Reformation Coalition a'la Dunia :)

[Dunia]

I love the Reformation Coalition...

Especially the thought that they are so few and though have higher tech than most other governments, that they are still having problems back home with how to deal with politics, the hivers, the coming of Solee, the guild and the occasional vampire.

In may campaign that has lasted since 1994 where we play once a week, my group and I were quite curious about how the Coalition really looked like In most Traveller books there is only 1 world described per system, and that is the main world. But what about all in-system colonies, so I took the summer of 95 to make a small booklet of maps and history for the entire 20 systems.

That is something that I found lacking in TNE and almost all other Traveller supplement that I have seen. Also descriptions of Religions, fashion industry, sports, music, etc.

So in my Traveller campaign, my group dedicated quite some time to build up a small miniversion of TAS where they supplied tickets, hotels and recreational trips to the rings of the Eosian gasgiant, to the methanpools of the far reaches of the Baldur system. And the fun thing was that I had no say in this as Game (Mistress), it was the idea of the players.

So now I have material for a whole book just about the different worlds, bases, moons and whatmore in the Reformation Coalition and its allied worlds. Its quite fun.

If anyone has done the same, I would love to trade info so that I can flesh out my stuff weven more.


Yes I know that I am insane.

 

[Jame]

Welcome to the boards.

 

[Gallowglacht]

No, my RC campaign is younger and has mainly been at the edges and in the AO. But as a RC fan I'd love to hear what you have...

 

[Golan2072]

I love the Reformation Coalition...

Especially the thought that they are so few and though have higher tech than most other governments, that they are still having problems back home with how to deal with politics, the hivers, the coming of Solee, the guild and the occasional vampire.

One of the sides I liked most about them was that some of the RC worlds weren't THAT different from all those TEDs around them. The line between civilization and barbarism is very thin in this setting - and while the RC has many idealistic heroes out to make the universe a better place (hopefully the PCs are in that category), many other people in the RC aren't saints - some aren't even better than the pirates they meet in the Wilds. And the thinly-spread resources and constant need to expand might push some RCES teams towards harsh measures. So the PCs would encounter not only external threats (TEDs, Virus, pirates/slavers) but also internal ones (corruption, cold-hearted harsh practicality leading to brutality, and even downright backstabbing). You also have many opportunities to present the PCs with harsh moral dilemmas to roleplay through.

 

[Gallowglacht]

Yeah my players are currently dealing with the repercussions of a spat between the RCES and RCN. I decided the Scouts are mostly federalist and Aubani/Nimban and the RCN are mostly Centrist and Flammer/Balduri/Fijan complicating even simple matters.

 

[Icosahedron]

If there's nothing currently in print, you could maybe publish and get your name in Canon.

 

[shield]

There are some world details for worlds over in Madoc Subsector set in the RC era, and even an RC campaign set in the old expanses in the files section (under misc, and campaigns respectively). You will need to set "show threads" for the last year.

PS. Have you checked out the BARD site?

Hope that Helps

Cheers
Richard

 

[Starviking]

Ah, the BARD site *sigh*, good times, good times!

I was a heavy contributor to BARD (Though not as Starviking)

Hmmm, I wonder if Lewis Roberts is on CoTI?

Starviking

 

[shield]

I think lewis is still on the TNE mailing list but mostly lurking at the moment.

Cheers
Richard

 

[Plankowner]

If there's nothing currently in print, you could maybe publish and get your name in Canon.

You might also check out the Avenger Website. I believe MJD is trying to get an RC book out (set in 1248) before the sunset of his existing Traveller License. Might get your details added to canon that way if you don't want to have the entire thing published.

I'm sure he would listen to what you have...

 

[daryen]

The Freedom League book for 1248 (the Freedom League is what the Reformation Coalition turned into) is currently is finished and currently in layout. It should hopefully be out very shortly.

It was contracted out, similar to how the 1248 Spinward States book was done. It was not written by MJD, though his vision for 1248 obviously guided its development.

It covers Diaspora and Old Expanses in full, plus the "top row" of subsectors from the Solomani Rim and Alpha Crucis. This means it includes the United Worlds and a sliver of the Terran Commonwealth, too.

 

[Gallowglacht]

TBH, I would rather see what Dunia has. I'm not so much a Freedom League fan as a Reformation Coalition one. Not to knock 1248, but it has its market. I'd like to see how someone elses 120X campaign pans out, to compare and contrast (and maybe steal from bwahahaha) with my own.

So Dunia, even if you are interested in/switching to 1248, I'd still like to hear about your earlier stuff.

 

[daryen]

TBH, I would rather see what Dunia has.

I didn't mean to imply that the 1248 sourcebook would "trump" anything. Just making sure it is known that it will be available shortly, and that the opportunity for input into it is probably closed.

Alternatives are good. I still make them myself ...

 

[Plankowner]

I didn't realize that the Freedom League book was finished, so ignore My suggestion:

PUBLISH your stuff Dunia! I would also like to see it.

Do you have a website somewhere?????

 

[epicenter00]

If anyone has done the same, I would love to trade info so that I can flesh out my stuff weven more.

Yeah, I second that - I'd like to see your version of the RC. I personally liked the TNE setting (not necessarily the rules) with some modification. I don't think I went into as much detail as you did, but I did create quite a bit of slang, and started getting into the cynicism of a lot of "frontier operators" would feel towards the "indigs" (short for "indigenous populations") which was definitely a pejorative term but not as extreme as "zipper." There were also "Ghost Worlds" - the worlds whose populations were wiped out during the Final War or the Virus infestation afterwards. There's also "Ghoul Worlds" - worlds where pre-Rebellion populations have completely died off, except there's sentient machines left on the world.

There's "Kruyter's Complex" - a psychological condition in my TNE and is a variant of PTSD that occurs even without sharp traumas. The lower-than-expect profits of the Kruytercorp venture were not because of bureaucracy or a lack of salvageable material. It was because of the psychological feeling of "violation" the salvagers feel (and subsequent high turnover of workers), never knowing when you're going to open up the next airlock or room and find a bunch of dead bodies - specifically, when conditions allow for good to near-perfect preservation of the bodies as opposed to identityless skeletons. It's the wear-and-tear of the psyche that occurs when going into such places and seeing the desperate social rituals done by dying survivors to give their deaths meaning, or the final "Lord of the Flies" like struggles for that last tank of oxygen, but that's not the worst. The worst is going into the tinier room next door and finding room packed full of bodies of infants and children where the adults had put them with the last oxygen tanks in the vain hope of rescue. While it is the most studied on Kruyter where it's close, it happens amongst salvage teams in Wilds as well. People react differently towards it, in "masculine" social groupings (these groupings don't have to have any men at all - one study tracked the psychological damage done to an all-female work group of ex-RCN Marines doing work in the Wilds but rather the typical "masculine" attitudes towards suffering), it tends to result callousness towards the dead and the living, leading to situations of abuse - partner violence, confrontational attitudes, drinking and drug use, and rage. In others in results in sullen withdraw or quitting of the job.

I had a lot more material once, but I lost it in a Hard Drive crash, I'll see what else I can find that I printed out.

Of course, my version of the RC was crushed when the logical conclusion of the Virus came around - Vampire Fleet Nemesis and Vampire Fleet Alastor attack the RC in 1214 and once again revisit the RC with the horrors of the Final War.

 

[Golan2072]

Epicenter, you've just convinced me to play TNE!

 

[Dunia]

Hi guys

I have most of my TNE files on my stationary comuter that is currently in another country, but I will add something here later (in 2-3 weeks). But I can share the things that I do remember.
When I looked at RC I started to to wonder how the life is like for the average citizen and how much money is worth, what is the planetary BNP and so on and two guys from my group and I took a weekend with homemade brownies, icecream and BBQ, and brainstormed.

IMTU (God I love this abbrevation), we started 1201 and there were no real fleet to talk about, I took away the Clippers and decided that they were still in production, most of the Victrixes are still being retrofited to be able to fly (They salvage 3 to fix 1) so the thing was that RC has almost no ships at all that can be spared to give to a PC group.

The players first started out in what I call a Contact Team, these are the guys (6 guys and 6 NPCs) who are dropped by the RCES on a world with a portable base, some vehicles and lots of gold, medical supplies and all the surival stuff they need. Then the starship jumps away to place other groups on other worlds. They get an estimated date when the ship comes and until then they are on their own to scout, contact any friendly government and make any alliance with it as they can see fit to help themselves, the people and the RC.
While they are away on a mission, the RC will pay all rents and expenses at home, and they sign on for a 3 year term. So this was the backbone of how the campaign started.


RC a'la Dunia

After some months RL time, the group had pretty much allied themselves with the Religious Republic of Maaldaar on Nicosia and was given an old unused military base outside the capital where they could live and they used this as a Class E spaceport for RCES ships and used the barracks and buildings as a hospital/free clinic.

Then one of the players (An Ex-Kruyter Corp security guy/technican) came up with the idea how to bootstrap the republic by purchasing/building TL-11 (the group was supported by Eos) household stuff, like microwaves, refriguators, coffemachines, stoves, fusionplants (portable from the EQ list), flashlights and clocks and started to sell those without almost no profit, then when it was popular with the Maldarians, they offered the government to allow them to build a factory at the base, and the government would own 30%, Eos 30%, Kreutercorp 5%, RC 25% annd the group 10% and all parts agreed. Then they offered to transport all factory workers to Eos tobe trained in how to build these products and offered them jobs back at Eos (Eos wants more population), some accepted, far from all.

And then the campaign went on, Maaldar slowly learned how to bootstrap themselves up to TL 8 with the help of the group, who consists by:
1) Male Eosian scholar/proffessor (age 50 at creation) speciallist in Physics and Advanced Mathematics.
2) Male KruyterCorp ex-Security soldier/technical instructor (age 36).
3) Female Eosian Marine medic (age 32) and hobby archeologist
4) Male Eosian Intelligence/Spy specialist and hobby rockstar (age 28)
5) Male Eosian Hiver Tech /Navy Pilot (age 24)
6) Female Eosian ex-criminal/assassin (age 27), now forced into RCES as Lancer (or she could choose to take a death penalty) for 10 years

The six Npcs were:
1) Female Eosian Hiver Tech/Lancer (age 29) (Leader of Expedidtiion)
2) Male Aubani Marine (age 33)
3) Male Oriflammen Army (age 34) (Veteran from Spencer campaign)
4) Male Aubani Construction worker (age 32)
5) Female Aubani Medic (Age 30) Total Pacifist
6) Male (Hiverspace human) Advisor (age ~30-35) Lacked all emotions save curiousity

All characters had gone either to Graduate University or HTA so they were quite well educated, even for RC people and all PCs had at least 2 in instruction (not a requirement, they just thought that it is logical for their backgrounds and all did their characters with me alone without talking to the others)

 

[epicenter00]

Mmm, crunchy stuff there, Dunia. I love reading stuff about Traveller written by people who actually play the game (apologies to those who can't anymore but I still prefer it from people who play). Your post did touch on something for me:

My RC was a lot lower-tech than the one presented in the TNE book. That's not to say they didn't have TL12-15 items and the ability to manufacture a lot of it, but I always thought that the RC would be doing literally everything on less than a shoestring budget - they RC can't really afford to be going out and bootstrapping all these worlds and so on, they're doing out of a moral imperative not because they really can. There was a very strong emphasis on players to find "local solutions" to their problems, especially those in the RCES who do all of the bootstrapping. It also brought down the curve of the average tech level to a level more interesting to me, saving me from having to deal with meson gun tanks, and grav belted guys in battle dress toting around fusion rifles. This afforded me two advantages as a GM:

1) It got rid of that really game damaging situation you ran into constantly in OTU TNE where even with light battledress, the players were effectively immune to the military forces of any TL under, say, 7 or so. Apologies to Marc Miller, but I never understood the chubby that GDW guys got off of "six guys in power armor taking on a whole Panzer Division" - the model that kept popping up in TNE and T4. For me that's just a bad RPG situation. This was the most key part.

2) It made solving situations more based around negotiation and player skills, the careful use of select hoarded high TL items, and plain ingenuity of the players. I believe these kinds of situations really are the most rewarding to players and my groups have always preferred it that way. As a GM, there was nothing more rewarding for me than to have a player (not me) show up to a game and be like, "Hey, I read something about thermoacoustic ovens and brought over this stuff I found on it. How hard would it be to begin production of something like this for the people here?"

Essentially I played my campaign similarly to yours, Dunia. The players would be dropped off on a planet with a remote base. Players being players, they of course brought along their FGMPs, light battledress, and so on and used them lavishly at first. However, after a while of experiencing the impossibility of getting extra FGMP cartridges, spare parts for their battledress, and so on (such things are priority hoarded by the RCN/RCMC) and realizing they had a 1000kg baggage allowance in the "about once a month" visit from a passing RC ship or Freetrader contractee. IMTU, jump capable ships are rare and precious, not to be squandered, so essentially a convoy does a circuit around wilds worlds and so on, carrying news and supplies. As they have to carry all the drop-off stuff AND their own supplies, baggage for each team is necessarily very limited.

The players themselves quickly went from using caseless ammo to using TL5 rifles, occasionally even black powder rifles firing ball-bearings salvaged from TL8 machinery (that is, until they figured out that the manufacture of ball-bearings is actually a key bottleneck in the process of industrialization and started packrating the stuff like it was gold).

 

[Dunia]

Another thing that my players have done is to gather as much technology-data and how to build things, as possible. Along with all data on basic medicine, chemistry,physics, biology and history of Coalition and neigbouring systems.

Then they founded a new buisness that they called the Reformist Library that aided all worlds that supportted it woith money, minerals and people to work there in exchange for free data of what existed within its databanks, also they had those people working for them writing ordinary books about the data. Just invcase a virus would strike the building.

Now 5 years after the library was founded, they have negotiated to build a new library on 3 other words, in exchange for those planets collected hightech data. S the first library was founded on Nicosia, Eos has decided to join after much political Rp, as have Aurora and Lancer (that has now joined the Coalition). So it seems that the players are bootstrapping some RC worlds up to TL 10 and in return they take as much resources from the library they can get and send it to Eos so that Eos can start upgrading their Starport.

My players are really into aiding Eos for all that Eos have done for them when the campaign first started.

 

[Dunia]

I must say that Ilove my players for their ideas and their oppertunist ways when it comes to start businesses. This far they have started 6 companies, though three went down rather fast, now its only the High-Tech (11) company that sells household supplies and portable fusionplants on lowtech worlds, the library and their RC travel agency, where they have free rides for schoolclasses (age 12-15) for a jump and back where the kids learn how it is like to work on a starship, and hopefully the kids will be RCES people one day...

And todays game was very funny, the groups medic have started to research on psionics, just theoretically though. They found some old imperial documents some time ago about the Psi Reprressions. So the library have an underground facility where she spends her free time to try to learn about Psi and hopefully one day be able to locate one, and recruit them.