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..."

 

[spank]

OTOH,
Treasure chests aren't always a good thing.

 

[King Midas]

Prometheus is one of the worst movies ever released. It should have been sent back to the writers pen with a severe cut in their coke ration until they returned something resembling a plot!
As it is, it is a bunch of idiots wandering around a labyrinth, tripping traps and dealing with random encounters.
HEY! Waitaminute! Prometheus is a space dungeon!

 

[mike wightman]

Oh look, a huge alien wheel shaped ship coming towards me, all I need to do is take two steps to the left...

oh look, a shiny... splat.

Not a good film.

Still better than every Avatar film though.

 

[whartung]

Still better than every Avatar film though.

It just amazes me, specifically after the first and "oh wow 3D", how little buzz the Avatar movies get.

At least in my circle. I guess we get the next one this winter? is it the next?

They're gorgeous movies, and I know they did a boatload of worldbuilding for them, but, honestly, so far, none of that really comes across on screen. In contrast to LoTR (hardly fair, I know), but even though I was not versed in LoTR lore, I knew that pretty much everything had a history, even if it was unspoken in the film. For example, I don't know the history of Weathertop, but Ranger Rick knew, and you could feel its importance, at least to him, as he simply named it to the hobbits.

And that was everywhere in LoTR.

Avatar? They may know the breeding cycle of the pink mushrooms or whatever, but doesn't really come across on screen.

 

[King Midas]

It just amazes me, specifically after the first and "oh wow 3D", how little buzz the Avatar movies get.

I presume we are talking about "Dancing with Smurfs" here? I know next to nothing about the Airbender series.

The problem with Avatar was that it was a beautiful, astounding, special effects extravaganza. They definitely got their money's worth on the FX. A lot of spectacle.
But...
The story behind it... was pretty simplistic. Guy goes native, helps drive off a mining company and their private army, everybody celebrates, the end. But the viewer who recognizes the plot is wondering "OK, you drove off a bunch of armed civilians. What happens when the Cavalry arrives?"

At least in my circle. I guess we get the next one this winter? is it the next?

They're gorgeous movies, and I know they did a boatload of worldbuilding for them, but, honestly, so far, none of that really comes across on screen. In contrast to LoTR (hardly fair, I know), but even though I was not versed in LoTR lore, I knew that pretty much everything had a history, even if it was unspoken in the film. For example, I don't know the history of Weathertop, but Ranger Rick knew, and you could feel its importance, at least to him, as he simply named it to the hobbits.

And that was everywhere in LoTR.

Avatar? They may know the breeding cycle of the pink mushrooms or whatever, but doesn't really come across on screen.

One thing Jackson did really well was get across that the protagonists were involved in a 4500 year old war. The hobbits (and the viewers) didn't know much about the history of Middle Earth, but they got the scale of the conflict.

 

[King Midas]

Oh look, a huge alien wheel shaped ship coming towards me, all I need to do is take two steps to the left...

oh look, a shiny... splat.

Not a good film.

Still better than every Avatar film though.

If I'd taken a drink every time someone did something idiotic in that movie, I'd be unconscious before I ever finished it.
Though that particular one made me groan, it is a trope of Action/Adventure movies. A pedestrian is being chased by a car: Pedestrian runs down the middle of the road, hoping to outrun an automobile...
Bringing this back to topic, sort of:
A bunch of PC Travellers find a huge alien derelict on a planet.
What not to do?

 

[Condottiere]

Story sucks.

Fantastic cinematography.

They Died With Their Amplified Mobility Platforms On

 

[Vargr Breath]

If I'd taken a drink every time someone did something idiotic in that movie, I'd be unconscious before I ever finished it.
Though that particular one made me groan, it is a trope of Action/Adventure movies. A pedestrian is being chased by a car: Pedestrian runs down the middle of the road, hoping to outrun an automobile...
Bringing this back to topic, sort of:
A bunch of PC Travellers find a huge alien derelict on a planet.
What not to do?

"A bunch of PC Travellers find a huge alien derelict on a planet. What not to do?"
Wear a red shirt.