Concept for demo game advice???

[BluWolf]

I have been searching for folks in the Tampa/St. Pete area that want to play Traveller for over a month. Very limited interest.

So in order to try and draw some attention I'm going to volunteer to run some demo games at our FLGS.

I have never played and obviously never ref'ed a Traveller game but I figure what the hell, I've got 25 years of gaming XP and I can read so why not.

I would like some advice from you ancients on what a good premise would be for the following criteria;

1)this will most likely be a series of short adventures if not complete 1 offs.
2)players will most likely be new to Traveller if not D20 and will probably change from session to session.
3)Should I use pre-gen characters?
4)I will need to "draw a fence around" the games, so I will need a very strong direction or limited goal, like far trading, bounty hunting, blockade running....

Would love some input on these issues, in particular the last one.

 

[William]

Originally posted by BluWolf:

I would like some advice from you ancients on what a good premise would be for the following criteria;

1)this will most likely be a series of short adventures if not complete 1 offs.
2)players will most likely be new to Traveller if not D20 and will probably change from session to session.
3)Should I use pre-gen characters?
4)I will need to "draw a fence around" the games, so I will need a very strong direction or limited goal, like far trading, bounty hunting, blockade running....

Would love some input on these issues, in particular the last one.

Do you have access to any of the old Traveller material? The short Double Adventures are perfect for the type of game you're describing. Shadows/Annic Nova and Chamax Plauge/Horde are both excellent depending on the mood you want to set. The Chamax adventures are very good if you want an excuse to shoot things up If all else fails, let me know and I'll lend you my copies.

As for characters, I'd say pregen them unless you want a session of character generation as gaming. This is not as silly as it seems; many of us who played CT would sit around and just do characters or design ships for our session or especially as a way to solo game.

Good luck.

William

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Originally posted by BluWolf:

I would like some advice from you ancients on what a good premise would be for the following criteria;

1)this will most likely be a series of short adventures if not complete 1 offs.
2)players will most likely be new to Traveller if not D20 and will probably change from session to session.
3)Should I use pre-gen characters?
4)I will need to "draw a fence around" the games, so I will need a very strong direction or limited goal, like far trading, bounty hunting, blockade running....

Would love some input on these issues, in particular the last one.

1) again if you have access to the CT materials the Amber Zones in the journals are great episodic adventures. If not, then you can either draw on your previous gaming experience and recycle a favorite short adventure, subsituting the appropriate Traveller characters and equipment where need be. If you think of one yourself to keep it episodic try a relatively easy task being hampered by an event that's not too difficult to resolve. What the problem for the chars lie is doing it at the same time. For Example:
A simple cargo run from one planet in system to the another. The ship suffers an engine short out due to solar flares and if not fixed will drift into an asteroid or something just as letal. The problem: When power went out the cargo opened and the players discover it was a nasty little predator on it's way to a private zoo. Now the players have to fix their ship while trying to hunt down the beastie before it hunts them down.

2) Well, if the players are changing from time to time, then have an NPC merchant captain. He hires on each group of PCs for the job at hand. Those who have come back for more games have merely stayed on with the crew.

3) I'd use pregenerated characters if you have 3 players or more. If they're new and/or curious they may find it boring waiting for everyone to get characters done. If you have 1 or 2 players you can walk them both through char. gen. easy enough and give them personal attention.

4) your theme should probably keep in mind the general players you'll have. If most of the people you'll be attracting play combat games you might go for bounty hunting or merc jobs. If they're more adventurors, then you could have a scout team. A good general purpose goal would be a merchant. If you use the above NPC cpt. idea you could make him eccentric and prone to getting into trouble. I did this in a campaign of mine once. The Merchant Cpt. was a retired Army Col. who had never been in space. Now out of the service he wanted to see the stars so he bought a ship and proclaimed himself a merchant. My players were the crew...who basically had to keep him out of trouble

Good luck!! Let us know how it goes for you!!

 

[Flynn]

BluWolf,

Start small, and running a Traveller game is pretty easy. Don't expose them to the whole universe in one setting, because the scale will often scare most players. They can't think of anything to do because there are too many options. I'd definitely stick to a short scenario, such as the ones given in the FFE Classic Traveller reprints on the adventures and double adventures. I myself will be translating a series of four adventures from DPG's Traveller's Digest (the psionic knights series by William Connors) for some local game days.

If you wanted to offer a context for the adventures, I'd recommend something like a Scout team or a special investigators unit, which gets sent on missions to investigate bizarre events. The Chamax adventures can be covered with that kind of approach. Another means of grouping the characters together is to create a merchant ship's crew, and just give them some "odd jobs" to make ends meet, or get that spare part they need, or whatever. Both are classic approaches, and lend themselves to a number of scenarios.

If each adventure is modular, set against a common background, then you might be able to transfer the players more easily to a game run against that same background once you've got enough people interested. The ones that stay from session to session will be a great place to start building a core group of Travellers. Think of it as a chance to showcase your milieu.

Definitely use a set of pre-genned characters at first. A number of them have been created by members of the TML for other convention efforts, and they are supposed to be released on CotI sometime soon. If not, I'm sure some of us can help you come through with a set of PC stats for ya.

At any rate, feel free to discuss your ideas and concepts here. You might be helping others who are thinking of doing the same thing in their hometowns.

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Flynn]

BTW, Bluwolf,

I've started another topic here that might help you out, too. It's entitled "Anatomy of a Single Session Traveller Adventure", and is aimed at discussing the creation of T20 adventures for conventions.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000517

Hope this helps,
Flynn