RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
or
A few thoughts, questions and comments on being a Traveller
referee, particularly as related to my recent game.
1. Background: A few months ago, TML readers will recall that I was starting
out a (Mega)Traveller game at my local game store, with several goals in mind:
giving Traveller more exposure, having fun by using some of the planning I've
labored over for so long, and potentially recruiting a few good players for
some even more esoteric role-playing-heavy games that I'd like to run someday.
Metlay once posted an excellent note about why one should never try running a
store game, but I ignored him and went ahead anyway.
2. The Game: The game was supposed to be freeform. I dislike completely
linear adventures, so when only two people (both of whom I had requested to
show up) arrived for the first gaming session, I had them generate their
characters. Since they turned out to be a Scout and a scientist, with a scout
ship for transport, I asked them about how they knew each other, and we gener-
ally brainstormed for a little while about what sort of campaign we wanted to
play. It was finally decided that these were two brothers-in law who were
seeking vengeance against the Sword Worlds for the death of their sister/wife
(respectively). Since their scout was unarmed (I give out the no-frills
version), they decided that their first goal was to get some money and buy
some weapons for the ship. So far so good. End of week 1. By the time the
second week rolled around, I had rolled up a number of prepared characters,
since I know that this aspect of Traveller is intimidating to a lot of poten-
tial new players. Two new players arrived, and the ship departed from Glisten
with a load of soft drink mix, bound for a poor, industrial planet. Now, we
all know that the trade system in MegaTraveller is broke, so I didn't want to
burden the players with the detail needlessly. Upon arrival, they delegated
the action to one of the new players, playing a merchant. He attempted to
bribe the officials there, and barely avoided arrest. He traded the soft
drinks for two armored cars. After much deliberation, it was decided that
they should take the armored cars to the nearest equivalent tech level planet
with a war going on. (Overnale). The crew was also given the opportunity to
carry a scientist and a one ton container of fish in cold sleep to Overnale,
which they accepted. They made no particular inquiries regarding the nature
of the fish. Upon their arrival, the player who had done the trade departed,
not to return, and a new player who would last until the recent end of the
game (another merchant) was added. The fish were unloaded and the scientist
disappeared--it had all been part of a plot to assassinate the head of the
local government. While the wheels of the plot were turning, the players sold
the armored cars, and discovered that the local economy was tightly con-
trolled. There was no free exchange of the local currency with Imperial
money. However, they developed a plan to deal with their currency surplus by
harvesting wood (yes--I got this bit from the Traveller Adventure). About
then, the assassination attempt succeeded. The players were implicated, and
they were hauled off to jail for questioning. Then a coup/civil war broke
out. Two new players showed up one week, and I had ended the previous week
with our heroes sitting in jail. So, I threw them into the adjacent cell with
nothing but the clothes on their back and told them to escape. (This was the
week where one of the new people asked me where I had bought the module we
were playing.) They broke out (the guards were distracted by an attack on the
building related to the coup), and made their way back to the starport in the
garbage truck, an incident alluded to on the TML. As they arrived at the
port, their ship took off to avoid combat, and they huddled in the terminal
with ther rest of the refugees. When things calmed down a few hours later, a
friendly free trader captain gave them a lift up to their ship. Now they had
no money except the worthless local currency (balkanized world) and had to
land at the planet's other starport for fuel and supplies. They managed to
pick up a load of fish, and the merchant player accepted an offer to carry a
load of submachine guns illegally hidden in the fish. The new players who had
escaped from prison disappeared, never to be seen again. Customs found and
impounded the machine guns, and they avoided arrest only because their ship
was impressed back into the scout service due to the tension preceding the
opening of the Fifth Frontier War. They proceeded to Glisten, and we added a
new player, who was home from school for the summer, but was a Traveller
enthusiast. After their ship was partially refitted (weapons, etc.) they were
sent on a long trip to deliver a load of parts needed for the completion of a
spy ship to be sent into enemy territory. Since the local commander had no
better personnel available, they became the crew of that ship (the Curious
George, details uploaded to the TML previously) and set off looking for a
Collace battlecruiser to scan. Several jumps later, they came to a planet
occupied by one of the potential enemy worlds. A few new players had showed
up, and they delegated one to go and talk to the port authorities about get-
ting permission to do an ocean refueling. (I should mention that the C.G. had
a Model 9 computer and an extremely advanced sensor array hidden in a portion
of the fuel tankage.) The new player (who was never to be seen again), went
to the office and found that the civilian authorities had been replaced by low
level naval officers of the occupiers. Naval officer: "No. No permission to
be granted for a time before 10 days from now. We're far too busy here, and
they don't pay us enough to retain enough extra personnel to do all the work."
Player: "Well. If we take off without enough fuel, we just might crash on
your city." Result: A safety inspection team come to look at the fuel tanks.
Was I too subtle with the officer? This delayed the players for a number of
game days. By the time they reached Collace, the war had already begun.
Posing as neutrals, they acquired their data and did some trading. On the way
back, they ended up spending three extra weeks in jumps into and back from a
system that they had already heard was occupied by the enemy. So they de-
toured. In that detour they encountered an enemy privateer in the Pagaton
system (TL4 planet undergoing an ice age). We fought it out. The Model 9
computer made it a massacre for the privateer, but they luckily blew the power
plant out in the George. With two portable fusion plants (each 3MW) jury-
rigged to the maneuver system they overtook the ballistic remnants of a space
fighter and salvaged its power plant. They no longer had the hull integrity
needed for a gas giant refueling, so they proceeded for the planet. Between
sessions, I started working out the planet details. The privateer, byt the
way, had jumped for its base to end the combat. One week out, one week back
for reinforcements. The new privateer ships arrived just before the George
landed. Not wishing to get involved in any local entanglements of any sort
(sigh), the players decided to sit, powered down, on the ice cap for six weeks
until the privateers gave up and went away. In the meantime, Glisten had
fallen, called on its fleets to surrender, and had the chief admiral rebel and
take the fleet to attack Collace. By the time the George reached Imperial
space again, Glisten had been liberated and Collace had surrendered. They
sold the cover cargo and the salvaged goods from their space fight and were
awarded with most of the proceeds by the Prize Court. There the game now
sits, waiting for their next Fifth Frontier War mission.
3. Problems: No new player who ever showed up stayed for more than one ses-
sion of the game. It was getting to be a standing joke, about clearing the
ship of the accumulated NPCs every couple of weeks. Why not? Is my referee-
ing style that horrible? Maybe. Maybe they just don't like Traveller. Popu-
lar systems for play at the store have included D&D/AD&D, Paranoia, Call of
Cthulhu and Cyberpunk. I don't run a combat heavy game, and after a couple of
warning about how dangerous fighting was likely to be (which the permanent
players took to heart, and lectured newcomers about) the only fight in four or
more months of play was the space battle with the privateer. I always felt
like I was leading players around by the nose--without direct orders from the
Imperial Navy, not much was happening. No matter how much information or how
many opportunities they were given, they always managed to avoid doing any-
thing I had prepared for. "Obviously" bad situations, like the gun smuggling
one, were entered into voluntarily by the players. Little actual role-playing
occurred. The task system is pretty good for resolving things inside a role-
playing situation, but just rolling for tasks makes for a very dry game.
Comments: Without self-directed players, running an open ended game of Tra-
veller can be very difficult. The number of people interested in SF rpgs vs.
the number interested in fantasy rpgs seems to be very small.
So, what did I do wrong? How does the structure of the overall game, as it
occurred, sound to people? What should I do differently? What sorts of
Traveller games are other people running at the moment?
Rob Dean