IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
1. I agree on the getting things (mostly) right is a good thing to aim for.
2. From personal experience writing this article, I know how difficult it is to hit that target.
What should be included, or changed in the Pirates of Drinax: Anniversary Edition
- Thread starter hopsnbaer
- Start date
2. From personal experience writing this article, I know how difficult it is to hit that target.
If you think that RPGs, adventures and campaigns sprung fully-formed from the forehead of games companies, perfect in form and implementation, then you are falling for classic survivor bias.
Everyone - major and minor - churned out tons of trash over the 80s and 90s. And, naturally, amongst all the rubbish, there was good stuff, which we remember. So people look back on the brilliant Masks of Nyarlathotep fondly, but don't remember the attempt to recreate it in the awful Uttati Asfet, nor the tedium of 1990's The Dreaming Stone or the incredibly poor design and implementation of Fatal Experiments from the same year. You can do the same for Shadowrun, V:tM, D&D (especially this!), MERP and more.
Read Slaying the Dragon by Ben Riggs or Playing at the World by Jon Peterson and marvel at the "you have three weeks to write this adventure" timescales, with ensuing catastrophes.
This also seems wholly irrelevant to this discussion. PoD is a huge success and was released over a period of years of work. Do you think it would have been more successful if it had taken even more years to write and release? If you think that's possible, then you don't understand the iron-bound mastery of cash flow in a product organisation!
JustEastOfTheEdge
Cosmic Mongoose
Finished with the lecture? Try reading before ranting. My post was about mistakes (blunders, typos, whatever), which are becoming more prevalent in every form of written media . It had nothing to do with a product's perceived usefulness. I didn't even negatively criticise PoD at all.. My opening line said "nothing", as in "nothing needs to be changed".
Sorry, I should have broken my message down for you into far simpler terms. It was particularly thoughtless of me to scatter it with references to mythology and allusions to wartime statistical studies, let alone to suggest that you might have to read books in order to understand the subject you had launched so courageously into discussing. I entirely understand why you would find that threatening and retaliate with such defensiveness. I shall strive to do better.
Pg 2 PoD core book “ To run this campaign, you only need a copy of the Traveller Core Rulebook. Other books that are not strictly necessary, but highly recommended are:
High Guard, for the expanded rules on ships and
space combat.
Central Supply Catalogue, useful in any Traveller
campaign” maybe actually read the book before you complain
Leman Gunner
Banded Mongoose
If they did not use Ships that need rules from High Guard in the actual adventures, you would be right and i would have to eat that crow.
The Pirates on Treasure of Sindal.
Lionsbane -> small Railgun Bay and particle beam bay / You can't run that combat encounter without High Guard, house rules or chainging its weapon loadout. That is the main offender.
The rest of the ships, if they have High Guard systems are a problem for any Referee if players capture them.
The ships they use have systems not in the core rulebook.
For example:
Star Ray Class Interceptor
Heavy Grappling Arm
Forced Linkage Apparatus
That does make High Guard not really optional in my opinion.
You can have your own. Call it a nitpick if it makes you feel better. I doubt you or me will change their opinion.
Writing this needs The Core Rules and High Guard for the starships would at least in my opinion be more fitting.
An inexperienced Referee without High Guard will stumble here and that is the main reason for asking them to clarify that if you want all rules for their campaign, you will need High Guard unless they supplement a Core only variant for the encounter. Same for Central Supply Equipment.
If it is core only - use core only or give core only variants.
If it uses rules from High Guard and Central Supply - tell people and no "highly reccomend" is different from "needed for rules in the core adventures".
It is not hard.
Think about people who will buy Pirates of Drinax and run it as their first campaign.
This product should be for new Referees and those veterans that want a glow-up.
People that run traveller for decades will either have the books or have the experience to not stumble at those parts.
I do not worry for them on a rules-front.
PoD is a complex sandbox campaign with advance gameplay woven throughout it is not a campaign for new Referee. You want a campaign for beginners, run the ancient campaign that has a solid setup by step format and actually has advice for beginner referees. The last thing PoD should be is for new players and referees in fact a sandbox campaign is probably the worse starting point for new referees and not much better for new players. This campaign requires setting lore and concepts that new players will not have access to. There are so many different things in this campaign, like how and what to do about upgrading the harrier, added to those the fact that the campaign easily expands far beyond what available in the campaign and core rule book. A new referee is not going to understand the ramifications of the players deciding to strike at the Glorious Empire or what to do if the players manage to keep the Starguard station secret how does that effect the game and what are the stats on such a station. This is a complex campaign that has a opened scope and connect to and interweaves with so many products outside of the campaign and the CRB, just off the top of my head the campaign easily expands to Glorious Empire, Borderland, Clans of the Empire, Aliens 1, Mercenary, and Bounty Hunter and none of these choices are up to the referee. So either the Referee is great at pulling shit out of their ass and recording it to keep things consistent or they have a vast tool box and a lot of prep and are still good at creating stuff on the spot neither are things the average beginner referee is going to be able to do.
No Pirates of Drinax is an advance campaign designed to give experience players and referees a vast playground with open ended options to let them explore and change the setting, it is not a Beginner starter campaign.
Leman Gunner
Banded Mongoose
I don't own Secrets of the Ancients and know only Seth Skorkowskis review / game diary. Yes it seems to be more linear and easier to referee.
I agree with you that there are certainly easier adventures and campaigns than Pirates of Drinax, but once bought, the dice have been cast and an anniversary edition will certainly garner attention. Better to put your best foot forward.
The premise of Pirates of Drinax is in my opinion easier to sell to players than Secrets of the Ancients.
Better usability of the product will be helpful to both sides, new and experienced.
Excluding people because they are not experienced enough for a product is not my view on the hobby, but to each their own.
Pirates of Drinax functions best as a sandbox campaign, but as far as i see it, it can also work as an adventure of the week campaign.
The adventures are insular enough to support this. This is how a new referee might be able to pull this off.
You have a point on the sandbox that can spiral out of control and bloat. That is always a part of any sandbox.
The product can cover only so much. It can adress key escalation / spiral points in the adventures as they are written. More is simply not possible.
In a phrase: Make the skeleton as good as you can.
Adressing the spiral points in the adventures is a good idea.
Treasure Ship -> Capturing the Treasure ship is covered, capturing the Pocket Warship is not. The firepower of that ship can tip the scales of future adventures a great deal.
Treasure of Sindal -> That treasure is one hell of a spiral point. Here an aftermath section on who could become guardian of these treasures would be nice. Also the possibility of a hidden station for the pirates.
Game of Sun and Shadow -> "The pirate travellers cannot take on warships." These words can never reach the ears of travellers, they will prove you wrong. That can spiral if the travellers capture imperial naval vessels. An escalation table would be nice.
Especially what can happen if travellers actually capture the heavy cruiser or the Megafreighter and the Ritchey Class Escort...
Advanced gameplay:
There are some harder to run sections, that is true, but it does not seem insurmountable to me. I am somewhat new to traveller, but not a fresh DM.
These sections stood out to me at a glance, but if there are others i would like to hear them:
- Treasure ship:
A multi-starship fight can be hard for a fist time referee, especially if the travellers did split up.
-> Game report section from plays / reviews might help here. How did other referees handle this problem? - Treasure of Sindal:
Multi-starship fights. Travellers need to have the needed ships already or have to capture them. - Game of Sun and Shadow:
This one will be hard to run. Multiple deployments of the navy, 2 seperate traveller groups, multiple facets of information gathering and misinformation sowing... Probably the hardest adventure in this campaign to run by the book.
-> Clearly cutting it in two for pirates / navy could help. I do not know if the addition of the navy traveller group is helping the campaign. I will certainly cut that part and use those parts in a way for the pirates to discover the conspiracy etc..
Maps for Adventures
A curated map of the reach and where the adventures play would be a nice bonus.
There is one, but is seems linking it is not possible...
Also adding the adventures in a section under the system in the book might be a good idea.
Falls squarely under advertisement, but there are several adventure that fit nicely.
Recommended:
I would add the Drinax Companion, Shadows of Sindal and the Borderland book as recommended. These books flesh the campaign out the best as far as i can tell.
I don’t think you understand the campaign this is the official description “ In The Pirates of Drinax, the Travellers play a band of adventurers entrusted by the King of Drinax with a letter of marque, permitting them to prey on ‘illegal’ trade within the borders of the vanished kingdom. The King hopes this piracy will give him the leverage he needs to restore Drinax to its former glory, and intends for the Travellers to win back all the planets lost over the last two centuries – but the King’s plans are just the starting point for this campaign.
Once the Travellers have their letter of marque and ship, it’s up to them what to do next. Will they stay loyal to their patron and help restore Drinax? Will they turn rogue and create their own kingdom? Will they be heroes or monsters, pirates or privateers? Will they make their fortune amid the pitiless stars, or will the cold depths of the Trojan Reach be their grave?”
PoD is not a piracy campaign it’s an empire building campaign designed to give the players maximum agency. You say there’s not adventures where the Travellers attack the Glorious Empire that doesn’t matter because the Campaign is not only the adventures in the PoD books it’s the adventures that the Travellers themselves create that’s the nature of a Sandbox campaign which is exactly what PoD is by the very description of it on the web site. there a FB group that’s specifically for PoD referees and more than once one member or another has mentioned they players playing around in the Empire. If you don’t like player driven Adventures PoD is not for you because it was intended to be a play driven campaign not just the 10 episodes in the PoD core book.
What we need is an update and some additional source books not a complete rewrite changing the very concept of the campaign into a DnD dungeon crawl.
I stand by this with only additional thing I would like is more information on the Aslan side of the campaign. I see no reason for a complete rewrite or to change this epic sandbox campaign into just a bunch of connected adventures and to rob the players of the agency and freedom that this campaign is known for.
Major Bonkers
Mongoose
(1) one - or, ideally, two - ribbon bookmarks in each book;
(2) a much more/ very thorough index;
(3) the plot holes in SoS - I know it's not PoD - which are: (1) assumed sympathy for the Aslan; and, (2) using the bio weapon as a quarantine device - to be addressed;
(4) consider publishing as an A4 ring binder so that referees can slot in their own work;
(5) the plot hole of how King Oleb gifts an extremely valuable starship to strangers needs some thought. A perennial problem in Traveller is how the players get their mitts on a ship in the first place. I tweaked Flight of the Stag so that the adventure starts in Tobia (for naval/ marine characters) or Hradus (Scouts), with the players being ordered to recover the Harrier from the Wesiyeah asteroid belt as a political favour for Oleb. They do so well that Oleb lets them on his scheme; at the same time, Imperial Naval intelligence is looking to build up networks in the area. The players, coming to the end of their careers in any case, resign, and off we go.
(2) a much more/ very thorough index;
(3) the plot holes in SoS - I know it's not PoD - which are: (1) assumed sympathy for the Aslan; and, (2) using the bio weapon as a quarantine device - to be addressed;
(4) consider publishing as an A4 ring binder so that referees can slot in their own work;
(5) the plot hole of how King Oleb gifts an extremely valuable starship to strangers needs some thought. A perennial problem in Traveller is how the players get their mitts on a ship in the first place. I tweaked Flight of the Stag so that the adventure starts in Tobia (for naval/ marine characters) or Hradus (Scouts), with the players being ordered to recover the Harrier from the Wesiyeah asteroid belt as a political favour for Oleb. They do so well that Oleb lets them on his scheme; at the same time, Imperial Naval intelligence is looking to build up networks in the area. The players, coming to the end of their careers in any case, resign, and off we go.
MongooseChris
Emperor Mongoose
Thanks for the recommendation! I gotta check that out. Maybe it'll alleviate some of the imposter syndrome I feel every time I finish a project.
I leave you with this quote from Donald Barthelme: "The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do."
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I feel this along with you. It’s the same on the novelist side.
Imposter syndrome compounded with prevarication (the prevarication itself often driven by the imposter syndrome!) is a hell of a drug:
Major Bonkers
Mongoose
PS - add a copy of the letter of marque as a player handout.
Floating around on the internet - Google keywords: letter of marque traveller Keith - is one from the brothers Keith, which adds a pleasing link to Classic Traveller.
Floating around on the internet - Google keywords: letter of marque traveller Keith - is one from the brothers Keith, which adds a pleasing link to Classic Traveller.
MongooseChris
Emperor Mongoose
Great discussion. Which of these features did you use from the first campaign book, The Pirates of Drinax?
- Port ratings (Haven/Friendly/Tolerant etc.)
- Crew: randomising your pirate crews, including pay rate, crewman names, quirks, etc.
- Morale
- Standing (with Imperium and Hierate)
- Prey Encounter table
- Prey Quirks
- Prey Complications
- In Finale, did you use the Determining Fighting Strength table
Anstett
Emperor Mongoose
I did combine a lot of those factors into one page for our game.
Standing, Attitude, Reputation, Contact Attitude, etc.
Standing, Attitude, Reputation, Contact Attitude, etc.
wintertraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I found all of these features useful to some degree but rarely used them with precise diligence. These mechanics were mostly useful for GM inspiration.
If the question is driven by consideration of page counts, I would recommend keeping these or perhaps moving the into a separate supporting publication like the companion.
In response to the original post in this thread:
- I found the Game of Sun & Shadow mechanics of switching to alternative characters disruptive and dropped that. However, I did used the chapter's other content as major developments in the campaign.
- I'd prefer to have had access to world and star system maps for the Drinax cluster
- I recommend keeping the campaign largely unchanged. I agree with others who note that it works as is.
- I'd like some additional information on Tobia's leaders and society. The Duke needs a name.
- I'd like some additional information on the corporate leaders, resources, and structure of GeDeCo in the region
JupiterIndustries
Banded Mongoose
I recall in our game your attachment to the captains revolver...
