Alternate Random Encounter Tables for Traveller

Somebody's about to have a Random Encounter.

The Traveller Book makes it plain that Referees can and should create their own custom encounter tables for their game. These custom tables will reflect the specific situations on the planets the Travellers visit. 

From the Encounters chapter:

"The list provided is only an example, and other lists may be generated for specific adventures or situations. For example, if the adventuring group is on a world embroiled in a civil war, the random encounter list might be full of troops, refugees, guerrillas, war profiteers, petty warlords, and members of various factions."

"Reactions are an important part of random encounters. Once the encounter occurs, the referee should consult the reaction table to determine the specific response to the encounter by the other side."

Here are two that I've done, to get you started. While still 'generic', they have elements distinct enough from the baseline table to keep your players guessing. 

Urban Encounter Table, sample:

31	Drunks (roll for SOC)	-	1D
32	Noble with retinue	L, G	2D
33	Street food vendor	-	1-2
34	Tourists	+1 TL	3D
35	Street gear vendor	-	1D
36	Police Patrol	GA	2D
41	Fugitives	G	2D
42	Fugitives	L	3D
43	Criminals fleeing pursuit	L, G	1D
44	Vigilantes	L, G	2D
45	Muggers	G	1D
46	Purveyor of Vices	L, G	1D

Another Benefit of playing a Noble PC

I realize that I have overlooked something about what it means to play a Noble PC in Traveller. Having high status confers more benefits than just money.

Elites Know People. They go to the same schools, they belong to the same clubs and Orders of Knighthood. They go on vacation to the same places. They Know Each Other. Think about how many European royalty used to be in fact related to one another back in the day. They met at diplomatic functions and at exclusive resort spots. 

I work in higher education. It is common knowledge that the quality of education is not necessarily better at an Ivy League school. What the Ivys offer is connections. Mention that you went to Harvard and all kinds of doors will open that would not otherwise. This confers advantages that people will pay top dollar to acquire.

I translate that into contacts for Traveller Nobles. Whenever a PC Noble arrives on a new planet, they can check if there's anyone that they know on planet. Such people might lend direct aid. Contacts can provide information to assist the PCs in their endeavors. Starports will have records of off-world visitors. A simple Admin throw (6+) will get the PC access to the records.

When the player announces that his PC is looking for Contacts, the player gets a number of throws equal to SOC-10. For each success there is one Noble Contact on the planet.

As you walk into the Starport Lounge, you recognize this man from that time with the Thing and the Guy in the Place. Good Times.

Set the Heads'l! It's the Sailors Career

This time out we are looking at the Sailor career from COTI. 

Sailors: Members of the Nautical Force Command (the wet navy) of a world.

Naval Force Command is informally called the Wet Navy, to distinguish them from their space-faring counterparts. The descriptive text gives us nothing else about the service.

Any world with a Hydrographic rating above 1 could have a Wet Navy, and above Hydro-5 is likely to do so. Worlds technology levels at or below contra-gravity would still make use of sailing vessels. The conventional wisdom is that a new settlement will go next to a body of water. Transport of people and especially goods by water is an order-of-magnitude less expensive than by road, rail or air. even in the Far Future, sailing the ocean blue will be a thing. And we all know that sailing the seas can lead to Adventure.

Career Figures

Enlistment throw is 6+ with DMs for END and STR. Not a difficult career to get into. Survival is 5+ like the Flyers, with an END DM. Not too dangerous, but more risky than Doctors.

Getting a Position/Commission is also 5+ with a DM for INT 9+. Promotion is at 6+ with a DM for EDU 8+. These numbers are not high.

First observation: of 40 pregen characters, there is only one Admiral (rank 6) and three Captains (rank 5). Odd. 22 of the list are unrated ordinary seamen, including several with four or five terms.

Time and Traveller

No, this post is not about time-travel.

Time is a scarce resource.

The passage of time matters, as it affects all of the above in-game mechanics and more. The setting of Traveller, whether OTU or homemade (like my Church and Empire setting), is in motion. Things happen, polities and VIPs are making and executing plans. The PCs exist within and as part of that setting. The setting exists for the players, not the PCs. Even after the players achieve High Level Play the setting is still independent of the PCs.

Keeping track of time creates urgency, and encourages planning. Time spent is always a trade-off. If you’re doing this, you can’t do that.

The more I read from other bloggers about the importance of time in TTRPGs, the more I am persuaded that it’s an important aspect that I have neglected.

Time=Money

Update for the Table Group

 I received a request for the status of all PCs that are/have been in play at the table. 

To the best of my record-keeping knowledge, this is all correct. Week 24 of year 929 of the Space Age began on August 9th. I continue in my quest to keep the game clock running. 

Player                      Character                  Location              Week, Year

Drew	Logan	Holtzmann	9 929
	Gen. Chen	Holtzmann	9 929
	Chuck	Dekalb	18 929
Aidan	vonStolberg	Holtzmann	9 929
	Rudolph	Dekalb	18 929
Genevieve	Boss	Holtzmann	9 929
	Vicky	Holtzmann	9 929
Katherine	Demo	Holtzmann	9 929
	Sharkey	Holtzmann	9 929
Caleb	Cal	Holtzmann	9 929
	Victor	Worosha	18 929
Sam	Nathaniel	Holtzmann	9 929
Michael M.	Count Murietta	Schamel	23 929
Joel	Mac	Holtzmann	9 929
	Trevor	Dekalb	18 929
Zach	George	Worosha	18 929
David M.	Turpov	Schamel	23 929
Gabi	Dr. Vivian	Holtzmann	09 929
Marius	Carter	Holtzmann	27 928

I strongly recommend that this Friday we pick up some of the PCs on Holtzmann back in week 9, so that they can begin to catch up. The Schamel Affair (which I will post about one of these days) went from week 16 to week 22. Your PCs who have yet to catch up to week 16 will learn about those events as the calendar indicates. Remember that in space, news travels at the speed of Jump.  Imperial news moves at Jump-4, most Corridor powers move at Jump-2 or 3. 

This is complicated, but not as bad as it may seem. The game calendar will keep moving. Players can run multiple characters provided that they don't interact with each other out of time order. Players cannot impart to characters in the past information their other characters further in the future already know. The two PCs must be at the same week in time, and the same planet in space at minimum to share intel. 

Establishing a New Colony - First Steps

How hard is it to set up a starport for your new settlement?

In my post about taking off and landing, I suggest that starships & pilots are used to landing at starports, with radio & radar guidance to ensure a safe landing. Starting a new colony on a new world, or just away from the existing port, landing can get tricky. It is still necessary to grow the new settlement. What else is there to do but build your own spaceport?

But what does that involve? As it turns out, not much, at least initially.

From Supplement 11, Library Data N-Z

[Starport type] “E,[is] (the worst, little more than a spot of cleared ground.)”

And we can put the fuel tanks right over there . . .

From the Traveller Wiki

In the short form of the Universal World Profile, ports are assigned a classification grade (A to E, and X) to the port facilities available in the system. This grade assigned to the port encompasses the services available in the port.

Class E: Frontier installation. Essentially a bare spot of bedrock with no fuel, facilities, or bases present.

From the unofficial supplement (MK-002) Starports! Credit to Rob Eaglestone, et al.

E. Frontier starport. With no facilities, the installation is little more than a flat expanse of bedrock and a sign. This designation effectively means there is no starport, but there have been previous landings and that location is indicated in records.

Each starport is characterized by a few basic elements: the Beacon, the Landing Pad, and the Traffic Control Facility. 

 

At the Class-E level, the beacon may be no more than a Continental Range communicator, perched on the roof of a shelter. The Equipment list in TTB includes communicators that operate out to Continental range of 5,000km. This range extends into Earth's exosphere. That is far enough to serve as a landing beacon. Traffic control is the job of whoever is manning the radio. A ship landing at a class E port will have the skies to itself; traffic volume will be very low.

 

The question of why your PCs want to set up their own starport is a topic for a post of its own. The actual cost in time, labor and equipment to set up a rudimentary port may be within the reach of most Travellers. Keeping it after it is built might be much harder. 

 

Have you ever seen this happen in play?  Tell about it in the comments.  

Abstract Combat with Book 4

My older son wanted to try his hand at running a mercenary unit. He's got a six month contract on Faldor, defending a town as unrest and civil war swirls around them. He's got about a platoon worth of troops and light vehicles.

His PC is the owner of the PMC “Wolfpack Security Corp.”, while an NPC is the field commander. His patron is the King of Pampati. A contingent of Pampatian Gath emigrated to Faldor to find work. The King is concerned about anti-Gath prejudice among the competing factions. Gath are genetically modified humans, standing 2.7 to 3.3 meters tall. Sounds like they could take care of themselves, but they moved there to work, not fight. Wrong place at the wrong time, you might say.

I've run most of his time so far as a set of random encounters as detailed in the Encounters chapter of TTB. A mix of hostiles and friendlies, government and rebels. A week or so back, a scout group from another PMC came snooping around their town. They exchanged shots before the scouts broke contact and retreated. They took one prisoner, who identified the group.

The People's Popular Development Front (PPDF) worked for the government, bolstering its forces. Then the PPDF leadership decided to renege on the contract. They saw an opportunity to establish themselves as a local power.

Last night we played out the next encounter with the PPDF. Three squads rolled into town to do “recon-in-force”.

We've been working from a sketch map of the town,

and I drew up a second hex map. The battle map noted important features like the HQ building and town gates. We both laid out counters for our units. My son's PMC is divided into about a dozen teams and squads. We did not worry about scale of the hexes, or length of turns. This is abstract, to resolve the battle quickly but without 'GM fiat'.

I added on a few simple rules to the abstract battle system in Book 4. Each turn both sides roll 1D and add the leader's Tactics skill. This is the number of counters that can move on a given turn. Each unit that moves can go one hex in any direction. This became an important factor for one side, later on. Neither side had Leadership skill on the board, but a Leader can make a throw to move a unit 2 hexes instead of one. (We'll see another time if that rule works well or not)

In the Avalon Hill game Antietam (part of the Blue & Gray series) the Union side can move only 6 of its 40+ counters per turn. This reflects McClellan's dithering during the actual battle. The movement throw added a variable to the game. It reflects the difficulties of command & control over a spread out force.

By the Numbers

More on Skills: Administration

Let's look at Admin skill . . .

Administration: The individual has had experience with bureaucratic agencies, and understands the requirements of dealing with them and managing them. When contact with officials is required, understanding their needs and motives will assist in dealing with them. A basic throw of 7+ will successfully resolve normal interaction without further problems (such as avoidance of police harassment, insuring prompt issuance of licenses, approval of applications, avoidance of close inspection of papers, etc.). Apply these DMs: no expertise, -3; per level of admin expertise, + 2.

When serving in a bureaucratic organization, admin expertise allows competency in the eyes of superiors. Apply a DM of +1 per level of expertise, with the exact throw to be determined by the referee under the circumstances.

Referee: Admin expertise should also affect the quality of work and potential for success of an organization which the character is controlling or managing. (emphasis added)

 

One of these people has Admin-5. Can you guess which one?

The Big CT Skill list and Book 1 Characters

One of the popular features of the “Advanced Character Generation” systems in books 4-7 was the introduction of new skills. Along with this came the controversy over ‘skill bloat’, which I have addressed elsewhere. I have nothing more to add here; I’m interested in the skills as skills.

Not all of these advanced skills are equally useful, but many of them are clearly beneficial. I got to thinking about how to work them back into Book 1 character creation. I have two ideas to present. Both result in the players having access to a wider array of potential skills, without the skill bloat.

The first is to derive the 'advanced book' skills with the skill set from Book 1, then allow players to choose: if you roll Skill X, you can take it, or substitute one of the derived skills attached to it.If you're not familiar with what a skill does, the Traveller Wiki is a good resource to explain. (Find the link under "Check out Other Traveller Sites" in the sidebar)

The second is compiling an 'alternate' Service Skills table – or a Table 5, whichever you prefer – for each of the original six services.

It would not be wise, I think, to throw open the gates and let a character in any service take any skill from the full list. That would invalidate the concept of services being distinct organizations doing specific things.

Just Get us On the Ground - rules for landing your ship

 "Just get us on the ground." - frustrated starship captain

"That part will happen pretty definitely." - his stressed-out pilot

When the PCs arrive in a new system, do they always head for the starport? Why not put down somewhere else instead? There's all kinds of reasons to do this. The barrier between the ship and the land is of course, the atmosphere. 

 

Any time a ship wants to put down on the surface of a planet, the pilot must make the following throw:  

To land a ship: Throw UPP Atmosphere code or better. DM +Pilot Skill, + starport DM, -1 per unrepaired hull hit, +2 if small craft, +1 if the pilot is a Scout, -2 if in combat, -1 for bad weather. 

Starport DM: Class A +6, Class B +4, Class C +2, Class D/E +0, Class X -4 

Landing a ship away from the starport uses the DM for Class X (no port) 

 

Going in reverse, taking off, the planet's gravity is the major barrier.  

 

To take off from a planet surface: Throw the UPP Size code or greater. DM +Pilot skill, +ship's M-drive rating, -1 per unrepaired hull hit.

 

Familiarity: a pilot must land on a planet [5-pilot skill] times to become familiar with that planet's landing profile. After that, the pilot gains an extra +2 DM.

 

Unstreamlined ships always suffer a DM of -4. They're not supposed to be operating in atmosphere to begin with.

 

Failing the throw does not mean the ship automatically crashes. If the throw is not made, then the referee rolls once on the starship or small craft damage table. The referee can allow the pilot's player to 'bump' the roll by the Pilot's skill level. In effect the pilot chooses to spare one component and sacrifice another.

 

The referee can use the CT tables, or the tables presented in the article “New Space Combat System”. It appeared in Space Gamer issue #40 on pages 6-8. 

 

Hull hits, by the rules, result in explosive decompression. This compromises the ship's vacuum integrity. There is less danger while the ship is in atmosphere. Yet, on some worlds, the concern is that an unpleasant atmosphere will get in! Landing on a world with a high Atmosphere codes is risky.

 

Damage repair costs 2Dx10% of the new cost of the component. This leads to adventures as the PCs try to raise the cash to fix the ship.

 

Starship crashes will happen as often as airplane crashes occur on Earth. Planets with tougher landing conditions will have more of them, but no planet will be free of crashes.

Advice from the early years of role-playing

Traveller Procedures: a wealth of advice from The Traveller Book

TTB has been my rules edition of record ever since I got it about ten years ago. I have played Traveller since the early 1980’s, so I am pretty familiar with the rules. Recently I realized that I’d not given much attention to the beginning of TTB, the Introduction. There’s more content in those pages than I long suspected.

The Introduction chapter of TTB presents the basic facts about what Traveller is, and how to play. Lots of RPG books have a section on “how to role-play”. TTB provides several pages of How to Traveller –aimed at the Referee. TTB also gives a view of role-playing from the early years of the hobby. 

The essay Procedures offers advice to the new Referee on the meta-elements of running Traveller. This essay appears only in TTB; neither the '77 or '81 LBB1 has it, and Starter Traveller has selections from the Introduction chapter, but not this section.

"The basic rules deal only with the major aspects of the way the universe works, allowing the referee to fashion details to suit individual preferences." Traveller is not a one-size-fits-all approach to science fiction gaming. It is presented as a framework, around which the Referee (and players) customize the universe in which they will have adventures!

"Referees can adjust the complexities of their universes to their own and their players' abilities, gradually moving upward in complexity as more expertise with the various systems is gained. Playing Traveller can be a challenge to all ages, all intellects, and all levels of role-playing experience." It's true! My sons began play while in the early double-digits, and as they grew and learned, we added more complexity as they explored the TU I've built.

“viewing the players / . .  as “the enemy” . . .  spoils the entertainment value of Traveller.” The Referee is there to provide challenges and structure, not to defeat the other players. “A referee’s fun in Traveller is different from a player’s fun.” I enjoy it when the players surprise me with their creative (or insane) solutions to the challenges I set for them.

O Give Me a Home - Acquiring land in Traveller

I was wondering recently. What does it cost in Traveller to own land? The concept is not addressed in The Traveller Book. The underlying assumption of PCs forever on the move explains this absence. When the Third Imperium came along, the galaxy gained a social structure, and introduced the possibility of PCs owning land.

Land ownership can integrate with the concept of Traveller. It means that the wandering PCs are not aimless. They have a place to return to. Everyone is from somewhere. For most folk, where someone comes from is a major factor in their identity and sense of self. Where do I belong? is not a frivolous question. 

I've mentioned before in Character Experience and Development that PCs might gain land as a reward. If the PCs do some thrilling heroics and save the town/city/planet, that piece of prime real estate makes sense. You've endeared yourself to the local populace. They want you to feel that you're a part of them now, by owning part of where they live.

Welcome home!

 

Once the homestead is official, if the PCs get involved with that, the property should start paying for itself. Land is a resource for making money. Grow food, extract resources and then sell it, or rent it out to someone who does those things. Or rent it out as living space. Referees can make adventures out of any of these options. 

Follow me, men! More on Skills - Leadership

The skill as described in Classic Traveller:

“The individual has led troops in battle or on adventures and is possessed of a knowledge and self assurance which will make for a capable emergent or appointed leader.”

Like this guy here: 

Leadership is a specifically military skill, then. I had long assumed that Leadership was good for any instance of a PC directing NPCs. There's nothing wrong with playing it that way, but that's not what the skill description indicates.

“Leadership is a required ability to control a group of more than six no player hirelings or soldiers. Such a group will tend to obey the general orders of the character with the highest leader expertise. Reaction throws are necessary when the leader and the group first meet. DMs may be applied: +1 per level of leader expertise when consulting the reaction table.

Leader-3 or better is sufficient to allow soldiers to obey orders without hesitation. Leader-4 or better will allow a positive DM when recruiting soldiers or hirelings for adventures. The throws and DMs for such hirelings depend on the situation imposed by the referee.”  This is the only direct reference to hirelings I could find in CT.

My first Traveller campaign - a look back

I have often on this blog written about my Traveller adventures with my sons. But my first attempt at Traveller, as an adult anyway, with me as the Referee, was with my wife, Angela. It seems appropriate to write about this, because my wife died in May of this year, four months ago today. This is the reason for my long absence from the blog. With my return, I want to remember my wife and her impact on my gaming life in particular. This blog is not the place to discuss the fullness of my marriage.

In the first year we were married we moved from North Carolina to Pennsylvania as I took a job at a school there. We knew nobody, and had been married less than a year. What to do?  Play Traveller, of course. 

Angela was fond of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Ann McCaffrey, so she asked if her game could take place on a world like that. I've said before that you can model just about anything with Traveller, so I said sure, let's have a world with starships and dragons. I selected Bellesile from my TU, and set about designing the world and figuring out how humans and dragons exist together. I kept all the notes from that project in a folder through all the subsequent moves.

She named her character Alina Madrig, and chose the Noble career after getting a good SOC score. This is her hand-written character sheet:

Alina also possessed Animal Telepathy - she could talk to the dragons! Beyond rolling dice, she took a character building guide I found online and wrote out a pretty thorough description of who Alina was, where she was from and whom she knew. I used that to build a list of major NPCs that her character could interact with. She may have had the most complete backstory of any Traveller character I've ever dealt with.

Another perspective on Not Using Experience Points in Traveller

 A perspective on Leveling ad Experience from the Tao of D&D

Over the decades, many folks within the RPG hobby have observed critically that Traveller is lacking for having no XP or advancement. This presumes that level-based games are the standard, and Traveller is the exception. No, it is another paradigm that has held up just as well. Traveller is only 3 years younger than D&D, and has survived and flourished along side it for four decades.

This criticism lacks force for two reasons. First of all, it does have Experience rules. Second of all, Traveller is not dependent upon Leveling up for rewarding game-play.

I quote here from the post referenced above although his main point is about something else. It is a good argument against D&D having levels. It also works as a defense of Traveller for not using a leveling system. This was also the first time I'd heard a fan of that game questioning the importance of the leveling system. Maybe there are others, I just haven't encountered them.

Begin quote, emphasis added:

This is my problem with circumventing rules about distribution or reward for the sake of 'fun' or ensuring that player entitlement to rise up a level every two or three sessions is ensured. It isn't a reward any more. It isn't even a measure of relative game play. After all, what if the characters never went up? What if the level was perpetually 5th, without any experience whatsoever? Would it mean there were no goals to fulfill? No achievements? No threat from battle? No reason to play?

Or is it possible, just possible, that we could all agree not to care about levels? Suppose the game simply had no sense of improvement, the players just acted upon their agency or in the stories the DM fabricated. . . would it be any less of a game?
. . .
Play as a 5th level forever or as a 15th level forever, the sense of overcoming obstacles, solving problems and achieving triumph would be the same, would it not?

What is it that makes the level matter?

Forget Adventuring, Become a Broker!

 In the article High Finance by Terry McInnes from JTAS #13 

"After a character has reached his late 50's or early 60s - an age when rough and tumble adventuring loses its appeal, he may wish to . . . settle into the brokerage business. Cargo brokers help ship captains get increased prices for their goods and charge a percentage of the final price for their services. Brokers also arrange the sale of goods by planetside farmers and manufacturers to ship captains who invest in these cargoes for resale to another world."

Cargo Brokering. Wow. You can make an absurd amount of money with this little technique, all without the wear and tear of adventuring. I ran the numbers, keep reading and you'll see.

So you're sure this cargo isn't illegal on this world, right? Ohhh-kay.

The general process is this: the Referee determines the number of captains per week who may want to contract with the broker. This is presented in the article as always being a non-zero number. Perhaps this should be modified by the starport rating of the world the PC works from.

Putting more High Tech into Traveller

Fantastic Technology for Traveller? Why Not?

It has been observed over the years that the Classic Traveller Technology seems dated. Like stuck in the 1970's dated. We all know about the computers. Someone I know recently compared the CT equipment section to a 1970's hardware store.

Well what should be done about this? Simple: Add More! Add in anything you like. If you see it in another sci-fi property, put it in.

Really? Won't that wreck the game, or make it silly or something? With very few exceptions, no it won't 'ruin' Traveller. I say the opposite – that it will make Traveller even better.

What Kills Travellers?

“I've treated bullet holes, knife wounds, laser burns . . .” - a frustrated ship's Medic to his Captain.

“Some of our jobs are more interesting than others,” - the Captain.

The Universe of Traveller is full of danger. The mini-game that is character generation (rather than character creation) emphasizes the fact that a Traveller universe can be deadly. But what particular things are likely to kill a Traveller?

 

Simple answer: bullets. Most fights in Traveller are gun fights, and it takes only 2-3 bullets to end a Traveller. So avoid those. But how, you ask?

I considered this question after reading Rick Stump's blog post on Low Level Encounters in D&D. In that game, PCs at lower levels are fragile and not powerful. They tend to die a lot. Traveller PCs are not “first level”, but their experience does not make them more resistant to damage, unlike D&D. TTB has no guidance at all about how difficult any type of encounter may be. The Referee can put any obstacle in the PCs' way.

Rick identified four factors that the Referee must keep in mind to avoid creating Killer Encounters resulting in a TPK. I have nowhere near Rick's amount of experience as a Referee, so I take his ideas as a guide. Looking at the rules, these four things are what players, rather than Referees, should watch out for.

Four Things

Unskilled Weapon Users

Can you find the Unskilled fighter in this group?

I read recently a post on anther blog about the differences in fighting capability in classic D&D. A 'normal man' has less damage resistance. His to-hit numbers are higher than the PC's, and his saving throw numbers are higher as well. The post made the case for the clear superiority of the dungeon-delving adventurer. Can the same be said for Travellers?

Well, yes!

I refer to TTB, page 37.

“Any character using a weapon in which he or she has no training is subject to a penalty of -5 when attacking and +3 when defending. All player characters automatically have an expertise of zero . . . in all weapons shown in this book. [I call this the Weapon Mastery advantage] This zero value is sufficient to avoid the no-expertise penalty, but it is not enough to provide a positive DM. Payer characters selecting their weapons should consider the potential benefits of their strength and dexterity levels and any DMs that might be available for those characteristics.”

The PC's Weapon Mastery advantage means a PC will never get caught at a loss owing to unfamiliar weapons. Any PC can take on ANY opponent on reasonably equal ground. A knife fight in an alley to a formal duel in the Duke's courtyard with laser pistols to open field battle. How many of us could say that?

Speaking of Weapon Master, here's one example of what it looks like. Note the way Shiu Lien's attacks change as she goes through a variety of weapons.

She uses:

• a sword, including dual-wielding
• a spear
• sword-breaker hooked swords
• a huge pole-arm (and an example of not meeting the Required Strength)
• a massive bronze cudgel
• a broadsword

all without breaking stride. That's Weapon Mastery.

It makes your two-term Other character seem a little more awesome, doesn't it? Fighting in a training hall, your PC could do the same.

A Useful Table - Random Values for Things

Recently I had two PCs who were exploring the hinterlands of an island on Tifur. This island was inhabited by large reptilian creatures - dinosaurs. They came upon one such hostile beast, about the size of a bull elephant – 14,000 kg.

Oh lucky you. You encountered a T-Rex.

Sounds like Frightening Animal Encounter time, right?

Wrong.

Their ATV had an Auto-Rifle in a mount on top. The dino appeared at long range, and even at speed 3 it took it three rounds to close in on the PCs. By then the Auto-Rifle had filled it full of lead. [Auto-Rifle vs. Jack armor is +6 to hit; in effect, an auto-hit. And two throws to hit each combat round.]

So now the PCs have this dead dino. What to do with it? There's no way they could have butchered it and saved even a tenth of the dino meat. So they decided instead to skin it.

The PCs returned to the logging camp and the port town with 700 kg worth of dino hide. This presented me with another problem. How do I determine how much a dino skin is worth?