Cowboys & Dinos II: Session 3

Our adventurers have a good night sleeping at the Dusty Boot, though with all the rain it may be the Muddy Boot. Next morning, they get up and resupply for the trip. At the land office, to check on the status of Hambone's wife's land up inn New Harmony, they find to their dismay that it is closed. It is Saturday and office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 4. With an hour off for lunch. Wish I had that schedule...

They find Smitty up at the Grey Stables, sleeping in the loft above Bessie, his mule. Waking him up with coffee and breakfast, they head out towards Fuente's cabin. And this is where I confused the players I fear: this cabin is NOT the 40 acres he sometimes stays at when trying to get away from the wanted posters. Those 40 acres possibly being Hambone's 40 acres in New Harmony. This is a cabin Fuentes sometimes is at when in the Copper Peak area. It is more of a safe house for this area for him. New Harmony is about a week north-north-west of Copper Peak at Puddin' Pace. Maybe a day or so at Volgol pace. One of these days I really need to get all that figured out rather than relying on the speed of plot!

Smitty

Smitty's mule. not everyone rides a dinosaur!

Once that got straightened out, they head up the hills to the northeast of Copper Peak. It is a mining trail, used by miners up in the mountains, and it is an easy ride even as it starts to climb into the mountains proper. A few hours into their journey, they hear the distressed calls of a baby ankylosaurus. Checking ahead, Lee sees a mother has been caught by deadfall, and the baby looks like an easy snack for the T-Rex. And roll for initiative!

The battle takes a few rounds, and to their dismay, with a protection of 6, most of their bullets just glance off the dino's thick hide. No one wanted to risk their dinosaurs into a confrontation with the T-Rex though from a mechanical viewpoint, that triceratops and other ankylosaurus were the only things that could take down the beast. But this group is protective of their mounts and companions. The T-Rex is taking a bite out of the downed ankylosaurus, Hambone misses more than he hits, and Lee, even at close range, misses a few times and does little damage. And Smitty, armed with just a Bowie knife, stays back and tries to keep his mule calm. Which ain't easy with a T-Rex nearby! At this point, seeing guns were not being very useful, Archibald uses his hat of levitation and manages to jam a log into the T-Rex's mouth. Which does cause some real damage finally but makes the dino a bit angry. Leaving the downed ankylosaurus and baby, it charges Molly and snaps at her, fortunately missing. Seeing as the fight would not end well, Archibald, again utilizing his hat of levitation, took a lit stick of dynamite from Molly and attempted to put into the T-Rex's mouth. A bad roll and then a grit point and good roll, and Molly is covered by T-Rex brains and blood.

battle scene

yay, we won! as posted by Molly's player

Hambone manages to stitch up Mama, and with the aid of Puddin', get the logs off the wounded dinosaur. Who bleats a thank you and limps off with her child to escape the carnage.

baby anklysaurus

They manage to cut a good chunk of T-Rex meat for processing later and head away, knowing that carrion eaters and others will be attracted to the carnage. They find a good place to camp later, and Hambone scales a tree and spots chimney smoke in the direction of the cabin, indicating that the cabin would appear to be occupied. 

And this is where we ended this chapter. 

Cowboys and Dinos II: Session 2

Travelling northward, the pace is dictated by the Puddin ' Pace as an ankylosaurus is rarely in a rush as well as being loaded down with Hambone's camping and barbering paraphernalia. Molly and Volgol head to Copper Peak, the letter from the caravan leader, Carl, in hand. She gets there late afternoon, winds from the south helping Volgol fly a bit faster. Getting her flying dino set up, she checks in at the post office to find Anaconda Mining, where Marcus Daly (not yet the Copper King), has his offices.

An officious Reginald let's our heroine know he is at the smelter, checking on the copper output but would be back at the office about 6. Not willing to leave the letter with an underling, she indicates she will be back with the letter to properly deliver it. Moving about town, she gets rooms at the Dusty Boot, a small hotel that is right in the middle of pricing. She reserves spaces in the stables (and dino stables are really large!) and awaits the group.

Which is finally approaching, Puddin' taking the occasional bite of grass as he plods along, Pachy and Lee just about dizzy from going back and forth while scouting ahead, and Archibald and Archimedes keeping Hambone and his dino company. The rain is starting to hit pretty hard as they find Molly, who now makes arrangements to get Volgol off the water tower eyrie and into a covered barn. It takes a bit longer than they expect, and Molly is a bit late to the mining offices. Marcus Daly is still in, so she hands off the letter. Marcus reads it, harrumphs a few times and asks about the raiders. After explaining how they helped out, he thinks they could make a good team for guarding the copper caravans. They are getting hit a bit more often, and a flying scout as well as well-armed guards may well be warranted. Molly hands him a business card, and she leaves.

The group meets up with Sheriff John Watson. Lee is wanting any information on Fuentes, the bad guy he is after. The sheriff knows of him but does not know anything about him passing through. He does know that Mason Fuentes was a sharpshooter in the Civil and is an ace shot: can shoot the wings off a fly at a hundred paces". Though he does know Smitty, and Smitty is a source of a lot of information the sheriff can use. He is usually at the Rusty Pickaxe on Fridays, so the group heads there along with the sheriff to see if they can get any info. Hambone lets Molly wear is very heavy bear fur coat as it will keep the rain out. Sheriff Watson thinks Hambone is a find father and no one corrects the impression.

Sheriff John Watson

The bar is a bit more empty than normal for a Friday, what with the rain. Molly takes off her coat and takes a seat at the bar where she can watch. Sheriff Watson finds Smitty at the bar, and he, Lee and Archibald take a table to talk with the snitch. Lee offers a beer and $2, a rich haul, after Smitty at first cannot recall anything. With the aid of a beer and cash, he recalls that Mason Fuentes has a place outside of New Harmony - some plot of land that a woman bought almost 20 years ago but never showed up to claim. Despite another $1, Smitty does not know who the woman was.

Hambone meantime, noticing that one lone customer seemed to be showing a bit more interest in the conversation, wandered over and started a conversation. Which ended up in a few hands of poker, which Bruce, a heavy-set man, thought Hambone was cheating at. Reaching for his gun, Hambone sets Betty, his sawed-off shotgun, on the table. Roll for initiative...

the Rusty Pickaxe (not sure where I found this map)

Bruce gets initiative but manages to roll a 1 on the d20 (traditional d20 to roll high. I get a bit confused as the previous game was roll low for better results. Why the Traveller 5 dice pool thing still confuses me!). His shot goes really wild, shattering the window behind Hambone. Yet the piano player plays on...

Lee, seeing this, moves extremely quickly and manages to both disarm and lock down Bruce before Hambone gets a shot off, and the sheriff is still moving from the table. His arm about to break, Bruce admits to working sometimes for Fuentes. He does say that there is a cabin up in the woods that Fuentes stays at when passing through, but he is not there. Sheriff Watson takes Bruce to jail to wait for the travelling judge for pulling a gun and attempting to shoot Hambone. 

All this time, a well-dressed woman on the stairs watched, and finally comes down the table. Introducing herself as Juanita, she is glad that Bruce is getting locked up. He has been rough with her girls before and is no longer a customer of hers. But Bruce or Mason had managed to steal her diary, and she believes it is up at the cabin. She offers a reward for the diary, with the caveat that she does not want anyone to read her personal notes.

Juanita

And that is where we left the game.

A few things: Archibald needs some attention here, and I need to figure out how to make sure he has things to do as well. And I have some ideas about that diary in fact - may be more than a simple MacGuffin. And I feel I am stumbling in running this game as well. I could blame work, which is always an issue, especially as I was on call that evening so had to check on things. I feel I am good at background and setting up things, not so much actually running them. Some games run well, I know, but I felt this session was not particularly good. 

Anyway - need to see about a cabin in the woods, and I have a couple ideas there for that as well. Some of this was based on a site for generating random wild west game plots (which I can no longer find. For whatever reason I rarely bookmark stuff anymore. as I can usually just find it) While it said AI, I really feel it is probably like most generators and a list of words and combinations to apply to those words. 

Cowboys and Dinos II: Session 2

Going with this is session 2 as the 1st session did see some action and was not just session 0. 

Staying at the Pony Express Station, they met up with Sally and Daisy. She had just come back from a long run from Bliss Springs, having passed off the mail to the next carrier. Our group gets their dinos settled in, and they get some beans and ham from Cookie at the station. There are about a half dozen riders there, as the pony express is on the way out with the introduction of the telegraph and the expansion of the railways. 

Looking for any rumors, they hear that Copper Peak is a rowdy town, and not a fitting place for women. The copper smelter up there is starting to pollute the river it is on, and there are some folk not happy about that. Further up the pass, Harmony is a bit of a cipher. Most of the riders think it is just a religious community, and they do not get a lot of mail. And the copper caravan is running a bit late: every week or so the brontos haul down a huge load of processed copper to get loaded on the train at Aurora. Hambone manages to pull a rotting tooth from one of the riders, utilizing his barbering skills.

Next morning, Molly heads out to deliver the 2 packages to Copper Peak, and the rest of the group head out at Puddin's pace. It only take her maybe 2 hours to get there and drop off the package (we got a bit squirrely in getting the times all correct, but as a pterodactyl can fly at a pretty good clip, Volgol can cover the ground a lot faster). The walkers encounter a Utah raptor chowing down and give it a wide berth safely. There was some discussion on game mechanics: the martial artist wanted to send his pachycephalosaurus back to the group while he kept a rifle on the feasting dino. As his class was not a dino rider, he does not get the tricks that the dino riders have, so gave it a good chance Pachy may not actually head back but instead decide freedom was his calling. He decided losing his ride was not a good choice, so headed back to let them know about the raptor ahead.

Returning, Molly sees a dead brontosaurus and a cart on the road back to the express station, and fortunately sees her companions coming up the road. She whips out a handkerchief to alert the group, and then we have a very brief battle. I had asked that the group establish their communications ahead of time just so we had it in place. This is a long time before cellphones or even radios were a thing!

1.RED Bandana - Danger, get armed 
2.BLUE Bandana - Water ahead or camp area 

3.BLACK Bandana- Stop, do not move on 

4.WHITE Bandana - All Clear, keep moving 

5.YELLOW Bandana - Move stealthy, possible trouble

We used Owlbear.Rodeo for the battle and it went...okay. I still do not have good timing in running battles other than the Fantasy Trip (and that game is easy as the battle is a board game with specific rules and all that. Apex also has nonsensical movement rules, so we had to ad lib what to do. I will have to think that through a bit and figure out a better way of handling that). I did a vague mass combat for the raiders against the caravan, and the caravan kept rolling better so most of the raiders ended up getting killed. 

Lee, our martial artist, used Pachy to ram other horses (well, a Pachycephalosaurus does have a really, really thick skull! And while he is not a dino rider, I did allow him ramming speed as that is a natural thing for them). He managed to knock over two horses and missed his attack rolls horribly so flew over the rider. Fortunately, he remembered he has the luck skill, so can re-roll 1 d20 a day. He managed to hit the rider but only managed 1 entire point of damage. Though being a level 4 martial artists he has quick blows so could attack again, this time bloodying the raider's nose. Meanwhile Archibald was moving up and shooting. Having a rate of fir eof 3, he gets off a fair number of shots, sorely wounding several of the raiders. Hambone is moving up slowly but does finally get a shot off late in the combat, but misses. Molly was swinging wide and put in the killing shot for one or two of the raiders. 

In the end all the raiders were killed except for one. They tie him up, and the caravan will take the prisoner to Aurora with a note from Deputy Soung. They eat a bit after burying the bodies to the side of the road, and, as it was getting late, that is where we left things. 

I gave the players 150 (or was it 250?) experience points. Really should review the XP as I used the default Nazi soldier for the mooks, even though they have some pretty good bonuses which bummed out one player as they were about on par with him in terms of some things. But hey - you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!

I did get most of the Owlbear set up with tokens for all the people. I just forgot to make tokens for the players! I sued a handy token maker which works well. I am so appreciative of all the free tools that people put out there for various games.

Apex Mentalist

I know, not the January Character Challenge, but I am thinking I want a mentalist in the game for some reason to yet be determined! And I found this image which sort of fits with what I was thinking. 

from ArtStation - Wild Frontier Game Characters

Mannix "Dragon" Durango tends to acquire things that are not necessarily his, but only from people who can afford to lose those things. He has a preternatural ability to sense extraplanar creatures and has used this in seances for those who can afford his services. He also has the ability to project his thoughts and to read thoughts, which, in the guise of his seances, manages to find where the family jewels may be hidden.

Though his last caper he was almost caught in the act of opening the safe, having read the combination from the town's councilman. And feeling that the extraplanar creatures are beckoning him to the north, he is headed to the badlands to see if he can discover what they want of him.

Our group may meet him in any place, but probably closer to New Dawn, perhaps even past Fort Talon. I'll add random characters to my random encounter tables. Which I have added a few new entries. I hope to get the dino table to a d20 eventually. And finish the initial table, though now I will add the random character to that one!

An attractive man who is older than he appears, he is well-dressed and seems to always have cash on hand for what he needs. He has a bit of a Southern drawl, and he comes across as quite cultured and learned. He admits to being a bit of a self-made man, but also admits that he has also been quite lucky. Always open for a game of chance, he routinely beats the house and there are a few establishments where he is no longer welcome. He always seems to know when to hold them and when to fold them. It helps that he can read minds, of course. 

tables!

character sheet!

Cowboys And Dinos II: Session 0

We finished up the Battletech game, and our mechs are getting repaired and some new stuff getting added. Of course, I rolled badly for most, but eventually my little Locust mech will be a bit better!

Then we rolled into the 2nd game for Cowboys and Dinosaurs. We have 1 player who left, so Jack Looking Horse has gone back to his tribe, herding their triceratops and other dinos. Let us look at the characters we have so far. 

Hambone Hewiggans has been outlined here already in the player's own words.

 

Lee Soung, Martial Artist

Molly Slade and Vogel, Dino Rider

and our newest recruit, 

Archibald and his triceratops Archimedes

I thought there was to be 1 more player, but think he is ghosting us now. So I had to actually run the start of the game earlier than expected as I had been working with the new player over the week to get him mostly set up. A few questions, and a lot of help from the other players, including a recap, and we were ready to go. 

Fortunately, there was a lot of banter back and forth. I had Hawbone's wife, who died 17 years ago, buying 40 acres up in New Dawn. The letter finally caught up from him from his newly discovered sister-in-law Millie. Along with the deed. Hawbone gets Molly to read the letter as he is not good with reading. After discovering he is a land-owning farmer, they decide that they should go to New Dawn to see what is there. Lee, currently a deputy, needs to see if he has some time he can take as well as check for any warrants in that area. As they discuss this, the train on the BB Grappler line shows up, and Archibald and Archimedes gets off. The group is astounded at the load on the triceratops: used to Puddin's collection of sacks, bags, shovels and tools, the gadgets and tools on that dino. Some brief introductions, and they discover they are heading to the same place: New Dawn!

I need to get better at making fake newspapers!

Lee finds a bounty in that area and gets permission from the sheriff to take some time and go up there to see about getting that bad man

Leaving early the next morning, they start their slow trek (thanks Puddin'!) to New Dawn, a journey of a week or two. They encounter a wounded chasmasaurs, and Hambone slowly approaches the critter. With his animal affinity and an excellent roll, he gets close enough to pet the beast and feed it an apple (Puddin's loves apples, and he has a large sack of them) and notice that there are tribal markings from Walking Horse's tribe. Archibald gets one of the apples and puts one of potions from his alchemist bandolier in it, and Hambone feeds the poor dino. He is amazed at the bleeding stopping, and the wound itself knitting back together. The dino wanders off, no longer limping. They head on and get to the Pony Express Station to stay the night.

Chasmosaurus

And that is where we left the session: everyone met up, we had one encounter which could have gone a lot differently, but the player had the maximum best roll, so we played it that way. I even used my random encounter charts from the last game! And funnily enough the players remembered more of my world than I did. 

I still need to re-read the rules and familiar with its version of save and action rolls, grit points, and how combat will work. And re-read more on the next destination, Copper Peak. As they are heading northwest to where the New Dawn township is.

game map from 1st game

game map for game 2!

I have a week to come up with more details and ideas. I've already started the game 2 bible, and it has several possible game ideas. I just need to get them into place. And have things printed out for immediate reference.

Traveller 5.10 Book 2: Starships

Book 2 Part 1

Book 1 is reviewed here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

And yes, a bit of a gap here, but work had a few incidents in the last month, so I've been busy. Plus starting up another game of Cowboys and Dinos. Obviously, you can expect my game recaps from that. And yes - it means I am running 2 games, though one only meets once a month or so.

Starships Overview

Ahh, spaceships! And each version of Traveller does it a bit differently. And there is this very lengthy (and often bordering on belligerent) conversation about mixing Classic Book 2 and Book 5 over on COTI. I never did: it was one or the other as for me, they are just different systems. And I like the crunchiness of Book 5 but as I never had space battles, and the ships were mostly just a means of getting from A to B it was not all that critical. We have some people on the forum devoting a LOT of work to something that I feel only he really cares about to that depth, but hey, we all have our rabbit holes!

Anyway, T5.10 Book 2, starting on page 30, gets into spaceships. First, we have an overview of exactly what is a spaceship. And one cannot argue that a "starship is essentially a Hull containing everything necessary for it to move, communicate, carry a payload and (if necessary) defend itself or attack others." It then very briefly covers in-system versus interstellar engines, power systems, sensors, weapons, defensive systems, accommodations and payloads. And that they have to be very tough to withstand the rigors of both space and the infinite number of worlds it may travel to.

We break down the various maneuver drives, from the Classic Maneuver Drive capable up to 1000 diameters of a gravity source (hmm, just what is the diameter of a black hole?), the Gravatic Drive good to 10 diameters (and I want to say that is a MegaTraveller thing but that is just a vague impression as I never read those rules - it came out after I stopped playing Traveller). These first 2 pages are just a summary of the details and plethora of tables to come.

We also get a formal definition of Adventure Class Ships (ACS), Battle Class Ships (BCS) and Fleet Ships. ACS are 100 to 2400 tons, and appropriate for PCs. BCS are 2400 to 100,000 tons. And of course, Fleet Ships are 100,000+ tons. And I wonder if they will ever get a BCS book similar to Classic Book 5. There has been a bit of discussion that lends me to think they are thinking about it. Of course, I am still waiting for the T5 Players Book. It has only been a decade or so...

the Classics

Pages 32 to 49 cover the classic ships. And they mostly maintain the original 1-2 letter classifications. While I miss the starship profile (I used to have that almost memorized and tended to use the 1st section as part of the ID of the ship), it has been replaced partially by the QSP, Quick Ship Profile. Which for the life of me I could not find the actual definition: the index lists a bunch of pages, and I must just be missing the definition (like so much of T5, a bit of cross-referencing would have helped greatly as stuff is just scattered all over the place so I guess, unless you have either wrote the books or read them a few dozen times, expect to get lost). Anyway, looks like it is the classic ship type, a dash, then 2 characters for ship size and hull configuration, then maneuver and jump drive range. So mostly the same as the 1st part of the Book 5 code. And those tables show up much later of course: we get a lot of info but it is not explained until later if you are lucky. And yes, I do like T5 but sadly, the organization and editing are sorely lacking for making this something you can actually play in my opinion. Still using bits and pieces of it when we do play Traveller, but I just wish it had been better edited by someone who had not read it a lot and made a lot of assumptions. 

We have a few pages of 2 ships per page in a sort of summary view, followed by several pages of each ship fully detailed out. And there is a lot of detail - each ship gets a 1 page of text followed 1 page of a LOT of detail.

I really need to actually read all that to see if it makes sense or not. But I miss the brevity of Book 2. Heck - I even got the reprint of Triplanetary as I do like vector space even if I've sadly never been able to play it in any of my Traveller games. But I remember back when I got the deluxe box, I think I made a few planetary templates just to see if I could figure things out.