So, as one gaming chapter closes another soon opens and the TNC has now embarked on the first phase of the Great DM Brain Trust, wherein Matty, the Chief and I run adventures in our chosen area of Greyhawk. First up is yours truly with a set of adventures in Keoland, beginning with U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. My plan is to run the three U-series modules and then hand off to one of the other DMs to do their thing. The party rocked up thusly:

• Grimfell Thunderhammer - Dwarven Thief - played by Matty
• Galladhar - Elven Fighter - played by Timbo
• Tristram the Gallant - Half-Elf Paladin - played by Marcus

We elected to roll 4D6, discard the lowest die and then assign the numbers as you so desire. We also decided that the party had a couple of small adventures under its belt, in order that we could forego the often tedious and unnecessary process of party formation. To reflect the group's immediate history, each PC was given 500xp and 500gp to spend on equipment, along with one randomly generated, minor magic item each. In such fashion was the party of bold adventurers forged.

Prior to play I scribbled a rudimentary map of the town of Saltmarsh, noting any buildings of interest whilst ensuring that plenty of blank spots remained for us to fill in as we play. I also made a list of notable NPCs, members of the town council, from which august body would spring the plot hooks of early adventures. I decided that the local church is dedicated to Xerbo, a lesser God whose sphere of influence includes sea, water travel, money and business. 

The first part of U1 is a haunted house, mystery investigation type gig, which played brilliantly. The players tackled this intelligently and with some keen planning, resulting in practically no harm to themselves and very little in the way of senseless slaughter of the malefactors. In fact they successfully captured the Illusionist leader of the smuggling gang in the old house and returned him to Saltmarsh to be incarcerated. I'm sure that's the last we'll hear of him...

The second half of the module involves the investigation of a sea-going smuggling vessel and this part didn't go quite as well for the PCs. In fact when last I saw them they had been captured by the crew of the ship and thrown below decks. Oh dear.

The final session of Traveller was an entertaining romp through one of the Double Adventures published by GDW between 1980 and 1985. The particular adventure for this session was from Double Adventure 2 - Across the Bright Face (1980). During the previous session the PCs had been placed in contact with a patron called Arlent Streen, who wanted passage to the Dinom system in the Lanth subsector and bodyguards for his tour of the various mining facilities on the main world. The pay looked generous and the job seemed pretty straight forward so there was only a minor hesitation from the players, prior to acceptance of the job. Of course the old adage, "If something seems too good to be true, it probably is", rings just as sharply in gaming as in real life and the session started in media res as Arlent is assassinated and all hell breaks loose around the PCs as a workers' revolution kicks off around them. The players reacted brilliantly to the manner in which the session started and had soon commandeered an ATV to get them across the planet and back to the starport where (hopefully) Nicole would be waiting with the ship. The pleasure of gaming with people who also happen to be amongst my closest friends is that I have the confidence to throw them a googly once in a while and know that they will react to it with aplomb. The adventure runs as a flight toward sanctuary across a planet that is being torn apart by civil unrest. Added wrinkles come in the form of an unbreathable atmosphere, a planet that has one face permanently towards its star and a vehicle with limited power. The game breaks down into a series of steps beginning with the players deciding which of the available adjacent hexes they will move into, using a map of varying accuracy. The GM has a true map and determines the rate at which the hex is traversed, based on terrain type and a randomly generated event, both of which determine how many of the ATVs power points are expended in crossing the hex. In a sense the session becomes something akin to a board game and tightly focusses the players' attentions on the matter in hand, i.e. getting to the starport and off the planet without being caught in the crossfire between revolutionaries and the planetary authorities. The PCs performed magnificently and were soon in the city with the starport on the far side. At this point we had a classic moment of gaming schadenfreude as Bertram opened fire on a police roadblock in an effort to avoid an unnecessary diversion which would slow their progress towards the ship. I decided that that police would have to be extremely lucky to hit Bertram as he had cover behind the ATVs pulse laser, therefore only a natural 12 on 2D6 would hit. Of course, Bertram gets drilled thanks to my dice coming up box cars (which NEVER happens when I'm a player). Bertram takes enough damage to render him unconscious and now Sebastian must patch his companion's vacc suit in one round by rolling his vacc suit skill + 1/5 DEX. Since playing Sebastian Matty has been throwing bombs but this time his luck runs out and he only manges a total of 5, meaning that Bertram dies. I felt pretty sad about this, which is an indication of how fondly I'd come to regard the PCs - this is a Good Thing(TM) in any game. Mack and Sebastian make it back to the ship, dispersing a crowd of people clamouring to get aboard and off the planet. The good ship Persuasive Argument blasts off into the black, complete with a small collection of passengers, bound for the Regina system. One of the passengers is a very attractive young woman whom the PCs last encountered on their ill-fated safari on Knorbes........

.......and with that revelation the current run of Traveller came to an end. It feels like the end of a season for a TV show. One PC has died and a key protagonist has come back on the scene. What now for Sebastian, Mack, Nicole and the Persuasive Argument? Tune in next year for Traveller, season 2.

The latest larcenous escapade by the player characters caused me to have a few thoughts around the concept of legality and law enforcement, alongside the system for speculative trade. I felt that both elements would benefit from some slightly more detailed interpretation by the GM, in order to get the greatest amount of interesting play opportunities from two very common occurences in a typical Traveller campaign.

I decided to tackle the issue of law-breaking by the simple mechanic of a saving throw. In basic terms, the law level of a system (or individual world) gives the number to beat on 2D6. Any legal transgression may provoke a law saving throw, with a variety of modifiers where appropriate. For example, the Ruie system has a law level of 7. The ship enters the system with a secreted cargo of Cobalt 59, which the crew hopes won't be detected by customs. I deem this to be an illegal activity and decide that the customs personnel on Ruie are not the most vigilant individuals, resulting in a law saving throw with a modifier of +1. In this instance the players roll a total of 9 and successfully land at the starport with their cargo undetected. When Mack hits the bars trying to find a potential buyer for the radioactive material, another law saving throw is called for, this time with a modifier of -1 owing to the number of possible grasses in a bar at any given time. Timbo throws 9 on 2D, modified to 8, which is a successful save. The process continues with each fresh transgression provoking a saving throw. The rationale here is that the more the PCs break the law, the greater the chance they will eventually attract the attention of law enforcement agents. The important thing to bear in mind is that a failed save does not automatically mean arrest, rather that the PCs actions have brought them to the notice of an offical authority of some description. The subsequent actions of this authority will differ from one situation to another.

The speculative trade rules represent an elegantly simple piece of design that can very quickly generate a cargo with a purchase and sale price, leading to the potential for PCs to make (or lose) money quickly. Once in a while a cargo comes along that carries the potential for adventure and one or two sessions of play. This is exactly what happened when the players randomly generated a 3-ton cargo of radioactives. Rather than the simple mechanism of rolling the sale price at a given destination, we all agreed that far more fun could be had if I went away and designed a short scenario around this cargo, which is how the crew found themselves on Ruie, dealing with terrorists. From the simple random generation of a cargo we derived two sessions of exciting play and laid some threads for possible future campaign development.

In OTU the data for the mainworld of the Ruie system is the same as published in Supplement 3. The world has an approximate population of 7,000,000,000 with a Balkanized governmental system. The world is marked as an Amber travel zone by TAS.

During the Fourth Frontier War, the mainworld of the Ruie system was polarised betwen those inhabitants loyal to the Imperium and those who wanted to become a client system of the Sword Worlds Confederation. At the conclusion of the war, Ruie remained in Imperial hands. There followed a brief period of internecine war across the planet, from 1085 to 1089, at the end of which the Imperialists were victorious. Since 1099 a group of pro-Sword World terrorists (the Brotherhood of the Sword) have waged a guerilla war against the staunchest, Imperio-centric governments on the planet. In 1103 this group was contacted by Ine Givar agents who began aiding the terrorists with training, equipment and funding via the Zhodani Consulate. The Brotherhood maintains a base of operations in a cave complex located in a sprawling mountain range on Ruie's largest landmass.

It's been a while since I've posted about the Traveller game, which is dreadfully remiss of me and I will now present a round-up of happenings for sessions 10, 11 and 12.

Whilst looking for goods to trade speculatively, the crew of the Persuasive Argument purchase three tons of Cobalt 59, which pretty much cleans out the communal kitty. Perusing the subsector map and library data leads them to believe that the mainworld of the Ruie system may be a profitable point of sale (see the next 'Behind the scenes' post for information on Ruie in OTU).

Prior to leaving for Ruie, the crew pays a visit to the shipyards of Nicole's father in order to modify the cargo hold with some smuggling compartments. Nicole arranges this on the QT and for a good price. The containers of Cobalt 59 are secreted within said compartments in order to avoid paying exorbitant import duty at Ruie, yeah right. The journey is uneventful, the ship lands at Ruie downport with no customs intervention and preliminary investigations begin into potential buyers. It becomes obvious that the most lucrative market is the illegal one and Mack encounters a mangy Vargr, who offers to put the crew in contact with some shady customers.

A clandestine rendezvous is arranged in the mountains to the north of one of Ruie's largest cities and, in a labyrinthine cave complex, the crew meet a representative of the Brotherhood of the Sword (see the next 'Behind the scenes' post). After some initial posturing by both sides, a price of MCr.15 is agreed with the added bonus of an offer to purchase various other items that the crew may be able to smuggle onto Ruie. The crew return to the ship and await the exhange of goods and money.

The transaction day arrives soon enough and all goes smoothly (money and goods exchanged) until planetary armed forces arrive to rain on the parade. A shooting match ensues during which Sebastian takes off, with Brothers of the Sword aboard. SMAC are deployed to force the ship to land, or destroy it if necessary. Mack and Bertram deal out some heavy fire from the ship's two turrets, destroying the SMAC but not before taking damage to the hull courtesy of missile fire. Sebastian finds a secluded valley in which to hide the ship whilst Nicole attempts to patch the hull sufficiently to make the ship space-worthy. The Brothers return to their mountain redoubt, upset at the fact that they have neither money nor goods but unable to physically intimidate the crew into handing back said money.

Nicole manages to patch the hull and Sebastian successfully avoids more SMAC intervention on the way to orbit by hurtling at full speed through a parade of ships in a holding pattern. Once in orbit an unfortunate random encounter with the light cruiser, ISS Gionetti, almost spells doom for the crew and they are saved only by a recklessly executed jump inside 10 diameters of the mainworld. The ship emerges, unscathed, in the Regina system and Nicole is given a bonus of Cr.10,000 for her sterling performance on this latest mission. The crew meets with Korlin Hand and enquires about work. Korlin comes back to them with news of a man who is willing to pay 350,000Cr. for passage to the Dinom system plus bodyguard duties whilst on the planet. In the meantime, the weapons shop Sureshot is visited where Mack and Bertram spend some of their ill-gotten gains on two sets of battledress and a FGMP-14 - you know, just in case.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

The Hobbit

1. Name the three trolls encountered by Bilbo and company.
2. Why did Bilbo leave his home without a hat, walking-stick or handkerchief?
3. How did Gandalf get Beorn to accept the company into his home?
4. What was buried with Thorin Oakenshield?
5. What colour of cloak and hood did Dwalin give to Bilbo at the start of their journey?

Session 9 of the campaign was a fun affair, hosted once again by Matty. We're nearing double figures now, which is often where I get itchy feet and start looking for other games to run. This time is different and I'm looking forward to posting about the 20th and 30th sessions of this campaign.

The crew of the Persuasive Argument decide to engage in some speculative trading and, after some discussion, they buy 82 tons of aluminium to sell on Efate. Their journey is uneventful (because I'm a cuddly GM) and they manage to sell the aluminium for a profit of Cr.49,000. Obviously this goes down very well with the players, who begin to get excited about trading. Whilst on Efate they locate 2 tons of cybernetic parts, which they fancy will sell for a tidy profit on Uakye. At the same time Sebastian decides that the ship ideally needs an engineer on the crew. Scanning the adverts at the local TAS hostel leads them to meet Nicole Ytaer, who is seeking a working passage to Uakye. Let's take a brief moment to learn Nicole's story.

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Nicole Ytaer

76A966    Age 22
Computer - 1  Engineering - 4  Grav Craft - 1  Ground Craft - 1  Navigation -1  Vacc Suit - 1

Nicole is the youngest daughter of Evander Ytaer, owner of Starships Regenerated, a small company that refits starships and is based in the Uakye system. Nicole has been fascinated by all things of a mechanical nature since she was very young and spent a lot of time hanging around her father's shipyard. The engineers took a shining to their "little grease-monkey" and she learned a great deal from them, capitalising on her innate talent for working with mechanical things. At 18 she left Uakye and has been tooling around the Spinward Marches, taking working passages on as many different ships as possible in order to broaden her base of knowledge as an engineer. She has never received any formal training or education in engineering but could give a lot of so-called professionals a run for their money.


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Nicole performs magnificently on the journey to Uakye and quickly finds herself facing an offer of a longer term appointment aboard the Persuasive Argument, which she accepts. Meanwhile, the cybernetic parts are sold for a profit of MCr.1.38 and the crew are now utterly hooked by the trading life. In order to broaden their experience they opt to run some freight and low passengers to the nearby Alell system. This little jaunt nets a profit of Cr.80,000 and they pick up some aircraft parts for the run back to Uakye. This time the crew tastes the bitter pill of loss, to the tune of Cr.27,000, which stings a little but is small beer compared to the total profits made on 4 runs thus far and the arrival of an engineer onto the crew. 

I can't believe it's already been a year since the Dungeon Master left us for the great game in the sky. Hope you're still rolling high, big fella!

Here is the data for the Boughene system in OTU.

Boughene - Regina Subsector - Spinward Marches - 0304 - A 8 B 3 5 3 1 D S - Non-industrial - g

Atmospheric Composition - Corrosive - Very thin.
Temperature range - minus 100 degrees celsius to minus 25 degrees celsius.
Surface Atmospheric Pressure - 0.18.
Hydrographic percentage - 30% (atmosphere related chemical mix) - 4 major oceans; 9 minor oceans; 9 small seas; 4 scattered lakes. 
Total world population - 800,000
Government - Self-perpetuating oligarchy - ruling council comprising six corporations:

1. Intelligence Management Services
2. Hypagene
3. Siedler Insurance
4. House Justin
5. IEEW
6. Channel 17 Media Group

The starport has both an up and down facility. There is only one city on the surface, which is comprised of several domed sections, each with its own purpose and identity, e.g. residential, commercial, recreational. There is no manufacturing centre. Mass transit system is a monorail, which runs within and between the various domes via enclosed, elevated tubes. Law and order is maintained by the private security forces of each governmental corporation, who are concerned only with protecting the corporate interests of their employer, hence the low law level.

The data for Boughene was compiled using the following books:

1. The Spinward Marches supplement.
2. The World Builder's Handbook.
3. 101 Governments.
4. 101 Corporations.

This will be a realtively small post owing to the fact that very little of consequence happened in the latest session. Having said that, it was still a very enjoyable session and much fun was had by all concerned.

Firstly, it must be said that chez Matty is a gaming venue without equal. There are no other people for us to disturb with our antics, the table is large and the floor space is more than adequate for us to lay out the full deck plans for a Type A Free Trader. Yes, I know exactly how sad that sounds.

The session revolved around the party's arrival at the Boughene system, after several weeks jumping from the Shionthy system. Boughene has the highest tech level (D) in the subsector and one of the lowest law levels (2), thus providing a perfect place to spend some time. First on the agenda was arranging docking, repairs and a full service for the Persuasive Argument. Sebastian managed to negotiate a good price with the supervisor of their chosen docking facility, thanks to his silver tongue. A full service for a starship takes two weeks so the guys decided to head down to the surface for a little R&R, combined with shopping and working out what to do next. They escorted Avram to one of his offices, where he kindly furnished them with new Imperial credit cards, fully loaded with 400,000Cr each. This was followed by some re-equipping and a fine meal at a good restaurant, where discussions turned to money-making schemes, both legal and not-so-much.

The latest session of the Traveller campaign took place chez Chief and featured an heroic performance from TImbo, coming off a 12 hour shift to sit down and play. What a legend.

In possession of their new but damaged starship, the PCs decided to leave the ISS Kinunir to its orbital grave and instead investigate the origin of the comms traffic, which seems to emanate from the system's extensive asteroid belt. With a barely functioning power plant and severely limited maneuver drive, the journey to the asteroid field takes quite a long time. This lengthy journey gives the PCs a chance to speculate (wildly) and have animated discussions about several things:

1. What happened to the ISS Kinunir?
2. What is the nature and origin of the peculiar particles that are scattered throughout the system?
3. Will they find belters in the asteroids and, if so, will they be friendly?
4. What do they really know about the man they have rescued from the Gaesh?
5. What cover story do they concoct to explain their presence in an interdicted system, should they encounter any Imperial entanglements?

They decide to tackle number 4 head-on and ask Avram who he is and why he was incarcerated. Here is his story:

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Avram Iijima

687DFC                                    Age 56                                               5 terms

Avram is the sole owner of a small corporation (Iijima Security Industries - ISI) operating on the frontier of Imperial space. This small but thriving concern specialises in all matters appertaining to security, from development of new systems to the bankrolling of mercenary companies.
The R&D section of ISI has acquired a reputation for developing truly cutting-edge security technologies over recent years. It is this reputation that led those in charge of the Imperial Household Security Division (IHSD) to approach Avram with the job of upgrading certain security sytems within the Imperial Palace on Capital. Unfortunately, most of the high-end technology came to ISI courtesy of Avram's flexible morals regarding those with whom he will do business. Once the IHSD realised that Avram had been in bed with everyone from the Vargr, to the Sword Worlders and even, on occasion, the Zhodani, it quickly became apparent that Avram needed to disappear in order that he could not sell security secrets about the Imperial Palace to the highest bidder, should the fancy take him. One set of trumped-up charges later and Avram was slammed in the prison hulk and left to rot.

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The PCs decide that Avram's flexible business morals are none of their business and promptly ask him if can fiddle with the ship's transponder in order to make the Persuasive Argument legally belong to them. Avram agrees and registers the ship as being mortgaged from ISI. Whilst engaging in this ship related naughtiness, Avram also tinkers with the ship's flight records to indicate that it had been running a trade route between Efate and Regina when a misjump deposited them in the Shionthy system, thus addressing situation number 5.

As the crippled Free Trader enters the asteroid field, Sebastian manges to locate the source of the comms traffic and recognises it as an Imperial beacon, beaming out from Imperial Research Station Regina 0706 Epsilon. Following the beacon in, the PCs find a large asteroid bearing evidence of landing bays and maneuver drives. Closer inspection reveals the station to be silent and running on emergency power. Sebastian chooses a landing bay in which to set down and, on entering, discovers a Zhodani cruiser in the bay. The PCs suit up and head out to explore the station, which is currently running without artificial gravity or life support. An inspection of the corridors in the immediate area of the landing bay reveals a computer terminal that gives the PCs a plan of the station level they are currently exploring and the information that the power plant is damaged but still functional, if only they can find it and give it some engineering TLC. Sebastian reasons that standard Imperial design places power plants at the 'bottom' of ships and stations alike and therefore the companions should head for the lowest point of the station. Descending through tubes the explorers locate the main power plant deck and head for the heart of the station. On entering the power plant control room, they come face to face with a Zhodani commando, in full battle dress, waving a PGMP-13 at them. Taking very quick stock of their situation, Mack opts for parley rather than fight. Within minutes the PCs are talking to the Zhodani commanding officer who informs them that his people are working on bringing the power plant online, but the chamber holding the fusion generator is highly radioactive and the PCs are not equipped to survive in there. The CO offers to have one of his men look at the PCs ship and help in way he can.

Soon enough, power is restored to the station and the PCs begin hunting for parts with which to repair their ship. They have a friendly chat with the Zhodani soldier, who tells them to call him 'Zoqq', clearly an abbreviation or a nickname. After a while Zoqq heads back to join his unit and the PCs continue their exploration of the station. They discover that the entire crew is dead, seemingly due to failure of the station's life support system. Further investigations reveal that the scientists onboard had been conducting experiments on antimatter beam weapons, which, in the PCs minds, goes some way to answering question 2. It also leads to some interesting speculation regarding the presence of Zhodani troops. Collecting some data crystals containing research data, the PCs head back to their ship to conduct repairs and leave quickly. Sebastian soon has the power plant and maneuver drives working sweetly and the Persuasive Argument heads out to a jump point, its crew focussed on getting to a pleasant system containing many bars, as soon as possible. As Sebastian inputs coordinates into the navigation computer and activates the jump drive, Mack casually mentions that he deposited an explosive device on the station prior to their departure.

A comment on the last entry has led me to post some ramblings on how I have been using the classic adventures, thus far.

I started this campaign with Adventure 1 - The Kinunir, in which we are still embroiled. This is not surprising as it is written as four adventures, all of which are thematically linked by the eponymous starship, but which could be played separately, in any order and over any span of time, not necessarily consecutively. As it transpires, I have run them in the order that they are presented in the book, pretty much consecutively. Naturally I have tinkered with them in order to make them fit into our (by which I mean the TNC) Traveller universe, hereafter OTU. This tinkering is also necessitated by the fact that Adventure 1 is a little scant on detail where NPCs are concerned. For the hunting expedition I decided to flesh-out a small expedition, complete with NPCs who will undoubtedly become semi-regular, recurring characters over the life of the campaign. I then looked to Adventure 10 - Safari Ship for some detail on the craft that would bear the PCs on their expedition. I took nothing else from this adventure, but was very grateful for a fully detailed safari ship that I could present to the players. The beauty of this is that my borrowing has not ruled out the possibility of running Adventure 10 in its entirety, at some later point.

The hunting expedition led to imprisonment aboard a decommisioned Kinunir class ship, as per the third part of Adventure 1. Again, the adventure itself is scant on detail and so this time I turned to Adventure 8 - Prison Planet for some material and inspiration. My mental image of the prison ship was aided by an episode of Battlestar Galactica from the first season, 'Bastille Day', which is set aboard a ship full of prisoners. With that image in my head I set about populating the prison with colourful NPCs, using the NPC roster from Adventure 8 as my starting point and then breathing a little more life into those who would be integral to the PCs experiences whilst doing interstellar porridge. I liked the reputation system as written in Adventure 8 and employed it, without the knowledge of the players, to judge how the inmates and guards would react to the PCs. I believe that I cribbed too much from this adventure in order to make it a viable prospect for future sessions, but I have no regrets as it provided some rich material with which we had a couple of very enjoyable sessions.

I am now at the fourth and final part of Adventure 1 and am having a few thoughts about how to make the Shionthy system interesting. My eye is currently drawn towards my Judge's Guild Traveller stuff and a growing desire to adapt 'Dra'k'ne Station' to my needs. Hmmmmm.

Well, the first post of 2009 concerns my first RPG session of the year as the Traveller campaign continues to go boldly where no man has gone before, or something.

The session began with Sebastian sharing the instructions he had received from Alex Harmon regarding a planned escape from the prison hulk, Gaesh. Schemes were immediately hatched to secure four vacc suits and get to the designated airlock on the date of the escape. Sebastian bribed a guard with a generous number of credits in order to gain access to A-Deck, where the airlock could be found, along with the supply store for the prison. He employed a ruse whereby he and his cohorts needed a quiet corner of the ship, in which to remonstrate with fellow prisoners with whom they had a beef. The group then selected a known snitch, Bobby Shakh, to be their first victim. Whilst Mack and Bertram tuned-up the hapless Bobby, Sebastian located the airlock, took note of security in the area and located two vacc suits in a nearby locker. Over the next 15 days, Sebastian ensured that he and Avram had several, public shouting matches, whilst also dragging another victim up to A-Deck for a talking to. This second victim was Hans Frenkel, a Solomani activist with few friends in this part of the Imperium. Whilst slapping Hans, the PCs located a crate of new vacc suits, meaning that the necessary four suits were now obtained. Everything was going according to plan until, three days before the planned escape, Avram was subjected to a terrible beating from some of Big Rolf's goons. Apparently the gang leader had been gunning for Avram for some time and, suspecting that he was in cahoots with the PCs, decided to take action sooner rather than later. Sebastian, using the last of the funds that he brought with him into the prison, managed to bribe a guard to get Avram out of the infirmary and up to A-Deck on escape day.

The escape went quite smoothly, with the PCs and Avram successfully by-passing the airlock's security and getting EVA in pretty quick time. The escapees rendezvoused with a Type A Free Trader (Persuasive Argument) which then promptly attempted to leave the system as fast as possible. Unfortunately the ISS Luuru responded to the escape and was soon bearing down on the Persuasive Argument, judiciously employing its beam lasers and launching ordnance at the Beowulf class ship. Even with some half-decent weapons fitted, there was no way in hell that the 200 ton trading ship was going to stand a chance against the might of a Kinunir class cruiser. The captain of the Persuasive Argument hastily executed a jump and not a moment too soon as the ordnance from the ISS Luuru arrived at the same instant. There were some mighty explosions and a swift decompression of the ship, which left the PCs very grateful for the fact that they had not yet gotten around to removing their vacc suits. A quick inspection revealed that the crew of the trading ship were dead, the jump engine was in need of recalibration and the power plant was badly damaged. The PCs sat back and waited for the return to n-space, which happened approximately seven days later. Some investigations led the PCs to believe that they had come out in the Shionthy system, some five or so parsecs from the Pixie system. Further investigations revealed: the presence of some very unstable matter of unknown provenance, scattered throughout the system; a broad band warning message concerning the interdicted nature of this system; and a signal GK coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the system's gas giant. The latter of these was immediately investigated further and it was soon discovered that the distress signal's source was the ISS Kinunir, which had disappeared some time in 1088. The ship appeared quite dead, but it soon became evident that the computer and security systems were functioning as Mack received a very nasty laser burn on attempting entry to the derelict ship. The PCs decided to leave it alone and attempt instead to find a source of spare parts for their damaged power plant. A scan of the system's asteroid belt revealed comms signals from what appeared to be a mining colony. Tentatively, the wounded ship edged towards the belt.

Before the mad run-around begins, I'd like to wish anyone who actually reads my ramblings a joyous Yule and a magical 2009. I shall return to more regular posts after the silly season has passed.

Blessed be,

Sacha

I really enjoyed the last session of our Traveller campaign, not least because the players had such a great time. One of the strengths of the Traveller character creation system is that it provides both player and GM with the framework of a rich and interesting background for every PC. This is what allowed me to create the character of Captain James Lafayette out of thin air and provide him with a solid connection to Sebastian. It's to Matty's credit that he is so good at going along with these kind of in-game developments and was straight into the relationship between Sebastian and this new NPC who had just arrived on the scene. As a GM who flys by the seat of his pants a lot of the time, it's great to have players who will happily riff along with you when you go on improvised tangents such as this. The two other players also enjoyed this little scene, despite their characters not being involved in it, which is another hallmark of good players who are completely into the game and loving every minute of it, irrespective of the active involvement of their PC. I also like to think that this level of enjoyment is indicative of a good scene, well-played, that (most importantly) doesn't go on too long. It can be difficult for a GM to edit a scene in play, particularly if he and the other player are really immersed and loving it, but it is vitally important that any GM remember there are other players at the table and, regardless of how good the interplay between one player and NPC might be, the other guys at the table came to play too.

The prison stuff was inspired by Adventure 8 - Prison Planet and I've taken a lot of material from that adventure in order to make the Gaesh feel like a living microcosmic society, complete with colourful characters, interesting sub-plots and events occuring despite (or because of) the players' actions. Obviously, like all GMs, I have channelled various prison themes from films and television, most notably The Shawshank Redemption and Murder In The First, especially when portraying the prison's head warden and head guard. I see nothing wrong in this as it immediately gives players a point of reference for the NPCs and the environment in which their characters find themselves. The degree to which the GM has to explain the brutality and sadism of the head guard is greatly reduced by calling to mind Clancy Brown's performance in The Shawshank Redemption. 

Adventure 8 is jammed with NPCs, each with his own brief personality and background. A list of rumours is supplied and cross-referenced to the NPCs that can provide these rumours to the PCs, thus there is potential for several sessions of play in this setting. I love the design of the old Traveller adventures, which were very sandbox in nature, much like the AD&D modules of yore. As a GM I respond much better to this style of adventure as opposed to the more rigidly plotted modules of recent times. This is due in part to my desire to make any adventure truly belong to me and the players and it also hearkens back to my earliest RPG experiences with games like AD&D, RuneQuest and, to a lesser extent, MERP. At the same time I mix new techniques with my old-school sensibilities to produce a heady broth of old and new gaming styles. For example, I'm a big fan of scene-framing and keeping things moving along, always getting to the next interesting event that challenges the PCs in some way. I'm also a strong adherent of the "Say yes or roll the dice" school of thought that I first encountered when reading Burning Wheel, Luke Crane's profoundly flawed masterpiece of game design. Over the past year or so I've been struggling to reconcile the two schools of approach to gaming, mistakenly thinking that one must fall firmly in one camp or the other. Running this Traveller campaign has taught me that the two schools need not be mutually exclusive and I have come to believe that, if the old school revival is to continue apace (and I fervently hope that it does) GMs should strive to bring some newer techniques to the table when running their classic, old school games.

The TNC's sporadic Traveller campaign continued last week with another fun-filled session of SF goodness. The previous session had seen the heroes arrested for unwittingly hunting without a licence and entering an interdicted area of the Knorbes system's main world, oops. This session began with Sebastian realising that the captain of the ship, on which they were being held prisoner, was none other than his old CO for eight years, Captain James Lafayette. The pair enjoyed a warm reunion, during which Captain Lafayette told Chancer (his nickname for Sebastian) that he may be able to help him and his friends escape the prison hulk for which they were bound. He could provide no further details at this point and warned Chancer that he and his cohorts would have to do some time before he could put plans into motion. Sebastian decided that escape probably stood a better chance than waiting for the Imperial justice system to do its job.

The prisoners are transferred to the prison hulk Gaesh and, after the briefest of orientation sessions, are assigned cells. The two former marine commandos, Mack and Bertram are assigned to the same cell block, whilst Sebastian is assigned to the same block as Wallace and Harrison. Meanwhile, the hapless Baldwin is assigned to a block separate from his companions. Our heroes settle into the quotidian schedule of prison life: 22 hours confined to cells and a 2 hour exercise period, during which time they meet up and encounter other prisoners. Sebastian finds Hayley's father (Avram Iijima), whom they have been contracted to rescue from prison. During their initial meeting Sebastian saves Avram from a potentially fatal shivving at the hands of a thug working for the leader of one of the prison's biggest and most influential gangs. Sensing that he has perhaps made an enemy of the gang's leader, Sebastian decides to apologise, but is prudent enough to have Bertram along for support. The gang leader, Big Rolf, insults Bertram who promptly smacks Rolf in the mouth. With a dumb-bell. Needless to say, Big Rolf is unhappy and soon arranges for two of his enforcers to enter Bertram's cell that night and give him a lesson in the fine art of diplomacy. The PCs are tipped off about Big Rolf's plans and, after Sebastian has bribed a couple of guards, arrange for Mack and Bertram to be waiting in Bertram's cell in order to provide a counter-lesson in the fine art of not messing with former marine commandos. Sure enough, Big Rolf's men come to Bertram's cell where they are swiftly and mercilessly dealt with. Bertram renders one assailant unconscious through judicious use of a metal bar to the head, whilst Mack jams a 2-inch shiv into the kidney of the second attacker, who is then promptly thrown over the balcony to the comfort of the metal deck. Both thugs are left alive and looking at a long stay in the infirmary. The session concludes with contact from Alex Harmon, a member of the prison escape committee, who is looking to make use of our heroes' expertise and aid in fashioning an escape. He tells Sebastian that they have a mutual friend on the outside.  

Amongst the bounteous gifts I received for my birthday was a book (shocking, I know) by Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball, entitled Things We Think About Games. I believe that the authors' names will be well known to many gamers from the website www.gameplaywright.net, which is a treasure trove of interesting articles on all aspects of gaming, be it computer, board or RPG.

The book consists mainly of 101 things that Will and Jeff think about games. There are also 26 things that other people think about games, amongst them are such luminaries as John Kovalic, Kenneth Hite and Fred Hicks. If these names are strange to your ears then I recommend you practice your Search-Fu and familiarise yourself with them. Seriously, stop reading this tripe and roll your Library Use skill. If anyone is still with me, it may be of interest to learn that the book concludes with seven lessons learned from WoW and a short article on the five elements shared by games with the widest appeal. This last piece is illuminating and a must-read for any budding designer.

The whole shebang is wrapped-up with a foreward by Robin D.Laws and an introduction by Wil Wheaton, whose blog you should really check out because it rocks many, many bells. As a whole the book is a very quick read, but that's not the point, rather the idea is to provoke discussion by throwing out small observations and opinions about games. The reader is not meant to agree with everything, or even anything in this book, it is designed to make you think about games. If you just want to simply play the damned things and not spend any time musing about them, this may not be the book for you. However, if you often find yourself with your spoddy friends, discussing games when not actually playing them, I think you could turn to any page in this book and find a point for discussion.

I'll finish this rambling with my favourite thing the authors think about games:

"A good GM looks like an idiot to anyone not participating in the game, because he is making faces, speaking in character and snarling like a monster. A good GM is not afraid to look like an idiot."

After a month's hiatus due to illness, the TNC (minus The Chief) assembled at chez Ratty to play the fourth session of our fledgling Traveller campaign.

The first day of hunting was a marginal success, insofar as it yielded two dead tree krakens, courtesy of the sharpshooting skills of Mack and Harrison Smott. Unfortunately Lady Iphemia's inexperience with firearms was highlighted when she accidentally shot Ganly in the neck, wounding him quite severely, but not fatally. The shock of shooting a man brougt on a fainting fit for the delicate lady. This incident sparked curisosity and paranoia from Mack, who had earlier observed a lapse in Iphemia's ditzy facade and a pointed, non-verbal exchange between her and Ganly. The party headed back to base-camp where Bertram, finding himself in the role of expedition medic, declared Ganly unfit to participate in more forays into the jungle. Lady Iphemia declared her lack of desire to hunt further or ever handle a gun again. At the same time Thaddaeus admitted his complete lack of interest in hunting and wish to remain at base-camp for the remainder of the expedition. Mack, Bertram and Sebastian took the opportunity to privately discuss their suspicions about Lady Iphemia and Ganly, with Bertram agreeing to drug Ganly into unconciousness for the duration of their next hunting jaunt.

After some sleep and still with approximately three standard days of daylight remaining, the stalwart members of the expedition headed into the jungle for more hunting. After two hours of trekking through trackless jungle, Harrison identified a nesting tree which was teeming with tree krakens. Everyone took the chance to bag a critter and, once the smoke had cleared, eight krakens lay dead. Some more trekking located a small, family group which was promptly slaughtered, bringing the expedition's total up to fifteen krakens, three more than Baldwin's target. The group's patron agreed to pay the PCs a bonus for the three extra krakens. The party then headed back triumphantly to base-camp, only to find the hunting launch missing and Thaddaeus badly wounded from multiple gun shots. Bertram quickly stabilized Thaddaeus, but it was obvious that the man would die without prompt medical attention in a good hospital. Sebastian leapt into McGyver mode and rigged a long-range communicator, together with an inertial locator, to create an emergency distress beacon. This plan worked a treat as an Imperial Marine squad soon arrived, from an orbiting Kinunir class cruiser, to rescue the party. By 'rescue' I actually mean arrest the party as it transpired that hunting tree krakens is illegal and also the party had strayed into an interdicted area of the game reserve. Not wishing to tangle with a squad of marines sporting battledress and PGMPs, the party swiftly complied and promptly found themselves incarcerated in the brig of the ISS Luuru, awaiting transportation to the prison hulk Gaesh.

The bug for old school gaming is spreading through the TNC. At our last gathering we were a man down owing to the fact that Timbo was looking after his small people, also I was feeling very grotty and not up to running a game. Thus it was that Chief, Matty and I concocted the following cunning plan.

Each of us will choose an area of the World of Greyhawk to develop and in which to set adventures. As I have the most familiarity with the setting and have run several, long campaigns there, I will choose my area of interest once Chief and Matty have settled on one each. We will run our adventures using first edition AD&D as the rule-set of choice, with minor amendments as we see fit during the development of our multi-DM approach. We will each have a PC in the adventures run by the other two DMs, whilst Timbo (the lucky jotter) will have three PCs, one for each DM. Characters will be created using Method I from page 11 of the DMG. There will be no class level limitations due to race, but there will still be class restrictions. All first edition AD&D books are available to each DM at the outset, as are any of the old modules that people may fancy running. I plan to start out running the U-series of modules, which will take characters from first to fifth level. This means that, if I want to stay faithful to the background of the series, I'll need to select Keoland as my area of development.

More discussions are needed by our unholy triumvirate of DMs and I will post any thoughts as our grand plan unfolds.