General Do you use Ancients sites and other ruins like D&D Dungeons?

[Timerover51]

Here is a portion of the chart.

Basically, you use a 10-sided die roll to determine success or failure. If you reach F you understand how to use the artifact.

 

[spank]

It wasn't clear to me. So, I pulled my copy of GW off the shelf and reviewed,
To clarify:

1. Start at "S"
2. Roll a die and proceed as indicated
3. Reaching skull and cross bones mean death.
4. Every 5 attempts takes 1 hour
5. Reaching "F" mean the player understands how the item works.

Which is different than what I had guessed, I was going with start at "A" if you get to S=success and F= Fail.

Also, after some digging the first set of charts is from "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" which was written to cross over with Metamorphosis Alpha.
It used a slightly different set of rules for evaluating artifacts.

 

[Dulinor]

An interesting D&D-related tangent: The flowcharts in the one old module (I forget the name, but someone here will know)

S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

 

[Timerover51]

You can get Expedition to the Barrier Peaks at DriveThruRPG. You can also get Gamma World (1e) at DriveThru. Both would have the charts mentioned.

 

[whartung]

So, about 50% will succeed in that chart in 10 or less trips, another 25% in 20 or less. My test showed as high as 121 trips, but that's an outlier. Average is 12-13 tries. 6-7% of folks will just die.

 

[King Midas]

If you really wanted to cross the streams you could have a Traveller party go through Tegel Manor...

Problem here is that Tegel is an extremely goofy* adventure. I can't see any way the Tegel Manor situation could exist outside a holosuite or Shoreleave setting.
Hmnn - discover the Shore Leave planet by wandering around Tegel Manor...

Yes, you were saying the same thing I am, I'm just adding to your post.

*IMO this is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Diveguy]

Problem here is that Tegel is an extremely goofy* adventure. I can't see any way the Tegel Manor situation could exist outside a holosuite or Shoreleave setting.
Hmnn - discover the Shore Leave planet by wandering around Tegel Manor...

Yes, you were saying the same thing I am, I'm just adding to your post.

*IMO this is a feature, not a bug.

That could almost be your setup - someone playing a joke on the characters with an over-the-top carnival haunted house, as it were. The players, of course, not being in on the joke that none of it is "real".

 

[spank]

So is Barrier Peaks, and City of the Gods, a little goof was often built into the early adventures.

Problem here is that Tegel is an extremely goofy* adventure. I can't see any way the Tegel Manor situation could exist outside a holosuite or Shoreleave setting.
Hmnn - discover the Shore Leave planet by wandering around Tegel Manor...

Yes, you were saying the same thing I am, I'm just adding to your post.

*IMO this is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Black Vulmea]

Both Judges Guild's Dra'k'ne Station and FASA's The Fate of the Sky Raiders are "dungeon in space" adventures, though not specifically related to the Ancients.

There are rumors of Forefunner - the JG name for the Ancients - sites in the Lesser Rift; I've never had adventurers get out that way, but making one into a dungeon crawl is something I always figured I'd introduce if anyone did.

 

[Vargr Breath]

I never got into the GDW Dark Conspiracy stuff, but it looks like you could use those books for some ideas.

 

[Enoki]

An Ancient site for me is usually more like the treasure chest you find at the end of a lot of doing stuff to get there. Not so much a "dungeon" in itself but the reward for persevering though a number of various scenarios, economic, combat, etc., to get there to begin with.

 

[Enoki]

Oh, I should add that the find(s) at an ancient's site can be extremely random in MTU. They can be something WOW!, or something like WTF?, but usually it's something that might be useful if you meet like 5 conditions and are usually playing a merchant ship doing smuggling but only if it's in a particular sector for...

Well, you get the idea. The super rare, SSS, extra deadly, mega weapon that makes you invincible is like winning the lottery only everybody can legally kill you for having done so...

It's just physics and karma... For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Or, as Bart Curlish (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency) puts it: "What doesn't kill you makes you hurt real bad..."