Spinward Marches Adventures

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Well, since the first OTU book is going to the Spinward Marches circa 1105, I was wondering what types of adventures people had run in this era? Specifically, I am looking for adventures that are NOT the published ones or variations of them. I was thinking of a source of adventures for newbies to this hallowed sector of space.

Mine usually revolved around traders or scouts (so they had a ship).

I did have one adventure where the characters woke up out of cold sleep with absolutely no memory of who they were. Not all of them were human either.

The ship they were on was being attacked (by Zhos) and a disruption in the power system caused the Low Berths to cycle. There were 2 dead bodies that failed their survival rolls.

The players spent several sessions trying to figure out WHAT they knew. I never did tell them what their skills were, but they could slowly build up their character sheets with clues. For example, they were hiding in a storage locker and found a wrench. They passed the wrench around to se if any of them had Mechanical Skill. It was a lot of fun.

Eventually, they escaped from the ship, stealing a ship's boat and landed on a planet, sold the boat on the black market and tried to start a normal life. Meanwhile, the Imperial Navy was hot on their tail.

Turns out they were clones being readied for a deep mission into Zho space (hence the lack of memory, no scanning). It lasted about 2 months real time, and everyone had a good time.

Anyone else have adventures set in the Marches they would like to share?

 

[donm61873]

I've had the most fun with Ine Givar attempts at sabotaging Imperial scout and naval facilities, and causing problems on either high-tech, high-pop worlds, or low-tech high-pop worlds on X-boat lines.

The idea is that prior to FFW, the Zhodani (and therefore, its intelligence assets) are trying to set a mood in the Marches of disruption -- that the Imperium is losing control of the region, not due to the Zhodani, but internally.

I've also run adventures regarding merchants in the neutral zone having accidents, or someone trying to cause accidents, and not being allowed to refuel at gas giants because they are driven off by pirates and the like.

The idea being that the bad guys are softening up the Imperium and reducing its ability to see the surprise attack coming.

Everyone who's read any previous Spinward Marches material knows the FFW is coming, and even the average stellar-aware citizen knew it was coming (from the JTAS reports). So, incorporate that in your adventures.

And, remember to keep that in the background when running totally unrelated adventures. And if your players decide that the Zhodani are not a red herring, the better for you.

Plenty of excitement is the idea behind this. Remember the reverse opportunities: Zhodani agents acting as patrons to hire the PCs to do things, like map a facility, or carry funds from one source to another, or even supplies (weapons and ammo). Sure, it says beef on the outside, and it is a refrigeration tank. But it could be frozen germs for release in a terrorist attack, etc.

Have fun with it. Take the worst imagined headlines and run that in your campaign. You can even do this in a military-oriented campaign, where Zhodani ships try to provoke incidents with Imperials in neutral space.

 

[Sturn]

I did have one adventure where the characters woke up out of cold sleep with absolutely no memory of who they were. Not all of them were human either.

This sounds like a great idea for players that are completely new to the Traveller universe. Like their players, they begin knowing nothing. The only problem I see with it is the entire character generation system, which many love, would be scrapped. Note: New players would miss this enjoyment, but if you know them well I guess you could roll up characters to their liking beforehand. The player that loves to explore would love finding out he is retired from the Scout service, for example.

My next campaign:I have plans for a campaign set just before the 5th Frontier War breaks out. My two players know nothing of Traveller. Once they "learn" Traveller, I will have the 5th Frontier War break out. If they took a trader/smuggler route, I can imagine them running blockades to bring in goods, rescuing refugees, etc. If they started going down the road towards Mercs, they will be enlisted for various striker type missions.