Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog

Microgames, Monster Games, and Role Playing Games

Barons of Moonstein IV: The Abductioning

This game should have collapsed weeks ago.

It was evident that interest was flagging when I couldn’t get the gang together to wrap up things up on a Monday night. For any other campaign, that would have been the end right there. But at this point, the #BrOSR has mastered so many diverse ways of playing rpgs, SOMETHING we have done before is generally a good fit for whatever circumstances a referee faces. In this case, that meant downtime orders for one-week long turns.

I checked out at that point thinking that Braunstein play just magically works by itself, but then the weekend rolled back around and I found myself with either mediocre turn orders or else no turn orders at all. The one player that was most insistent that we continue chose this moment to go on a Twitter fast for that weekend. Another player that just could not pick up what sort of tone and theme I expected in this campaign gave me nonsense orders that would turn an entire planet into an episode of the old 1960’s Batman TV show. I yelled at everyone and insulted them until I had some semblance of orders for about 80% of the characters. But I still didn’t have what I had hoped for in terms of participation and substance.

This right here should have been the end of the campaign as well. No one as mean and uncouth as myself should have any players at all! But I looked at what I had for turn orders and realized that the guys that were AWOL or out of sync didn’t deserve to have a moment by moment reaction to what everyone else was doing. They could just as easily be out of play for the moment and then get involved the following week. Verisimilitude and immersion would not be threatened if these rpg LOSERS were declared to have simply LOST A TURN for the time being. If they ended up not being WINNERS it was only because of the age old law of “YA SNOOZE YA LOSE”.

Reasonable. Fair. But not particularly ingratiating. My generally nasty disposition did very little to drum up enthusiasm for the game, alas. And yet… the Braunstein was working its magic. Things were brewing that were intriguing and exciting and fun. But not every player could see all the pieces of the puzzle. Of course, it happens from time to time that you have sort of a dud session in a continuing campaign that sets up events for the awesome session down the road that everyone talks about later. I thought we had that sort of a situation here at the conclusion of the Moonstein III orders resolution.

For the final round I became a much nicer referee. I begged for turn orders early and often in the most respectful tone I could manage. Things were shaping up. Intrigue was afoot. And yet the players still did not appear to be all that highly engaged with each other– an essential component of any Braunstein-like game. Saturday was coming. I needed to have all the orders in before Saturday so I could move things forward when I had a moment of free time I could dedicate to the task.

Friday rolled around and THAT GUY who had checked out on me announced that he wanted to go full-on LARP by hosting a ball at the estate he had taken over way back during Moonstein I. The rather SILLY player that had been pushing to ruin the vibe of my campaign gave me orders that were unacceptable to me. WHAT WAS GOING ON? Why was there such a disparity between what was obvious to me and what the players were doing? I didn’t get it.

I didn’t have time to figure it out. We couldn’t have a session where we all got together and talked this out. We were stuck with me looking at this complete mess and then using my judgement to make decisions that were in the best interests of everybody. I nearly flipped the table at this moment. But then I got enough good orders coming in that fit with everything else so well that I got excited about the game again. I allowed the Space Cotillion to stand as it did turn out to fit the campaign better than anything I would have introduced. Also people were clearly excited about it or else seemed to be excited about it. Two players wanted to get in on the act that, in my opinion, did not actually belong there. I ruled that they were going on a jungle expedition to hunt for Space Mescaline drug cartel stuff so that the people involved with that could have a bit of game this round.

But I will tell you, being told “you’re playing your character wrong” has to stink. Nobody likes it. Nobody likes being the sort of referee that tells people that. The rules in the Dungeon Masters Guide that pertain to this are something that few people have the stomach to implement. This power tripping approach to refereeing is something that 90% of people just can’t stand and they have complained about this for decades. Rpgs like GURPS dial this stuff back quite a ways offering character points for people that PLAY THEIR ROLE. Everybody likes to advance. Is that carrot enough here to get people in line with the best interests of a serious campaign? I doubt it!

So, I used my judgement. And I could sense the last vestiges of player excitement leak out of the campaign as if someone had slashed its tires. No, it was real! And sad! Nevertheless awesome things were happening. It’s just that they were happening in a type of game that is way more engaging for the referee than it was for the players.

I started processing the turns on a Saturday. I spent many, many hours abduct reasoning three separate scenarios into existence. We had something! It was really, really good! But it was all something that each individual player could only see a tiny fraction of.

We had three micro-scenarios set up now: the notorious space cotillion, a thrilling jungle expedition, and a bit of skullduggery at the starport. Engagement was very high with the space ball initially. I regretted being so down on it. (Maybe allowing players to do what they want really is the best policy?) The starport situation required a great deal of abductive reasoning to determine what was even going on there. The scenario hinged on how things would “actually” be in a Traveller-like universe. I had to determine what kind of crew would be aboard the yacht and what their disposition would be. Everything became very different when after a few days of discussion we realized that the yacht was not streamlined and would necessarily be in orbit above the planet rather than sitting in a berth at the Ariston starport.

Then I had to wonder if the players were all toying with me rather than merely giving me lame orders designed to mess up my brilliantly devised setting. Macho Mandalf’s character Joe Gelt-Waunder from the original Moonstein was in position to take Cr300,000 from a corrupt space baron, blame the guy’s murder on Bdubs’s space samurai character, and then leave the planet in the space yacht of an NPC which I had delegated to Bdubs when another player had had to bow out of the game. Was the guy running the steward of house Ariston from Moonstein I in cahoots with Macho Mandalf here? Was there some deeper scheme going on here that no one had informed me of?

There wasn’t. People really were all asleep at the wheel. Or perhaps people really hated my campaign and they had all collectively decided to concede the entire thing to the notorious Macho Mandalf rather than put up with me continuing to yell at them about how terrible their downtime orders were.

Now, I was excited when I saw the players in the Space Cotillion agree to play some poker. When I had had a similar situation crop up in a Boot Hill game, the inevitable shoot out developed as the players leaned into their roles. I was out for blood. I really wanted to player character to die and this was the perfect set up for extreme violence. But this very desirable sort of player-on-player conflict never developed. Everyone was too hung up on their space larping gabbing about what outfits they were wearing and what food their were eating and which girl they were dancing with. It was really dumb!

But I couldn’t just hand the game to Macho Mandalf even though he was set to steal the show entirely as he has so often done in the past. The players… as disappointing and irritating as they all collectively were to me nevertheless deserved a thinly veiled “are you sure you want to do that” beat where they commit whole hog to their self-destructive hubris. Here is that moment:

Everyone was on notice now. I had spent days hashing out the situation at the starport with the one player that had been tasked to go there. He at least was aware that Macho Mandalf was threatening to win the game very nearly unopposed. In a real Braunstein, he would have no doubt have spilled the beans to everyone else and there would have been some kind of stupid plan formed by somebody to stop him.

The jungle expedition was meanwhile culminating into some dramatic conflict that was precisely the sort of action that should happen in any sort of science fiction rpg adventure:

Beat and Olga and Roarke were tricked into being bait in a very dangerous situation. Because the referee said they would. How would it play out? Well, the players got boxcars on their rolls here and Beat Takeshi hit the space dragon with his sword and knocked it unconscious. After a few days of back and forth over the outcome, we ended up with a space girl suffering from occasional migraines walking around with a 25 kilogram space dragon draped around her shoulders. If she deserved to be killed for taking what is potentially the equivalent of a barrel of Space Mescaline from the hands of a dastardly cartel NPC, it alas was not going to happen while he was dependent on her Air/Raft piloting skill to get back to civilization safely.

Meanwhile at the Space Cotillion, some kind of weird drug got into SOMETHING and the crew from the yacht and the ridiculous player character Grav-lad who managed to get into my campaign with a stupid name and character concept were all tripping out. In my mind, this odd event should have resulted in SOME kind of additional engagement. But nobody actually cared about this scenario at all, so it was reasonable to just allow this scene to dry up with nothing else significant happening. But this made perfect sense because events were happening elsewhere that would explain why nothing important was ever going to happen at this dumb LARP.

Back at the starport, we had Joe Gelt-Waunder in disguise and working as security at the direction of the steward of House Ariston. We had the four crewmen from the yacht drop down to the planet and then head for the ridiculous dancing thing. I had already announced their entry at the cotillion, so their presence there was “canon” to the campaign continuity and could not be rolled back. Finally, we had Sir Samuel Harker who had been tasked to guard the starport by Bdubs who was playing the NPC cartel guy. He evidently got bored and went to the Space Cotillion, too. The place where I had expected a fight to break out did not actually have a fight. But that didn’t actually matter. Because Joe Gelt-Waunder should have taken his Cr300,000 and then been able to steal the space yacht unopposed.

There was just one problem here, though. There was no way that we could see that this could actually work now. We spent hours hashing out what should be feasible and what would be reasonable and we just could not see anything that made any sense. But then a new opening presented itself. I had made a mistake when I had devised the crew. I never rolled up a pilot or a navigator for the crew. Heck, I didn’t even have a character in place that could have piloted the Ship’s Boat down to the planet. We had to agree that such a character existed and I used the same method of pulling something out of Supplement One to nail down his characteristics. Thus… this guy entered the game:

Commander 5619F7, Age 50, 8 terms, cCr85,500, Pilot-3, Computer-2, Navigation-2, Vacc-2, SMG-2, Dagger-2. Travellers’.

So we had the pilot, the navigator, and the identity of the person that had piloted the ships boat down the planet all established. Naturally, he was a grumpy old man that had tried to argue the other crewmen into not going to the ridiculous Space Cotillion. He had been overruled. And now a very Dumarest-like scene was developing. The head of starport security was approaching him with a cart full of space marguerites and a couple of space prostitutes on either side of him. Was this going to be a cakewalk via stupid player character plans? No! The pilot/navigator turned out to not like girls. The reaction dice indicated his better judgement was not swayed by this particularly tempting situation.

It was time for the violence I had been waiting for all week. I was on the verge of whipping up my own rule for this, but classic Traveller already had something that was perfect for this scene. Joe handed off syringes to the prostitutes telling them he would give them much money if they would stick this guy with them. One prostitute went all-in on this. But we had trouble now. Two guys with SMG’s needed to settle their differences now. Everything in the campaign now hinged on who managed to draw their weapon first.

Joe narrowly pulled off a win here. I had declared that the pilot was wearing mesh armor instead of cloth and this looked like a terrible call now that I saw what the actual rolls were for Joe’s submachine gun fire. I wanted to know if Joe could win even if the pilot had the best case scenario for his armor selection rather than what I had idly thrown out. Sure enough, Joe would get two hits versus the mesh and one hit versus the cloth. I rolled the damage for just a single hit and the amount was precisely enough damage points to kill the pilot instantly.

Joe then boarded the Ship’s Boat unopposed and took to the skies. With effectively unlimited amounts of time and everything that was on the ship’s boat at his disposal, I determined that he could make it to the yacht, trigger some kind of space garage door opener, and then work out how to jump out of the Moonshine system unopposed from here on out.

This stranded everyone else on a dangerous backwater. A downright disastrous outcome for them all! And unlike conventional rpgs where there are no winners and losers, we suddenly had some of both here. Joe Gelt-Waunder was an undispuited winner. The other nine characters in the game were certainly all LOSERS.

And planet Moonshine had become an awe-inspiring sargasso of space!

Barons of Moonshine Turn 3: News and Rumors

Gosh, ever since that yacht landed last week, things sure have been crazy.

Millionaire playboy Cidri Flynn was found dead in his hotel room– his body covered in countless red sores. Autopsy reports indicate that his killer had entirely drained Flynn’s body of blood. Local authorities suspect this to be a space mafia related murder and that this sick method of torture was some kind of message to rival gangs.

Meanwhile, Baron Theotormon has been murdered at his estate. Further, his rather healthy coffers and space credit accounts have all been cleared. Although he had been shot and also suffered the effects of a fall from a very great height, autopsy reports indicate that the actual cause of death was via a katana through the heart. As such, suspicion has fallen to itinerant samurai Beat Takeshi who is wanted to for questioning.

Finally, sir Mitchel Denters is organizing an expedition into the deadly Locrian rainforest. Ostensibly this merely for the adventure of it all, but some suggest that the objective here may be to retrieve a key ingredient for an secret space drug with unknown and perhaps even nefarious properties. Note that if anyone happened to want to get out of town for a while in order to escape scrutiny from the local authorities, this journey into the wilds would be an easy way to lay low for a while.

Hint to players: the timing and the the nature of the next ship that arrives will be very significant. Each “turn” of this sessionless Braunstein will have ONE roll on the following custom encounter table from the original Moonstein:

This is a lonely backwater. At the end of each “turn” of Braunstein action, I will roll 2d6. On an 11+ a ship has arrived. On a 1-4 it is a Scout ship, on a 5 it is a tramp freighter, and on a 6 roll again. On a 1-3 it is a Pirate intent on mayhem and on a 4-6 it is Ariston returning in his yacht. Player characters that believe this planet is too dangerous may secretly bid for passage off this world in the event that a ship passes through during the space of a game turn.

Referee observation: The reflex of Traveller players is to kick back and imagine together what everything means. This has occasionally resulted in “satisfying” moments in game sessions with a very peculiar quality distinct from D&D campaigns and their derivatives. However, this impulse is inconsistent with the requirements of Braunstein play and its requisite turn orders. Some of it is inescapable. A little adds to the fun. Too much can obliterate any semblance of an actual game.

Cast of Characters:

From Madriguerra:

  • [Trash] Zebulon “Zeb” Beignet, Rank: Colonel, Branch: Army, UPP: 4D73C5, Age: 34, CR: 17,645, Electronics-1, Computer-1, Leadership-1, Gambling, Rifle-1, Revolver-1, SMG-3
  • [HG] Former Lieutenant Olga Carter C769B9 Leader-2 Air/Raft-1, rifle-1,smg-1 20,000cr age 26
  • [Mandalf] Hamilton Lee Starque — Ex-navy Admiral 8A79AA Age 46, 7 Terms, Cr 150,000, Dagger-2, Auto rifle-1, Pilot-1, Jack of all Trades-1, Electronics-1, Engineering-1, Travellers’, Dagger
  • [Bdubs] Beat Takeshi – Former 2nd Officer: C66B48 . Age 38. 5 Terms with Merchants. CR 30,000. Bribery, Broadsword-2, Dagger-1, Vehicle (Car), Electronics, Gun (Rifle). Mysterious fighting man looking for men of honor to challenge to melee combat. Equip on person: 5 daggers, Broadsword, Rifle (20 ammo). Cloth armor.
  • [Gabe] John Evryman, jr. – Ex-Marine Lt., 577777, Age 38, 5 Terms, cr 100,000, Brawling 1, Cutlas 1, Dagger 2, Gambling 1, Mechanical 1, Revolver 1, High Passage, Low Passage, Travellers’ Aid
  • [Kes] Sir Samuel Harker. Ex-Army Draftee 96836B, Age 22, 1 term, credits 10k (+Education, Gun Cbt: Rifle), Respirator, Cloth Armor, Reflec Armor
  • [Bdubs] Mitchel “Green Knight” Denters — Knight — 56865B, Age 30, 3 terms, Cr169,670, Blade-1, Hunting-3, Ship’s Boat. Mesh armor, Blade, Carbine with 3 clips, Yacht.
  • [Deceased] Flynn — Retired Executive — 75647A, Age 46, 7 terms, Cr160,000, ATV-2, Interrogation-1, Admin-3, Carousing-1, Shotgun-1, Recruiting-1. Middle Passage x 2, Watch valued at Cr700.

From the original Moonstein:

  • [Dunder] Roarke Garnett — Ex-marine Force Commander, AA8898, age 26, 2 terms, Cr 20k, Laser Carbine-1, Revolver-1, Cutlass-1, Medical-2, Tactics-1, Mechanical-1.
  • [Gabe] Jung Junger — Ex-army Colonel, A897C8, Age 38, 5 terms, cr3000, Rifle-3, Bayonet-1, Tactics-1, Mechanical-1, Brawling-1.
  • [Mandalf] Joe Gelt-Waunder — Ex-merchant Captain 696BC9 Age 46, 7 Terms, Cr 50,000, Pilot-3, Laser Rifle-2, Bribery-2, Vehicle-1 (ground car), Jack of all Trades-1, Navigation-1, Free Trader, SMG.

The Barons:

  • [Deceased] Theotormon [Noble #3] — Baron, 34398C, Age 46, 7 terms, cr300,000, Leader-1, Gun Cbt-1, Hunting-1, Carousing-2, Bribery-1, Travellers’.
  • Jadawin [Noble #9] — Baron, B5976C, Age 34, 4 terms, cr100,000, Brawling-1, Pilot-1, Leader-1, Engineering-1, Admin-1, Travellers’.
  • Vala [Noble #12] — Baroness, 48BB8C, Age 30, 3 terms, cr50,000, Blade Cbt-1, Leader-1, Computer-1, High Passage, Travellers’.
  • Palamabron [Noble #15] — Baron, 49968C, Age 34, 4 terms, cr200,000, Pilot-1. Blade Cbt-2, Vehicle-1, Liason-1, Admin-1, two High Passage.
  • Luva [Noble #17] — Baroness, 84798C, Age 26, 2 terms, cr200,000, Carousing-1, Admin-1, Leader-1, Travellers’.
  • Anana [Noble #23] — Baroness, BB689C, Age 30, 3 terms, cr10,000, Pilot-3, Carousing-1.
  • Enion [Noble #29] — Baron, 89788C, Age 26, 2 terms, cr100,000, Engineering-1, Computer-1, Gun Cbt-1, Travellers’.
  • Ariston [Noble #31] — Baron, 89444C, Age 26, 2 terms, cr10,000, Ship’s Boat-2, Gun Cbt-1, yacht. (Note: Ariston is currently offworld and his estate is being managed by a steward.)

An Observation About Braunstein Play Dynamics

The session Braunstein reliably produces convergences which are insanely fun for players. But I do not think they will be as satisfying if there is insufficient diffusion beforehand. Campaigns with too much diffusion become static.

Convergences– particularly ones played out with Braunstein type play– can rapidly generate and resolve conflicts. They can, however, burn through all the available play material so rapidly that a point develops where there seems to be nothing left to do anymore.

Diffusion can be a slow, steady process that essentially sets up volatile play threads like a string of dominoes…. However, the process can be accelerated if the players are operating fully independently via week-long downtime orders geared to produce modest microscenarios. I think this requires strong players that can keep their attention on something that may or may not pay off in the short term.

All of the best session Braunsteins round out the conflicts being played by introducing new factions and NPC’s into the mix and handing them over to whoever is willing to play them. Diffusion can work on its own, but a good referee should be able to look at a scenario that is shaping up and determine what is missing.

We Moved the Needle

We did an extraordinary amount of development this summer. What started as some experiments with “patron play” back in 2021 has turned into a full fledged breakdown of Braunstein play dynamics and countless ways to get good results with running Braunstein. If I managed to set the ball with the initial Battle Braunstein proof of concept and a very strong run of blogging about its implications this spring, then Bdubs has clearly jumped into the game and spiked the ball with his latest session report.

Dubs got a nice shout out from Black Lodge games, which is cool given that he took their promo material for their new adventure product and turned it into a stellar session Braunstein. I was also gratified by this comment from over there:

Hoo boy! I have wanted to displace the West Marches thing for years now and finally somebody else has suggested that it’s actually happening. Meanwhile, the commentariat which was so hostile when I was on the BLG show myself can’t seem to stop talking about the ideas I have put forward. This is a big win and I expect this trend to continue. It normally just takes time for the broader rpg scene to come to grips with the new normal.

Some people are struggling with that, though. For instance, there is this guy Prince of Nothing that has tried to expand on a the superiority of AD&D over B/X. I am not quite sure what his point is, but he is not alone. Mythic Mountain RPGs is coming in hot and heavy with a similar post. You gotta wonder about this. I mean, what happened that everyone is so excited about AD&D lately?

My pal Trash has the answer. Check out his post Basic is When D&D Changed, not AD&D for some superlative analysis. I was especially gratified when his mic drop at the end seemed to riff off of my particularly cutting claim that Tunnels & Trolls is the first rpg. And this reminds me. Jon Mollison had a top flight post that amplified that very point in a powerful way. See Mary Shelley Invented RPGs for details!

We’re still not done, though. I am seeing more and more that the idea of Zero Prep is now being embraced by more and more people. Further, the concept has ascended into being sort of a new axiom for BrOSR play. The Basic Expert has done an able job of defending the idea with his post In Defense of Zero Prep. Scutifer Mike even places it on the same level as 1:1 time and Battle Braunsteins!

The BrOSR-aligned bloggers and youtubers are energetic, cogent, and extremely good looking. But how do they compare with my critics? Let’s take a look….

What an odd thing to say!

I gotta say, though. It would probably be a whole lot easier to have a substantive discussion about this topic if people like this could just bite the bullet and say the name of the guy that did discover something new.

And while they’re at it, they would do really well if they went ahead and thanked me when they did!!

Planet Cyburgh: A Battle of the Imaginations

Everybody in the group pulled out the stops for me and showed up to last week’s session. People actually inconvenience themselves for me to make the game happen. It was very gratifying, but I didn’t want to attempt to impose on that kind of generosity again so soon. I didn’t like the feeling of the campaign struggling to keep players coming back at all, so the right move seemed to be to give the veterans a break and then put out of call for new players in special session designed to bring them into the campaign. I got a full table with six players which was just about perfect.

Everybody came in with dumb character names. When we workshopped the name for the new planet we were rolling up, people continued to be dumb. Somebody suggested we call it Cybertron. At this point I was glad I didn’t just allow these people straight into my precious campaign where something other people cared about was going on.

So, yeah. The game had to be zero prep in order to eliminate referee burnout. It had to be a game that could work with whoever showed up. And like I told the guys, I could never look at a Traveller sector and get excited to run anything. It is just too overwhelming. I didn’t want to think about the totality of all that data and its implications and I definitely didn’t want to be constrained by it. But if we introduce the worlds one at a time and actually play in them, not only do these places seem weirdly real for no clear reason, but I think also the brain will naturally create explanations for how they all fit together once they are placed on a map together.

So, we ended up on Cyburgh. B67AAD9-A — Scout Base and Gas Giant. I decided this was the home world of the evil Cyclan, mentat-like people whose only desire was to perform for their cabal and then get their brains loaded up into to the weird underwater network of living brains. There were giant arcologies rather than submarines or domed underwater cities. That Law Level of 9 put a real damper on all the things that Traveller players like to do.

We also had another constraint due to another player wanting to run an NPC even though he couldn’t attend the session. He had rolled up a character which I named Riker which he was excited about and had this idea that he was going to persuade the players to steal some diamonds from a casino called The Black Castle. I had no idea how to run this and the world we had rolled up was not a good fit for it, really. But I think one person being excited about something makes making something like this work is worth both the risk and the effort. You can’t go wrong making a game out of stuff the players are already excited about.

With the scenario introduced, the players now had the problem of making it all make sense. We went back and forth coming up with a situation that fit with how our collective imaginations brought all this to life. The players needed a plan that had a chance for success and that also was something that we all agreed made sense. A great deal about it hinged on very specific world building type decisions that would have been a pain in the butt if we had attempted to exhaust it all before attempting play. I think figuring out this sort of thing is the play, though. Which is why something like the GURPS Traveller line is completely underwhelming. They present this line of books that attempts to make sense out of a decade’s worth of Traveller development. Not only does this not work at all due to every group being so different in its tastes, but it also just completely isn’t any fun. This group of egghead nerds got together, played the game for you, and then sold you this massive clunker. Insulting!

So, the players cased the casino. One player lost a Cr2,500 bet and then won a Cr5,000 bet. He bought drinks for some thugs and made nice with a dame. The plan took shape. The players would show up in a grav truck. They would have a forged document stating that they were there to pick up this shipment of industrial diamonds. The diamonds were in barrels in a caged-off area with a pad lock. The players were going to pull up, be cool, and then drive away. The scout player was completely broke, so he got another player to pay for his berthing fees, fuel, and everything else. The players would load up their diamonds at the starport and then let an associate of Riker drive off with his share. They were absolutely NOT going to deliver them to his secret underwater base.

Now, something went wrong with all of this. One player had his thugs start a distraction inside the casino. The players were driving up to the docks with several carbines inside. They were getting out and having somebody look at the bill of lading or whatever when everything went sideways. Now there was one error I made here. I had intended to check to see if they got stopped by the police before arriving, but I forgot about it. We were well into hashing out the scene on the docks together when I remembered, and I said I was not rolling things back to deal with that but warned the players they would be stopped afterwards.

So, a fight was on. I carefully described how the players could have been surprised by these casino guards, but things were now going to be sorted out with gunfire. The system mastery and/or culture wasn’t there for this. The table wanted to just keep on discussing everything to death. Someone insisted that the players should have tried talking to them and I was like, no… these people want to shoot you and you guys are ex-military enough that you are on an equal footing with them and get to shoot back simultaneously per the rules. Traveller’s assumptions about how combat works simply don’t fit with the general culture of roleplayer types I don’t think.

Anyway, all of the player characters were either injured or unconscious except for Paddy and JDSauvage’s characters. I ruled that the players could just drive away under the circumstances. That’s when I dropped the rule I have wanted to run for a VERY LONG TIME.

So, the rolls came out to being 10+ to avoid being stopped by the police. I ruled that in the event that the police stopped them, bribes of Cr500 and then Cr1,000 would do the job. I declared that I was not Alexander Macris and that I had just made this up, but didn’t care that it was arbitrary because most of the PC’s were going to get killed anyway. The rolls to make the bribes work I think came out to two chances at 4-. The players missed these critical rolls.

This led to a scene where the Police pull them over and then ask to inspect the grav truck. The policeman opens up the back of the truck and I expect the players to just shoot the guy, but someone yells out, “oh my gosh these people are hurt we gotta get them to a hospital hurry!” Before this someone else had suggested that the players should just try to drive away and I was like, “no way.” The idea that the players could O. J. Simpson White Bronco their way to the starport and then leave was completely ludicrous to me. This did not sit well with one player who brought up several times that I shouldn’t get to make an arbitrary ruling like this that inconveniences him or that I should have ruled it differently to let the players win.

So, the players end up at a hospital and people are rushed to the emergency room and a third bribe attempt is made which doesn’t work and then everyone is going to jail. At this point I was out of ideas and wondered if everything was over, but then I realized Riker was posting memes and stuff in the general channel. He was suggesting that he do something to the computers to get the player characters off the hook. So, here was something that I didn’t think was covered by the rules at all and I just had to make something up on the spot. This would be a comic book style thing where the players could do something that works one week and then forget they could do it in the future when circumstances were arbitrarily different.

I declared that on 8+ the two characters in jail could be released and that on 6+ the four characters at the hospital would be able to escape. Again it was brought up that it was not satisfying that the player characters could get away in this manner but could not just White Bronco their way to the starport. Well, somebody has to convert all this crazy stuff into something that could be adjudicated with the rules of the Traveller game. I thought I should be given the leeway to get on with it.

The final outcome was that the Paddy and JDSauvage’s characters got out of prison and where given an taxi ride to the starport. The main objective of the session which I had announced beforehand was to make the game about seeing whether Paddy– who started the game with zero credits– could get that scout ship off the planet. This scout ship was, as I said, already prepared for takeoff before the heist was even attempted.

So, Paddy won this game with JDSauvage coming in a close second.

Congrats, guys!

Oh, and the players asked if there was more to this game than they knew. I said that there was, but that I could not REVEAL THE DEAL. The guy that hated all my rulings hated this even more because it sounded like something from an old game show. Oh well! Too bad! YOU STILL LOSE! And yes… this game was unfair. But we still imagined this weird thing into existence together.

But seriously, the choice to use carbines for weapons and to also not have any armor going into combat was an absolutely disastrous decision on the part of the players. We had new players in the group, sure. But one of the old hands should have suggested they attend to this. Now, there was more to the game than just that… but man, not every stupid plan should automatically work and I think this one genuinely went the way that it was supposed to.

Oh, yeah. And me being me I declared that NOBODY IN HISTORY had ever actually used these law level and bribery rules the way that I had this session. Somebody of course claimed that they had, but then they were forced to admit that they had only gone half-way with it. I think the players would have had a better chance to win here if they had either (a) had someone with Bribery in the group or else (b) had forged documents indicating that they were private security.

Cast of Characters:

Quasar the Silent, Unsuccessful Other — 8A5738. Age 22. 1 term, Credits 1,000
Blade-1, Brawling-1

[Fluid] Sir Conn Fawzi — Retired-navy 86979B, Age 50, 8 Terms, Mustering Cr 250,000 (Bade & 2x High Passage), Engineering-2, Ship’s Boat-2, ATV-1, Navigation-1, Brawling-2, Blade-3. Current Credits: 185,435. Weight Carried 5.35 kg, within limit.

Sterling Woodburner, Ex-army Captain — 887AE8, Age 22, 1 term, Cr10,000, Rifle-1, SMG-2, Tactics-2, Admin-1

[Paddy] Yarrick Mannus — Pissed Off Ex-Scout– 7A26D6, Age 26, 2 terms, Pilot 1, Nav 1, Medic 2, Scout Ship

[JDSauvage] Captain Tarn Tarnson — Ex-army — 894884, Age 22, 1 Term, Cr 5000, Rifle-1, SMG-1, Leader-1, Mid Psg

ex-other: Rudyard Bennelli — 38973A, Age 34, 4 Terms, Mustering Cr 20000 (Gunx2), Streetwise-1, Gambling-1, Brawling-1.

Riker
A56BD6
other
terms 5 Age 38

skills 6:
Streetwise-3, Gambling-1, Forgery-1, Computer-1(3)

retir bens 5
115kcr (70 spent on further education)
edu

Shotgun
Pike*

Cloth
Reflec
Hand Computer

Note to players: NEVER give your referee a character in the above format.

Update: The official name of this planet is Technos. Cyburgh is a pejorative.

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