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!
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