Various

Matt: cardboard heroes
I'm not aware of any more after the first three, although the ads in
JTAS said to look out for Vargr and vehicles as the next sets. Pity.
If anyone knows of somewhere still selling them I'd be interested

Allen: merchant campaigns
Sigh. Well, merchant campaigns require the same basic rules of campaign
design as most other, although a couple of things are slightly easier.
Take the elements from the classic traveller plot advice: pull, push,
enigma and gimmicks.

The pull is basically a combination of curiosity/exploration and the
desire to make money. They're the basics of a merchant campaign. The
gimmicks might be weird cargoes, but equally they could be stuff
smuggled aboard by passengers, stolen from important people, etc etc.
Also the traditional traveller patron exists to add push/pull. If you
can add people occasionally chasing the PCs for some reason, all the
better. Enigmas are harder to come by, and easier to manage by and
large by introducing important NPCs with something to hide.

Where merchant campaigns are easier are that the pull is more easily
defined than in a more aimless exploratory campaign. Also, if you can
establish that there is a clear trade route which takes the PCs through
a loop of about, say, 8 systems with a profitable cargo each turn,
including the trip from the 8th back to the first, then you have
something that satisfies the players mercantile desires and at the same
time leaves you as a referee to concentrate on detailing a defined
number of systems. Once you have that, fleshing out the NPCs alot more
(start with the starport people, and try to get the PCs to establish
long term trading relationships with the brokers and traders in the
various systems) and developing the character and background of the
respective worlds will generate their own scenarios.

I realise this isn't what you asked for, but it really makes for more
interesting campaigns than a series of scenarios generated off of the
back of gimmick cargoes. If you want gimmick cargoes, then I guess
there are the usual ones - drugs, weapons, secrets, novelty goods and
so on. Artifacts of various kinds are better, the more unique the
better as they will pull various people chasing after them. The best
cargoes for generating interest though are people, IMHO.

By the way, another refereeing rule I used to have when I ran a weekly
traveller campaign was that the session stopped when the PC's jumped
system. Since the jump time was about a week this added a "real-time"
element. It also meant that the players were incented to spend a decent
amount of time in any particular system, so that the stuff I had
prepared got used, and I was given time to prepare for the next
session.

Other stuff:
I bought Challenge 71 a while ago but only got time to read it the
other night. Some comments:
- - when does Challenge go back to monthly status
- - I enjoyed reading the designer notes. In the BL designer notes Dave
Nilsen says that "we will eventually re-release 2300 as a campaign
setting using the TNE rules". This is the closest I have seen to a
commitment on this. Are there dates planned?
- - TNS - I'm as annoyed as some other TMLers seem to be about the last
couple of TNS's. Couldn't GDW have provided some stuff covering the
interim period in the regency, which presumably still has a news
service? Also it seems to comeback online at the end as an interactive
channel, has FTL communication now been introduced? Given we now have a
bimonthly frequency this is pretty shoddy stuff.
- - Space Race is a Megatraveller scenario. The other stuff is TNE. None
of this is actually marked in the magazine. What about the people who
came in new with TNE trying to make sense of the MT ship designs?
- - Straits of Magellan seems pretty standard Challenge scenario fare.
What worries me though is that the subsector map is for a previously
unpublished subsector and only indicates TNE data. As I've said before
I think it good practice for GDW to include both pre- and post-collapse
maps when they publish, as per the TNE book ... one of the
possibilities Loren and others have mooted for those who don't like the
TNE background is to site their campaigns in the pre-collapse era using
the TNE rules. Is this possible avenue being closed off also?
- - Finally, Challenge continues to feature a lot of mediocre material on
games that are treated better elsewhere (basically most of the games
that GDW does not produce itself). I don't like T2000 or Merc:2000
(and I don't really think they qualify as Science Fiction), and I'm not
familiar with Dark Conspiracy, but I accept their presence in Challenge
as that is about the only place they would get support anyhow. But I
think Challenge could be improved considerably by concentrating on the
games it knows best.

Rgds
Mark