For Use With Mongoose Traveller: Has Mongoose thought about...?

[Drew]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

Would love to see a chapter on Geneering and Uplifts in that!

Is that like the body modifications in Shadowrun?

 

[whartung]

Is that like the body modifications in Shadowrun?

No, Geneering is like modifying creatures for new environments.

Like adding extra fluffy hair to a Chihuahua for arctic conditions.

Uplifting is adding intelligence/sentience to a life form.

 

[Condottiere]

Someone fed him after midnight.

 

[Silverhawk]

Someone fed him after midnight.

I saw this and the ideas just started bubbling as to what you could use this little guy for.

 

[MongooseBella]

I'm not good with coming up with names for aliens or alien lifeforms, which can be frustrating sometimes. On the other hand, there are those who ARE good at coming up with names for aliens & alien lifeforms, which makes me both amazed and jealous, and maybe a little awed.

I have a couple tricks for this if you want (this is how I come up with names like the ynchaeir)

Option 1:
1. Spam the keyboard: ifeshsfihi
2. Remove some letters to make it more pronounceable: Ifeshfihi
3. Profit

Option 2:
1. Take a normal human name: Margaret
2. Switch some things: ramgaret
3. (optional) Add/Remove letters: Iramgarrt
4. Profit

This might help

Note: This does also work for human/alien names you just have to pay a bit more attention to their language conventions e.g. Aslan like rrr and gdz, throw them in where you can etc

 

[FreeTrav]

I have a couple tricks for this if you want (this is how I come up with names like the ynchaeir)

Option 1:
1. Spam the keyboard: ifeshsfihi
2. Remove some letters to make it more pronounceable: Ifeshfihi
3. Profit

Option 2:
1. Take a normal human name: Margaret
2. Switch some things: ramgaret
3. (optional) Add/Remove letters: Iramgarrt
4. Profit

This might help

Note: This does also work for human/alien names you just have to pay a bit more attention to their language conventions e.g. Aslan like rrr and gdz, throw them in where you can etc

Or do something like using the word generation procedure from any Traveller book (back to Classic) that provided language tables. There's a program (which I need to rewrite into a modern language) in Freelance Traveller's Computer Connection for this, and it shouldn't be difficult to make new language tables if you have letter frequency tables from some obscure Terrestrial language or something.

 

[Sci-Fi Neophyte]

If you’re a struggling referee trying to create imaginative alien life for that freshly created world to pit against your eager PCs, I have found help from The Metamorphica by Johnstone Metzger, which can be found on DTRPG in multiple formats (at least one of which is PWYW). It’s a system-agnostic collection of inspirational tables that can be used to create truly random alien lifeforms of all sorts. Performing a quick PDF search for “alien” returns many hits within Metamorphica. It even has a cool xenobiology flow chart to help get you moving, and it even considers a home-world type/setting to create a more specific and flavorful lifeform.

As for naming conventions, I think we sometimes get too hung up on this. Is it appropriate to think PCs will know the name of every lifeform they encounter? Do you know the name, scientific or otherwise, for every animal you could encounter on Earth? How might PCs generically classify such wee beasties? Perhaps using the nomenclature supplied in the rules as written (RAW), or possibly something more colorful based on each PC's homeworld, right? Maybe the PCs will never know the creature's name, which almost wiped out the entire party. Still, with Metamorphica (or similar), you could supply them with a terrific and terrifying description.

Cheers!

 

[whartung]

Do you know the name, scientific or otherwise, for every animal you could encounter on Earth?

No, but I imagine that 90+% of them I could qualify as "some kind of XXX". "Did you see that red bird?" "Did you see that fuzzy thing, looks like a possum with pink hair."

The big difference is most of my animal encounters are casual, so I don't need to classify them in more detail than "gray with a shiny coat".

We're I a settler, then, I'd probably start just making stuff up.

"Watch out for that nest of isabelles in that bush." "Isabelle? What's an isabelle?" "It's a small stinging fly, they tend to swarm around dusk." "Why are they called isabelles?" "I named them after my wife's sister, because they won't leave me alone and make me itch."

 

[Sci-Fi Neophyte]

No, but I imagine that 90+% of them I could qualify as "some kind of XXX". "Did you see that red bird?" "Did you see that fuzzy thing, looks like a possum with pink hair."

The big difference is most of my animal encounters are casual, so I don't need to classify them in more detail than "gray with a shiny coat".

We're I a settler, then, I'd probably start just making stuff up.

"Watch out for that nest of isabelles in that bush." "Isabelle? What's an isabelle?" "It's a small stinging fly, they tend to swarm around dusk." "Why are they called isabelles?" "I named them after my wife's sister, because they won't leave me alone and make me itch."

I also think, sometimes, too much work is placed squarely on the shoulders of the referee to make the game setting enjoyable, memorable, and full of exciting flavor text. I see no reason one should not frequently enlist the creative help of the players at the table. They should have just as much vested interest in helping to create an awesome campaign setting.

I routinely ask the players to provide names for places, NPCs, ships, and creatures. Whatever they come up with sticks (whether it be good, bad, or ugly). This can vary widely from group to group (and sometimes from day to day), but it takes some pressure off me to always come up with things on the spot and gets more investment from others at the table, too. It's a win-win, in my opinion.

 

[Silverhawk]

I also think, sometimes, too much work is placed squarely on the shoulders of the referee to make the game setting enjoyable, memorable, and full of exciting flavor text. I see no reason one should not frequently enlist the creative help of the players at the table. They should have just as much vested interest in helping to create an awesome campaign setting.

I routinely ask the players to provide names for places, NPCs, ships, and creatures. Whatever they come up with sticks (whether it be good, bad, or ugly). This can vary widely from group to group (and sometimes from day to day), but it takes some pressure off me to always come up with things on the spot and gets more investment from others at the table, too. It's a win-win, in my opinion.

Interesting you should say that. I generally ask my referee ahead of time if I can contribute to the setting. A lot of times it helps me to flesh out my character and lift the burden on them.

 

[mike wightman]

I fully endorse getting the players to make up stuff.

A few years ago I got Genesys, never having played or run FFG Star Wars. Of the two groups I ran it for the group where the players wanted to make stuff up made the game run much more smoothly (note most of them refereed their own games of one sort or another).

The same mindset brought to Traveller helps the flow of the game too. Players describing what their characters do, how they interact with the environment and the NPCs lowers the burden on me. I much prefer to just set the scene and let them go at it, they make up the story, not me.

 

[Condottiere]

I remember when I used to run games.

Half the stuff you make up on the spot, the reason for continuous scribbling is to note those down, for continuity.

 

[Black Vulmea]

I'm not sure if this is the proper thread, but after rewatching The Expanse, has anyone developed an NPC model for common laborers or dock workers?

In CT character creation for starport workers was found in "Starport Authority," published in JTAS 19 (errata in 21); a variation on these rules appeared in Cargonaut Press' Starport Planetfall. I don't know if anything like these ever appeared in MgT but if not, it's a good starting point for what a cargojack or portduster might look like all the same.

 

[coliver988]

I've a list of the careers in various versions I have here: https://traveller-ct.blogspot.com/2020/11/traveller-careers-bibliography.html

I've not updated it in a bit as I think I've gotten a couple more Mongoose books since then, maybe even some CE. But there are a few laborers type careers in various books listed there.

 

[Commander Truestar]

I remember when I used to run games.

Half the stuff you make up on the spot, the reason for continuous scribbling is to note those down, for continuity.

I did that when a player's character was randomly determined to have been raised in the Natoko System (Rhylanor, not the Natoko system in the Aramis Subsector - both in the Spinward Marches)

Given what had been published in the OTU about Natoko-R, we discussed her options regarding enlistments or escapes from the system.
She had a US Coast Guard background herself, and came up with the novel idea of trying to get a job as a worker for the Starport Authority.

So, I dove into the idea and expanded a CT-Char Gen idea to match with the other characters, who were generated using book 4/5/6.

She eventually rose, due to lucky rolls, to a Port's "Executive Director" (O-9) before she retired.

 

[Condottiere]

I've always tried to be consistent, and if there is an exception to the rule, a rationale for that.

 

[Commander Truestar]

I've always tried to be consistent, and if there is an exception to the rule, a rationale for that.

Consistency will always save your backside when you step off a ledge and need to improvise
When, in the case I mentioned above, the char gen tables are a base off which I can work.
I then consider what skills are "needed and usual" for a new career field.
Added to that, we have "real world" career fields to look at, like airport workers.
Happily, those also scale from small civil air "deep run" fields (IE: grass runway, etc) and high end major airports.

So, there is often a lot of real world data to work with

 

[Timerover51]

For animals, you do have the Bestiary of Cryptofauna by Stellagama Publishing. Then there is the original supplement Animal Encounters from 1979. Just remember, whatever you name a creature should also the players to get a good idea as to what sort of creature it is very quickly. An aquatic filter could range from a Giant Clam to a Basking Shark. What would a description of an creature such as a Desert Stinger bring to mind? Or look in science fiction works, such as some of the books by H. Beam Piper. How does a Zarathustran damn thing sound? Or his Super-cow from New Texas? Or perhaps a Fenris tread-snail described as:

It was an irregular gray oval, about sixteen inches by four at its widest and tapering up in front to a cone about six inches high, into which a rodlike member, darker gray, was slowly collapsing and dribbling oily yellow stuff. The bullet had gone clear through and made a mess of dirty gray and black and green body fluids on the concrete.

It was what we call a tread-snail, because it moves on a double row of pads like stumpy feet and leaves a trail like a tractor. The fishpole-aerial thing it had erected out of its head was its stinger, and the yellow stuff was venom.

Then you have the Space: 1889 corpus to use as well. Just adapt some of the creatures to Traveller, or name some of the creatures listed in Animal Encounters after them.