Solo Traveller: In jump 214-220 1106 to Hendar

Jump space is always a time to catch up on various things: studies for certification, shipboard maintenance, and when we have passengers, talking with them as at least it is new people on board the ship. Mr. Simril and Ms. Tachac both worked for the League's Currency Department it turns out. Apparently Hendar is the only place where the albra capella,  or groat willow, can grow. This tree has a very unique cellulose property that apparently cannot be artificially created without costing more than the results are worth. The League has its own paper currency, though most systems also take the Imperial credit. You just generally pay a surcharge for the Crimp outside the port and most of the merchant hubs. It also reminded me that the Navy often carries the fleet payroll in actual credsticks and cash. Many stories have been told about fleet payroll carriers crashing. I've yet to follow up to see how much stellar myth that is versus just tall tales to tell over drinks.

Regardless, Ms. Tachac and Mr. Simril were going to Hendar to inspect the pulping and paper production facilities. In talking with Captain Luax, it turns out we have shipped out paper currency on the No Refunds before, but he felt the paperwork was not worth it. Ewo's eyes lit up - she really enjoys paperwork, almost as much as a Bwap at times. Turns out that the currency created on Hendar is in itself worthless: the bills are created on large sheets and printed only on one side in a process called intaglio printing. The currency is then shipped to Montca for the final processing and reverse side printing. Hendar is simply the first few steps in creating the League script. These inspectors were to check the inks, raw materials, processed material and whatever else. While they actually seemed quite enthusiastic about all this, I'll admit to abject boredom. Most of my life was spent with the credstick, so I rarely used actual currency other than odd and ends.

While we tried to ignore it, our engineer Lanod Dietgard and Ms. Tachac spent a lot more quality time in her stateroom than some of us were comfortable with. Or perhpas it was just me: the rest of the crew seemed complacent about their affair, and there were apparently some bets that I must have missed out on.

I was happy when we finally emerged from jump a few hours past the expected time, and Hendar's bright F3 star shone on the sensors.

For fun I did look up some info on how money is made: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Paper-Currency.html. And figured for safety reasons, only half the printing is completed here on Hendar. Seems like a fairly safe thing, though I suppose stealing half-printed currency could be useful if you could print the other half. Of course, there is all that about inks, the plates, and a fair amount of other detail.

The jump tables rolled up a crew member having an affair with a passenger. I still maintain a mostly PG-13 game even in solo playing, so it was all behind closed doors. And I also realize I've not really fleshed out any interactions between the various characters other than Ewo and Malik. I may try & spend a session working on that at some point. There are rules in the Solo book to have the cross-crew relationships, so I should see how that works. I've got some behind the scenes stuff with the captain and some of his crew. Malik is just pretty naive which is strange as he spent several years being a reporter. I think it is because I am generally quite naive about a lot of things. Most of my characters in games I play are the same way. As much as I complain about others always playing the same type of character, that could be some projection going on there. I generally play "good" characters (the paladin, the do-gooder). I suppose I play a type as well.

There are 2 planetoid belts and no gas giants in the Hendar system. The planets I made there just have interesting atmospheres (I found a fun way to make gas giants in GIMP and played around a bit. Need to see if there is a way to make rocky, no atmosphere planets like that). 

And while the father is excited about the new game, his kids not so much. While I'll not share that family moment, I do want him to know family is more important than games. If we can game with family - great! But they grow up way too fast. Speaking as one whose son is now tattooed and pierced in more places than I know about (based on guessing). Enjoy them while they are young & listen to you! As a result, it does not look likely we'll be playing OSE or any game any time soon. I can hope for summer break and they get bored and want to play. The father & I may get some solo TFT in as I do have a few solo Fantasy Trip games. Not quite as much fun, and now wondering if I could convert the mechanics to OSE. I also made up a small package for them: a couple "treasure chests", 3 sets of dice for his 3 kids from the mystery dice kickstarter, and I printed out the basic character generation from the free rules for OSE that can be found here on DriveThru. While I would have saved a bit of money had I bought the tomes via Kickstarter, it was worth it to start reading these and get excited about an old game. And I am hoping that the thief class as outlined in the basic rules may entice them back to gaming. I never could get my son to play sadly. While I don't exactly envy my friends who can play with their kids, it could have been fun I think. 

Mystery Dice. I was really only happy with 1 set so won't be doing that if it comes up again. It was exciting but in the end, expectations were much higher than the actual results.

I am also getting some cardboard buildings - close enough to 28mm scale and a lot cheaper than getting actual minis 3D printed or otherwise. Of course, without any actual face to face games not sure why I am getting these. But they are fun, and I thought that gate would work for Windemere and other city gates. 

Cardboard sets - cheaper than minis and a lot lighter. More like 25mm but still, impressive detail for $20. And the buildings open up so you can use the interiors as well!

Fort Covenant - On the Ocean Trade Route

 Had a bit of time of this wonderful Sunday afternoon, so I went and started working on a town for the next adventure or two. I also re-read the Delver books, realizing that he was including OSE adventures in there already! And each one goes up in levels for the players. So huzzah, I'll sprinkle some of those around the town at some point.

I'm also going to keep the location a bit undefined a bit, to let things settle in my mind. I know it is east of Windermere. I've never mapped that part of my world out. What I am thinking is to get the other players to help flesh out the world. Eventually we'll find the borders to Windemere and all that, but I'm hoping to build that out organically. What most GM manuals usually say: start in a central place, and build out from there. Not all of course, and for those who read my blogs, you know I just keep on mapping forever (...ever....ever in echos). Can't help myself!

Going through the town process for this settlement, we had some really interesting rolls. First, it starts as a military camp that evolved into a town. The eastern, to be named, kingdom put this military camp alongside the Ocean Trade Route to help protect those caravans moving through the kingdom. After more than 5 decades, the town has grown up around the camp, now a series of barracks inside the thick, stone walls. The focus of the town is still a military town: a lot of the services are oriented to our boys and girls in maroon. Yes, maroon uniforms. Hides the blood better perhaps. After time, wizards and magic users must have moved in: Fort Covenant's specialty is unique shipping methods. Not only do the caravans pass through, but there are gates (and good thing I am getting a book on gates though those may not really apply as these would be commercial gates. Perhaps one links to Ardonirane which would be handy as I do have that book and would like to use it!)

This is a large town, almost 6,000 people and perhaps 1500 buildings. Of that, 2,000 or so live outside the town walls. Most of the buildings are of moderate construction: decent but few are outstanding marvels. The town itself has a moderate prosperity: few are rich, but few are also poor. Oddly, for a town on a major trade route, its own market square is tight, with very few stalls. Each evening, there is an auction for the limited stall space in the market square. And in fact, it is unlawful for any overflow market areas outside the town. The troops maintain security along the trade route for leagues in either direction, but also do not allow for any free-standing markets outside the town. Not to say there are not hidden black markets (and I have a black-market supplement I need to actually read: the players would be most interested in this I believe).

The town is populous without feeling crowded and is surrounded by large agricultural farms. Oddly though, there is very little nightlife for Fort Convenant. Most shops and services close down, leaving just the inns and taverns open after dark. All the gates are closed and barred. The town watch is small, a couple dozen officers. They watch inside the town walls, while the Baron's troops handle things outside those walls. This is a convention started decades in the past, when there was a significant amount of robbery and thievery on the roads. When the kingdom finally turned an eye to the lost taxes, Fort Covenant was founded. 

Fort Covenant is ruled by Baronness Panax, of the Panax bloodline. She rules as her father did, commanding the troops and maintaining the military law. She is part of the city council, and has final veto power over anything. Not particularly imposing, rumors abound about her magical abilities but she has never used magic in the presence of anyone that can affirm this. She spends one day a week in the town hall, but most of the time she is in the fortress inside the city walls, dealing with the troops.

Fort Convenant boasts the Inquiry Bibliotheca, a huge library of books both mundane and magical. Its specials collections are kept behind well-locked and guarded doors and require approval to get into. The normal stacks carry books, scrolls and writings from most of the world, and there are several scribes who copy books. Its front doors have a pair of dragon statues that some say will come to life should anyone try and steal a book (finally someplace to use my dragon busts from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter! And should a player try to actually steal a book, I do have dragon minis). 

A few blocks from the barracks is the Crowbar, a dance hall that gets so crowded that you will need a crowbar to get in. No one remembers the original name. There is a weekly dance where the place gets packed, with soldiers, townspeople and visitors all together. The town watch keeps a few extra watchmen on duty that night as things can get rambunctious. 

And of course we will have merchant houses such as Gulark Nightspell, our tea merchant from what I am hoping is an exciting adventure. And using the ever-popular (at least with me) fantasy city generator I'll see if I can come keep hitting enter until I find a good map.

And this one ended up nice - it even has a Military Ward and the fortress/barracks I needed. May have to figure out the trade route. 

Interestingly, I can save off that city generated via a URL as well. I've downloaded a few versions of the city, but just in case I need to go back, that is an interesting and nice touch. Pretty sure I've tipped the creator once before - I may have to again.

While I am still working on my Windemere setting (and I may also update it to have all the characters statted out in OSE format, though that would be a lot more time consuming than the Fantasy Trip stats!) I am now wanting to work on this one as well. And if we get to play in the next couple of weeks, while I don't need all the details, I do need enough for my adventure to work. While it is probably a one shot, I am really hoping that we can get back to gaming. Or else I'll just have to figure something out: I really prefer face to face gaming. It is easier to read people, and for me to associate players and characters. As we don't do video on the Skype game night, it is hard to read people and for me to keep focus sometimes.

And I just realized I've been neglecting my Traveller high port. I've got the ideas floating in my head, but I seem to be having a hard time putting them down into something cohesive. The story of my life it seems sometimes: a lot of ideas but not enough action. But it was part of my January meta-challenge, so I feel I need to finish that up.

Finally - Happy Spring!

OSE Adventure 1 WIP

Using the HQ-1 maps from 0-Hr (elevators are stairs now), working on the adventure for a more urban B&E adventure. I even took a piece of shipping paper and hand-drew the map of the house, so that they can plan a bit over that. What I am doing now is seeing about stocking the various rooms. What is nice is that OSE/Necrotic Gnome has some really nice generators to help with creating NPCs and the like. So instant guards and the like.

Below is page 1, basically the player-facing side of things so that they can get the lay of the land and make plans.

The tavern was from the 2 minute tavern PDF I got - that is just so much fun. Of course, I've not decided about the town or city that they are in. It will be larger than Windemere, so I may go about generating a small city or large town next. It would also allow me to plop in a lot of those Philip Reed City Rumors I have as most of them won't work within the context of the fairly small Windemere. And I have so many world building books. I've only done the 1 from Spectacular Settlements so perhaps time to generate a larger town. Then start filling in the shops with Remarkable Shops and taverns with Remarkable Taverns. For me a lot of gaming is just spent playing solo, and while my Traveller Solo game is slowly moving along, I enjoy world building for its own thing. Fortunately the pandemic does seem to be moving into an endemic phase, so we'll see how that works. Pretty sure my Monday night game will never get back to face to face, I'm hopeful for the Sunday group to get back together.

Introductory text:

At the Half Dragon Tavern, a huge, dirty stone-built tavern with a slate roof, the characters are enjoying the Battle Brew next to the dance floor. Knowing its reputation for unscrupulous characters, they are enduring the somewhat hostile barkeep and regulars. This drink, a sour-tasting oily drink that somehow carries a floral aroma, is  oddly quite tasty against the overly sweet sprout tarts. The proprietor Wilma Brommount, drinking her own battle brew from an overly large tankard, sat behind the bar. In the corner, Angry Val yells out for another round, her eyes shifting over the crowd. Wilma hefts a tankard with her meaty arms and drops it, sloshing, on Val’s crusted table. Across the dance floor, a single musician plays a lute, badly strung and out of tune. Her voice does not quite carry the notes but she makes up for it in volume. At a nearby table, a game of shuffle cards is going on, the players intently staring at their hands before sliding the cards across the table.

Unannounced, a large man sits down next to the group. With a wave of his arm, the over-worked waitress brings over another round of the sour drink for everyone. He leans forward, pushing the hood of his cloak back, his long brown hair falling forward. Looking to the left, then to the right, he starts talking.

“You seem to be new in town, travelers. And a right mix you are as well. I have a chance for you to earn a few quick gold if you’re interested. All above ground—no sewers involved.” He chuckles to himself a moment, then waits expectantly for an answer.

“I’m Arm Gloomglade. I’ve a patron who wants something from Gulark Nightspell. Gulark is a tea merchant who has a big, walled estate here in town. He’s willing to pay” and looks at each of the characters, “15 gold apiece to get this book.” A charisma roll may be able to adjust the rate up or down. Assuming the characters say yes, he slides a map of the house to the players. “Here’s the floor plan. We’ve been told by our inside man that the book is on the 3rd floor. Old Gulark is out of town—on a caravan headed along the Ocean Trade route. You’ve got two nights before he gets back with his full complement of guards. Whatever else you may, acquire, is yours to keep. The book is the Fungi of the Far Realms. It has some practical use for my patron.”

 

Hopefully a good start to a game. The next pages start describing the locations and encounters, so I won't share that until after we've played (which honestly not sure when that will be).  just need to make sure this will work for low-level characters - I'd hate to kill them the 1st game we play using OSE. The Fantasy Trip is pretty lethal as well, but they are used to having armor that is a damage soaker vs armor being harder to hit, and full damage when hit.  

You will note that the Ocean Trade route is mentioned, which does go through Windemere. This puts my as yet unnamed city along that route. I'll probably make it east so that I can have the ocean coastline. I've a few ocean supplements that would be fun to use. The Fungi of the Far Realms is an old kickstarter I backed, a nice little hardback book with a d666 list of illustrated mushrooms. I've never really used it other than looking at the pictures. I think the OSE opens up magic a bit differently than the Fantasy Trip, with a lot more options in terms of how magic may work and interact with the players. I may have to start using that as well. 

You may note I also link to a lot of things, mostly Kickstarters, on some of my posts. Mostly because I think you may want to know where I get all my toys, and I also like to promote those who produce these things. Most are small or even individual companies, and I like to promote them when I can. It takes a pretty brave person to put themselves out there like that, something I am not!

And finally, I know it only takes a few minutes to read these posts. And for me, it really generally does not take too long to write them either for the most part. I read a bunch of blogs and I can tell how much work and care some of those creators/authors put into their posts. My blog post stats is my starting point as it lets me know where people come from: usually I start with one, and they have links to others, and I get pulled into that rabbit hole. I know I rarely leave a comment, but for those of you who do write blogs - thanks! There are some fun ideas and thoughts out there.

Hendar 0908 D'Arlee Quadrant

Circling an F3 V star in a small system of 2 planets and two planetoid belts, Hendar is a small, non-industrial world at the fringe of the system.  Its UWP of C151200-5 shows we have:

• Class C port. Somewhat surprising for the low tech, low population world. The League must have a port here for a reason. Looking at the J6 map, other than being almost dead-center of the League there does not appear to be a tactical reason I can think of off the the bat
• it is a tiny world, only 900 miles/1440 km in diameter. And with its low tech, grav plates are not sustainable outside the League-maintained port. Gravity is about 0.13 normal gravity. This has implications for people outside the port in terms of health. Though with a population of 300, perhaps they are all living at the port.
• It surprisingly has a thin atmosphere. No equipment is actually needed to breath. And it is in the Goldilocks zone, where the temperatures range from not-quite survivable to easy living.
• With water oceans covering perhaps 7% of the world, the port will be located near that for the fuel systems.
• Using the World Builders stuff built into the Heaven and Earth software, we see that the technology range is generally 5 to 6. Here's a handy chart of TLs to see what sort of thing is available. Basically, plastics are starting to become available, gasoline and the electric grid are there. Think 50s or so for the most part. 
• With a population of 300, and usually I place the port population as a different group of people, what are these people doing? Can a population of 300 actually maintain that level of technology?
• Interestingly, there is no government and no law level outside the port. Our 300 people are essentially anarchists, living outside any system.

Yes, random world generation can produce many interesting worlds and systems. 

The "Hippies of Hendar" are known throughout the League as a bunch of throw-back hippies. Yet they rely on the port and the traffic it has to help maintain their technologies. They live mostly off the grid, an easy task as the grid only covers the starport. They import their solar panels and filtration systems, but the rest they actually manage by themselves. In fact, Nathan Hillback is known for his forging prowess. His knives are sold throughout the League as best in class for handmade knives. In fact, his knives are often used in the Space Patrol for special commendations. There is also a native plant that gives a mild, euphoric response to most humans when smoked. While the Aslan are almost fatally allergic to it, Vargr merely sneeze and have no other response.

7% water can still give some pretty large water areas. Fractal Terrains allows me to adjust the world diameter and the hydrosphere. This is one that came up and I liked it. Then added some clouds and mapped to a sphere with the 35% incline it has. Then I need to drop that into a system map because, well, that's what I like to do even if no one else ever will use it. Or even see it outside this blog most likely (yeah, I don't subscribe to the MOAR principle [Map Only As Needed])

Now to figure out where the port will live, and the commune or two of hippies. It also sets up some interesting trade good ideas that may not be from the books. After all, what is the use of custom worlds if you don't have custom trade goods? 

Looking through some of the results from Heaven & Earth, it is interesting that the only trade good it came up with was paper currency. Which also can explain why there IS a starport here. There is a certain deciduous tree that grows only on Hendar. The port, being an official League port, also contains the pulp mill and processing plants to generate the paper currency used in lieu of Imperial credits. While most of the systems do accept both, there is a surcharge on the credit, so most people use the fiat currency. The paper used can't be counterfeited without the paper from Hendar. 

I'll have to modify the class C port to have a high security area, off limits to pretty much anyone who does not work there. It also raises a question: if you are transporting 8 tons (8x14 = 120 cubic meters!) of paper currency (and assuming a good chunk is actually secured containers) that is valued at Cr52,000 for transport but is actually worth trillions of credits most likely, what do you do? It just does not seem that random merchant will be allowed to buy and transport that cargo. But there it is. 

Hendar of course has other products. Going by the Mongoose rules there are always some basic cargoes based on the world type that are always available. With a population of 300, I'm going to nerf that and instead come up with some custom cargos. Very small (1-6 tons max) as this is a small population.

Available lots:

• 1 ton custom knives, Cr75,000 base price. Each knife comes with a custom sheath and a certificate signed by Nathan. They are each enclosed in a hand-crafted wooden box, made from those same trees that the paper currency is made from. Each sells for Cr1000 to Cr6000 on the open market, and there are 500 knives per ton (figuring a case of 0.5x0.2x0.2 meters = 0.02 meters. Theoretically 700 could fit but I am adding some packaging to keep the cases safe, and 500 is an easier number to deal with. And honestly, not sure how long it would take 1 guy to make 500 knives, but if he was working close to full time and had a more assembly line approach, I assume he could get a few done. I'll have to ask my friendly knife maker as he would actually know).
• 1d6 tons of herbs, Cr60,000/ton. The good stuff. Possibly illegal on some worlds. Cargo code 2326793-02167515-[915 984 8Y]-(2) on each of the containers. Each is somewhat less than a full ton, and there are up to 10 of them available. 

Other than that, this small, non-industrial world really needs to import more than it can generally export. It is really only by the currency creation part of the port that Hendar is even visited by ships. 

This also gives us a reason for one of the passengers, maybe both: currency inspectors. Making sure that all the i's are dotted and t's crossed. Yes, I think I'll go with that. My next solo story will expand on that and give some of the history in sutu I think. 

And a chance to break out 101 Cargos and create the cargo code for that plant as mentioned above. One of these I'll go back and write a code generator for this. Probably a command line version so in theory it should be able to run on a Mac as well as Windows.

This goes in the format abcdefg-hijklmno-[p]-(q) for a really long code. Going through that list, we get:

• a = container type. We'll go with a type 2, enclosed and secured. 2
• b = container size. These don't always seem to match a nice even tonnage. A type 3 is 3x3x1 meter and we'll go with that flat cargo, so that they can be stacked. This is also about .64 tons for internal storage we'll say 0.6dTons. 3 
• c = container mass. The codes are not really fine-tuned as some of the ranges are considerable. For our purposes, a 2 (10-100kg) will work: this does not have to be an impressively sturdy container. 2
• d = atmospheric range, or the maximum the container can have during transit. It maps to the UWP atmosphere code basically, so we'll go with 6 for dense. 6
• e = temperature range, the recommended temp. As we've a relatively flimsy container, going with 7 for 20 degrees C.7
• f = humidity range. Coming from a planet with 7% liquid water, I imagine the humidity there is low. This is a straight 1= 10%, 2=20%, etc thing. Having no real idea, I'll go with 90% humidity is the max, else some sort of rot may occur. 9
• g = gravity range, or maximum gravity for the external container. Where 0 = 0G, 1 = 1G, etc. Being somewhat flimsy, it can probably get to 3 Gs before compression may have some adverse effects. 3
• h = cargo type. There are codes for solid, liquid, etc. Not sure where plants go, though C = live flora. Is it still alive? Going with no, and I guess 0 = solid is closest? 0
• i = number of items. How much is each 3x3x1 container broken into smaller packages? Going with a 1x1x1m internal container we have 9, which is code 2
• j = mass of each item in (i) above. 1 = 1-10kg so that works: 1
• k = atmospheric range for the actual cargo. Same as for the container, or 6
• l = temperature max for actual cargo, and again we'll stick with the same range or 7
• m = humidity range. A bit lower than the container holding the containers. I'll say 5 for 50% or bad things may happen to our happy herbs 5
• n = gravity range for the cargo, The plants themselves don't do well if compressed, so we'll leave this as 1 as they are coming from a planet with 0.1Gs 1
• o = em range. There are codes for ranges it should not be exposed to, or required. Gong with X-Rays will mess up the internal structures. 5
• p = hazard codes. While Aslan are deadly allergic to this, no one else is. Technically this makes this a biohazard. 915 = allergic reactions for Vargr, 984 = may cause death for Aslan. Also, it is flammable so we also have 8Y for flammable above 100C. [915 984 8Y] 
• q is special handling, and with our flimsy external container made on a light G world, a 2 indicates don't stack heavier things on top.

Resulting cargo code: 2326793-02167515-[915 984 8Y]-(2).  Hopefully Malik will look at those hazard codes, as well as the handling codes, when loading this cargo if they get it

OSE: Personal Session 0

The Tomes showed up and I am starting up on trying to grok the rules and all that. While pretty familiar with Traveller and The Fantasy Trip after years of play, and picking up various microlite games as they play mostly along the same fairly simple principles. Old School Essentials is, as it says, old school. Meaning that the rules are based more on classes and races and so each has its own set of ways to change things around. Come to think of it, it is exactly how a lot of games play: you have the core rules that apply, then specific cards or whatever change/bend/break the rules. Thinking of Cosmic Encounter here. I actually have the original game (though missing many of the pieces) with a lot of the expansions, as well as the Fantasy Flight version (no expansions. Yet). Anyway, same sort of thing: classes and races give bonuses (and sometimes detriments) to the way you play.

Anyways...rolling up some characters as I want to run them through a small game to see how to stock the dungeons so it is not instant party kill. Though actually the 1st adventure is the mansion / headquarters from 0-Hr: just replacing the elevators with stairs or ladders, and anything SF can be ignored.

There is also the underground lair, but we'll leave that for the next scenario as I think they may need to level up. The boys said they want to be more of the rogue/thief type and burglarize someplace. So, I have someplace to go where I actually have a poster with the grid. They'll have a rougher copy of this map. I just need to figure out how to stock it to make it challenging but not a 1st level TPK. 

Step 1 is to generate 3 characters as I am hoping we'll have all three. If not, we may have to do 2 characters apiece, or if I can get the dad to allow a non-vaccinated friend to play, I've got an ideal fellow gamer for this group. Hoping for later this year things will loosen up enough for that to happen.

My dice do hate me: I actually re-rolled one whole set of characteristics. The characters are as follows:

Human Male Cleric

STR: 12

INT: 9

WIS: 13 (+1)

DEX: 12

CON: 10

CHA: 7 (-1)

Chain Mail (AC 14), War Hammer (1d6), 5 HP

I chose cleric as that wisdom is the primary stat for a cleric. At level 1, clerics are not all that great: they have no spells, are limited in weapons and armor, and don't have a lot of hit points (5 in this case). He has the standard adventurer things as well as a holy symbols and some vials of holy water. The only real benefit is that he has a chance to turn undead. If one of the group does decide on a cleric, I'll be sure to throw in some undead to let that character shine. The advantage is that clerics level up faster generally. I also rolled on the secondary skills table and got fisher. Before taking to the cloth, he sailed the seas fishing.

Human Magic User

STR: 11

INT: 15

WIS: 12

DEX: 11

CON: 12

CHA 5 

Dagger (1d4), staff (1d4), 4 HP

Spells: Magic Missile (1d6+1)

Speaks Pixie

With the high intelligence, I chose magic user. At level 1 he can use 1 magic spell a day at level 1. I chose an offensive one, the magic missile. Unlike TFT, spells are automatic pretty much and don't cost anything. Other than that limit of spell spots per day basically. The advantage is that it won't miss and will do a minimum of 2 points of damage. At the low-level game we'll be starting with, that is probably enough to take out one enemy. He'll just have to be judicious in when to use it. His secondary skill was a cooper, meaning he knows how to make barrels I think. 

Half-Orc Fighter

I actually rolled well, and chose the half-orc to beef him up even more.

STR: 16

INT: 12

WID: 8

DEX: 13

CON: 13

CHA: 6

Plate (AC 17 with DEX bonus), 2 handed sword (slow, 1d10), sword (1d8), 9 HP

As noted, I had some really good rolls and decided to sort of min/max this guy a bit. He'll be at the front most of the time: with an AC of 17 he is hard to hit. His CON gives him a bonus for hit points as well. We have our tank.

What we don't actually have is a thief. I may roll one more up for that. And this is where I may introduce some house rules. While I do like the rolls as straight up, I may allow them to switch stats but cost 1 point in one of the switched stats. There are some optional rules to take 2 points to beef up one so this is along those lines. 

At a guess, we'll have a session 0 where we take a fair amount of time generating characters. As I currently just have the 1 set of books (and the printed out basic rules), there will be a fair amount of time spent going through the options. And we may have a sample combat round to get through the basics of that sort of thing as the mechanics are a bit different. 

I do have dice for everyone thanks to the Mystery Dice Kickstarter I backed. Though honestly, I am not overly thrilled with what I got. While the solar system set was really cool, the other "special" sets were to me, rather lackluster. I got 4 oversized d6s and a bag of tokens. I was hoping for something more along the lines of the solar system set. The other 11 piece die sets were nice but nothing really special. Good thing I really got them to give away: I really don't need more dice. I have sets I've yet to use still. 

Traveller Solo: Mont (277-214 1106)

 While Chutaco was larger than the No Refunds, it was still a big cave. I've never been one for claustrophobia, but sometimes having a stone roof over my head seemed a bit oppressive. Oddly I never worried about a ship hull out in space, with only hull metal between me and the dark.  Despite staying a few nights at the "beach", I was glad to go back to the ship and stay there instead. While Mont had the basic supplies, we were not going to be eating well the next part of our trip. Looking at the neighbors, we had 5 choices: Helfrom, a planetoid belt that has one huge ice ball where the people of Mont came from. San Por was another belt, a mid-tech world barely surviving in close quarters inside asteroids. I was pretty sure that the only reason they were there was in support of the Scout station. Hendar was a poor, non-industrial world. Port Kar was a small planet outside the League but at least has a good port. Gromm was deeper into the League of planets, another non-industrial world. I realized that just a few worlds carried the bulk of industrial production in the League, and other than Krim's advanced medical technologies, there was no reason for the Imperium to bother or worry about this political group.

Petria came through for us again, a parting gift: 25 tons of medical supplies that would fetch a good price Hendar. Though that would take most of our profit, it should fetch a good price on Hendar. Apparently, Evo had spoken with the captain, and Hendar was our next port of call. The rest of the ship will be empty: nothing was going from Mont to Hendar other than the medical supplies. (using Mongoose 1e freight rules, going from a non-industrial world to another non-industrial world gives is a -2, and a TL difference of 2 for another -2 if I got the TL difference correct. Then add in the destination population which is 2 for Hendar. A 0 on the available is nothing at all is available! Surprising there are cargoes available for speculative trading). We managed to find 2 mid-class passengers wanting to go to Hendar, so at least we have that (though middle-class passengers barely break even, but it is still better than nothing. The low local population, and going from a non-industrial for a NI, poor world does not do well for passengers).

It took 2 days to load the cargo into the nearly empty lower cargo hold, and we were ready to say goodbye to the almost a hell-world of Mont.

Liftoff was uneventful. Almost an hour towards our jump point, a safari ship, the Ocelot, was approaching Mont. We made contact, and they were quite happy to talk to us. Graham Tyson was on the comms with us, and saying that they were en route to Port Kar. While the atmosphere was thin, there were some native life that were apparently quite delicious, and the Ocelot was under charter. Knowing that we had had just basic rations for the next week, my stomach rumbled in sympathy. I gave the warning to our passengers, dimmed the lights, and the outside universe went away as we entered jump space.

Well, mostly boring. While I had a bit more time this weekend, the weather was so nice it is hard to stay in the basement. 

Unrelated to Traveller, I got the minis from a Kickstarter in (no, not the much maligned Blacklist Games) but the Wildspire minis. Interestingly, it is a set of fun minis, four of each mostly except for the large ones. I now have way too many dragons, though a book-reading dragon could be a useful patron actually. The adventurers are sent out to retrieve books for this voracious reader. As I'll be starting an OSE game sometime soon, I'll need some low-level adventures for them so they can level up and not get killed by something simple. I also got another fey book, and as it has 5th edition stats, I can basically use those almost as-is for OSE. I'll be adding some of them to the game at some point. 

I'll start making some world images of Hendar and see what the system is actually like. It is more difficult to get as much into Traveller if it is just me as much as I love Traveller. I just am getting excited by OSE (and yes, I backed their boxed set Kickstarter but also ordered the Tomes which should show up next week. I need to be able to share at the table. The dad & I are hoping that a class-based, more old-school game may appeal to them).

Speaking of, I found this blog over the weekend: B/X Black Razor. It has some interesting thoughts about old school vs new, but interestingly one of the comments points to Traveller as the beginning of what the author thinks of as new school (where the story is more important than the adventure). Traveller specifically suggested fudging the DM's dice rolls if it helps the story or it did not make sense. Always a contentious discussion, I will admit to having fudged dice rolls at times. Even in this solo game.

Regardless of old-school vs new, things have changed. And while us older players often lament the games as they are now, we are also living in a veritable paradise of gaming potential. The market for RPGs has exploded over the last few years, and the cost of entry is mostly just time. What with Kickstarter, cheap PDF creation and sites like DriveThru and itch.io, there is bound to be a game you can find to scratch whatever itch you have. While the OSR games are really popular, most are really, at least in my opinion, what we just want to think the old gaming world was like as seen through the prism of nostalgia. Fortunately, that nostalgia keeps a lot of the old games still available (hello Traveller! hello The Fantasy Trip!) as well as new versions of those games and new variants. Life goes on, and nothing is the same as it was. And looking back is always through the lenses of our memories: we tend to remember the really good and the really bad. The vast majority of the mundane we just don't remember. And yes, I've digressed again. Bottom line is I think we all need to be grateful for what we have now. We don't need gatekeepers to define what a good game is or should be, or if you are doing it right. If you are having fun, and your group is having fun, you are doing it right. And now to get off my high horse (hmm, maybe a dinosaur as I do need to work on that game at some point!)

Regardless, I also need to probably get my Sunday group to read the "A Quick Primer for Old-School Gaming". While TFT can be pretty lethal, OSE level 1 characters are going to die if they do frontal attacks. We'll see what we shall see, but I am getting excited by that. I may even use my 0-Hr map of a mansion for the actual game!