Re: Adventure Plot Ideas

[And also from rec.games.frp -- James]

In article [email removed] [email removed] (Mark Gellis) writes:
>I thought I would post this, both to give new DM's some advice (if they
>want it) and to get suggestions from people.  I may have mentioned that
>I run a modified Traveller world, and I replied to a suggestion that
>Traveller was a "disposable" game by saying, "No, I disagree."  Both to
>back up my claim, and for the reasons just mentioned above, here are
>some of the things you CAN do with the Traveller world.
>
>    1) Military mission.  This is one of the most common, so we'll get it
>
>    2) Trader mission.  Actually, I never run these.  But I hear they can
>       be interesting.

	I often used this as a carrot...you have such and such cargo, the only
world in jump distance which you can make 500% profit is interdicted, etc. etc.

>
>    3) Exploration.  As I recall, there are 11,000 worlds in the Empire.
>
>    4) Espionage.  You think all wars are fought with guns?  No, no, much
>
>    5) Crimebusters.  You think the future has no crime?  If there is

	Or BE criminals.  One of our best adventures came from a trader
mision when the PC's had forged papers to allow access to a semi-interdicted
world, and for various reasons stuck around long enough for the papers to go
all the way to the subsector capital and back...to be discovered as forgeries.
The PC's were arrested on smuggling charges (they WERE guilty) and had their
ship impounded.  An alternative to a long prison planet term was to infiltrate
a pirate oraganization...which turned out to be backed by Zhodani "advisors"

	(We may be thieves, robbers and Smugglers, but by God we're
	 IMPERIAL thieves robbers and smugglers!)

>    6) Space military missions.  Be a privateer.  Prey on innocent
>
>    7) I love a mystery.  Have your group solve a crime that has already
>       been committed, usually a murder or a theft of some valuable item.
>
>    8) Terrorists.  (Actually, this is a variation on military and/or

	Well...in my game we had (in order) Terrorists/Cultists, Bodyguard,
smuggling/military, mystery/espionage, "detective (ala bogart)" story,
smuggling, jungle exploration/hunting, anti-piracy(drafted), space-disaster,
shopping spree, mystery/starship crash, space-combat/anti-piracy/military,
jailbreak/political prisoner, politics/intrigue, mystery/politics,
cultists/rescue...then the campaign ended :-(

	Traveller is also a "time travel" game...the cultures are at all different tech levels and have different societies.
	You can do ANYTHING...once you fix the combat system and determine
how new skills are learned :-)

	-Brad