Recommend a one shot

[Host of Angels]

I have a weekend of MT planned and I need some advice...

I would like to find a good one shot adventure that provides a suitable introduction to Traveller for a bunch of gamers that normally only play Call of Cthulhu. So something with a bit of investigation would be within their comfort zone. They are somewhat combat averse, so a military / gun heavy scenario won't work really. My plan was to find a scenario, tell them roughly what sort of adventure it was then start my weekend with character generation as that has always seemed to be one of the joys of Traveller.

If the games goes well, it may be revisited. So the first scene of a campaign is not ruled out, so long as it is self contained.

If anyone has any advice, it would be most useful. Thanks

 

[zozotroll]

You can download Secrets of the ancients right here. I am not good at linking, but look in the Traveller section. The download is free. I have not played it, it doesnt fit my group. But looks plenty of investigation, and not gun heavy. Fre and easy to get, 10 linked scenarios. If nothing else it can inspire.

Owen

 

[Jak Nazryth]

There is a really old judges guild adventure called "Darthanon Queen". (1980)
It involves a 600 ton Type M liner where a big bad monster called "The Dyson" breaks loose out of the cargo hold a goes on a rampage. I was in route back to a lab as part of a zoology expidition... or something like that.
The DQ is over due and the players are sent to find out where it is and why it's late etc... I think it was inspired by Alien, the first one.
Anyway, its a mix of investigation, mystery, and shoot out with the dyson when they finally locate the ship adrift.
There are also at least 1 or maybe 2 other scenarios not involving the dyson.

 

[Gypsy Knights Games]

Perhaps a bit self-serving of me, but you might give a look to our product, 21 Plots. Its designed to help out with just such an emergency.

 

[Boneguard]

Depending on how long as game session you have you could do something along the line of:

A base/station/colony/whatever has gone silent and you are sent to investigate. There you see that something happen and everyone is dead/dissapeared. The player must figure out what happen and report back.

Opposition wise could be Pirate, hostile alien, airborne/water soluble disease (that cause madness), 'feral colonies', insane computer AI, etc.

 

[SSWarlock]

There is a really old judges guild adventure called "Darthanon Queen". (1980)
It involves a 600 ton Type M liner where a big bad monster called "The Dyson" breaks loose out of the cargo hold a goes on a rampage. I was in route back to a lab as part of a zoology expidition... or something like that.
The DQ is over due and the players are sent to find out where it is and why it's late etc... I think it was inspired by Alien, the first one.
Anyway, its a mix of investigation, mystery, and shoot out with the dyson when they finally locate the ship adrift.
There are also at least 1 or maybe 2 other scenarios not involving the dyson.

Oh, I remember that one. One of my favorites. It's actually a great adventure in that a group I ran with many moons ago did some in-game SCUBA diving as part of the adventure. Really a nice change from the "guns in space" scenario.

By the way, I highly recommend any of the Classic Traveller-related environment supplements published by Game Lords (i.e. "The Undersea Environment", "The Mountain Environment", and "The Desert Environment"). Rather easy to use with MongTrav because they're CT-based, they can still be found on eBay or on CD from Far Future Enterprises and can greatly expand the type of adventures a GM can run because of all the background material in them.

I'd love to seem them republished in some form by Mongoose. (hint, hint)

 

[MongooseMatt]

One Crowded Hour from Crowded Hours - the players are on a liner that misjumps and must figure out how to fix or leave it before they plough into a sun.

This was run at Gen Con as a one-shot, and we had a _lot_ of good feedback from the players.

 

[E.D.Quibell]

Type-S from Crowded Hours, again is a good starting adventure.

Also Freelance Traveller has a number of Adventures/Seeds that you could use.

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/advents/index.html

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[Merxiless]

I'm personally a big fan of a through study of, adapting, then running

Across the Bright Face by GDW

It's not really mystery, nore action/Chase/Survival with Timeclock, and few Options.

It can be run for completely new players to traveller because it doesn't involve calculating orbits, re-entry, none of that. There's resource managment, and the h most of the tech, except laser, and they can jump to that.

It is definitely hard-core, more like social roleplaying that was popular some time ago in Australia.

Every session of it I've run for different groups, and every time, I've recieived comments like "I never imagined RP could be like this." "Wow, I thought traveller was flying in a ship and doing math, that was a cool game."

my .02 Cr

 

[nats]

All from Classic Traveller (easily found on Ebay):

Shadows - an almost complete adventure all you have to do is photocopy a few things out of the book and perhaps draw a quick map and thats it. Great adventure through a pyramid complex - spooky especially with some of your own critters added to liven things up. Very much a dungeon crawl though.

Death Station - derelict space station with drug induced mad people. Again pretty complete but could do with some thought into the situation and some good descriptive explanations by the ref.

Twilights Peak - classic Traveller adventure with ruins to explore, an alien base and a chase through a cavern.

The problem with all the original Traveller adventures is they are quite generic and rely on the refs imagination to create most of the description and interest for the players beyond the simple description of the situation that is in the book. Also many of the adventures are a bit lame and need spicing up IMHO with more intersting creatures and characters.

The best adventure I think of them all is the double adventure Chamax Plague/Horde but that is a Starship Troopers affair with loads of bugs and wouldnt suit your audience by the sound it.

Death Station could be a good scary adventure if you put in some space zombies instead of the mad men and some puzzles/clues to get the group to have to figure out what happened to the station, of course if you are changing an adventure this much its probably going to be too much work, but it could be immense. Especially if you had the zombies attacking the group stuck behind a barricade trying to figure out how to kill them.

There are not too many cybernetics or robots in Traveller adventures either so in my mind one of the above changed to include a mad giant robot in it or cybernetically enhanced bountry hunters wouldnt go amiss either.

Having a alien render all the characters electronic or mechanical weapons useless whilst in the midst of battle would also be a very good way of instilling great fear in a claustrophobic adventure like Death Station - making the characters rely on their blades etc only.

Unfortunately I can see a lot of my suggestions rely on modifying official adventures to spice them up but personally I am not a great fan of most of the Traveller adventures as they come - they are usually far too 'grown up' for me. I grew up with Alien and Star Wars and thats how I like by science fiction roll playing - whereas a lot of the Classic Traveller adventures are more like the Star Trek - less action/horror more navel-gazing, relying on the player characterisation and the referees colourful explanations to turn them into something great. I cant think like that off the cuff so I preplan some major stings in the tail just to ensure the players dont get bored. It involves a bit more work but its worth it.

 

[Host of Angels]

Thanks for the advice.

I have had a rootle around based on your suggestions. The Secrets of the Ancients does appeal on the grounds it is a) free and b) starts with the classic Traveller opening - bunch of disparate characters with a ship. However, somewhere I have copies of a bunch of the classic adventures, I will pull them out too and see if any of them spark my interest.

Thanks for the help again.

HoA