Session Report Heirloom Heist!

Holtzmann, week 9 of year SA 929

At this week's session we had three Travellers: Graham Clark, Dietrich Smith and a fellow known only as C-418 or C4.

Clark and C4 are senior staff in the motor pool in the household of Count Murietta, one of the Contenders. They are usually serving the Count's son, Lord Francisco, a Naval officer.

Some while back, Carter and C4 made an impression on Lord Francisco when they were instrumental in recovering a data device which someone had stolen from Murietta's estate.

When Lady Elise Kindrick, a friend of Lord Francisco (not his fiancee) came to him with a problem, he knew just the guys to help resolve it. Lady Elise had accepted a marriage proposal from the son of Marquis Tellez, a prominent nobleman. Her fiancee gave her a piece of heirloom jewelry which she would wear publicly at the party when they announced the engagement. The party was a week away.

I bet you can guess where this is going.

Sure enough, somebody had pinched the heirloom. Lady Elise hadn't told her fiancee, as the news would certainly end the engagement and cause a big scandal. She went to Francisco, instead, who promised to help.

Play Report: The Return of the Star Walker

The Star Walker (see this post) limped out of jump space in an unknown system far to the galactic South of Holtzmann's Corridor. Fortunately for them, the system was inhabited. They found out the locals called their world Saorsumma. In the undefined subsector it is in hex 0303.

On Saorsumma, Mac and Carter, along with the crew & passengers, were taken into captivity by the local government. Saorsumma it seems has starships, but they have lost the knowledge of how to construct or repair them. Jump drives are now to them a Black Box technology. The locals were excited to say the least to get their hands on another functioning J-drive. They wanted to know how to get more. Mac and Carter wanted to get back home.

After a few weeks in (relatively comfortable) captivity, a few of the Walker's passengers made a break for it with some local separatists. They disappeared into the world's back country. Maybe some day we'll play out what became of them.

Mac and Carter came up with a plan. The locals weren't thrilled but it sounded like the best option. They have waited four months for the local shipyard to finish the “refit” of their ship the Star Walker. (and we've waited three months to play out the next part of this adventure) I took what the players wanted and checked in Trillion Credit Squadron. By the book, it would take sixteen weeks to complete.

The Schamel Affair: A Traveller Braunstein

It all started in week 16 of year 929 of the Space Age when Tyrian von Stolberg arrived on Schamel. He was under orders from Count Murietta to explore for ways to boost the Schamelian economy. this was meant to get into the local's good graces and allow Murietta room to negotiate with them for mutual economic benefit. Two weeks later, von Stolberg's prospecting team hit the jackpot - a lode of gadolinium, possibly as much as a million tons of it. In-game, gadolinium is an important component of jump drives, so it's in demand by the ship-building powers: Lanzhou, Stavanger, Dekalb, and the Empire.

On the Traveller Trade tables, metals/alloys go for 10,000 credits a ton, so this mine was billions of credits waiting to be dug up.

What Happened?

Six Factions showed up on Schamel to negotiate and deal for access to the gadolinium mine.

• Count Murietta
• Baron Namsos of Stavanger
• The Lycosky Trade Protectorate Director of Operations, Corridor Region
• The Dekalbian business director for Thetford Aerospace
• Mr. Tarpov, Assistant Secretary for Trade at the Talaveran Consulate (a Boss for the ICO, the Sakamoto Ring)
• Baron de Quintero, another Contender who has a lot of money in mining already, and might see Murietta as competition.

and the Governor of the Schamel Habitation, Gov. Castberg, played by the Referee. In retrospect, it should have been a player running Castberg. The Referee had too much to keep track of to play him effectively.

The Referee assigned each faction a primary and a secondary objective. this front-loaded some conflict into the game. Each faction would, at the end, be assessed on how well those objectives were accomplished. 

Each turn, the players handed to the Referee a card explaining their plans for the following turn. Then they had 20 minutes to interact with the other players in negotiation, argument or whatever. The time limit kept things from bogging down, but we could have made it 30. We only had the afternoon to play it out, and we wanted to get through as many turns as we could, to get to some kind of resolution. We did. See below. 

'I think I did a TARDIS' - a First at the Gaming Table

 Huh?*

This past weekend, we had two firsts at the table while playing Traveller. This despite that I've played this game since about 1982.

First, the simple one. My older son was playing a new character, Dismas, an ex-Flyer. He was on Narok, a non-Imperial world in the Corridor. While there he found himself in the middle of a public protest against the Empire and its various evils. Remember that from the Empire's POV, everyone in the Corridor are barbarians. 

Dismas was minding his own business but stumbled into the midst of the protest anyway. Some protesters noticed him and moved to attack. As is typical at the start of combat, we rolled for Surprise. Neither side gained surprise. I asked if Dismas wanted to fight or escape.

Escape and Avoidance: Encountering parties may attempt to escape from, or avoid contact with, an encounter. A party which has achieved surprise may always avoid an encounter by so stating. Non-player character parties which have surprise and are outnumbered will avoid an encounter on a throw of 7+ (no DMs). If two parties encounter without surprise, either may attempt to escape immediately (before any combat or contact occurs). Roll

9+ to escape (DM allowed based on range: -1 if close or short range, +I if medium range, +2 if long range, +3 if very long range).

Abstract Combat - Battle at PetroPlas!

 My son's Mercenary outfit got its first big battle yesterday.

On the war-torn banana republic world of Faldor, the Wolfpack is protecting a town. The populace are called the Gath, genetically modified Very Tall humans. Many of them work in a factory for a company called PetroPlas (guess what they make?)

Earlier, the Wolfpack had tangled with a local Armed Group called the People's Popular Development Front. The PPDF attacked the factory to gain control of resources and a labor supply.

The Pack sprang into action to defend the factory and the Gath from town.

I have written before about the Abstract Battle system in Book 4, Mercenary. It works fine for streamlining large battles. I have added on a few factors, nothing changing the mini-game, elaborating a bit.

Manpower is the key value, and their weapons/armor/gear is all folded into the Equipment Tech Level.

A unit, whether PC or NPC, squad or Battalion needs to note only a few things:

Manpower and the 'preservation level'. Preservation is the point at which casualties cause the unit to surrender or withdraw. I decided that the NPCs who hit this level will surrender on a 1-3, and flee on a 4-6.

Unit Efficiency is a comparative value. This affects the nature of any round of an engagement. Are the PC forces attacking, defending, surprised? The Referee determines this by a die throw, modified by size and efficiency ratings.

Tech Level of their loadout. This is a static value, and compared against the opposing forces' TL. Advantage to the side with higher TL gear.

Mission: is this unit committed to attacking an enemy force? Defending a position? Conducting a commando raid? This also influences the resolution of a battle round.

This information fits in a box on a sheet of paper, like this:

Abstract Combat with Book 4

My older son wanted to try his hand at running a mercenary unit. He's got a six month contract on Faldor, defending a town as unrest and civil war swirls around them. He's got about a platoon worth of troops and light vehicles.

His PC is the owner of the PMC “Wolfpack Security Corp.”, while an NPC is the field commander. His patron is the King of Pampati. A contingent of Pampatian Gath emigrated to Faldor to find work. The King is concerned about anti-Gath prejudice among the competing factions. Gath are genetically modified humans, standing 2.7 to 3.3 meters tall. Sounds like they could take care of themselves, but they moved there to work, not fight. Wrong place at the wrong time, you might say.

I've run most of his time so far as a set of random encounters as detailed in the Encounters chapter of TTB. A mix of hostiles and friendlies, government and rebels. A week or so back, a scout group from another PMC came snooping around their town. They exchanged shots before the scouts broke contact and retreated. They took one prisoner, who identified the group.

The People's Popular Development Front (PPDF) worked for the government, bolstering its forces. Then the PPDF leadership decided to renege on the contract. They saw an opportunity to establish themselves as a local power.

Last night we played out the next encounter with the PPDF. Three squads rolled into town to do “recon-in-force”.

We've been working from a sketch map of the town,

and I drew up a second hex map. The battle map noted important features like the HQ building and town gates. We both laid out counters for our units. My son's PMC is divided into about a dozen teams and squads. We did not worry about scale of the hexes, or length of turns. This is abstract, to resolve the battle quickly but without 'GM fiat'.

I added on a few simple rules to the abstract battle system in Book 4. Each turn both sides roll 1D and add the leader's Tactics skill. This is the number of counters that can move on a given turn. Each unit that moves can go one hex in any direction. This became an important factor for one side, later on. Neither side had Leadership skill on the board, but a Leader can make a throw to move a unit 2 hexes instead of one. (We'll see another time if that rule works well or not)

In the Avalon Hill game Antietam (part of the Blue & Gray series) the Union side can move only 6 of its 40+ counters per turn. This reflects McClellan's dithering during the actual battle. The movement throw added a variable to the game. It reflects the difficulties of command & control over a spread out force.

By the Numbers

Play Report - Gaming on Vacation

This past weekend my sons and I went on vacation to Charleston, SC. Saturday brought heavier rain than we anticipated. This curtailed our plans and kept us inside the hotel for a good part of the day. Fortunately, Dad thought to bring along The Traveller Book and some dice. We had a map of the Holtzmann's Corridor subsector, but none of my other notes. They chose to begin play on Armstrong's World, so were for a change not playing Imperials.

Keep in mind the following:

• PCs were rolled on the spot

• I used the random encounter and rumor tables, with results enforced

• I used the reaction tables, with results enforced

• I provided a little imagination for the details

In the span of just a few hours of gameplay, the following adventures happened:

Their PCs took ship as temporary crew by a Belter patron. They flew off-planet to a gas giant ring system and went ice asteroid mining. The mining expedition lasted three weeks of game time. The trip featured a near-brawl aboard ship with an NPC. A crewman got lost, a damaged suit almost killed one PC. On top of this, they still managed two separate strikes of crystal deposits. In three weeks of adventuring,they made a net total of 30,000 credits each. The patron offered to take them along back to Ferrocore, but they decided against it.

Play Report - Ghost Town, the Conclusion

 The troubleshooters did not spend the night in the shuttle after all. They chose instead to hole up in the chapel, which they had already searched. They took turns watching, first the two guys (Eowan Addison and Jotunn), then the two gals (Krater Constellation and Genevieve).

In the last watch of the night, Genevieve realized that she was being watched. Through a broken window, she saw a vacc suited figure looking in at her. The face plate was shattered – and there was no face inside the helmet! 

Calling out for her comrades, she tried to bring her autopistol to bear on the figure. Once again it darted away upon being spotted, heading in the direction of the shuttle and the arrival station.

The gang gave chase, but it seemed once again that the mysterious figure had eluded them. Eowan and Jotunn entered the shuttle to inspect it, fearing sabotage. Genevieve and Krater searched the exterior of the shuttle, then Krater spotted the vacc suit figure again. This time, it was on the roof of the station! Bullet and laser beam found their target, knocking the figure backwards. The guys climbed out the shuttle's top hatch and jumped over to the roof. No vacc suit!

But wait! There it was, rushing away down one of the 'streets' of the town, probably planning to lose them in the darkness again. 

Eowan (my son's PC) pulled a neat trick. He teleported to a spot in front of the fleeing figure, and body-blocked it into the dirt. Did I mention that all four of these troubleshooters were Psi-trained? This is only the second time in my history as a Referee that psionics came into play.

From the roof, Jotunn used telekinesis to launch a handful of steel balls at the vacc suit figure. He realized his shotgun would be ineffective at the range, but TK could cover the distance! Between them, they finally put the rogue suit on the ground.

Eowan realized while grappling the suit that there was no normal body inside. Once they had it subdued, he cut into the suit with his Blade, to reveal

Actual Play report - Random Encounter

 Best thing to come out of the game today:

The PCs have a license for salvaging on a restricted planet. The Navy uses the world for exercises, and there’s a lot of military material laying about. Vehicles, munitions and other recoverable goods dot the surface.

During their explorations, I rolled for a Random Encounter, and got a Religious Group. Okay, why not? I never said the PCs were the only ones on the planet.  The group was travelling in ground vehicles, marked with the symbol of their religion.

I asked the player with the highest Education to tell us who this group was.

Everyone else jumped in with their ideas, so in the end what we got was:

 The Adepts of the Machine

This fringe cult group’s beliefs focus on the spiritual dimension of starships. Ships must be built by hand, with proper ceremonies, to avoid offending the space gods. Ships assembled at shipyards by unbelievers do harm to the fabric of space, and the gods punish the spacers by causing misjumps and drive failures.  Also, the Whisperers are the servants of the space gods, haunting the unbelievers.  

The Adepts build spacecraft by hand; they were on the salvage planet looking for materials with which to build, or like the PCs, good they can sell to buy components.

The PCs decided to not interact with the Adepts, and flew on.

This game is so much fun.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Play Report - Prospecting!

 Not all of our regular players were at game this week, but it is quick and easy to roll up Traveller characters. Graham Clark and C-418, along with their new friend Chuck Norris (his player is a gal with a sense of humor) found themselves with some leave time from the service of Count Murietta. Hoping to make some fast cash, they decided to try prospecting in the wilderness of Holtzmann. 

A pencil sketch map of Holtzmann's inhabited region.

They did some research, and chose an area between two of the rivers flowing south out of the mountains. After hiring an ATV and equipping for a fortnight in the wild, they set off for what they hoped would be a small fortune. 

The way I decided to handle the prospecting part was to secretly dice for the number of 6-hour work periods that they would have to put in before discovering the resource, in this case some type of precious metal. During the multiple days it takes to work through those periods, I diced for random and animal encounters. 

The prospecting work itself was in the background. Traveller has a Prospecting skill, introduced in the Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium with the Belter career. None of the C3 group had it, so I fell back on the Education stat. The group made an initial throw to determine a likely spot to prospect in, with DMs for high EDU and JOT skill. I left the results uncertain to them. This was so that they had to decide how long to 'keep digging away' before deciding that they were looking in a wrong spot.

Supplement 2 Animal Encounters gave them a number of curious critters to encounter. At least one was hostile, and Clark was slightly wounded trying to put it down. 

A group of tourists from Dekalb wandered by the prospecting camp in their contra-grav 'bus' and took some pictures. That's just what the Random Encounter table said. Fortunately, their reaction throw was a 7. I can imagine the mess if the tourists had decided to attack the PCs!

Right at the end of the session, the random encounter table gave up the result of Ambushing Brigands. We left it as a cliffhanger for next time how they would resolve that encounter.

Each group of players at my table has an Imperial Calendar page. By comparing it to my official events calendar, I can keep up with multiple parties pursuing multiple ends. The C3 Group is on day 084, about ten days behind the main group. 

If they make it to the end of their prospecting trip, they may return to the city a lot richer. In that case others might get the same prospecting bug and start a gold rush. Who knows?  We'll find out next session.

UPDATE:

The following session, I had the players who were prospecting on one 'team' and the rest of the players formed the Brigand's team. There was a brief but spirited combat between the prospector's ATV and the brigand's off-road trucks. While the prospectors got away with the ATV and their skins intact, they were driven off the dig area before they found any of the resources they sought. Such is the nature of adventuring. 

Second update:

In the most recent session, the main group of PCs kitted out an expedition to Holtzmann Gamma, a world restricted by the Imperial Navy, as they use it for combat practice such as orbital artillery and hot landings. 

This map shows H/Gamma's surface. The black hexes are the No-Go zones, either due to active Navy missions, or [CLASSIFIED]. The PC's went to the hex marked with a red plus sign. This time they found some recoverable ordnance and a cache of Marine cutlasses, which they were able to sell for a tidy profit!

Game Conclusion - Shadows, with observations

 Our Friday night game sessions have taken a back seat recently to church events (Feast of the Annunciation among others) but we were able to complete the Shadows adventure last weekend. Here I'd like to share a few thoughts about the adventure as presented, and the changes I made for our group.

If there is anyone who plays Traveller but does not know Shadows, I will try to not disclose too much about the adventure as written. Read on at your discretion. 

Shadows is reminiscent of "dungeon crawl" adventures, so even players unfamiliar with Traveller immediately had a sense of what to do. I think it's a solid if unspectacular introductory adventure. Like many published Traveller adventures it is easy to drop into a pre-existing setting. If the PCs are not operating in the vicinity of Yorbund in the OTU it would be hard to get them there. Game play was linear; there are not many alternative approaches to the puzzle/problem of the pyramid complex. I switched out a few things to connect Shadows to my TU and to put my own stamp on it.

First, I situated the pyramid structure in Holtzmann's Corridor, in my TU. I invited the players to choose a home planet either in the Empire or the Corridor. And it came to pass that one of the players chose Mavramorn, the planet where I chose to place the pyramid. So she had an 'in' for asking lots of detail questions. Her PC's Education score was 12, so I answered accurately just about every question she asked.

Second, I replaced the chief obstacle inside the pyramid with a group of Genetically Modified Humans. GMH's or "Jimmies" are human, but humans who were altered in utero to improve or add to their bodies. Any kind of modification is possible; the Bree are a type that I've included in adventures before. Not everyone is okay with such modifications. On some planets, like Mavramorn, Jimmies are discriminated against, relegated to second-class citizens or worse. The group in the pyramid were driven there by cultural pressure and were naturally suspicious of the PC's intrusion.

For some role-playing, I had each player make a reaction throw when they encountered the Jimmies. What would their level of prejudice be?  Two PCs came from planets which I had predetermined were unfavorable to Jimmies, so they had a -DM to the throw. None came out with very strong opinions, but it did add complexity to the decisions they had to make about how to handle things.

Along with the location change the atmosphere of Mavramorn is not as dangerous as that of Yorbund. I admit it is inconsistent that I disliked the danger of "oops your vacc suit broke, you dissolve in the local atmosphere" but kept in place the danger of "oops, you missed your throw while climbing the rope down the shaft. You're dead when you hit the floor five seconds later." No one needed this, but I planned for a one-chance saving throw if anyone fell in, or lost their grip on the rope. But a fall would have been fatal, and I mentally committed to enforcing that.

I enforced the encumbrance rule, which did have an effect on play. The PCs were away from ship and vehicle that could carry lots of extra gear, and they all took the limitation in stride. It did help that I also enforced the Gravity rule - Mavramorn's surface gravity is only 0.4G. So a PC with STR 8 could carry 13 kilos without penalty. The same gravity rule made climbing up & down ropes easier.

We went into this adventure as a one-shot, as our regular Referee had some heavy weeks at work and didn't have prep time. Several players had never tried Traveller before, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps in future a regular game will develop. The ground work is laid.

Have you ever run or played Shadows? Tell about it in the comments.

Game Report - Shadows

For the last few months, I have been playing in a Friday night game (not Traveller) group with friends. Last night, since our regular Referee was wiped out with a grueling week at work, he relinquished the chair. I stepped in and offered a Classic Traveller one-shot: Double Adventure # 1, Shadows. It has turned into a two-shot, as the crew of the Alexandria-class Free Trader Normandy have not yet made it inside the pyramid structure. We hope to finish it next Friday. 

I've made a few changes, of course. The setting moved to Holtzmann's Corridor, on the planet Mavramorn. Mavramorn does not have a corrosive atmosphere; rather a thin and tainted one. The PCs need breather masks, but not full vacc suits. The other changes I can't reveal until after the adventure is concluded.

Mavramorn's national symbol

To save time (not enough, apparently) I consulted both Supplement 1 and Supplement 4 for pre-gen characters. We have:

• Scout Pilot Shepherd 9A8687  Pilot-1, Mechanical-3, Medical-1, Vacc Suit-2, Computer-1
• Baroness Chao 2 term Noble 89788C  Engineering-1, Computer-1, Laser rifle-1
• Marine Corporal Fractin  998667  Electronics-2, Cutlass-1, Revolver-1, Brawling-0
• Army Major "Snake"  B85695  Leader-2, Mechanical-3, Cutlass-1, Rifle-1, SMG-1
• Merchant Officer Suzette A5A7CA  Steward-2, Medical-1, Navigation-1, Brawling-0
• (NPC) Proper Dave  A3AA9A  Engineering-3, Medical-2, Admin-1

While waiting in orbit to be granted permission to land, Suzette detected a strange energy emission on the surface, far away from the inhabited parts of Mavramorn (population 50 million). They descended to investigate it since they were just waiting around anyway, and nearly got shot down as they approached the pyramid structure. 

They geared up and explored the outside of the pyramid, and finally found the hidden entrance located [redacted]. Next week we'll explore the interior and hopefully locate the energy weapon controls. 

Play Report - Mission on Mithril

Finally, after 38 years.

A Mission on Mithril Play Report

While my elder son was home on leave from the Air Force (Flyers, term 1) we got in a little Traveller. With his time at home limited, we opted for a standalone adventure rather than launching a new campaign. What better time to go ad fontes (back to the sources)? At their request, I pulled down Mission on Mithril.

MoM may seem like a very 'linear' adventure. On inspection it has enough variety & flexibility that you could run it over and over, with a different adventure each time.

The general layout of the adventure is this: a small Scout ship crew are stranded on Mithril in the Sword Worlds. Mithril is cold, as in arctic cold, and almost uninhabited. The Class E starport does not draw much traffic, so the chance of beneficial starship encounters is low.

Their ship has a malfunction which prevents them from jumping out-system. 

A Cepheus Light Vehicle Chase

Rance, Edith and Halls are in a Rambler, a light wheeled ATV. Rance was following up a rumor about a Glorious Empire installation out in the distant back woods of Mardahak. What they found instead was an old factory in ruins and an ambush. They are fleeing from a group of brigands in a pickup truck. The brigands are pursuing them hoping to steal the Rambler. Edith drives off of the dirt road and across the scrub and grass choked fields.

Rambler:

TL 7, Wheeled Vehicle, Kcr 25, AGL +0, Speed 110 kph, Crew 1 Psg 4

Light dmg 6, Critical dmg 10 No weapons, Open, 200 kg cargo

2 shooters, 1 revolver, 1 pistol JoT-1, DM -2

Pickup:

TL 6 Wheeled Vehicle, Kcr 7, AGL +0, Speed 160 kph, Crew 1 Psg 2

Light dmg 4, Critical dmg 7 No weapons, Open, 500 kg cargo

2 shooters, 1 rifle, 1 carbine Driver-1, DM +1

Session Report May 2018

In this session, we finally wrapped up the airship race. See this post for how the fight got started.

Blasterson chased one assailant out onto the catwalk and through a porthole. The assailant hit him with a Tranq gas grenade, but Joe shook it off. He dove through the window and chased him into the hallway when . . .
 
McGee remembered that he had an infrared scope on his laser rifle. He started shooting the invaders through the walls (I added a -DM for aiming at a heat signature instead of a visible target). It is hard to survive a laser rifle shot in CT. He got Joe's quarry in the hallway.

Reaper slashed and parried with the assailant who had stabbed Ca'al, until McGee shot him. Reaper was not pleased that the shot had come so close to his own head, and said so in a colorful tirade. Ca'al grasped feebly at the attacker's legs, and believed (until later) that he had brought his man down. 

Up in the rigging, Jay, fearful of hitting Longfinger with a shotgun blast, used it as a cudgel, but the assailant's body armor stopped it. So Longfinger dug his claws into him and vaulted backwards over the railing, pulling the assailant down with him.

Upon announcement of this move, the entire table stopped dead quiet.

PC perspective of a game event

This story was written by Longfinger's player. It is from his perspective, where he refers to himself in the third person as Allistair.

Allistair walked into the club. He had spotted Stephy, and had seen him gambling his money, and his time, away. Allistair mentally rolled his eyes.

I've only been under his employment for a few days now, and I'm already utterly disappointed, he thought.

He walked over to him, noticing that Stephy was winning by more than Allistair cared to count. Looking down on him, he could see a very well executed poker face plastered onto the Baron's face.

"Good evening Captain. I don't mean to intrude, I just wanted to check up on you. The crew and I were a little concerned about you and Miss Tawny leaving the ship," whispered Allistair.

"Oh it's quite alright Longfinger, we're just relaxing a bit before we shove off tomorrow," replied Stephy in a half attentive voice.

Even more quietly, Allistair whispered in the Baron's ear,

"I'd also like to apologize for my earlier behaviour, I meant no harm to you in the slightest."

"Don't worry about it my boy, I understand your motives completely."

Stephy then turned his attention to one of his fellow gamblers, whom he seemed to know, with a confused look upon his face.

"Have you seen Tawny anywhere? She's been absent for twenty minutes," he inquired, although he didn't sound concerned.

The gambler shook his head. Allistair then saw a chance to be of service, for since the age of sixteen he had made a covenant with whom his people referred to as "The Gardener".

"I could fetch her for you if you'd like of me Captain," he offered.

Stephy merely shrugged and casually uttered, "If you wish."

Session Report St Patrick's Day 2018

Today the Adequate Seven forged ahead with their 100-hour endurance airship race on Stavanger, while facing many challenges.

Somehow during the break at the Oasis, adversaries smuggled a robot aboard, disguised as a number of fuel canisters. It assembled itself in the engine room and began tearing up the place. Jay, Joe and Landreth managed to destroy it, and Landreth started taking it apart looking for intel on who had put it aboard. They recalled that while at Oasis 'race officials' and porters were going on and off the ship without any close oversight. Won't make that mistake again. 

The robot did not disable the engines, but it did cause damage. Most of the Seven have mechanical and/or engineering skill, so they were able to effect repairs in flight. 

Reaper stayed behind in the Oasis for a while, and managed to acquire some (dubiously legal) cryonic grenades, which came in handy later. He had to <ahem> liberate an air/raft to catch up with the team in flight but was able to rejoin them at a race checkpoint.

Team Trendheim is in the lead, withTeam Namsos and Team Hokksen catching up. Every obstacle that arises seems to chip away at their lead. I'm using the Chase rules from Omer Joel's Quick and Dirty CT Vehicle combat rules to determine place order. McGee's rolling hot so far.

The Seven made it to the next-to-last checkpoint and stopped to refuel, and hand over the robot's remains to the race officials who will start a formal investigation. 

Taking off at sunset for the next to last leg, the crew are all getting tired, but no rest for the weary!  In the depth of the night the airship is attacked by a group of grav-belt wearing assassins!

They're armed with swords and grenades, and attacked the ship from several fronts at once. The Seven are spread out and can't help each other. Jay, Gray (4) raced up the catwalks to the aid of Longfinger, Gray (7) who was on his way down to the gondola when an assassin flew in at him. Sword and claw rang out in the darkness. 

The Adequate Seven are in Grey, attackers in yellow.

Joe (2) and McGee (1) are trapped in the Salon while Reaper fights on the catwalk outside.

In the photo, Landreth is Gray(3). He was guarding the engine room when he heard Tawnee, the patron's mistress screaming. Rushing to the rescue he found one of the attackers in her cabin, and they're at close quarters with sword and pistol. Ca'al is the inverted gray counter outside on the catwalk. He went axe-to-sword with an attacker, but as the attacker was wearing armor and Ca'al wasn't, he's down. Reaper, Gray(6) froze one assassin with a cryonic grenade and now he's fencing cutlass-to-sword with the guy who stabbed Ca'al.

Joe shot down one assassin through a port-hole with his SMG, but the second is keeping under cover and tossing shock grenades through the portholes. Joe managed to return one but it went over the side and discharged below the ship. McGee is defending the bridge and watching Joe's back.

We ended the session in mid-battle. Shots and blows have been exchanged at close range, but everyone's wearing armor so not much damage has been done. Whoever these masked assassins are, it means whoever sent them is serious about taking Team Trendheim out of the race. Can't wait for next month's session!

Abstract Combat in Book 4 Mercenary

I bought the Mercenary book back in the mid eighties, and have built lots and lots of PCs with the expanded book 4 rules. I've even a few times tried building a mercenary unit by following the system laid out in the book. But until now the Abstract Battle system didn't make much sense to me. I figured out what I was doing wrong: I tried doing it totally in the abstract. 

The Abstract battle rules work the best when they are integrated into a story, so that both sides have specific objectives, which are determined by their particular missions. Let me explain.

This evening, my boys and a friend were finishing up the adventure of rescuing a princess, who was kidnapped by a General in her world's army. He was trying to usurp the throne and marrying the princess was part of the plot. 

As I have mentioned before, this was my re-imagining of the Amber Zone adventure Coup D'Etat, which I reviewed a few years ago. The setting is Pampati, in Holtzmann's Corridor, and the princess is Princess Aurelia. 

Well, the guys rescued her from the General's army base where she was held hostage, then retreated to the Summer Palace where the King was trying to keep his government together by radio and telephone. 

It may be cold outside, but the princess is Hot!

I provided the PCs with a small force of household guards, and a few hours to prepare defenses before General Kang's troops rolled in. The guards needed officers to direct them, so the King commissioned the PCs to lead the troops. They blocked the entrance road with trucks, hid in the woods and dug in on the front lawn. 

Kang's forces were attempting to capture the palace (and therefore the Princess & the King) and the PCs were there to prevent that from happening.

Here's where the abstract system came in. I drew a map of the area on hex paper. Each of the defending squads had a die-cut counter, and the attackers had a number of counters as well. As rebel and defending counters were moved adjacent to each other, I resolved each of the encounters as a battle round under the abstract system.

New Traveller Game Session Report December 2017

After the McGee Tragedy, the gang needed to find work. I used my Random Missions table and came up with "repair vehicle". Hmm. It will have to be a big vehicle to need seven repairmen. So that would be . . . an airship!

"Can we mount guns on this?" - an actual player question.

Location: Stavanger

The patron is Stephanos "Steffi" Trendheim, son of one of the ruling Barons of Stavanger. He's competing in a 100-hour endurance race across the wilderness of Stavanger, to Oasis and back. The race must use only TL-6 equipment, so no contra-gravity or rocket propulsion.

The gang's first task was to assemble the airship, a semi-rigid airframe with Helium envelopes for lift. They set to work with limited time, but got the ship air-worthy, passed the time trials and entered the race. 

During the build phase, everyone received a Rumor on a 3x5 card. Some pointed to possible future endeavors, but may were signs of trouble ahead: bribery offers and a death threat to lose the race; a bribe to take out a competing racer, and even to take out the patron!

In the air, they got off to a good position in the field of eight racers, each representing one of the Baronies: Arendal, Hokksen, Levanger, Namsos, Plancourt, Sandvika, Trendheim, and Ulstenvok.

RIP Commander McGee

Something has occurred in a game that I have never experienced before as a Traveller player. I started playing in 1982 or 83. In all that time, I have never had a player character die. Until now.

At yesterday's session of the once-a-month gaming group that I referee for my boys and their friends, Commander McGee died. The game was set in Holtzmann's Corridor, on the planet Dekalb. The PC group had just finished a job, capturing an escapee from a hospital who had been exposed to some weird things which resulted in him being super-fast and strong. This was in essence the Amber Zone The Werewolf Disease, which I reviewed a few years back. 

After tracking him for two days, they finally were able to confront him, only to find he dodged and dashed away at high speed, frustrating pursuit on foot. The quarry was finally brought to heel by Maj. Reaper hurling his sword him, at Medium range, and hitting the man in the leg. There's a bar story for you.

McGee, we barely knew ye.

Well, they got paid for the job, and decided to go to Stavanger next. I explained the various travel options, and McGee's player decided to travel Low Passage to save cash. The liner had a qualified Doctor (Medical-3) aboard, and he had no -DM for low Endurance. All McGee needed to survive the Low Berth process was to throw a 3 or higher. The target is 5+, with a DM of +2 for medical support.

He thew Snake Eyes.

The Brothers of St. Cuthbert took care of burying McGee, and my son had a few spare character sheets lying around. McGee's player picked one, announced that this was McGee's brother, transferred all his gear and cash to the new character, and we rolled on.