Looking for an Adventure

allanimal

Mongoose
So I have been running a Pirates of Drinax campaign for a while now, and I've talked about it with my D&D group, and they are interested in trying out Traveller.
So, in not too long, at one of our scheduled session dates, one of the players can't make it, so the rest of us decided to play traveller.

So... I am looking for a good one-shot to play with them, with potential to keep going, if we all decide to do it.

But, I have a couple constraints.

1) Pre-gen characters. We won't have a huge about of time to play this session, and while I love the chargen min-game, and the players would love it, I just don't think there's time for it AND get though most of an adventure. Maybe we can do it via email/skype in advance. Maybe not... But Pre-Gen option would be nice.
2) A few years back we played the Serenity RPG, and one of the players was really squeamish when there was human on human (gun) violence. The player s totally OK slaughtering Orcs or Trolls en masse in D&D, but just was really turned off by the people-fighting-people situations. So, constraint #1: Should not focus on killing people. Aliens would be OK, but maybe something that doesn't focus on violence?
3) If possible, it would already be Mongoose 2nd ed. (or, worst case Mongoose 1st). I just won't have a lot of time between now and then to translate.

There will be 4 players and me as GM, and we will play for about 4-5 hours in the session. I'd like to be able to get through most if not all of the adventure in that time. They are all experienced role-players and I've gone thru basic mechanics with them already, so I don't expect to need too much time to explain the mechanics and setting.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I have the 4 "Reach Adventures" Mongoose has published, but I don't think any of them have pre-gem characters. I haven't had a chance to really read any of them yet, so if one sounds like it fits the bill, I would love to start there.

Thanks for your help!
 
Death Station:

It was available for free in Signs and Portents issue 87 but I have no idea if you can still find it somewhere on the site...

you can tailor the nature of the actual threat on the station to suit your group.
 
mancerbear said:
The one thing Traveller really is missing is a set of quick start rules and mini adventure.

Indeed! I am thinking of maybe doing the intro adventure to Mindjammer Traveller. It has pre-gen characters and only requires the MGT Traveller 2 core rulebook.
I'm just not quite comfortable with the setting like I am with the 3rd Imperium.

Sigtrygg said:
Death Station:

It was available for free in Signs and Portents issue 87 but I have no idea if you can still find it somewhere on the site...

you can tailor the nature of the actual threat on the station to suit your group.

Thanks for the tip!
I saved off most of the Signs & Portents stuff years back. I do have that one! I'll give it a read.

Any other ideas?
 
A friend of mine is a teacher and has a gaming club usually D&D, but I happened to be out and did a couple of Traveller sessions for them, each is about 2.5 hours. We did character creation the first one and ran through the first bit of The Fall of Tinath (part of the Starter Set), worked pretty well the players all enjoyed it. Didn't use any pregens but that doesn't mean they couldn't be used with it if one wanted. Could even consider just making up some characters customized for each of them prior to the session if you have the time or just grab some from somewhere to use. Note none of them had played Traveller before (was 3 students plus the teacher).

No violence in it just some ship trouble. And if more sessions happen at some point going up against some aliens rather then other humans.
 
Some exploration would be fine to capture the imagination of the players. Some abandoned space station or outpost with a Alien/Mystery feeling to win over the players for Traveller. My group consists rather of "dungeon crawlers" and not the politics/intrigue style of players.
 
AndrewW said:
The Fall of Tinath (part of the Starter Set),

No violence in it just some ship trouble. And if more sessions happen at some point going up against some aliens rather then other humans.

Thanks for the tip. I don't have that one yet, Maybe I'll have to pick it up.
 
Why not, if you're good enough, take adventure you like and modify it to suit your purposes

Like someone I knew a few years back had the same problem with Drinax's The Demons Eye, replaced Jail with A Vagyr that had had plastic surgery to resemble A Human in order to avoid trouble with Facists and Racist and had The Immortal Protector reveal that he wasn't really a human by having his internal systems play up for a few seconds and in Vallis Case made him so mentally damaged, so physically weak and so consumed with revenge that even the player characters agreed to kill him, but only after persuading my friend to make it a mercy killing
 
One possible adventure that doesn't take a lot of preparation -- other than character generation -- is a missing persons case. The characters don't even need their own ship; an expense account for travel from the patron can substitute, and that's a way to keep them from going in overly armed, because the ships they travel on might limit the type of arms they'll allow as checked baggage.

Step one. Where did the missing person go? The patron says the missing person, M, was last seen on the maglev to the starport. The Starport Authority is overseen by a minor noble with a history with the patron, and won't help. Player characters need to Admin, bribe, break in with Computer, Streetwise, role-play, etc. to find out what ship M left on, the destination, and any others in the same group.

Step two: Try to catch up with M. Buy passage on the next ship in the same direction. A liner is a nicer trip, but small ships leave more often, and offer a better chance to catch up. At the next destination, find out whether M continuedon another ship, left the starport to stay, or left the starport and boarded another ship. Chase rumors in the starport, and outside it if M left the starport. Keep pursuing until they're on the same world as M.

Step three: Try to find M on the destination world. If the characters are thinking ahead, they'll pay someone to tell them if M returns to the starport -- which is likely when the characters get close to M. Once the players are out of the starport, the search becomes a planetside dungeon crawl, through cities, wilderness, or some of each. Do they need an escort to travel on this world? Can they travel armed? Is it a dangerous world, and if so are people, wildlife, or the environment the main hazards?

Step four: Retrieve M from whatever caused him or her to leave the patron's world? Did M run away? Was M kidnapped? Kidnapped buy decided to stick with the kidnappers? Will M or anyone else put up a fight to stop M from being brought back to the patron? Will law enforcement treat the characters as rescuers or kidnappers, or ignore the whole deal because they're offworlders? Will M try to talk the characters out of the mission they were told was a rescue?

Step five: Bring M home to the patron -- or try to explain why they've spent the patron's expense account without retrieving M.
 
Daft question -

why don't the powers that be produce a quickstart pdf with basic rules and the Death Statoin Adventure and release it for free?

Use art you already own and get it out there...
 
Sigtrygg said:
Daft question -

why don't the powers that be produce a quickstart pdf with basic rules and the Death Statoin Adventure and release it for free?

Death Station was done and released for free in Signs and Portents.
 
I know - therefore you do not need to worry about money.

I can not find a live link to S&P anymore :(

I could knock up a set of quickstart rules using Cephaus in about half an hour - that's free too.

Add some art you already own and you have a free introduction to the rules and the setting and you attract more customers to buy stuff.
Tie it in to the marketing campaign that goes with the print copy of the Starter Edition...
 
Not sure how Cepheus Engine would attract people to buy Traveller. CE is for OGL people only interested in compiled SRDs.
 
You misunderstand or misinterpret my point.

If I can hack Cepheus in half an hour to produce quickstart rules then Mongoose should be able to do the same with their own proprietary stuff.

They have the free adventures, they have the art they have the rules - put it together as a free quickstart.
 
Sigtrygg said:
They have the free adventures, they have the art they have the rules - put it together as a free quickstart.

Ok. I see what you mean. A downloadable Mongoose Traveller-LITE or Quick-Start PDF would be awesome to get new players to try out the game. The trick is, will Mongoose's license with Traveller allow for producing one? Did any previous Traveller licensed game ever have a quick-start ruleset? I don't think so. The folks maintaining the Traveller SRD sites don't really have much of a game to show off to new players, other than generic copy/pasted bits of text.
 
The announcement of the latest Freelance Traveller gives me another idea for more adventurers: browse that site's adventure section.
 
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