Which adventure format do you prefer?

[Keklas Rekobah]

... Referencing back to Trek, imagine running a session with the vampire cloud from "Obsession" descending on your player group. No amount of Gauss ammo or fusion fire is going to burst this cloud's bubble. So, how do you deal with it? That's where the players need to pull their craniums together and formulate some plan based on what they know. To me that's Traveller (along with the shotguns in space thing ). Finding good authors who can devise and writeup clever adventures I think is key...

I try to stick to "hard" science-fiction whenever possible. The same effect can be caused by more mundane means than a gaseous vampire creature (Roll 1D and consult the following table).

1. A biological weapon designed to induce haemoragiac fever -- an Ebola aerosol, perhaps --- with an 87% fatality rate. 'Virus' had nothing on this.

2. A naturally-occuring micro-organism that reduces blood coagulation to practically zero, as if the victim had contracted a severe case of heamophilia. Bleeding into one's joints can be extremely agonizing, I'm told.

3. A swarm of tick-like creatures that burrow into any exposed skin -- Wear insect repellant or a vacc suit. Otherwise, close your eyes and don't inhale.

4. A macro-ameoba (or hydra) that engulfs and digests its victim in a very short period of time. Maybe, if the condition is noticed in time, the victim may lose only an arm or a leg to an emergency field amputation. Be sure to cauterize the stump.

5. A plant that requires only a small scratch to implant its seeds into an animal host. Death occurs in 2D hours as the plant insinuates its roots and rizomes throughout the victim's nervous system -- a very painful way to die.

6. Radiation. Google Polonium-210 for a description of how it kills.


And yes, your post made sense. Down with Anime!

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, I don't believe in using magic in a "hard" sci-fi setting. But part of the "magic" of science fiction is there is the occasional alien technology or creature that has abilities that aren't explained. The characters have to deal with it, which is part of the fun.

In this sense, to me at least, Traveller's "hard science" edge is more malleable than I think some folks think.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Any science-fiction story of sufficient "hardness" would be indistinguishable from reality.

There must be some malleability to the genre, or it simply would not exist!

 

[Blue Ghost]

Any science-fiction story of sufficient "hardness" would be indistinguishable from reality.

There must be some malleability to the genre, or it simply would not exist!

Well, what happens when someone writes that adventure module about the "organic spaceship", or the Dyson Sphere that suddenly appears around your players' homeworld? There's no real hard science in that that I know of.

 

[sabredog]

Ya know, I'm not sure about what the EPIC format is really, and haven't the time to look it up at the moment...and the standard LBB format seems to be great for one-shot adventures, but not for a campaign.

I guess I'd have to say somewhere in between? I just write the whole campaign arc out as if the players were not in it, then add various "scenes" where things can change direction depending on what the players do at that point, and then have to modify it as we play to stay ahead of what really happens. I know what would happen if the players weren't running in the game, but it's the part about getting there once they become involved that requires the most work.

And I don't like railroading players too much, either, and the one-off LBB format always feels like that. It doesn't seem to provide enough elbow room for role-playing, but I might just be old and cranky. So maybe this EPIC thing is the way to go? Have to look that one up.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Well, what happens when someone writes that adventure module about the "organic spaceship", or the Dyson Sphere that suddenly appears around your players' homeworld? There's no real hard science in that that I know of.

As I understand it, the science-fiction genre involves reasonable extrapolations of known scientific principles, and how people endure, exploit, take for granted, and generally react to situations in which practical applications of those extrapolated principles are presented.

Which means, in plain English, that jump drive (FTL is impossible), gravity control (no unified field theory) and psionics (yeah ... right ...) -- the big three principles of the Traveller universe -- could not exist under a 'hard' science-fiction regimen.

However, as every graduate of the Writers' Handwavium Institute knows, a few 'gimmicks' must be allowed to creep in so as to establish the story as science-fiction in the readers' minds.

Without coldsleep-based space travel, 'Outland' could have been set in a mining colony somewhere in the Antarctic, so as to explain the isolation, the harsh outdoor conditions, and the nearly year-long wait to come back home. Without coldsleep-based space travel, 'Alien' may as well have been 'The Thing' or some other rubber-suit-monster movie (coincidentally, taking place in Antarctica, as well). And without FTL, light-sabres and 'The Force', 'Star Wars' may as well have been a movie about some orphan kid with mad kung-fu skillz fighting for General Washington during the Revolutionary War.

"Thomas Jefferson, I see the good in you."

"It is obvious ... you could be my son ..."

 

[aramis]

Any science-fiction story of sufficient "hardness" would be indistinguishable from reality.

There must be some malleability to the genre, or it simply would not exist!

It could be argued that there are quite a few subgenres of Science Fiction, several of them class as Hard Sci-Fi...

Some are pretty indistinguishable... several are nothing more than "modern +30 years," reasonably extrapolated to better production efficiency but only currently known physics laws.

Traveller, however, has never been on that edge as a system.

 

[Icosahedron]

Any science-fiction story of sufficient "hardness" would be indistinguishable from reality.

Love this!

As I understand it, the science-fiction genre involves reasonable extrapolations of known scientific principles, and how people endure, exploit, take for granted, and generally react to situations in which practical applications of those extrapolated principles are presented.

Which means, in plain English, that jump drive (FTL is impossible), gravity control (no unified field theory) and psionics (yeah ... right ...) -- the big three principles of the Traveller universe -- could not exist under a 'hard' science-fiction regimen.

As a scientist myself, I'm not sure I would agree with this.
Although I see Traveller as being restricted to reasonable extrapolations of currently known principles, the variation lies in what we mean by 'reasonable', 'extrapolation' and 'principles'.
For example, I don't restrict my Traveller sci-fi to currently unfeasible manipulations of currently understood principles (eg X-ray lasers and spin-gravity space stations) Instead, I base my Traveller on science that appears (from our current understanding) to be 'not impossible', running with the principle that anything that is not prohibited is compulsory.

To date, I have seen no scientific evidence that any of your three examples are prohibited by the laws of nature as we currently understand them.

FTL travel is far from impossible - on the subatomic scale it is a regular occurrence.

A unified field theory may be around the corner, or may not be necessary for grav manipulation.

The mind is one of the least understood realms of scientific enquiry. I wouldn't jump to any rash conclusions about its potential, one way or the other - but for science fiction purposes I can be a little lenient.

As you said - make your sci-fi too hard and you find yourself in the present day.

 

[Blue Ghost]

As I understand it, the science-fiction genre involves reasonable extrapolations of known scientific principles, and how people endure, exploit, take for granted, and generally react to situations in which practical applications of those extrapolated principles are presented.

Which means, in plain English, that jump drive (FTL is impossible), gravity control (no unified field theory) and psionics (yeah ... right ...) -- the big three principles of the Traveller universe -- could not exist under a 'hard' science-fiction regimen.

However, as every graduate of the Writers' Handwavium Institute knows, a few 'gimmicks' must be allowed to creep in so as to establish the story as science-fiction in the readers' minds.

Without coldsleep-based space travel, 'Outland' could have been set in a mining colony somewhere in the Antarctic, so as to explain the isolation, the harsh outdoor conditions, and the nearly year-long wait to come back home. Without coldsleep-based space travel, 'Alien' may as well have been 'The Thing' or some other rubber-suit-monster movie (coincidentally, taking place in Antarctica, as well). And without FTL, light-sabres and 'The Force', 'Star Wars' may as well have been a movie about some orphan kid with mad kung-fu skillz fighting for General Washington during the Revolutionary War.

"Thomas Jefferson, I see the good in you."

"It is obvious ... you could be my son ..."

Sure, I have no argument with any of that. I think that's all true. I mean even Godzilla and other Kaiju offerings usually have the "radiation mutated species-X..." explanation scene. But I think that event-Y or creature-Z or phenomenon-A can be accepted as having a "scientific" basis in the great vast ether of explanations, without actually having to conjure one.

Planet of the Apes, for example. We know the apes are dominant, find out that they took over the planet from man, but it's never explained (in the movie at least) how the apes developed into a higher order.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

... To date, I have seen no scientific evidence that any of your three examples are prohibited by the laws of nature as we currently understand them.

I refer you to the concept of Logical Fallacies; specifically, that of "Proving the Negative", to wit:

(The Objectivist Newsletter, April 1963) "Proving the non-existence of that for which no evidence of any kind exists. Proof, logic, reason, thinking, knowledge pertain to and deal only with that which exists. They cannot be applied to that which does not exist. Nothing can be relevant or applicable to the non-existent. The non-existent is nothing. A positive statement, based on facts that have been erroneously interpreted, can be refuted - by means of exposing the errors in the interpretation of the facts. Such refutation is the disproving of a positive, not the proving of a negative.... Rational demonstration is necessary to support even the claim that a thing is possible. It is a breach of logic to assert that that which has not been proven to be impossible is, therefore, possible. An absence does not constitute proof of anything. Nothing can be derived from nothing." If I say, "Anything is possible" I must admit the possibility that the statement I just made is false. (See Self Exclusion) Doubt must always be specific, and can only exist in contrast to things which cannot properly be doubted.

FTL travel is far from impossible - on the subatomic scale it is a regular occurrence.

Granted, but is it reasonable to assume that what is possible for a single particle on the quantum scale is also possible for an ordered system of a bazillion particles (a human body, for instance) to duplicate en masse?

A unified field theory may be around the corner, or may not be necessary for grav manipulation.

And controlled nuclear fusion has been 40 years away for over 40 years. As of this moment, the only forces we can reliably manipulate to any fine degree are the electric and magnetic forces (a.k.a., the electromagnetic force). Nuclear dampers (as described in LBB4 "Mercenary") may only be hypothetical. Gravity control is only a dream.

The mind is one of the least understood realms of scientific enquiry. I wouldn't jump to any rash conclusions about its potential, one way or the other - but for science fiction purposes I can be a little lenient.

I hope you haven't fallen for that "Whatever the mind can conceive is possible" trap. Not everything that the mind can conceive is even provable, much less probable.

As you said - make your sci-fi too hard and you find yourself in the present day.

On that, I think, we can all agree. Speculating on the results of current research makes for an interesting read. Stories based solely on this "What If..." concept are the mainstay of good S/F.

What If...

... electricity derived from fusion power became commonplace by 2020? How would society adapt to a "Mr. Fusion Home Power Plant" in every back yard? Would water become scarce? Would global warming accelerate?

... lost limbs could be regenerated? Would people take more chances? Would the process allow for customization of the regrown limbs? Could a person with enough money have a new body regenerated around their old brain? (Which brings us to...)

... anagathics were perfected? Who would receive them? What would happen to the quality of life after the first hundred years or so? What would happen to the concept of 'Family'?

... a global pandemic wiped out 90% of the Earth's human population? Would the victims be mostly from the lower financial strata? Would there be enough manual laborers left to maintain global infrastructure? Would society itself fragment into a large number of city-states that are based on technology that no one knows how to produce or maintain? What would happen to the Internet?

 

[jatay3]

An absence of disproof does at least constitute legitimacy for using it in science fiction. The claim that the absence of proof is not proof is only valid when proof is claimed. A sci-fi writer is only claiming,"This tech is needed for my plot, and I am capable of not making it sound to ridiculous so if you don't like it, don't read it".

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

An absence of disproof does at least constitute legitimacy for using it in science fiction. The claim that the absence of proof is not proof is only valid when proof is claimed. A sci-fi writer is only claiming,"This tech is needed for my plot, and I am capable of not making it sound to ridiculous so if you don't like it, don't read it".

Agreed. Fiction presented as fiction requires no proof. Plot devices are another mainstay of practically all genres. The reader doesn't even have to know what the MacGuffin is, only that it is important -- whatever was in that suitcase in "Pulp Fiction" for one, or whatever Geordie LaForge was reversing the polarity or inverting the phase on was another.

I'm not saying that such things shouldn't exist in science-fiction. I am saying that I try to have a believable explanation for it in my Traveller adventures, if only to say, "Your best estimate of its Tech Level is somewhere in the lower twenties ... all you know is that when you think about deep-fried galoshes, it emits a supersonic whine that drives away vargr. So try to not think of deep-fried galoshes around the First Mate..."

 

[Icosahedron]

I refer you to the concept of Logical Fallacies

Of course I'm aware of that, nevertheless there are some agreed impossibilities such as perpetual motion, the limitations of entropy, temperatures below absolute zero, the existence of certain quantum states, etc. Those are the territories I would steer clear of.

Granted, but is it reasonable to assume that what is possible for a single particle on the quantum scale is also possible for an ordered system of a bazillion particles (a human body, for instance) to duplicate en masse?

I dunno, do you?

If I'm setting my sci-fi fifty years in the future, I'd agree - it ain't gonna happen, I'm stuck with ark-ships, if I can do interstellar travel at all.
If my setting is five hundred years in the future, it may be possible.
If my setting is five thousand years away - all bets are off!

And controlled nuclear fusion has been 40 years away for over 40 years. As of this moment, the only forces we can reliably manipulate to any fine degree are the electric and magnetic forces (a.k.a., the electromagnetic force). Nuclear dampers (as described in LBB4 "Mercenary") may only be hypothetical. Gravity control is only a dream.

As you say, 'as of this moment'.
None of this has any bearing on what may be possible in a thousand years. A thousand years ago the sun was pushed round the earth by angels and anything was possible with magic. Today, we have a much firmer idea of what is possible or not, but I think that, contrary to our ancestors, we now tend to dismiss possibilities too readily.

I hope you haven't fallen for that "Whatever the mind can conceive is possible" trap. Not everything that the mind can conceive is even provable, much less probable.

Certainly not, but I'd simply be unwilling to make any bold statements, for or against, about the capabilities of the mind given our current lack of knowledge about how it works. I'm skeptical but not dismissive.
The problem today is that this has become a taboo subject thanks to its popularity with charlatans. However, IMHO, science shouldn't have taboos.
Even more so than fusion, this is a fringe science with little to no funding to finance its development.

I'm not saying that such things shouldn't exist in science-fiction. I am saying that I try to have a believable explanation for it in my Traveller adventures, if only to say, "Your best estimate of its Tech Level is somewhere in the lower twenties ...

I agree. And I have grave reservations about some of the Traveller tech myself.
For example, I can live with some form of artificial gravity deckplates working on a local inverse-square law effect derived from a unified field theory developed in the early 22nd century, but I still cannot reconcile how a repulsor/tractor beam projects gravity!

IMTU, I don't really feel a need to explain the contents of the 'black box', but I have to know what the 'black box' does and how it interacts with the universe.

 

[jatay3]

Actually to me the most interesting part of sci-fi has been building social systems not building tech. I've also got interested in character building, but that is part of all stories, though your characters are to some degree shaped by society, even if your plot is a "rebellion against society" one(a plot line I find tiresome by-the-way; I prefer to have my characters as people navigating social pressures then as iconoclasts). Also I think part of the fun is making the sort of character that could plausibly live in the society I am creating, rather then a twenty-first century American in the future.

As I am more qualified in social science then in science proper I can build a pseudo-anthropology and a pseudo-history to my satisfaction, in extraordinary detail. Much of it is in fact borrowed from the past, which is not new in sci-fi, but I don't think that improbable as I am rather of the opinion that technology will in the end be adapted to human habits more then the reverse. For instance I often think that a tribal or a caste structure is really so common that one or both is the normal order of society and those who escape from that or at least change it to their purpose have to be consciously trying to.* That still leaves plenty of room for the imagination while providing a good foundation in precedent. It also means that Traveller's Feudal Future is not really unbelievable.



*I read in Albion's Seed for instance that the first Plymouth expedition denied tickets to BOTH the destitute and the grandees even if they were good Puritans, simply because the leadership wanted the type of society that middle-class Puritans would make on their own. Another more shocking example is the Ancient Spartans whose change was so drastic that it really required a police-state to enforce it. By contrast the Athenian and Roman societies made adaptations rather then revolutions and always retained something of the old order.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

...IMTU, I don't really feel a need to explain the contents of the 'black box', but I have to know what the 'black box' does and how it interacts with the universe.

That's the bottom line, in one concise sentence.

The Ancients make for a convenient excuse to not have to explain ultra-tech. Anything you don't have the time or the knowledge to explain, you just pass off as "Something I found near an Ancient dig site".

Actually to me the most interesting part of sci-fi has been building social systems not building tech. I've also got interested in character building, but that is part of all stories, though your characters are to some degree shaped by society, even if your plot is a "rebellion against society" one(a plot line I find tiresome by-the-way; I prefer to have my characters as people navigating social pressures then as iconoclasts). Also I think part of the fun is making the sort of character that could plausibly live in the society I am creating, rather then a twenty-first century American in the future...

I'd like that too, if only the other players would live in one place long enough to develop their characters beyond the stats and data.

 

[FreeTrav]

I don't tend to prefer a format qua format; the question becomes "What's the best way for the author to present this particular adventure to me for playing/running?". And I generally leave that up to the author, who knows his adventure better than I do - at least initially.

That said, I do have to admit to thinking that the best adventures tended to be presented in a format similar to the old DGP 'nugget' format, where there were several vignettes that could be played in essentially any order, but some of them were "key", and until those were played, you couldn't get into the next set of vignettes. The vignettes would all be useful in the adventure, but you could manage without some of them, provided that you got the 'keys'.

This format had a tendency to increase the referee's bookkeeping, as some of the later nuggets might not make sense if an earlier non-key nugget was missed, but it tended to give the players a hell of a lot of flexibility in action without sending the referee into spasms of OMGIDON'THAVEPLANSFORTHAT!.

 

[jatay3]

That's the bottom line, in one concise sentence.




I'd like that too, if only the other players would live in one place long enough to develop their characters beyond the stats and data.

I have an advantage in that I use it mainly for storytelling(to myself and associates) rather then RPGing and therefore am only limited by my own sense of the fitness of things.

 

[kafka47]

I think that's part of it, but I think the larger part is that Traveller always felt like a generic shelf product. D&D had the advantage in that even though it was a generic shelf product, the background from which it draws its rules is colorful and free of copyright issues; i.e. Chaucer's estate couldn't sue TSR for some medieval reference, nor Homer nor Poe, nor even Tolkien because his material was essentially mythology and folklore.

Traveller had the disadvantage in that it was meant to be to sci-fi what D&D was to fantasy. Only Traveller can't publish Godzilla or Star Wars material without either getting permission or sued. So Traveller has to rely on its own ingenuity and good looks to thrive and bring in new blood. For a sci-fi RPG that's a pretty tall order, but most sci-fi types are fairly well grounded, and look beyond the flash of a D&D. Traveller has developed its own history as well, so it's got some customer loyalty going for it.

True but even in the time that Traveller was being published there were tropes that were in public domain. Why Traveller did not borrow more from those is a mystery. The original Alien was a Haunted House in Space. Aliens was a Classic WW2 tale. Why did they not explore some of the emergent literatures like cyberpunk without stealing from Gibson was still possible in the 1980s when all you needed was raybands and a punkish attitude?

For me, RPGs are in part, improvisitional theater played by friends not simply dice rolling. Traveller really never developed products that would help me with that. Rather, many sources (including other RPGs) were much more helpful in designing that vibe.

 

[Blue Ghost]

True but even in the time that Traveller was being published there were tropes that were in public domain. Why Traveller did not borrow more from those is a mystery. The original Alien was a Haunted House in Space. Aliens was a Classic WW2 tale. Why did they not explore some of the emergent literatures like cyberpunk without stealing from Gibson was still possible in the 1980s when all you needed was raybands and a punkish attitude?

For me, RPGs are in part, improvisitional theater played by friends not simply dice rolling. Traveller really never developed products that would help me with that. Rather, many sources (including other RPGs) were much more helpful in designing that vibe.

Yeah, sure I can see that. To address your story examples I think those properties were fresh enough in people's minds that creating not so much a derivative work, but something akin to a haunted-house in space might have been seen as potential plagiarism. But I don't really know. That's just me theorizing. To your WW2 story example, that was essentially done. The Chamax Plague was "Aliens", though in this regard Hollywood may (and I do say "may") have borrowed from Traveller in this instance. Or, possibly from Richard Steakly's "Armor", which has a similar setup, but a slightly different story.

I know this sounds stupid, but I think part of Traveller's attractiveness were the black books. You opened it, and you found the content to offset the plain black cover. That verse the very artful and colorful designs of other RPGs and war games. From there you either accepted what little background material there was, or injected your own. Our group tended towards the second option.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

I like the fact that the LBBs did not "spoon feed" to the reader a fixed adventure format. Even the adventures left some wiggle-room for personal touches, and were not usually background-dependent. Nor were their seemingly endless Thac0 tables, lists of magic items and monster stats to memorize. Just select your target, roll 2D apply DMs, and repeat until only you or the target survived. Simple.

And by "dependent", I mean that whether or not you knew anything about the 3rd Imperium, Cleon, Strephon or any of the Frontier Wars, you could still play the adventure and have fun.

All that said, the Traveller adventure format...

0. Introduction
1. Standards & Assumptions
2. Using this Adventure
3. Die-Rolling Conventions
4. Referee's Checklist
5. Characters
6. Skills
7. Equipment
8. Referee's Notes
9. Starting the Adventure
10. Adventure

... is the one that I prefer and use.