Traveller: February 2021

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Cowboys and Dinosaurs - A Bit of Progress

Using the Microlite rules for Tumbleweed, I've added a new stat, a new class and a new skill:

New Stat: Dinosaur Empathy This stat is how well you can control dinosaurs. You use your stat bonus as a DM for tasks (which I really need to figure out as well). Like the others, you roll 4d6, subtract the lowest for your score. Your stat bonus is (score - 10)/2, rounding down.

New Class: DinoWrangler Wranglers are more attuned to the world of the dinosaurs than most people. While everyone does have the ability to bond with the dinos, it is always a single dinosaur raised from the egg. Dino Wranglers have the unique ability to bond with more than one dinosaur, up to their actual dinosaur empathy roll. They also get a +1 per level for controlling their own dinos, and a +1/2 levels for controlling non-bonded dinosaurs, and a +1/4 levels for controlling other dinosaurs that are bonded to someone else.

New Skill: DinoWrangling Handling a dinosaur is different than handling a horse. And a carnivorous dino will try to eat a horse if you are not controlling it! Dinosaurs come in all the traditional dinosaur types, from a pack of archaeopteryx attacking the herd, to the brontosaurus hauling the family cabin on the prairie.

Basic tasks are riding, hauling and carrying. Riding a dino requires you to be bonded to that dinosaur and is normally an easy task. Though if you are riding a hungry dinosaur it is more difficult when there are other animals or even people around.

I've a brief overview of things to do with your dinosaur. Controlling your dinosaur. Dinosaurs are not horses, and in this universe, are a bit smarter than dogs. Control is based on your stat bonus:

0 – you can ride your dinosaur like a horse, and make it haul things as long as you are in contact with it. Your connection to your dinosaur is barely there, and only allows for the most basic activity.

1 – you can call for your dinosaur and it will come running if in auditory range (Hi Ho Silver). You have a vague sense of what your dinosaur is feeling (fear, hunger) and it will have the same reciprocal sense.

2 – you can silently call for your dinosaur. Range is your dinosaur empathy stat x 100 yards. You have a much better sense of what your dinosaur is feeling, and can feel its pain. You can also get vague inklings of its senses (sight, smell, taste).

3 – there is an intense bond between you & your dinosaur, it is almost as if you can talk to it. Not only can you call to your dinosaur but you can give it simple commands.

4 – you and your dinosaur are like 1. It is almost an extension of your thoughts. You can give complex commands to the dinosaur.

These are really all ideas, what I call my spaghetti on the wall: I throw a lot of things out there and we'll see what sticks.

There is some backstory for this universe: dinosaurs still exist! And in the Old West, are used similar to horse, oxen and guard dogs. The difference is that some people are more attuned to dinosaurs than others, and you can bond with a dinosaur. The bonding happens when the dino hatches so the cowboy needs to be present within the first few hours to be able to bond. A bond is for life, and depending on the strength of the bond, you & your dinosaur may be able to feel each other's pain. I'm putting that aspect in there to prevent people from using dinosaurs as just weapons. Not sure how well that will go over but hey, I'm doing the basic design work so I can put in the ideas I want :)

Still working on the actual dinosaur part in terms of AC, HP and all those stats that I am just horrible at. Going from a list of dinosaurs I found, and already there are some ideas out there. The archaeoptyrix attack herds of sheep and things, and there could be velociraptors that hunt cows and horses. Cowboys & their dinos are hired out to prevent that sort of thing. I think there could be a version of Blue from one of those Jurassic Park movies, that sort of thing.

On the bright side, it will be months before we get around to this game, so I've time.

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Fate: Vigilante Game

Playing in a FATE game, which thematically is a bit different than most RPGs. The FATE chips allow us a bit of an ability to redo things to better fit the narrative. We've managed to get all together, and the mechanic behind that is similar to the way Mongoose introduced connections (though as FATE probably came first, Mongoose may have adopted that). Regardless, we have to tell a story about first meeting other players. With four players, you have to meet at least two of the others. You tell a joint story and have some common phrasing that may be used later to help or hinder a scene.

I think the Schlock Mercenary RPG uses their RiPP (Role Playing Points I think) in the same manner: you can use them to change an outcome, and be given more from the game master. And our last d20 game had action points that worked in the same manner.

So what do I think about the ability to re-roll? If you view an RPG session as a shared story, which I do, I think it can be a good tool to have. And it also depends on the style of game being run. For Traveller, I would not use this, though the Mongoose v2 Boon/Bane mechanic could useful and can be a similar though not identical idea. I see this as more a less-used mechanic to help the game go forward. However: I think that it should not be depended on. The game should have repercussions if you make a choice that ends badly. In the vigilante game we're currently in, the GM has said that should we surrender, it could be that we're taken to the "big bad" per older, vigilante style stories. Yet we cruised on and managed to kill a number of Tong fighters, badly outnumbered. Of course, the biggest bruiser we had managed to take down part of a house that took out a good portion of them, yet the Grey Cat managed to kill of several and not even take a scratch. Part of that is the way combat is handled: she has a great athletics, so I tend to roll higher than the attacker and thus manage to avoid getting hit. I wish we were at a table so I could see the rolls and get a better feel for how the combat is actually working.

Grey Cat on the roof top

The other good/bad thing about the remote gaming is that sessions can be a lot longer as we are not getting kicked out of the store where we played. Bad news is I get up about 4:30 to get to the gym, so like to be in bed by 9 or so. But - I can stay up late at least 1 night a week for the fun and discussions. But I do get sleepy!

And speaking of discussions: we do get into some interesting and frankly vehement non-game related discussions. So far no hurt feelings as we're all adults, but we do have some quite different views. Which I am glad for as it also makes me question my assumptions. Sometimes. And that is another good thing about RPGs: they can ask interesting questions and pose moral dilemmas. My Paladin was seriously questioning his choice of adventuring party, pious person that he at least wanted to be. Grey Cat is a bit more flexible but I've yet to get into her skin, so to speak.

Here is her original write-up, but there are a few changes I think to her skills ladder. And she has a few stunts. Her athletics is great, meaning I add 4 to the 4 fate dice we roll. So she will never go negative and may get as high as 8 for most athletic checks. But I also have the acrobats bump and safe fall, meaning I tend to fall on my feet and take a lot less damage:

The character can skip effortlessly down sheer surfaces without harm, allowing him to safely fall great distances.When the character falls, but is near a solid surface, such as the wall of a shaft, or has sufficient other things like ropes to offset his fall, all falls are treated as two categories shorter (and may be reduced another step with Athletics as normal).

And now I am wondering if by picking that I needed to add another +1 to my rolls for athletic checks - I will have to verify that.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Traveller Solo: On Tryonas 256-1106

We came out of jump further away from Tryonus: tidally locked in orbit 0, it was within the sun's jump shadow. So instead of the 3 or so hours it normally takes us to get to port, there was almost a 12 hour delay. Coming in, the planet on visuals was just a black dot, then a circle as we approached the dark red sun. At the comms, I got the query from Ridley Station, the high port hiding behind Tryonas to avoid the red glare from the small sun. I responded, "This is the No Refunds. Requesting passage to Bowden Down. Purpose is trade and passengers." A woman's voice replied after a moment, "Please dock at High Port, Dock 12, for inspection and pratique certification." For some reason, this was the first time I had been requested for a pratique, and made a quick check to Dr. Teag.

"I'm filling out the paperwork now, Malik. Tryonas is sometimes pretty insistent on following all the rules. I'll have the e-copy ready well before we make port."

As we were closing in, a mining cutter was accelerating away from the planet, going to the belt I assumed. They were well outside our path, but I hailed them to see if there was anything we needed to know.

"Hailing mining cutter, this is the No Refund. Just checking to see how the Tryonas system is doing." There was a brief pause, and a fairly noncommittal response of "Just heading out to Holla Point on a resupply run" as they continued outward.

As we approached the small port, sensors and visually I could see it was a Argos class station, spinning to provide free gravity. Apparently docking bay 12 was a connector on the lower docking ring. Captain Laux brought us to station keeping with deft control over the ship. Automatics connected our ship to the station with a shudder I felt through the hull, and then the green connection lights lit up a few minutes later as the airlock systems engaged.

The captain walked back, nodding to Ewo and myself. "Now the paperwork begins" he said, and headed down the stairs to the port air lock, where the umbilical connection was linking us to the station.

Tyronas

Ridley Station, Argos Class Station (from 0-Hr)

Ok, finally got back to this, though not far. Tryonas is orbiting a small red giant, and it is in orbit 0 and tidally locked. I am thinking, and I need to really figure that out, the main planet is within the jump shadow of the sun, so we exited jump space further out. Classic Traveller had no such rule: you jumped out 100 diameters or so from the world. Later editions, and I want to say it was GURPS, added the jump shadow, so you had to take into account all the gravity sources, including the suns. I need to find where I read that, and see what the distances are per stellar type. I even started my first Wiki entry discussion on that.

Anyway, I rolled for space encounter, and somehow got a mining cutter. And their response was short and respectful, neither happy nor angry. So not much happening there. I decided to use one of the larger station maps I have (no posters!) for the high port, I think I got this one from one of Ryan Wolf's earlier Kickstarters where he was overly generous in giving out his earlier PDFs as part of the deal. Now that he knows he has a pretty consistent response, he has learned he does not have to give a lot away to make the project a success. So I'll poke around those maps a bit to see if there is something there interesting, but we'll probably handle the inspection, then go down the gravity well to sell those cars, disembark our passengers, and seek out new cargo.

Also go to use the word pratique, which I picked up on the character challenge from Traveller Adventure. See - RPGs are a learning experience!

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Cowboys and Dinosaurs

While playing the microlite Tumbleweed game a while ago, we found a lot of cowboy and dinosaur pictures. And we joked about running a cowboys and dinosaurs game.

I started looking for an existing RPG game, and GDW actually had one based on the comic. It was not highly rated and the mechanics made the fun more complicated than it should be. There is at least one game on Drivethru but that is Cowboys vs Dinosaurs. And there have been some attempts at crafting such a game, though more of a skirmish game than an RPG.

So I will try and roll my own. I'll tag these posts with Cowboys and Dinosaurs so I can track them down, but eventually I will have a microlite PDF of the game, and we'll start playtesting sometime...

I've a few ideas for the central premise, though not yet how dinos still exist. I am thinking of making the dinosaurs needing to impress on a cowboy or cowgirl. Perhaps a bit sentient, but I want the bond to exist between the two so it is not just a vehicle or killing machine, but a companion. How smart is a good question and there will be some discussion I am sure over that. But I want the player to feel the loss should the dinosaur get killed or hurt. Essentially the players will have a joint player character of the cowboy and the dinosaur, effectively getting to play 2 characters at once. If not so smart, there may be a roll to see if the dino listens to what the player wants or not. Sort of like the old Lone Ranger when a whistle would bring Silver galloping along (though the original horse was Dusty. Amazing what you can find in web searches!)

The basis will be the microlite game of Tumbleweed. It is included in one of the collections here. The dinos will be scaled up from the horses I think, though I will be looking to review some of the dinosaur games to see how they do that. I have at least printed out the Tumbleweed rules, and will start making notes sometime in the near future.

Suggestions are welcome - I'll be checking with my gaming group to see what sort of game they want to play, and factor that in. Perhaps the bonding it too much, and they just want big, dumb fighting machines. But I see advantages to playing as a duo and disadvantages when not.

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Tryonas

Orbiting a red dwarf, Tryonas is tidally locked. In trying to map how that would look on the "traditional" Scout map, there will be 3 types of environment: the hot side always facing the sun, the cold side always in the dark, and the twilight band between those extremes. The map below is my attempt at this, with the orange being sunward, the purple the dark, frozen tundra, and the green bands where humans can survive.

What would be interesting would be the weather: I imagine it is often quite turbulent but there will always be a constant wind from the extremes. The sun side will be a series of constant storms with boiling seas. The dark side a cold, dark calm as the cooling air sinks to the ground.

Previous links: Overview and Ski Resort which honestly I had forgotten I had written!

Anyway, lets look at the UWP to see about the system in terms of politics, population and trade codes.

B563648-A

Starport B: good quality, no starship production, refined and unrefined fuel

Size 5 details:

Basic World Type: Planet
Planet Diameter: 5,000 miles (8,000 km)
Planet Density: Molten Core, 1.12 terra
World Mass: 0.273 terra
World Gravity: 0.7 terra
Planet Orbit Period:

Stellar Mass: 0.43 sol
Orbital Distance: 0.2 AU
Orbital Period: 49.82 standard days
Rotation Period: 7.15 standard hours
Axial Tilt: 38 degrees
Orbital Eccentricity: 0.15
Seismic Stress Factor: 1.15

Atmosphere 6 details:

Atmospheric Composition: Standard oxygen-nitrogen mix
Surface Atmospheric Pressure: 1.2 atm

Hydrographics 3 details:

Hydrographic Percentage: 27%
Hydrographic Composition: Liquid water in twilight zones; frozen dark side, near boiling sunside

Population 6 details:

Total World Population: 7,000,000
Cities:

Medium-Large Cities (UWP Pop-2): Cities=140, Population/City=50,000
Primary Cities: 10
Starports and Spaceports: B/F/B/B/D/B/B/B/B/B
Orbital Cities: Present
Social Outlook:

Progressiveness: Conservative, Indifferent
Aggressiveness: Passive, Neutral
Extensiveness: Discordant, Aloof

Number of Customs: 3

Local Customs/Practicing Group: Live with children's family/Certain sex.
Very long marriages prohibited/Political figures.
Unusual hair colour/All population.

Government 4 details:

The 7 million inhabitants have a representative democracy. From the old yet still working Heaven and Earth:
Representative Authority Guide: Representative Democracy
Representative Authority: Several Councils.
Division of Authority: 2-way division
2-Way Division: Representative Authority=Executive & Legislative, Other Authorities=Judicial
Organization of Other Authorities: Ruler

Law Level 8 details pretty much standard: no weapons at all.

Most Travellers, especially Imperial Travellers, will deal with the Bureau of Tourism if they are just visiting. There is a well-maintained complex at the Bowden Down for processing. With its high law level of 8, weapons are strictly prohibited, and random stops by the law is expected by most of the population. Proper IDs must be made available and upon request. There is a significant amount of paperwork to get beyond the port (though Admin, Legal related skills will make that less arduous: roll 2d6x20 minutes for how long it takes to fill it out, using appropriate DMs to reduce the time).

Temporary visas with 3D photos will be given with the specific dates it needs to be renewed. Being a non-Imperial world, this applies to inside the port as well as the rest of the planet.

As a tidally locked world, the hot side is rarely visited. Between the storms and boiling oceans, it is not a pleasant place to be! The twilight band is well populated, with spas and beaches towards sunside, and a few hours drive you can be in the subsector-famous ski resorts! If you don't like the weather, simply drive a couple of hours and there will be dramatic changes! There is a trans-dark tubeway being worked on, though most people simply drive north or south to get to the other side of the planet. Grave vehicles are not quite as common as on other systems of a similar tech level: half the world is too rough for any but the most heavily armored vehicles.

I'll try and get back to my solo game here soon, and flesh out some of the people you may meet (I think I rolled up a couple of bureaucrats during my challenge, so if one fits they will get plopped down here as we try & get planetside!)

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Dungeon Crafting - floors and a bridge

I decided to try to make a floor and a rickety bridge. The craft sticks are too wide, as I've yet to be able to find skinnier ones like coffee stirrers.

I've also repurposed a sliced cheese container: not exactly sure what it will end up being as I've just put on a base primer coat. I have a bunch of 3D printed science fiction doors I got from a Kickstarter several years back, and may finally use them! Nice part is that it can also be used to hold stuff. Such as that atomic power cell the Orc zombie is about to smash...

Now if only we could get back face to face to actually use these!

Tuesday, February 02, 2021

My first blogging challenge: success!

Though I may have cheated a bit by stocking up on the weekends, I did post a character a day. Below is the index. Mostly Traveller, and a few T5 characters so I am getting into that. I do need to read more of the T5 mechanics as I think I do like certain parts of them at any rate. And as per my signature over on COTI, I do likeT5 as a tool box. There are a lot of things that can be used in almost any Traveller game, and even other RPGs. I do seem to be a collector of game things...

And Zine Quest 3 has started on Kickstarter and already I've backed a couple. I'd do more but until my finances get back to where they were, I am already pushing things a bit (working at a 30% pay cut, and no idea when I'll get back to "normal" and if they will make up for a the lost wages. I am not complaining - I am a lot luckier than most people as I can work from home. And it has helped me trim my Kickstarter habit a bit. Not enough though!)

I'm going to try & get back to some map making: one of the blogs I looked at in this challenge had a really nice way of putting some of his graphics together that have inspired me to try a few new things.

My plans are to see about continuing my solo play and expanding on my Traveller universe (MTU), and work on my map making and adventure works. All the stuff I put on hold this month while concentrating on getting the characters done. I did paint a giant scorpion, so will have to bring that into my play test for the labyrinth I am working on! And more crafting.