What do you do during Jump?

[LiminalMask]

What do your characters do during the week in jumpspace in your campaign?

Do you typically gloss over it? ("Your jump is successful. A week later...")

Do you assume there's ship maintenance going on and do you make rolls for these things?

I'm sure there can be adventure onboard during that week, especially if you take on passengers, but that wouldn't happen every jump, would it?

Can characters use that time to take "correspondence courses" in skills? Or receive training from other PCs in skills they possess? (How would you handle this? I would imagine that something like 50 weeks of training would produce a level 1 skill, using chargen as a rule of thumb. So you can raise a skill every 50 jumps, maybe?)

Just wondering what ideas are out there to fill this time. What do -you- do?

 

[HG_B]

So you can raise a skill every 50 jumps, maybe?)

Depends on the skill and the version of Trav you are playing.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I asked about this a while back. Pretty interesting responses.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=1364

 

[Ran Targas]

Most of the time my players are up to something no good or chasing a fleeting lead so jump time is the only time they have to plot and plan their next move(s). I make sure that the timer is ticking when they're in N-space but I reserve the jump time as theirs.

They spend a lot of time in the auto-doc too knitting up wounds, recovering from environmental stresses, or treating the occasional alien infection or parasite.

And then there's maintenance; I've always thought the ship's engineer is a poorly defined and under appreciated position. I keep him busy monitoring the jump drive, the power plant, and especially the life support systems. Throw him a bone every once in a while and allow him to make a critical repair, preventing the whole crew from being lost forever in jump space or dying of hypoxia or explosive decompression. Then when it's time to pass out the loot, he doesn't get forgotten.

 

[Icosahedron]

I asked about this a while back. Pretty interesting responses.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=1364

I love post #3 of that thread (and post #12 obviously) but more seriously, as a GM I try to have some stuff for the PCs to do.

Maintenance, hobbies and skill practice are obvious examples, and for a lone crewmember may be all you can do, in which case you might gloss over the trip, but if you can get a few passengers aboard you can get a bit of intrigue going, if it's only 'who stole my cell phone?' or 'what's making that intermittent tapping sound?'

Once in a while you can throw in a biggie, such as a hijack - I liked the time when I had a hallucinogen get into the aircon; the crew spent the week chasing werewolves around the passenger deck! Took em a long while to figure out the increasingly weird events weren't real.

One possibility is to arrange for some overspill from the last dirtside adventure - maybe give them some second thoughts about whether it was wrapped up correctly and have the PCs argue it out - especially if they have different clues about what might have been wrong. "Are you sure we fingered the right guy for that? I was just looking through the spoils and found this document that says..."

Or give them some prep for the next dirtside adventure - "Hey guys, I know we can't put the brakes on mid-jump, en-route to Arglebargle, but I was reading the last data-dump we picked up as we left orbit, and there was a stop-press newsflash saying that Arglebargle has just suffered a military coup..."

 

[Redcap]

...Or give them some prep for the next dirtside adventure - "Hey guys, I know we can't put the brakes on mid-jump, en-route to Arglebargle, but I was reading the last data-dump we picked up as we left orbit, and there was a stop-press newsflash saying that Arglebargle has just suffered a military coup..."

Ooooo, now that's truly evil

I like it

 

[saundby]

Stirring the pot is my favorite jumpspace activity, too. It's not boring for my players. The suggestion that they're jumping into trouble, or that trouble is following them makes the time pass quickly, as does turning them against each other. If there are NPCs on board, they've got colorful personality traits that may only come out during jump.

I keep notes while the party is dirtside of things to bring up during jump.
"A was slow passing ammo to B during firefight with hired goons."
"C wandered off while rest of party was investigating site computer, gave no account of themselves on return."
"Cappy had to repeat an order to flunky D while overflying compound."
"NPC X seemed to greet E in an _awfully_ friendly fashion."

I then toss in reminders during jump.

"While you're breaking out your study materials you see A in the lounge. You recall that they sure seemed slow with the ammo in that firefight..."
"...E takes another yet another hand in your poker game. While they're collecting their winnings you recall the odd way X greeted them..."

and so on. Instant excitement.

 

[McPerth]

I think this also depends quite a lot on if they are the crew of the ship or passagers...

The crew can expect to be busy: engineer and steward have obvoius tasks, pilot and navigator not so obvious, but surely they have somethng to keep them busy too (reviewing routes on next system, cross-checking systems, etc). Gunners (if they have not other job, as is the case in most merchant ships) can train in simulators or help any othr crewmember...

If they are passangers, things are a little different. Their time os for leisure, so they can meet other passangers, have some intrigue or train in computer educational programs...

And I guess ship's troops are patroling the ship (if large enough), training and making exercises to kep them fit, reviewing the matherial, planning next dirtside action, etc...

MT supplement 'empress Marava' (SGS) talks a little about the topic in the narrative all those supplements have.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Dude, the 52 century equivalent of computer games. Of course, they all be solo adventures if you're on your own...

 

[leo knight]

In E.C.Tubb's Dumarest novels, passengers could elect to take a drug, I can't remember if Tubb called it Fast or Slow, that put one into a dreamy, sleepy state of semi-hibernation. The trip seemed to go by in almost no time. They also had notoriously dangerous low passage 'coffins'. Of course, crew members couldn't do these. For those who elected to stay awake, socialising, dining, gambling, drinking, other intoxicants, flirting and sex seemed to be the most popular activities. Dumarest got a working passage on a free trader as a steward by virtue of being able to pour drinks, cook and run a card game. Steward and Gambling skill!

 

[Nightwind1]

What do your characters do during the week in jumpspace in your campaign?

Do you typically gloss over it? ("Your jump is successful. A week later...")

Do you assume there's ship maintenance going on and do you make rolls for these things?

I'm sure there can be adventure onboard during that week, especially if you take on passengers, but that wouldn't happen every jump, would it?

Can characters use that time to take "correspondence courses" in skills? Or receive training from other PCs in skills they possess? (How would you handle this? I would imagine that something like 50 weeks of training would produce a level 1 skill, using chargen as a rule of thumb. So you can raise a skill every 50 jumps, maybe?)

Just wondering what ideas are out there to fill this time. What do -you- do?

At various times, we have done any or all of the above...

 

[jatay3]

Routine maintenance, exercise(mainly martial sports as these do not require much room but only a pair of scoresuits*) and such entertainment for which there is space aboard. These include oral storytelling, recorded entertainment on the computer, and on and on. Even role-playing games which are an established art form IMTU(not only is RPG playing done among friends, it is done in the courts of the mighty often by troupes of professional roleplayers or a professional gamemaster serving several courtiers). There is an almost infinite choice in non-active forms of entertainment and many of my characters run toward the nerdy in tastes which makes that satisfactory. The electronic media of the time leave more then enough available for most of the entertainment anyone can want.

There are also education programs available, provided by the Venturers Guild to merchant spacers and sometimes by the owners, or officers of a given ship as well.

One thing I haven't had is hazards in jump-space. Mainly because I couldn't think of many yet.


*light, "armor" worn for combative sports wired with a primitive computer system; it's secondary purpose is to prevent injury, it's main purpose is to record points for blows struck.

 

[bubbacleese]

Jump Time again

Yes, jump time can be passed off without anything happening and perhaps many times it should be. I guess it all comes down to who is running the game (the GM or the players.) By this I mean if you are running a planned scenario then you have better things for the players to do. On the other hand if you are letting your players run the game, as in they choose to go to three systems as a trade route and then let them get into minor trouble via encounter rolls then yes you need to have something to happen during the jump time.

Truely I think both of these options can be filled nicely with jump time events. As said before from paying passengers trying to hi-jack the ship to maintenance breakdowns leaving the ship without fuel inbetween systems.

 

[Hemdian]

One thing I haven't had is hazards in jump-space. Mainly because I couldn't think of many yet.

I usually either gloss over it or allow training in jump. But I once ran a Halloween special ... tieing in a Challenge Halloween adventure with 'Hippies' (psionic phenomenon), "Treasure Ships of the Abyss" (also from Challenge), and my own warped imagination: Basically the PCs' ship encountered a ghost ship in jump. As the two ships passed through each other a portal opened up that allowed somone to cross onto the ghost ship ... where they were chased and hunted down by ghosts before managing to make it back.

When I ran this I sent the player whose character had crossed over to wait in another room while I finished off with the main group. What I didn't realise was that the other room was slightly cool ... not enough to be immediately noticable, but enough to send the occasional shiver up your spine if you were there for any length of time. The player put this down to the spooky story and was fairly freaked out by the time I'd finished with him and allowed him to rejoin the group.

 

[Enoki]

One thing that would have to occur on merchant-type vessels is that the crew has to interact with passengers (if any). For example, the ship's captain would be expected to dine with high passage passengers on a daily basis (the Captian's table). This would allow interaction between the passengers and captain and might result in additional quests, adventures, etc., depending on who was on the passenger list.

As an aside to that, a small trader carrying just 15 - 20 crew and passengers needs to serve somewhere between 300 and 400 individual meals during this period; more if you count the time to 100 diameters and back in to the destination planet.

Other oddities: When does a starship dump its equivalent of a septic tank? What if it backs up?

I know this all sounds rather mundane but the mundane often can be made into interesting little activities that have to be dealt with.

 

[jatay3]

One thing that would have to occur on merchant-type vessels is that the crew has to interact with passengers (if any). For example, the ship's captain would be expected to dine with high passage passengers on a daily basis (the Captian's table). This would allow interaction between the passengers and captain and might result in additional quests, adventures, etc., depending on who was on the passenger list.

As an aside to that, a small trader carrying just 15 - 20 crew and passengers needs to serve somewhere between 300 and 400 individual meals during this period; more if you count the time to 100 diameters and back in to the destination planet.

Other oddities: When does a starship dump its equivalent of a septic tank? What if it backs up?

I know this all sounds rather mundane but the mundane often can be made into interesting little activities that have to be dealt with.

There's a lot of space in space, and plenty of places to put it.

 

[Enoki]

The reason I put that last in there is it becomes a real question of where and when. Obviously, dumping something like hundreds to thousands of gallons of mixed liquid-solid waste will create a navigation hazard of sorts. For larger ships with lots of crew it could create an small asteroid in effect. If you are moving when dumping it impart some vector on the waste (ie, the waste will have a direction and velocity). This could be a problem.
I would assume that dumping in near orbit is probably illegal on many worlds. So, you have to do it somewhere else. Then there is the question can you dump during a jump? If not your holding tank has to be large enough to take a week plus waste for the entire crew.

The humor would be watching players deal with the toilets backing up and waste flooding the ship...... something to do during jump......

 

[McPerth]

The reason I put that last in there is it becomes a real question of where and when. Obviously, dumping something like hundreds to thousands of gallons of mixed liquid-solid waste will create a navigation hazard of sorts. For larger ships with lots of crew it could create an small asteroid in effect. If you are moving when dumping it impart some vector on the waste (ie, the waste will have a direction and velocity). This could be a problem.
I would assume that dumping in near orbit is probably illegal on many worlds. So, you have to do it somewhere else. Then there is the question can you dump during a jump? If not your holding tank has to be large enough to take a week plus waste for the entire crew.

The humor would be watching players deal with the toilets backing up and waste flooding the ship...... something to do during jump......

In his unfinished novel 'the Odissey of the Bard Refuge, Hemidan tells us how waste is thrown away from a AHL cruiser, though he doesn't tell us where...

I guess one must wait for Quark to show up ...

 

[Hemdian]

In his unfinished novel 'the Odissey of the Bard Refuge, Hemidan tells us how waste is thrown away from a AHL cruiser, though he doesn't tell us where...

I guess one must wait for Quark to show up ...

I’m in two minds about the navigation hazard issue. We don’t hear much in Traveller about accidental asteroid (et al) impacts.

I got the idea for Odyssey’s lift mechanism from Dark Star, but so far I’m managed to resist introducing a beachball-like alien. (And in case anyone’s worried, Odyssey is a WIP.) And we’ve also seen garbage thrown out in Star Wars 5.

On the other hand there was a garbage cannon in one episode of Red Dwarf. And over on the TML (years ago) the idea of deliberately throwing stuff out the ship as an improvised weapon was discussed (when the conversation turned to include furniture someone pointed out they’d just invented the futon torpedo). Meanwhile, Kinunir (CT Adv 1) mentions in passing “garbage desiccators” (large rotating ports designed to contain garbage for vacuum drying), the garbage itself is stored for later disposal. However, Kinunir as a whole needs to be taken advisedly.

I guess my feeling is that ships like an AHL can should have a garbage ejection mechanism but it might be used only sparingly. And waste organic material is recycled into the algae tanks.

 

[leo knight]

they’d just invented the futon torpedo

:rofl:

In some versions of jumpspace, any matter leaving the jump bubble disintegrates. Maybe a standard practice might be to vent the holding tanks just before reverting to realspace? I can also imagine some planets using organic waste as fertiliser, or maybe methane, ala "Road Warrior". Perhaps they would offer a pump-out service.

Getting back to the topic, perhaps make up a random chart of jumpspace "encounters". Issues could be annoying ("What's that smell?"), comical (see toilets: backed-up, above), dangerous ("I'm in charge now."), or deadly ("We're all going to die!"). Maybe apply them the same way as ship encounters.