Just a little update

With all that is going on, I've not had time to post anything recently.  As an FYI, my entire company is now working from home. I did this a long time ago for a long time, but it is taking some getting used to. Plus so much has changed, as then I was the only developer and working on Unix & Linux machines for software. Now I am part of a 6 person team that was already a bit dispersed and we have so many channels of communication!

Anyway, I hope all who read this (as 12 I think now :) ) are doing okay. These are troubled times for a lot of people and it won't change anytime soon. Neither of my gaming groups are meeting for a while, and now I barely get out of the house. But as I live with someone with an already compromised immune system, I cannot take any chances!

The pandemic does bring out some potential seeds for gaming, though. There was an interesting conversation over on COTI about how to signal that your ship is a plague ship. There were some interesting posts, including links to the international code of signals. So, in light of the current situation but not in making light of it, here are some possible seeds as I riff off the top of my head:

1. plague ship seeds
   a. coming in system, there is a ship in orbit or at the jump interface with the signal for plague ship. no one is answering the comms
  b. some one is answering the comms and begging for help, life support is failing
  c. some one is answering and indicates nothing is wrong but they just can't turn off the signal
2. world seeds
  a. the port indicates a world-wide quarantine is in effect. no landings. yet there is no other place to refuel. Just how much life support do you have left?
  b. land at the port (or station) and all buildings/compartments are in lock down. is anyone alive?
  c. you contract some disease and are not cleared to leave port or your ship. quarantining on-board
  d. you contract some disease out in the city and are not allowed back to your ship. you may get hunted down

There are probably more. And for fantasy games, very similar things could happen:
1. you come to a village and the plague doctors are making house calls.
2. is the sickness magical in origin? can a quest for some magical cure save the town?
3. are their plague beasts about, prowling and making people ill?
4. everyone in the town is dead, some only in the last few hours. why? and do you just plunder the town?

None of these are meant to be in bad taste, and hopefully not read that way. Years ago COTI also had a run of "translate real-world stories into Traveller news posts". Basically take a headline & file off the serial numbers to create a news post for the Traveller universe. It was a flashback to the original Journal of the Traveller's Aid which started a series of news posts from various systems in the Traveller universe. I never paid them much attention as we were more sandboxy, but I can see playing in the bigger world as events transpire. I just was never good at integrating rumors and things as well as I should have been. Trying to get better for the games (both Traveller and the Fantasy Trip) so that players can feel that there is a bigger world around them.

Again - I hope everyone is doing well. Stay safe!

And yes, we have plenty of toilet paper! Hmm, another adventure seed: the life support resupply is out of toilet paper and you need to go across the world to the last remaining stash...