On 20/2/22 03:27, Timothy Collinson - timothy.collinson at port.ac.uk
(via tml list) wrote:
>
> *TTA XXXVIII*
>
> With some trepidation we approached the 38^th session of /The
> Traveller Adventure/.  I say ‘we’. I mean ‘I’.  I’m sure the players
> were as calm as ever.  But we’d not played for a couple of months
> thanks to Christmas and other busy-ness; the gap had left me even more
> doubtful and nervous about the enterprise; I was excited and maybe
> even sad that it could be our last session; I was concerned about
> making it a suitable climax after six years; I’m still not a master of
> all my notes of things and times past; and I thought one of the
> players was incommunicado and not playing.  I was wrong on the last
> but all the other worries and doubts were valid and just needed to be
> dealt with.  On the upside, I’d been taking enjoyment from reading
> some great Traveller publications arriving through the door and some
> inspiration from watching, well, listening really, to the Boys from
> the Baltic Star roleplaying Traveller on Twitch.
>
Perhaps this clown Collinson got better as a GM while he wasn't looking :)
>
> <snip>
>
> I waded through the whole first episode to get one company name I’d
> come up with mentioned right at the end!  Well, it whet my appetite at
> least.  The second session was a shopping trip.  But the third episode
> began to pay off as the players arrived at somewhere I’d invented and
> met a character I’d created.  I have to confess that I had a shiver go
> down my spine at the excitement and the sense of wonder the Referee
> generated.  Brilliant.  The fourth episode (the last at time of
> writing) then had the PCs back at the same location and encountering
> more of my NPC creations which was equally as fun for me once I got
> over the weirdness.  Anyway, this complete aside is by way of saying
> the mellifluous tones of Ben the Referee and his calmness and
> excellence had inspired me to do better.]
>
Active Traveller GM, published Traveller author - and you've found some
inspiration for more of (hopefully) both.  What's this bollocks about
you not knowing what you're doing?
>
> <snip>
>
> But, time to get started and once again it was Jane playing Fred
> Squeaker, Carl playing Captain Loyd Kitman, Jim playing Ghazan
> Davidson, Tess playing Tess Davies and myself trying, and failing, to
> play Gvoudzon, Lily, Adma, Kunal, Phlo, Sheelaa/Zena and
> Arrlanroughl.  Is it maybe time for some NPC exits?!  If you’ve
> forgotten who they all are, see previous reports.  We chatted for a
> bit, found out that our ‘lost’ player was fine after all and had
> responded to the invite to play but not in a channel I was using for
> that kind of communication, and gradually wound our way round to
> getting started after about 25 minutes.  I did a short recap – more
> scripted than usual, but possibly more coherent – and had the March
> Harrier arriving at Jesedipere a few days before the meeting they'd
> discovered Ashkashkur is holding with the Kforuzeng to exchange the
> meson guns and the payment.  I post the news I’ve come up with (some
> relevant, some colour) and a couple of adverts I’d thrown in just for
> fun.  And, of course, we immediately completely ignore the news item
> that I thought was both interesting, germane and was really pleased
> I’d come up with, to get lost in a rabbit hole about one of the
> adverts I’d spent two seconds on. <sigh>  It’s always the way.  At
> least I’m used to it now and don’t make a performance of tearing up my
> notes as I did once in the pub when the players chose to do their own
> thing entirely and ignore all the preparation I’d done!
>
Something something no plan survives contact with the players something
something
>
> I’d picked three things from /Central Supply Catalogue/, almost at
> random, for little adverts and one of them was for the sleep inducers
> (page 96).  If I’d thought any of my three items might actually be of
> use, this was bottom of the list. I was also offering three 2^nd hand
> hatchets (p.102) and a limited import of some starlight drops (p.85)
> which effectively give you the IR Vision Trait some animals have. [2] 
> So of course we spent 20 minutes or more, when Ghazan (or possibly
> Jim?) got excited about the sleep inducers, discussing whether you
> could use them to incapacitate a guard.  It had never occurred to me
> they might be used offensively like that so all credit to Jim for the
> thought.  Also, credit to all the players for /not /going for the
> immediate ‘tooling up’ options, but the more roleplay aspects. I like
> that.  So, after some consideration of how they work, how close they’d
> have to be, could two people sharing a bed share one device, could six
> guards laid out in a circle with their heads in the middle share
> one(?!?!) and that kind of thing, not to mention that sometimes the
> Traveller rulebooks just /aren’t/ detailed enough, I ruled that using
> one on yourself in bed would be a Routine task, using one under
> difficult circumstances (maybe lots of distraction, already in some
> pain or mental distress) might go up to Average, but ‘inflicting’ such
> a device on someone would be Difficult.  And that’s assuming you’ve
> incapacitated them in the first place so that they’re lying still for
> it.  It seemed reasonable.  I began wondering if it would ever come
> up.  After all that, the players didn’t actually buy anything… <sigh>
>
> [I should note that despite the <sighs> above, I’m very happy with
> this kind of thing, providing the players are happy with it and not
> frustrated that we’re not ‘getting on’.  Personally, I think in small
> quantities it’s half the fun.  It probably also explains why twelve
> chapters of /TTA/ have taken us six years and 38 sessions!]
>
Players cooking up uses for kit you never thought of?  That's called
"Tuesday".

Again, my view is probably a bit biased.

When myself, Herr Sweep and Eddles are really enjoying a given game and
bouncing off each other properly, I think we've only found two GMs who
can really keep up with our off-the-wall madcap.  One is my sister,
Ceilingrat - although _damn_ she was pissed (at herself, mainly) when I
short-circuited a decent chunk of a Shadowrun session by the simple
expedient of my technomancer, Bish, ringing one of his contacts -
Denver's chief of police (Eddles and Herr Sweep fell out of their
chairs, pissing themselves laughing).  The other GM, I went to school with.

Thus, from having pulled some of those stunts myself as a _player_, I
have had a bit more practice both coming up with, and rolling with, such
uses.  It does get easier with experience, and especially if you
encourage your players to keep doing so.

> <snip>
>
> We have a discussion about how loud the Launch is (for sneaking around
> – or more specifically sneaking up to the Tukera Landing Site).  Once
> again, the rules are hopeless on such basic questions! I decide that
> the launch is as old as the March Harrier and that a 2D roll should be
> made.  6-8 it hums along fairly averagely, 9+ it’s very quiet, <6 and
> it really rattles along – despite Tess’ best maintenance
> ministrations. A <5> is rolled.  While we’re at it we look up its
> cargo capacity and passenger numbers. Then we go through the same for
> the g-carrier.  Which, being a TL12 Tukera family thing, is very swish
> and quiet. Obviously.  No roll required.  Then we get into their
> respective speeds, and I whinge at the unhelpfulness of rules which
> have speeds for vehicles and thrust for ships so you can’t directly
> compare them.  Either the Launch in atmosphere or the g-carrier in
> space.  [Which leads us into the age-old debate about achieving orbits
> in vehicles and how ships with Thrust 1 do so on a 1G planet.]  We
> settle on the g-carrier as hours to orbit (like an air/raft) and the
> Launch, ten minutes [GURPS, which got mentioned briefly, and I looked
> up later, seems to say 35 minutes.]
>
Re orbits - don't most Trav small craft, and starships for that matter,
mount contragrav?  Thus their entire thrust can be used for accelerating
to orbital velocity.
>
> <snip>
>
> On the subject of security, at first the large shore party was going
> to split into two groups, but I said that it wouldn’t be unreasonable
> or unusual to go /en masse /in this particular town.  [On the
> volunteer (and mostly young people) ship I spent two years on, we’d
> visit most ports and be able to go ashore in pairs, some ports we
> would have to go in a group of half a dozen, but in one or two ports
> the ship leaders preferred much larger groups of say 20 where the
> local area was rather more risky.  I won’t name names.  Things have
> probably changed since the late 80s in any case.]
>
This is where direct GM experience can massively enrich things. In your
case, the port visits are a deep, rich vein to mine.

Going back to Ceilingrat for a mo, she spent a few years traipsing
around installing security systems - alarms, cameras, pressure switches,
glass breaks, card swipes, the works.  She, having to do repairs as well
as installs, also became rather familiar with the _failure modes_ of
such, and the magical thinking they cause.  Such as an enterprising
bunch of Murder Hobos (Bish sort of counted, as he simply spoofed
billing computers into marking rent, utilities, etc as paid, but never
even drew a gun or used black IC) inducing said failures, and staff
reactions to same.  I think once we got around such a system by hacking
the wetware - inducing enough false alarms that said system got turned off.

> <snip>
>
> The Captain is leading a conversation about some ghost sightings and
> also Zammy the comedian, both of which were mentioned in my random
> news items, to cover up a second conversation making plans.  Adma
> helps him out by remembering that he’s seen Zammy perform his
> impersonating the Marquis of Aramis schtick and can recognize his
> skills – he captures the voice and the look and obviously has a good
> costume, but he doesn’t really capture the arrogance and nobility. 
> Though he’s not sure the last word is really what Adma wants to use
> about the Marquis. The Captain is hoping to provoke some kind of
> reaction from others in the bar regarding this conversation but no
> one’s paying any attention.  Underneath all this a small plan is
> shaping up for Adma to visit the men’s room while Fred goes to refresh
> everyone’s glasses (and being a good Steward takes the empties back
> with him).  As Adma returns, Fred will clumsily stumble on his return
> to upset drinks at the table of the two men and one woman they’re
> watching.  Adma is to use the opportunity to slip a small bug into one
> of their pockets and a tracker in another while everyone makes a fuss
> of helping pick things up and Adma offering to buy them fresh drinks
> which Ghazan goes to fetch. We decide that actually Deception would be
> a better roll than Stealth at this point which is handy as Adma’s even
> better at that.  It all goes flawlessly as Fred trips over his own
> feet.  It would probably make a good scene in a farce but we then get
> lost in quite a rabbit hole of what the range of the bugs would be,
> how they work, even if the range is short, could they be monitored
> from orbit.  Tess chips in with her usual refrain about the inadequacy
> of Traveller rules on comms stuff like this and I can’t help but
> agree.  I have no idea really and we bow to Tess the player’s
> expertise on this as it’s her day job.  IIRC we agree they’re line of
> sight for, say, 10km and could be tracked from orbit (although that
> seems like a low orbit now I think about it).  Now one of the Tukera
> men has a bug in his pocket and the woman has a tracker.
>
Very low orbit - possibly even below the Armstrong line for the planet.
>
> While all this chaos has been going on, Kunal has been over to the
> drunkard’s table and is sitting with them.  [“Oh no”, comes a groan
> from the players as I describe this.  I presume they’re expecting a
> bar fight.  I was tempted, but time is pressing…]  Now, as things
> settle down, she’s noticed getting up from the table after her
> conversation and comes back to the March Harrier table.  The three
> finish their drinks very quickly and with a slight wobble in their
> step, exit the bar very quickly.
>
> “What /did/ you say to them,” Fred asks.
>
> “I just warned them what might happen to them in a dark street if they
> continued with that behaviour,” Kunal responds.  “And it turns out
> they didn’t want to find out what might happen to them in an alley of
> Joy Street if they continued that behaviour.”  Kunal seems to go up in
> everyone’s estimation.  “I may have squeezed something under the table
> before I left them to it.”  Clearly she’s not someone to mess with.
>
> With a seriously impressed tone of voice, “I thought that was more my
> department,” says Adma. “Have I been leading you astray?”
>
> Gvoudzon gives her a toothy grin.
>
Brilliant! GM-fiat block!

I'll have to go through the rest later.