Gonzo Level Traveller

[leo knight]

Wow, this brings back memories. My first long term Traveller campaign was quite gonzo. Adventure 1: Kinunir had just come out, and I used the Regina subsector map as a jumping off point. My Imperium, was, of course, the Star Wars Evil Galactic Empire. Wouldn't you love to be their ambassador? "Introducing the Honorable Olav hault Kleinberg of The Evil Galactic Empire!"

Ahem. Since the A class ports were all on the left side of the map, and the X-boat routes went that way, too, I assumed the rest of the Empire was thatway. Oops. I used a map of Oz with the names changed for the Empire. The Emerald city at the center became the Core Worlds, and each of the four countries (Munchkin, Quadling, etc.) became the Marches (Spinward, Trailing, etc.). I threw in anything. A few I still remember:

I had just read Gordon Dickson's "Spacial Delivery", and loved the fun-loving grizzly bear Dilbians. I called mine Grendels.

From Piers Anthony's "Cluster", I think they were Andromedans: rolling creatures with blades around their periphery, tentacles on either end, and laser eyes! Only, I misunderstood the description, and mine looked like animated truck tires. I called them Kintan. On a whim, all their ships were double ended, to reflect their anatomy.

Psionics for everyone! I loved Jack Vance's "Telek", where the protagonist is taught to use his psionics, then starts a revolution by passing on the secret to as many people as he can.

Experience. Oy. White Dwarf had an article, "The Experienced Traveller", which used a cumulative percentage chance of learning a new skill level. The way my players responded to that reward would have made B.F. Skinner's head swim.

Controlled misjumps. I missed Star Wars style galaxy hopping, so I had my scouts develop this doozy. What's the max range of a misjump? 36 parsecs? I think I limited the range to six times the ship's jump rating. What harm could that possibly do? o:

Ancient sites by the dozen, mostly ripped off from "Land of the Lost". And "Lost in Space". And dungeons.

Monitors. Book 4: Mercenary had just come out. They had this cool weapon called a meson gun that disintegrated everything in it's blast radius! So I put that together with monitors from "Dune". I don't remember them in the novel per se, but I remember them in the glossary: ships that split apart for landing, but re-assebled in space. I used that to get around the Book 2 5,000 ton limit. Imagine ten 5k ton ships with a centerline weapon, each locking together in series to create a really big gun. It was my budget Death Star. Couldn't destroy a planet, but it could do large scale urban renewal. Its limits were it was unstreamlined, and it couldn't fire if any of the elements were missing or disabled. Of course, once High Guard came out, these were toast.

The Republic. I had noticed that type Z drive could move a 4000 ton ship at jump/ maneuver 3. Hmm. That's 12,000 tons of thrust. Hmm. Why not a 12,000 ton ship, armed to the teeth? With a black globe generator? Hmm.

Anangathics. A rumour from Kinunir said that tree krakens were a source of anangathic compounds. Because of my PCs, now ageless, the poor beasts became an endangered species. The centuries-old Emperor, who really needed his fix, was not amused.

Jedi. Mine were less the kindly knights errant of Star Wars, more repressive thought police. Since every PC was plotting grand larceny, or worse, it seemed only logical. Of course, this means lightsabers!

I recall one grand space battle. The PCs had their much altered free trader, the Grendel, and the Republic, leading a fleet of scouts and other rebels against the Imperial fleet composed mostly of Kinunirs and monitors, all with black globes. Since I had no rules to guide me, I treated the globes like the shields in "Mote in God's Eye". The scouts kamikazed the monitors, overloading their capacitors and blowing up real good.

So I ask you, does any of that sound gonzo?

 

[leo knight]

Now that I think about it, my second long running campaign had a heapin' helpin' o' gonzo, too. I had rolled up a subsector with a White Dwarf article on star system generation. It gave me a lot of neutron stars and black holes. At the time, a local TV station was running Doctor Who, and they had just run an episode on Gallifrey, where the Master was trying to monkey wrench the Eye of Rassilon, a black hole at the core of Gallifrey that gives it power.

I had also just had a really wierd and haunting dream, where I was in a large underground chamber. The floor was sand, and large, flat, red stones were set in the sand at regular intervals. Most of the stones were blank, but some had odd, stylized masks molded into them. People in white robes performed some kind of ritual with the stones and the masks. I remember feeling a great sense of grief and loss.

So my brain blended them. An ancient race had tamed black holes as a power source. They also had signal based teleportation, a la Star Trek. I put a chamber like the one in my dream in a cavern on one of my worlds. The stones were transport pads. Individuals with psionic talent could activate the mechanism, and select a destination. Most led to black holes or neutron stars that had 'gone critical' over the eons. Some were conducting a static test. A few led to still existing ancient sites.

A human religious cult had grown around the site. They were all latent or active psionics, and thus could unknowingly activate the mechanism, but they didn't know what it was for. Some would stand on a stone, vanish, and never return (black hole!). Some would return, speaking of a euphoric experience, and feeling cleansed (test pattern). Still others would return, telling of strange and wondrous vistas (ancient site). As a McGuffin, I planned that if a character ever went through the ritual and returned, his pattern would be stored in the mechanism, and could be retrieved if he died!

That's not too gonzo, is it?

 

[aramis]

I've only run a handull of truly gonzo games.

Let's see...
Gave a PC a 1MTd ship with a robot manufactury. He later carved his corporate logo in the face of Luna with Meson Guns... Parallel mount factor Z meson guns.

Psionic Training via martial arts.

Wandering psionic Kung-Fu monks filling the role of Jedi. Shades of the Original Kung-Fu series. They had a special: Personal Jump. Level is number of parsecs they can jump. Cost is 1 per parsec, takes a day, can't regen PSI in jump, no need to eat/drink/breathe.

Memory Crystals: MCr1, counting implant surgery. Increases Experience Limit by an additional 10 or double, whichever is less. (Boy, was I surprised to see one in Bujold's Vorkosiverse!)

The Imperial Special Forces... 225 agagathicked & memory chipped uber elites, each with an Imperial Warrant, kept on ice until needed. Puled ut in 2's, 3's, and 4's, and turnd loose to "do what the emperor needs" (or sometimes, the Archduke). Many were psionically trained, too.

Metaspice: counts as a naturally occuring psi-booster and anagathic. Can also be used to double the range of a jump drive, at much increased (+4) misjump chance. Runs to KCr1 per dose, and grants +1d6 Psi/dose. If you take (Terms) doses in a month, you count as having taken anagathics.

Had another pair of PC's, a Duke and a Scout, running round in a Type S with an AI computer. This campaign was Gonzo in: the nature of the adventures, the amount of intoxication of the players, the amount of intoxication of the characters, and the wild implausibilties this all allowed to be accepted. Really, it should have been titled "Fear and Loathing in the Spinward Marches...." And they ran into those kung fu monks, the ISF, and more. They spiced their drives. They guzzled scout brew.

And then there was the Col who mustered out with over a company of the 1188th LIR... to form the 3076th BIR.... Col Vladzimir Shushugliar.

And by my estimation, Games Workshop out did most of us... I'm convinced that WH40K starts as the GW TU....

 

[gloriousbattle]

:alpha:

Wow, this brings back memories. My first long term Traveller campaign was quite gonzo. Adventure 1: Kinunir had just come out, and I used the Regina subsector map as a jumping off point. My Imperium, was, of course, the Star Wars Evil Galactic Empire. Wouldn't you love to be their ambassador? "Introducing the Honorable Olav hault Kleinberg of The Evil Galactic Empire!"

Ahem. Since the A class ports were all on the left side of the map, and the X-boat routes went that way, too, I assumed the rest of the Empire was thatway. Oops. I used a map of Oz with the names changed for the Empire. The Emerald city at the center became the Core Worlds, and each of the four countries (Munchkin, Quadling, etc.) became the Marches (Spinward, Trailing, etc.). I threw in anything. A few I still remember:

I had just read Gordon Dickson's "Spacial Delivery", and loved the fun-loving grizzly bear Dilbians. I called mine Grendels.

From Piers Anthony's "Cluster", I think they were Andromedans: rolling creatures with blades around their periphery, tentacles on either end, and laser eyes! Only, I misunderstood the description, and mine looked like animated truck tires. I called them Kintan. On a whim, all their ships were double ended, to reflect their anatomy.

Psionics for everyone! I loved Jack Vance's "Telek", where the protagonist is taught to use his psionics, then starts a revolution by passing on the secret to as many people as he can.

Experience. Oy. White Dwarf had an article, "The Experienced Traveller", which used a cumulative percentage chance of learning a new skill level. The way my players responded to that reward would have made B.F. Skinner's head swim.

Controlled misjumps. I missed Star Wars style galaxy hopping, so I had my scouts develop this doozy. What's the max range of a misjump? 36 parsecs? I think I limited the range to six times the ship's jump rating. What harm could that possibly do? o:

Ancient sites by the dozen, mostly ripped off from "Land of the Lost". And "Lost in Space". And dungeons.

Monitors. Book 4: Mercenary had just come out. They had this cool weapon called a meson gun that disintegrated everything in it's blast radius! So I put that together with monitors from "Dune". I don't remember them in the novel per se, but I remember them in the glossary: ships that split apart for landing, but re-assebled in space. I used that to get around the Book 2 5,000 ton limit. Imagine ten 5k ton ships with a centerline weapon, each locking together in series to create a really big gun. It was my budget Death Star. Couldn't destroy a planet, but it could do large scale urban renewal. Its limits were it was unstreamlined, and it couldn't fire if any of the elements were missing or disabled. Of course, once High Guard came out, these were toast.

The Republic. I had noticed that type Z drive could move a 4000 ton ship at jump/ maneuver 3. Hmm. That's 12,000 tons of thrust. Hmm. Why not a 12,000 ton ship, armed to the teeth? With a black globe generator? Hmm.

Anangathics. A rumour from Kinunir said that tree krakens were a source of anangathic compounds. Because of my PCs, now ageless, the poor beasts became an endangered species. The centuries-old Emperor, who really needed his fix, was not amused.

Jedi. Mine were less the kindly knights errant of Star Wars, more repressive thought police. Since every PC was plotting grand larceny, or worse, it seemed only logical. Of course, this means lightsabers!

I recall one grand space battle. The PCs had their much altered free trader, the Grendel, and the Republic, leading a fleet of scouts and other rebels against the Imperial fleet composed mostly of Kinunirs and monitors, all with black globes. Since I had no rules to guide me, I treated the globes like the shields in "Mote in God's Eye". The scouts kamikazed the monitors, overloading their capacitors and blowing up real good.

So I ask you, does any of that sound gonzo?

Cetainly sounds like great fun!

 

[sabredog]

The most wild game, throw it all up in the air and play it how it falls game I ever ran was when the players were sucked into a plot by an agent for the Terran Confederation to help him destroy the Black Globe project the enemy Askorrians were almost ready to use. So far up to that point the only ones with those shields were the TC (Terran Confederation), but the Askorrians were ahead in meson gun tech, so if the bad guys got The Bomb, er, The Globe it would mean TEOTWAWKI !!!!!! And what are you guys humans or lizards?!

So the dupes, I mean patriotic players, head of with the agent in their own ship, “The Chromium Rodent”, a little 200 tonner know tricked out with a cloaking system that the agent assured them would allow the Askorrian’s sensors to slide right off their whip so they’d be invisible. “But we’ll still be visible?”, they asked, “What kind of cloaking device is that”? The agent tells them, “ It’s like a rain coat kind, so quit whining and just improvise. At least we’ll all get close enough to do the deed. We just hire on as workers to help mop floors or something and get close enough to the power plant on the test ship to plant this device which will cause a fatal misjump when they test the BG. Am I brillinant spy or what?”

Well, after a series of wildly improbable escapes, acts of amazing foolishness or derring-do (depending on your POV), the players sabotaged the BG project and are making their escape. With two raiderships hammering the poor “Rodent” into a colander with lasers and missiles the players desperately slap that Big Red Jump Button and ……misjump. Naturally.

OK, so now that we were finally done with all the preamble needed to get the players into the adventure I really wanted them into – yes, all that tomfoolery before was 3 nights worth of MacGuffin – the players misjumped into the Great Rift Nebula (which for some reason makes jump drives really iffy)….near an enormous ring shaped artifact. Yes, and when the players approach it the automatic navigation safety systems in the jumpgate activate and fire the players off uncounted (at the time to them anyway) parsecs through multiple gate switches and into an entirely different universe from the one they are used to. New aliens, new technologies beyond the dreams of their avaricious little player hearts, and having no idea whatsoever how to get back.

A vast, but decaying empire run by a TL-18+ psionic slaver race (no, not the Niven Slavers, but inspired by and more successful in a way) that captures the players and finds their slaver psi doesn’t work so well on humans. Again, after a series of wildly improbable escapes, acts of amazing foolishness or derring-do (depending on your POV) the players finally find out how to use the jumpgates and escape with Kygan warships try blast them with disintegrator guns and such.

When the players pop out of the gate in their own sector, they blast the gate control section with an anti-matter missile they stole from the Kygans just as the first Kygan cruiser starts to emerge. The gate shuts down and the universe is saved. The players scoop some fuel from the gas giant in the system to make the jump to a friendly world of their own while using copious amounts of TL-15 duct tape and Bondo to hold the battered Rodent together. Their ship comes out of Jump falling literally apart but they get rescued, have a few nice toys to play with that eventually ran out of power that they didn’t know how to replace, and life went on as usual.

They ended up with a couple of variable swords, stasis dueling-shields to ward off (hopefully) blows of stasis swords, a disintegrator rifle, and an anti-matter power source that ran out of fuel after 3 jumps (they had to roll 8+ on 2D6 each jump to see if it still had fuel since they couldn’t read the gauges…each jump it was used was a cumulative -1DM to the roll). But we had a lot of fun. It lasted all summer.

But we were all a lot younger then and for some reason it's been harder and harder to get back to that kind of playing.

 

[gloriousbattle]

But we were all a lot younger then and for some reason it's been harder and harder to get back to that kind of playing.

For me, I still enjoy gonzo gaming, though it is not the only style I enjoy. Also, gonzo or not, my gaming has become a lot more plot-driven, and a lot less "kill-the-goblins-an'-gimmee-the-gold."