The Traveller Adventure (GDW 202)

[jephkay]

Has anyone tried to run this? I'm getting back into Traveller after a long absence, and strangely enough, most of the group I ran this with almost 30 years ago is getting back together. (3 of the 4 players, and myself as GM once again)

Any experience running this with the modern rules?

 

[SSWarlock]

I've actually looked over the entire book with the idea of running it but then I had to audacity to move about 150 miles from my player group. Regardless, I found that there's almost no conversion necessary.

The biggest issue I had with the Traveller Adventure is there's quite a bit of railroading of the players required by the GM. That was my experience when I was run through as a player when it first came out and that was my experience when I looked it over as a GM.

If your players have no problem receiving quite a bit of GM "guidance" during some of the adventures, go for it.

The best run is one where the GM is very familiar with the various NPCs and their roles in the adventures. I do recommend that you go through the entire book first to get an idea as to the timing of the various adventures as well as identifying those areas that require railroading and put thought into how you're going to handle that to make them enjoyable for your specific player group.

 

[SSWarlock]

By the way, the adventures will test your knowledge of both ground and space combat rules, personal interaction rules, and your ability as GM to "fudge" to ensure the outcome of the players' efforts get them where they need to be for the next adventure.

It will pretty much take you and your players through the entire gamut of MongTrav skills, which is a good thing, but that can make it a bit tiring on a GM learning the rules. This is true regardless of whether the rules are the original CT version or Mongoose's version.

 

[apoc527]

I ran it basically as is, only doing some minor conversion work on NPCs. Frankly, my players didn't like it, but then they weren't raised on 1980s Traveller railroad adventures with charts to randomly generate new bureaucrats in case you run out. :?

It temporarily turned myself and my group off to the entire Third Imperium as a setting, but I think we're getting over that. I'll be GMing a 3I game in about a year (yes, the waitlist to GM in my weekly face-to-face game is a year long!).

 

[GamerDude]

I ran it basically as is, only doing some minor conversion work on NPCs. Frankly, my players didn't like it, but then they weren't raised on 1980s Traveller railroad adventures with charts to randomly generate new bureaucrats in case you run out. :?

It temporarily turned myself and my group off to the entire Third Imperium as a setting, but I think we're getting over that.

Here's a big thing... As much as CT is mired in the 70's viewpoint on technology, even the MGT books sometimes are still in that mindset.

If you see any 'bis' computers (french for 'change' I believe that is) that's the 70's viewpoint of 'big iron' (mainframes) with terminals at the desks of the very important people, and anyone else using 80-column punch cards to submit programs. 'bis' was use for a revision in a standard, like v.32bis (modems). The early/middle 70's, the smallest computer was still a rolling cabinet the size of today's mini-fridge. The Personal Computer (Commodore, Atari, IBM, others) were very late 70's.

When I started out with MGT at conventions, running 'Divine Intervention' from GDW, omg the conversion it needed. Players were expecting comms connecting every room in the floating building, networked computers on every desk, and a blueprint to the place on the walls like the 'fire plan escape maps' in public buildings.

Fortunately the combination of reminding the group this was 70's mentality and the paranoid control the head of the planetary church held over everything was enough to get them to 'accept' the old nature of the adventure

 

[zero]

Thanks for the info on bis computers, my own ship has a Model Two version of one, it runs high tech programs (many round TL 12) but is still TL 9 (good old ship comps having a high Rating! :lol: )

Taking your advice, I'm having in-built terminals only at crew stations (there are three - pilot, astrogator on the Bridge and engineer at Engineering) and these are the only places outside of the MU/TH/UR type room (with those cards -always wondered what Dallas was doing with that card-thing in Alien- included! ) that the computer can be accessed.

Makes sense that my ship computer despite still being futuristic to RL sits at 10ft tall and sits on a 5ft square... :lol: (Could justify it as the EMP defence its supposed to have).

 

[Jame Rowe]

I think perhaps Mongoose should see about doing a rewrite of The Traveller Adventure. CT and MGT are close enough for that, I think.

 

[The Dark Avenger]

I think a better option would be to move forwards rather than staying stuck where Traveller has always been stuck.

And besides, the old aventruers were railroady as hell.

 

[apoc527]

I think a better option would be to move forwards rather than staying stuck where Traveller has always been stuck.

And besides, the old aventruers were railroady as hell.

I concur. Why the heck would you want to bother updating this? It's just not a very good adventure by modern standards. It DOES have detailed info on the Aramis subsector though, but that's valid without conversion.

 

[GamerDude]

And besides, the old aventruers were railroady as hell.

Actually, I can think of a few CT adventures I love because they aren't 'railroady', specifically 'Signal SK' and "Divine Intervention'.

Signal SK you are approached and offered a job. Either take the job or no. Of course if you do then there is a chain of events happening along the roller coaster ride you set signed up for. If you turn down the job, well then press on (and a good GM will be setting things in your path to 'encourage' you to reconsider).

Divine Intervention you are approached by a 'mysterious agent' of 'somebody wanting to hire you'. You're never threatened, if the players don't accept the job this agent just leaves and the GM gets to wing it from that point on. Kill the guy? heck now the adventure is disposing of the body and cleaning up the mess. Not easy when you're strangers on the planet. Accept the job? no railroad there you find the target, get in, investigate, carry out mission objectives, split.

Now let me mention one of several adventures I've given negative reviews to. It's free but still, ugh. The players can be local cops, or mutants, or criminals, or a 'rival gang' or bystanders. Some of these groups have reason for going to this club... cops ordered, criminals looking to score, rival gang looking to takeout someone on their turf, mutants is their preacher (or momma busting your chops on what the preacher is concerned with). Innocent bystanders are just "poor mooks who got caught up".

Ok, so cops go in do their under cover thing, no biggie.. they're under orders the entire 'adventure' so forget them (this actually removes one of the only three encounters in the module).

Everyone else? gets caught up in the raid on this first location. Period. The police have this place so surrounded you couldn't squeeze a dime through it let alone ANYONE escape. So you go downtown. Now you get interrogated and strong armed into doing the cops job for them at the third location (jail is the second). If you don't want to? They threaten, use the equivalent to our 'Patriot Act' to hold you indefinitely with no charges (or heavily threaten you with that) and even stage a fight in the jail cells hoping you'll crack and give in.

So you're bumbling band of whatever misfits you are playing are told to go investigate the third location, infiltrate it, steal all the info you can find, and bring it out. Due Process? huh what's that? Search Warrants? Heck the cops have you even though forcing you to do this makes you agents of the police and under our laws, any evidence brought out is worthless. You get hurt? ooops, Cops don't know who you are.

In the end, the entire third location is a scene out of a classic Keystone Cops movie. One hand didn't know what the other hand was doing, and someone else was picking your pockets at the same time. Was some larger agency in on the entire thing? OMG was someone shot?

THIS my friends is a 100% railroaded 95% linear adventure. Soundfiles that add nothing, Go from A to B to C without choice or we'll totally screw over your civil rights, no options for something different each location beats you with a sledgehammer to get you to the next location.

 

[hdan]

"Sandboxes" have their place, but IMHO are not suitable for a large class of players: Those who are not experienced role players with a deep knowledge of the setting, those who are not experienced GMs (or who don't have a ton of time to prepare "off the beaten path" materials), and those who play games because they want to experience a story, not invent their own story.

"Railroady" adventures can be ideal for this class of players. The PCs don't need to dream up their own destinies, the GM can focus on the story at hand, and everyone's clear (or becomes clear) what they're working towards.

I'm not knocking the sandbox (wouldn't play Traveller if I didn't believe in the concept), but railroads aren't necessarily bad either.

 

[AKAmra]

I think perhaps Mongoose should see about doing a rewrite of The Traveller Adventure. CT and MGT are close enough for that, I think.

I thought I saw a post by Matt that they were at least considering it, could be misremembering though. I'd like to see it; I enthusiastically support re-hashing old stuff if it was good or even re-hashing not-so-good old stuff into good new stuff. I also like new-new stuff; so I'm guess I'm just easy to please.

I've only recently gotten the old stuff on FEE CD's; I wouldn't run any of it with the original system anyway, so I'd like to have it in MgT rules.

I've run a lot of really good adventures that were "railroady"; seems to almost be a prerequisite if the adventure is going to have an actual story to tell, the author has to make some presumptions. It's the GM's job to "wing it" with their particular group and work them back into the adventure.

I get irritated with a product described as an Adventure that is so concerned about "railroading" that it's not an adventure at all; it's a product describing locations and characters - which can also be a fine product, but it's not an Adventure.

 

[cmdrx]

I am currently running The Traveller Adventure as we speak. I run at a local game shop after the Wed. nite D&D Encounters. More often than not that means running a short 2 hour session, but somehow we manage.

While I do try to keep with the overall story arc, I throw things in that are not part of the overall story. The first adventure, in order to get the players used to the system, was a "milk run" scenario which involved space combat and a ship boarding action. The derelict ship they boarded was infested with...CHAMAX! :twisted: They got to the bridge, snagged information and killed about 5 Chamax before running for it. They then opened fire on the ship destroying it and hopefully the queen.

When they get to Aramis, they spend about 1/2 the time there looking for info on the bugs. Since the Chamax originate in another sector to spinward, the IN and IISS haven't heard of these things yet. The derelict ship they found miss jumped.

Aramis was a bit boring and had the most sessions (remember I got 2 hours per night). Things got interesting when they meet Gvouzdon. The ex-cop started to take a shining to the furry lug, and we'll just leave that there.

I try not to make the players feel as if they are being railroaded, even if they are. The captain is played by me, so that I can direct the party to the locations needed and also take care of the minutiae involving making a profit, finding cargoes and all the bookkeeping. Still, players are going to do stupid things, like knock over a Mr. Groatburger, so I roll with the punches and pull out the wierdness.

All of this can be read on my Traveller blog:
http://cmdrx.netai.net

Click on the link to The Traveller Adventure for all of the logs up to this point. I apologize in advance for any typos or bad grammar in the logs.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I think a better option would be to move forwards rather than staying stuck where Traveller has always been stuck.

And besides, the old aventruers were railroady as hell.

Well, in any case, I'd want more adventures in any case. Whenever I try to write something, even an idea, I get Massive Writer's Block and "don't get around to it."

 

[badpixie]

Well I ran it in about 1990 using GURPS rules (pre GURPS Traveller...) and was the kickstart for a game that ran maybe 6 years. Other events/ adventures/scenarios were woven into the timeline at convenient points, and as I recall there is sufficent 'time slack' in the narrative to allow you to do this.

Like any long pregenerated scenarios you just have to be flexible in how you run it; its usually straightforward enough to conspire to put the players back on track if they deviate-its not like you say 'last week we did this and now we will do this because the book says so- that way leads to madness'.

in my view this was the best of the old GDW products.

 

[GypsyComet]

It was one of the first "campaign" products for any RPG, and remains one of the best precisely because it doesn't spend all of its time keeping the PCs on a short leash, doesn't require that the PCs follow a long chain of blatant clues (though there are short chains), and has long pauses *built in*. Someone trying to learn how to structure a campaign around events external to a PC group can do far worse than read The Traveller Adventure for inspiration.

 

[FunkBGR]

I'm running this currently, and I'm only to Natoko so far (not much of a spoiler, it's basically Chapter 2).

I'm not sure how my players are taking it. They realize there's some trading involved, but I think I've been very flexible in keeping their options open.

I'm liking it though. The structure and detail is enough that I feel I can go "off the rails" a little bit, without deviating too much. The writing style is definitely 80's, but translates easily.

Having run numerous other games, and this being my first time running Traveller, I feel it still fits the bill as a good introduction.

 

[Annic Nova]

I ran it basically as is, only doing some minor conversion work on NPCs. Frankly, my players didn't like it, but then they weren't raised on 1980s Traveller railroad adventures with charts to randomly generate new bureaucrats in case you run out. :?

It temporarily turned myself and my group off to the entire Third Imperium as a setting, but I think we're getting over that.

Here's a big thing... As much as CT is mired in the 70's viewpoint on technology, even the MGT books sometimes are still in that mindset.

If you see any 'bis' computers (french for 'change' I believe that is) that's the 70's viewpoint of 'big iron' (mainframes) with terminals at the desks of the very important people, and anyone else using 80-column punch cards to submit programs. 'bis' was use for a revision in a standard, like v.32bis (modems). The early/middle 70's, the smallest computer was still a rolling cabinet the size of today's mini-fridge. The Personal Computer (Commodore, Atari, IBM, others) were very late 70's.

When I started out with MGT at conventions, running 'Divine Intervention' from GDW, omg the conversion it needed. Players were expecting comms connecting every room in the floating building, networked computers on every desk, and a blueprint to the place on the walls like the 'fire plan escape maps' in public buildings.

Fortunately the combination of reminding the group this was 70's mentality and the paranoid control the head of the planetary church held over everything was enough to get them to 'accept' the old nature of the adventure

This is a common misconception of modern computer users who only use portable personal computers. In a modern manufacturing facility, the bulk of the "computer" is taken up with multiple servers and cable connections. The sheer bulk of a communication network for a starship (for example) would take up the space that Traveller designs require.
Even if the remote device net functions were connected wirelessly, the i/o panels and servers and cooling, would take up a ton or two of space.

The Network cabinet in a small manufacturing business that controls only an automated conveyor system, (Just the computer controls and servers) takes up about 2 starship tons.

I find it rediculous that anyone plays Traveller believing the technology is stuck in the 1970s. Now thats retarded.

 

[GamerDude]

...I find it rediculous (sic - ridiculous) that anyone plays Traveller believing the technology is stuck in the 1970s. Now thats (sic - that's) retarded.

Let me start with this first, if you are going to write with some air of superiority over your audience, try learning how to spell or at least to use a spellchecker (yes even in my browser I have a spellchecker running). For someone who has a whole 16 posts since 10 Dec 2009 you gave a pretty strong opinion , and would be nice if you signed your name while you are at it.

Now I have worked with computers since the day of big iron, late 70's early 80's before I went into the Air Force. I've done the coding on big pads, typing code into decks of 80-column cards, getting my printouts back on the wide green-bar paper.

CT used the term bis for computers, as it was appropriate in the day.

Now, from the 70's into the mid/lat 90's using the term 'bis' - a suffix designating the second instance of a thing, thus preceeding ter. In modems we had the v.32 standard, with the second iteration called 'v.32 bis'.

The term is significantly outdated yet we see it in the MGT books. At least I don't see it used anymore in discussion of standards. No USB 1.0 bis, 2.0 bis, no Gigabit Ethernet bis etc.

The term is clearly from a 70's mindset, even if it isn't meant that way, and conveys at least the impression the thinking is still 70's.

Here's a help, if the ship design system gave volumes for things like bridges, computers, cabins, etc. That is one thing I love about GURPS:Traveller is that if I designed a ship I knew how much space I had to put things in, how much each item took up, and I could build the ship like I was playing with Legos.

 

[rust]

The Network cabinet in a small manufacturing business that controls only an automated conveyor system, (Just the computer controls and servers) takes up about 2 starship tons.

Much of the size of a computer system is a design decision, and since a
reduction in size costs money, it is only done where it is necessary. If
the designer of the starship has reasons to believe that volume is unim-
portant, he will choose a computer system which may look more like the
one from your small manufacturing business, but if he comes to the con-
clusion that volume is at a premium, the computer system will look more
like the one on a modern airliner - and be somewhat more expensive.
Since a starship tends to have more in common with an airliner than with
a small manufacturing business, I tend to think that its computer system
will follow the "airliner philosophy" and be rather small.

I find it rediculous that anyone plays Traveller believing the technology is stuck in the 1970s. Now thats retarded.

While I do not think that Traveller's technology is "stuck in the 1970s", I
am quite convinced that Traveller's technology still mostly represents the
1970s ideas of the future. The Third Imperium setting is recognizably a
version of "the future as seen from ca. 1975", it has not developed into
a "future as seen from 2010", and even a not very close look at the de-
velopment of the science fiction literature of the last decades should be
sufficient to demonstrate this.