Originally posted by Bruce:
How did your scenario go?
Please give us some details on how it went?
Bruce
Truthfully it was more like a short wargame than a true RPG scenario due to the time constraints on gaming at the moment. I pre-genned five PCs to crew a Beowulf and picked up just after lift-off. Only two of the five players had played Traveller before, so I kept it simple, gave them a short five-minute talk on the principles behind Traveller, and got into it. This Beowulf had no low berths, only extra bunk beds.
They wandered about the ship for a bit getting it ready for jump, talked to passengers, and go to make die rolls to get used to D20.
Just after they went into jump one of the crew spotted a weapon concealed on one of the passengers (they had checked them all) and challenged them, but was taken prisoner. The passenger (who we will call a hijacker from now on) demanded the crew turn over the ship and gave a few weapons to his buddies.
It turned into a race to see who could control parts of the ship, though due to some inventive ideas on behalf of the PCs they kept the hijackers from getting into the cargo hold or engineering, or on the bridge, and it degenerated into a bloody firefight in and around the crew lounge.
The hijackers had one engineer who kept having to override the scrambled door codes the ship's engineer set up (scramble each time they closed - only openeable from engineering), so that meant they could move around the ship, albeit slowly, under lockdown.
In the end the PCs, with two of their number stabilised but in bad shape, won by taking the last two hijackers hostage.
-- Interesting and funny events were:
The Chief Engineer turning the gravity on and off randomly on the deck, causing mayhem on both sides.
The Chief Engineer leaving Engineering and realising that due to the scrambled door codes he couldn't get back in without hacking. Oh, how I laughed.
The second engineer forgetting that one of the hijackers was hiding in a cabin and running in their to take cover in the doorway, and getting blasted from behind.
The pilot carrying one of the hijackers in a fireman's carry as a shield.
The stewardess getting locked in a stateroom with one of the hijackers, and them hiding either side of the bed in a Police Squad style shootout.
One PC spending the entire scenario biding his time to strike, then getting shot as soon as he stood up. *evil GM grin*
The captain trying to talk the hijackers down even as the rest of his crew were diving around him shooting.
-- From this I picked up the following things about T20 Lite:
DANGEROUS. The combat system is lethal if you are stupid or unlucky. Armour is essential.
I'm not too sure about using the AR to increase the AC of a person - I think I may use a level-based defence modifier instead.
The generation system means you can make credible fighter-types, merchants, engineers and doctors even within just the Merchant class.
As I said above, generic NPCs are needed.
The combat system works both with and without floorplans and miniatures just as easily.
One thing I did was every time a character took Lifeblood damage they made a Fort save DC 10 + damage or be stunned the next round in shock. Anyone on 3 or less Lifeblood is at -2, 3 or 4 on actions for 3, 2 and 1 respectively. Then again, I'm a big fan of serious damage having a debilitating effect. I instigated these changes half way through, to see how they would affect play, and they didn't slow down play too much at all, and added an element of realism I like.
Basically, we had a blast. I can't wait for T20 full version, and some time to use it!
Next gaming chance I get I'll do the same thing but use a different ship (Empress Marava class) and put the PCs as the hijackers...
Take care,
Shane
