23.11.17   X.  Aramanx 1 (chapter: Wolf at the Door)

 

 Aramanx B657974-7 Hi Ga

 

arrival, looking for work, seeing Bannerji on newsfeed, going to planet, getting to Governor’s mansion, Vargr attack, PCs grab weapons and gear and Bannerji, head for (relative) safety

 

TTA X     23.11.18

 

tl;dr

- I still find it difficult to find the balance between “here are a bunch of options” and “this is the adventure, it would be kind of nice if I didn’t have to chuck it all out the window”
- there’s no getting away from the fact that having a local area map signals “we’re in the right place” despite my misdirection last time of having detailed mine plans (see _Two Days on Carsten_) which wasn’t where the actual adventure was - unfortunately the player who most observes this each time, missed that session last time!

- I still utterly fail to see the dramatic potential of certain things, in this case Bannerji’s colleague at the Mansion who is killed when the attack starts.  Although I did quite well, IMO, with Bannerji trapped under the beam I merely reported his colleague’s death rather than have the medic see she was ‘down’, attend to her and have *him* report on her death <sigh>   still a newbie!

Anyway, it’s a complex chapter but in the end a fun evening that I think the players took more of a hand in making their own fun than they have in the past which is great to see.

(If anyone wants to follow PC names/positions - you can now find proper write ups of them all in Two Days on Carsten.)

 

 

First up, aware (and ‘accused’ by one player between sessions) that our March Harrier crew is a bit *too* collegiate and nice to each other - as the players are in real life - I thought I would stir the pot a bit and gave each player a note before we ate.  The Captain’s said that there was about Cr100,000 in the kitty that could be spent on ship stuff.  It also said that the PC who has been working passage but has now done three Jumps and must quit or be employed, was at least worth a Cr2000 salary in terms of how much money her Admin skill had bought to ship’s finances, deals, record keeping etc.

 

The Pilot (an NPC) had a note about a really great deal on a voice interface with the ship which would improve piloting stuff and allow them distance control of the ship if necessary.  The special deal meant it was Cr99,000 (instead of the MCr1 of the core rules) - I justified this by it being sold by the ‘second in the market’ trying to cut into the margins of the leading purveyor.  Of course, I didn’t mention that there would at the very least be teething problems with the software if not on-going delights (think Genuine People Personalities from Douglas Adams).

 

The Engineer, who has had an ongoing problem with the life support system of Gvoudzon’s cabin (the aftermost crew cabin) making horrible noises etc, had good news and bad news.

The bad news was that the problem had spread to her cabin.

The good news was that that had given an idea for a possible solution - it would cost about Cr85,000.

The medic - who since he stepped into the game a couple of sessions ago has hankered after upgrading the Harrier’s facilities - had worked out that he could convert a stateroom into a proper med lab which would not only let them treat crew and passengers with greater facility, but also attract a higher class of passenger and their money and also even allow them to perhaps do humanitarian aid type clinics on backwoods worlds.  A mere snip at Cr75,000 for fitting out and another 5-10,000 for equipment/stores.

The gunner had some options on turret upgrades that would give the ship bonuses in combat.

The working passage archaeologist, with the Admin skill had a note saying her contribution to the ship’s ongoing running was worth at least Cr3500 per month.

The aim was, with the NPC pilot getting her oar in first suggesting spending the money on “her” upgrade, that there would be some discussion between the players about whose upgrade was more worthy and perhaps some dissent or at least role played ill-feeling/jealousy from those the Captain didn’t go with.

I thought this might work well and I think it might have done at a convention in a one-off scenario or with more experienced role-players.  But oddly, for some reason, after Kunal put her proposal and then the Engineer jumped in with her recommendation, neither the medic or the gunner chose to speak up at all about their wish lists.  I never really got to the bottom of why.  Kunal (an NPC remember) made an effort to argue her case when it was going the Engineer’s way but there wasn’t much point in me monopolizing any more of the game with this so I didn’t press it - plus I had failed to spot of course, the pilot was sharing the engineer’s cabin and was thus somewhat motivated to have the life support noises sorted out herself.

But it was interesting that of the four options, the crew/players chose the one that strictly was cosmetic where the other three made actual difference to game play and die rolls!

On the other hand, the salary negotiation between the archaeologist (whose player was actually considering walking if her character wasn’t taken on as crew - long story!) and the Captain, went really well and some fun was had there.

Also before the food arrived, I ran through a dozen highlights of the (three page!) chronology I’d given them a week before of what they’ve done in the last 9 sessions across 18 months.  They were very glad of that and it gave me a chance to have fresh in their memories that Eneri Giilaan had offered them money for any info on Bannerji - a bit crucial to the plot of Wolf at the Door.

Finally, and very swiftly, we covered the last two paragraphs of Two Days at Carsten where the three miners they saved from the flisters turn up with a gift a of half a ton of radioactives as a thank you (that’s actually quite a valuable gift at a MCr1 per ton) and Ashwin Chooder - who’s a bit enamoured of the archaeologist turns up wanting high passage to Aramanx and inviting Lily on a date.  Pleased though I was with the text I’d written, I hadn’t expected such “romantic” lines to be relatively uncomfortable being said to a work colleague!  I’m not sure the other players weren’t equally uncomfortable.  Perhaps your groups are different...  ;-)

So, food came, we ate, and then onto the session proper.

Arrival at Aramanx went smoothly.  I had decided a TL6 world with a B-class starport would be very dependent on imports and would have cramped, tight corridors and spaces and lots of ‘under maintenance’ signs while they waited for parts.  That was fine.  Not so fine was my attempt at various accents to represent the multitude of nations below the orbital station.  I knew this would be difficult and I should have written lines.  I can attempt an accent or two - very badly - and I can have NPCs speak in character - just - but I can’t do both at once.  Not enough processing capacity as a bear of little brain.  Never mind, the players could laugh at my disastrous American accent (and for two years+ I spoke with one many years ago!) and my German one morphing into Russian.  They got the idea.

And that was a problem along with having circulated beforehand the first 3 pages of the chapter as Library Data on Aramanx.  The only experienced Traveller player had looked at the balkanization, looked at the description and decided the whole place was like Bosnia at the height of the war.  I tried to downplay the actual level of conflict and that the whole world wasn’t like that and that Earth is balkanized and has conflict zones but it doesn’t stop people travelling etc.  But the player spent some time with the Captain looking at travellermap.com for their next destination and, although it was also in character as his reticent engineer Tess, was a strong voice in arguing for going no further than the orbital station.

 

As Gvoudzon’s player had got a better offer for the evening, our broker was being NPCd so I let Lily ‘accompany’ him and do the brokering.  She got a good price for the howood they’d been shipping from Pysadi (I felt I had to make the effort they’d gone to and ‘getting off the ship’ worthwhile), but not such a good deal on the fissionables - or “fish balls” as the 1/2 ton had become by then.

 

Tess, the engineer, having persuaded the Captain - and by extension the rest of the crew who seemed rather acquiescent - that they were going to sort out the life support noises once and for all (particularly as they weren’t finding any cargoes as per TTA text),  had ordered the gear which essentially came as a flat pack set and a bunch of instructions she was struggling to make sense of.  (Well, not only is Engineering (life support) her weakest skill but she failed a roll rather badly).  So they paid another Cr8500 to get a couple of locals to help with the installation and the Captain, pilot, medic and engineer set to with the work.  (I decreed it would be a week in port and a second week which could be done in Jump.)

 

Meanwhile, Lily (the archaeologist and brand new crew member upgraded from working passage) and Fred (the gunner who hasn’t a lot to do in the way of gunnery as yet so has entertained himself and the crew by learning to Steward), were planning for Lily’s date with Ashwin in a few days' time.  He’d invited her to a performance of Retian and Jueniare (see the MMT book _Missions of State_ I think it is) on their fourth day in port.  By this time she’s got the message that he has a bit of money and although he’s “craggy” rather than conventionally good looking and a fair bit older than she is, perhaps not the worst option around.  He’s certainly the perfect old school ‘gentleman’ and attentive.

She shops for gowns and shoes and so on helped with the delightful input of Fred the gunner.  She’s also decided to ask Gvoudzon to borrow his howood brooch to set off the outfit.  (Well, while the player’s away, the mice can play...)  (Though I did at least play him as being very apprehensive about letting it out of his sight and *only* for one night... etc).  (Which then in turn set up suspicions from Lily that Ashwin’s intention was to steal it...!)  In a slight mix up, Lily looking for a thong to put the brooch around her neck, had Fred looking for entirely the wrong sort of thong.  (And not what Aussies mean by it either).   (This is in character for Fred because we’ve long established that he was brought up with a - rather gorgeous - sister who went to on set up her own fashion business and had long ‘practised’ on her brother.  She also once went out with the Captain, but that’s another story.)

Anyway, we get to the theatre evening and the Captain decides he’s cultured enough to want to go too.  I gave him a small chance of ending up with a seat next to Lily and Ashwin and having to play gooseberry, but he didn’t.  Ashwin met Lily to take her with a rather exotic flower but none of the crew recognized just how costly it was under its beauty.  In fact Lily was just wandering if it was poisoned.  Between that and thinking that Ashwin might be out to steal the brooch, maybe I’m playing him too straight...

I used a reaction table (i.e. 2d6 roll) to give me an idea of not only how Lily felt the play went, but also Ashwin.  That set up a nice dynamic where she thought the the ‘new cast’ hadn’t yet settled into their roles and he thought it had gone really well.  Fred waited up to hear how the evening went...

The Captain meanwhile wanted to know who was sitting next to him.  You may recall from previous episodes that he’s a bit of a failed lothario.  I hadn’t even begun to prepare anything for this as the whole theatre trip was supposed to be off camera but it was all getting out of hand.  :-)    A couple in their 60s on one side came to me quickly but my brain just ran out of steam for who should be on the other side.  Clearly it had to be a woman for Loyd to chat up but I couldn’t face her just being young and pretty as always so I admitted defeat and said “right, this calls for a table”.  I flicked through the MgT1 core rules for the random trait table on p.76 (or character quirks on p.87 of MgT2) and rolling 1/2 announced that it was a woman just a few years younger than Loyd who seemed very nervous.  Constantly looking around and not settling on reading her program or looking at her comm or studying the faces in the boxed seats and so on.  The Captain did valiantly try to establish if she was ok and could he help, but the more he questioned her (thanks to a poor reaction role) the more she tried to ignore him and she left sharpish after the performance.  What amused me most about this was the experienced Traveller player totally convinced I had only pretended to look up anything up in the book.  He was convinced there was no such table as “who’s sitting next to you at the theatre” and that I was just blagging the whole thing.  I was tempted to keep the mystique and let him think that but in the end I passed in him the core book on the right page and I think I got new found admiration for the inspiration I’d taken from a table I vaguely remembered was in there although I thought it was for patrons or ship passengers.  Still, worth being at least a bit familiar with the rule books.

 

Next day, however, sitting in the staff room, I did think that maybe I need a special suite of tables for “Loyd’s Ladies” to generate age/looks/interest etc.  Fred’s player, one of our lady cataloguers in the library got really into this and helped produce an (apparently accurate) 2d6 cup size table amongst other things.  It’s the kind of thing I suppose might make a Freelance Traveller article although I’m not sure I dare!

 

Meanwhile the other crew were well into stripping down a couple of cabins to take the life support apart and repair it, so even the reticent engineer was ready for a break and they *finally* hit the WorldView bar.  I think they were pretty much looking for a fight by this point just for a change of pace but I finally got to run the news clip where they spot Bannerji.  Tess still not happy about even thinking about going down to the surface of the planet and none of the others seemed to be all that fussed about earning Giilaan’s coin so I probably ought to have run with my Plan B at that point, let it slide and offered them a cargo (some cheese and a bit of wine available at knockdown prices because the vineyard owner wants to sell up) the catch being they’d have to negotiate it and fetch it in person.  (And of course the seller was based near Tavanix - where else).  As I say, I should have done that, but in the general mayhem and fun of the evening where they knew full well they weren’t “getting on” with the adventure and were enjoying watching me tell them things like the shuttle flights were ridiculously cheap, Giilaan was offering good money, or whatever, we finally went ‘meta’ and everyone decided that *that* was where the adventure was, so that was where they were going.  Not sure there was much character justification going on.  Tess’ character sighed and gave up the protesting.  (I think good naturedly).    I feel I’ve failed as a referee when a) the difference between plot and ‘fun’ is quite so stark; b) I’ve clearly not sold them on motivation for getting involved enough; and c) we have to resort to such metagaming – even though it was all very good natured

 

My point of reciting all this is just to point out that by now of course we’re well over half way through the available time and haven’t really done anything that’s actually in the book.  On the upside it was nice to see the players taking more responsibility for their own fun, on the downside I *had* spent all my waking hours the day before reading/preparing for/thinking through the whole chapter.  And personally, I find it really hard to let go of that and just say, “Ok, if you want to Jump onwards to Nasemin...”

Anyway, they did go down the surface, they did travel out to Tavanix, they did get to the mansion (where I made sure I included in the description that the rooms were converted into offices and armouries and so on as only the archaeologist was carrying any weaponry) and we did meet Gvoudzon’s friend and get his story.  (Shame Gvoudzon was being NPCd, but there you are).  We just got to the attack and the rescue of Bannerji, tooling up and fleeing the mansion before we called it quits for the night.  So Part II next time.

 

(Best moment of this section was Tess, the engineer and the only PC with no gun combat skill, picking up an ACR and despite the -3 penalty for being unskilled managed to blow the snout off a vargr mercenary.  Fred was pretty pleased with finally getting to use his “Heavy Weapons” skill taking out a helicopter which was landing more mercs.  We barely ever do combat, but when we do at least I try and make it spectacular.  Though I can’t help feeling I think I should have had at least one PC winged by an incoming round rather than reading my dice as being near misses and bullets whistling past two of their heads.  Just for the drama...)

 

Funnily enough, the day before I’d had no idea whether we’d cover the whole chapter, not even get out of the orbital port or what, but IF you’d made me guess where we might finish - it would have been exactly there.  So maybe I am getting more experienced at knowing my players and/or how much real time game events might take.

I kicked myself afterwards that I hadn’t had the courage to revert to Plan B and, as I said at the top, I’d failed to see the drama in Bannerji’s colleague’s death.  I also regret not being able to deliver the news item in the WorldView bar and Kfouzorr’s story without reading the text from the book.  And I’m still not sure I should have given them the background to Aramanx as a Library Data handout.  But it would appear that everyone had a good time and from a conversation the following the day, the player who was feeling a bit unengaged previously and floating the idea of stopping playing, is planning on being there next time.

I hope this (length) is of interest to people.  Not necessarily for running TTA perhaps, but just in approaches to refereeing.