14.10.16 V. Pysadi part 2

[I was clearly beginning to get into the swing of reporting things but still hadn’t decided whether to number sessions or book chapters (which might run across more than one session. But it would be V. Pysadi part 2]

Executive summary: TTA - lots of fun! Anyone got a meta-tip for question at end?

While I’m here, I ought to update you briefly on last night’s installment of Pysadian Escapade (from The Traveller Adventure). This was the group’s fifth outing in the pub after work. We meet every other month for 4 hours or so.

We tackled the first section of Pysadian Escapade last time and got as far as stepping off the train in Itzeny. So this was it... we were into blowing up howood trees and the infamous anolas! (Much disliked by some referees as almost literal rail-roading.) I’d decided we’d play it straight and trust that the one player who’s actually played Traveller (or any RPG for that matter) would either play along or actually, as claimed, hadn’t read TTA in detail.

First up, while we waited for the pub to serve up food, we caught the Captain up on the events of the last two sessions. The player had been away over the summer and he’d missed:

- his ship getting upgraded to a sort of Jump-2 (the fuel tanks)

- a seafari on Natoko

- the rescue of the Prospector

- the death of the one of the crew (the Marine Captain) in a random accident playing fussball dockside

- the hiring of not one but *two* replacement crew wanting to work passage

- the three days on the train

so not much! We had fun winding him up about being distracted by his (woeful) love life or just doing ‘captainy’ things...

Then as we still had a bit of time before the meal, I got them all to tell me what they remembered about the 3 day train journey out to Itzeny which we’d only role-played fairly briefly. i.e. I was inviting them to make stuff up. (See my FT note: http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/columns/nubiref/genius.html for why I was doing this and thought it might be fun). It turned out really well. I started with an emailed paragraph from the player who couldn’t make it and that seemed to inspire the others to really be creative. We had all sorts of things from a new crew member sneaking off to slake their gambling addiction in a card game several carriages down the train, to Gvoudzon finding and getting absorbed by a ton of magazines in a baggage van. (No! not those kind of magazines. Fashion. It was fashion he told us.). To the medic getting into a conversation with an elderly couple and doling out some advice on vitamins to the husband whose leg sores weren’t healing very well. More usefully for the game, the Captain met a pair of Productionary (i.e. the local church) folk who could tell him some ins and outs of howood lumbering which would stand them all in good stead. Even the taciturn player, playing a taciturn engineer, told us about the space romance he/she was reading for much of the trip.

This bit seemed to really engage the players and I was taken with their imagination. Especially put rather on the spot. I shall be interested in two things:

- can I fold back some of the above into the adventure (I mean aside from the howood advice obviously). I’ll give it a go and have some ideas.

- will the players recall the train trip in more detail than they might have done ordinarily next time we meet in

January?

(One of my reasons for doing this experiment is because of a two day train trip I experienced in Africa many years ago. I vividly recall some - not all - details of that trip all these decades later and I was hoping to capture something of that of for what I’ll bet most referees running TTA gloss over. We’ll see.)

Then onto the mining. One of my goals was to do better with NPCs and Baraatsa, out on his homestead, really came alive with an Irish accent - not to mention his monosyllabic teenage son and I-can’t-do-enough-for-you farmer’s wife. For once I managed to get the accent close enough [1] *and* keep it up - although it wandered off into northern Irish at one point - and managed to role-play much of his speech rather than report it which was fun. It should hopefully nicely contrast with his attitude when he sees the anolas next time! (Another gem of a moment was when he offered them each a polished carving from all the stuff he had lying around and I got the players to describe their gifts. I believe some will really have their PCs treasure these small items!)

Off they went to mine the howood and I had feared that this might be rather tedious and brief, but in fact they had a blast.... literally! That seemed to partly down to the animals I created for the scene.

There’s a wonderful (?) line in TTA (p.53 of the Mongoose book, p.52 of the classic version) that says “the forest is alive with animal life - roll on the animal encounter table once every three hours”. Fine. BUT WHAT ANIMAL ENCOUNTER TABLE??!?! There isn’t one. I’VE LOOKED. THREE TIMES. Ok, so maybe it means the Core Rulebook or maybe the animal supplement, but why not say ‘a’?! Anyway, I grabbed one from Supplement 11 for temperate woods and having only bothered to prepare the day before (what do I tell students about leaving it till the night before??), I couldn’t do much more than quickly name half of the 2d6 table, give them a line of description and chuck in the anolas. (Shhh! Don’t tell anyone but actually I fudged the rolls so the animals kind of started gentle, climaxed, and the incidents with the anolas and the carnivore/chaser happened at sensible times. Thanks to the die rolling and general liveliness of my animals this really brought the forest alive and made the anolas seem just another ‘random encounter’ which worked brilliantly.)

When I say ‘my’ animals though, I should credit the players. One I simply described as a kind of owl with a vole’s face, a vowl if you will. No more thought than that. But it wasn’t long before one (usually quiet!) player was demonstrating its call: Aaaa-Eeeee-OOOO of course! And telling us that naturally they were common, that’s because there’s a consonant supply of them. That halted proceedings for several minutes while we sploffled cider/guinness/whatever all over the pub. (of course the babies aren’t proper vowls but half formed Ys) Yes, it was a joke that kept on giving especially as their mating calls could be heard every sunset. As ever, the memories were being made of not so much anything published in the book, but with the fun we were having with it. Even something simple like a fungus they’d been told to avoid (with waving triffid like fronds) became a major detour every time they passed it. Yes, just five sessions in with newbies and I have *properly* paranoid players! (It was quite fun seeing *them* make up fears/problems and “so this is it, we’re going to die” moments which had never even occurred to me, or were even me trying to be nice and give them gifts as it were!)

Speaking of which, you should have seen them with the explosives. (Oh and who the heck thought it would be a good idea to have a key scene involve explosives skill which NONE, NOT ONE, of the PCs as given actually has?!?) (Fortunately we’d fixed that at a rather opportune moment with our new archaeologist working passage having Explosives 2). Electronic ignitions aTTAched to the fuses so they could retire to *really* safe distances, extra care, long waits when the mishap table was invoked. And good rolls all round. 20 trees in a couple of days - no problem.

The one snake eyes that was rolled was when the captain was searching for the path up the cliff to the trees. I decreed he couldn’t find it at all (hidden perhaps behind a deceptive bit of rock or whatever). So when one of the PCs looked at their skills and with Athletics and Strength decided to climb the cliff, and seriously risked life and limb making the climb, you should have seen both the player’s face and the PCs face when s/he gets to the top and gives the captain a right verbal kicking as the path is so ‘obvious’! (There was also a priceless expression on the player’s face when, having roped up and 10m into the climb, she asks what the rope is for exactly (they have no pitons or anything). “Well if you get stuck we can pull you back down,” comes the straight-faced reply.)

The carnivore attack (a pooma they’d seen take down a plainsbeast when passing a herd on the train) went well except as it sliced open a PC with its claws I realized that I had NO plan for how they’d defeat it given they had no weapons. However, the players came to the rescue by one of them (the 7ft tall ex-military guy played by one of our mild-mannered lady cataloguers!) not only started making a lot of noise but waving as well. I immediately thought to link the waving to the waving fronds of the fungus which I’d made a bit of a thing about (maybe it was the alcohol) and which, I reasoned, the pooma might have previously encountered and not want a second experience with. Phew!

Much to my relief (although there was a Plan B) the players took to the anolas as much as the anolas took to them. Although by the end of the session - just about arriving back at Baraatsa’s homestead - they were beginning to have suspicions. We’ll see next time... it will be a long wait till January.

Oh here’s a question for those more experienced than I.

Run it as described and have one of the PCs locked up and the rescue etc as written?

Or run it as described but have the PC that is now an NPC (because the player got a new job and can’t come anymore) locked up so that in fact no rescue is required? She’s just written out quite neatly.

I quite like the latter solution as ‘tidy’ and not rail-roading one of the PCs into being kidnapped (which I’ve done once before and vowed I’d never do again forgetting the detail of this scene). Or is missing out the whole rescue-from-Itzeny-church (WHICH STILL HAS NO DRATTED STAIRS...) too much like missing out on the best bit of the chapter? I’m really torn although I have till January to decide.

Anyway, for those who have doubts (and I can quite understand them), don’t dismiss TTA out of hand. There’s a lot of fun to be had and as I say, we had a blast...

And my thanks again to those TMLers who have offered advice thus far. Always much appreciated.

[1] My out of game explanation being that *of course* he doesn’t speak with an Irish accent yer eejits, but yer man speaks with the kind of accent that gives you feelings of warmth and hospitality and friendly neighbours that might not stop talking for half an evening given half a chance.

PS I STILL think the old simple world map of Pysadi is streets better than the new Mongoose style. And I have a university map librarian as a player to back me up... :-)