Traveller Alternate Spinward Marches Campaign Idea Query

[Hopeless]

Looked into a possible solution to this by adding a new governing body namely the Consulate.

Based extremely loosely on the Zhodani, it has been the Empire's only real threat especially when it first took command over the Marches.

The Consulate's Gates unlike the Empire's were encoded to prevent what the Empire did to the rest of the Sector but were similarly effected when the Gates detonated leaving their border scattered but enough of their forces remain to try and consolidate their remaining worlds within the Marches although they remained out of contact with the rest of the Consulate that lies beyond the Marches.

My reasoning was to look at what world remains within a closely linked number of systems and use the most advanced as the guide for just how to figure out the actual tech level of that system so as per above Le Beau being TL12 is the most advanced marked as part of the Consulate and in most cases raises most of the rest of the systems up to TL10 thereby allowing even Gyomar to be reached with Jump 3 ships.

Just need to look at the rest of the map to decide what else this changes.

 

[Hopeless]

Made a bit of a mess with my introductory one off adventure.

Made the mistake of generating the characters myself and leaving myself insufficient time to check them.

The characters I made consisted of;

A former factory worker nominated as Senator to Lanth,
A Physician assigned to his staff,
His aide is a former Economics Field Researcher whose been blacklisted due to an accident she was blamed for,
His bodyguard is a former Army Infantryman turned Clergyman who had to reenlist in the Scouts after his former superior had him kicked out,
Accompanying them are three Marines in full Battle Dress;
They consisted of a Marine Corporal who would be considered a Rookie in any other unit,
His two fellow Marines are enlisted both with shady backgrounds one a member of a Former Pirate cartel who narrowly avoided being arrested and imprisoned simply because she signed up by mistake before they realised where she was, the other is a former Arms Dealer who chose to enlist to escape the grasp of his former employer's friends after said employer doublecrossed him resulting in him killing him.
Needless the say the rest of the characters were members of the ship's boat crew; a naval pilot, an engineer and a Scout Navigator rounding out all the characters I got ready.

During the game I had to wing a few decisions since they didn't have the skills needed in some instances and other times I was left wondering what else I had missed!

They each took 2 characters, leaving me to run the Senator, the former Arms Dealer turned Marine, the Scout Navigator and the Physician.

The Arms dealer was killed whilst taking point thanks to an ambush waiting for them when they climbed up the lift shaft.

The Army Infantryman chose to order the Marines into tactical moves to deal with oncoming patrols and eventually reached the ship's boat nearly losing one PC in the process before managing to flee the ship and reach their mothership.

Overall it seemed not bad, but needed more work especially as I really need them to generate their own characters when I finally do get this off the ground.

Sorry to sound dumb but what skill or attribute do you use for Perception checks?

I assumed the Marines could use Battle dress skill to use the Battle Dress power armour which included sensors, fortunately the dice rolled low for me so it was more a case of attrition when it came to wounding them such that only one npc was killed and a PC almost joined him but I used the Physician and a good roll to save that character who as an example of how bad the attributes were had an Intelligence of 2!

Didn't seem to effect her play much since I ruled they could use either Intelligence or Education but did wonder what others did in this situation?

 

[Captain Jonah]

Recon skill with int is used to spot stealth for people and sensors is used to spot stealth with technology.

Battledress sensors will use sensors and int or edu for those motion sensors, Ladar, thermal etc.

Mark one eyeballs will use recon and int for the same thing.

For people without either of these skills it will be either int or edu depending on circumstances. Spotting a sniper in a gilly suit could be int to spot the shape or movement or it could be edu to spot that the gilly suit is the is the wrong colour for the summer plants in this area.

Possibly use other skills such as survival to help spot signs of an enemy such as tracks in the wilderness, engineer or mechanic to spot that odd shape on top of the building that is wrong for the aircon vent it should be etc.

 

[BP]

Made a bit of a mess with my introductory one off adventure.
...
During the game I had to wing a few decisions since they didn't have the skills needed in some instances and other times I was left wondering what else I had missed!

Well sounds like you had fun - and nothing wrong with winging things nor with being human!

Not having a skill does not mean players can't attempt a task - and their chances are pretty good if the difficulty level or time DMs are in their favor - not to mention situational DMs, gear DMs (computer DMs are great for this), and, of course, characteristic DMs and cascading skill checks...

Sorry to sound dumb but what skill or attribute do you use for Perception checks?
...
Didn't seem to effect her play much since I ruled they could use either Intelligence or Education but did wonder what others did in this situation?

Nothing dumb about asking the input of others!

'Perception' has an element of innate ability (barring physical/mental handicaps), just like 'Athletics' - so, firstly, I would not apply a -3 DM.

As mentioned by others - Recons and Sensor skills can benefit if PCs are utilizing them explicitly or implicitly (such as a crew member on a bridge). Based on situation, Streetwise and Survival also come to mind... and INT and occasionally EDU DMs may be applied. Also, if PC is being very cautious, a Timing DM could be applied. It is still up to you to decide the Difficulty level of the 'perception' check...

 

[AndrewW]

Well sounds like you had fun - and nothing wrong with winging things nor with being human!

Sure there is, just ask a hiver.

 

[rje]

Hyperdrive instead of jump drive...

However, there are also problems. The characters can travel a lot further,
and the distances on the Third Imperium star charts become almost mea-
ningless, and the entire trade and transport system has to be modified to
fit the new situation, to name just the two most obvious.

I know this is slightly off topic, but:

You could dial it back by rating drives in Light Years per day, rather than Parsecs per day. It remedies the situation, though the problem will still exist for high accelerations.

 

[Hopeless]

I was figuring that they have the computations to automatically plot jumps within the ship's normal capabilities however those with the gift for astrogation can plot jumps far longer than this however this is also far more dangerous since it relies on a perfectly working jump drive and all it takes is for small unremarkable part to be slightly off key and disaster strikes!

Of course that also applies to normal jumps, but thats why you need a first rate engineer to back up that first rate astrogator...

Maybe a -1 modifer to increase a jump by +1, -2 modifier for +2 jump and -4 modifier for a+3 jump however a failed roll adds that modifier to the chance of jump drive failure (So -1 for a +1 and so on).

Practically all wouldn't even try it, after all they would need to refuel following the jump or be stranded in that system which is why certain systems would have been abandoned if they're beyond a certain jump radius but thats just a thought for now

 

[Hopeless]

Been looking at this as one of the characters being designed is going to be an Adept and was looking for some personal experiences in handling the background for such characters.

So far the campaign includes the Consulate which is viewed by the Empire as being run or rather ruled by Psionicists ala the Zhodani.

My view on this is that it simply isn't the case as the number of psions compared to the normal populace simply cannot match the requirements for such a government to persist even as a dictatorship which the Consulate simply isn't.

I picture using most of the Zhodani traits of simple honesty and a government that has progressed along a somewhat Communist leaning without faltering so that its government is simply what they're good at rather than their psionic abilities.

The Empire on the other hand I see as somewhat reminiscent of Starcraft and their Ghost operatives where suitable candidates are recruited from their families and mind wiped so they serve the Empire without any emotional attachments to families who were told their children had died in unfortunate accidents with none aware of the duplicity involved.

The Sword Worlds tend to be leery about psionicists since any that did manifest amoung them were either quickly apprehended or killed by the Empire although some do filter through the cracks but these have learned that revealing themselves is a sure way to get them and those closest to them killed.

The Consulate are aware of the Empire's use of psionicists which they tend to fight against or even try to "recruit" if only to help free them from the Empire's grip but this is a very rare event since Consulate Psions tend to keep even deeper udnercover whilst travelling outside Consulate space which has become more a case of trying to find a way back since the destruction of the Gates 14 years previously.

Don't have the psion supplement so the character choices are limited to the pocket handbook namely the Wild Talent (trained themselves), Adept (Either Consulate or Imperial "Ghost" operative although it is possible for them to have gone rogue) and Psi-Warrior (This is the truly scary adversary think Darth Vader in Star Wars or River in Firefly as the Imperial version and Obi-Wan as the Consulate version).

Maybe I ought to start a new thread for this?

 

[Hopeless]

So far the players have got far enough to generate a character who is a former scholar turned scout.

The others have got far enough to generate a very young adept and a would be sword worlder marine.

Still haven't heard from the fourth but the last I did hear he was going for a sword worlder scholar so only time will tell where they go from there!

Curious about the AI thread wondering how that would be handled normally.

However an interesting point was made in the psionics thread regarding religion although that was more in relation to monks and Awareness psionic skill.

So how do you treat the Trade skill?
Currently thinking why not have a player with a character who has Trade/Mercenary or /Pastry Chef for example where a situation might allow for this skill to be used ala Jack of all Trades but limited to the profession it describes.