comes off somehow."
Player 2: I get a god grip and try to pull it apart. [roll 7 with no DMs]
GM: Nothing happens.
Player 1: "Lets get a pry bar."
Player 2: I get the mechanics toolkit and take out a pry bar. Using the pry bar, I try again to open the artifact. [roll 9 after positive DM for tool]
GM: Reaches across table and grabs the players character sheets. "Roll new characters. They will be crew on a ship that happens across the Pandora drifting."

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'd suggest making it something very useful to the players... But that they don't dare use, because if the rest of the universe found out about it, they'd go to war to get it.

That's the problem. If it's common enough to roll up in a chart during character generation, then it can't be something that useful, or anyone would be able to find these artifacts just as easily.

Why?

Who says NPCs roll on the same charts? Or if they do, who says they aren't the ones who wind up with the shard of ancient pottery?

They're PCs. Even in a game like Traveller, they should be special; important events should revolve around them - even if they don't want them to.

Remember, nothing should ever go smooth, but they should be plenty special.

Though if it's so useful that nobody dare use it, it's not really very useful is it .

That, too.

Setting: The players are on a ship, The Pandora, trying to open an ancient cube shaped artifact.

Player 1: "See that groove going all the way around. I think the top comes off somehow."
Player 2: I get a god grip and try to pull it apart. [roll 7 with no DMs]
GM: Nothing happens.
Player 1: "Lets get a pry bar."
Player 2: I get the mechanics toolkit and take out a pry bar. Using the pry bar, I try again to open the artifact. [roll 9 after positive DM for tool]
GM: Reaches across table and grabs the players character sheets. "Roll new characters. They will be crew on a ship that happens across the Pandora drifting."

Now see, that is exactly how I would not do it. If my ref did that to me, I'd smack him with the core rulebook.

 

[GypsyComet]

There is also "useful but not boggling... you think". For instance the portable fire starter (cigarette lighter) that has no visible openings, never needs fuel, and will light (if they ever actually try) things that it shouldn't be able to (due to temperature, not innate non-flammability), yet is cool to the touch and won't burn the user even if he passes his hand through the "flame". Is it a pyrokinesis focus, or does it just have really good safety mechanisms? Is that really a flame?

 

[zanwot]

Who says NPCs roll on the same charts? Or if they do, who says they aren't the ones who wind up with the shard of ancient pottery?
They're PCs. Even in a game like Traveller, they should be special;

I'm of the school that Traveller PCs are just ordinary guys who get into extra ordinary trouble, but I must agree there, this is of an unual special table, not the standard end of term benefit.

So really the GM could fit anything, depending on his need of a plot device TM, or if he wants it mysterious and seemingly pointless, or overpowerfull and super trouble creating. The only thing is if it is is overpowerfull, it requires some efforts to keep play balanced (as in sending 5 megacorporations after the players), at least in my view.

GM: Reaches across table and grabs the players character sheets. "Roll new characters. They will be crew on a ship that happens across the Pandora drifting."

Now see, that is exactly how I would not do it. If my ref did that to me, I'd smack him with the core rulebook.

True, but isn't it nearly worth it just to watch the players freak out as they veeeeery cautiously explore the initital ship, and freak out at the smallest details? :twisted:

 

[whtknght]

They're PCs. Even in a game like Traveller, they should be special;

I'm of the school that Traveller PCs are just ordinary guys who get into extra ordinary trouble...

Zanwot, your right. This is what makes traveller so great. No superheros. Just ordinary people exploring the universe. Player characters are not special.

 

[EDG]

Why?

Who says NPCs roll on the same charts? Or if they do, who says they aren't the ones who wind up with the shard of ancient pottery?

They're PCs. Even in a game like Traveller, they should be special; important events should revolve around them - even if they don't want them to.

Because as others have pointed out, the point of Traveller is that they aren't special. They're not Jedi or Superheroes, they're ordinary joes in space.

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

There is also "useful but not boggling... you think". For instance the portable fire starter (cigarette lighter) that has no visible openings, never needs fuel, and will light (if they ever actually try) things that it shouldn't be able to (due to temperature, not innate non-flammability), yet is cool to the touch and won't burn the user even if he passes his hand through the "flame". Is it a pyrokinesis focus, or does it just have really good safety mechanisms? Is that really a flame?

That's decent, I'll admit, but it's the sort of thing that, as a player, I'd just as soon hock to a research institute for a big bundle of money in the hopes I'll be able to spend 0.00005% of what I got on the open market buying a new one in a years' time.

It's also not the sort of thing to cause... Complications. Nations aren't going to go to war over something that might, at best, repopularize camping as a recreational sport and make the lives of soldiers in the field a little bit easier.

They might get into a minor bidding war, but I doubt it. That's the kind of artifact that goes smooth.

Who says NPCs roll on the same charts? Or if they do, who says they aren't the ones who wind up with the shard of ancient pottery?
They're PCs. Even in a game like Traveller, they should be special;

I'm of the school that Traveller PCs are just ordinary guys who get into extra ordinary trouble, but I must agree there, this is of an unual special table, not the standard end of term benefit.

I am not of that school. There is nothing 'ordinary' about private individuals who can fly through the stars having adventures with pirates and aliens and artifacts. They may not be extraordinarily tough, but they are not ordinary, the things that happen to them should not be ordinary, and the gear that falls into their laps - and the consequent complications of their lives - should not be ordinary.


Or would you say a 10th-level Fighter is 'ordinary'? By the standards of 10th-level Player Characters, he may be, and given the self-adjusting nature of the things he'll see, he may not be very special, but that can be cured pretty easily by having a lot of death and devestation happen to a town he passes through, and having him go find the source which turns out to be a kobold nest he's easily capable of soloing.

So really the GM could fit anything, depending on his need of a plot device TM, or if he wants it mysterious and seemingly pointless, or overpowerfull and super trouble creating. The only thing is if it is is overpowerfull, it requires some efforts to keep play balanced (as in sending 5 megacorporations after the players), at least in my view.

GMs who are worried about 'balance' are, in my opinion, GMs who are more suited to the task of administering World of Warcraft than being behind the Game Master's Screen. Tabletop Player Characters do not need to be balanced, save against each other. It is, after all, relatively easy to start out slow and work your way up until you're reaching a level where the players are having just enough challenge to make it not-smooth (but be careful not to risk actually killing them, barring their own stupidity or extreme random number hatred.) Just make sure that they're all having fun, and not just the guy who's flying around in powered carbonan nanotubule armor and carrying a PGMP.


(As an aside, it just hit me that MongTrav is exactly the system I'd use if I wanted to model Schlock Mercenary as an RPG... Maybe I need to email HoTay.)

GM: Reaches across table and grabs the players character sheets. "Roll new characters. They will be crew on a ship that happens across the Pandora drifting."

Now see, that is exactly how I would not do it. If my ref did that to me, I'd smack him with the core rulebook.

True, but isn't it nearly worth it just to watch the players freak out as they veeeeery cautiously explore the initital ship, and freak out at the smallest details? :twisted:

No, no it's not. I, for one, would be very, very pissed off, and without the assurance of "you'll get your character back in the end," I'd simply leave.

I put a lot of time, and emotion, into my characters. I would not have fun if they were simply axed like that. Especially because of some lummox with a prybar!

They're PCs. Even in a game like Traveller, they should be special;

I'm of the school that Traveller PCs are just ordinary guys who get into extra ordinary trouble...

Zanwot, your right. This is what makes traveller so great. No superheros. Just ordinary people exploring the universe. Player characters are not special.

Again, see above. There is nothing 'ordinary' about people exploring the universe. Ordinary people do not explore the universe, ordinary people get a 9-5 in a cubicle, clock out at 8 PM thanks to Mandatory Unpaid Overtime, and slink into their local to drown their frustration and impotence in cheap alcohol before crawling to bed in order to crawl back and do it again.

Traveller PCs are on the edge of society. I'm playing a Noble, currently, who got more or less addicted to Anagathics at the age of 18, had her world fall apart when she was 50 thanks to a coup attempt that tried to snatch her up in an effort to overthrow her world which she snitched on (to the legislature,) and vamoosed into the Navy in order to escape from the assassinations which already claimed her uncle and possibly her mother, and is now a 70-year-old Commander, who has just been handpicked to be the XO of her star-empire's newest and largest carrier.

Granted, that's a bit of an extreme case (the dice <3'd me, <3'd me long time,) but the point stands. Trav characters are not ordinary Joes. They are extraordinary Joes, and they deserve to be the center of their game as such - by default, since it's kind of about them. The game doesn't exist if they don't.

 

[alex_greene]

Setting: The players are on a ship, The Pandora, trying to open an ancient cube shaped artifact.

Player 1: "See that groove going all the way around. I think the top comes off somehow."

In another universe ...
Player 3: "Oh,I recognise this. I saw something like it recently."
Player 2: "Where?"
Player 3: "Erm, they were showing a screening of ancient Twentieth Century Earth movies. They had this device, or something like it."
Player 1: "What was the movie?"
Player 3: "Can't remember the title. But they called things like these Lemarchand boxes. I think this one they called the Lament Configuration ...?"

 

[zanwot]

Errrr.... I was essentially agreeing with you ShadowDragon, allbeit with a slightly different angle...

Concerning "play balance", I would not get carried away. Balance may have not been the best choice for the term,sorry, but I cannot think of something better. My point is actually twofold:
* If you give players super death rays (and say super protective shields), and you want them to continue having fun in conflicts, well the conflicts have to become more difficult somehow.
* I like to keep everything believable, which means thinking of consequences and not letting the players get off too easy (in my experience the GM being too nice is what happens most often, but that is only my experience) It is ok if a GM is too easy in termes of *real* balance, as PCs are ultimately the center of their fictionnal universe, but I like to keep things believable.

 

[lurker]

GM: Reaches across table and grabs the players character sheets. "Roll new characters. They will be crew on a ship that happens across the Pandora drifting."

Now see, that is exactly how I would not do it. If my ref did that to me, I'd smack him with the core rulebook.

True, but isn't it nearly worth it just to watch the players freak out as they veeeeery cautiously explore the initital ship, and freak out at the smallest details? :twisted:

Yes, yes it is. A GM has to have his fun too. :twisted:

No, no it's not. I, for one, would be very, very pissed off, and without the assurance of "you'll get your character back in the end," I'd simply leave.

I put a lot of time, and emotion, into my characters. I would not have fun if they were simply axed like that. Especially because of some lummox with a prybar!

I never said the characters were dead.

...Lemarchand boxes...

I had something similar to this in mind. At some point the original character sheets will get pulled back out.

Back on topic. I also like someones previous concept of holding the rolled artifact in reserve for a future plot device. The character currently thinks the device is just an ancient curiosity of only ornamental and sentimental value since it was given to them as a gift by a friend they worked with when the character left a career.

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

Still, it's very jarring and aggrevating to have someone roll above eight with the help of a pry-bar, and then be told you need to immediately roll up a new character. The implication is, in fact, "you all die."