The Traveller Adventure - XXVI

In which the referee comes a cropper as the PCs take their ATV apart and fail to rescue an explorer who’s not actually lost.

 

Dramatis Personae

PCs

   Carl - Captain Loyd Kitman: indomitable, if lovelorn, captain of the March Harrier

   Tess - Tess Davies: engineer and all-round expert

   Jane - Fred Squeaker: a rather intimidatingly tall wannabe steward

   Jim - Ghazan Davidson: language specialist and computer engineer

NPCs

   Kunal Dins - pilot of the March Harrier

   Adma Lewes - medic and ex-enforcer hence the ummm, unusual skill set

   Lily Lee - archaeologist and explosives expert.  Don't ask.  

               Now helping the Captain with Admin.  And the odd bit of blowing things up.

   Egon Trilby - technically the March Harrier’s gunner but has never fired a shot in anger

              and has received more friendly fire from the Captain than sat in the gunner's couch

   Gvoudzon - vargr diplomat, there was a reason he's aboard. 

               Not sure anyone remembers it.

   Phlo - Llellywyeloly stevedore.  Goes out on a limb for the crew.

 

Scene

Yebab - Spinward Marches 3002 C9A489A-8

Still.

 

(As previously, paragraphs beginning with a # concern the virtual nature of the evening).

 

It only seems a moment since the last session.  I’m not sure I can keep up the pace of this slightly faster tempo of games.  Not quite once a month but nor is it once every two months as we used to do in the pub.  On the one hand I’m aware the preparation and aftermath are considerable and stop me doing other things such as bibliography work or attempting my novel; on the other hand I quite like it as it might mean we finish The Traveller Adventure sometime this century.

 

That is of course if we ever get back to the book.  You’ll recall we’re on Yebab (which is in TTA and even has a patron encounter – which the PCs have rejected) and we’ve got the ATV out of the cargo hold for the first time ever.  Captain Loyd is concerned about a long-distance solo walker attempting to walk around the planet who hasn’t reported in for a few days.  Oh, and there’s a tropical methane storm moving in.  That’s where we left it last time and that’s where we picked it up this time.

 

# Not straight away however.  We nearly had to postpone the session altogether.  One of our number had a complete internet failure thanks to her internet service provider failing her at a bad moment.  Another seemed to have lost the invitation email with the virtual meeting details.  Jim and Tess and I debated whether to postpone and we probably would have done with just the three of us.  We bemoaned technology while we were at it and agreed this would never have happened in the pub.  Then again, Jim would never have been able to have joined us and it’s been good to have him along for what is now our third virtual outing.  Or is that ‘inning’?

 

# We also had a discussion about the ins and outs of using something like Discord instead of my work virtual meeting software.  Jim and Tess were familiar with it.  I’m guessing Jane and Carl aren’t.  My only experience of it was playing in Greg Caires’ running of Ascent to Anekthor a month or so ago.  (See my After Action Report in Freelance Traveller next issue.)  There seem to be some advantages and perhaps a disadvantage or two to Discord but I’m willing to give it a go next time to see what it’s like.  A key thing for me would be being able to run it in a browser as my work laptop is too locked down to allow me to install anything.  (My main home PC has no camera or microphone).  I also liked that Greg could set up ‘handouts’ etc in advance and that we could refer to them whenever we wanted without having to trouble him.

 

# Thanks to the old fashioned technologies of phone calls we were able to sort out Carl’s attendance and he was soon with us and we thought again about whether to postpone or not.  It seemed a shame that Jane would miss out and we did try phoning to see if she wanted to play aurally using up all the unlimited minutes on my new(ish) mobile phone that I never actually use for phone calls.  (And, hardly ever out of my home wifi range, the 20 gig of data doesn’t get close to being used either).   Anyway, an answering machine seemed to suggest that wasn’t an option either.

 

I’m always a bit torn about the absence of a player.  I hate the idea of them missing out; I dislike their absence around the table (virtual or real) as I’m playing with friends; I struggle with then remembering yet another NPC and ensuring that we’re doing them justice – although to be fair everyone else helps with this a lot.  Against that, I’ve put in a fair bit of effort to be ready for the evening and I’ve also gone through a bit of, well, if not stress, at least adrenalin in winding up (and then down) from the whole thing.  Maybe other referees are more relaxed about it, but I find it takes its toll.  Maybe personality type is partly to blame; chronic fatigue certainly is.  We kicked around some dates but it’s August and people are away on holiday and as ever, it’s complicated.  We decided to press on.  Fortunately, now that we can record sessions, Jane would at least have something in the way of a catch-up and some ‘memory’ of what happened.  Though I did forget to start the recording till after the recap of the previous session so even that’s not perfect.

 

# I should note that technically the rest of the evening went pretty well with just a couple of instances of a repeated sentence as someone appeared to freeze for a couple of seconds but it was so minor as to hardly be noteworthy.  I used a second device (as I had the first time but not last time) for sharing slides as I’d got into such a pickle about sharing the right screens last time.  This does give me two ‘slots’ in the WebEx software which does slightly reduce the size of everyone’s video rectangles but for me the trade-off is worth it.  It does mean I have to remember which device is the ‘host’ for purposes of recording and so on.

 

My idea for this session was to subvert the idea of the crew going to rescue the supposedly missing walker.  Essentially we’d done something like that back on Rugbird and while the idea of a campaign of knights errant rescuing damsels (and damsons?!) in distress isn’t entirely unappealing – and apparently the direction this crew are headed in anyway – I thought it would be good to ring the changes.  So my thinking led me to the idea of having a problem with the ATV and Mim Pedergans, the explorer, actually helping the March Harrier crew out of a sticky situation.  Those who were on TML a month or so back may recall this lead to me asking about ATV problems which some of you kindly responded to.  One of our number here on TML, and I won’t name names for reasons you’ll see, came up with a really interesting idea in some detail that I thought I might use verbatim.  I should credit the brilliance of this but any failings of implementation are all my own. 

 

One slight snag with ‘The Problem’ was that it didn’t actually leave the PCs stuck.  So in addition to this I came up with a bunch of driving tasks for Fred and some notes on the Mongoose rules for fatigue in my Referee notes with the idea that this would be a prime thing for Jane’s participation in the evening.  Of course, with Jane not able to join us I was then at a bit of a loss as to whether to write that off, reduce it considerably, or hand it over to another player.  I plumped for the middle option there but suggested perhaps Loyd, up in the March Harrier rather than with everyone else in the ATV, might like to make some key rolls.   (In the recap I’d double checked with the players which PC/NPC was where as my notes weren’t terribly clear).

 

So in my head was the idea to do some travelling with increasing problems and increasing storm conditions.  Encountering various bits of wildlife and plant life, crossing a lake of methane (and critters in there).  I wanted to try for the feel of an alien world and being out in the wilderness.  I’m not sure I did this sufficiently or sufficiently well however much I intended.  Often my Refereeing of Traveller runs much better in my head and my plans than it actually does when I’m in front of players.  At some point the ATV gets stuck and that gives the crew, the engineer particularly, an opportunity to explore The Problem.  In the meantime, Jim playing Ghazan, the Ebokin translation specialist, would have the local guide to deal with as well as comms from an increasingly stressed colleague keen to remind him that the conference they’re supposed to be presenting at is ONLY THREE DAYS AWAY AND WHERE IN THE IMPERIUM IS HE?!

 

I had, however, rather underestimated, as I always do, the cautiousness of the crew who at the first sign of the storm increasing in intensity opted to retrieve the ATV with the March Harrier.   Last time I’d been a bit blasé perhaps about the wilderness landings of the Harrier, but in the intervening weeks I’d found the rules in Traveller Companion for such activities and decided to implement them; with increasing difficulty for the storm, naturally.  I’m not sure I handled this very well, caught between some good piloting rolls by our Captain and not wanting to feel I was forcing the players into the way I’d planned it.  But in the end it kind of worked out as the winds became too strong for a safe take off and it occurred to me that it could be the March Harrier getting stuck rather than the ATV.  Plus, waiting for the storm to die down allowed an investigation of The Problem in the ATV.  All this while, the local guide, tucked up in the airlock out of the storm rather than camped out on top of the ATV was unconscious having found some local plant material that he rather conspiratorially told Ghazan was something “special”. 

 

So we worked through The Problem – an increased draw on the Energy Supply System that couldn’t be easily explained – and I was both surprised and pleased that it actually went very much according to the outline that had been suggested to me.  I had feared that it was too detailed for a player to necessarily follow but evidently engineering training came into play and in fact Tess worked through many of the tasks we had as though she were reading the script.  Kudos to her (both as player and character).  Checking the ESS, checking the systems attached to it.  Finding that it seemed to emanate from the drive train subsystem.  Checking the drive train subsystem and so on.  On the upside, the ATV blueprints I’d prepared seemed to go down well; on the downside I evidently got lost in my own cleverness.  Or rather, my own ignorance of the actual engineering details involved and then my misunderstanding the stated actions of the player.  I thought I’d been quite clear a couple of times in asking if she was checking internally or externally.  It turns out that certain checks and investigations she’d been describing could only have included both.  I thought I’d understood the nature of the problem but it turned out I’d rather missed a fundamental physical principle that I’d not read clearly in the original suggestion.  It also turned out that there is a fine line in what I can reasonably suggest that could be taken as implying negligence on the part of the engineer.

 

At least that last I’d worried about.  The whole meta-question of whether it’s fair to claim that your character has a perfect record of maintenance and wouldn’t have missed the problem in question and would be aggrieved to think this was being inflicted as something of a fiat by the referee.  How do you navigate between the desire to have something of an adventure and actual things happening and what a character may or may not have done or be able to do?  In a wash up afterwards, Tess made the excellent suggestion that it would have worked well if they’d hired the ATV and she could have discovered it.  The ‘fault’ being in their own ATV, albeit one they’ve not used in at least a year, reflects badly on her character.  I could see the logic although I’d also tried to argue that what with all the faults the Harrier has and The Problem being very small beer and so on, maybe she’d just not had time to get round to it, other things had taken priority, there are only so many hours in the day and so on.  It didn’t wash with her.

 

The other snag was the nature of The Problem itself.  Essentially the idea was that the additional drain on the ESS was caused by a hidden transponder behind a panel in one of the wheel arches of the ATV.  Turn the proper transponder off (I’d made a point, when revealing the schematics with their dotted lines for ‘optional’ systems, of making clear that the ATV had a transponder), and the hidden one can provide one of several false identities.  Clearly very useful to certain crews perhaps and evidently in situ since at least since Captain Loyd purchased the second hand vehicle.  I thought it might prove to be a bit of fun at the time in solving the puzzle, perhaps a useful gizmo for the players subsequently, and could also be a [REDACTED].  The major snag here was that I had it as a ‘wireless’ tap on the ATV power systems which at TL7 clearly isn’t possible.  I suggested it was higher tech, perhaps TL14 or higher.  But this being Tess’ real world job wasn’t being bought and she felt it was ‘magi-tech’.  While wireless charging is obviously a thing right now, it still requires something physical at both ends.  Whether or not she had been checking internally AND externally, she’d have been able to find the internal link to the device hidden in the wheel arch.

 

I think if I had handled it better this would have worked well.  As it was, with both the immediate and the meta problems with the puzzle, it left Tess feeling rather put out that I’d not given her a fair crack of the whip either as a character or in solving it as a player.  In short, I’ve felt better when finishing an evening of Traveller and I have no one to blame but myself for stretching too far into realms where I just don’t have the requisite knowledge.  I could only apologize.

 

Fortunately, there was still some time left and still some things to resolve.  The March Harrier, now the storm was passing, found itself bogged down in the sand like material that the storm of hydrocarbons rained down on the area.  The back end of the ship (we determined) has drifts of this stuff preventing take off.  Tess sets to with Egon building a ’dozer attachment for the ATV (a neat solution I hadn’t thought of).  Meanwhile the Captain gets Lily going with her explosives once again!  With ’dozer ready and Lily having cleared about a ¼ of the stuff the quick way – although disturbing some flying creatures in the process with the noise – the crew then see a figure trudging towards them in the distance dragging a trailer/trolley behind.  (I was picturing an oversized, ruggedized version of the kind of little red truck I remember from childhood days in the USA.  Or Fiennes and Stroud’s transantarctic sleds but with wheels on.  [1])

 

Bit of a debate over whether she might have a small, ‘local’ comm that was still working to hail the crew.  Tess is specifically a radio engineer so has problems with Traveller’s representation of comm systems (or rather lack of it).  She explained – in character and out I think – a ‘local’ comm would actually be better at contact with orbiting satellites than a larger system.  It didn’t matter, it didn’t take long before she could talk to the crew helmet to helmet and be invited on board.  It turned out she’d had a problem with her comm system which she’d managed to fix but apparently some of Yebab’s atmosphere had evidently got into a delicate part and wrecked it in a way she couldn’t fix.  Hence the lack of checking in with her support team.  She seemed largely unconcerned however and pointed out that she wasn’t lost.  She knew exactly where she was!  “So why are you out here?” she asks and is quite amused that actually they’re here to rescue her.  “Well, that’s very kind of you, but as you can see, unnecessary.  I’m only off my route because I could see signs of the storm and thought it prudent to shelter in one of those mines for a day or two.”

 

[As a side note, I had had thoughts about maybe having some Ebokin lurking in a mine who were planning on a prison break-out of some of their friends but in the end felt it was a needless complication and time was short.  But had the repair of The Problem not worked out at all, or the PCs bypassed looking for Pedergans entirely, it might have made a suitable bit of the evening.]

 

The crew offer Pedergans a meal and then food and drink to replenish her stores but there are strict rules on what she’s allowed to accept, or rather not accept, outside of the formally limited resupplies her team are allowed to provide her.  She does, however, accept help from Tess repairing her comm which is allowed under the record expedition rules.

 

They take a look at the hydrocarbons preventing the ship from taking off.  The March Harrier is parked on the shores of a lake and Mim heads a bit further round and comes back a moment later with a longish stick which she begins scraping the (bark?) off.  A little while later the first of the ketos appears from out of the vegetation, soon followed by more and more and more until eventually there’s a whole herd/flock/gang of them in the 1000s if not more.  “I suggest we stand back,” says Mim.  Avid readers may recall that these are the creatures the PCs met on the tour near the starport.  But just one or two at that time.  They begin devouring the hydrocarbons and starting to look very fat but the, dune, for want of a better word, soon disappears, thus freeing the ship.

 

I don’t know if it qualifies as an exciting adventure and perhaps it didn’t have quite the climax of the PCs saving the day, but Birken Sars, the author they’d brought along seemed to enjoy it.  [OK, let’s be honest on further reflection: it really isn’t giving the players the agency I want, so I regard it as having failed].  If you recall, he was the local author suffering from some writer’s block and looking for a bit of inspiration.  Another failure of the evening.  I’d meant to make more of him sticking his oar in at various points.  I forgot all about him as I often do with NPCs even though in this case I actually had a line or two for him and the other regular NPC crew to deliver.  There’s just too much to keep track of when Refereeing.  I don’t know how masters of the craft do it.  Having said that, we did have a nice scene, I thought, with Ghazan rehearsing his conference talk in the passenger lounge in front of Birken who was kind about it.  A good roll from Ghazan helped.

 

We decided that it was a good time to call it a night although Ghazan did take a moment to make his peace with colleague Varun and assure him everything was under control and run through his conference talk once more.  Although this time [not such a good roll] clearly suffering from more nerves and not getting quite such positive remarks.

 

It only remained to think about possibly playing again at the end of September although I was faintly amused at having Jim point out that my University term doesn’t start in October – as I’d thought and I’m sure we were told – but in September which a quick google revealed to him.  Oh dear, perhaps I’ll be in the middle of teaching earlier than I thought and a bit too stressed to be running Traveller.  We’ll see.  Tess asked to chat after the others had gone and very graciously apologized if she’s been out of order during the evening.  I think it was my failing however that caused any friction.  She filled me in on what she hadn’t liked about it – in no uncertain terms – but had some good pointers for what might work better if was ever to do anything with the scenario subsequently.  At that precise moment however I was more ready to forget all about it!  But another day or two and perhaps it seemed worse at the time than it really was.  The players will have to be the final judge.  As ever, a huge thank you to my players for putting up with my inadequacies.  Perhaps the real lesson is that it’s time to get back to the actual Traveller Adventure!

 

 

 

[1] No prizes, if you know something of my history, for spotting that Mim Pedergans’ whole expedition/walk was somewhat inspired by Fiennes and Stroud crossing Antarctica unsupported in 1992/93, as well as Ffyona Campbell walking around the world back around that time as well.  I was working at the Royal Geographical Society at the time and there was obviously great interest, and I believe some involvement, in the Fiennes/Stroud expedition.  The corridors and basement of the RGS are filled with all sorts of museum items – one of my favourite examples was chocolate from Scott’s ill-fated expedition – so it perhaps wasn’t surprising that Fiennes’ sled and his coat were donated and, with a manikin wearing the coat, both were placed in a main corridor just outside the library rooms where I worked.  At Christmas the RGS staff would put on a small entertainment for themselves and that year I wrote the thing.  Called Alice’s Wanders in Adventureland it poked gentle fun at explorers of the time and one scene called for Fiennes to sledge across the main hall of the RGS.  Although I wasn’t allowed to use his sled and a large box had to suffice, I was allowed to use his coat.  Despite the House Manager having washed it several times, five I think she said, when it had been donated, there was still a rather solid smell to it!  Any rumours that I wrote and directed the entire production just to be able to sled across the hall using Sir Ranulph’s gear are of course entirely unfounded.  :-)   I seem to recall we also had a thing about Ffyona’s great trek from the back pages of the newspapers to the front…

 

If you want to read more about Fiennes and Stroud, try: Shadows on the Wasteland, Stroud, 1996.  And no, you can’t have my autographed copy.  For F-f-f-fyona as we, perhaps rudely, referred to her, try: Feet of Clay, Campbell, 1999.  And no, you can’t have my autographed copy.  :-)  That just covered her Australian experience.  On Foot Through Africa and The Whole Story complete the record.