Putting Things Together at the end of 2023

For some reason, I decided to finally put together at least one of the sprues from the Dungeons & Lasers stretch goals. I now have 3 more harpies, some frog men, a bunch of mushrooms and a few other bits and pieces at least (badly) glued together. It reminds me that I have fat fingers and some of the pieces were very tiny. Good thing I am not into WH40K - think that would make me go crazy!

Anyway, I've even started to paint some of them, so I plan on completing at least the harpies by the end of this 3 day weekend. Plan to at any rate...

These are close to traditional 28mm scale minis, so smaller than the Reaper ones I believe. Though with harpies, that is probably okay.

And building things is a nice segway into what I plan on building in the coming year. Yeah, you didn't see an end of the year post with that coming, did you? 

Game-wise, I plan on having several more OSE sessions but will be raising the stakes a bit in the next couple of sessions. I am bringing in a couple of the things we did way back in October for our personal game group RPG challenge. I am hoping to have an exciting few sessions more, then depending on where that ends up, we'll switch games but hopefully they will want to get back into those characters and further explore the world around Windemere Crossing.

Speaking of challenges, the traditional January character a day challenge is about to start. I'll have to pre-build a few posts as I tend to get busy during the week. I'll have to email Carl over there and see if I can get on his list again. I've not decided what my sub-challenge will be: last year was adding characters to the towns I was building mostly, the year before I linked all the Traveller characters to a single space station where they were at by the end. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

I've stalled again on the personal software front. My Traveller world explainer basically works, but I got stuck when trying to add it to the Google app store. I really need to see if I can sideload it on my phone  - while it works on an android simulator, not sure how well it will work on an actual phone. And of course, I can run it in Windows as well. I may go ahead and add speculative trade and link it to the TravellerMap APIs. But it seems silly to write something that no one else can use. I can make a Windows installer again, or, hmm, wonder if I can make a Docker container for people? On a side note, I started attempting to update it to .NET 8 and broke everything. I've since installed an updater packager that I will test. But I had to delete the entire directory and restore from Github. Which I have done for a lot of projects over the years: get too screwed up, the only way to be sure is to nuke it from orbit!

Why Docker? Because at work I think I am planning on making our new rewrite of the main system I work on use Docker for deployment. I got it all working locally, including the NestJS prototype we have a consultant working on. Basically, a Docker image is a self-contained application you run through some sort of Docker management system. It is very popular for cloud stuff, which is where the application needs to live. Just not sure we can make a Windows program a docker image...Yes, I have to build a LOT this year at work as well.

What else am I going to build? I am really hoping to build a couple good Fantasy Trip games. Both my Sunday small game group and my regular Monday game group meet face to face. And as I did buy a 6x3' folding table for our Saturday skirmishes, that also works great for mats and scenery for RPGs! My Sunday group may rise from dead: we've been playing Zombicide on our game days (we alternate games and lifting weights at his gym, which is, BTW, where I met the huge guy who loves playing runty goblins. The dichotomy is really funny sometimes!) His nephew has joined us for the Zombicide games we play, and it turns out he runs a D&D game. I am hoping he will want to play in TFT so that he can play and not always GM the game. And the Monday group has mostly switched from skirmish games to TTRPGs and want to get to a Fantasy Trip game. I am also hoping to run another Traveller game, or continue the one we started and left at a cliffhanger basically. 

I am not going to build an end of the year review. Though I suppose I could have one of the LLM (aka ChatGPT) bots review my blog for this year to see what it thinks. Well, I tried but could not get the 2 I tried to actually summarize the site. Though one attempt thought it was written by Marc Miller.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe New Years! Happy Traveller Holiday! And 2024 is a Leap Year!

OSE Session 10: At the Fairy Circle

Evening of the 25th day of Haelhold. 

With the fire behind them, our adventurers, along with Sharn and Petal, move to the fairy circle as the half moon rises. Crossing the river, Petal tells the mischievous fey wanting to trip Baldur and Enoki back in the pond to behave. As they come out from the trees, in the darkness comes a deep, rumbling voice: "Give us the food."

the scene on Owlbear.rodeo

Quinby attempts to rush through the gurh in front of him, and Petal follows him, mostly to make sure he does not fall into the circle. Enoki moves close and sprays his spores to calm the two down in front of him. Rolling a natural 20, we decide he had enough spore to effect both the gurh. One made his saving roll, the other did not. Seeing a battle about to start, Baldur, Sharn and Enoki move to deal with the other two mishappen dwarves. There is a tussle for the moon stone as the non-sleepy gurh manages the snatch it from Quinby. Baldur deals a lethal blow to one of the gurh, with Sharn behind him, ready with her dagger. They both frog-walk the sleepy gurh into the circle as Quinby and Petal battle the other. Petal lowered her haed to ram it with her horns, but she being so tall and he being so short, managed to miss. Quinby managed to snag the moonstone back and then throw it into the circle, where it disappeared, sort of fading out of existence. They also get the other subterranean dwarves pushed into the circle after Quinby rustles through what little clothes they had, and they manage to get 7000 gold. 

And that was the entire evening: we started a bit late and talked more than played. I actually have a couple things in store shortly that will drive up the stakes for our characters. And yes, that 7000 gold really made no sense, but I was using a creature from Creature Feature Compendium, and it used one of the random treasure tables so I used that as-is. Really should have thought that part out a bit more as it gave everyone a bit more experience really than the encounter should have I think. But it is what it is.

Creature Feature Compendium

And it turns out after I did a screen shot, that there are actually VTT tokens with that book! So I should have used the one below!

the gurh

Some of the lore from that very fat book fit in with the moonstone: they needed that for energy, the food they were talking about. And it would have opened a portal to the hell-like demon plane they are worshiping. However, our characters have never met them before so the lore will be hidden lore until they try & possibly seek it out.

Pretty much where we left things. Amazingly this was the 10th session, so I am holding it together. As previously mentioned, the stakes are going to get a bit higher now that two of the characters have leveled up at least once. I need to look at those stats for Sharn as well to see how much this may help er level up. I think she has a good distance to go.

Characters in this scene

Petal Elmstrong, glaistig. Think this is a possible good image of how I see her:

ArtStation - Lookout

4 Gurh, thrown into the fairy circle. What could go wrong? Lore from the book:

These nasty creatures are known as Gurh. The name is drawn from their own debased tongue. They are indeed an offshoot of Dwarves that delved too deeply and became corrupted by the weird radiations they encountered in the bowels of the earth. While they may appear feral at first, they are not. However, their culture has mutated as much as their bodies. Although they still work metal and mine as their cousins do, these endeavors do not fill their lives as they do those of their mundane kin. The Gurh have long ago traded the pursuit of gold and honor for demon worship and dark magic.

OSE Session 9: The Earth Stone

25th day of Haelhold. I will have to come up with some sort of year, though could do something more regional such as the 17th year of King Axehold's reign. Or get sort today's date (12/15/2023) converted to the Mayan calendar:

Long Count Date: 13.0.11.2.11

13 baktun; 13 X 144,000 days = 1,872,000 days

0 katun; 0 X 7,200 days = 0 days

11 tun; 11 X 360 days = 3,960 days

2 uinal; 2 X 20 days = 40 days

11 k'in; 11 X 1 day = 11 days

Tzolk'in Date: 11 Chuwen

Haab Date: 19 Mak

Lord of the Night: G6

Which is an interesting way to tell the day based on the number of days past some point in the past. Sort of like Unix time, which is the number of seconds since January 1, 1970. All dates have some sort of starting point. Well, everything has some sort of starting point really! I just need to figure out what I want as a starting point. Though it may change from kingdom to kingdom.

Game Recap

Continuing their exploration of the cave, Enoki finds a few gems stashed in one of the smaller caves leading off of the main area. The ancient remains of the boxes and desiccated remains of food, along with old mouse and rat droppings, appear to be all that remain of what was once used as a cold room. 

Sharn is harvesting parts of the dead ants while Enoki is exploring, and Baldur is keeping watch on what is going on. Quinby, getting bored, manages to cut off one of the mandibles, determined to make some sort of a weapon from it. He straps that to his back, and it is almost as long as he is tall.

Taking the lead, Quinby continues deeper into the cave. Where the ants came from, he notices something gleaming next to the candle he had thrown at the giant ants. There was various nuggets of gold, worth about 3000 gold pieces! Yes, there was a 30% chance and the players made that roll and the roll for the amount. And I cannot find where I had those ants described! I will have to go through the various books but it was not any at my desk (although thinking it may be one of the adventures that came with the OSE Kickstarter).

Even distributed out, that is a lot of gold. And it managed to get a second character to level up at the end of the session. Enoki, being a mushroom person, still has a way to go. But it will slow them down a bit as they move forward as I do need to re-read those encumbrance rules.

Seeing some glittering light, the adventurers see flickering blue lights in another cave. They are surrounding what looks to be a large, rough-cut ruby. About the size of a human fist, it seems as if it is glowing from its own inner light, but it could be the bluecaps surrounding it. A few of the dozen or so move towards the halfling, and a couple drop through the walls to look at Baldur, Enoki and Sharn. Other than their flickering light, they do not communicate.

Rembrandt style!

Think this halfling is too young but I liked the flames

Quinby, charismatic and clueless, starts to talk with the bluecaps. They seem to be sniffing around the pouch with the silver in it, and he first offers 50 silver pieces. The small fey huddle and guard the gem closer, apparently miffed at the offer. Quinby throws the entire bag of 1000 silver pieces to the ground, and the bluecaps leave the rock to hover about the silver. Seeing as the bluecaps seemed happy, Quinby takes up the moonstone and they start to leave the cave.

Seeing another side branch, but it is too small for anyone to fit through, Quinby decides that there must be something worthwhile on the other side. Fortunately, Baldur is prepared and does have a shovel. About an hour later they manage to wide it far enough for Quinby, with the rope around him again, to squeeze in. Getting partway into the next cave, he in confronted by a giant ant. Apparently, there is a nest of them here. The ant seems very guarded but not aggressive. After a few minutes of trying to get through, they decide to just leave the cave and head back to the clearing where their camp was.

Along the way, they spy two Kobolds to the north, the direction of their camp. Almost 200 yards off, they can see that the two lizard-folk did not want to be bothered and they seemed to dart off into the mountain scrub. Getting to where the pair of Kobolds disappeared, they could follow the trail for a bit before it petered out. None of the characters have any tracking skills. 

Deciding to move on, they get back to their campsite. The cows are mooing, and they can hear some soft humming or singing from the fields. While Sharn collects more of the mushrooms and plants, Enoki goes back to the pool and is again guided by small, cold hands to some rich pond mud. This will give him a +1 on healing the next week or so. The others see a beautiful woman in a long dress and a large hat moving in the cow fields. Quinby jumps over the fence to pet the cows, and Petal Elmstrong introduces herself. Baldur starts to speak with the cows, and while everyone else just hears moos, he finds that Petal is a good caretaker and they have not seen anything untoward. But they mostly concentrate on eating so rarely see a lot other than the grass in front of them. Quinby notices the small holes from the glaistig feeding on her cows, and pours over some of the water from his waterskin, and the holes cure right up.

Petal recognizes water enchanted by Verey Ambervale, and now feeling that these adventurers are good people, tells them a bit more about herself, and reveals herself as a glaistig. She also lets them know Verey is a naiad, not a goddess. Petal has wandered this realm for almost 200 years now. Enoki asks about the ley lines, and when Petal points out where they are and that two cross at the magic circle, he sets up roots on one of the lines. When asked if she has seen any elves, she gives a bit of an info dump about how my fantasy world works (and that of course is always subject to change).

The Elves are fey who have lived here for generations. Fey like Petal, who was originally from the Old World from the Fairy Circle, hold on to most of their innate magic and power. Elves are slowly losing their magic and immortality the longer they live in this mortal realm. Each generation is a bit weaker and shorter-lived. The wild fey that only visit this world may still be innately made of magic but return to their home to keep up their magic. The Old World, like this, is made up of many kingdoms, some wonderful, others cruel places. Most of the Elves who have moved here are from cruel places and are willing to trade an immortal life of cruelty and pain for a life where there may be joy and hope, even if not forever. And fey from the Old World live by their own rules and magics that may often seem cruel or capricious, but those that live forever will think differently. 

Finally, the moon starts to rise, and the group gets ready to place the moonstone into the fairy circle. When they hear a loud noise coming from near the mushrooms...

And yes, a lot of this is cribbed from various fantasy I have read over the years. I felt I needed to reconcile the High Elves of high fantasy with those that can be played in various RPGs. The Fantasy Trip makes Elves just people with pointy ears for the most part, and I feel that there must be a reason for the disconnect between the more ethereal Elves of various books and these. The same sort of thing applies to a lot of the various fantasy races in my world. 

Characters Met This Session

Bluecaps, fey described in the Professor Gilroy book and in the Wikipedia here.

Petal Armstrong, glaistig. Stats are available from Professor Gilroy's Guide to the Fey (and possible a few other places, including the guide to the Fey I expect next year)

2 Kobold travellers. The distance was too far to tell if they wer ethe same two met earlier. 

A large noise from near the magic circle. Which I need to figure out what I want to use...

Spelunking My Library Part 4: Post College To Now

And post-college to now covers almost 40 years - 1986 is when I graduated. Yes, I am old. And cranky - get off my lawn! Alas, most of the Traveller players are old as most RPG gamers seem to gravitate to D&D and fantasy games. But that's okay - everyone should play what they want and there is new stuff all the time to try if you want to. But in my diving into my collection, I've come to realize I have enough and need to use and enjoy what I have now. Though I still may get the occasional new thing...

After college it was a couple of years before I found my way back to gaming. I was perusing a bookstore and found the big book reprint for the Alien Races.

So, I bought that, and my cardboard box of Traveller (and a few other games) started growing again. I then found the Asheville Gaming Club and got back into gaming with a like-minded group of people. I only had a motorcycle then, but my apartment was about 3 miles away, so I walked which was nice. I also started the liberal arts program at UNCA, as well as joining the YMCA's volleyball team. I did get a car not long after, and in fact I am still driving that red 1991 Toyota MR-2. T-Tops do come off in the summer!

Not my car, but what it looks like. Mine does have 270K miles on it and may be a bit rough riding but is still a lot of fun. Apparently, I like the stuff I got early in life and manage to hold on to them!

And as time went on, and I was gainfully employed, I started getting more Traveller stuff. I found the GURPS books and bought a lot directly from Steve Jackson Games (Far Trader was the first and my favorite, then I ended up getting the Nobles, Cutter and first alien book. Then a couple of the planetary guides: Glisten and Toberak). Somehow, I found BITS and managed to get four books: 101 Cargos had some really interesting and super-detailed cargo container rules which I started to implement in my cargo trade program, 101 Governments, 101 Corporations and 101 Rendezvous). 

Not that I really used a lot of this, but I enjoy reading and at least dreaming I could use it. And in fact, I have used a few bits and pieces of many of these books. Though the cutter book is a lot of fun to look over, even if that 6m payload is a lot like the Tardis, and bigger on the inside than the outside (sorry - that lower deck is going to be tiny at the bottom and wide at the top, and the upper deck the opposite. No way those plans really fit a 6m diameter tube! But still fun to imagine being in them).

Mongoose got the Traveller license, so I bought a lot of the Mongoose Traveller 1E books. I liked the updated rules and also that they were still mostly pretty close to Classic. And the cheap books reminded me of those early days as well. When 2E came out, while I bought that, I was not as impressed. It was a slightly better set of rules for some things, though still confusing. But they were also infusing a bit of the British ideas of SF in there, and if I want to play Judge Dread, I'll get a Judge Dread game. Yes, times have changed but I thought they were straying from what I consider Traveller. Plus the book was a LOT more expensive and started falling apart after only a few readings.

Then the T5 Kickstarter came out and was my first Kickstarter. I backed that Big Black Book and even got more dice as part of that. I was looking forward to that! It finally arrived and, despite being over 800 pages, was not really a playable game. He really needed a professional proofreader as there are a of issues. However - a lot of that is really very useful and I've borrowed parts of it for my games. I started backing way too many Kickstarters (why yes, I am a superbacker!) and backed the 2nd T5 book set. And I am still waiting, a decade or more later, for the promised players guide. While the 2nd revision was a bit better, and slip cased 3 volume set similar to the original 3 books, I just cannot reconcile a dice pool system versus 2d6 for Traveller. But still, there are a lot of interesting and useful mechanics in there that can apply to pretty much any game. And of course, the various makers which I've not spent enough time with.

I also backed several other Mongoose Kickstarter projects: the Great Rift and the Element Cruiser boxed sets. And both JTAS projects though I am also somewhat disappointed in those: mostly reprinting what was already done. The boxed sets are really, really nice in many ways. Why I've placed some of my recent games in the Great Rift - I have maps! However, I still cannot figure out how those pods for the cruiser actually work, and I also hate they just mirrored the sides for the most part. While that makes sense for some of the pods, others not so much. But still cannot see how those pods work exactly. Regardless, they are deck plans and I have spread them out on the floor to walk those various corridors. Though the landing bays and all that are all appear to be a single deck height which makes no sense to me either. I've pretty much stopped getting the Mongoose books: I think they are too expensive for what I am getting, and as evidenced here, I have more than what I need to play Traveller!

And finally, I've found some software that may work to store my library data. Zotera is an open-source library manager, and really not designed for exactly what I want to do but may suffice. Interestingly, despite having a lot of types of media, it was lacking magazines. It does have magazine articles, but not magazines. And it does not seem to have an editor to add more types of things. However - it is a SQLite db and, well, I am a developer. So I added the magazine type and thought it worked until it broke. Then I poked around a bit, and realized we also needed the fields for a type, such as author. I duplicated the book field types and it all seems to be okay. I may also see if I can add a new field type: game version. For Traveller this would be Classic, Megatraveller, Mongoose, T4, T5, Cepheus. However - it does support tags to I'll see if that works. Still not exactly what I want, so I still may end up making up my own at some point. I do like writing software that is fun, though my career has been in writing mostly boring software. But it does help my buy games!

My next delve will be the other games I have. Mostly The Fantasy Trip as I had that on college (well, the box games, and the advanced rules for Melee & Wizard, but never the actual In the Labyrinth rules. And of course, I did back that for the All-In when it was available, but that is a story for the next post!) But also another old-style game, Old School Essentials. Which I've been running and if you're reading my blog, you'll see the game updates. I am also hoping to run a TFT game next year in our face-to-face games so we can bring out the minis and other toys!

OSE Session 8: The Wild Hunt

Our group sets in for the evening, with Baldur taking the first shift. About halfway through the evening, he hears the sounds of hunting dogs off in the distance. When the baying seems to be getting closer, he wakens the group. A few moments later a soft glow and the sound of horse hooves comes from the up the mountain. Quinby decides to hide in a tree, ready to pounce, or at least safe amongst the leaves. A few moments later, Thiseas comes in to view for Baldur, Enoki and Sharn.

One version of Thiseas

"Are you all safe and present?" asks the large centaur. "As the great hunt is coming by attracted a bit by you, " he continues, looking over at Baldur. Quinby is quiet in the trees, and despite some broad hints, does not come down. 

"I'll shield you from Hern, the Horned God. He has been on the hunt in these mountains for something these last few weeks, and I think having one of his adherents here has helped drive him in this direction on this eve." With that, he says a few words and the staff he carries grows a bit brighter, casting a light on the adventurers. 

Outside the light, in the trees, Quinby holds tight to the tree as more than a dozen great hunting dogs run through the night airs, followed by a horned god almost 12 feet tall. Three of the dogs look at him, and as they race by, the great horned one also looks down at the halfling hiding in the trees. Inside Quinby's head, the voice of Sir Ignatius speaks with a fervor: "Close your eyes young halfling! Close your heart to those voices calling you to the great hunt!" Somehow Quinby holds on as the hounds and their master race up the mountains and are soon out of sight and hearing. 

from https://www.deviantart.com/velamir/art/Wild-hunt-419009265

When Quinby climbs back down the tree, his once dark hair is now an elegant silver, and there are fine wrinkles around his eyes. Sharn looked up at the halfling thief, and her eyes widened at the sight of changed him. Baldur tried to say something about Quinby's altered appearance, but Quinby managed to avoid listening or paying attention to anything anyone said. 

Thiseas explained he was watching and taking care of the Vele Hory Range, the mountains they are on. While he worships Tonna, he has no issues with a worshipper of Hern, the Horned God. The area they are in sits on a ley line, and that mushroom circle across the creek can be a dangerous place to be. And in fact, if they could do him a small favor, he would appreciate it and possibly help them in their time of need as well.

"There is an abandoned farm a couple miles up the path. There are some mischievous fey hiding in there, with a magic stone that needs to go into the mushroom circle at moonrise to put it back to the few world. I am too large to fit into the caves that were used as a cold storage room for the house that was there." He also told them that the water goddess was actually Verey Ambervale, a river Naiad. And he has twice, in the near decade he has been here, seen what looked to be the Salmon of Knowledge. He leaves soon after that, continuing is walks about the mountains.

The night remains calm, as most creatures are still hiding from the Wild Hunt. Sharn has the last shift, and the other wake up to the smell of pancakes and fried river trout. Eating a good breakfast, they hike up the mountain path and find the remains of the sign post. They manage to find most of what Sharn needs on their hike up the mountain, and the rest she can pick at the campsite when they return. Turning up the trail they see the remains of the house, and next to it a small entrance to the caves.

They do a bit of exploring, and then are attacked by three large ants. Large as in almost 6 feet long large. Not quite Them, but it was quite the battle. And Enoki somehow got hit twice with a natural 20! Fortunately, I did roll low on damage. And sadly, Sharn managed to critically fumble and whacked herself on her arm. She never did any damage! Yet they managed to kill the ants, and Enoki got a little bit of healing from the sole healing potion Sharn had. 

We stopped there for the evening, with the rest of the cave to be explored.

Characters Met

Thiseas of the Gallantos Herds of the Western  Fields, now a druid of Tonna.

Herm the Horned God, of the Wild Hunt

Verey Ambervale (river Naiad), who they actually met earlier but did not get her name

3 giant ants

Miscellaneous Notes

I sort of winged this one: one of the players asked if they could help the Druid, and having nothing really thought out, came up with returning that magic rock to the fairy ring basically. I found a map I had from Dyson and threw that out there. A random roll for the encounter turned out to be those giant ants. Which almost killed the group, and Enoki is almost mortally wounded again. Not sur ewhy those ants managed to do a natural 20 and Sharn kept rolling really low, including that 1 for a critical failure. She will be nursing that arm a few days!

And I really need to prep better if we are going to use Owlbear. I do have a LOT of various creature icons but I can never find the one I want when I need it (partially because they are in a few difference collections. I probably need to figure a better organizational process for this). I also had several books that fed into the adventure and world building, though it took me some time to find some of the passages I wanted.

So for the next session I need to finish that map, and throw in the mischievous fey, and figure a few more things. There is at least one more possible fey encounter in that glade. 

Quinby actually failed his save with the wild hunt, but rather than have him run off with the hunt, I just aged him about a decade. I left his stats alone, so there are no mechanical changes other than he now has silver hair and fine line around his eyes. I could have taken a bit of his level 18 charisma stat away but decided against that. I used the soul of Sir Ignatius to help him keep himself attached to the tree rather than that hunt.

Holidays

Of course, 'tis the season for a lot of people in the real world. And in my OSE game, there are a few holidays it looks like (and I've not kept up as I planned to, so to recap for myself and my players. they are in the evening of the 24th day of Haelhold at the Glade).

In looking at the Dolmenwood calendar, the next day is the Feast of Gretchen, and in a few more days there will be the Feast of St. Galaunt. Of course, I am just using that calendar to help keep track of time and days for the players. Does it make sense to celebrate the holidays from what is, at least in my game world, a Kingdom far away from the woods? Holidays and celebrations of that ilk are really going to be kingdom-based I would think. And species/race/heritage-based (getting so difficult to name things now!) Possibly wider depending on the pantheon and if the gods and goddesses are revered in more than one kingdom. I've read many fantasy books where the gods are essentially localized: they are tied to some land or kingdom, and rarely go beyond that. Would their holidays, or holy days, extend beyond that? Just like a lot of our holidays are simple re-imaginings of what was pagan to make it fit the current theocracy as you do not want to take away people's celebrations if you want them happy. 

Anyway, sidetracked by the current holiday season and for me what is the normal stress of the season which is severely compounded by my current job that actually makes things, so this is our busy season for a heavily reduced IT work force that is plagued by out-of-date and badly maintained software that drives the business. 

But dragging myself back to what I keep trying to ask: does your RPG include holidays? Traveller of course has Day 0 and the Emperors Birthday (I think...seems to me there was another holiday?) But as there are thousands of worlds, there is probably a holiday every day (probably several!) going on somewhere on some system. Same for a fantasy game - if there are dozens of kingdoms, and if you have any gods, there are probably a lot of holidays. And how would you handle that?

Circling back to my current OSE game, what is the Feast of St. Gretchen? Who is she a saint of? None of the characters will know of this, and the one PC, Sharn, is an Orc. Making the assumption that this St. Gretchen is not an Orc saint, she would not care, even if she knows about it. Same for St. Galaunt. I can, of course, ignore these, but thinking that the group may see something when they get back to town. Though thinking Bellatrix may know something about them for some reason. And of course, with feast in the title, there will be food. Come to think of it, many holidays revolve around food. 

And this also brings up that many holidays are going to also be species-specific: Orcs, Goblins, whatever are going to have their own holidays and celebrations and memorial days. And like humans, it will not be across all groups, so we are opening up a lot of potential holiday confusion.

From Wikipedia:

While the English word saint originated in Christianity, historians of religion tend to use the appellation "in a more general way to refer to the state of special holiness that many religions attribute to certain people", referring to the Jewish ḥasīd or tzadik, the Islamic walī, the Hindu rishi or Sikh Bhagat and guru, the Shintoist kami, the Taoist shengren, and the Buddhist arhat or bodhisattva also as saints. Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official ecclesiastical declaration, as in the Catholic faith, or by popular acclamation (see folk saint).

Do I need to care why Gretchen or Galaunt are considered holy? And perhaps others, such as Fey, may consider them evil if their holiness was in driving out the Fey? Everything is relative!

I do have a book that I've used a few times (The Lesser Keys) that randomly generates the holy days. I think I've done that for some of my little pantheon. So, in looking back to the Centaur Druid that the characters are likely to meet, turns out he worships Tonna (from this post). And Tonna has a single holiday: The planting of crops at the end of winter is when Tonna's adherents celebrate. Quiet prayers at the edge of the crops at dawn and pouring out mead from the previous year's harvest. And it turns out I HAVE named this mountain range: Vele Hory Range.

Hopefully I can remember some of this for our game! And welcome to December 2023!

Spelunking my library part 3: Finishing college

I actually still have a few note pads of forms that were 3rd party character sheets, the old Astrogators Guide which is not even full, and a few other forms and things.

Old school Traveller Character Sheets

The box is now a plastic bin

In college I did not have a lot of money, so could only get a few things, Even after I stopped most of my gaming, I still managed to add a few things. The random Traveller magazine, or game that may fit in with Traveller. While not actively playing, I was still drawing maps, making up spaceships, and generally spending some time in Traveller-space.

But all things come to an end, and in my junior year of college I got married and when I graduated, my cardboard box of game stuff, along with the handmade wooden box full of minis, followed me to North Carolina, to stay in the closet until I got divorced a couple of years later. And then I found the big reprint book of the Alien Races, and realized I really missed Traveller. But that is a story for the next post!

never played it but I liked the cover - same guy who drew/write the Mechanoids (which I did buy during this period as well and just got the reprint book, being nostalgic and all that)

A starport in the Astrogators Guide

lower decks of an armed merchant

upper decks of the armed merchant. I do believe the deck plans are a lot larger than the 400dtons, even with the 10% slosh space!

One of the few Traveller magazines I have other than a dozen or so JTAS. I miss those days - everything today is PDF. Sure, cheaper, but you can't put in a box to pull out decades later! But reading a magazine just seems so much better than reading a PDF.

OSE Session 7 - To The Glade

"Well," said the witch, "I know nothing about this earth stone master Enoki. Mayhaps, if it were stolen in the desert, the desert rather than the mountains may be a better place to search? As for the willow wisps, they be fey. Neither evil nor good, but mischievous like most fey. They's as soon walk you off a cliff in the middle of the night as take you to a pile of riches. I tell 'em to shoo usually and pay them no mind. But they can be tricksy so just keep yer wits about ye. And yes, I've heard tales of that centaur up the mountain. Some sort of druid I've heard. Shay, the potion peddler, has some truck with him. She should be up in the morning as I hired her to gather some willow's beard mushrooms up the mountain. If you'uns will take her up there and guard her, and help with the haul, I'll see about brewing you a healing draught to help in yer travels." Her face seemed to flicker a moment, noticed only by Quinby. "Now shoo, shoo! An old lady needs her beauty sleep you know!" and she pressed the group out of the small house and into the night.

"Did anyone else see her face shift?" asked Quinby. No one else had noticed, and despite his question, the group decided to stay the night in the pole barn behind the house, also dug into the hill a bit. The night was clear, the stars sparkling above, and through the trees, the lights of Windemere Crossing could just barely be made out down at the bottom of the hills. The leaves had already fallen at this height, the bare branches stark against the stars.

Though the night was cold, the hay made both a warm and comfortable bed. Rennor settled into a corner, pulling what looked to be an old goat blanket over her. Enoki found the back corner of the pole barn, dug under the hill a bit, to be warm enough and settled down, mycelium digging into the fecund dirt. Quinby played the stolen lute a bit to the amazement of the seven goats sharing the barn. Bessie, the milk goat, seemed particularly entranced by his playing wand her head bobbed in time to the music. Despite wanting to have a watch overnight, the adventurers all fell into a deep sleep, one of the best sleeps they have had in weeks. Despite Rennor's surprisingly loud snores from the corner hay pile.

Sharn the potion peddler

The next morning, Bellatrix brought out a stack of pancakes almost as tall as Quinby. Sharn was a beuatifu Orc who helped set up the outside table. Breakfast turned out to be nasty as the Halfling, lacking in manners despite his ability to charm people, managed to get his entire hand in the crock of syrup. And failed miserably trying to steal Bellatrix's handkerchief again. 

"Now you be careful," the witch said, "as there are brigands this time of year. You're going to have some nice but cold weather, I feel it in my bones."

The group, sated from pancakes but sadly lacking the handkerchief, started up the mountain. Rennor was heading back to town, loathe to miss her training. "Be a good protector," said Enoki as she headed back down the mountain as they headed in the opposite direction.

Baldur asked Sharn a bit about herself, and they found some more details about Anne's Farm. It is about two days hard walk southwest of Windemere Crossing. There is a stone with a mark on it that always has fresh water, and the woods are taking back what was once theirs. The group started to ask if perhaps she would be something of a caretaker should they buy that farm. She was shy but was at least thinking about it.

During their talking and past lunch, Quinby noticed two men crouched ahead of them on the path. In a loud voice, he said "I think there are two men up there going to the bathroom." The rest of the group saw the two men, one armed with a sword, and the other a stout cudgel, come out from the bushes.

"Hello," said Baldur, "what are you doing?"

"There's a toll. Winter is coming and we need to get ready so we don't starve. And getting up the mountain here, we've a toll you need to pay."

Enoki moves a lot faster than one would expect a walking mushroom to move and comes right up to the pair. "You really don't want to do this," he said, and spread spores to the two. The one with the sword gets a dumbfounded expression on his face. The other looks at his companion, "Wayne, what's got into you? Wayne?". Seeing the swordsman just standing there, sword almost dropping from his hand, Earl of the cudgel runs off (having failed his morale roll). 

Enoki leans close to the remaining brigand, and in a harsh voice says, "You are not picking a good life choice." The tone in the man's head triggered a deep fear, and he will need to wash his britches as soon as he can. I believe Baldur adds that one must take care of oneself but not at the expense of others, and hard work is better than thieving. 

Wayne is released and runs away, and the group continues their journey to the glade where Shar knows the willow's beard grows. They approach the place near nightfall. Off to their left, glowing perhaps from that last ray of sunlight falling, was a mushroom circle. A slick stepping stone crossed the creek that dropped off into a large pond. Quinby hopped right across as did Sharn. However, both Baldur and Enoki slipped, almost feeling as though they were pushed. Tinkling laughter could be heard as they got dunked into the surprisingly deep pond. 

While Baldur clambered out, Enoki dove a bit deeper, searching for some rich pond silt to add to his dirt pile. A cold, small hand seemed to guide him to a particularly thick and rich bit of mud. Grabbing the mud, he made his way back the surface. Cold and wet, Sharn hurried them up to the campsite and they soon had a fire going. While eating and drying out their clothes. a beautiful woman walked up from the path, her black hair shining as if wet. 

"Are you travelers from far lands? Can you tell me stories?" Startled, the group thinks for a moment, then Quinby tells the beautiful tale of how Halflings came into the world. Sadly, I did not write down the player's tale as it was quite good. But basically, a small man fell in love with a star, and somehow later falling stars made the half-men, or Halflings. Really wish we had recorded that or something, but the player came up with this long tale on the fly. Now that is role playing!

And we closed the session there. Due to that story, their water bottles will be full of fresh water for the next 4 days no matter how much they use. And Enoki will find that for the next 4 days as well, a good night's sleep with that river mud will heal an extra HP per day.

NPCs Met

Sharn - the potion peddling Orc

Earl and Wayne - ineffective brigands

Verey Ambervale, the Naied who lives in that pond they fell in

The Glade

Spelunking my library part 2: Expanded Character Books and More

Once I was actually playing Traveller, I also started getting more books. Book 4 was nice with the expanded character generation, but not having any military experience, while I enjoyed creating the expanded characters the rest of that books was not really used other than having a lot more weapons to choose from. High Guard Book 5, though, is falling apart as I read and used that so much. I built so many ships that were probably very impractical. Yet it was something I greatly enjoyed. And Scout Book 6 opened up the entire system - no longer limited to the home world but we could create sweeping vistas of solar systems full of planets, moons, gas giants and planetoid belts. While a lot of the theory that went into that book may no longer hold true, it really does not matter as the rules of what is possible keeps changing. Hot gas giants inside the habitable zone of a star, giant Earth-type planets, and too many planets in an orbit are just some of the things we (well, not me so that is a royal we!) keep finding as we get a better view of the universe around us. And for me - it is a game so as long as it is fun and consistent, then that is what wins for me! Those books kept me occupied for years even when I was not in a gaming group. One of the best parts of Traveller for me is the sheer breadth of solo-play available. One of the reasons my signature on COTI mentions using T5 as a toolbox: all the versions have so many things you can do without really needing a GM or other players. Though eventually that does pale if you are not using it in some fashion. Which is why I am happy to be able play still and share stuff over on COTI.

Hand drawn on graph paper, then cut out and glued to another sheet of paper. Obviously I have always loved spaceships!

I was also delving into the non-GDW books: Lees' Guide, SORAG, Scouts and Merchants. I sucked up all the books I could find. I had a subscription to the JTAS and always looked forward to the mailer as well as the magazine. Back then, the mailer usually had some TAS form on it which was a really nice touch. That may have been one of the reasons I love physical props and make in-game ID cards that double as a character sheet for my players. 

I also picked up Striker in those years. While never playing the tactical skirmish game, just as with High Guard I build a LOT of grav vehicles and things. Most were never practical, but I enjoyed making up grav tanks that would, in a real game, probably be destroyed way too fast. But it was fun. And now I want to pull that box out and see about making vehicles again! The only one I remember making was a grav speeder for my Scout character. Visually it was reminiscent of the police car from Bladerunner, just heavily armed and armored. It fit in his 200-ton custom Scout craft he got for doing something that the Imperium really, really appreciated. 

I also started getting the 15mm Martian Metal minis. I have quite a lot of those, badly painted. Along with the 15mm scale air/raft. 

the deluxe box was starting to overflow with Traveller goodness! And now I realize I never got High Passage 1 in print - need to check to see if that is on one of the CDs!

By the time I stopped playing Traveller in college (girls seemed much more interesting, and yes, I was a very late bloomer!) that deluxe box was about full: books 0-6, along with SORAG, Merchants and Merchandise, Scouts and Assassins (as I guess everyone likes playing as assassin) and a few copies of the JTAS. High Passage which as FASA's version of the JTAS  

I also picked up a few other games, Melee and Wizard and a bunch of those microgames which I no longer have. For some reason, liking Melee & Wizard, I got the Advanced Wizard and Melee books, but never got the actual RPG book. 

Sadly, the game stuff was put up in a closet, the moved to another closet as I moved after college, and moved again when I was getting divorced. But I broke it out, and had somehow managed to keep all those books, as well as a box I had made for the minis I had bought in high school and college.

Going through some of the folders and notebooks I still have, I found a lot of photocopies of blank world and planet maps. My father made a bunch of copies for me of a lot of Traveller stuff. This was back in the early 80s and while he had no idea what I was doing, and neither did I, my parents were very supportive of me (well, until I moved in with my girlfriend, then that caused a rift that took a decade or more to repair!) I also had his old manual typewriter, so a lot was typed up to make it look better :)

Original hand-drawn and typed D'Arlee Subsector

Using Travellermap API. Though I really like my old one

I had forgotten so much of the stuff I still have. And it is really a blast going through notebooks that have been with me for over 40 years and I still get enjoyment out of them. And for me, that is the reason I love RPGs. While yes, they are often escapism and all that, being the late bloomer as mentioned, I am so much more comfortable in my own head than around people. And games let me explore any number of worlds and universes, and even, as per this blog, revisit ones I've not been to in years.

And yes, there is much more spelunking to do. I may have to create an index for the books that I do have. While I certainly remember the main books, those High Guard periodicals sort of surprised me as I had forgotten about them. And when I dig back into that magic box of memories, I wonder what else will surprise me?

OSE Session 6: To The Witch

"Well," said Alore Edris, "I can take that lot of silks from you. These appear to be fine silks, possibly from Quoro to the west. Fine silk works there. I often get my silks from there." The tall wizard gestured and a Goblin took the crates and started hauling them to the back of her well-lit store. Behind her, the 12-foot-tall cases were filled with books, scrolls and parchments. Higher up were a bevy of hats topped the shelfs, and floating in various well-lit spots beautifully designed clothes were on magically lifted racks. The adventurers had come here to sell off the silks found in the barrows. 

Baldur had already replaced his leather armor, and Quinby asked the stern looking woman if she dealt in armor. "Well," she replied, "not armor per se, but I can craft some magic armor from those silks that may be a more fitting armor for one of your stature and style." 

"Cost is no object" said the kinder, his eyes on the hats above. "And, may I see that beret above?" His glee was barely in control as the hat floated down to him with a quick gesture. "And can you make my armor match this? And" his lit up even more as a thought crossed his mind, "could you make this a hat of holding?" 

The wizard looked down at the Halfling, her hands rubbing her silk scarf. "Yes, but that will take a bit longer than the 3 weeks for the armor. Assuming I can get the ingredients, it will be about 6 weeks. And with the hat, it won't be quite as large as your traditional bag of holding,  but should hold a fair amount."

There was no bargaining as none of the adventurers had much in the way of financial wits. 500 gold later, the deal was struck for the armor to be ready on the 15th of Reedwryme, and the hat by the end of that same month, about 2 weeks later. "I should have it all by the Festival of the Green Man" she said as she finished up her measurements of the thief.

the beret and matching silk armor

Offering her the python eyes and teeth, she shuddered a bit and said, "You may want to try selling those to old Bellatrix, the witch up in the hills. I have no use for that sort of magic ingredient. Rennor can probably take you up there, she and Sharn often visit the old woman." 

Our crew leaves the store and heads to the town square, in search of the teenaged Rennor.

Rennor was watching the spearmen train in front of the barracks, the sun high overhead. While mimicking the motions, she felt a light tap on her elbow, and looking down, sees an open bag with a python eye staring at her. A quick intake of breath and she sees the Druid, the thief and the Mycelium.

"We hear you may be able to take us to Bellatrix - think she could use these?" asks Quinby. 

"She's a scary old witch, but she may be able to use those." The Orc looks up in the sky and notes the sun. "We could leave now and get there about dusk. There are some good places to camp nearby."

Baldur speaks, asking about Bellatrix. "What makes her so scary? Has she harmed anyone or caused mischief?" Quinby blurts out "Does she eat children?"

Rennor shook her head at the Halfling, replying "She's been here since before Windemere Crossing started growing again. Years ago, a couple of boys were bullying some other kid. She cursed the bullies, and ever since then, their pants never stay up! They left not long after according to my dad. But she has an evil eye I've heard, so I never look her straight in the face. My friend Sharn, she's a potion peddler, will probably be there tomorrow. She's at the stables right now, probably getting reading lessons. Da is big on education. Are you ready now - I can take you. For a price...".

Quinby holds out a handful of gold. Eyes wide, Rennor just takes a single gold saying that would be enough. They leave town through the east gate, which is still under construction. Soon they leave the noises of the town behind, moving south through the town farmlands. Eventually, much to Baldur's relief, they are in the hilly scrublands that lead up into the mountains.

A few hours later, moving through rougher hills, with the trees starting to lose their leaves, they hear a rustling, windy sound. Up the path, maybe 150 yards ahead, coming against the wind are 2 dust devils with swirling leaves caught up. As they get closer, they realize that the two dust devils are going against the winds, and there are whispers and voices in the twirling columns of leaves.

"So hungry" says one, the other responding, "And there is food ahead." Baldur recognizes the leaflings from his days in the grove. These spirits, mere shadows of a dryad, are hungry for life. They feed on the life force of living creatures. Baldur asks what these creatures want. "Food - and you are food."

"Ahh, if I should give you some of my life force, would you let us pass?" asks the Druid. The susurrus of the leaves goes on, and one says "We are not sure we can hold back." The Leaflings approach. Out of the blue, our thief takes out his stolen lute and starts playing very badly. "Hurts!" says one of the Leaflings, and rapidly leaves the path. Quinby looked sad, but Enoki consoled him: "It is off to get more of its friends to hear your playing. It is a good thing." Smiling, Quinby is about to start playing again when Baldur stops and asks the Leafling again, "Will you let us pass if I give some of my life to you?" The Leafling hesitates, but as Quinby's fingers approach the lute strings, it too runs off. 

Rennor, quiet throughout this encounter, shakes her head. "I've never seen one of those before!" And they proceed up the path. 

Nearing dusk, the see a house built into the hill, a neat garden in front. In the light, the walls look like gingerbread. Of course Quinby licks the shale walls, disappointed that they are in fact not gingerbread. There is some noise from within the house, and an old, hunched over woman flings open the door.

"Wat are you doing here? And quit licking my house young man!" The group sees your typical witch from the stories: long bent nose with a mole on the tip, black frumpy garments, and peaked hat looking like it was just thrown on. 

"Ahh, is that you young Rennor? What brings you out at this time of day? Getting too long in the day for you to get back to you father before dark?"

A brief introduction and the guests enter the house. A large cauldron is bubbling in the center of the room, and Bellatrix Grimsbane, the witch, eyes the halfling then the pot. There is a some discussion (forgive me - I am tired and did not write down a lot of conversation) and a deal is made to camp out behind the house for the night as Sharn will be there, and between the somewhat gruesome python and other parts of dead creatures, a deal is struck to exchange a healing potion for going with Sharn for the supplies needed.

Enoki did ask 3 questions, which I've yet to formulate any replies to:

and ask if she knows about the druid centaur...if she has a way to track the "stone", and if she knows anything about willow wisps. I'll some dialog prepared for next week as I've already got what I think she will say.

The thief actually leveled up, but the other characters have a bit further to go. OSE does not have equal levels by class, but hopefully that is a bit balanced by the skills and abilities. And as well generally play fairly rules light, a lot of that really does not matter all that much. But I would like to get the other 2 levelled up but also don't want to just heap on gold and XP. But they will get there!

The Quick Recap

They did some shopping, paid for armor and a hat of holding, found the witch may want those odd things and was told Rennor knoew the way. They find her, and have an encounter with Leaflings on the way up to the witch. They meet her, and make a deal for a healing potion.

NPCs and Encounters

Rennor - they have met the Orc teenaager before

Alore Edris, wizard owner ofAlore Edris' Shoppe

Bellatrix Grimsbane, a witch on the mountain

Leaflings, a weak and hungry sprite of swirling leaves. That does not like Quinby's music. From the fantastic Monster Overhaul (it was a random Fall encounter)

Bellatrix Grimsbane

The players know this though their characters do not. Part of our self-imposed 30 day RPG challenge. It came from this picture when I was looking for witch characters. And it tickled me.

“Aye, an’ there be an evil witch who lives up in that Whitecona Grove. She got herself an evil eye and can curse ye as soon as look at ye. Old and crook-backed, she makes poisons and eats little ‘uns”. Overheard at the Nimble Priest Inn, the staff merely look like Old Gretchen is in her drinks again. Further research will reveal that there is an older woman who lives up in the grove, been there for as long as anyone can remember. Even longer in fact. But behind the scenes, there have been a series of Bellatrix Grimsbane over the decades. Always a witch, and usually more attuned to healing and love potions more than poisons, but she also has a wide range of poisons, some very specific in their application. The current Bellatrix works closely with Sharn, the potion peddler. Bellatrix has the facilities to make some of the potions that, as a traveling potion maker, the Orc cannot make on her own. Sharn brings in herbs and plants and other things that are not available near the Grove.

Bellatrix Grimsbane is more a title bestowed centuries ago, and each witch will train the following one. Usually someone ends up being at the right place at the right time so that there has been an uninterrupted Bellatrix for more than 300 years. One of the first cantrips they learn is the glamor that lets them appear as an aged crone, which they “wear” whenever there are people nearby.

The current Bellatrix is only about 25 years old, and has been in her position only a couple of years. She was a servant that was abused, and escaped from the caravan she was in when the caravan stayed at Windermere Crossing. Running miles past the town, she wandered into the Whitecona Grove and was taken in by the previous Bellatrix Grimsbane. Three years later, the former Bellatrix wandered off to gather herbs and was not seen again, and the girl assumed the role.

Her house is dug into the hillside, and at first glance does appear to be made of gingerbread. Closer inspection shows it to be an odd sort of shale. And yes, she has a giant cauldron in her kitchen but a child has never been it other than to get a bath.

A friendly face to the kind, she is fierce to those who hurt others. She has been known to visit town as Bellatrix and most people cross the street to avoid the evil looking woman. Oddly she visits with Zesp Zrag who seems unafraid. But there is coin to be made by selling her the tools she needs, and in buying her potions. Her healing potion is not only effective, but carries a faint taste of lilac and tastes better than any others.

The stories of her evil eye are a bit exaggerated. The previous Bellatrix, years ago before Sheriff Sprigbasher came to town, cursed several ruffians that were beating up some street urchins. The ruffians could not keep their pants on no matter what they did, and the constant laughter at the two caused them to leave town. No one knows if they can keep their pants on yet. She also always appears angry and most people try to avoid eye contact out of habit at this point.

Spelunking My Library

Making a post over on COTI, I had to dig through the online copies of my Traveller collection to find Lee's Guide as I wanted to make sure it was what I remembered: a series of adventure vignettes basically that had a range of places you could put the adventure. Then realized I have most of the Far Future CDs and have a GIANT library that I rarely go through. Yet I get more stuff thinking it will be the next great thing to run or play.

And by online, really OneDrive so it is both local and saved off on-line. Makes updating computers pretty easy. And that electronic option also makes searching a lot easier sometimes as, though not a great search engine, the on-line search in OneDrive sometimes finds what I want. It is a lot easier than digging out that plastic box 4 feet in front of my but behind the printer cart. Though I really, really do love to dig through the old physical media - something so much more satisfying. And some of that is not on-line that I've found: my terrorist came from an odd magazine I picked up in college and still have.

And yet I buy more stuff, read it once, and then stick it on the shelf if it is a physical book and never get back to it. I've seen more than 1 blog going over their existing books, basically re-reading things after years of not even looking at them. And here I am thinking to do the same thing. And dig into that box on the floor to remind myself of the journey I've taken, which all started with the original Traveller Deluxe Box Set.

after 40 years, the box is a bit bedraggled.

Way back in high school, I loved board games, especially tactical games. I was just very, very bad at them. I played my neighbor who was several years younger, and he always beat me. I decided that role playing games may be a better fit. This was the early 80s, and despite actually being invited to play by some fellow schoolmates for D&D, I was not a social person in high school. Or particularly social now but I just hide it better! Not sure how I found it, but I think I actually ordered the box from GDW itself. I picked that one from the few I was looking at - think Runequest was there, bit for some reason I had no interest in the actual D&D game system for some reason. Probably because I was much more into SF than fantasy, and the chance to create my own SF universe seemed a dream. 

It showed up and I spent a lot of time reading through it and pouring over the 2 maps it had. The Imperium was huge, and, coming from a failed wargame background, I loved the hex map of the Spinward Marches. Sadly, not being social, and never actually having played an RPG, I did not understand it as well as I wanted. I do know that Book 0 was a great introduction to RPGs in general and Traveller in specific. And I lived in that Scout ship from the introductory adventure in my dreams.  But I still thought in wargame modes so did not really understand RPGs. 

I devoured all 5 books in that box: read and re-read Book 0, tried to understand character generation, and did spend a lot of time building ships with Book 2, and creating worlds with Book 3. And read the intro adventure and tried to play by myself. And for those of you who have read my solo gaming attempts, well, they have gotten a bit better but really for me, a RPG needs others' imaginations to let us fly even further in our own imagination. Red Bull may give you wings or whatever, but fellow RPG players give you the universe. Though I do a lot of world building, they are empty edifices until characters can live in them. 

It was not until college when someone told me there was a guy down the hall with the same box. Yes - I had brought the box with me to college. In fact - that box, which slowly kept accumulating more books, followed me wherever I went. I finally go into an actual RPG group and played. Not just Traveller, but D&D and other RPGs that were around in the early 80s. I kept getting more game material (which I'll try and cover) but the best part was I had 2 other friends who were deep in the Traveller game. We'd play Friday nights until early Saturday morning. I'll admit things were not exactly clear about 3am, but it helped that a nearby bakery opened their back door when making donuts. We could get a bag for $2 I think. Fresh out of the oil, no chewing required as the sugary goodness simply melted in your mouth. And the bag did not fair well...

I am really nostalgic and hold on to things that meant a lot. 1984 membership card from the Old Dominion University Role Gamers Club! As battered as the deluxe box. And yes, I still have it.

Traveller is my first love in RPGs, and though I stopped gaming when I discovered girls (as mentioned, I was not social and that included the whole dating thing), years later I found the Traveller reprint books and COTI. And the local Asheville Gaming Club. But that is a story for another time.

Note - one of the things that got me started looking at what I had was from this blog post from Alegis Downport.