Traveller Game - The Kinunir: Some Game Prep

I'll be running a Traveller game in a few weeks! Mostly classic but a few bits and pieces from other versions. I'm running the Kinunir adventure in MTU, meaning I need to map worlds from the Imperium to the D'Arlee Quandrant. I've read through the rumors and the basic (very bare bones!) adventure and have mapped the worlds as below. Not an exact match by all means, but good enough for this game.

• Regina => Montca 1107 A639997-C (note that is a non-Imperial world, but "reasons"). This is where we are starting.
• Pixie => Zo 0414 B100595-9
• Efate => Iac 0403 A551301-B
• Shionty => Xyman 1003 C000316-9
• Helfry => Arn 1307 A233699-9
• Knorbes => Q'auntar 0501 D668122-6 
• Menorb => Finnigan's Beta A568201-B
• Boughene => Euipites 0417 C348333-A
• Forboldn => Nix 0310 C896610-5
• Alpine => Des Plades B2008A9-A

There may a be a couple I am missing, but I should have some time to fill in the blanks. Some of these systems, such as Montca, I've detailed already and I'm just using that. There is a word cloud off to the right of this blog and I usually add labels. So, the players (and my readers!) can search for systems I've detailed out already. 

I'm tagging this game as Kinunir so we can find the recaps and notes as we go along. And as I am still unemployed (or is it early retirement?) in theory I have time to do all the prep. We are starting on Montca, but I will be dealing with the rumor matrix which is why I needed to get all the systems at least initially replaced so I am not searching at the virtual table. 

The Kinunir is actually, like many Traveller adventures, more a framework. There are some broad strokes and goals, but the majority of the details are left the referee. Fortunately, I have plenty of maps and things as needed for the game. I just have to make sure I have them set up ahead of time.

I even have the T5 Kinunir deckplans, though this is not the face-to-face group, so I sadly cannot lay out the posters at the table. But as those are also barebones, I'll probably be dropping them into the virtual tabletop as needed. 

As mentioned at the start, this is mostly Classic Traveller. Combat will be more Snapshot focused I am thinking, but I need to re-read those rules. I also have At Close Combat I think and of course may end up using the Striker wound system instead. One of my weakest parts in running games is combat. I know I don't want to use the armor matrix from Classic even though there is something to be said for that abstraction. I'll see if I can come up with a mix that will work for this group and will post those rules in the nest post, I hope. That way it will be a reference for both me and the players!

I even made a quick and dirty map of the General Products shipyards on Montca. This is the junkyard part of things, so ships that are scrapped or incomplete. Kinunir from Ian Stead (and yes, I have his deck plans as well, and I think at least 3 other deck plans for this ship. But the T5 are the simplest and will work for us best I think)

Terrain painting

Finally getting around to seeing all the stuff in the Archon Caves stuff I got a few months ago. I've been doing just a simple wash & dry brush since there is a lot of terrain. What is nice is that they have curves now, and I've started putting together some of the functional gates. Which I may glue some of those, as I did with some of the curved pieces as it looks like they should be based on the edges. 

There are also elevations and a few things like that, so we're moving from flat 2D to something we can set up for some more nuanced terrain. Not that most of the games we play seem to take height into account (though now I think I need to re-read TFT as there is something there tickling my brain).

And 2 styles of columns for the doors: stone and demonic. Still painting!

Anyway - just a random post as I noticed my desk is currently covered in plastic. In between applying for jobs (243 so far! Of which many are not real. We live in strange times indeed!) I've been trying to get a bit of the grey pile of shame whittled down. Bad news is the Porthaven KS is starting to ship, so there will be another giant pile showing up in the next few months. 

Now to get this stuff on a table for some face-to-face adventures!

Boardgames: Monster Slaughter

Deciding that we should really try other games, my weekend game/gym buddy & I broke out Monster Slaughter. It is sort of a reverse Scooby Doo game: you play the monsters attacking those meddling kids in the cabin. I've had this game since the Kickstarter about 8 years ago and so finally got around to playing.

I did watch a couple play through vids, though they were not entirely helpful. But first thing was setting up the game, which uses the box as the cabin. It gets a bit complicated and I messed up on the cards a bit. Next time we'll do a bit better. The rule book is fairly small, but also fairly incomplete in terms of explaining a few things in a clear manner.

almost set up

I picked the 1st scenario, so used the classic kids: the jock, the party dude, cheerleader and a couple of geeks. We picked the werewolves and the golems (aka Frankenstein) as monsters. And I missed shuffling in all the cards correctly to the decks. 

Each room gets a pile of cards, with a victim in theory either buried or on top of the deck - I got mismatched interpretations there! There is a time limit, and the moon gets moved forward 1 hour after everyone has played one of their monsters. The game ends either at 8am or when all the victims are killed. You get points based on a few things, and part of this becomes a social deduction game. 

You pick both your favorite meal (aka, which victim you want to kill and eat) and if you kill them, you get a brain (brains!). And you also have the order you think the victims will get killed in. These are hidden from the other players. You can help the victims, and a few times of doing that you start to figure out those things a bit. For instance, one of the victims was the 3rd in my order, so I actually played cards to help her out. At that point, the other players can realize that this character is not your first in your list. 

Anyway, it moves fairly quickly, and there are only 6 options to deal with. One of them did not make sense until you realize that someone may be trying to kill a victim for extra points. Scaring a victim allows you to move them, so you can thwart the other players.

Each hour there is a new twist to the game as you flip over the moon cards.  Remembering those temporary changes can be a bit challenging. The other part I've not figured out is the victim wound tracking. In theory the minis are on a space with a colored cube indicator, and that cube is on the wound track. But, ince you flip over a victim card, the character moves to the room. Keeping track of the color cube with the mini missing becomes difficult. But, d'oh, just realized: we have the character tokens we use for our kill order. There are enough of those for 5 or 6 players, so we can just use one of those sets. Next time we play that will take a bit of cognitive load off!

in play

In the end, we had a pretty good time. Next time we play, with a different set of monsters, it should go a bit better. It is not a particularly complicated game, but there are some nuances that make it a bit more social deduction. I think it would play better with 3 or more players, and I may try & see if my weekend group would like to switch for a game. Or not - I think we're having fun with the Dolmenwood game so far. 

Tree Creature

Finally got around to finishing another mini, now to figure out where to use it. It was one of those from a Kickstarter that has been sitting in a box for a few years now, I think. Between unemployment and having enough already, I should be good to go to not get more minis! Although I've had 2 recruiters reach out on the same day I got a record 5 rejections! My ego is both hurt & happy - such a dichotomy!

Anyway - happy Saturday to everyone who reads this (and even those who don't as the reading list is pretty small). 

And in Traveller news - I have decided I am going to move the Kinunur adventures to MTU. I need to re-read the adventure and move the planets to those inside my universe. Fortunately, the way the earlier adventures were written, just some general matching to the UWP is good enough for most stuff.

Now to start mapping how this will fit into MTU. I'll try & keep this updated with that as I go along.

And re: the system generator. I'll get back to that but after seeing what others are doing, it does make it hard to continue. But, as a poster at the gym says, the only person you have to be better than is the person you were yesterday. See - I read motivational posters!

Dolmenwood: Side Adventure

As I've said way too many times before - adulting is hard! One of the players could not meet up this weekend for our bi-weekly face-to-face game. Rather than skip or play without him, I did what our missing player has done when running games: a short 1 off for the other players using different characters but in the same game.

I generated 5 characters via the excellent Dolmenwood character generator, so that there would be a bit of a selection for the 3 layers, and one for me as an NPC. The quick backstory: Lord Bluewater, a Fey Count from outside the Frozen Prince's demesne, had sent in a few to recover the Gem of Yindra, a magical gem that can grant a minor wish once a month. Getting into the frozen lands was as simple as walking across the barrier, getting out would require using the wish as that was a barrier to keep the Prince in. While not in the main adventure this is based on, I decided to extend the Dolmenwood limits even to the land of the Fey. 

Our story starts with the 4 characters hiding at the edge of the woods, watching as characters from Dolmenwood head to the Princess' castle. The troll, Grimmlegridge, is tromping to the pile of corpses for a snack, while the Goblin Griddlegrim escorts the adventures, after they've eaten his magic mushrooms, into the tower. Not knowing how long the troll will feed, the party splits up with the Grimmelkin Topper moving off to distract the troll with the two Woodgrue and the Mossling going to the pile to search for the jewel. Unfortunately for the cat-Fey, the deep snow slows him down more than it slows down the troll, yet he manages to get to the forest fast enough. With the snowy chase on, we find the jewel in the 1st few minutes oddly enough. Meanwhile, a glamor on the troll makes him think he has done what needs to be done and he turns about, leaving the hiding Topper watching him lumber off. Though the glamor is short-lived as he scratches his head, but, upon seeing the pile of bodies, he heads that way to get to his snack. 

Our party moves back to where they came. However, the snowy forest is a bit confusing as they are not sure they are heading in the correct direction. Hearing something heavy come towards them in the woods, they prepare for battle when a large brown bear approaches. Before they can strike, he suddenly asks if they have berries. He's been lost in the woods as well and is getting hungry. Introducing himself as Gunther, Topper feeds him the last of his rations and Gunther seems quite content to munch on the dry food. He mentions that they should be careful - there are harpies in these woods. But he would be happy to go along with the group, esepcially if they can help find berries. 

Moving along, still not quite sure where they are going, the go deeper into the woods. Soon they hear the warbling of song. All but Gunther actually make their saving throws, but Gunther, being a bear, is not easily stopped as he tries to approach the harpies. Fortunately, the 2 Woodgrues play a song, and the harpies both were suddenly filled with laughter, and unable to continue singing. That is also when the party noticed they were eating. While playing their pipes, Topper searched under the tree to find an armlet made of pellucidum with some words engraved on it. They decided it was time to leave, and while the two Woodgrue rode Gunther and played their songs, the harpies did not quite fall out of the tree from laughing so much.

a tree full of harpies

They found a good cave to sleep in that night. Even with a fire and their cloaks, it was a hard sleep, and they were restless all night. From a mechanical viewpoint, this would have meant not renewing spells or healing, but as neither were an issue, it just means they slept poorly. They managed to forage enough to last the evening at least.

They next day they were pretty sure they were coming up on the edge of the Frost Prince's kingdom when they came upon 4 bedraggled humans. Holding scythes and wearing ragged farmers clothes, it was obvious they were somehow lost in the frozen lands. As they could see the scintillating lights of the border, the group took the humans, and bear, and went to the border. Gunther bumped his nose against the barrier, then Mabmungle made the wish with the crystal as they all linked arms and walked through barrier to the eternal spring of Lord Bluewater's domain.

As the farmers warmed up, and Gunther found some berries, they got ready for the next part of the journey. From here they knew where to go. Even though the Fey lands can twist and turn and not be the same day to day for mortals, for the Fey who live here it is home and they know where to go. They hike all day and set up a good camp. During the 2nd watch, they hear 5 people coming up to them. There is a fairly quick battle where they kill the 5 thieves. And yes - Gunther did manage to get a bear hug in. As the thieves were all 1st level as well, it did not take much to kill them. What was interesting was all the thieves were mortal humans, so it was a wonder as to why they were here in the Fey lands. They also all had a tattoo of a snake eating its tail, so appeared to all be from the same gang.

heading in different directions

After that, the farmers, along with the Woodgrue I was playing, headed off to a nearby fairy circle to get back to the mundane world while the rest of the party went to Lord Bluewater's castle. Where they passed over the gem and were rewarded with a minor magical weapon or armor of choice. Just in case we play them again.

It was a pretty decent game I think, low stakes. We took advantage of some of the kindred things based on the character sheets.  And everyone gained 250 XP I think.

Characters we met

Bilibom Mulchwump, Mossling Fighter

Danklob Woodfuffle, Woodgrue Bard

Madmungle Persnickle, Woodgrue Thief

Toppsy Flippancy, Grimalkin Hunter

Gunther, talking brown bear

Lord Bluewater, Prince of the Eternal Spring 

5 dead mortal human thieves

4 confused farmers

2 harpies eating a mortal

Traveller System Update 35 - Maybe A Better Menu

Though totally blown away by this application, As Above So Below,  I'll still poke along with my stuff. Not much progress lately honestly - searching for work is exhausting from a mental perspective. But I hated the UI so made it a bit better. Really need to make it snap even more - graphics perhaps, and a few things like I did with the old UWP version. 

Anyway, at least some cosmetic updates to help corral things a bit.

I did update this from 6 or 7 to .NET 10 which ended up being mostly easy, though somehow it lost some of the things in the automated process. But it has images and is a UWP application. Was going to be a ship tracker (again!) but Windows only. So many half-started applications, but without a clear end-goal or user it makes these just toys that never go anywhere.

TFT Death Test 2, or, Dead Again

Our 2nd run through this programmed adventure left us dead in the 2nd room. Again. And we even had 6 characters, 3 each. One got killed in the Black Room with the skeletons - they had a couple lucky hits, we did not. The next room we rolled up the mercenaries, and unfortunately for us they got 2 big bruisers with really good dexterity (which hindsight, I just realized when we rolled up the armor, we forgot to adjust their dexterity for attacks!) We died in that room. Next time we try this, I'm getting some 36- or 38-point characters with more armor. We just picked random character cards from the card deck I backed years ago. See - using my toys!

Skeletons attack!

On the bright side, I do have a lot of skeleton minis - a whole bunch of metal ones from the 80s as well as a lot of plastic ones from various Kickstarters. I can field a small army of them.

I am still looking for a job, 2 months on. Being 62 in the IT world, and all the crazy things that is happening in this field now, means it is a lot harder than it used to be. 176 applications out, 30 or so actual rejections, and at a guess, 20% of those jobs are "ghost" jobs: not real but put out there for any number of reasons. And I've been almost scammed twice - a few people ruin it for everyone else. And preying on vulnerable people is just so wrong. But I'll give it another month, then see about some job at a WalMart, Lowes or something. I can put boxes on shelves! But I've been lucky in many ways: the 1st time I got laid off about 15, 20 years ago I learned several valuable lessons about always being prepared. I am not in any sort of dire financial straits, and technically I could retire now. But I am just not ready to retire. I actually like working. Guess technically being a baby boomer does that for you - it has been engrained upon us that working hard pays off. Sadly, I feel that is no longer the case, but now we are getting maudlin and potentially veering into political stuff, so, distraction: spaceships!

Even unemployed, I did back for more little spaceships. One of these days we'll play something where we can use them! I no longer back at the posters unless it is something really different - at this point I have probably 100 or so posters and have only used 4 or so!