Need some advice on a drop in drop out game

[GMTableTales]

Hi all,
My local library runs dnd every other weekend and I'm o e of the alternate DMs. It got me thinking about running traveller. Specifically the deepnight revalation campaign. But I'm not quite sure how to best accomplish it so I thought I'd provide my parameters and see what Advice floated to the surface so here goes.

There are frequently people who have never played a ttrpg before that can show up

There is no registration so there have been groups of up to 13 (we split the party hence the dual dms) usually its around 6 or so players

The ages are from 7 to 60 something but the usual ages are 7 to 14

The sessions are 3 hours no negotiation.

Character creation obviously couldn't be done every time someone stopped by so I'd make ALOT of pregens and if peopled wanted to make their own away from the table I'd see what I could do.

I was thinking of off loading some of crew activities and mission planning off screen. Maybe even abuse my regular experienced group to run the command staff as needed.

In order to help keep people engaged I would like to use minis and maps as much as possible. I do have a 3d printer(fdm) and lots of paper maps but I couldn't find any good details on how to use minis in traveller.

So thats what I got. Anyone have any suggestions or gotchas I should take into account before pulling the trigger on it?

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

For those kinds of players or groups, I would avoid any kind of big structured campaign as most will not be able to follow it, and it will confuse them. Given that some of your players are new to ttrpg, I would just go for completable mini-adventures without any grand plan. They are going to struggle enough already with what Traveller is (or isn't - "Can we beam to the planet surface?" "Scan for lifeforms" ), what a skill used for, game sequences, etc. Keep it as simple as possible.
You can provide some kind of vague narrative link if need be at the start of each session for those that want to feel a part of something bigger.

 

[GMTableTales]

For those kinds of players or groups, I would avoid any kind of big structured campaign as most will not be able to follow it, and it will confuse them. Given that some of your players are new to ttrpg, I would just go for completable mini-adventures without any grand plan. They are going to struggle enough already with what Traveller is (or isn't - "Can we beam to the planet surface?" "Scan for lifeforms" ), what a skill used for, game sequences, etc. Keep it as simple as possible.
You can provide some kind of vague narrative link if need be at the start of each session for those that want to feel a part of something bigger.

Thays actually kind of why I liked deepnight revalation. It frees me to do (from there perpective) unconnected mini adventures. But gives me a way to add some chaos into the command crews life. I could pretty easily keep the library folks disconnected from the over arching plot by keeping them ship crew

 

[Anstett]

From the library perspective.

I think Deepnight would be a nice way to run these sessions. Given a couple of caveats.

1 - Do you have a way of archiving the sessions? Recording just voice perhaps? Then transcripts.
Librarians always like archives

2 - If you had descriptions of what the ship was doing it would make it easy for new players to grab a pre-gen and they know the basics {part of the crew} and you only have to work out basic game mechanics.

3 - By running a consistent "you are on a continuing journey" you will get return players that can then be given the task of 'take the newbie under your wing when you go check those sensor readings' and give a young kid power by them helping the older kid/adult

I ran Traveller for my library with good results, but did not do more than a couple of sessions in a row. We swapped between game systems once a month.

Good Luck