Another end of the year - time flies (unless you are stuck in jump space for a week in a tiny ship. With only 1 bathroom. Always find it funny that few deck plans seem to have enough bathrooms - what if that 1 breaks down? Always have a spare! Or at least one of those backpacking pails if all else fails I suppose).
I've been a bit slack lately - holidays and all that of course takes its toll on me. I really enjoy the run up to Christmas but always get a bit depressed when it is all over. I think I just prefer anticipation rather than the actual thing.
Which brings me to gaming: I often think that is the same for my gaming. I really enjoy talking about gaming and prepping for games, but sometimes the games just don't live up to my expectations. I'm in a game now where the GM is doing a good bit of world-building which is great. Except I can barely read my notes (and I am moving those hand-written notes to an electronic document so that should help). He's mentioned a number of names and places that I've forgotten about until I read them in my notes. I feel I am failing in paying enough attention to the game & the world that is getting created as we play. And I know that the reverse is also true: I do a lot of world building (I can hear the shock from some of you long-time readers!) and I feel I just don't get that world across as well as I should.
I've read a few books on the process (XDM is the latest, but also Robins Laws of Good Game Mastering, and a couple others, as well as various blog posts. Yet I feel I am still just not doing things right. Then I also realize that there is not "right" other than everyone is having fun. I just tend to over-analyze myself at times. There is this constant dichotomy between those two ideas in my head: I am not doing things right vs there is no real right as long as everyone has fun.
I've mostly resigned myself to accepting that my world-building I do mostly for myself. I enjoy it, and if the players at least see and get to play in part of it and seem to "get" my worlds, then it is all good.
Anyway - no end of year recaps or previews of the next year. I'll probably the character challenge again as it is both fun & fairly easy. I don't have to think a lot, just generate characters. That I can use in my various worlds. Still need to flesh out Fort Covenant and the smaller Windemere as I am hoping that I'll actually use them some day! I'll get some free characters to stick there.
I think the group is excited by the idea of a bounty hunter game. Still not sure if I'll do this in Traveller or not: the issue with Traveller is the speed of communication, so bounty hunting is almost forced to be in a single system. That 2-week time lag (1 week out, another week back) means you will always be chasing and never catching anyone. I have at least 2 Traveller bounty hunter books, so I need to read them with the intention of seeing how to play/run that sort of game. And I may just expand out one of my D'Arlee Quadrant worlds to give them enough to do in a single system. I just feel like an SF game, especially one named Traveller, you should be traveling a lot!
I'll use the rules from the Moon Toad Bounty Hunter book and generate a bounty hunter to start with at least. Here they define several types of bounty hunters: bondsmen, actual bounty hunters, repossession agents, tracers, process servers. Of those, the most "adventuresome" types to me are the bounty hunters and the repossession agents. We could do a repossession style game if we get characters with pilot skills so that they can take the ship back to where it needs to go. Which could be its own adventure as who knows how well the ship has been maintained since being absconded?
From the book:
The Economics of Bounty Hunting
Inter-system communications in the vastness of space are at the speed of transport. If you are lucky enough to be on an X-Boat route, that means the news normally propagates at Jump-4. Of course, if you are not, the chances are that there will be delays, bureaucratic hurdles, and slow transports filling in the gaps. This means that a Bounty Warrant from one system will take time to arrive in another system – if we merely assume that it is a single Jump away - it will probably take a minimum of 2 weeks for the Bounty to be sent to nearby systems.
This means that there is no chance for two-way communications, or extended negotiations – the individual or organisation taking out the Bounty Warrant has no alternative but to put together the details of the target, at a price that they think is enough to get a Bounty Hunter interested – and fire it off. Then they wait, and hope…
...
Hey kid, being a Bounty Hunter is different to the entertainment channels – you know dashing off to some new system every week, blazing a trail in a fast ship across the Sector. It isn’t like that – just think for a few minutes about the distances, the time in jump, and the speed of comms. If you found a warrant in one system and got the information the target was in another system, the chances are really high they won’t be there when you get there. All Bounty Hunters are local – except for a few corporate types – and most of the time, we just track the target in system, slap them in a Low Berth, and take passage as cheap as we can to the Bounty Warrant Holder, cash in, and go home.
That helps define a few things: there should be local competition (friendly or not) and there may be a lot of waiting (of course, we'll start with something more actionable than sitting at the port checking the warrant space!)
The Bounty Hunter book also uses a "fast character generation" system that gives players a lot more control over their skills and even stats. There is also the traditional version, which I'll use. I just prefer a more random approach most of the time for generating RPG characters.
For the fast version, we start with 777777 and have a max of 42 (feels like The Fantasy Trip other than we're actually starting at 42, so can only adjust 1 up by going down in another). We have the same 4-year terms as Traveller and get 2 skills per term. They cannot be the same skill in the same term, and interestingly, at level 3+ you have to start specializing (i.e., pilot for specific class of ship or tonnage). At level 4 a specific ship, such as Scout. A nice overview is that level 1 = qualification training, 2 is really experienced, 3 is master's level, and 4+ is PhD level and requires daily exposure to keep that up. And apparently bounty hunters get pensions after 4 terms. Think it was 5 for classic.
There is a set of skills, most from various versions of Traveller. I do like that gambling requires a +1 intelligence, or an intelligence of, err, I think 9+? Need to check that out.
Moving on to the traditional character generation, I'll roll my stats: 397678. Hmm, with that 3 strength, think I'll allow myself my optional rule: 1 extra roll to replace any single stat. UPP is now 997678. A bit better than the 777777 at least. Next, I need to pick what I want to be and roll to see if I can get in. Think we'll go corporate (meaning I need to create a corporation of some sort!). An 11 lets me get in, a 10 means I also survived, a 5 means no promotion (so I am a support officer), and I manage to get back in. For skills, I get an automatic Gun Combat-1, picking Pistol-1 (though I need to recheck for which gun skills are available). Plus 2 skills per term, and I'll roll on the personal and then service: +1 social (UPP 997679) and vehicle, so Grav-1. I'll also roll on the events table: bad reputation. This explains the lack of a promotion! And I also lose that social I just picked up: UPP 997678. There was also some armed conflict during this 1st term.
Next term, I fail my survival roll. I could go all Iron Man and start over, but we'll just dump our hapless bounty out in the street, as he tries to go freelancer. A d4 and he managed 2 more years.
Johnne Martz 997678 age 24, ex-corporate bounty hunter from Chasers Incorporated.
Pistol-1, Grav-1, Cr10,000, pistol
A large young man who thought he would be a bounty hunter like those on the entertainment channels, he soon found that his aptitude for the career was not as bountiful as his aspirations. Getting kicke dout after 6 years, he has decided to go solo. Living in a small apartment in the startown, he visits the port's legal department daily, checking for bounties. His evenings are spent in various bars, trying to pick up any clues to any bounties that may be on planet.
Short tempered and often brandishing his auto-pistol in what he thinks is a show of strength, he so far has managed to capture one bounty in the last 6 months, and is starting to get desperate.
And I hope everyone has a happy & safe New Years!
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