[tl;dr: question on trade in the preantepenultimate paragraph]

The other post was long enough, so I thought I'd save trade for another.

The other thing we introduced last week in The Traveller Adventure was
the trade rules.

For the 5 sessions and three Jumps previously, we've essentially
treated each world as a separate 'game' with me just saying that they
were at the next place.  Partly out of my experience with only
refereeing previously at conventions, partly because there's not much
choice in the early stages of TTA as it's written so it didn't matter
much, and partly because I wasn't familiar with the trade rules
(passengers, freight and cargo).

But the grognard was keen to have a bit more say and I was keen to
learn the rules, so I've spent the last couple of months getting to
grips with the MgT2 pages.  We now have a nice hybrid: MgT1
characters, combat; CT illustrations and maps (and plot); MgT2 trade!
I did have a go at the MgT1 Trade rules but the new ones seemed
simpler and made a bit more sense (and money).  I actually found
running a ship around the Aramis Trace on my own quite a satisfying
mini-game.

A couple of times through the rules and I really wanted a form to fill
in to help.  A few more times after that and I was tempted to try my
hand at an Excel spreadsheet to help out.  My players aren't really
interested in spending a lot of time fiddling with calculators and/or
a spreadsheet, so I was really looking for a way of giving them the
fun of the decisions and role playing around it, but taking away a lot
of the die rolling and calculations.

On the evening, we had a break between getting hijacked by the priests
and making the rescue, by spending a bit of time on dealing with the
passengers and freight/cargo their broker had found for them while
they were out in the boonies.

I prepared a sheet that had the passenger, freight rolls and what
speculative cargo was available - all pre-done.  All they needed to do
was pick what they wanted.  However, one player was keen to have a go
at the dice rolling and cracked through the passengers and freight
fairly quickly but began to see the problem by the time we were doing
cargo.  Although by that time there was enough info for the other
players to be 'discussing' destinations, passenger types vs revenues
and so on.  Meanwhile the Captain gave instructions from his Itzeny
Church 'prison' over the comm he'd secreted about his person.  So
everyone was involved, essentially in whatever way they wanted to be
as characters, so that worked well.

Before the session, I'd run through their previous three Jumps as
'examplars' the captain could sign off on.  They were very happy with
the money I had made for them.  (Not so much under my MgT1 trials).
So freight was never going to be an  option when the Cr symbols
started rolling in their eyes!

But although we didn't outstay our welcome on this section, they were
all of the opinion that next time I should let them loose with my
spreadsheet.  Which I'll do.   (It works very nicely except that I
can't make it select the 'extra' spec cargo based on Trade codes and a
die roll, so I have to manually input a 'y' on those cargoes which are
available, but after that it does all the work).  (I did learn several
functions that I'd never even heard of and was pretty pleased with
myself!)

But I'd be interested in knowing how others handle this?  Making it a
large part of an evening?  Fudging it to the point of non-existence?
Something in-between?

One of the reasons I'm sticking with the old March Harrier is because
it has less staterooms and therefore can't make money quite as easily
- it seems a bit too easy with the rules.  So I guess my next question
is: ideas for not making it *quite* that easy?!    (I already reckon
they should have a DM -1 in the 'other' section, for High passengers
at least, simply because with their demountable tanks they take 2
weeks to go Jump 2 etc!)  (On the other hand, when the attractive
archaeologist offered an evening's entertainment one night in Jump of
her pole dancing, I did feel that might negate the -1...)

(at which point pub staff had come to clear the food away and really
did wonder what was going on!)

The only time I've ever done actual cargo ops in a TravCon game was
with Dom running a different rule system (cargo 'points' or
something??) so I really have no idea how to do this in a fun way.
And it will be important for the game I'm planning on running at
TravCon in 6 weeks time.  So any thoughts appreciated.

tc

On 16 January 2017 at 12:44, Timothy Collinson
<xxxxxx@port.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 16 January 2017 at 09:40, Phil Pugliese (via tml list)
> <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>>  We've now had our 6th session down the pub after work (every
>>  other
>>  month) and this was the third on Pysadi.
>>
>> [much interesting info deleted]
>>
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>> only every OTHER MONTH?!?
>>
>> WOW!
>>
>> I've never heard of a regularly scheduled adventure with such a loooong interval 'tween sessions!
>>
>> How on earth did you keep the group together?
>
>
> Ah!  Yes.  Long story short:
> A few years back the Library I work in started a monthly book group
> (in the pub after work) which I've been a staunch member of ever since
> (and think I'm right in saying that I'm the only one who has read
> every one of the 80 odd books we've tackled.
>
> A year or so ago we switched to every other month for various reasons
> so when the idea came up to try a 'regular' game of Traveller the
> obvious thing - particularly given that 4 out of 6 players attend the
> book group - was to put it into the 'inbetween' months of book group.
>
> I'd like to have played a bit more regularly, say monthly, but the
> new-to-gaming-entirely 5 out of 6 players weren't keen back then to
> commit to more.
>
> So essentially it keeps together because it's mostly a monthly book
> group (we now just *play* the book rather than read it) that has been
> meeting for years + an academic I happened to bump into on the stairs
> at just the right time rather bizarrely + one TravCon grognard who
> happens to live near enough to drive round and join us.
>
>
>>
>> Anyway, as far as the rest of your post goes;
>> OK, so you were less than perfect.
>
> I keep telling Jeff that every time he wants to drop the 'newbie'
> status of my confessions...!  :-)
>
>> It still stacks up as a pretty damn good adventure.
>
> We did seem to have fun, I find it very hard to judge from my seat and
> could also point to Gvoudzon not having quite enough to do this
> session (but he starred in the first couple of parts so hopefully
> everyone gets a turn), but I'm learning.  (I should mention Johnn Four
> and his excellent Role Playing Tips as a helpful teacher here:
> https://roleplayingtips.com/)
>
>> Heck, it has to have been or you would've been losing your players.
>
> Sadly we did lose one to a shift change which altered her working
> patterns.  But she still stays on the mailing list and keeps an eye on
> her character from far.  We toyed with the idea of having Egon
> volunteer to be left behind on Pysadi in the captain's place, but
> decided that wouldn't be as much fun to game out, even if it was
> 'neat'.
>
>> With such a long interval they have lots of opportunity to decide to bail if they wanted to.
>
> That is a good point.  Although one snag with TTA is that it's quite
> complex in its long-term plot and no one (almost including me)
> remembers the details of ships, and agents, and characters that
> they're hearing about - especially as they're not seeing the import
> of, say, the crash of the ship back on Aramis or the itinerary in
> wotsit's pocket etc.
>
> So to that end, while we wait for our food to arrive (and the lecturer
> coming hotfoot from a lecture), I usually give a recap which everyone
> can join in on remembering bits I (sometimes deliberately) leave out,
> and which includes non-essential bits but also includes the main plot
> points.
>
> Given that the story has been in the public domain [1] since, what,
> 1981 and I know that one of my colleagues has bought Aramis: The
> Traveller Adventure along with a bunch of other things to prepare
> herself for TravCon, I can't guarantee that no one either has read the
> story or is keeping abreast of it.  But so far, especially from
> herself and the grognard who I watch carefully in this respect, no one
> has shown any sign of being familiar with it.   (Though it didn't take
> the grognard long to twig that it was unlikely the priests were just
> going to let them go and that the rescue was likely to the be the
> climax of the evening. [2])
>
> tc
>
>
> [1] I don't mean that in it's strictest sense.
>
> [2] Given that he's played _Into the Unknown_ three times without
> spoiling the secrets on either of the two latter occasions, I don't
> have much fear he'd try to spoil things even if had read the adventure
> - which he claims not to have done and I believe him.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Wish I could get in on the fun...
>
> I wish we could have you.  We could use one or two more that were
> better at the role playing side (two are great, two are ok and
> learning, two struggle), not to mention perhaps one more with some
> knowledge of Traveller!  But they're learning.  And three of them want
> more sufficiently to play at lunchtimes every other week.
>
> tc