Been having an on-and-off natter with Barnest2 and Middenface and was thinking about doing a traveller campaign on the forum.
Had initially thought about doing one set from Mercenary - mostly as the High Guard and Merchant aspects are covered by games currently running.
With the two gentlemen mentioned above, I'd probably be looking at about three or four more - I've not done a campaign on a forum before, but certainly in person more than half a dozen players starts to get immensely unwieldy.
So, to get some minions and some idea of what people want out of the game:
Question the first - Are you interested? If so, reply to that effect here.
Question the second - What scale are you interested in? Add a preferred scale to your reply so I can make a point of annoying as many of you as possible by picking something else
Mercenary essentially defines several broad classes of unit size:
'specialists' - where your half-dozen PCs will be the sum total of the unit, Expendables/Red/A-Team/The Losers fashion.
'private' - not much bigger, but with more or less the same number of NPC hangers-on, either meaning probably a pilot, medic, broker, armourer etc - so you don't have to have these skills in-party if you don't want to, or else a significantly more disposable 'redshirt squad'.
'small' - getting up to platoon size, so either each PC is a team leader, or else you form a schwerpunkt assault squad that leads the rest of the unit in.
'common' more or less the same, but with a support contingent as well. Recruitment, training and assorted other stuff starts to become a big deal at this scale.
'Large' with over a hundred men, you're starting to look at 'major combat formation' status, so you're approaching the level of dispatching small teams to several tickets simultaneously (which is possible) or else dealing with big, multi-platoon battles.
'Legion, Huge, Expansive' - by increasing degrees, you're turning into the General Staff here rather than protagonists, I suspect. More to the point, the mercenary ticket compensation rules don't really work with units like this....
Question the third - money and tech level. I suspect that TL12 for a starter is fine - it makes 'proper', contemporary gear something to long for and fear rather than bulk-buy, but you can still field some seriously dangerous toys if you have the money and licenses.
What sort of things you do will be dependent on the characters you create, I guess. I'm happy for people to points-buy there characters using the Living Traveller Sourcebook approach.
The list of books in scope to draw from is the same - except I've no problem with people who want to use Conditioned Soldier, Information Warfare Specialist or Gangsta out of S&P to represent a mercenary who's a bit odd.CSC is pretty much open to theft and abuse. I'd leave psion careers out of it unless people really, really want psionic ninjas with electric swords.
Had initially thought about doing one set from Mercenary - mostly as the High Guard and Merchant aspects are covered by games currently running.
With the two gentlemen mentioned above, I'd probably be looking at about three or four more - I've not done a campaign on a forum before, but certainly in person more than half a dozen players starts to get immensely unwieldy.
So, to get some minions and some idea of what people want out of the game:
Question the first - Are you interested? If so, reply to that effect here.
Question the second - What scale are you interested in? Add a preferred scale to your reply so I can make a point of annoying as many of you as possible by picking something else
Mercenary essentially defines several broad classes of unit size:
'specialists' - where your half-dozen PCs will be the sum total of the unit, Expendables/Red/A-Team/The Losers fashion.
'private' - not much bigger, but with more or less the same number of NPC hangers-on, either meaning probably a pilot, medic, broker, armourer etc - so you don't have to have these skills in-party if you don't want to, or else a significantly more disposable 'redshirt squad'.
'small' - getting up to platoon size, so either each PC is a team leader, or else you form a schwerpunkt assault squad that leads the rest of the unit in.
'common' more or less the same, but with a support contingent as well. Recruitment, training and assorted other stuff starts to become a big deal at this scale.
'Large' with over a hundred men, you're starting to look at 'major combat formation' status, so you're approaching the level of dispatching small teams to several tickets simultaneously (which is possible) or else dealing with big, multi-platoon battles.
'Legion, Huge, Expansive' - by increasing degrees, you're turning into the General Staff here rather than protagonists, I suspect. More to the point, the mercenary ticket compensation rules don't really work with units like this....
Question the third - money and tech level. I suspect that TL12 for a starter is fine - it makes 'proper', contemporary gear something to long for and fear rather than bulk-buy, but you can still field some seriously dangerous toys if you have the money and licenses.
What sort of things you do will be dependent on the characters you create, I guess. I'm happy for people to points-buy there characters using the Living Traveller Sourcebook approach.
The list of books in scope to draw from is the same - except I've no problem with people who want to use Conditioned Soldier, Information Warfare Specialist or Gangsta out of S&P to represent a mercenary who's a bit odd.CSC is pretty much open to theft and abuse. I'd leave psion careers out of it unless people really, really want psionic ninjas with electric swords.
