D66 Reasons Why the Colony Failed

A few months back I asked a question of one of the Facebook Traveller groups that I read. I have a scenario in mind where the PCs are exploring an abandoned habitat. No specific setting, no specific arrangement. Just some kind of colony. The idea may have grown out of the tables in Stellagama's Pirates & Privateering source book, which lists abandoned space stations as a random encounter.

The question was: Why did the colony fail?  Much to my delight, the answers poured in. I have collected here the bulk of the answers (deduplicated for near identical answers) and arranged them in a D66 table. To roll D66, roll 1D for the 'tens' digit and a second 1D for the 'ones' digit.

 

Clearly something has gone dreadfully Wrong here.

If you have any ideas that don't appear on this list, share in the comments!

D66 Reasons why the Colony Failed

11 Pilgrimage site for some religion that was later deprecated as a forgery

12 Fast-acting or slow-acting contagion (bacterial/viral/fungal/parasitic)

13 Mining site, better yield found elsewhere and everyone moved.

14 Mining site, ore vein tapped out

15 Colony set-up was a scam. Shells of buildings only, no infrastructure. Scammers on the run.

16 Environmental factor not initially detected caused health problems (i.e. death)

More Stellagama Goodness

Now I've got the Trio: Light, Pocket Light and Faster than Light!

Three versions

The good folks at Stellagama Publishing have provided me with physical copies of all three versions of their streamlined Cepheus Engine rules. I gave CL & CL:PE to my boys, and they've begun building their own worlds, characters creatures and adventures. 

You can get yours at DriveThruRPG.

Join the Fun!

Product Review Piracy and Privateering

Review of Piracy and Privateering

by Josh Peters

Publisher: Stellagama Publishing

Length: 83 pages

You might have thought that the pirates were supposed to be the NPCs, but surprise! The book begins with a persuasive essay aimed to encourage players to play as pirates!

When you're a Professional Pirate . . .

The book contains five sections:

1. Setting up the campaign
2. Space Encounters
3. How to Make money
4. Adventure Seeds
5. Sample NPCs

The book is system-neutral throughout. It leans toward the 2D6 dice rolling mechanic, but it would not be difficult to transition any of the tables into any 'variable degrees of success' dice rolling system. For OGL legal reasons they can't say it works with Classic Traveller, but I can. It does. That makes me happy.

Setting up

Is the campaign going to be in a Star Spanning Empire, or among competing star nations, or the fringes where it's every planet for themselves? This is an important consideration, and the author lays out the good and the bad of each type. My TU is competing star nations, and a lot of Independents. Pirates will use different tactics depending on where they are.

Wherever your piratical PCs set up, there has to be enough potential for profit to make it all worthwhile. The referee/GM has to consider this or it will be a short and unhappy campaign.

For the sake of players and GMs who aren't familiar with the practicalities of piracy, the book lays out a method of doing the deed, labeled “Piracy 101”. This section goes into a helpful amount of detail on things like:

• Finding a target
• persuading them to surrender
• deciding what to take, including whether or not to steal the ship directly
• escaping pursuit
• turning the loot into cash (but more on that later)

Stealing Stuff for Fun and Profit

New from Stellagama Publishing

Piracy and Privateering

The other, less well known reason why Marines carry Cutlasses!

From the official description:

"A system-neutral guide to How To Be a Pirate! With explanations to help gamemasters run complete space pirate campaigns. In it, you will find guidelines for setting up a piracy or privateering sandbox campaign. There are fully developed encounter rules for figuring out which poor unfortunate souls have crossed paths with terrible player character pirates. We have also included system-neutral rules for fleshing out encounters with ships, space stations, and other unexpected sources of adventure. There are rules for selling ill-gotten booty, for splitting up crew shares, and for holding privateer courts."

I'm already using bits of it for my ongoing campaign - playing tomorrow! Once I read through the whole thing, I will post my review here. Check back soon!
 

Available now at DriveThruRPG

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/254216/Piracy-and-Privateering

Suitable for/compatible with:

• Classic Traveller
• Cepheus Engine
• Stars Without Number
• White Star
• other space opera/space fantasy type games

Signal 99 from Stellagama Publishing

Signal 99 by Richard Hazlewood, published by Stellagama Publishing, is an adventure for the Cepheus Engine system, set in the universe of TheseStars are Ours!

The publishers were kind enough to send me a copy of this adventure, so I'm sharing my impression of it. As long time readers of  my blog will know, I have worked with Stellagama before in a number of ways. However, my aim is to give as objective an account as I can. I will use the same format I've used for other product reviews.

This is an adventure for 4-6 PCs, most likely the crew of a private starship. If the PCs have no ship, they can be passengers aboard a commercial vessel. Signal 99 is available as a .pdf file from DriveThruRPG.com

Location: The Parvati system, in UTR space. The adventure takes place in space, so the exact system is not crucial to the play of the encounter.

Patron: There is no patron per se, the PCs are responding to a distress signal, which by recognized interstellar law, anyone within range must do.

Mission: The ship sending the Signal 99 is damaged and in distress. Get aboard, assess the damage, repair if you can, transfer survivors off if you can't.

Payoffs: There's no cash reward, of course, but there are things and people aboard that can be to the PC's benefit for having encountered them. PCs from spacefaring backgrounds should feel that maintaining the tradition of answering distress calls (and the expectation that others would do so for them) is the reward.

Complications: All the damage aboard makes moving about dangerous; the ship is an 'enemy vessel', the ship may not last much longer. The players will have to make some hard choices about what/who to focus on in the time they've got.

Strong points: Plenty of setting/background data for the Referee means an easy adventure to introduce. It is self-contained which means not much prep time needed. There are good deckplans and detailed explanation of the ship's damage, which will help bring the setting to 'life' and keep tension high. There is also a helpful list of 'typical actions' in task format. A quantity of high tech goodies can be found aboard. Each significant NPC is detailed with their own motivations and courses of action beyond simple survival. Self-contained but also open-ended; this can lead into a number of subsequent adventure avenues.

Weak points: This is not actually a weakness; there is a lot of time record-keeping for the referee to do, which I am not fond of, and poor at doing. Players who dither or waste time will find the clock has run out before they get anything done. One editing mistake: on page 29 there is a 'see page' reference which is incomplete, but as the adventure is only 38 pages, it is easy to determine what page is referred to [page 32].

What I'd change: I can't think of anything. This adventure is focused, with plenty of detail while still giving the PCs plenty to choose from and their choices will matter in a lot of ways.

In My Traveller Universe: Cepheus Engine is similar enough to Classic Traveller that converting Signal 99 to my TU would be no problem. If I set this adventure in Holtzmann's Corridor, the enemy ship would be from Tabraz, a planet of notorious pirates. Non-human NPCs would simply be folk from non-Imperial worlds. The adventure is focused on a ship in space, so it could be set in any world's system.

In summary, this is a good space sci-fi adventure that is more than just brawn and danger. The players will be challenged by the choices they have to make. It sells for $3.99, and I say it's worth the cost. Pick up a copy, and To the Rescue!

Signal 99

Signal GK

Mayday

Signal 99

However it is expressed, this is the interstellar Call for Help. And Stellagama Publishing's newest adventure is all about answering that call! 

Available at DriveThruRPG

I've got mine! Review coming in a few days. 

Session Report St Patrick's Day 2018

Today the Adequate Seven forged ahead with their 100-hour endurance airship race on Stavanger, while facing many challenges.

Somehow during the break at the Oasis, adversaries smuggled a robot aboard, disguised as a number of fuel canisters. It assembled itself in the engine room and began tearing up the place. Jay, Joe and Landreth managed to destroy it, and Landreth started taking it apart looking for intel on who had put it aboard. They recalled that while at Oasis 'race officials' and porters were going on and off the ship without any close oversight. Won't make that mistake again. 

The robot did not disable the engines, but it did cause damage. Most of the Seven have mechanical and/or engineering skill, so they were able to effect repairs in flight. 

Reaper stayed behind in the Oasis for a while, and managed to acquire some (dubiously legal) cryonic grenades, which came in handy later. He had to <ahem> liberate an air/raft to catch up with the team in flight but was able to rejoin them at a race checkpoint.

Team Trendheim is in the lead, withTeam Namsos and Team Hokksen catching up. Every obstacle that arises seems to chip away at their lead. I'm using the Chase rules from Omer Joel's Quick and Dirty CT Vehicle combat rules to determine place order. McGee's rolling hot so far.

The Seven made it to the next-to-last checkpoint and stopped to refuel, and hand over the robot's remains to the race officials who will start a formal investigation. 

Taking off at sunset for the next to last leg, the crew are all getting tired, but no rest for the weary!  In the depth of the night the airship is attacked by a group of grav-belt wearing assassins!

They're armed with swords and grenades, and attacked the ship from several fronts at once. The Seven are spread out and can't help each other. Jay, Gray (4) raced up the catwalks to the aid of Longfinger, Gray (7) who was on his way down to the gondola when an assassin flew in at him. Sword and claw rang out in the darkness. 

The Adequate Seven are in Grey, attackers in yellow.

Joe (2) and McGee (1) are trapped in the Salon while Reaper fights on the catwalk outside.

In the photo, Landreth is Gray(3). He was guarding the engine room when he heard Tawnee, the patron's mistress screaming. Rushing to the rescue he found one of the attackers in her cabin, and they're at close quarters with sword and pistol. Ca'al is the inverted gray counter outside on the catwalk. He went axe-to-sword with an attacker, but as the attacker was wearing armor and Ca'al wasn't, he's down. Reaper, Gray(6) froze one assassin with a cryonic grenade and now he's fencing cutlass-to-sword with the guy who stabbed Ca'al.

Joe shot down one assassin through a port-hole with his SMG, but the second is keeping under cover and tossing shock grenades through the portholes. Joe managed to return one but it went over the side and discharged below the ship. McGee is defending the bridge and watching Joe's back.

We ended the session in mid-battle. Shots and blows have been exchanged at close range, but everyone's wearing armor so not much damage has been done. Whoever these masked assassins are, it means whoever sent them is serious about taking Team Trendheim out of the race. Can't wait for next month's session!

Free Character Sheet for These Stars are Ours!

Available now from Stellagama Publishing at DriveThruRPG:

Character sheet for the These Stars Are Ours! (TSAO) setting; compatible with the Cepheus Engine and other OGL 2D6 Sci-Fi games.

Available in three formats: Standard PDF, Fillable Form PDF, High-Resolution PNG.

All for the low low cost of no money whatsoever. Get it here!

A Review of The Wreck in the Ring

Hey, I think I can see my ship from here!

This fellow calling himself Pookie UK has posted a review of The Wreck in the Ring. It's good to know that people have noticed. The review is generally favorable, while acknowledging some things that I could have done better.

Here's a quote:

"The technical aspects of the adventure are not its only challenge. There is at least one NPC who has ulterior motives and two NPCs who have motives other than salvage. In fact, one of the interesting NPCs is a member of the Brothers of St. Cuthbert, which is dedicated to recovering the bodies of those lost in space and returning them home for proper burial. This nicely adds a degree of faith and purpose not always present in adventures for the Cepheus Engine Core Rules and other 2D6 OGL SciFi mechanics. There is one other danger in Borderlands Adventure 1: Wreck in the Ring, one that suffuses both the ship and adventure with a sense of unease. Now, in scenarios like these, the cause of this unease, perhaps paranoia, might be some alien thing or crazed survivor, either ready and hungry to stalk and slaughter first the NPCs and then the player characters. And so it is here, but in Borderlands Adventure 1: Wreck in the Ring it does not feel like a cliché because it does not have to play out like a survival horror movie in space. Only if the player characters make every effort to interfere will the scenario turn into one of survival horror in space rather than one of salvage and recovery."

I admit I didn't think of the potential cliche in the element he mentions, as 'survival horror' is not on my list of genres I enjoy. I wanted a surprise and a mystery to present a challenge so the adventure would have more to it than the abstract dangers of working in hard vacuum. 

It was not my intent to make this a killer scenario, but if the referee applies the rules and situations hard enough, it could be.

The takeaway for me is 'next time write up a handout for the players' - give the 
Ref something tangible to show the players that quickly transmits some relevant information. Also, spend just a little more time giving important NPCs some background and personality, again to help the Referee build the situation.

Thank you Pookie UK for the review, and the ideas for improvement.  

The Wreck in the Ring Now Available

I am super excited about this. I have played Traveller for 30+ years now, and for most of the time, I was making up my own adventures. Now I've got one published! New from Stellagama Publishing: 

The Wreck in the Ring

Available at DriveThruRPG.com

This adventure was written under the Cepheus Engine rules, which if anyone does not know, is the Open Game License version of Mongoose Publishing's First Edition of the licensed Traveller rules.  Now here at AF3, I'm a Classic Traveller guy, but getting a CT license to publish is harder to do. Plus, I have a great working relationship with the folks at Stellagama, doing reviews and indexing for these:

These Stars are Ours!
From the Ashes
The Bronze Case
The Space Patrol (my remarks forthcoming).

The adventure centers around the PCs exploring a wrecked starship. There are dangers to avoid and challenges to overcome, and puzzles to solve. The PCs might get rich, but if they're not careful all they'll get is a face full of hard vacuum.

The Brothers of St Cuthbert make an appearance too.

I'm happy to see my work in publication. Maybe in the future I will convert some of my home-brew universe into CE terms.

Game On!

From Stellagama Publishing - These Stars are Ours!

Available now from DriveThruRPG, Stellagama Publishings new campaign setting, These Stars are Ours! This is not the Third Imperium, but a whole new setting with new alien enemies, new alien allies, and dozens of new worlds of adventure. TSAO is available as a .pdf, or in print under a soft or hard cover.

The bulk of the text deals with the new alien races, presented with enough detail for the referee to pick up and run with them as NPCs right away. There is also advice given for players who want to try out a Cicek or Ssesslessian as a PC. The humans get some new career options, and the 'standard six' are re-skinned to fit with the setting background.

While the book describes “Known Space” the setting as presented is smaller than the 3I, and smaller than Clement Sector. It's almost three subsectors worth of worlds, but as Chris Kubasik points out over at Tales to Astound!, small is good. Even so, there is still more than enough room for a player group to spend years of game time rocketing around without anywhere getting stale.

The book is rich with adventure hooks from the history, flavor text, and world descriptions. Find out what 'Nine Talons' is up to. Tangle with the Empress' Own Legion if you dare. PCs can avoid politics and get into a trade war with the Zhuzzh, or go on an archaeological expedition to learn more about the legendary Precursors!

The book goes into a good level of detail about the setting's history. The current situation between the various races/factions is clear, yet complex. At the same time, it is not so detailed that the referee will feel railroaded into running the game 'just so'. The history is set, but there's no grand narrative for the players to follow. The setting is wide open so they can pursue their own goals, whether they may be.

The book includes some new ship designs, with some excellent deckplans to go with them, and some variant rules for ships. There is little in the way of new equipment, and the setting TL is 11-12, with a sprinkling of TL13.

These Stars are Ours is written for the Cepheus Engine OGL rules set. For those who, like me, prefer Classic Traveller, the setting works with only the smallest of adjustments.

I have already seen TSAO up close, as I provided the index at the back of this 200 page book. Since I've already read it, I can say it is worth picking it up. Use the setting, or (like me) borrow bits to add to your own setting. These Stars are Ours is a great setting for Traveller, whatever edition you play with.

I know that nobody buys a book for the index, but it has been mentioned in a review: https://rockymountainnavy.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/tsao-these-stars-are-ours-a-setting-for-cephesusengine-or-travellerrpg/#comment-1114

"The last part of TSAO is an index. This is one of the best indexes I have ever seen in a book."

If you do buy it, take a moment to explore the index. I take this opportunity to say that I'm available to work on your next RPG product as a freelance indexer. You can reach me on G+, here at the blog, or by email if you have a project that I can help you with.

Product Review - From the Ashes

Stellagama Publishing has released a new rules supplement for Classic or Mongoose Traveller, although for reasons of copyright it doesn't say that directly. Instead, it points to the Cepheus Engine OGL rules set. This booklet brings to my mind the article from the old Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society “Medical Treatment in Traveller”, although the emphasis is different.

What is it?

From the Ashes (FtA) is an optional rules package, concerning mortal injuries to characters and their effects, should the character survive. Two sections discuss replacement of damaged or destroyed body parts with prostheses or cybernetics.

What format is it?

It's in .pdf format, 15 pages.

What can I do with it?

MgT uses nuanced interpretation of task rolls, with regular break points when a task throw misses or exceeds the target by so much. With CT, it's simply roll for the target number and succeed/fail. If the referee wants to apply effects relating to 'just made it' or 'made it by a mile' he can but it is all at the referee's discretion. The FtA rules apply particular results to all surgery and recovery throws; sometimes making the target number still isn't good enough. Yes you succeeded, but . . . Well, medical care is a tricky thing. The FtA rules reflect that well, and continue to keep Traveller at least in spitting distance of reality.

Scars and other physical marks can be a way of distinguishing the PC, and helping the players visualize their characters. In the right circs a scar could help a PC influence an NPC by intimidation or impressive storytelling. The potential for large complications may also encourage even trigger-happy players to try more negotiation and social-skills roleplaying over solving all your problems with a gun.

Product Review - The Bronze Case

TheBronze Case, by Richard Hazlewood, published by Stellagama Publications

My buddy Omer at the Den of the Lizard King sent me a copy of this adventure. Thanks Omer!  Go get a copy, visit his blog, and tell him what you think. I'm making my review in the format that I've used for reviewing the JTAS Amber Zone adventures.

Location: Amaterasu, a mid-pop, high law, TL-8 world

Patron: Amy - a freelance agent.

Mission: Help Amy deliver the bronze case to its destination.

Complications: There are a lot of folks who want to steal the case. The local law level means that the Travellers won't have access to their usual assortment of heavy weaponry.

Payoff: Cr 10,000 to the group for successful delivery.

Strong Points: This is a good old-fashioned “accidental spy” adventure, where the Travellers get swept up in bigger events swirling around them. Once it gets going, they won't have time to stop and catch their breath. There's plenty of danger, and options for player ingenuity. The NPCs are nicely fleshed out with MgT style stat blocks. A successful mission means the Travellers now have a new contact in Amy, and maybe a romantic possibility? They may have new enemies, or patrons, depending on how they respond to the other players in the drama. By scaling the opposition, this adventure could be for a solo PC.

Weak Points: Not a lot of opportunity for PCs to bring their social skills into play, the opponent forces are (as written) not likely to listen. The titular case is a macguffin, which does reduce the PCs motivation to simple monetary gain. Players might decide partway through that bailing on Amy is safer, if less rewarding. One niggle: the local TL is 7 (1970's Earth) but vehicles are all equipped with GPS devices? Maybe MgT breaks up the TL periods differently from CT.

What I'd change: I have no suggestions for this adventure. It's a fast-paced gig that could be played out in one session or two. 

In My Traveller Universe: If I ran this adventure, I'd put it on Kemasiik, in the Corridor [B-68466B-5]. The Law level is high, and the captive government could put the lockdown on commodities the gangs are after. The Empire has some influence there so Talaveran corporations could have facilities on-planet. Local TL is low, but with off-world influence (Kemasiik is controlled by VanGoff's World) there could be lots of TL-7/8 gear to be had.

Map: The adventure route runs roughly along the coastline, but I decided to change it up a bit and give the players two routes. Both have a half-way point where one of the plot points occurs. Each hex is approx. 100 km.

I made this map, using Hexographer. It may be reproduced or modified without permission.