Traveller: High and Dry - RPG Review
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- A look at the Traveller scenario High and Dry by Mongoose Publishing. It's an introductory adventure where the PCs are given a free space ship and a whole mess of trouble that comes with it.
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Guest starring Jack the NPC
I like the idea of a system's intro adventure being the players cleaning up after a group of murder hobo PCs.
From baaahaaaack in the day, here's what I recommend for a Traveler campaign: Don't use 'planet of the week' planets and sectors. Keep it to one sector. That sector has one major planet, and 100 years ago there was a colonial rush from that planet into the rest of the sector. So across the sector there's about 10 colonized worlds, each in a different state of struggling to survive. Plus across the sector there are many deserted failed colonies. Think Firefly, Futurama, or the crew of the Nostromo. Remember, a planet is really, really big, with lots and lot of areas on it, so you can run many different types of adventures on the same planet over time. So what I like doing is every time they go to a planet they have to go to a different part of it. This way each planet evolves. Also you build up alot of continuity because the characters action begin to matter. Did they deliver weapons to one planet? Did they fail to deliver medicine to another? These succes' and failures have consequence that end up shaping the whole sector.
Nice advice. When I played a little bit of Traveller (also waaahaaaay back in the day), I remember being pretty overwhelmed by the sheer geographical scope of it, having virtually unlimited space to explore. Plus, the common sci-fi trope where every planet has exactly one notable feature is pretty goofy when you think about it.
Hmm, now I wonder if I still have my old Traveller core rulebooks. It would be kind of fun to break them out again.
@@Dorian_sapiens If not, just grab Cepheus Light or Cepheus faster Than Light (Pay What You Want). It's OGL Traveller.
I've been doing that with this one desert planet in my campaign. The polar caps are temperate, but in cold war with each other, and the players have had a 'smalltown western' adventure in an outlying settlement, an aliens session with an abandoned starport, a Lovecraftian encounter in a deep cave near the desert border, plus a load of gritty cyberpunk gang dealings in the southern capital...
And now they're off to the 'deep desert' filled with still suited not-freemen and totally not Deserts Of Karak-style grav carrier towns. Really helps the planet is Tech level 13, and the party thought up a neat aspect about the UWP, which might help others out if they find themselves stuck with the party on a low-tech world where they need high-tech stuff:
UWPs were written by explorers to the planet 5-10 years ago, at best, and then uploaded through a chain of paperwork before being submitted to any official map, or even unofficial maps. They're mostly reliable on things like hydrographic, atmosphere and size, but the population, tech and even government type might be a lot less reliable. Some worlds might not even be real, and no one's gotten round to verify they're still there.
I've been running a PBEM campaign set in the Trojan Reach Sector of the Official Traveller Universe. The campaign started on Tanith (As per the Planet Profile module by Mongoose) and so far have traveled to the next planet in the same system. In three and a half years, the PCs have yet to jump or travel even as far as a neighboring world system. By staying put, it allows me as GM to thoroughly flesh out the planet and it's sibling planet's environs.
Staying on the original planet has not slowed or harmed the campaign and we're still going strong.
My gm always acts like there's is only one habituated planet per system.
Word of advise for people: Heli/Gyrocopters need enough atmosphere to function. I would suggest some Freakish animal or a zeppelin sort of thing.
Good point and suggestion.
We just finished this adventure tonight. We ended up feeding the abandoned guard dog and winning her over. She's now our ship mascot. :D
Glad to hear it.
No adventure survives contact with the players.
True
Truer words were never spoken. I once derailed a module so bad the author was contacted for his opinion and said, "Oh, dear."
@@danmorgan3685 : Ok. Now you made me curious....
@@robertnett9793 It was a Call of Cthulhu adventure. It was about a movie that was being made by a cult that was totally not Scientology.
I ran off with the star who turned into a being of black tendrils and downtown LA traffic.
@@danmorgan3685 :D thx.
Once - in Shadowrun - our group came over a large stockpile of explosives.
Played a very triggerhappy merc back then, who somehow - can't really remember how - betrayed the Johnson and stole a few hundred kilograms of the stuff.
Then - smart as I was - I hid the explosives in several lockers all accross Hamburg (northern Germany, seaport, large city)
Alas... I didn't know, that the explosives were rigged and hat literally remote triggers baked in the mass...
So one sunny morning things got south really really quickly. Now this character is a hunted terrorist who had to make a drastic change in his career plans...
Oh and on a less egocentric note - yes. this event blew up the adventure ...
Good times...
The DMV...on a planetary scale...that alone makes it a horror game.
"it's a lot like turpentine, but not as smooth" ROFL literally laugh out loud.
“Hand over your guns” is the sci-fi equivalent of “get on the boat” in fantasy RPGs, you just know something bad is going to happen! Great review as always Seth 💜
“From my cold dead hands”..
Charlton Heston
Tony dude it’s just a boat, let it go 😜
“We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty”
Chesterton
Thank God for the 2nd amendment 🧐
@KayleeBrowncoat
“Let it go, let it goooooo”
Yeah, Disney songs...
@@Tony-dh7mz Your proposal is acceptable. - Bug
I really like how much the devs communicated that the previous crew were absolute jackwagons.
they left their dog to die.
Or as one of my players put it:
"You know, whoever takes care of his pet can't be completely bad...... oooooh..... right...."
Yeah...that is going to be coming back to haunt my players this Sunday. :P
Good for you Seth! You’re living my dream! You are so lucky to get the opportunity to try new things and then make SOLID content about it! Love you’re stuff.
I agree. This is not something everyone can do but I wish I could!
*Idea* Have the characters find a large weapon of mass destruction in the ship's hold sometime afterward. The previous crew having secretly been weapon smugglers who plan on coming back for their highly illegal big money cargo. They will be hunting the characters for their ship & the cargo. Along with the shady & powerful end-buyer (a crime org, revolutionary group, or other violent org) who feels ripped off by everyone, deciding to take it by force themselves. Make the weapon so widely illegal that the characters are terrified of even admitting they have it to authorities, and make sure that dumping it in the middle of nowhere also guarantee severe results. Perhaps some kind of civilization-homing AI driven device that travels of it's own accord, and will automatically activate it's "dead man switch" , if moved, without the right codes (which the ex-crew smugglers only have).
Wow, now this just makes me want to deal with them in such a Savage way.
@@danielramsey6141 Yeah! A good start to a long series of legal and moral quandaries, along with multiple factions out to get you, and each other. Plenty room to add even more groups after the big McGuffin.
Nice!
So many ideas from Dark Matter come to mind.
My compliments sir! That's a very nice tip!
Nice to see you interested in Traveller. Hope to see more on it on your channel.
I’m looking to play and run Traveller at some point.
I’m gearing up to run a Traveller campaign. This sounds like a great adventure on which to start out the group.
Simple solution for probe drones. They were scrapped or salvaged by the previous crew.
I wonder if there is a small company of real estate agents in this campaign...
You know, like if you wanna a showing in a dangerous planet...
Who should they call?
*Scott Brown appears, wearing a power loader from aliens*
Wait, why does this remind me of Santa Clarita Diet,
Oh, wait...
Longtime Traveller Ref here. I don't have this module, but it does sound like a great campaign starter. If you're going to be doing a Traveller campaign, it won't hurt to pick up a lot of classic adventures--Annic Nova, Twilight's Peak, Research Station Gamma, Nomads of the World Ocean, and more, and of course, the book-sized The Traveller Adventure--from first edition, which have a very similar open-ended, emphasis -on-world-building tone to the adventure you describe here.
Plus a little nitpick--starships like the scout ship are designed to handle the turbulence and heat of atmosphere reentry and skimming gas giants, so the volcano's pyroclastic flow shouldn't really hurt it that much even if flying right through it. But I guess it if it was in bad shape, that might be different
and not fully operational on top of that.
I wonder if the High And Dry Adventure was created as a second campaign, after the first party got arrested. :P
Nice Photon Helmet :) Legit old school
Man, I wish I had enough people to experiment with other systems than just d&d. I'd play all of the reccomended skorkowski library.
At least uou have freinds.
The term Friends is very subjective.
Hey Seth, I enjoyed this video tremendously this when you released it, but I wanted to come back and make a comment. I started with Traveller back in '79, so I have some history there, but I really hadn't looked at it closely in about 15 years (not since the D20 version). Your review basically set my brain on fire, and I have spent the last 3 weeks obsessing about running a Pirates of Drinax campaign. So thanks for that. 🤦♂️...
..MOAR PLZ
Glad to bring you back to Traveller. The Mongoose 2e version has us super-excited. I haven't been this pumped about a new game since 7e Call of Cthulhu came out. We'll be kicking off a Traveller campaign this month. This weekend will be a second test game. Mission to Mithril.
Pirates of Drinax looks freakin awesome. We'll want several games under our belts before deciding on that one or not. Islands in the Rift is one I'm really looking forward to running soon.
Pirates of Drinax is AWESOME! It sets up an entire campaign in the Trojan Reach. If your players balk at becoming Pirates themselves, the module still makes for a wonderful campaign where the players end up interacting with it cleaning up after actual Pirates. Pirates and the Trojan Reach rock!
Looking to start my first traveller campaign. This may be a good starting pints. Thanks seth
Another good starting point you might want to look at is Flatlined. That's what I used to open our most recent Traveller campaign.
Good luck with the game.
I love this game! Thanks for the video 😁
The "make everyone related" suggestion is really interesting 😀👍
Thank you for these posts. I am deployed and it helps break up the monotony of the weeks. Thanks!
12:18 Two Words: Lava Tubes. Look them up. A GM could easily put a few of these in the volcano as a means of shortening the trip and to get around the need of having to completely climb up and over w/ the parts. Still, this sort of option should've been put in the scenario to begin with. But, as you're the GM, it's your right to change up the scenario and add volcano tubes, a local copter bush pilot complete w/ copter for hire (as you mentioned earlier), etc...
So glad you’re playing Traveller. I love this game! And.., you should sell the Patch that Jack is wearing
One more thing (sorry) but I suggest if your players are going to take the lava head on, the pilot should task chain with engineering and electronics to help keep life support on full blast and fire suppression systems ready to go. The electronics is basically just keeping the ships computer working and keeps outside communication. Just my two cents. Task chains make Traveller feel like you're all scrambling to get something done.
So the original owners of High N Dry are imprisoned on Flammarion. That's how the scout service know where to send the adventures. Right?
Love Jack's outfit, especially the nametag. Great review, keep 'em coming.
Another good review. Surprised me it was for Traveller.
I finally bit the bullet and bought the core rule book. I’m gonna start with High and dry and this is a perfect walkthrough. You rock Seth!
Hope you all have a blast with it.
Pass the "Mudders Milk!"
Are you going to review the core rule book for Traveller?
Would be nice to see a review and mechanics discussion for the rules.
That down vote must be a former crew member of the High and Dry ;)
Played it, and yes, we hate the former crew of the High and Dry as well.
What was your next adventure?
@@Susrek Unfortunately one of the players has since died, so that crew has been put aside. We have just started a home brewed traveller campaign (pre written adventures are not the norm in our group) being the entourage of a bored semi disgraced noble (gambling addict/negotiator), You have the academic (to give a veneer of respectability, and the university co-own the ship with the nobles family), the pilot (barbarian former scout), the engineer (the conspiracy theory kook from the underworld), the bodyguard/butler and my character, the androgynous hyper metrosexual former forensic financial investigator/corporate spy. As usual for our group, gun bunnys are lacking. But as a group of players, we have been playing together on and off for about 25 year, so we no longer feel the need, the need to freeem ;)
Nope, the down vote are probably dog like creature lovers,
I mean people who like dogs, not people who....never mind
@@Tony-dh7mz This IS Traveller we are talking about, either could be true!
In Traveller we shoot first and ask questions never,
I suppose that’s a different way the screw the pooch...
So, “from a certain point of view.”
Obi Wan Kenobi
I was hoping you'd get to Traveller one day. I played it when it came out, and it was one of my most memorable RPG experiences.
back in the 80's, Traveller was one of my favorite RPGs to play. We also played a lot of Morrow Project, you should check that one out too.
We played through this and one of group was a Vargr who picked up on the Walston passive racism right away which made for some comments and uh..shoving matches with the locals. The best though was when he took umbrage at the "enslavement" of the Tenschers's wolf as a pet - "How would you feel if I kept a pet monkey!?!?". Well the other layers mollified him by saying it would starve if left behind and we thought that was the end of it but no. When they got back to Flamarion he went in search of a pet shop and bought a ...well not a monkey from Earth but a monkey like creature.
Love Jack's new grittu space trucker outfit- Great job, Seth!
Now....I must know what happened that poor dog the bad crew left behind. It's giving me a concern!
Nooo, the poor dog... don’t kill the dog! Please say you can save the dog!
Oh I loved this module! It was honestly the most fun I've had to date with an RPG.
A buddy of mine got a group of us together for what was just going to be a one shot but we've been slowly organizing it into a full campaign.
It really helps if your player group includes both a bunch of classic sci-fi fans and STEM majors. You know, that dangerous mix of being fluent in both real world and fictional technobabble. Hands down one of my favorite scenes was when we were rescuing a family from a crashed air car. In order to buy enough time, we managed to convince our GM to let us overcharge the M-Drive and use the fact that it's manipulating gravity to push back against the pyroclastic flow.
Also our party made the exact same comments about the former crew and the volcano that Jack made...
Especially since our GM said that the *Highndry* was partially disassembled and being sold for parts and part of the reason they parked the ship in the volcano was to destroy the evidence when it inevitable erupted.
I’m writing an adventure for the DM’s Guild right now. Listening to your reviews always gives me something to consider, when it comes to making it more GM friendly. Thanks for the insight.
The hero of Walston
The man they call Jack!
I ran this adventure for a group. It really worked out well. It was a good method to give them a ship. I streamlined the adventure and cut out all the bureaucratic stuff, but everyone had fun dodging blobs of lava and rock while rescuing people from the volcano.
After I ran Type S, I ran Shadows (the Classic Traveller adventure) while they were en route back to Flammarion.
This might be my 2nd Favorite Module of yours next to Mr. Corbitt.
I hope that shirt is a reference to the Mentat Mantra from Dune.
It is by the juice of Safu that the thoughts acquire speed.
Just wanted to thank you Seth, for turning my interest to Cyberpunk, and through it R Talsorian Games in general. My group is enjoying their Witcher game right now, but have played Cyberpunk 2020, and are planning to play Mekton Zeta at some point.
Glad you guys have been having fun with it.
What...what...what? Witcher RPG...i don't care but someone i love might.
Darrel Zero Yeah, R Talsorian Games made a witcher TTRPG, It’s one book at the moment but it’s a solid, if brutal system, not unlike most R Talsorian games.
After Traveller, Cyberpunk 2020 is the next game I'm thinking of trying.
I just wanted to thank you for your insight. I just got done running this scenario , and we had a blast. Only addition I made was that my vargr player befriended one of the vargr NPCS so when the NPC needed to be rescued, they're was more emotional investment in saving him.
An idea I had in regards to the module not mentioning the drones is that former crew sold the drones when they stripped the ship for parts and that Scout Services did not include them in the spare parts
As a major note, if you want a short and very useful adventure for any interstellar type game that's easy to convert and mess around with (It can also work in modern, historical, and fantasy with little work), look for the old, free WotC Star Wars D20 adventure High Alert. It's basically the adventure for leaving town in a high security situation and there's a ton of variance inside the adventure already and can easily have everything be shuffled to other systems and settings without doing anything to it. I'd run it for Traveler, Farscape, Spycraft, D&D, and I'd played through it as part of a CoC campaign between messes there.
AzraelThanatos do you have a link or anything, I looked it up and so far I haven’t been able to find anything
@@DeGreyChristensen You'll have to find it again. The issue came from when Wizards of the Coast lost the Star Wars license and all of their stuff from it disappeared overnight.
As per the license, you can still get it other places where people uploaded it as long as they aren't charging for it. At least that's what the people at the old WotC message boards said right after the SW part of the site was pulled...
@@DeGreyChristensen Yeah, just do a search for star wars high alert pdf
Dealing with the DMV is easy; just have your paperwork ready ahead of time!
Last time I went there, it took me longer to wait in line than it did to get my issue dealt with.
Huzzah! More Seth for my RPG addiction!
If you say Seth really slowly it sounds like parselmouth
Awesome, I just bought Traveller and was thinking of running a scenario in it! =)
Damn Seth I wish you lived in my state. I would be buggin you asking what are playing tonight buddy!?! You be like go home Matt and stop being so Nerdy. I really in enjoy your host reviews. I would play this sci-fi game.
Thanks Seth & have a great day.
... My players, err .. obtained ... an ancient AI and I persume a ship like the HighNDry would be a perfect new body for said AI - as it 'lives' at the moment ziped on the techs datapad...
So - old junk-ship in dire need of repair + unstable AI = Shennannigans :D
And I really like your ideas of giving more options to the players. Helps me to come up with broader approachs to situations alltogether.
Because my players are tend to think outside the box. In fact outside the room the box is placed in. Especially the Tech-player.... Imagine McGuyver who is a) suicidial curious and b) has no qualms endanger everyone around him for SCIENCE!!! (Science by the way is like messing around if you DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!)
Soooo I did it. I buyed all available new Traveller scenarios and we played HighNDry the other day.
Summary - it was an awesome hell of a ride :D
Just as a short disclaimer - we didn't play with the Traveller Rules - but a homebrew system we created in teamwork over the last 10 years or so (which ironically started, as back then the original Traveller wasn't supported anymore and the only other SciFi Systems were either StarTrek or StarWars - and we wanted something free of a franchise.) Anyway - the rules work fine and the module was easy enough to convert.
My players were really resourceful inventive and badass this day. Funny enough the group consists of one pilot, one tech and one geologist/antroplogist of all things :D - basically the perfect combination.
They came up with a pretty good solution to get up the mountain, saved them the first of the pesky climb / altitude-sickness rolls in the process and
in the End they didn't only save every possible survivor - but also the dog. Invented a complete new maneuver in literally flying head-on in the cloud making a U-turn and led the one raft jump on board. And came up with a fourth way to survive the cloud: Turning the old lady upwards and firing the main-engines long enough to reach a low orbit.
"You can't fire the main engines - are you crazy? You melt the damn groun....oooooooh....."
And - it took my one alien player - about two seconds to see right through the people on the planet. Oh and not to forget - I blatantly stole your idea of the "FaceMelter" (tastes like turpentine - but with an unbelievable smooth texture)... :D
All in all it was one of the best 8 hours in the last year :D
Therefore again: Thanks for the tips and ideas of yours. They really helped me a lot.
P.S. - one of the next weeks we are going to fly the Old Lady to Mithril (or however I call the world in my universe) :D
Edit: and P.P.S Now my players freelance for the 'Imperia Sciencia Socio por la Esploro de Spaco' (my variant of the ScoutService) Free Internets for everyone who get's the language :D
Paco.
That is awesome. Glad you all enjoyed it. I do confess a moment of fear when ever I see a comment begin with "So I bought the thing you were touting..." and I'm always like, "Oh damn, they didn't like it. I led them astray. They hated it and it's all my fault."
@@SSkorkowsky Nah. It was really great. Hm I should think about to not start my comments that ominous. I don't want to scare you poor youtubers who do your best to give us great content :D
Well done, as always. I love hearing how your players did at the scenario. Hope to hear more about your campaign in the future.
Oh Seth, I hope you run Pirates of Drinax for your group. It will be EPIC!
Oh wow. I'm happy you know Traveller :D This and CoC are my two favorite games!
Thank you for this. I've been hunting for a review of this hard to acquire module. I have the PDF, but need a dead-tree to run it. Your review leaves me feeling a bit mixed as while solid enough I can foresee my players balking at many of the situations.
Despite all the potential bad, it appears to be a much better intro adventure than The Fall Of Tinas included in the Starter Box.
Again, thanks and I hope to see more Traveller reviews just like this! Amazing job!
You know, if one of the players was under the pilot console when this alarms went off, that probably sounded like that jerk in an examination that screams into the stethoscope while the Doctor is using it. Roll for head trauma as they hit their head on the desk >:)
This sounds like the kind of campaign-hook that I would definitely run, honestly. It actually falls in line with how alot of my games are played. A really straight-forward set of events that is flavored by a roleplay-heavy emphasis on creating a cast & crew of NPCs that sorta carry it. Specifically, the former crew of the High and Dry is a trope that I have in almost every adventure I plan. This pesky or meddlesome or otherwise nasty group of characters that the players are expected to absolutely hate. It's a good trope to always have. If for nothing else than to see exactly how the players intend to fuck with them (One of these kinds of jerkass characters ended up getting framed for murder by the PCs).
Awesome! I was thinking about picking up Traveller just the other day. Great timing.
I love the idea of the High N' Dry itself acting as a bit of a malus to the players after they take it over. Like maybe when they're doing non-adventure stuff like speculative trading for the first few times between big adventures, there's an additional -1 or -2 to various dice rolls due to the High N' Dry just having SUCH a bad rap from that previous crew that it results in major issues with getting contacts. This makes it far easier to rope players into potentially dangerous trips like Mission to Mithril, but as soon as the crew arrives as big damn heroes for a few adventures, remove the malus as the High N' Dry is no longer considered this cursed ship.
I enjoy your reviews even for games I don't play and have no intention of playing. Some of the things you say are applicable to other games and situations, and all in all very fun to watch!
Have you heard of a game called Carbon 2185? It's coming out in July or something like that. I'd love to see your take on it when it is out
You should try Traveller, within an historical context its the sci fi equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons, a milestone,
@@Tony-dh7mz Everyone should try Traveller. I personally think Silhouette (Core Command) is a better system, but the history, grittiness and pure adrenaline fun of Traveller should not be missed.
@@Susrek
Well there are many different systems over the years,
Almost 36K subscribers! Keep up the good work guys and we can have a full-length movie starring Seth and only Seth!
We made 36K!
How does a star faring society, not have a local Craigslist? And, surely there are a few used tech stores/ general stores/ scrap yards. If someone has a failing rebreather, they might die before they could return to the spaceport for repair/ replacement. Also, of course there will be some local who makes a living or has a side job doing general transportation. Even Mayberry had enough transport around to accommodate the PCs.
Traveller's tech assumptions are just plain wonky in a lot of ways.
Jaynes Town!!!!!
A MAN CALLED JANE!.
I've never seen anyone talk about Traveller before except for Puffin Forest. So this was really interesting to hear about. Thanks Seth!
Traveler: the only RPG where your character usually doesn’t survive being rolled up. On the other hand, it’s a game where being more than 18 years old has serious advantages. What a concept, being in your 40s means you know how to do stuff!
Depending on the PCs, hunting down the former crew could be an ongoing campaign itself. Or at least a B plot. And handy for the occasional "why are the PCs going to this world?"
Or being hunted by the victims of those people who only know what ship they were flying.
One little plot hole I'm thinking of for this adventure and a solution for when if I run it that gives an alternative route, is how the High & Dry's crew managed to get down from the volcano to get arrested. Now scout ships have an air raft on board so them using that would make sense so my thought is that when the last crew got arrested their air raft was impounded. Now since such a vehicle would be rare on Walston a small local gang would have broken into the garage that it was being kept in and the travellers can track it down leading to a fight with two or three criminals who'd be quick to surrender if things get dicey for them, just enough to introduce new players to how combat in Traveller works then they can fly the air raft to the volcano, or have to pick it up after the eruption if they don't want to spend thousands of credits on replacing the air raft.
I'd love to see a comparison of Classic Traveller, Star Frontiers, Universe and maybe Other Suns. We played CT back in the day, but we also dabbled in Star Frontiers, and I recently bought a copy of it.
Me: "Man these guys sound like absolute human garbage. Who trashes the ship and runs off with the money?!"
Seth: "And they also abandoned their dog to starve to death."
Me: "....NO. Screw waiting for this crew to come find us, I'm going to go find them! It's proactive revenge time!"
They are getting spaced, no questions
"DMV on a planetary level" is a chilling thought that belongs in Call of Cthulhu, not Traveller. :D
Traveller is my go to science fiction game engine. It wouldn't work for something like Star Wars but it's very versatile. From the very beginning the game never treated roleplaying just as a combat simulation.
You can see this in the old and new adventures too. There is always more challenges than just shoot something. Especially it has lot's of ways to avoid combat (as ideas in said scenarios). Lay low, sneak by or diplomacy.
And as told above - I played HighNDry just the other day and was really amazed by the fact, that the main challenge was really to get the ship ready to fly and than to survive a damn volcano, while saving everyones lives in the process.
Only thing I don't really like in the Traveller-System is the very randomised character generation. (Especially with my kind of luck with dice...) But besides this - the scenarios as far as I read them are solid and really great.
... But did the Doggo survive?
No,
Kaaaaaaaahan!
Ours did. He ran, while the lava was slowly filling the inner valley of the volcano. The geologist/sensors guy spottet a slightly cooler silouhette, the engineer, recalibrated the antigravs in lightning time, and the pilote dived back in the hellhole opened the cargo bay and let the poor thing aboard.
My players are true heroes :D
Great introduction to Traveller!
@ 11:49 I don’t know if that is improv or written but great character work.
Yeah they're big damned heroes
Hey, Seth, since you seem to like Call of Cthulhu a lot, I wonder if you plan on reviewing Runequest, since it's also a Chaosium game.
Yeah the new Runequest is nice,
The module sounds a bit thin - like the first chapter setup of a scenario, rather than a complete module. Having said that, I’m just disappointed that Seth may be spending time on Traveller now rather than the beloved Call Of Cthulhu (Seth, there’s a new Pulp Cthulhu campaign out called ‘A Cold Fire Within’, nudge nudge...).
Also I’ve always found hard sci-fi a difficult genre to embrace; the limitless options, the ‘what will the players do next?’ dilemma, and the problem of ‘I don’t even have a grip on modern technology, let alone a far future one’. Sandboxes are hard enough without the extra dimension of limitless space...
Anyhoo and nonetheless... always great to see a new Seth video.
Well there aren't many people who cover Traveller, so having Seth do some is a real boon. And as for modern technology...it is a 1970's version of futuristic tech, so quite manageable 😁
I would think an intro adventure would have a short space combat, an easy man to man shoot'em up and a mystery to unravel.
The module is quite good. Yes, it has blanks to fill in - and on the other hand you have to think of a few different approaches to certain parts - as you know your player better than the devs who set a list of options. But all in all it took me less than a day to propper prepare the module.
As in many cases it boils down to two things: Note major plotpoints (let the players figure out themsevles how they get from one to another).
And: WRITE NAMES! Everytime you dm something have a list of names prepared. If the adventure mentiones some nameless clerk who the players have to deal with - give him a name. And write 20 additional names. This way your NPCs feel way more living. And players can't easily tell who is an importend (because named) NPC and who is just a random appearence never to be seen again.
Sci-Fi has it's fans and it's adversaries. Not everyone likes it. But the idea of limitless options is - limit them. Yes you have the whole space. But that doesn't mean you need to visit every nook and cranny of said space. Confine the game to a system with one or three planets for the beginning. Establish interactions, let them explore the worlds more than just cursory. And if those worlds are exhausted - or people just want a bit of change, make the universe slowly larger. Go to the next system, while keep the ties to the first one.
You don't need to invent a whole universe in the beginning.
The question 'What will the players do next' should be talked outside the game. In my experience players are happy to play the adventures you prepare. It's quite rare, that they leave the area if there is a compelling hook to stay. (And if they do - roll a random planet, give it one or two specialities a local brand of moonshine and you are golden for the time being.
About the tech: As long as you don't play 'hard sci fi' which tries to stay as realistic as possible, extrapolating existing tech and applies it to the game - you are not in trouble.
We for example try to hold a semblance of internal coherence (when we state Tech X does X - you can't simply ignore it - you have to find an ingame-explanation why X doesn't work in the actual situation basically). And the rest is really not more realistic than Spaceballs or Galaxy Rangers (but hey - Highway-reststops in space are awesome :D)
In short you don't need to be an engineer or a scientist to invent seemingly realistic tech - just avoid contradicting once made statements of what works and what not.
At 9:35 easy: hot air balloon, they won't be expecting that.
Hm... would take the tech some fiddling, as the planets air pressure is rather low. But in the end I probably would allow it :D
Fast talking beats good dice rolling any day of the week.
I would like to see more sci fi rpg content. I don't have anything against Cthulu and the other stuff. But im happy to hear that you are planing to start a traveler campaign.
Gee, that wedge-shaped spaceship reminds me of something. Hmm... :p
The Class S scout design has been out since 1977, and existed in playtest for several years before that. Star Wars came out in 1977, and ILM didn't finalize the designs for everything until shortly before filming completed. Neither design really predates the other, and they're radically different sizes.
@@richmcgee434 Interesting. Traveler is a much older game than I thought!
It's one of the first twenty TTRPGs ever published, and one of first ten scifi ones. The wiki article here actually looks right for the early days, at least. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_tabletop_role-playing_games Cripes, if that list is complete, I had nine of the first ten RPGs. And a copy of Realms of Yolmi, which is as old as Traveller and about a thousand times more obscure.
@@johngleeman8347 Yep, one of the first wave of games. Bar refinements of the skills list/charater Gen the Mongoose 2nd edition is compatable and it still plays well.
Great review, as always.
After listening review of this adventure and the one with the ice worms, just wanna know are all the traveller adventures like this? They seem to have gone to great lengths to come up with reasons why PCs have to do the same kind of stuff in Traveller that they would be doing in a fantasy rpg. Slogging around the wilderness fighting critters.
Average humans are considered mini-bosses
I knew it was all going to go for crap when he said "Reinstall Windows"
"No sir, this is not a weapon, it is my seeing eye plasma gun...i'm totally blind without it.....at night, You don't want to discriminate against the disabled do you? DO YOU???"
"Yes I know it looks like "Battledress" totally not, its the latest fashion trend from Regina, see look here, "DG" that's Dolce and Gabbana, no that's not marker pen, no no leave it!....Waaaaaa! you mean i bought a fake!?!"
New costumes! 🙌
Awesome, I love traveller... Currently collecting up more minis (28mm) and getting them painted for a cool campaign. BTW I 3D print my own ships (I also modeled them myself)... just sent some samplers to scifi author TC MCCarthy (who is also totally into Traveller himself). From my gaming history with traveller, as a GM I never truly plan anything... I let my players make their characters and jury rig what they create into an adventure... because you never know what characters are going to be involved and what ship (if any) comes about in the rolling process. I usually have a starting world figured out, and a few "jobs" ready for employees to undertake. (usually I'll have the players need something to fix their ship... cause you know, it needs that damn fuse with the integrated circuits (no aluminum gum wrapper fix will do in this case).
I'd like to get a pile of 15mm or 10mm minis for it.
@@Susrek I recall recently seeing "zod minis" on ebay, they might still be there they were 15mm Zodani and Im not sure if the seller realizes this. They were inexpensive, and its a start for a collection. They are too small for my eyes .
Would love to see a RPG-Review for some Superhero-Scenario like Mutants and Masterminds etc
Did some Traveller back in the day!. Walston as in "My Favorite Martian"?.
I still can't get over the fact that he has "Jack the NPC" on his name tag. Hilarious.
Given what happens to most NPCs, the patch really ought to be a bull's eye or set of target crosshairs. :)
I like to think the NPC stands for "Not Politically Correct"
Who all would try and adopt the dog if they were playing this scenario?
The module kinda sounds like a "glorified Totoral", then a standard adventure module.
Hence why all the different "rolls", giving you a free* ship, A dog is the party and DM want to, etc.
Does look interesting though.
One thing I find a little 'off' with this adventure is the four flight cases.
They are mentioned at the start of the adventure and once the pcs have reached the ship but not one mention at all during the trip to and climb up the volcano. They have to be relatively bulky items as they need to contain numerous parts and circuit boards safely. It's possible the fourth unit carrying the diagnostics equipment could be smaller but the three carrying the spares must be at least 500mm - 1m on each side.
Quite a nuisance if you happen to drop one of the cases halfway up the volcano....
Good review, as always. Good to see your take on Traveller.
One change I'd consider is offering the players some kind of off-road buggy, maybe say it was part of the survey job and the local government is holding it for bureaucratic reasons or it needs some kind of skilled repair work.
Thank you for this great review and best regards from Germany! Fly high and casual! ;-)
5:38 wait was that a giant space hamster?
Seth, what did your group did to that poor dog ? Was he saved from the eruption ?
That climb sounds as much fun as the time one of my players took his exotic pet on board. ..
It was a very young critter that he kept in a glass tank... basicly.. it was a baby rust monster...
You can imagine how that went..
Are you kidding me..
You went to 567-908 without meeting the shriekers and helping them out... aww man..