Traveller and Hornblower

[sleech]

Mornin' All

I'm thinking of recreating the Hornblower stories (also Ramage and 'Master and Commander') in Traveller. You know the idea - the chief officers of a small naval ship, say a Kinunir class cruiser, weeks away from their commanders, having to deal with the local situation on the fringes of either the Rebellion or the FFW.

Anyone else done this? What did you learn from the experience that could be useful to me?

 

[kafka47]

Done (over the course of several game sessions) the Master & Commander soon after the Crowe movie by substituting the French with the Zhodani in the period in the aftermath of the FFW. With Arden and the Islands acting as neutral waypoints, as they scour the Marches for the activation keys (really misc pieces of hardware) to build a super weapon against a Zhodani juggernaut which does not know the armistice has been signed.

One of the secrets is to tell the players, this is a Life or Death struggle. If some die, it will be for the greater glory of all and that they will be replaced by other members of the ship's crew (promoted up from the ranks) therefore, one imperative is to have lots of colourful NPCs forming the ship's crew. Also, set up, the pomp and pageantry by getting your players to watch a few episodes. I was lucky enough to send a whole gaming group to see the movie.

In the same vein of Life & Death struggle, give the player's ship, a bloody throbbing at the beginning of the adventure to motivate the revenge aspect and also to prove their vulnerability.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by kafka47:
Done the Master & Commander soon after the Crowe movie by substituting the French with the Zhodani in the period in the aftermath of the FFW. With Arden and the Islands acting as neutral waypoints, as they scour the Marches for the activation keys (really misc pieces of hardware) to build a super weapon against a Zhodani juggernaut which does not know the armistice has been signed.

One of the secrets is to tell the players, this is a Life or Death struggle. If some die, it will be for the greater glory of all and that they will be replaced by other members of the ship's crew (promoted up from the ranks) therefore, one imperative is to have lots of colourful NPCs forming the ship's crew. Also, set up, the pomp and pageantry by getting your players to watch a few episodes. I was lucky enough to send a whole gaming group to see the movie.

In the same vein of Life & Death struggle, give the player's ship, a bloody throbbing at the beginning of the adventure to motivate the revenge aspect and also to prove their vulnerability.

+ Horatio Hornblower in space has been done at least once (Honor Harrington), maybe twice (Lt. Leary) At least Harrinton is nice to be plundered for ideas, the stories share many similarities with Traveller

+ In the original book "Master and Commander" HMS Surprise isn't chasing a brave Frenchman warship, she is running down a devious American raider (USS Norfolk)

+ As Kafka47 said, assume you will loose/hurt/maim (Think Mr. Bush) some characters.

+ Don't play this as a single vojage. There is more to Hornblower than the (rather nice) movie. Read the books, they are GREAT. Make the ship come home, let him slowly work up his way from say a Gazelle to a Kinuir

+ An additional set of novels are the Alexander Kent pieces, both his "Bolitho" (set a bit pre Hornblower) and some of his WWII naval movies should also work

 

[BillDowns]

"Hornblower in Space" is quoted as the inspiration for "Forbidden Plant" and "Star Trek" TOS and can also be evidenced in the Helmsman series, too.

If you do it, I agree that it needs to be multiple scenarios. Like

#1 - Spaceblower as LCdr, commanding a Gazelle
#2 - Spaceblower as Cdr, commanding an 800-tonner
#3 - Spaceblower still Cdr, commanding a Kinunir
#4 - Spaceblower as Capt, commanding a 2500-tonner, etc.

ooo! New ships to design !

 

[sleech]

Wow! All of these ideas are great. When I referred to Hornblower, I meant the books. I've seen the BBC (Channel 4?) series and enjoyed it but the book are much better. Also, there's Dudley Pope's 'Ramage' series.

I think mapping the Napoleonic Wars on top of the FFW is the best idea for me, including a little of the build up to war as well. Starting with a Gazelle CE and moving up (or down) as the plot directs.

Thanks for the help.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
Horatio Hornblower in space has been done at least once (Honor Harrington), maybe twice (Lt. Leary).

More than that. A. Bertram Chandler's John Grimes stories may be the first 'Hornblower[*] in Space' (but I may just be unaware of anyone earlier). There are a good many of them, and they range from 'readable' to 'excellent'.

[*] And Chandler didn't try to disguise it. In one story we learn that he is a descendant (on his mother's side) of Horatio Hornblower himself ).


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by The Sleech:
Anyone else done this?

Oh yes. I ran a naval campaign for half a decade. It was great fun. The PCs were the officers and crew of a ship stationed at Wonstar base. They got to do patrol sweeps in District 268, ferry a diplomat to Mewey (I cannibalized 'Night of Conquest' for this one), man a Q-ship on an anti-piracy mission, and various other fun stuff. I remember that the 1st Lieutenant was accused by the medic of torturing a prisoner (They were both PCs). I set up a special play session to run the court-martial with a friend to play the president of the court. The lieutenant was drummed out of the navy.

What did you learn from the experience that could be useful to me?

It's been a while now, so the details are fuzzy. I started them off with a Storm Class escort, which was a 500T streamlined version of a Gazelle that I'd designed. It had a crew of 15, so the four players each played an officer (well, a lieutenant, a sub-lieutenant and two POs), an enlisted man and a marine. The three left over were NPCs.

I tried to vary the encounters to make the 'action party' differ. On a shore visit the Captain might leave an NPC on anchor watch and take his 'command staff' along. On an away mission the captain might stay behind and send the sub-lieutenant with a PO and two spacers. On a combat mission it might be an all-marine party.

Each campaign year I used the expanded character generation system (with some tweaks) to roll for promotion for each character, PC and NPC alike. If a junior officer got promoted he might have to leave the ship and the player got another character to run. I kept notes on what happened to the character that left and if a suitable occasion arose (like the whole party moving to a bigger ship), I'd have him meet up with the others again. When the lieutenant was finally promoted (his first major success got him posted to a Chrysanthemum instead of promoted), he was appointed to a Kinunir (the good ol' Mukhaldim) and took his faithful crew along.

The troupe play worked very well. Several player characters were killed or otherwise rendered unfit for further participation in the campaign, but the players took that in their stride.

NPCs are really useful. On the Mukhaldim the captain and the XO were PCs, but the 2nd Officer was an NPC, an overbred aristocratic with more family connections than brains. He was a wonderful tool for making the players' life interesting.


Hans