Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Overkill.
Pirates of Drinax - GMs thread
- Thread starter Sven2300
- Start date
Overkill.
Cronurd
Mongoose
Yeah, I was chuckling the entire time forcing myself not to give away how much they had the upper hand the entire time. They've only barely flipped through High Guard so far, so barbettes being a Big Deal(tm) wasn't even on their radar haha.
And also as I said to you on Discord, I'm flattered! I was so proud of them that entire sequence.
- Reasoning that if the Harrier was found floating in space, they might find cool stuff (if not a full ship) in another abandoned old empire cache
- Immediately drawing up plans for how to find the painting site, up to cross-referencing topographical maps with ihatei settlement locations and trying to figure out how long it would take to fly around the planet in a flyer
- And just their immediate biting hard on the hook. My group has had a bad habit of accruing side quests and things to check out but never getting back around to them, but I fully expect them to remember this one off painting and actively plan to come back in the near future
Hopefully your players engage just as much as mine did ^_^
Cronurd
Mongoose
As far as planning for the next session goes, I had some thoughts. My plan once they get to Drinax is for Oleb to congratuthank them, give them their LoM to pirate for him, and for Rao to take them aside and give them some pointers and suggestions from the referee. My issue right now is that with my setup, the Harrier has to undergo some major repairs since it was never fully fixed up after being recovered. This on top of any upgrades the PCs will cash in their ship shares for (one player rolled five on their own, so the party'll be able to fix her up pretty good.) So this implies that the Harrier will be in the shop for a few weeks, I'd not a full month or two. What the hell do I have the PCs do during that time?
I've considered pointing them towards Marooned on Marduk into potentially Makergod, but I'm also inclined to try and nudge them toward Exodus since I've already namedropped the Glorious Empire. And even if I go with either or neither, I'll have to come up with some sort of errand for Oleb to send the Travellers on, otherwise they'll just kinda be sitting there in the Floating Palace for a good while. Which I can certainly fast forward through after enough role-playing has occurred, but it feels unsatisfying. Y'all have any thoughts?
I've considered pointing them towards Marooned on Marduk into potentially Makergod, but I'm also inclined to try and nudge them toward Exodus since I've already namedropped the Glorious Empire. And even if I go with either or neither, I'll have to come up with some sort of errand for Oleb to send the Travellers on, otherwise they'll just kinda be sitting there in the Floating Palace for a good while. Which I can certainly fast forward through after enough role-playing has occurred, but it feels unsatisfying. Y'all have any thoughts?
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
I strongly suggest Rao mentions 'We want to do regime change on systems hostile to us' and a quick summary of the whole end-game in 'Finale' where they need to convince worlds to join up based on their political stances. This is NOT expressly mentioned in the adventure, but it certainly is the goal of the whole scheme from the start -- don't just spring it on the players in the final chapter.
Also, Endie (I am pretty sure) made up some resources for playing around on Drinax to recruit Vespexer tribes -- some of whom are less than enthusiastic about folks from the Floating Palace. That might be good filler / pacing material for the players. I also think it happens to be a good place to introduce Prince Harrick -- and if you want a little delay before Oleb & Rao trust the player characters with the (figurative) crown jewels of Drinax, then having them do a good job here might help.
And having the characters spending some time at the Floating Palace gives you a chance to introduce the various NPCs that will be important later -- Kasyil, Thao Poloc, Sal Dancet, Lady Hil, Admiral Wrax, Rachando, Chieftain Galx, & etc.
One option you might have is swap their ship -- Wrax has designs on the Harrier, and a lot of Drinax's resources are going to be poured into fixing it up. If it takes a few months to a year to get it fixed up, the players can be given a tramp freighter that was the property of some unfortunate who ran afoul of intrigue related (maybe Rachando did not want the competition) poison. They get some time as Far-Trader flying pirates themselves, with a healthy respect for anything that may carry a Barbette; and later have to do some politicking to upgrade to the Harrier & reinforce Wrax's bad opinion of them.
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These are good ideas: taking the time to introduce the players to four or maybe five at most (so they don't all blur together) of the key players on the palace early on is a very good point: Oleb, Rao and Harrick to introduce the three visions for the reborn kingdom, maybe Galx to introduce the idea of the Vespexers (and plant seeds about reliable marines for the future) and Wrax to have an antagonist?
I'll send you the Vespexers minigame stuff I have in Discord, @Cronurd if you want it. Another idea might be to do what @J. L. Brown suggests and send the party out in a low-key ship to run another mission, partly by way of job interview for the main gig later on: The Hellworld Heists is one that I've been thinking of as a transition for my second group when they finish crossing the Great Rift to get to the Trojan Reach: perhaps Rao wants to make possible a favourable alliance with the Senlis Foederate in order to secure Drinax's Coreward flank? Someone earlier in this thread ran the Calixcuel Incident for their party with their party taking Oleb incognito to see his mother (cue disaster movie). Although maybe Oleb would require something a bit less vulnerable and more Sindalian than a Far Trader for such a jaunt...
Last night's episode was amazing fun: the party decided to take the fight to PRQ and launched a cutting-out expedition in Argona itself: it genuinely reminded me of Thomas Cochrane (or his fictional copy, Jack Aubrey) in its cunning and audacity. What's more, they had to work out an Operation Black Buck-style refuelling plan to get their ships in place and to be able to get the Harrier So Much For Subtlety back in time for the anticipated counter-attack.
And then, when they performed their synchronised jump, the astrogator miscalculated and sent them to the wrong location! Their first real misjump of the campaign certainly came at an amazing time for drama...
In the end, the effect on PRQ of a second and spectacular - naval loss, this time in their more valuable system of Argona, tipped their dove faction into a dominant position over their hawks (despite the fact that they had already started hiring mercenaries). If Drinax could take their own system defence boats above their own port, what else could they do?
So a negotiating team was dispatched to Acrid and we got to do a series of opposed negotiation rolls between the PRQ team and Timaeus, the party's disgraced, ex-noble diplomat. The party reported that this was even more tense than the space battle.
It is also far too long, but I didn't want to miss anything. It felt that good at the time.
And then, when they performed their synchronised jump, the astrogator miscalculated and sent them to the wrong location! Their first real misjump of the campaign certainly came at an amazing time for drama...
In the end, the effect on PRQ of a second and spectacular - naval loss, this time in their more valuable system of Argona, tipped their dove faction into a dominant position over their hawks (despite the fact that they had already started hiring mercenaries). If Drinax could take their own system defence boats above their own port, what else could they do?
So a negotiating team was dispatched to Acrid and we got to do a series of opposed negotiation rolls between the PRQ team and Timaeus, the party's disgraced, ex-noble diplomat. The party reported that this was even more tense than the space battle.
It is also far too long, but I didn't want to miss anything. It felt that good at the time.
Oh and I also wrote Krrsh's version, which the players prefer to my wordier versions. I know that technically it is all by me, but it still feels like they prefer him 
. The things I will do to avoid writing more annual reviews.
. The things I will do to avoid writing more annual reviews.This week's session saw the travellers embark on Treasure Ship: 28 weeks in and we're just starting on the second of ten core adventures!
The adventure is painted a a heist but I find that running it makes it seem more like a (very role-playing heavy) mystery investigation for the bulk of it: the Martin II is a puzzle that needs solved. The party spoke to or otherwise interacted with (by bugging them, using psionics on them etc) 16 plot-related characters, each of whom had some information that the party can use to work out what is going on.
I added a few characters to the mix: some just for flavour (the crew of Offworld Rookies doing a shoot; an Aslan oligarch and his servants; a suspiciously skilled fortune teller etc) as well as a couple to give redundancy for some key clues in case the party don't speak to the right people or understand what they say. So all in all it was intense enough that I ended up using Miro to draw up a police-style investigation board to lay out what they found semi-comprehensibly. I am really loving the ability of Miro to help me organise stuff
I have no clue what they'll do. They turned up with one ship disguised and the other (the fairly well-known Harrier So Much For Subtlety) openly itself; one of the party wore a disguise net for a few hours but the rest didn't, and then they signed-on to help the Martin II as themselves.
So far as I can see (and they may surprise me again and find another route) they either have to
The pinboard, albeit very zoomed out. Post your Always Sunny in Philadelphia memes here. Note that not everything on here is accurate and it is in no cases the whole truth. It's just what the players noticed.
The adventure is painted a a heist but I find that running it makes it seem more like a (very role-playing heavy) mystery investigation for the bulk of it: the Martin II is a puzzle that needs solved. The party spoke to or otherwise interacted with (by bugging them, using psionics on them etc) 16 plot-related characters, each of whom had some information that the party can use to work out what is going on.
I added a few characters to the mix: some just for flavour (the crew of Offworld Rookies doing a shoot; an Aslan oligarch and his servants; a suspiciously skilled fortune teller etc) as well as a couple to give redundancy for some key clues in case the party don't speak to the right people or understand what they say. So all in all it was intense enough that I ended up using Miro to draw up a police-style investigation board to lay out what they found semi-comprehensibly. I am really loving the ability of Miro to help me organise stuff
I have no clue what they'll do. They turned up with one ship disguised and the other (the fairly well-known Harrier So Much For Subtlety) openly itself; one of the party wore a disguise net for a few hours but the rest didn't, and then they signed-on to help the Martin II as themselves.
So far as I can see (and they may surprise me again and find another route) they either have to
- rob the ship openly as the agents of Drinax that they are known to be
- come up with something amazing like robbing the robbers or misdirecting entirely
- or they'll just decide to help the Martin II against Hroal and maybe hope to sieze the Meatgrinder
The pinboard, albeit very zoomed out. Post your Always Sunny in Philadelphia memes here. Note that not everything on here is accurate and it is in no cases the whole truth. It's just what the players noticed.
Cronurd
Mongoose
Howdy, been busy and missed a week. It's now been two sessions since my last update, and both a lot and not that much has happened.
Dramatis Personae
- Gherson: Drinaxi minor noble who hates responsibility as much as not being able to waste his money on excesses. The ship captain, ostensible leader, and general bankroller.
- Zigured "Ziggy Space" Dirt: Former Imperial Navy Lieutenant who wants to make money, and quickly. The party's XO/2IC, sensop, and bookkeeper.
- Marco Bro'Lo: The vagabond and general wilderness survival guy with a chip on his shoulder about despots. Currently crushing on multiple Drinaxi women and the instigator of many interesting social situations. The party's Ground Operations Specialist.
- Xander: Retired Merchant Marine and privileged "my dad owns a used space car dealership" college boy. The party's pilot, astrogator, and guy in the chair.
Session of January the 17th
The party picks up leaving Clarke highport bound for Drinax. The trip is mostly uneventful, with some of the Harrier's crew being harassed by talkative, inquisitive passengers. This gives Gherson the opportunity to explain some Drinax lore in-character to the other party members (he was given a small dossier with relevant info about life on Drinax, its history, and people around the Floating Palace.) Upon being escorted into the Floating Palace after the long, long m-drive burn in-system, the party is personally escorted by an ecstatic Lord Wrax to the throne room. Along the way, the party asks a bit about the Star Guard and the Hawk Warriors escorting them, and Marco makes a personal note that he wants to acquire a set of their wings for himself in the future.
Shown into the room with the Dragon Throne, the party is introduced to King Oleb XIV, and introductions are made all around. Despite some of the party's disdain for authority and their skepticism about the state of the Kingdom, the party is largely deferential and respectful of the King. He thanks them profusely for bringing the Harrier back to Drinax, explaining how he has grand plans for it. To properly reward them, he offers them a choice between money now, or the chance to be given a mission to prove their loyalty and competence to Drinax. Completion of said mission will prove to Oleb that he can trust them for a grand plan which will make the party rich and famous beyond their wildest dreams. Faced with this choice, (and knowing the title of the campaign,) the party accepts the mission. But before they are given this mission, they must first be feasted! Cue a formal, 14-course feast with dozens of Drinaxi nobles in attendance and the Travellers as the guests of honor. This feast gives the party to learn more about the political culture of the Drinaxi court, and introduces them to both the haughty and influential Lady Hil and the mildly resentful Chieftain Galx. Galx, who is an Enemy of Gherson, expounds to Marco and Ziggy about some of their history, including how Gherson once purposefully farted into her suit's air intake valve while drunk. Naturally, (and also possibly because I used a picture of Tali'Zorah from Mass Effect for her portrait,) Marco is immediately smitten by Galx, and starts making overtures to get to know her and the plight of the Vespexers better. Their discussion is cut short though, as it seems that King Oleb wishes to see both the Travellers and Galx after the feast...
To the surprise of none of the party, their mission involves Chieftain Galx and the Vespexers. It seems that some of Galx's scouts discovered the location of a possible Drinaxi vault on the planet's surface, and the King wants the party to go down there, confirm that it's there, and secure it. Galx doesn't quite trust the Travellers yet (and especially doesn't trust Gherson), so she wants them to go find the vault the Vespexer way, on foot, instead of taking an air/raft down to the target location. Seeing this as the referee's flimsy explanation for why they need to go on a ground adventure, the party accepts, and the next day are taken down to Galx's camp and told that the cache is to the northeast in a lake outside of an abandoned city. Fast forwarding through this whole debacle, basically they encountered a gorge that the party couldn't find a way to cross easily, so Marco tried jumping across and didn't quite make it. He is saved by a mysterious Vespexer from a different tribe who shows up from the other side of the gorge, helps them find a metal sheet to bridge the gap, and bids them to follow him east towards the city. This turns out to be a trap, as the Vespexer leads them into an abandoned building where four of his cannibal buddies appear to ambush the party. Unfortunately for the Vespexers, the Travellers roll really well for initiative and destroy the surface-dwellers in two rounds. They botch the interrogation of the survivor and leave the bodies to the fungal voles. The next day, the party is able to find and break into the vault, found at the bottom of a knee-deep lake remnant, discovering an ancient bug-out shelter that was never able to be used by the nobility of the city.
Returning to the Palace, the party is welcomed back and congratulated on a job well done by King Oleb, which leads to them finally, after months, taking the charge of becoming the Pirates of Drinax. They get the Harrier, commit piracy, make allies, marry the princess, yadda yadda. Naturally after this is done, Rao takes them aside to a briefing room in the starport and goes "Ok, so here's what you actually need to do," basically in-universe giving them a powerpoint presentation of the big overarching campaign mechanics. This is where I explained to my players about how starport attitudes work, the Empire Standing mechanics, how they shouldn't go too crazy with the space warcrimes or else consequences will ensue, etc. I also gave them the official ship sheet for the Harrier, and explained to them how the ship share repair mechanic works. We left off the session with the end of that briefing because we'd been playing for nearly eight hours at that point. To be continued.
Referee notes: I could have run this one a lot better, but as this was the long-awaited exposition and mechanics dump session, I was focused on the big talking portion at the end and didn't quite prepare enough for Oleb's task. For one, I need to work on "roll or fail" scenarios like the ground mission this session. I expected too much of my players to try and solve a big problem without giving them any information they could have used to solve it. Also, they don't know this and probably will not find out, but the original plan was for Chieftan Galx to have tipped off the cannibal tribe about the Travellers and advised them to focus on the loud, pompous one. Maybe Galx will be able to try to escalate in the future, or Gherson can smooth things over with her, perhaps with Marco's help.
Dramatis Personae
- Gherson: Drinaxi minor noble who hates responsibility as much as not being able to waste his money on excesses. The ship captain, ostensible leader, and general bankroller.
- Zigured "Ziggy Space" Dirt: Former Imperial Navy Lieutenant who wants to make money, and quickly. The party's XO/2IC, sensop, and bookkeeper.
- Marco Bro'Lo: The vagabond and general wilderness survival guy with a chip on his shoulder about despots. Currently crushing on multiple Drinaxi women and the instigator of many interesting social situations. The party's Ground Operations Specialist.
- Xander: Retired Merchant Marine and privileged "my dad owns a used space car dealership" college boy. The party's pilot, astrogator, and guy in the chair.
Session of January the 17th
The party picks up leaving Clarke highport bound for Drinax. The trip is mostly uneventful, with some of the Harrier's crew being harassed by talkative, inquisitive passengers. This gives Gherson the opportunity to explain some Drinax lore in-character to the other party members (he was given a small dossier with relevant info about life on Drinax, its history, and people around the Floating Palace.) Upon being escorted into the Floating Palace after the long, long m-drive burn in-system, the party is personally escorted by an ecstatic Lord Wrax to the throne room. Along the way, the party asks a bit about the Star Guard and the Hawk Warriors escorting them, and Marco makes a personal note that he wants to acquire a set of their wings for himself in the future.
Shown into the room with the Dragon Throne, the party is introduced to King Oleb XIV, and introductions are made all around. Despite some of the party's disdain for authority and their skepticism about the state of the Kingdom, the party is largely deferential and respectful of the King. He thanks them profusely for bringing the Harrier back to Drinax, explaining how he has grand plans for it. To properly reward them, he offers them a choice between money now, or the chance to be given a mission to prove their loyalty and competence to Drinax. Completion of said mission will prove to Oleb that he can trust them for a grand plan which will make the party rich and famous beyond their wildest dreams. Faced with this choice, (and knowing the title of the campaign,) the party accepts the mission. But before they are given this mission, they must first be feasted! Cue a formal, 14-course feast with dozens of Drinaxi nobles in attendance and the Travellers as the guests of honor. This feast gives the party to learn more about the political culture of the Drinaxi court, and introduces them to both the haughty and influential Lady Hil and the mildly resentful Chieftain Galx. Galx, who is an Enemy of Gherson, expounds to Marco and Ziggy about some of their history, including how Gherson once purposefully farted into her suit's air intake valve while drunk. Naturally, (and also possibly because I used a picture of Tali'Zorah from Mass Effect for her portrait,) Marco is immediately smitten by Galx, and starts making overtures to get to know her and the plight of the Vespexers better. Their discussion is cut short though, as it seems that King Oleb wishes to see both the Travellers and Galx after the feast...
To the surprise of none of the party, their mission involves Chieftain Galx and the Vespexers. It seems that some of Galx's scouts discovered the location of a possible Drinaxi vault on the planet's surface, and the King wants the party to go down there, confirm that it's there, and secure it. Galx doesn't quite trust the Travellers yet (and especially doesn't trust Gherson), so she wants them to go find the vault the Vespexer way, on foot, instead of taking an air/raft down to the target location. Seeing this as the referee's flimsy explanation for why they need to go on a ground adventure, the party accepts, and the next day are taken down to Galx's camp and told that the cache is to the northeast in a lake outside of an abandoned city. Fast forwarding through this whole debacle, basically they encountered a gorge that the party couldn't find a way to cross easily, so Marco tried jumping across and didn't quite make it. He is saved by a mysterious Vespexer from a different tribe who shows up from the other side of the gorge, helps them find a metal sheet to bridge the gap, and bids them to follow him east towards the city. This turns out to be a trap, as the Vespexer leads them into an abandoned building where four of his cannibal buddies appear to ambush the party. Unfortunately for the Vespexers, the Travellers roll really well for initiative and destroy the surface-dwellers in two rounds. They botch the interrogation of the survivor and leave the bodies to the fungal voles. The next day, the party is able to find and break into the vault, found at the bottom of a knee-deep lake remnant, discovering an ancient bug-out shelter that was never able to be used by the nobility of the city.
Returning to the Palace, the party is welcomed back and congratulated on a job well done by King Oleb, which leads to them finally, after months, taking the charge of becoming the Pirates of Drinax. They get the Harrier, commit piracy, make allies, marry the princess, yadda yadda. Naturally after this is done, Rao takes them aside to a briefing room in the starport and goes "Ok, so here's what you actually need to do," basically in-universe giving them a powerpoint presentation of the big overarching campaign mechanics. This is where I explained to my players about how starport attitudes work, the Empire Standing mechanics, how they shouldn't go too crazy with the space warcrimes or else consequences will ensue, etc. I also gave them the official ship sheet for the Harrier, and explained to them how the ship share repair mechanic works. We left off the session with the end of that briefing because we'd been playing for nearly eight hours at that point. To be continued.
Referee notes: I could have run this one a lot better, but as this was the long-awaited exposition and mechanics dump session, I was focused on the big talking portion at the end and didn't quite prepare enough for Oleb's task. For one, I need to work on "roll or fail" scenarios like the ground mission this session. I expected too much of my players to try and solve a big problem without giving them any information they could have used to solve it. Also, they don't know this and probably will not find out, but the original plan was for Chieftan Galx to have tipped off the cannibal tribe about the Travellers and advised them to focus on the loud, pompous one. Maybe Galx will be able to try to escalate in the future, or Gherson can smooth things over with her, perhaps with Marco's help.
The latest session was the second episode of the Treasure Ship adventure. https://drinax.net/week-29-treasure-ship-2/
After the first session, the players seemed quite daunted. Partly by the number of characters and partly by the scale of the other players involved: Hroal's Meatgrinder is six times the size of the canonical harrier, and over four times the size of their version. The Imperium navy are unimaginably huge. Imperium investigative services - their equivalents of a TL15 FBI or ONI - terrifying to attract the attention of, and so forth.
This time, they started to learn more about the non-technical problems of the Martin II, and the limits of the actors involved. They also started to see where those actors could be effective tools to use against each other with a bit of imagination and some inventive use of technology. So a lot of the session was spent thinking about how to distract and divert any response, how to shift blame, how to gain credit and so forth.
There was a lot more roleplaying and investigation, and a bunch more info added to the miro board for the heist, as well. But probably 40% of the session was spent kicking ideas around: knockout gas; psionics; cold berths; selective murder; ill-advised plots to steal organs from Imperium Navy captains (now that would lead to War of Jenkin's Ear type responses, with Imperium destroyers popping up in orbit) etc.
One of the players is focused far more on GeDeCo's treaty - which they have not, of course, seen - which he has become convinced is a plot aimed at sacrificing the border worlds (especially Drinax) to provoke a war between the Imperium and "The Hierate". He sees the treasure ship, the vault contents or the Meatgrinder as far less important. It's not a wholly irrational assessment.
However, he tends to assert things - ovften very incorrect things - firmly as fact (he's very sure and very wrong indeed about the owners of the Fafnir, who he believes are the eminences grises of the GeDeCo plot) so the rest of the party tend to go along because he sounds so certain. If they end up destroying the (potentially highly useful) fake treaty document then God help them if Rao finds out. Although if it just disappears then, rather than just shrugging and giving up, I suspect that GeDeCo would sigh, have some people shot, and set out laboriously to try again (not easy, one presumes, given the security measures involved in creating such a treaty document).
As usual, even arguably incorrect theories and premises can spin off into great new lines of adventure in a sandbox.
On another note, I wrote a quick post on how useful I find Miro in both tracking the PoD campaign and in sharing that information with players: https://drinax.net/miro-and-drinax/
After the first session, the players seemed quite daunted. Partly by the number of characters and partly by the scale of the other players involved: Hroal's Meatgrinder is six times the size of the canonical harrier, and over four times the size of their version. The Imperium navy are unimaginably huge. Imperium investigative services - their equivalents of a TL15 FBI or ONI - terrifying to attract the attention of, and so forth.
This time, they started to learn more about the non-technical problems of the Martin II, and the limits of the actors involved. They also started to see where those actors could be effective tools to use against each other with a bit of imagination and some inventive use of technology. So a lot of the session was spent thinking about how to distract and divert any response, how to shift blame, how to gain credit and so forth.
There was a lot more roleplaying and investigation, and a bunch more info added to the miro board for the heist, as well. But probably 40% of the session was spent kicking ideas around: knockout gas; psionics; cold berths; selective murder; ill-advised plots to steal organs from Imperium Navy captains (now that would lead to War of Jenkin's Ear type responses, with Imperium destroyers popping up in orbit) etc.
One of the players is focused far more on GeDeCo's treaty - which they have not, of course, seen - which he has become convinced is a plot aimed at sacrificing the border worlds (especially Drinax) to provoke a war between the Imperium and "The Hierate". He sees the treasure ship, the vault contents or the Meatgrinder as far less important. It's not a wholly irrational assessment.
However, he tends to assert things - ovften very incorrect things - firmly as fact (he's very sure and very wrong indeed about the owners of the Fafnir, who he believes are the eminences grises of the GeDeCo plot) so the rest of the party tend to go along because he sounds so certain. If they end up destroying the (potentially highly useful) fake treaty document then God help them if Rao finds out. Although if it just disappears then, rather than just shrugging and giving up, I suspect that GeDeCo would sigh, have some people shot, and set out laboriously to try again (not easy, one presumes, given the security measures involved in creating such a treaty document).
As usual, even arguably incorrect theories and premises can spin off into great new lines of adventure in a sandbox.
On another note, I wrote a quick post on how useful I find Miro in both tracking the PoD campaign and in sharing that information with players: https://drinax.net/miro-and-drinax/
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wintertraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I have experienced that same transition jolt between moving directly from the Honor Among Thieves episode. I've considered changing the adventure order around, but also believe that this transition challenge forces the players to change up their strategies. It moves them into a more espionage frame of mind. Puzzling out their plan: seeking to win the treasure ship's loot, defeat Hroal and steal his ship, or both/neither is part of the this episode's genius.
None of this group had played Traveller except my wife, and that was a couple of sessions a long time ago when we were kids. So I looked at Treasure Ship and stuck a bunch of distracting hooks to tempt them into doing other stuff. They'd all spent too many years playing D&D and I was worried they'd just flounder.
It's now session 29 of the campaign and it turns out that they are just ready, but I think it would have been too much for this group any earlier, so I'm glad to have waited. Your players are probably better at RPGs
