Hello Timothy,

Thank you for the latest update. To bad I'm on the wrong side of the pond.

Tom Rux

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From: "Timothy Collinson" <xxxxxx@port.ac.uk>
To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 3:53:04 PM
Subject: [TML] The Traveller Adventure VIII

Hi there,

For anyone who's interested we had our eighth once-every-other-month installment of The Traveller Adventure tonight.

Some interesting points from my perspective as referee.

Firstly, we had another Library colleague drop in rather unexpectedly.  Three of the players (plus me) are also in the Library book group which meets every other month (inbetween), so we think he may have got confused about that.  However, he was up for giving it a go and dropped into one of the NPC crew (the medic - an ex-rogue enforcer) with no trouble.  He's played D&D before and skimmed the rule book while we ate, so he wasn't a complete neophyte.  As one of our regulars was off sick it was good to have a sixth around the table.

Secondly, I forgot to book the back room (often the job of the player off sick as she's waaay more organized than I am) so we were out in the main pub which wasn't ideal.  Although we pushed a couple of tables together and it wasn't too crowded, the noise levels were just enough to cause a couple of us problems hearing.  Will try to definitely get their back room next time.

Thirdly, I was more apprehensive about this episode than many others because we'd finished First Call at Zila last time and were theoretically into the 'roaming' section that's more sandboxy.  You can skip straight to Wolf at the Door, but I wanted to at least see if we could fit in some roaming and not feel as if we'd rushed through it.  Also, I was keen to try letting the players/PCs pick up whatever they wanted to run with rather than me driving it.  (After 7 sessions, even the newbies are relatively comfortable taking actions now).  Thirdly, Wolf at the Door is relatively complex and I've not been feeling well enough this week to get my head round it.  

So, despite the book saying that the trip from Zila to Aramanx via Carsten with Oberlindes onboard is "uneventful", I couldn't bear to pass by Carsten with nary a mention but the refuel that's required.  Yes, it is pretty much a rockball with just a few miners (80,000 - just the size of my hometown) and almost nothing written about it (see wiki.travellerrpg.com) but I thought it might be fun to see how much interest there might be in such a 'dull' place where I specifically can't have anything *too* interesting happen.  :-)    It takes the March Harrier a couple of days to process all its fuel (C class starport, so unrefined) so they'd have a couple of days there despite Oberlindes desire to press on asap.

Cue the Townswomen's Guild and some of the dullest tourist attractions I could come up with (a - small - geology musuem, a tour of a chemical leaching plant, a guy's front room with a respirator collection he's very proud of, etc).

First night's entertainment kind of wrote itself.  I thought it would be a quick three minute "what are you up to?"  "well, what bars are there?"  "three small ones off a corridor just past the starport airlock into the main semi-sunken city" "ok four of hit the second bar, the other two go off to a hotel with a spa as we've just spend the best part of two weeks resurfacing the inside of an empty water tank".  Only the players were keen to know who was in the bar, chat up the attractive man at one table (which one PC went home with...), chat to the old miner at the bar, etc etc.  Turned into maybe half an hour of game.

The 'attractions' proved more of a draw than I expected with the crew all taking up one offer or another.  Most heading to the museum and a couple heading to the respirator collection.  Lots of making up stuff on the fly - including why this ONE respirator from way back was such a treasure [1] although my favourite bit was when they asked for the gift shop in the geology museum. I thought it would be very limited so this very ancient miner at a desk opens a drawer and finds some postcards of rocks - one or two are even holographic.  He sold three of these and asked about a cafe for drinks and cake went out back to bring them four mugs of tea and some biscuits.  asked about a pencil that a PC hoped had 'Geology Museum of Carsten' printed on it, the guy couldn't help but did have one with '2B' on the side his eyesight eventually revealed.

So they filled in a day doing that and shopping for dresses as they'd also received an invitation from the Townswomen's Guild by then - perhaps at the behest of Oberlindes, they never asked - inviting all the crew to a dinner on their second night.  I'm not certain, but it looks like Carsten gets very little traffic so any visitors would be a great entertainment.   I had a seating plan for at least four tables with all the crew (+ Oberlindes and Arrlanroughl) sitting on circular tables seating six.  Roughly three crew to a table (all the same gender) with three locals (of the opposite gender) (call Carsten old fashioned if you will) between.  Some older, some younger, some attractive, some single, some with rumours about trade and passengers and other things.  Of course, our notorious (failed) lothario Captain had Pretty Young Thing sat next to him.  I had one line per NPC of description and a question or two they might ask their neighbour.

I was a bit worried there was no 'climax' to all of this (tempted though I was just to move the bar brawl to this scene!), but as far as I can tell the players really got into the way this would be an entertainment for the locals *and* that they'd be equally keen to get off the ship for some change of scene. 

Cue lots of chit chat and me trying - rather than just deal with each player in turn through the whole conversation - trying to 'cut' it like a tv show and jump around the table keeping each conversation in mind but giving each player a sentence or two at a time.  Less demanding for them as they get to think and keeps everyone involved.  Tad harder for me but interesting. 

Rather wonderfully, the Captain's player nipped out to the loo just at the point two other PCs discovered that they were sitting next to the Pretty Young Thing's mother who was obviously keeping an eye on her.  No prizes for guessing that they a) wound up the mother about the Captain's reputation and  b) 'forgot' to mention to the Captain that "his" Pretty Young Thing's mother was in the room.  His face (and the other players) at the end of the evening when he was giving PYT his comm number and mother marches up with "I'll take that, thank you."

I was debating which of the three 'Encounters' listed for Carsten (Special Delivery, Last Ride Home and Temptation(? from memory)), I was going to run with when it occurred to me I could do all three.

On the way back from the dinner they found the man in the corridor (and Gvoudzon had a flashback to his own beating that left him in a cold sweat and his cabinmate patting him calm!).  The Last Ride Home panhandler approached the Captain privately to do his begging - not knowing what a soft touch he'd be!  And as a normal passenger the counterfeiter has just booked a trip with few questions asked.

I thought it a bit ironic - and mildly hysterical - when one player muttered about the game needing more deception as everyone is so nice and does what they say.  If only I could have recounted at that point all the people who have been lying to them in the last days, weeks, months!

I had *thought* the climax of the evening would be the news broadcast at the beginning of Wolf at the Door and was just about to skip on through the Jump to Aramanx and arrival and so on and have them spot Bannerji <dun, dun, dunnnnn>, when a chorus went up around the table... what about day 2 on Carsten?  We wanted to go to the archaeological dig site (even though they knew from the museum trip that nothing of any interest had been found there).

So even though I'm pretty sure they understand that there is nothing "plotwise" there, it looks like we're going to do another evening in the pub on Carsten when I though it might only be half an evening at most!  It also means I have to come up with something at least moderately interesting for the dig site but not *too much* action so the published book's report of the trip being "uneventful" isn't given the lie.  Well, at least I've got a couple of months to think about it.

The one thing I did observe that TTA possibly overlooks, is having one of the Encounters (Special Delivery) involve the Vemene agent saying get the package to the Oberlindes Office.  Well, I know you could be picking it as an encounter later on on another trip to Carsten, but of course for this trip we actually have old man Oberlindes himself on board.  Fortunately I'd spotted this as I prepared and so wasn't caught on the hop when the PCs immediately said "stuff getting this to an office, we've got Oberlindes on board let's just take it to him".  I couldn't see any problem with this and so, after Oberlindes saying he didn't recognize the (supposed employee but actually a Vemene agent) and them being trebly cautious of the package - they opened it very carefully behind blast doors etc and found the money (I'm on option 1-3).  I guess they'll see the news of the sacking of the employee on Aramanx after they arrive...  (but the book could have mentioned the possibility just to forewarn you).

But, great fun all round.  I think the players enjoyed it.  We'll see if the drop in returns next time.

In short, don't dismiss those rockballs as mere stopovers and skip over them to get to the main action.  Even dull places can be fun even with dull (i.e. no 'action') events.  I rather like that a) a lot of this was made up on the fly which I've wanted to try but feared my inability b) *isn't* in the published book but is part of the roaming and c) I hope helps muddy the waters in what's plot and what's not so that the published bits don't seem so much more detailed that its easy to tell when we're on track and when we're not.   (i.e. none of this evening actually advanced the plot of TTA one iota although I don't believe that was obvious to the players)   (not that there weren't several of the players listening closely to the recap of the story so far for the drop in player as I don't think they're paying that much attention over the months!)  (they rather live for the moment)

tc

[1] Jedz Trayzor's respirator, no less.  From 150 years back.  Why was it famous i got asked.  Good question <quiet panic, but a thought quickly comes>.  Well, obviously because he found a great lode of radioactives and made a lot of money. 

The PC/player was satisfied but then asked a great follow up question - do the stories tell anything about how he found the lode? 

<real panic, but then the ideas just came flowing>  Well, some say it was just blind luck, some way it was an old Scout survey he had access to, there's even a theory that it was some old Vilani Empire era map he'd got hold of and most outlandish of all <but the guy whose living room they're in - who's just spent three and half hours enthusing about shelves full of respirators in various states of age and disrepair and style - eyes light up like *this* is the theory he favours>, there are those who believe he had access to some Ancient technology.

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