What have I gotten myself into?

[Shadowdancer]

Over on the ENworld boards, some people were organizing a gameday for Sept. 28. It sounded like fun. So I did something I've never done before -- I signed up to run a sesson of T20.

So now what do I do? Anyone have any suggestions for a good introductory adventure to T20?

I know I'm going to provide pregenerated characters rather than doing it there, just to save time. And I'm going to provide 6-8 characters.

One thought I had was to run the first part of the old CT adventure "Signal GK," where the PCs have to cross into Solomani space and extract a researcher from a secret facility. But do this under a war-time footing, and the PCs are all ex-servicemen called back to active duty. One reason I thought of this is I have the old Seeker module "Research Facility," which has good floorplans of an underground facility that I can use with miniatures.

I also thought I might throw in an unrelated rescue at the start similar to the ship-trapped-in-gas-giant's-atmosphere that starts off the Linkworld's Cluster minicampaign. Something just to get their juices flowing.

So, anyone have any helpful thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Hecateus]

My idea to start off a campaign was to have players start off as would be colonists. They awake from cold sleep only to find themselves captured by badguys, far from the supposed colony world, and have slave-control collars secured around their necks. How oh how do they get themselves out this one.

 

[Zutroi]

I've often thought the biggest problem with starting a group out is "Why am I with these people?"

I once started a campaign off by kidnapping all the PCs, who awoke aboard a ship in Jump-space. After they took over the ship and took out the kidnappers, they needed no excuse to travel together...

BTW, no kidnapper survived long enough to explain that they'd been hired to provide 'warm bodies' for a terraforming/colonization project...

 

[kaladorn]

I dislike the 'railroad' approach to a game.

My original long-running MT campaign (15-16 months, 10 players) all sort of evolved around one main character, a noble who was the planetary noble for a planet in the Glimmerdrift reaches. People just started to fit into slots around him and things went from there (we had a planetary noble, an ex-Marine security chief, an ex-NavInt Intel Chief, a few hatchet men and button pushers, a retired Vargr (Imperial) Admiral who just liked to hobnob, etc).

In my current game, I actually asked everyone... "What kind of game do you think you'd enjoy?"
- Mercs
- Active Service
- Exploration
- Merchantile
- Adventuring
- Piracy/Crime
- Secret Agent/Intrigue

The answers gave me a clue what the players would enjoy and we built on that. We now have a ship's crew made up of 2 ex Imp Nav, 1 ex System Nav, 1 ex Marine, 1 ex Scout, and a Merchant - and they now own a privateer/upgunned freighter and are doing a mix of adventures and merchantile stuff.

But tying the players to one another sure helps - I made all the original PCs from the same area on the same planet. We lost one and his replacement is from elsewhere, but otherwise this is a great tie to bind them to one another at the start.

Tomb

 

[Spinward Scout]

Lady in White Robes

THE definitive Lady in distress Patron Encounter. It's one of the original Patron Encounters. It's in The Traveller Book, The Traveller Adventure - I can't seem to find it in any of the old CT reprints, tho. I think it might also be in BITS 101 Patrons, too. If you can't find it, post on here - I'll summarize it for you (Hunter - how do you handle copyright on out of print material?). Modified to YTU and the group you have, this is a really great starter point for a group just sitting around a TAS lounge waiting for something to happen.

Later,

Scout

 

[mike wightman]

It's patron encounter no 6. Noble in CT Supplement 6, 76 Patrons.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

So now what do I do? Anyone have any suggestions for a good introductory adventure to T20?

There's a great little adventure seed here (scroll down towards the bottom):

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/science/gasgiants.html

It's a great scenario (and according to the notes, has a history as a convention scenario) which has some inherent advantages: it can be played in one session; you can have the characters be various company employees and/or scout crew nearby; and you can add some spice to it like political or industrial sabotage, etc.

Another good one is Divine Intervention, half of Double Adventure 6 and available in the CT reprints. Again, this could be played in one sitting, and would be a good workout for stealth skills in the first half and combat skills in the second.

In any event, good luck!

 

[vutpakdi]

No matter what scenario you end up choosing, you'll probably want to go through at least one dry run. I've found that it's best to aim under the available time by at least 30 minutes. So, if you have a 3 hr slot, try to make the adventure last 2 1/2 hrs.

Just a thought, but you might want to drop Flynn a note. He might be willing to let you playtest one of the scenarios that he ran at GenCon to see how well it runs for someone who didn't write the scenario.

Ron

 

[DElrick]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
Over on the ENworld boards, some people were organizing a gameday for Sept. 28. It sounded like fun. So I did something I've never done before -- I signed up to run a sesson of T20.

So now what do I do? Anyone have any suggestions for a good introductory adventure to T20?

I've run many tournament and demo adventures over the years - some good and some pretty awful ones too.

If you're comfortable winging it, you could do worse than pick half a dozen likely plots from 76 Patrons or 101 Patrons.

On the other hand, if you want a more structured adventure try Red Starrise (available as a free PDF from http://www.wizards.com/alternity/downloads.asp).

It was written for Alternity, so you need to work out Traveller stats and adjust the background slightly, but it works quite well as a pick-up demonstration game.

I've used it several times, with good results each time. I set it in the Foreven sector in the months after the Fifth Frontier War, with the Navy re-establishing contact with various projects which had formerly been controlled out of the Five Sisters subsector in the Spinward Marches.

Good luck with the demo game. Some of the best Traveller fun I have had has been introducing newbies to the game at shows. Nothing beats someone getting up from your game and saying "Where's the shop - I have to get this game".

Be sure and let us know how you got on.

Cheers

David

 

[DElrick]

Oops! The bracket was included in the url, making it error. Try:

http://www.wizards.com/alternity/downloads.asp

Good luck again.

Cheers

David

 

[Spinward Scout]

One way to get a group together is to stick them on an asteroid mining colony and have the asteroid become unstable. Make sure they all end up in the same escape pod. Have something happen to the Pod - instant adventurer-glue. Nothing draws a group together better than adversity.

It's a bad, dangerous place Space is...

Scout

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

How about...

REFEREE: "Your transport pulls away from the military out-processing facility (discharge center), and heads towards town. Besides the driver, there are 6 to 8 other passengers - each branch of service is represented. One of the others pulls out a bottle of Mudspider Ale, and passes it around. After making introductions, he says to everybody 'Anyone looking for work? I got this friend in town with his own Far Trader, and he's looking for a ready crew."

It seems that the vessel was a 'Dutchman'; it came out of jumpspace with a full cargo, and no crew on board. The friend is a belter who was first to claim rights of salvage. He sold the cargo and registered the ship under his own name.
He has lined up a contract for a Jump-1 run, and just needs a crew to run the ship.

Simple, right?

 

[Shadowdancer]

Originally posted by David Elrick:
I've run many tournament and demo adventures over the years - some good and some pretty awful ones too.

If you're comfortable winging it, you could do worse than pick half a dozen likely plots from 76 Patrons or 101 Patrons.

Good luck with the demo game. Some of the best Traveller fun I have had has been introducing newbies to the game at shows. Nothing beats someone getting up from your game and saying "Where's the shop - I have to get this game".

Be sure and let us know how you got on.

Cheers

David

Well, I am usually more comfortable winging it, so that's basically what I did. I wrote up a brief outline the night before, and made a lot of it up as I went along during the demo. And it actually went pretty well. I was very happy with it, and the players all had a good time with it, which is the most important thing in a demo.

I'll post some more details this weekend when I get some time.