Quick question

[Hopeless]

Looks like I'll be starting that traveller game I mentioned in previous threads.

The players are running the following characters;

Jan Van Zeeman, former scholar currently a scout who jointly owns a mining vessel with another player character,
Wulfgar, a former scout who recently left the service and agreed to go into partnership with Van Zeeman to jointly own a mining vessel.
The other characters consist of a Swords Worlds Marine and a Beck's World Adept both of whom are as you read this finishing off the details of their characters.

The former scholar also owns a lab ship which at the game's start is in for repairs following a failed act of piracy which he and his team fought off but left the lab ship in bad shape.
Van Zeeman's uncle was killed during this event and has left hi snephew a bequest which included the deeds for his ship.

Wulfgar agreed to help refinance the contract for this mining vessel and so far its looking like the Marine has been hired as extra muscle or bodyguard for Van Zeeman with the Adept taking up the role of physician (this is still being discussed) so the first game was originally visualised as them completing a final request of Van Zeeman's uncle which is tol deliver a medical shipment to a Gaian Medical facility within the nearby system of Kinorb (Game starts in Fulacin).

They're pursued by a pirate group known as the Children of Orion and have to find a way to deliver their shipment and return to Fulacin since their shipment is unarmed this does pose a problem.

However I asked them to provide a bit more detail of their home system resulting in Fulacin gaining two gas giants with the second big enough that the moons that orbit within its atmosphere are actually inhabitable due to the gas giant's atmospheric makeup.

Now wondering if I should simply have them go on a simple treasure hunt on one of the moons or keep to the original adventure...

Just wanted to ask your opinion of this?

 

[rust]

Perhaps the dead uncle's notes mention an old wreck of
a mining ship somewhere on a gas giant moon, and this
ship may have a weapon which could be salvaged to arm
the players' ship for their delivery run ?

This would give the players a simple opportunity to test
the rules for low-G work in vacuum and their characters'
technical skills and provide them with a chance to fight
those pirates.

 

[phavoc]

If I remember my 4th (or 5th) frontier war history correctly, Fulacin did not have any gas giants there. The Zho had set up a secret refueling base there years before they attacked, and they used Fulacin system as a jumping-off point.

It's not a big issue as far as an adventure goes (Ref waves hand, poof! 2 new GG's appear!). But if you want to tap into other resources and adventures, you may want to rethink that.

You really don't need GG's to have planetoids/moons floating in the outer system. You could even push everything out to the Oort cloud.

 

[Hopeless]

Well this developed because I was looking at trying to get a bit mroe detail on th various systems so i asked about any solar system generator and was pointed to Gurps Space which I got hold of and decided the players ought to have some say on what was going on in their chracter's home system so I gave them an example and asked for their opinion.

In this case the player had his own copy and came up with 2 gas giants one of which was huge the rest of what i mentioned in the opening statement was ideas I was thinking about since my original idea was sending them off to Kinorb but with whats been going on during character generation I felt having a few more options would be invaluable when i actually got the game started since they literally could take this anywhere they want!

My original idea was to explain away the discrepiences because the information they actually had (Spinward Marches sourcebook) was not only 150 odds years out of date (Book is dated 1105, game starts in 1156 or so) but was also wrong due to the Empire's attempts to cover up what has really been going on over the course of that time.

The former scout who jointly owns the mining vessel had his own Babylon 5 Crusade encounter with a shadow vessel and was rescued due to the presence of another mysterious ship (Technomage) and the former scholar's late uncle was researching what was really going on which was the reason for the attempted piracy that killed him and almost cost the lives of the scholar and his team.

Officially there has been no first contact with any alien races, however there is a reason why thats the case and evidence of an old enemy rearin its head again which is why I need to know where they intend to go with this.

I'd rather turn this into a campaign that they want to play in rather than have it end up prematurely ending because of a lack of interest on their part.

By the way one of the player's asked about cybernetics, is the supplement for this worth picking up?

I was also wondering about the robots book since I'm a bit of an Andromeda fan well missed most of the last few seasons but liked the idea they had for AI's.

 

[rust]

I would hesitate to recommend the Robot book, in my view the
design system has quite a lot of flaws which make it necessary
to rewrite much of the system before it can be used - and even
then the results are not very convincing.

As I see it, you would be better off if you would just give your
setting's robots the stats you consider right for your game, es-
pecially if you want comparatively intelligent robots with some
integrated gadgets and weapons.

 

[Hopeless]

Okay details so far;

Fulacin 1105: A-6742-D Ht,Lo,Ni
Fulacin pre-May 1242: A-6743-D Ht,Lo,In
Fulacin 1256: A-6745-D Ht, In

Fulacin star system has a single G-V class star with 6 orbital paths

1) Fulacin I (X-40000-0) is a hot rock ball similar to Mercury
2) Fulacin II (X-7A70-0) is a hostile greenhouse world similar to Venus
3) Fulacin III (A-5645-D Ag,Ga,Ht) is the only inhabitable world but was badly effected by the war from over a century ago and has only recently recovered from the damage incurred to the biosphere
4) Asteroid Belt (C-0002-9 As,Ba,Lo) holds a mining colony spread across three planetoids
5) Hugh Gas Giant
6) Empty

This was the initial example his response was:

A brief description of the Fulacin huge gas giant:
It has numerous moonlets, small moons and medium moons.
There are 5 large moons, only one has any atmosphere and that is very thin and corrosive.
There are 3 giant moons: one is larger than Earth but cold with a hostile atmosphere; one is smaller and icy with even more hostile air; and the last one is a bit smaller than Earth but with an Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere, a tropical temperature, and is 90% ocean with swamps and jungle covering the rest.
There is also a small gas giant orbiting the huge one. This has several moonlets and a few small and medium moons. It also has:
A large moon with an Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere, fairly cold and covered with marsh and patches of forest;
A large moon of metallic composition, with an Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere polluted with ash from constant volcanoes;
A giant moon with an Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere, high-iron composition, cold with around 80% ocean and the rest plains and hills. This world has 3 little moons of its own and one large moon, which itself has an Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere, Earth-like temperature, 40% ocean and the rest forests and mountains.

My impression was... wow!

You could run a campaign and not even leave the system!!!

 

[BP]

Make the system a multi-star one and you've got the makings of a 'Verse (ala Firefly)! 8)

 

[Hopeless]

Make the system a multi-star one and you've got the makings of a 'Verse (ala Firefly)! 8)

Actually that was the example for the Adept from Beck's World... pretty much decided i was rolling way too much and thought it better to let them decide instead!

Haven't heard back at least about that!

A triple star system with the smallest having six orbital paths and the rest well the fact I gave up probably all you need to know!

So the former scholar is from Fulacin, the scout is from Enope with the Marine from Bronze which hides a few underground settlements including a secret (well was secret) Sword Worlds Fleet of old warship considered obsolete by current standards if that standard was actually a century and a half ahead instead of barely catching up with the century before!
And the Adept was born en route to Beck's World.

Tomorrow I get to run this, wish me luck!

 

[Hopeless]

Managed to run the game I had originally planned... well sort of!

The Psion player went for Corporate Citizen class to develop as a diplomatic character and the Marine chose to use the Corporate Agent for his last 2 tours to explain his position on the ship.

So the ship's pilot knows the ship's owner and owns some shares in the mining vessel, so does the former Psion who knows the ship owner whilst she knows the former Marine who is the only crewmember who doesn't own any shares in the ship.

They ignored all of the extra details on Fulacin instead of exploring when I made it clear the "official" records have no mention of gas giants in the Fulacin system so I was wrong to assume they'd ignroe my planned adventure!

To recap the former scholar and ship owner inherited the deeds of his late uncle's ship and as part of his last request was sent with medical supplies to a medical facility located in the nieghbouring system of Kinorb as repayment for their help in trying to save the life of his late daughter.

Originally I mentioned that jump travel in my campaign usually involved a 3 day trip to the outer part of the system followed by a full day preparing for the jump which is instantaneous so that they arrived at their destination system at the same speed they entered jump.

Arriving in Kinorb they pass an Imperial picket ship heading out of the system following which their sensor scan picked up an odd ship parked beyond the asteroid belt where the medical facility their destination was located.

It turned and started heading towards them its iff didn't explain why an armed ship was suddenly on course for them since i had explained the Imperials wouldn't tolerate a non-imperial vessel carrying arms in a system they patrolled.

Eventually they tried to contact the leaving Imperial ship but are ignored as it jumps out of the system.

Now originally they were supposed to have entered the system at a dead stop but following this revelation the pilot's player claimed he hadn't slowed the ship down which would have actually meant the imperial ship would have already jumped out of the system by the time their scan of the system had revealed the armed Far Trader's presence.

Anyway I pointed out at their original speed they would have been intercepted just short of the 7 orbital path one of two ice worlds with a breathable atmosphere but so cold that they would need an underground shelter to survive there.

This resulted in a quarrel with the pilot's player since he had openly claimed the other player character's were rendering his character worthless after the marine's player selected two cybernetic implants both Int/edu bonus implants and I pointed out his character had an e-book given to him by a contact of his which he had never bothered to email me back about even though i had repeatedly asked him for details on his character.

His e-book received a signal suggesting he head for the sixth orbital path which was the second of Kinorb's ice worlds and scanning ahead he discovered a landing beacon directed specifically on the path he had been told to follow was guiding him down to a safe harbour.

They eventually land after the Far Trader fired a pair of missiles that narrowly missed as they headed down to the world below being led through a underground maze of icy cavern revealing that they were flying through an abandoned city hidden deep below the ice.

Upon landing they follow the next instructions which is to take a portable generator to power a disused lift and take it up as far as they can eventually revealing they're at the top of what was a planetary monitor station built into the planet's surface but now hidden below a shell of ice.
Surrounding it is a literal junkyard of crashed and shot down ship including a Theocrat Surveoy ship, several Imperial ships and the ship owner's late uncle's passenger liner the one lost all those years ago even though it had been stressed that the only survivor was found in a low berth escape pod on the previous world they had passed.

Eventually they discovered there was two low berth facilities one intended to serve as escape pods the other holding a sleeping child.

Checking the ship out they found someone had installed another generator which was keeping the ship systems running and hearing the sounds of ships flying outside the cavern they eventually manage to find a replacement power generator to remove the low berth cylinder and move it back to their ship.

Its here they find two Imperial ship's boat and strewn around them about twenty marines in battle dress with a couple of officers' and the ship's boat crew all slain in what looks like a well planned ambush.

They also realise another ship had been there recently quite probably retrieving whatever had slain the imperials, checking their own ship carefully they find a dat crystal with a simple message underneath.

"Give them this" it said of course the players thought it meant to give it to their pursuers but since they had already checked out the consignment they were carrying thinking that was the target they checked out this data crystal and found it detailed a medical treatment for the ship owner's slumbering new found sibling...

There was a bit more to this but I figure this should be enough for now since I'd like opinions on this in case there's something I'm missing.

 

[Hopeless]

Okay so far the session ended with them back at their ship having found the sleeping infant cousin of the scholar PC still held in low berth and found their pilot's contact has left them the means of saving the infant's life.

All they need to do now is reach the medical facility intact so they can get the child to them and the data to them so they can treat her.

Still plenty of opposition to that but I've been wondering where to go from there once they reach the facility.

Jan Van Zeeman (Scholar PC) has his lab ship impounded during the subsequent investigation, if he returns to Fulacin he and his ship and crew will also be impounded but as long as he stays in Kinorb he can move around freely and more importantly look at earning money with his new mining vessel so he and his crew can earn the money they need to meet repayments and cope with life in the Kinorb mining colony whilst waiting for the investigation to be completed.
Jan is now guardian to his newly rediscovered infant cousin who was a couple of years younger than him and is now stuck with him since he can't send her back to his family on Fulacin whilst stuck in Kinorb and going back to Fulacin is financially disastrous for him and his family who need him to remain in business.
So he has to set up a base in Kinorb whilst waiting for his lab ship to be released since it would easily alleviate his financial problems with its fuel processing capabilities.

Wulfgar the Sword Worlder Citizen/Scout has a contact with the Sol Guard, openly considered terrorists he however has directly helped them and was responsible for insuring Van Zeeman's cousin survived her time in low berth and provided the means for curing her illness.
I picture him as looking at recruiting Wulfgar as an agent in a future conflict that imperils the entire Marches but he can't approach the Empire as they have already shown themselves to be untrustworthy and his organisation's reputation means he can't openly reveal himself without endangering everybody in the Marches.

Lara Braun the former Psion turned Corporate Citizen is Jan's accountant and lawyer who was born in transit to Beck's World, her player still hasn't given any background on her character so I don't know who trained her as an adept, are her parents still around and she still has an ally she hasn't introduced.

Karl Wagner the former Sword Worlder Marine Captain turned Corporate Agent is Lara's bodyguard and currently Jan's Security Chief.

Plan on introducing a former comrade who has become an Imperial troubleshooter and will be first seen in the game following the revelation that they're stuck in Kinorb keeping an eye on Jan and his infant cousin since his employers don't know what she knows about the incident that left her sleeping for over two decades.

Then there's the fact as part of Karl's background he fought at the battle of Wardn and earnt his commission at the very start of the Sword World's uprising, he's one of a number of Sword Worlders whose gone unnoticed so what will happen when the Empire discovers his presence?
His former comrade has his own reasons for working for the Empire, what's Karl's reaction to his former comrade?

Looking at the next adventure on them stuck in Kinorb and approached by a local trader who asks for their help locating his missing partner who was checking some of their mining claims.
Offering half of 10kCr upfront if they go to check a specific claim and reactivate the claim beacon. If they can locate and return with his missing partner along with reactivating the beacon he'll sign over the deeds for that claim to them as part of the payment for this request.

I figure it might work but would like to know your opinion on this.

Is half of 10,000Cr up front okay what would you offer instead?

 

[phavoc]

20K Cr is pretty cheap for a starship run anywhere. now if they are going by ground, that's more reasonable. But ships are expensive. I would say the PC's should negotiate a better rate as well as expenses if they get into combat.

If you used to watch US TV, there was a show in the 70s called the Rockford files. As a Private Detective he got like $200/day, plus expenses. That's similar to what PC's should do (though rates would be higher!). Otherwise a short combat could leave them 10s of thousands in the hole with just ammo costs (assuming missile combat).

Actually, if your PC's were needing money, salvaging from those crashed ships would make them a nice bit of cash I suspect.

 

[Hopeless]

20K Cr is pretty cheap for a starship run anywhere. now if they are going by ground, that's more reasonable. But ships are expensive. I would say the PC's should negotiate a better rate as well as expenses if they get into combat.

If you used to watch US TV, there was a show in the 70s called the Rockford files. As a Private Detective he got like $200/day, plus expenses. That's similar to what PC's should do (though rates would be higher!). Otherwise a short combat could leave them 10s of thousands in the hole with just ammo costs (assuming missile combat).

Actually, if your PC's were needing money, salvaging from those crashed ships would make them a nice bit of cash I suspect.

Funny enough they haven't thought of that!

So far all they've done is taken the energy rifles the marines were carrying since nicking their battle dress would be very hard to sell on since they're clearly Imperial in origin and I have already stressed to the former Marine PC that he couldn't get away with wearing battle dress even as a mustering out benefit since it would be very clear whose side it came from.

(Sword Worlds TL11, Imperial TL14 tops, Theocrat TL11, Aryan Alliance TL16)

Now if they could find someone willing to sell it on somewhere outside of their sub-sector however...

The imperial ships they'd have a hard time selling off, scavenging would be different, the civilian ships and tugs would be fair game the Theocrat Surveyor ship and its encrypted systems would be a tough cookie to crack as none of them are that skilled with computers... still there are parts of it that can be scavenged too since the power generator they used came from there.

I wonder, there's actually no reason they couldn't search the planetary monitor come to think of it, nor the underground city that surrounds it either... now if one of them should read this that might change what they're going to do next!