New Traveller PDF - Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs

[MongooseMatt]

We have just posted a new PDF supplement for Traveller on DrivethruRPG.com, and it is a good 'un!

You can see Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs at;

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/102761/Traveller%3A-Cowboys-vs.-Xenomorphs

Both a gripping adventure and detailed sourcebook, Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs is your gateway to take Traveller into the Wild West!

Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs provides all the rules and new equipment you will need to run adventures in the Wild West, from the streets of New York to the unclaimed frontier. A complete frontier mining town is mapped and detailed, with fully-fleshed out characters ready for your players to ride in and start raising hell!

Beyond this, there is a complete adventure (written by Gareth Hanrahan) centred on the mining town, where the players will have to deal with a number of increasingly unusual situations until they finally stumble upon the truth - the Wild West is being invaded by xenomorphs! The referee has a choice of several xenomorph types, all based on familiar science-fiction tropes that are readily adapted to different styles of play, from the Perfect Organism to Classic Martians!

There are also six pre-generated characters to kick you off quickly into the adventure, along with a complete Desperado career for players wishing to create their own.

Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs is an exciting, thrilling, dark-and-deadly adventure in the Wild West, using the Traveller rules. The most fun you can have with a horse between your legs!

 

[AdrianH]

"Frontier Earth", by Bruce "Captain Sheridan" Boxleitner, could make a good scenario for this...

 

[Treebore]

That sounds like fun.

 

[Lemnoc]

I dunno.

This just sounds

COMPLETELY EXCELLENT!

:lol:

 

[Old timer]

Just downloaded this and skimmed through it, i have to say it is absolutely fantastic. My players and i are going to have a lot of fun with this. Thank you mongooses, another excellent little release .

 

[Lemnoc]

Just downloaded this and skimmed through it, i have to say it is absolutely fantastic. My players and i are going to have a lot of fun with this. Thank you mongooses, another excellent little release .

Yes, I think the Mongooses might've had also had fun with this. I like, particularly, the speculation about the damage a Molotov cocktail of frontier whiskey might do to your outtards vis-a-vis what it certainly is likely to do mixed into another kind of cocktail and tossed into your innards. :lol:

 

[Easterner]

Cool book! Some thoughts.

Homeworld for character generation

Earth 1860-1900

UWP- X867871-4

USA 1860-1900

X867741-4

Europe (Very general per nation) 1860-1900
X8677A4-4

Core Skills
Computer, Pilot, Battle Dress, Gunner, Remote Operations, Space Sciences, Sensors, Flyer, Psychology, Sophontology, Engineering (except Power Plant: steam) All not invented

Vacc Suit and Z-G would be aquatic only and rare. Driving would be animal drawn.

Substitutes: Animals, Art, Persuasion, Survival, Social Science or +1 Str, Dex or End.

Reloading
Very slow in 19th century. The stripper/en bloc clip was not introduced until 1885 and gradually introduced on primarily European bolt action weapons and the Lee Rifle of 1890. Only the Spencer 7 round tube magazine and the 1858 Remington Army were speed loaders. The Remington had a lever to quick release the cylinder and allow a fully loaded and capped cylinder to be dropped in. IIRC Clint Eastwood used this in Pale Rider. All others were loaded one cartridge at a time about 20 seconds to empty and reload a Colt. S&W, Webley and Merwin & Hulbert revolvers had auto ejection feature for cartridges when opened. So did lever and trap door rifles. Reload time of Henry rifles and cap and ball weapons is in minutes not seconds.

WEAPON NOTES
Colt 1873 Army Model P Peacemaker .45 Colt DAMAGE
Buntline as listed
7 1/2" barrel 3d6+2
5 1/2" barrel 3d6+1
4 3/4" barrel as listed
2"-3" Sheriffs/Storekeeper model as listed. (Storekeeper reloads slower as no hand ejector)

Colt 1873 Army Model P Frontier Six Shooter .44-40 DAMAGE
-1 to all above damages, Uses same cartridge as Winchester (i.e. Winchester 1873)

The Winchester Rifle(WR) and 1-1000 are the same 3d6+3 give +1 to the 1000 to hit at all ranges.
Winchester Carbine 3d6+1 Assault Weapon -$10 over WR
Winchester Texas Border Rifle 3d6+2 Assault Weapon +$5 over WR

Springfield 1873 Trapdoor Rifle +$10 over carbine
4d6+3 Rifle
Springfield 1873 Trapdoor Carbine
Assault weapon 4d6-1

Holsters
If not playing 'Hollywood' holster designs initially were poor in old west. The military used strong leather flap holsters and were butt forward designs making a draw awkward. Civilian holsters were made from cowbelly leather and soft like suede. They required two hands to draw (one held the holster in place). El Paso Saddlery introduced the modern western holster about 1879 allowing one handed fast draws. Even soldiers bought them and can be seen in photos of troopers facing the Apache who ambushed so quickly a fast draw was needed. Soldiers equipped with shoddy uniforms and Civil War leftovers quickly looked like civilians on their campaigns with privately purchased gunbelts, shirts and hats.

Armour
19th Century bullets fired soft lead, devastating to flesh, ineffective against armour.
It wouldn't hurt to treat all armour as double and increase rifle damage by 2D6 per weapon.
The 1879 US 45-70 500gr (for buffalo and Springfield rifles the carbine used reduced powder charge) cartridge when tested at Sandy Hook penetrated 3' of oak and 8" of sand at 3200 metres. That is lethal and it is was far more powerful at close ranges. The earlier 45-70 405gr bullet was considered lethal to only 1000m.

Wiki note
At the behest of one of the hunters, Billy Dixon, already renowned as a crack shot, took aim with a 'Big Fifty' Sharps (it was either a .50-70 or -90, probably the latter) he'd borrowed from Hanrahan, and cleanly dropped a warrior from atop his horse. This apparently so discouraged the Indians they decamped and gave up the fight. Two weeks later a team of US Army surveyors, under the command of Nelson A. Miles, measured the distance of the shot: 1,538 yards, or nine-tenths of a mile.

My note.
The army (still skeptical about frontier legends) tested a rifle again about a decade ago and duplicated the shot.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Face-huggers in vats of sarsaparilla...yeah!!!

 

[MongooseMatt]

Okay, just ran this for my regular group. Wonder how this ties up with everyone else's experiences.

The General Events went off without much of a hitch (a gun fight with a poor miner accused of cheating because he won at poker, two players nearly duelling one another). They managed to recover the 'silvery metal' and one player got progressively sicker as the game progressed - he blamed it on the beans they were eating.

Then the aliens appeared. Went for the Perfect Organism (Old School).

The Sheriff went down to a hugger and the players legged it, hearing a much larger creature coming down the corridor towards them. One player bravely turned back to hold the line and went down almost instantly. A second player tried to help them, and they went down, leaving two fleeing the ship.

Outside, the hills were alive with aliens. One player, apparently losing his mind, ran towards the alien horde with lit dynamite (boom), leaving one to grab a horse and escape back to town.

The rest of his gang had, by then, arrived at a saloon, and they quickly made plans for repelling the alien invasion - however, they did this without alerting anybody else in town...

Throwing everyone out of the church, they boarded the place up and placed explosives. They watched, as the aliens swooped across town, infiltrating buildings, and taking the populace by surprise. Then it was their turn.

Some aliens fell to explosives, others hammered away at the doors, more got on to the roof. The defence of the bell tower was a pitched battle, but gradually players fell and aliens got in. The last went down just before their Big Bomb went off, blasting the church apart.

Three survived, waking up inside the alien ship, bound by strange gooey stuff. Something moved in their chests...


So, how did your games go?

 

[Dave Chase]

Cool book! Some thoughts.
...

Reloading
Very slow in 19th century. The stripper/en bloc clip was not introduced until 1885 and gradually introduced on primarily European bolt action weapons and the Lee Rifle of 1890. Only the Spencer 7 round tube magazine and the 1858 Remington Army were speed loaders. The Remington had a lever to quick release the cylinder and allow a fully loaded and capped cylinder to be dropped in. IIRC Clint Eastwood used this in Pale Rider. All others were loaded one cartridge at a time about 20 seconds to empty and reload a Colt. S&W, Webley and Merwin & Hulbert revolvers had auto ejection feature for cartridges when opened. So did lever and trap door rifles. Reload time of Henry rifles and cap and ball weapons is in minutes not seconds.

...

Don't forget about the break open pistol. You can see one in action in the newest vesion of the movie 3:10 to Yuma.

It unloads quickly and can be loaded quicker than other pistols with practice.

The 1858 Remington Army pistols where not truly speed loaders, but they could be loaded faster than most other pistols, IF you practiced alot at swapping loaded cylinders.

The swapping of cylinders was popular during the conversion process from Blackpowder to true cartridge firearms. This period was only during the early 1870's.

Dave Chase

 

[Easterner]

Dave, I listed the top breaks in your quote! The M&H loaded like a Colt but had an ingenious feature that caused the cylinder to slide forward and drop out empties but not unfired cartridges.

 

[2330ADUSA1]

I for one dislike One Shot adventures, but stll think it is a interesting adventure for a resource.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Hang-on a minute....

I have just noticed the weights of the musical instruments - now I play the banjo and used to be a piano french-polisher (and have thus shifted a fair few in my time), and the listed weights are frankly ridiculous!

No banjo of the period would weigh 6 kg (13.23 lbs.). Typical "Sweeney" banjos used at the time would be roughly 3 kg.

Upright pianos (the sort that would be likely shipped out to the frontier saloons) typically weigh about 225-250-ish kilos. Grands can weigh a lot more (but not necessarily so). 400 kg for a heavy iron-framed concert grand is OK, but 300 kg is probably a better figure to cover some of the composite metal frames still in use in the late 19th century.

As to violins, they are usually about 0.4 to 0.5 kg. Wooden "coffin" cases might run to add another kilo.