Thanks for the kind words about the character driven types of adventure. The only advice or twist I'd give on your mercantile set up is that there should be multiple issues for PC's to conflict or ally on. The axis you have at the moment is a love triangle based one which is excellent and will bring a number of characters into conflict. But there needs to be a second or several more axis too- perhaps an economic issue that will a different alliance set- say whether the family needs to go into smuggling (or cease smuggling?) or ally with the other merchant family in order to get the money to save the business?
A 3rd Axis of conflict/agreement might religious or political - Trading with Imperial interests vs. Independents, or whether to make the run to Zhodane or not?
A single axis or issue is OK, but resolved quickly and its hard to persuade people from their starting positions. Having 2 Axis or issues of conflict allow people to concede on one issue to gain concessions on another issue in return, and lets them decide their priorities. with 3 axis, then every PC might agree with another PC on 1 issue, but disagree on the other 2 issues. Then you have a conversation and debate.
Both of my TravCon games- the Zhodani Candidate and Imperial Intrigue had a central conflict (identity of the Zhodani spy and the Imperial Succession) but multiple additional conflicts that different combinations of people agreed or disagreed on (DNA sample, love triangle, Norris for the Zhodani Candidate and Dead bodies, Deneb Duchy, repealing the Psionic suppressions, Drug Use, taxation and national defence for II)
Best,
Steve
From: timothy.collinson@port.ac.uk
Date: Sun, 4 May 2014 21:05:53 +0100
Subject: Re: [TML] Merchants and Adventuring
To: tml@simplelists.com
A. Mercantile
Roll three times on the standard trade tables from the _Core Rulebook_ for trade (p.165-166).
Roll three times on the Random Patron table from the _Core Rulebook_ (p.81)
Mixing these given nine combinations of patron/cargo to offer PCs
(Alternatively, for more detail, randomly select a cargo from _Supplement 13: Starport Encounters_ and a patron from _Supplement 16: Adventure Seeds_ but these will come with their own seeds.)
1. Patron and cargo are all as expected. It’s a milk run and should cause the PCs no problems. (Or any problems they do encounter are nothing to do with patron or cargo.)
2. The patron hasn't told the PCs everything about the cargo (there’s a problem in transportation, there’s some aspect which is illegal, the cargo is about to be stolen, damaged, or used as cover to smuggle something else by traders in competition with PCs).
3. As 2 but the Patron didn't know.
4. The patron hasn't been truthful about themselves and what's actually being requested of the PCs.
5. The PCs have heard advance rumours along the lines of 2 or 4 but the Patron doesn't know or isn’t telling.
6. The market at destination won't be as expected.
Of course any PC, or indeed any player, worth their salt will be aware of these ‘standard’ complications so the devil is in the detail of exactly what the issues are and the personalities involved.
B. Scouting/Investigative
The head of a small shipping line wants the PCs (with ship) to 'join' his or her line for a period (and will get perks, livery etc as well as payment) to check out factors in various ports the line uses. Someone seems to be leaking sensitive info to the competition and the boss wants to find out who. The PCs are also to check up on other crews belong to the line when in the same port together in case it’s an inside job. Perhaps even competition crews should be looked into - or are they just being lucky?
1. The owner is paranoid and making bad key decisions. There is no leak.
2. A factor on one world is responsible and a scheme to trap him will be needed.
3. Several factors are working together to bring the company down.
4. The crew of one of the line’s ships are responsible but again, the PCs will need a subtle plan to catch or incriminate them.
5. As 4 but the crew will fight the PCs to either escape or shut them up.
6. A psion on a competitor’s ship is getting info from crews or factors they happen to cross paths with.
C. Character Driven
A trader family - living on a Subsidized Merchant for decades or perhaps even generations, have built up a fleet of vessels. Now their family tradition/culture dictates that offspring turning 21 should marry to continue the line.
Mother, who is captain and medic, has lined up a possible partner with another merchant family or amongst one of their own crews.
Son, pilot, wants to do the right thing and give it his best shot for the family/line and honour.
Father, engineer, not ready for son to leave ship and trying to stop the match with words or perhaps even more directly.
Second son, navigator, has fallen in love with a gunner the family recruited in the last six months.
Daughter, steward, thinking of jumping ship to find her own partner, as she has no desire to fit in with ‘old-fashioned’ parents' plans.
Gunner has fallen in love with eldest son.
Obviously the characters would need to be worked up in some detail with perhaps secondary or even tertiary motivations or goals.
I am indebted to Steve Ellis for so ably demonstrating the latter type of adventure in action at both last year's TravCon and this year's. I write 100 pages or more and tens of thousands of words and barely feel prepared to run an adventure. He comes with 6 character sheets (with some detail mind you) and a page and a half of notes, winds us up and sets us running in what have been two truly excellent convention games.
tc
Hi there
Good question. Occupied at least a bus journey home for thought.
(That's a good thing... I commute two hours a day and sometimes want a
change from reading)
Hmmm, might have to argue with that as regards my own efforts:
> On 22 Apr 2014, at 17:28, Freelance Traveller <editor@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:
>
> Somehow, most published adventures seem to be designed for a mixed
> party,
TravCon12 Into the Unknown (was Portents and Signs) - 6 scouts
TravCon13 Second Scions' Society - 6 dilettantes
TravCon14 Ashfall - 6 Darrian scientists
Freelance Traveller #52 - Getting There is Half the Fun - 6 Imperial scientists
And not a military type amongst them.
> with most characters having military backgrounds. Even the
(Part of my fun with those PC choices was to see whether I could come
up with six sufficiently different characters of the same type. I'll
let others decide if I was successful or not)
I'm not considering Back to a Future (FT 29/30) or The Edge of
Humanity (JTAS, 16.7.13) as being for the slightly different settings
of 2300AD and Orbital respectively.
I think Three Blind Mice was the first thing I've done which did have
a mixed crew although even there there was the linking of the
'blindness'. But Nestine and Bretton were ex-military. (Two other
adventures didn't actually specify PCs).
I'd agree with that, but perhaps the different mental model is in the
> canonical merchant career seems to have a not-insignificant amount of
> combat-related skills. I would think, however, that a merchant's
> mindset, even if he has combat skills, would be significantly different
> from that of an ex-military character's, and a merchant would evaluate a
> patron contract with a different mental model for risk/reward balancing.
authoring of the adventure. Such that the adventures mentioned above
have very little combat and are more designed for other forms of
role-playing. That then leads to players picking (at a convention
with choice) 'that' kind of adventure and then playing their PCs in
that kind of mindset. For example, in Into the Unknown I wasn't sure
that the first NPC the players met wouldn't be immediately killed
because of the way she behaved and the circumstances. But in fact I
needn't have worried and the *players* acted in reasonable ways.
Well, I've yet to attempt what I would think of as a properly merchant
>
> Given that, and staying with the fundamental "problem" that Traveller
> economics don't work UNLESS the merchant goes adventuring...
>
> What sort of adventures would, in fact, 'appeal' to a merchant mindset?
adventure (as it happens I'm beginning to sketch out a Zhodani one for
Rouven right now), but I'd have thought they (the merchant PC not the
player) would be most interested in something that offered profit.
But that could be defined in a lot of ways:
- immediate profit of buying low and selling high. A
- longer term profit of developing a contact/market/trade route that
is beneficial. B
- abstract or indirect profit such as a charitable pursuit (think
Joseph Rowntree the chocolate maker and philanthropist) or personal
(marry daughter to most eligible partner). C
That then gives you room for all sorts of adventure:
A. Purely mercantile - but with interesting problems/obstacles/side
trips to stop it being number crunching. Or larger scale versions of
the same with the PCs managing whole shipping lines and/or perhaps
dealing with stock markets.
B. More 'scouting' type adventures looking for the bigger picture on
worlds or trade routes, or alternatively more 'investigative' - why is
such and such happening, how is X making that profit, who is Y dealing
with
C. And more 'role playing' games for the abstract things - I'm
thinking here of the excellent Steve Ellis type games with virtually
no 'plot' but very detailed characters and goals: wind up the players
and watch them run! This is what Getting There is Half the Fun was
attempting in a small way (but not with merchants)
Of course any of them *could* have combat along the way, and there's
always privateering...
Don't know if that helps as a way of thinking about it?
Will have a think and see if I can come up with one of each for you.
>
> (The best sort of responses would be actual adventures or seeds, that I
> could pull into Active Measures and Getting Off the Ground, but ordinary
> discussion is good, too.)
tc
PO1 2ST
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