Tripwire Adventure
- Thread starter Porsche
- Start date
I would say 1105 seeing it is the first Traveller adventure published by Mongoose and their OTU has that as its beggining year; but that's just me.
Regardless, I'm dead sure it takes place before 1107 because by then the 5th Frontier War starts and Tripwire begins when there is peace between the Imperium and the Zhodani.
Regardless, I'm dead sure it takes place before 1107 because by then the 5th Frontier War starts and Tripwire begins when there is peace between the Imperium and the Zhodani.
Edsan said:
Yup. When in doubt put the adventure in 1105. Tripwire fits nicely anywhere between the end of the 4th Frontier War and the beginning of the 5th Frontier war, so you can adjust YTU if you feel that 1105 is too close to the 5th Frontier War for you.
Mongoose hasn't released anything dealing with the 5th Frontier War, though, so I don't know if they'll be changing the dates at all, or how they'll be handling it. I wouldn't mind a series of adventures (a la the 'War On Tolkeen' in Rifts) or a full new supplement. It might be mentioned in the Zhodani module, though. We'll have to wait and see.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Matt has said that "War appears inevitable", so we can expect SOMETHING regarding the 5FW.
alex_greene
Guest
Yeah. When in doubt, let's have a war. I hated 55W because it was just something the player characters suffered, like a really bad rainstorm everywhere they went. There was no sense of their being able to influence the course of the war; it was just a backdrop.
If there is going to be a 55W, I'd like to see far more player character involvement in it. Perhaps they acquire data vital to the success of the Imperial war effort, or at least something that will shorten its duration, or even only save the world they've been hired to protect.
Something like that, anyway.
If there is going to be a 55W, I'd like to see far more player character involvement in it. Perhaps they acquire data vital to the success of the Imperial war effort, or at least something that will shorten its duration, or even only save the world they've been hired to protect.
Something like that, anyway.
Mongoose Si
Mongoose
It does indeed start in 1105 but as has already been stated, it can easily be modified to fit anywhere between the 4th & 5th Frontier Wars
In a couple of different places it mentions Norris disappearing for a while, and then reappearing with the Imperial Warrant that he uses to take over the war effort.alex_greene said:
How about the players are the ones who help him get it?
Another option would be revamping the series of modules which I believe the Keith brothers did ("Fleetwatch" and "Flight of the Stag" being two of them) so they have a greater affect on the outcome of the war.
"Twilight's Peak" also has the "secret zhodani base" located on Fulacin. If the players succeed in that adventure they can do a lot for the war effort.
I'll admit it takes a bit of research to find some of this stuff, but once you have an idea of how the war goes, you can tweak things to enable the players to be - well - bigger players in the war effort.
alex_greene said:
To be fair I don't really think there are a lot of RPGs out there taking place in the background of a war where the PCs have a major input on the outcome.
Notable exceptions being Star Wars (if you play the Luke Skywalker-fac simile who shoots the exhaust pipe of the Death Star), Lord of the Rings (fac-simile Frodo or Aragorn). But these all have bad guys with a Deux Ex Machina type bullseye you can hit to make the whole structure come down.
In a more "realistic" war, the only way PCs will have a direct and forceful effect on it is if they are the ones running it as the Generals, Admirals or Politicians.
But then the game tends to become more of a Wargame with a social/role-playing component as it focuses less on the PCs personally and more on the Trillion Credit Squadrons they have under their command.
Yet another problem is that if the outcome of a major war is not pre-scripted but dependent on the actions of the PCs, they can very well (and often do) screw up royaly. And then the consequences, unlike those of more mundade, run-of-the-mill adventuring screw-ups, are not limited to the PCs themselves but to the whole setting. And that's a can of worms I think most GMs aren't willing to open...having to re-write a setting on account of player failure.
So I do not think we will be seeing a Mongoose product about the 5th Frontier War where the outcome will depend on the actions of PCs. We might get adventures where very small parts of it (like the fate of a platoon of soldiers or a single city in a planet) might depend from PC action, but will be inconsequential in the major scheme of things on the long run.
Then again, I'm just tossing my 2$ here. It might be that MG will surprise us all with an epic release about the 5th Frontier War where the whole thing ultimately stands or falls on the PCs.
A tip of the hat to real life - in WWII breaking Nazi encryption was pretty critical to the success of many war efforts. While that involved a lot of people - its success boiled down to a single Polish mathematician (according to NSA) or a single defectors machine (Discovery program).
Then there was Operation Gunnerside - with a small group of Norwegian commandos destroying Nazi's heavy water production and supply (that might have been a seperate group?). Had the Nazi's been closer to creating an atomic bomb, this could have had tremendous impact on the war.
Of course, leaders are single individuals with obvious tremendous influence in war (Hitler, Churchill, etc.) - but others who not in charge could still have big impacts especially with relating to technology and information advantages...
Then there was Operation Gunnerside - with a small group of Norwegian commandos destroying Nazi's heavy water production and supply (that might have been a seperate group?). Had the Nazi's been closer to creating an atomic bomb, this could have had tremendous impact on the war.
Of course, leaders are single individuals with obvious tremendous influence in war (Hitler, Churchill, etc.) - but others who not in charge could still have big impacts especially with relating to technology and information advantages...
Matian said:
That's the notion. . .
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Golden Age epic adventures, The Forgotten War and The Gabriel Enigma.
Nice little adventures and tucked into the lead up to FW5.
Nice little adventures and tucked into the lead up to FW5.
