To stop over or not aka Jump Jump Jump

[Gray Pennell]

Alright I have a place in my campaign where the players can go several different ways to get to their destination. The question should I plan adventures for the stop overs or should I just have them jump directly to their destination?

 

[far-trader]

Plan A: Develop interesting adventures for each stop over.

Player: Ignore world, stay on ship, fuel and jump.

Plan B: Prepare nothing for each stop over.

Player: Ask endless questions about the world, go exploring, look for adventure, boldly go where no man has gone before.

...you're hooped no matter which way you decide if you leave it to the players in my experience. And if you force your way on them they may scream they're being repressed. The trick is to make them think they decided which of your many excellent traps... er, adventures they've decided to fall into.

I'd suggest the barest of routine encounters for each stop, and use them at least once, in an attempt to lull the players into a sense of security and mundane. Then tease them with hooks into the adventure until they bite. Reel them in nice and gently. Make the adventure suitable for any of the worlds they pass through. And be prepared for them to go 180 degrees from where you expect them to. They may never arrive at their destination, at least not the one you expect, but the travelling not just half the fun, it's all of it

 

[BytePro]

As a campaign, with the assumption that entails several sessions and a destination that is enticing enough to justify the effort...

Layover systems are good places for random encounters (I prep these myself, but the rulebooks and supplements should suffice.). As long as you don't put in anything more enticing at the layovers than the final destination offers - it really shouldn't be a problem. It definitely adds depth to a campaign (not so good for just an adventure, IMO).

You can even generally weave in, without much effort, elements that support the story arc, etc. related to the destination. Key NPCs, starships, paperwork, gear, etc.

 

[Gray Pennell]

Plan A: Develop interesting adventures for each stop over.


P.S. Not exactly the right area for the question, see topic heading, but not sure where to put it off-hand. Where would you like it moved? Maybe MTU?

Sure move it over to MTU. And the answer is pretty much what I expected

 

[rancke]

Plan A: Develop interesting adventures for each stop over.

Player: Ignore world, stay on ship, fuel and jump.

Referee: "Guys, I've prepared a nifty adventure for this stop-over. One of you need to go into startown to buy something."

Plan B: Prepare nothing for each stop over.

Player: Ask endless questions about the world, go exploring, look for adventure, boldly go where no man has gone before.

Referee: "Guys, I have nothing prepared for this stop-over. I don't know any more about this world than you can read in the library data I gave you. You spend an eventless 16 hours here while your ship is being refuelled -- or we can say you spend a little longer on getting a cooked meal and sleep in a hotel bed and call it exactly three days, arrival to jump. Utterly eventless either way."


Hans

 

[Hyphen]

Plan A: Develop interesting adventures for each stop over.

There's a few DGP adventures that do this using the "nugget" format. You prep a few reasonably generic scenarios to cover the different ways they could go. It's not a waste of time, because since it is generic, you can pull out the "not travelled" scenario for use some other time...

(This all reminds me of the G-D-Q series from AD&D: the first "D" series module had three paths to the Drow city. All three had emplaced enounters, with the most dangerous being on the unmarked path...)

 

[Enoki]

You should plan things for each system. If they stay aboard, refuel off a gas giant, etc., there are still possibilities of things happening. Other ships in the system, military or customs taking an interest in them etc.

Since most forms of Traveller require the ship receive periodic maintenance they should have to land at some point. The same goes for food, etc. There isn't an endless supply aboard.....

So now you have passengers and cargo (if it is a merchant), landing on worlds and going ashore (so to speak). This can and should lead to all sorts of possible things happening. Animal encounters, partron encounters, running into who-knows-what.

In fact, done well this sort of semi-random thing in each system.... carefully based on the UPP of the main world, and a good system description of the rest of it if necessary, you can come up with all sorts of things going on to keep the party interested. If the final destination is some sort of manditory option where the party has to eventually go there because they are left with little choice then eventually.... hopefully if they don't do stupid stuff and get killed off.... they will get there. But the trip should be interesting too.

Make each system interesting too. What would the world in each system be like? You can determine that before you start the game. Is world A a mining one while world B a resort? What goes on there? Why is the system like it is? How would the system end up with the UPP it has? If you know what the system is like then you have a starting point for events that occur there.

Taking some of the above:

You have a system with a dictator and high law level. The players plan on just jumping in, refueling, and jumping out..... Right up until the gas giant they are headed to 12 to 18 hours away (that's the typical range of transit times give or take) having a number of satellites one of which is a minor naval base of the system and the small warship(s) in orbit tell you to haul to and halt for an inspection and "refueling fee" because the local dictator makes alot of cash that way and demands twice or triple the usual unrefined fuel cost.....

Refueling itself will take 12+ hours depending on the size of the vessel and then another 12 to 18 out to the jump point.

Okay, the players have made 3 jumps and you tell them the next system they either land or start eating their shoes as the food has all but run out.... Problem is that system is nearly in starvation itself..... New problem for them to solve.

The idea here is to make them plan ahead and add detail to the game too. Don't just let them leave everything up to you....

 

[mike wightman]

This is why the early Traveller aventures included a rumours matrix.

Combine this with random patron encounters and you can make stuff up as you go.

 

[77topaz]

Alright I have a place in my campaign where the players can go several different ways to get to their destination. The question should I plan adventures for the stop overs or should I just have them jump directly to their destination?

Depends on how curious they are. If you don't have anything, or do have something, you can tell them. Apart from that, it's all up to the players.

 

[DangerousThing]

I try to prepare a few generic adventures that between them cover almost anywhere they go. If the characters decide to act boring and just leave, well I still have that adventure in reserve.

 

[epicenter00]

Alright I have a place in my campaign where the players can go several different ways to get to their destination. The question should I plan adventures for the stop overs or should I just have them jump directly to their destination?

I generally find it depends on you. Is the journey or the destination more important for your game? If you have a lot of stuff invested into the adventure at the destination then it's you (and your players) benefit to get to the destination quickly to get on with your game. If you're playing an open-type game where your players just sort of wander the universe picking up whatever thread-leads find them, you should have a few adventures along the way.

TBH, I've always been against totally open-ended games. I know that's how most Traveller players seem to demand the game be run, but it puts all of the work for the game on the GM. Normally, I try and make the players shoulder some of the burden of the game, such as plotting out the route and giving me their routine when traveling between worlds and what they do at the typical lay-over unless it's otherwise disturbed.

By seeing their routine, you can get a good feel for what the players like doing: if a big thing for players to do is to hit the startown for drinks and "good time girls" you can get them into trouble there, or if the purser likes to go into town looking for smuggling cargoes, you often don't have to detail your universe that much since they'll rarely leave the startown.

On the other hand, if the players are the type who like to spend the layover time exploring the world, then you'll need to put more detail into your worlds.

From there, I can design various adventures that will interfere in their routines.

 

[77topaz]

By seeing their routine, you can get a good feel for what the players like doing: if a big thing for players to do is to hit the startown for drinks and "good time girls" you can get them into trouble there, or if the purser likes to go into town looking for smuggling cargoes, you often don't have to detail your universe that much since they'll rarely leave the startown.

On the other hand, if the players are the type who like to spend the layover time exploring the world, then you'll need to put more detail into your worlds.

In some places, they won't be able to "hit the startown" at all... (i.e. high law levels, dictatorial governments). The experience will be different on a T-Prime world than on a Atmosphere C world, or an asteroid belt, or a water world, or a vacuum rockball. Features will likely be different on a world with a thousand inhabitants than on a world with a billion. In some places, you won't need to leave the highport, while in others, the starport is just an airstrip next to a town. You need to know something about the world first. Generally, the UWP would be fine, but in places like the Marches, there'll be backstory you'll have to know about - in case your PC's do, you don't want to disappoint them by making countercanon mistakes...