Classic Traveller, Ticket Time - session report

In the previous session the players had tooled-up and started recruiting for their mercenary company, In tonight's game they started getting into the real meat of doing that by winning their first ticket.

They received a call from the secretary of an Indes officer (mega corp) asking them to appear for an interview the following day. They took the hint and the higher ranking PCs durly turned up outside the Indes building the following morning dressed in their newly acquired combat armour (and to show that they were serious customers with their laser rifles).

They passed through reception where they were given the executive lift key. The ride up to the office was in a plushy carpeted and gold appointed lift. It opened directly into the office of the Indes exec' Stavik Step. Stavik Welcomed the PCs, offered them a seat and some very well-aged whiskey. He also told them that he was expecting another visitor.

The other visitor turned out to be a chap by the name of Vertillum Sandertson a representative of Bertrum35, another mercenary unit. Stavik then described the issue at hand.

In the same system is another airless world (near airless anyway) called Stallone. The planet is wholly owned by Indes and is a major exporter of a moss-like food product. Unfortunately the locals, who live there under license, have been getting upperty of late. There is some kind of widespread underground movement that is stirring them up. This unrest has even led to armed attacks on the local police. Thus Indes is looking to reinforce their authority by placing a hard hitting mercenary unit on the planet to kick any butt that needs kicking, for about a month.

Stavik invited bids from the two companies. Bertrum35's opening bid was 7MC. The PCs joined in the bidding by under cutting, and were themselves undercut. Various other factors were thrown into the mix, such as Bertrum35 taking a week to deploy versus the PCs immediate deployment. In the end the PCs won the deal with the following bid. A one month contract for 3MC + 10% of the increase in tax revenue over the previous season's tax income to be paid at the end of the contract.

The PCs left one fire team to watch over their base and loaded the rest of the platoon on board ship and traveled to Stallone. Once there they met the Indes appointed governor, Kaylor Thondhets and there was a discussion of how the PCs might employ their services. Kaylor wasn't looking for the suggested Shock-and-Awe show, but rather a reinforced police action.  At one point the PCs suggested simply removing the population, and I was reminded of Baron Harkonnen saying that you do not waste a population. So the PCs were told that was not financially viable, and that for now at least they should stick to the proscribed police actions.

The game moved to the first mission. A heavily armed and armoured squad of our friendly mercenaries joined a police convoy to a nearby ranch where taxes were due.

They arrived at the ranch and the police leader, Tarbel Nightstick, went up to the airlock and banged away on the door but got no answer. When the PCs asked if he wanted them to blast the door, the cop was OK with that, he didn't seem to care about the rancher or anyone else inside, he only cared about getting to their money chits.

About this time one of the police went down with air escaping from his suit and it looked like a bullet was to blame. The police started to panic but the mercs spread out and kept an eye out for the shooter. The shooter's next shot went wide, but the PCs got a bead on him. He was on an overlooking cliff top between two boulders. Our heroes stepped out from cover and opened up with their FGMP15's. They both hit and rolled 16 dice each for damage. The boulders, the cliff edge and their adversary were atomised.

There ended the session. We'll pick up exactly where we left off next time.
 

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Classic Traveller, Tooling up, session report

There wasn't a lot of actual role playing in last night's session of Traveller. If you've been following along, you'll know that the PC's had 45MC in their account when the last session ended, and that is a bit of a de-motivator for most players as so often the drive to get money is what moves them along from mission to mission.

I need not have worried. In this session I managed to strip them of fully half that amount, making me a happy referee. Where did it go? Let me illuminate you...

They arrived at the subsector capital, Tircescoe with three letters of introduction from the Indes Mega-Corp CEO, by way of thanks for rescuing his daughter. They used the first one to get into the ship yard and cash in their first favor. The letter got them a 50% discount of ship modifications. Here's what they did to their 600T trader.

The single pulse laser turret, was upgraded to two triple turrets, one fore, one aft, each with beam, missile and sandcaster.

Then they added 36 additional staterooms. Were they thinking of converting to a liner after their experience with the Pacific Princess? No.

Next was an armory, followed by an extension to the med bay. Getting the idea yet?

Then it was time to start loading up the computer with software, as so far it had been running empty. They added Mano-Evade-6, Anti-Hijack, Nav-.Pilot-6.

Finally the last item, a new (as yet not designed) logo painted on the outside, and of course a Teddy bear strapped to the front.

The second letter of introduction got them through all of the preliminaries and in to see the director of an arms supplier. The man's eyes lit up and he almost started drooling when they placed their order...

100 Snub pistols
50 Gauss Rifles
100 Advanced Combat Rifles
20 Laser Rifles
100 Hand Axes ( a bit of a signature weapon )
A mere 90 hand grenades
20 Suits of Combat Armour
80 Combat Environment Suits
4 Auto Cannon ( Which will be used by their captured Aslan robots )
2 FGMP15's for use by the PC away team.

I bet you know what they're up to now. :)

They took the opportunity to ask their friendly supplier if he could help them find a place for a couple that the PCs have been trying to find a home for since leaving New Horizon. He was happy to help until they told him about their child that showed signs of Psionic ability, that put him back. In the end though he agreed to help

Next they set up a recruitment office for the "Mad Marquis Men" a brand new mercenary unit.

Now they purchased a disused industrial dome on one of the moons. I should note that the captial is actually based on a large number of airless moons that circle a gas giant, so this dome is just one among thousands. They moved in and started building.

They also bought a secondhand runabout for jaunts between the various moons of the capital, and at the same time added an air-raft to their kit list.

After a month of recruitment they had found 24 veterans looking for work who agreed to sign up with them. They could have had more bodies but decided they didn't want any raw recruits. However that does mean they now have a platoon sized unit of men who know how to act like a proper military force.

During this month of effort, they heard the news that the Aslan invasion had been going badly for the Imperium. The subsector they just left had been overrun and the Aslan were using some kind of new secret weapon.

Thus the next session will open with the heroes tooled up and ready to cause some trouble.

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Classic Traveller, The Love Boat part 2 - session report

Our heroes continued their Casino fight!

Two more bearded bag guys appeared from out of the smokey corridor. The PC-controlled robot hefted another slot machine and threw it at the bad guys but it crashed to the ground in front of them. The beardies opened fire at the robot with one of them getting a lucky shot in that must have caught some hydraulics because in the ensuing battle the robot was having trouble hitting anyone.

The other PC opened fire with his laser from behind the counter. The injured beardie had had enough and was struggling towards the staircase at the far side of the casino. The fight continued until it ended with all of the bearded men dead and the blood of the last splattered all over the robot.

The PCs advanced to corridor and found the surviving beardies (injured during the last session) down there ready to keep shooting. They soon solved that with another grenade (8+ to hit and 8D damage!).

Shots came at them from out of the smoke, these coming from the people they were here to rescue. With a bit of effort they managed to win their way into the strong room at the end of the corridor. There they found Lady Sadalla and her five bodyguards. A hand held radio belonging to one of the beardies was still operating but the PCs did not speak the language, the radio was handed to one of the bodyguards who said he could understand it.

After a tense moment Sadalla agreed to allow the PCs to escort her to their ship. The trip back through the liner included passing through the hall where they previously left a large number of civilians. After handing out some of the captured weapons to more of these civvies they headed back to the busted airlock and thus to their own ship. More bearded bad guys appeared and opened fire into the crowd. Many were killed and some ran off before another grenade settled the issue.

The bulk of the passengers were sent down to the cargo bay with Sadalla and the impertinent Ambassador getting to stay in staterooms. At this point the bodyguard reported that he'd heard on the radio that the beardies were going to blow up the Pacific Princess' engine, hoping to get Sadalla in the process. The PCs quickly put some space between the two ships.

Sadalla wanted to go back to daddy on Gefar. This was the main planet in the system. They arrived at the station two days later after conning some of the cargo-bay passengers out of a whole load of credits to get their own staterooms.

There was an unexpected reception at the station. They would not have been let off the ship if Sadalla had not been with them. When they tried to off-load the rescuees, they were denied. When they suggested they take them down to the surface, they were again denied. This was a private planet, visitors not welcome!

It turned out that Sadalla is the daughter of a very well off mega-corp CEO, Cyrak Janny. She and the PCs were transported down to a domed city belonging to Cyrak. When they entered the dome, instead of seeing a city, it turned out to be a single massive Earth-like environment with green fields, woods, artificial sky, and a single kick-ass palace in the centre.

Inside the palace daddy was very grateful for the safe return of his daughter and gave the PC's various letters of introduction and (without getting so crude as to mention money) a great reward.

Back on their ship they refueled and headed for the sub sector capital, Tircesoe with a Cyrek-provided letter of introduction to the planet's dictator.

The session ended with some discussion of where the players want to go next. With the aid provided by Cyrek and 45MC in the bank they were thinking about creating a mercenary company. Time to start reading book 4.

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Classic Traveller, 1001 Characters, a review

CT-S01 1001 Characters

This product is 52 page PDF made up of scans from the original published book which was put out in 1978. Therefore the text is a little blurry although readable throughout even on my 7" tablet. There is no art at all.

The introduction to this book says that it presents a number of pre-rolled characters for the main five services, Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts, and Merchant that are suitable for use as PCs. Interestingly enough it says that the provided characters for the "Other" service are not considered suitable as PCs. When you get to the "other" section it explains that they used a modified system for the "others" that differs from the base game rules.

The provided characters are grouped by service. Sadly there's not a lot here. Each character is a simple list of the six stats, skills,  service/rank-achieved, and the mustering out benefits. That's it. No names, no background, just raw data.

For the Navy you get 136 sets of stats.
For the Marines you get 136 sets of stats.
For the Army you get 136 sets of stats.
For the Scouts you get 136 sets of stats.
For the Merchants you get 136 sets of stats.
For the Others you get 136 sets of stats.

The skill system they used for "Others" allowed the characters to gain any skill listed not just those from the core rules' "Other" list. This means the characters here are a bit all over the place skill wise, but that does suit the category.

The next section in the book is what they call "Chance Encounters" and here a series of characters are provided for you to pull from when in a hurry for an NPC. Sadly, again there is no "character" to any of these, they are a list of stats, age and weapon skill. No names, background or skills.

44 Army
44 Police
44 Thugs (law level 6)
44 Thugs (law level 7)

The next untitled section lists nine further characters. The book says they are based on characters lifted from science fiction, but sadly it doesn't give you any reference. You can guess of course and as number 1 is described as good with pistol and sword and an uncontrolled interplanetary teleportation ability, I suspect he might be that "Carter" chap.  Apart from this guessing game, I found the single descriptive paragraph given to each rather uninspiring.

Well, all of this does add up to 1001 characters but is it worth it? I'm not sure but I would tend more to the "no" side.  I'm not sure what use this book is. Sure it's got a lot of pre-rolled characters, but that's half the fun of the game so I wouldn't deprive a player of that.

As a ref' I can grab the stats as the starting point to making a character, but it's not really worth buying for that. I might change my mind "if" I can find a use, but right now I find the whole book very disappointing.

The pre-generated stats for the services, possibly useful, the latter four lists are pointless, and the last nine characters possibly a half minute of amusement.

I give it a thumbs-down, only for the completist.

Playing Zooloretto solitaire

It's a little known secret but you can play Zooloretto on your own, singular-mode, Titus Onyourownicus, solitaire. In this video I show you how.

Classic Traveller book review - 76 Patrons

CT-S06076 Patrons

This is a PDF made up of scans of the original product which was released in 1980. This it’s not a fully featured PDF.

The stated aim of the product is to provide a referee with 76 Patrons. My first thought on seeing the title of this product, was that it was going to detail 76 N.P.C.s who could become campaign level patrons for the players. But, a Patron is someone who is offering a job/mission to the players for remuneration.  If this book was produced today it would likely have been called “76 Adventure seeds”, therefore looking with the modern gamer in mind the title is a little misleading, but not much.

There are 76 seeds presented, varying in size from half a page to a full page in length.  Each sets out, the number of players that it’s designed for and any equipment or skills that are required to complete the mission presented.  These numbers are a useful guide as the missions vary in “size” from “go meet that guy”, through to the players acting as part of a body guard team. However a versatile referee can happily disregard these requirements and improvise. In fact, picking a seed with a requirement the players don’t possess could make the game even more interesting.

In most cases the seed is split into sections, player’s information and referee’s information. The player is usually presented with a person who needs, help, or who is willing to pay for services. The subject of the seeds vary tremendously, I found every one interesting.

Within the referee’s section it a really neat addition. There are usually three possible variants of the mission, you’re supposed to roll a die and consult these options to see which one applies.

For instance, suppose there is a mission to escort a bride to another planet. One option might be that she doesn’t want to get married, another that her lover (not the husband to be) is sending mercenaries to rescue her, or indeed that the ship being used to transit to the other planet is hijacked.  These additional options allow the referee to spice up the mission, or indeed reuse it by changing a few names here and there and adding a different twist.

After these 76 seeds come 16 mercenary tickets. These are adventure seeds for larger military groups varying from squad right up to battalion. The stories hinted at in these tickets are just as interesting. They don’t have the variants listed, but most military situations don’t need additional complexity as they are always complicated!

I really liked what I got in this product. There is a lot of inspiration in here, that will keep my traveller game going for years. I’ll play some of these missions as written, others I’ll twist into the existing campaign by taking the idea and fitting it in with existing patrons I already have.

But what’s wrong with it?

These are introductions, just seeds, germs of ideas or plots, there are no details, no maps, no stats. As a referee you will not be playing through a printed module, you’ll be making up pretty much everything.

Well worth the money I gave to DriveThru.

Traveller Session - The Love Boat

Last night's Traveller session started off with a quick rules investigation in order to find the cost of refuelling their starship at the last port of call. Turns out it was 10,000 creds. I decided to start tracking the team's money as they are currently wallowing in a bundle of 45 million and with that kind of money in the bank I feared they might lack motivation. As it turns out I don't think I need have worried.

They emerged from jump into the Gefar system (A325489-E) and immediately had to take evasive action as a huge ship by the name of "The Pacific Princess" came tumbling towards them, apparently out of control. As the ship passed they picked up the transmission of a hand held radio. The man calling identified himself as a body guard for Shadalla Tie, he and his fellow guards were defending her but were backed into corridor. Then the signal faded as the ship roll on by.

After a rules clarification about the standard Imperial policy towards salvage the PCs decided to close on the ship, board it, and go about saving poor Shadalla.

I should point that the players each have two PCs on board ship. One as part of the home team (bridge crew), and one part of the away-team. Thus after a nifty bit of piloting to get the ships locked together and an air-lock across, we had an amusing moment one player had a conversation with himself, having to convince himself to go on board the other ship.

The away team stood bemused outside the Princess' airlock as it failed to open. An engineer was called who took apart the lock and sadly only managed to leave it in smoking ruin. Pry bars were used to no avail and eventually the PCs gave up. They decided to move the ship to a different air lock. A piloting roll failed and a minor collision with the Princess stove in the PCs observation deck. A second attempt went better and soon they were standing at the new airlock.

Once again they failed to open it, but decided to fall back on a different type of brute strength. They donned the Aslan-Robot-Control-Helmet (ARCH) and brought up one of the highly advanced Aslan robots they had captured. The robot started pulling fist sized lumps out of the door until a hole big enough to crawl through had been made. The away team ducked through and had the robot climb into the hole and lock itself into position thereby blocking the exit.

In the airlock they spotted an angry bearded man on the other side of the door. Threatening him with a laser sent him on his way. They opened the lock and emerged in a corridor. The beardy, was at the far end of the corridor and sent a hail of lead ineffectually towards them before disappearing round a corner.

They followed him up but found that he was beyond the corner with a buddy, laser beams and lead stopped them from making progress. Rather than just stand around looking cool they opted to raid a stateroom and found to their joy a small table. As an experiment this was lobbed around the corner and immediately shot to pieces!

They were wishing they had grenades when lo and behold another angry beardy gentleman appeared behind them...with grenades! He ineffectually threw one, and was shot for his trouble, but now the good guys had the grenades. They threw one around the corner and heard a lot of screaming when it exploded. Popping round the corner they found the had taken out two bad guys and one civilian (the Pacific Princess being a cruise-liner after all). There was a crowd of civvies here, all cowed by the bad men and now rather scared by the good guys turning up. One of the crowd emerged and claimed to be an Ambassador, and promptly tried to force the PCs to get him to safety. They eventually drew a cutlass and he backed down. A volunteer was found amongst the crowd to take the bad guys weapons and defend the civvies.

Now it was time to find the people who had called them on board. They called him up and he reported himself and his friends as being trapped in a corridor on deck B behind the casino. A ship map was ripped from the wall and PCs headed down that way.

As they descended the plush staircase into the casino they spotted a bad guy patrolling behind the slot machines. They both took aim and one of them got a hit, knocking him down. Noise and smoke identified the corridor where their target was to be found, so they crossed the casino. The shot that had missed the bad guy happened to have cracked open a slot machine so of course one PC helped himself. :)

At the corridor they could make out a bunch of bad guys half way along it but beyond that there was too much smoke. Bullets were flying to and fro through the smoke. In went a grenade, knocking three fellows to the ground. Then shots were exchanged with both of the PCs taking multiple hits. At that moment they spotted the beardy bloke they had sniped at from the stairs, climbing to his feet behind them. It seemed like a good time to bail, so they ran for the cashiers desk and took cover. Bullets started punching through their cover and things were looking grim when they remembered the robot and donned the ARCH.

Minutes passed with the PCs playing dead, or at least remaining very quiet. A beardy bad guy crept up to the counter and was just peering over when the robot came crashing down the stairs. A PC tried to shoot the bad guy in the back of the head (rather unsportsman-like) but found his rifle cumbersome and missed.

The robot didn't have the same problem. The bad guys shot at the robot but missed, or hit, but didn't do any damage. The robot hefted a slot machine as it charged across the casino. It threw the machine at the bad guy, crushing him underneath but not killing him. He lay there choking as the coins poured out and into his face. (Death by money!)

Thus we ended the session. Who are the angry beardy bad guys? Why have they taken control of the Pacific Princess ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075529/ ) ? Who is Shadalla? Will they be forced to skewer that upperty ambassador? Tune in two weeks from now for the next exciting episode of ..."The Bastards ran away from my campaign and it still burns."

Traveller Session - The Aslan attack

The last session ended with the PCs bursting into the bad guys office in the midst of a hail of lead. We picked up right where that ended.

The bad guys were shooting from behind the soft furnishings. One good guy was in the office returning fire and the other popping his head around the door to let fly with his laser rifle. The dice were rolling poorly and the shots were all going wild. In fact it was so bad that Hake once again gave up on his rifle and decided to use his axe. He ran for the head bad guy, was saved from a point blank shot by a misfire and got his axe to the throat of the head bad guy.

Conversation ensued. The axe threat had both bad guys throwing their guns to the floor. Then they  forced the henchman to go fetch Alboor and meet them at the front door to the club. Off went the henchman. As the PCs were leaving, sirens were heard in the distance. By the time they got to the front door they could hear the cops pulling up out front.

When the henchman brought Alboor (with a bag over his head) he had one last trick to play. He pushed Alboor at the PCs and pulled out another pistol. His shot went wide (again!) and in retaliation the axe all but took off his head.

Alboor was unmasked and rather than being a grateful rescuee he was a somewhat panicked, scared rescuee who was horrified by all of the blood and violence. The dead man at his feet, those across the dance floor and the blood, oh my god, the blood! 

The head bad guy was left with bullets in the kneecap as the PCs dragged the kicking and fighting Alboor towards a side door.  He was struggling so bad that he got a broken arm for his trouble, after which he calmed down a little.

From here, things became a little less horrific. They escaped out of side door, dodging the cops and dived once again into a garage. While in there they could hear copper choppers overhead. They decided to use a dodge they'd used very recently. They found a lot of womanly clothing being stored in the garage and again engaged in a cross-dressing disguise.

Once suitably attired they made their way back to the university to gather the help of the secretary they met there last time they visited. She recognised Alboor and even our cross dressed heroes. At their bidding she tried to put through a call to the Navy to get a pick-up but the line was cut just as she started to get somewhere. That meant they had to make their own way to the Navy base. The only car available was the secretary's two seater. With one in the boot(trunk), one on the roof, and two in the seats they drove towards the Navy base. But the poor little car couldn't handle the extra load very well. Very kindly they dropped off (abandoned) the secretary and drove the rest of the way themselves.

The road to the Navy base was blocked by abandoned, burning vehicles and in front of the gate and fence were protesters. The PCs tried to talk their way through the protesters but things didn't go well and soon guns were drawn and  a path won through to the gate.

Very quickly they found themselves transported to the space-side Navy base and delivered Alboor safely into the hands of the waiting Admiral. Alarms sounded, claxons blared and battle stations was called.  The Aslan war fleet choose that moment to arrive in system.

The Navy was going to war. As our heroes boarded their own ship(s), they saw the Imperial Battle Fleet moving forwards to engage the Aslan invaders.  The PCs powered up their own ships, pushed the drives to maximum and bravely soared off in the opposite direction. A quick jump to a nearby system allowed them to dispose of the lesser of their two ships. Thus with 45MC to their name they ended the session cruising towards more civilised space.

Alas I let the side down at this point. Although we had a sector map I had not prepared myself to deal with the PCs going gallivanting across space, thus the details of the space they were entering were not set out and I ended the session a little early.

It is almost a mantra to say that if you prepare something, the players will go the other way, and that happened here. The campaign had been building to this point. The PC's had discovered and battled with the Aslan. It had become clear that a massive invasion force was coming, and as a referee I had mapped out the fight. The loss of the planet. The PCs leading the rebellion from a secret asteroid base, or dirtside leading freedom fighters in vicious attacks against the forces of occupation...and then they go the other way.  Doh!

I now have a good deal of prep' to do before the next session. I have to detail the stats for the ship they are currently piloting, and provide rationales for each planet in the subsector. Then come up with some plot hooks.  It's going to be awesome!

Playing Carcassonne on your own

Good 'ole Carc' is designed for multiple players but here's a suggestion for playing it alone.

FATE Core - Session report

I played in my first session session of FATE: Core last night, using a post apocalyptic setting. It was the second session of the game, I missed the first, so my character had that awkward introduction thing.

Creating my character was a half hour session with the referee. We talked back and forth over my character, its possibilities. My initial idea for an ex Alaskan Dog Sled champion slowly morphed through a series of strange inexplicable steps into the travelling con man modeled after Matthew Hopkins the Witch Finder General, but in this case proclaiming the evils of technology and selling the unlikely skills of smelling out the evil tech-doers. Quite a turn-around.

My character entered this particular play by waking up gagged and bound to a table. During sleep a ten year old survivor decided he wanted to play doctor and had bound up my sleepy character. Unfortunately he also had a robot doc' with plenty of pointy and sharp attachments.

He was soon rescued by the PCs but then through a series of unfortunate events ended up duct-taped to another angry robot with glowing red eyes. Have no fear, the PCs would save my

guy ... by shooting an arrow into his butt!

So it was back to the boy and his medical bot to get the arrow removed. Things were not going well. When the robot popped a panel and started blowing smoke. A spare panel was forcibly removed from another broken robot and inserted, unfortunately this made the doc bot's eyes go red...

So as I said this was my first play of FATE Core, and it played exceptionally well. It was a good game, and the dice rolling was fun. I loved getting to use the ladder to determine results, it's so evocative and aids the narrative.

After the game we discussed how things had gone and I realised that I had not tapped any scene level aspects. That's a feature of FATE that has always intrigued me and I missed the opportunity. Dang!  I'll correct that next time!

Traveller Session - To Alboors rescue!

It was all action in last night's game. The PCs ended the last session in a night club and had just popped open a guitar case containing two laser rifles...

Jenkins, once a merchant but now an ad hoc trouble-shooter for the Imperial Navy, pulled out his laser rifle and swung round on the two thugs heading over from the door. The brutes dived behind some chairs and tables.

Hake, once a member of the Army but now also a trouble-shooter for the Imperial Navy, grabbed his laser rifle and clubbed down the man behind the bar with him.

Jenkins and the thugs behind the tables started trading shots, with Jenkins first shot burning through a table and the thug behind it, but not until after they had heard the fellow shouting into a radio.

The few patrons had also dived to the floor and were crawling towards the exit. Of course, the music played on.

Another thug emerged from the toilette zipping his fly, and had a rude awakening as he found himself in a fire-fight, he went for his gun. Jenkins took out the other guy hiding behind the tables and then Hake had an inspiration. He held up his ruck sack and pretended it contained a bomb. His speech had effect and the shooting stopped. The toilette thug pulled out a radio and called someone.

Another man appeared, this one carrying a sub machine gun at the rail of the balcony above the dance floor. Words were exchanged, along with bomb threats. The PCs made it clear that they wanted Alboor and they wanted him now!. Alboor, or at least a man with a bag over his head, was brought to the rail along with a nattily dressed gentlemen (who was assumed to be the manager of the club).

Further discussion ensued and it seemed that the PC's were going to get Alboor handed over. The men at the rail disappeared, but rather than them appearing downstairs with Alboor, a know of five more thugs burst from the stairwell, scattering across the dance floor and letting fly with their pistols.

Hake, dropped down behind the bar for cover, Jenkins slipped sideways and used the DJ's stand for cover. Shots were fired, near misses for the most part, but with occasional hits on the bad guys. Hake felt his shooting was rather miserable, so opted to get close and personal. He slipped his boarding axe out of the bag.

Jenkins took down one or two of the thugs, burning hole through their bodies with his laser and then Hake was bounding over the bar. He laid into a thug smashing his face and taking his nose off with the axe. Jenkins coolly burnt another bad guy to the ground and the last but one thug was soon fell victim to the axe.

That left one bad guy. Jenkins edged out moving around the DJ's stand opening his view and trying to pin down the thug. With a yell the thug leapt off the stand from behind Jenkins but missed his target and landed face down next to Jenkins, who promptly burnt his brains out.

They bounded up the stairs emerging onto the balcony. They raced around this to the door at the far end. A couple of brute force attacks bashed in the door. They were in a corridor. Bullets came out of the first door they came to. Hoping to scare the bad guys out of the room, the PCs ripped off the doorknob from the door they had smashed, and threw this into the room while shouting grenade. Instead of the bad guys rushing out, they heard a door shutting.

The room turned out to be a secretary's office with a door at the far side, the door the bad guys had no doubt just gone through.

The evening session ended as Hake burst through this door into the posh office beyond and was assaulted by a hail of bullets (that all missed)!

Uninspired map of the upper floor

Traveller Session - The Alboor Odyssey

The last session ended with the characters getting back spaceside and having a shower. In fact things started happening while they were having a shower. odyssey

They got a call from Admiral Ranowski, the head of the navy station in the Affran system to attend him immediately. When they met him, he was busy rushing from one meeting to another (he was on his way to meet with the captain of a battleship recently arrived).  He told the PC's that an exploratory XBoat had just returned from Aslan space where it had discovered a massing fleet of warships. With the planet below in a state of near rebellion and turned against the navy he had some delicate issues that he hoped the PCs could help with.

1) A professor Alboor Gloann, on Affran was as near an Aslan expert as exists in the system. His insights and knowledge could make all the difference in the upcoming situation. Unfortunately his broadcasts in support of the Navy and against the dangers of an Aslan incursion had made him a target of anti imperial rebels. He had been kidnapped. Ranowski needed someone non-navy to try and find him.

2) The Gedes, one of the ruling families on Affran, had been one of the leaders of the anti navy anti imperial movement and their media propaganda was stirring up the populous. However the navy had had word that the Gedes family members themselves were planning to jump off planet before the Aslan arrived. Ranowski suspected that if someone was to sabotage their personal spaceships, they might stop their anti navy broadcasts as they would have no way of getting off planet themselves. Ranowski would have been very happy if someone not a member of the navy were to carry out the sabotage.

The PC's opted to rescue Alboor. They shuttled over to the civilian station and picked up civilian clothing before dropping down dirtside. They were let off in Alboor's home town. Like all adventurers they headed straight for a pub. When they asked if anyone knew where Alboor could be found there was an ominous silence before a large thug stepped out of the crowd. They were strident anti navy and therefore anti Alboor people. Some clever word play managed to talk the crowd round and convince them that the PCs were old friends of Alboor's and were here to talk him out of his mad views.

They got directions from the drinkers and headed off. Their destination was the university. On the way they passed cops and a news crew outside a damaged house. The university was mostly empty but a receptionist was kind enough to let them know that Alboor was not in and hadn't been for a few days.

At a loss for what to do, they wandered into a student bar. They managed to stir up the drunken yobs they found in there until they streamed out, set on going to Alboor's home and lynching them. The PCs followed the crowd. Realising that the crowd might stop them actually retrieving the good professor, they set about splitting and misdirecting members of the group. This led them back to the cops and the house with the smashed in windows.

Unwilling to be filmed by the news crew (as the Killown family would still be after them) they tipped the newsies to a non existing newsworthy event back at the university. The crew left and the PCs turned their attention to the cops.

The cop they spoke to was singularly not interested in keeping them out of the house, he seemed more interested in appearing on the news. So they wandered into the house. A brief investigation led them though the house where they found and followed a blood trail out into the garden at the back of the house. There they found a discarded and blood soaked jacket under a hedge. A number of duplicate business cards were found in the pocket of the jacket. The cards were for a nearby club.

They headed to this club which was open day and night. They showed the cards which got them into the club and past the big guys on the door. Inside loud music was playing but there wasn't too many people. The dance floor was empty. The people that were there, were clinging to the bars. One of the doormen wandered over to the PC's and suggested calmly that they get themselves a drink quickly.

At one of the bars they mentioned the name of Alboor and the barkeep was rather and suddenly frosty. When he went for alarm button under the counter the ex-Army PC dived across the bar for him. Unfortunately he missed and slammed into the shelves behind the counter. The bar keep called out and the thugs from the door started to rush over. The other PC dropped his guitar case on the bar and opened it revealing the two laser rifles they had brought...

Taking a look at "Golo" a solitaire dice game

Traveller Session - Reverses

Friday night's game started rather unusually. Normally we pick up the narrative, right where we leave off, but inspired by a review of "Microscope" I decided to open the session in a different way. When the last session ended they were pushing the ship through a worm-hole-like-thingy to make a jump back to their home sub-sector. Instead of having them pick up the story in the usual way at the other end of the jump, I read them the following boxed text...

"You’re crawling rapidly through a concrete lined tube, too small to allow you to kneel, let alone stand. It’s dark, not a single photon moves in this environment. Your hands and knees are sloshing through sewage. Your moves are awkward as your hands are bound with metal hand cuffs.

"Between you is your long lost friend, Marin, whom you dispatched to Affran with the ship you salvaged when on a mission for the Killown family. He’s battered and bruised, you all are.

"The darkness is oppressive, the only sounds are those made by yourselves splashing along the tube, oh.. and the growling from behind, issuing from the beast that’s hunting you."

I described the above as the end point, and then encouraged the players to fill in the gap in-between,  to describe the events that lead from them entering the anomaly to crawling through a concrete sewage pipe in handcuffs.

The story they evolved was pretty cool. They had two jumps to make to get back to the Affran system and during the jumps three crew disappeared. This turned out to be the work of an Aslan who was hiding on board. Apparently this was the same Aslan they had spaced from his x-boat. But rather than doing the decent thing and dying, he'd survived and somehow made it across to their ship just as they abandoned it to the space-bugs. Since that time he'd continued to survive and hide on board until his supplies ran out and he started hunting the returned crew for food instead. The P.C.s don't know about this stowaway. As well as eating crew, this nasty chap also decided to spoil the human food supplies leading to a lot of sickness in transit.

When they reached the Affran system things had changed significantly. There was a much stronger Naval presence, ships from neighboring systems had been arriving to bolster the system against the oncoming Aslan invasion. The planet of Affran was in chaos. The Navy had been attempting to impose Imperial conscription on the populous as a further measure to fend off the upcoming Aslan attack, but the people of Affran and especially the ruling families didn't much like the idea. Therefore the planet was racked with conflict and insurrection. They handed the ship over to the Navy (who wanted the ship to use as a Trojan Horse, as it's Aslan in origin).

It was at this point that the P.C.s were kidnapped while transiting to the local station. The Killown family had got word of their return and were rather upset at the P.C.'s behavior, so decided to capture them and dispense Killown justice.

Cut-to: handcuffed and chained to the floor in a sewage works just outside of the Killown estate. The P.C.'s were being beaten by Killown goons, watched and directed by Karin Killown herself. In the room with them were some old friends. Ex-Admiral Marin (also an ex-P.C.) who had been dispatched to the Killown's with a salvaged space ship months before, and the "hostage" that the P.C.'s had left with the Killown family when they first took up with them, Ace Shichi. Everyone was getting a beating.

I asked what had happened to Marin that lead him to this situation. Apparently when he arrived in the system he discovered that the crate he'd been delivering to the Killowns was missing (see previous sessions for the story of the man-in-a-crate) and he decided it was best not to arrive empty handed. He sat in the ship on the outskirts of the system incognito, until supplies started running low. Then he had no choice but to head in-system by shuttle to get supplies. The Killowns then captured him and tried to wring the story out of him, but he didn't break, therefore that ship is still out-there.

The Navy stuck their oar in, and mounted a rescue raid to save our heroes, but the Killowns didn't like the idea of a happy ending! The party was thrown into a treatment tank and the inlets turned on, flooding the tank and "drowning" the P.C.'s in sh**. Only, in their rush to flush the evidence the Killowns cocked up, and forgot to close the outlet from the tank and the team were flushed down into the sewage system and hence into the concrete pipe where we opened the session. They wandered in the complete dark, totally lost until "something" started chasing them, something nasty sounding.

Then the session-proper started.

The P.C.'s found a way up and climbed up out of the sewage pipe to emerge on a suburban road. Staggering to the walkway they had to come up with a plan of action. A hardware store was across the street, and they went in looking for a hacksaw.

The proprietor was not happy that these sh** covered individuals were trailing crap across his floor and he came around the counter to shoo them out, only then spotting the handcuffs. Realising they were obviously escaped criminals he ran behind the counter looking for a weapon.

Ex-army hero and P.C. Raban Hake swung a boot at the shop-keep, only he slipped on the dripping sewage and landed on his butt. A subsequent attempt to lash out at the retiring tradesman only succeeded in causing a display of small D.I.Y. Tools to crash down upon himself.

Former-merchant hero and P.C. Kepler Jenkins made to dive across the counter at the shop-keep, only he slipped too and instead crashed head first into the glass fronted counter shattering the glass. Under the counter he saw the shotgun the proprietor was after, and an easy to reach pair of bolt cutters. Using the bolt cutters he smacked the man in the face and knocked the fight out of him. The butt of the shotgun was used to administer a sleeping draft.

A bag of tools and the shotgun were grabbed before the P.C.'s rushed out the back of the shop into an alley. Rushing  along the alley they were confronted by a civilian to whom they explained that they were sewage workers who had been hard at work.

They found a lonely strip of garages and broke into one after shooting out the lock. In the garage they found boxes of clothes, books, blankets and towels. They made as good a job as they could of cleaning themselves up with Swarfega. When they came to change into the clothes they'd found there was the small issue of the clothes all being women's, and they, the P.C.'s all being bearded gentlemen. None the less they braved on and donned between them a little red number, a pinaore, and a loverly white dress with large yellow flowers. However the best was left for last. Marin, sporting a long grey beard (stained orange with Swarfega) donned a long grey dress and additionally found a large brimmed and pointed hat to match, and being an older gentleman he also managed to find a walking stick...or rather a staff (from here on the Gandalf references were manifest).

They decided to carry some books with them and pretend to be a ladies reading circle to any that asked questions. Things were getting very Monty Python.

Their objective was to get off planet, but without money or resources they needed help. It was decided to contact their friends in the Navy and found a Navy recruitment center. Unfortunately it was surrounded by angry citizens protesting the conscription. They joined the back of the crowd and played a magnificent game. By passing themselves off as draft-dodgers disguised as women they were propelled through the crowd as heroes, and even made a speech about sticking-it-to-the-man and going in-there to give the Navy a piece of their mind! It worked, they got through the door and put through a call to get help. Not content with merely surviving, they also dispersed the crowd as it was turning rowdy.

The journey to the space port revealed evidence of fires and chaos across the city. The port itself was surrounded by burning vehicles and screaming citizenry. Navy and Marine personnel were even firing into the air to keep the crowds back.

Once back in the comfort of  the station they got cleaned up and we ended the session.

As GM I really enjoyed the session. The players imagination in the first half was outstanding, building upon the previous story elements and weaving in some new threads that can reappear later. I lost it a couple of times as the Monty Python elements were introduced, even finding it hard to breath at times :)

Well done chaps.

How to play "Ticket to Ride" solitaire

Maelstrom - an RPG review

Maelstrom is an RPG published in 1984. Yeah it's old and this review is thirty years late, but give me a break, we didn't even have the internet back then!

The physical format of the game is a perfect bound novel of 304 pages. The games genre is rather original, it's set in 16th century England and the PCs have some rather unusual role choices.

As the genre suggests the game does not cater well for the normal fantasy tropes, and although you can play a thief or a fighter, don't expect to be meeting Orcs or casting fireball spells.

This book came out during the 80's craze for gamebooks such as the Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf series and appears to be inspired by that, in fact it includes two "scenarios" that are presented in that style (turn to entry 10 if you want to fight). In these adventures you learn to use the system, any fights are played out using the system and so it seeks to teach you the system.

Oh dear, where do I start laying into this.

Characters can be Nobles, Professionals, Craftsmen, Traders, Labourers, Mercenaries, Thieves, Priests, Actors, Mages or Herbalists. Quite an odd mix. I was puzzled about this as it doesn't suggest high adventure if your PC is a simple Stone Mason. Reading further into the book though it started to become clear. The "world" of Maelstrom is almost the real world of 16th century England including  all of the misery, poverty and poor health, and the average person there doesn't ever leave their home town let alone go on adventures. So the focus of this book, is travel. A journey from one town to another in the company of fellow travelers who stick together for safety. Hence you play the parts of people who would be making such a journey.

Being a product of the 80's, character generation is somewhat of a drag, there are huge tracts of text describing each of the backgrounds for your character trades, each of which really plays no part in your final character. It also spends an inordinate amount of time explaining why your character must be about fifty years of age before they can start to "adventure" (which means walk to the next town).  This section was such a drag. It was not written to empower your character, but rather to limit them, hold them back, and beat on them. Too much realism of the "period" was written in here. Sure its background material that lets you get into the period, but your modern roleplayer doesn't want to read a text book on history before he even starts rolling the character stats.

If you want to play a female character, change your mind. This book explains at length how women can't do this, do that, have one of those, go anywhere, look up, speak or ... breath without permission. Sure, perhaps a realistic fact of the period, but no fun for gaming.

So lets assume you want to play a more flamboyant character, such as a mage! I wouldn't bother. You're old, crippled, immenesly wise and can maybe reach to heady height of a Gandalf-spell such as "Ignite Pinecone".

Or how about playing a mercenary?  That sounds fun, right? Er...no. Sure you're good in a fight, but no one will like you or trust you, and get injured and it's bye bye bye.

Seriously, I got depressed reading this book. Everything was about how un-empowered you were, how you're held back, how you can't do this or that and how miserable life was. The book has a rather dodgy cover showing what appears to be the end of rather tame fight and that aptly suits the content of the book, which all about taking a story and wringing any fun or excitement out of it.

I know people have played this game, and even enjoyed it. I suspect that was despite the book, not because the rules enabled it.

ZZZZZZZ...Oh... you're still here. There is more. The skill/attribute system is percentile based and making a skill check is called a "saving roll" for some reason. Doesn't make sense to me. Want fix an axle on your cart, that's a saving roll. Want to harvest some potatoes, that's a saving roll. Want to block a sword blow, that's saving throw...no, hang on that actually makes sense.

To summarise, I won't be playing this game, playing in this background is too depressing. I might well play a game set in a 16th century, but not this one. If you see this book going cheap, sure pick it up have a read and see how games were written back-in-the-day, but don't expect to play it.

Traveller Session - Ouch that hurts!

Having discovered that the gravitational anomaly they had traveled through, was linked in some way to the power source buried under the surface of the planet the PCs decided to take a break from torturing the yellow goo they discovered last week, and revisit the surface.

This time they took an adventurers kit! I had the players detail exactly what they were taking with them, and believe it or not, this included both a cuddly toy and a collapsible ten foot pole! Of course they also had their 6 Marine (meatshield) buddies too.

They split their team and started re-investigating the place, but the PCs returned specifcally to the "control room".

They braved flicking a few switches and things started happening...rather a lot of things actually.

• The air within the tunnel network started moving.
• A camera system was activated. Actually a rock wall became a kind of monitor, with moving pictures displayed as embossed relief within the rock. They found they could monitor all of the major rooms they had already visited as well as one they hadn't.
• Six massive glowing "suns" were launched from within the planet up into orbit, bathing the otherwise completely dark planet in light.
• A super fast rocket/missile/UFO was launched and sped off into space 
• "Stone Space Spiders" were brought into being that started moving around the complex and frightening some of the Marines into a one sided firefight. They were calmed down with some comforting chat on the radio, and they reported that the spiders rose up out of the rock and that the Marine's bullets were bouncing off the things. The spiders did not attack they seemed much more interested in doing their own inexplicable thing.

They also recovered a few more of the boxes that contain yellow goo. One was opened on the surface to see if the yellow goo did anything...which it didn't.

During this fun they were getting reports from their spaceship from a panicky member of the crew. He'd spotted a beam emanating from the cathedral ship-ghost-thingy pointed at the anomaly, this beam seemed to be destabilizing the anomaly and reducing it's size. He was concerned that the anomaly might disappear and as it was the way they had got here, he also assumed it was their only way back.

One of the last switches in the "control room" was discovered to boost the power source on the planet and the anomaly was strengthened at the same time. The final switch setting revealed a map that included a path to the planetary power source.

Engineers on the ship calculated that unless the power could be boosted the anomaly would disappear in two hours time. The race was on.

Two Marines were dispatched down the vertical shaft to investigate the tunnel that led to the power source. They soon ground to a halt. The tunnel angled sharply upwards and was so greasy they couldn't climb it.

The PCs and the rest of the Marines headed down there to bring some real muscle and brains into play. In next to no time at all they were standing on each others shoulders creating a human ladder to reach the top of the slope.

At the top they found themselves in a level tunnel where they met the equivalent of a swinging-blade-trap. Rock discs were crossing the tunnel, literally forming out of the living rock and slicing across. This presented no trouble to anyone and they all made it through to the "lava" room.

The tunnel opened up funnel like. The slope down was being rained on by liquid stone pellets that hit the floor and rolled down to the "liquid stone" floor of the room. The exit was on the far side, a tunnel mouth that you would have to jump to. The liquid-stone floor of the room was deathly hot but fortunately there were protuberances of solid stone scattered stepping-stone like across the floor. Holding their packs over their heads to protect against the stone rain,they tumbled down the slope, two of the Marine's getting injured in the process.

They crossed the stepping stones and then had to puzzle their way up to the tunnel mouth. A Marine was detailed to try. He jumped, failed and fell into the liquid floor. There was a valiant attempt to pull him free, but it was too late one of his legs was burnt off fatally puncturing his suit!

A PC used a grapnel and a rope was put in place to crawl up to the tunnel mouth. The two injured marines were left here to man the rope for the return journey (they needed to pull on the rope of hold it taught for the climb). Time was rapidly passing and the PCs needed to get a move on.

The tunnel they had reached contained stone tubes that appeared to flail around  occasional connecting to each other briefly. All but one Marine managed to dodge through here without trouble. The Marine received a minor injury from being slapped by the tubes.

Beyond this point the tunnel angled sharply down disapearing into another liquid stone pool. This was tentatively tested as they feared it would be more of the burning liquid stone. It turned out to be cool and one Marine was dispatched down the tunnel and was followed by the rest of the party. There was a danger of getting lost in the complete darkness but everyone made it and emerged on the far side.

The next room to cross looked empty and set the PC's on edge. "It was quiet...too quiet." A spanner was chucked into the room, it hit the floor and sunk slowly, leaving no trace. The PCs asked for a Marine volunteer to try sprinting across. No one stepped forwards. One PC had to start threatening them with an axe! The volunteer got to within a few meters of the far side before becoming stuck. A second Marine was threatened into trying, but he too became stuck. The last Marine got into a bit of state and headed back to get the rope from the room with the two injured Marines. He got turned around when trying to pass through the cool liquid tunnel. Tick, tock,tick,tock. One PC made an attempt to sprint across and managed it, another got stuck. The Marine returned with the rope and managed to pull the sinking fellows back to the entrance before they were lost for good.

The one PC that made it across was on his own. The next room was as weird as the others. Stone blocks were forming out of the ceiling and dropping to the floor and sinking into it in seemingly random patterns. He bolted across and made it in one piece.

He now emerged to find a wide crevasse blocking his way, but he could see the power room beyond. This was too wide to jump safely. Some serious discussion and planning was made and the collapsible pole was deployed across the gap. The near end was secured with duck tape and plaster from the med kit. The rope was tied around the pole and to the PC. That meant he only had to walk along the pole to the far side. He made it!

Adjusting the power setting of the system was simplicity itself after all of the other trials. Then all they had to do was get back passed all of these hindrances!  Which they managed. One Marine was knocked down but not killed. He was carried along in the rush back to the ship. In only 70 minutes of the 120, they were able to get back to the surface.

Back on the space ship they found it was being dragged back towards the anomaly, a desperate attempt was made to line the ship up with the direction of movement but failed, meaning they entered the anomaly and jump, unaligned...

What will happen next week? Will they emerge from jump where they expect? Will they emerge from jump?!?

Traveller Session - Going Deep

The session kicked off with the PC's still investigating what they've come to call the "Alien ant colony". They were returning to the central shaft when they got a call from Marines on the lower level. They'd discovered a glowing "force wall" across the entrance to a large storeroom.

They decided to try and destroy the wall with explosives. They retired and left a Marine to do the actual planting. A minute later he came running down the tunnel followed by the expected explosion. When they returned to the wall, it was intact but the floor was cratered.It was then that they discovered a control panel in the floor. Like everything else here it was made of living/flowing stone. A series of button presses soon had the door open.

Behind this door was a massive warehouse-room filled with metallic cubes. the cubes turned out to be sealed and without any way of opening them. A random cube was selected and carted off to the surface for investigation.

They then decided to investigate further sections of the tunnel. They came to another massive room filled with level upon level of the alien statues, each once again molded/carved from the living rock and armed with a spear. There were thousands of them. Marines were ordered to take one to the surface. With two Marines tugging on one of the statues it was soon broken free. This was carted to the surface too.

The collection was still incomplete so they climbed back up to the egg chamber and worked an egg free. This too went back to the surface.

There was more tunnel to investigate, but as soon as they started getting radiation alerts they backed off and returned with their collection to the ship.

On board ship they set to work on cracking open the box. An engineer was volunteered and he started cutting it open. A yellow viscous material leaked (slowly) out. A PC asked the engineer to test the liquid. The Engineer was a little nonplussed and may have said something like.. "I'm an Engineer Jim, not a scientist." Not knowing what else to do, he hit the puddle of liquid with a spanner. The liquid reacted and moved away, giving the impression that it was alive. A little panic ensued, the end result of which was a descision to move the box and contents to the nano-containment facility.

The box was wrapped in a tarp and carried up to the containment and placed into a glass tube. Then followed a series of electrocution experiments on the yellow liquid. It continued to react but showed no evidence of intelligence.

One of the other engineers turned up and ended the session by reporting that he has discovered a pulsing pattern within the gravitational anomaly and that the pattern was being matched by a power source down within the "ant colony".

Traveller session - There are jumps and JUMPS

The Traveller campaign continued on Friday night.  It started with a little trepidation for the players as I'd asked them roll up new characters "just in case". Of course they assumed their PCs were doomed, but honestly that wasn't the plan. There were a couple of options early on in the session where the choice they made could have jumped away from what I had planned. By having "alternate" as opposed to "replacement" characters I could still have them play through the content I had in mind. Of course, I didn't tell them that.  MWAH HA HA HA...

Last session we left the heroes having defeated the alien creepy crawlies that had infested their ship. The engineers had also managed to get breathable air into the core of the ship, bridge to engineering, but not a lot else. They had the Jump drive on-line after three days. Thus the plan was for them to jump in consort with the Navy cruiser back to Affran to defend it against the Aslan invasion.

Of course it didn't go that way. Right at the moment of initiating Jump, there was a terrific explosion of power and a magnificent light show around the gravitational anomaly they'd seen on arriving. There was nothing to do and no time to worry or investigate as the Jump was in progress. They spent the next week in-Jump healing up from the fight with the bugs, while the engineers continued working on the Maneuver drive, which they were able to make barely operational.

When they emerged from Jump, things were a little weird. There were no stars. They soon discovered a number of things.

• There was a gravitational anomaly behind their ship.
• There was a planet near by, just one and no associated star.
• They were between galaxies.
• There were odd energy readings ahead of their ship, which on closer inspection resembled the outline of the cathedral ship they have previously encountered, but not the ship itself.
• They did not have enough fuel to Jump, and they were way out of range anyway.

The planet was rather unremarkable. It had a thin unbreathable atmosphere that did contain  some hydrogen. A potential fuel source.

They decided to investigate the planet and found it a craggy rather dull rock. The only thing of note was an unusual smooth sided mountain. They landed on the mountain and climbed out to investigate. At the pinnacle they found a a vertical shaft driving straight down into the mountain. Their torches could make out openings in the side of the shaft that they could reach by rope.

They started investigating and found engravings of an unknown language around the entrance to the first hole which turned out to be a tunnel. They could only walk along this bent double.

The next hole they investigated was surrounded by engraved pictograms that appeared to show human-like shapes, but with four arms. Down this tunnel they investigated, and soon came to a room that had two stone statues standing in it. The statues were vaguely humanoid with bug eyes and no mouth, but did have four arms. They also seemed to be molded or carved from the floor, from the living rock.

They carried on investigating and found more strange things.  They found a room where there were control panels with buttons, switches, and knobs, all once again carved form the living rock. They dared to try one switch when made some stone nodules on the ceiling light up. They stayed wary and did not touch any others.

Next they found a large bowl shaped cavern where the floor was covered in stone eggs, again carved or formed from the living rock (think the egg-scene in the movie "Alien").

Next they came across a very very long tunnel with small cell-like rooms on either side. They were all empty and sealed with stone bars.

The last room they came across during the session was a truly awesome large cave with a device carved from the stone set in its center. It looked like a huge weapon, in the classic 50's style.

So right now, their ship is in orbit , the shuttle parked on the surface, a Marine waiting at the entrance to the shaft. A couple more Marines at the bottom of the shaft are investigating on their own and the PCs are wandering the miles of corridors.

Looking forward to next week. :)

Numenera - a review

It was with some trepidation that I started reading Monte Cook's "Numenera". I'm generally, not a fan of huge RPG books as they tend to be scourged by endless lists of rules for trivial unlikely events, or full of endless sections of character-choice spells that read like the F.T.  So I was pleasantly surprised by Numenera.

It's a 417 page PDF but inside you don't find endless lists of dry material, instead you find endless lists of interesting background that bring his world to life.

So what is the world he's made for us? It's not sci fi, at least in the classic sense. It's not fantasy in the classic sense either, instead it's an unusual blend of the two. The premise is that the game is set on Earth in the future, but billions of years in the future. Mankind as we know it has died away. Civilisations have risen and fallen until at the time of the game the rise and growth of the Ninth World (civilisation) is under way.

Humans, or human like people predominate, but there are other races too. Those that have evolved during previous eons, and some that migrated to Earth across galactic distances during some previous eons. The Earth itself is different too. The animals we know are gone, long gone, others have replaced them, the continents we know are likewise gone. In their place is a strange world littered with relics of the previous ages. From huge underground machines to man made mountains that float through the sky, the previous ages have left their mark.  

Your characters will be denizens of this world. There are three basic character classes, Warrior, Wizard and Rogue. Note that there is no magic in the Ninth World, rather there are ancient artifacts and machines that grant the user magic-like powers. I call it magic because the characters using these uncovered devices more than likely don't know how they work. The technology of the game is an unusual mix of classic medieval fantasy and super science.

A character is likely to write notes with quill and parchment, and be armed with a power lance that can cut rock! The science of this world is retarded, true there are experts here and there who have studied and learnt some of the ancient's secrets, but the majority of people have no knowledge of how they work.

So lets talk about the system. As I said , I had feared a bloated rules-fest, but that's not what we find here! It's a system based around the use of a D20. All tasks are given a Difficulty, you can multiply the Difficulty by 3 to see what you have to roll on the D20. But! Your skills, dice pools, and other bonuses generally change the Difficulty, rather than modify the roll. Thus if you are facing a lock with Difficulty 6, having the skills and equipment to pick it could reduce that difficulty by two levels, down to 4, meaning you only have to roll 12+ to succeed.

I like this concept, it's simple, it's straight forward.

Stats. Simple and straightforward again, with Might, Speed and Intellect you're not getting buried in pointless minutiae. Each stat is also a pool of "Effort" that can be spent to further reduce a tasks difficulty, this leaves your pool drained and it takes time to recover. A very nice touch.

Another nice touch...GM's won't be rolling any dice. None. Players do all the rolling.

And talking of GM's I love the way the GM can challenge the players via a "GM Intrusion". This is quite like  FATE where the GM can tag you're negative aspect, except here he can change things up and increase the chaos or difficulty. But, when they do this, they also hand the player concerned 2xp, and the player hands one of those xp to another player. What a great mechanism! It encourages story complications and player interaction.

Now unlike in D+D, these xp can be spent for a die re-roll. If you are willing to spend a couple you can gain the equivalent of a temporary skill. I know, "temporary skill" sounds a bit dodgy. It's not, if you as the player can justify it, you get the ability. The example given in the book is a good one. While robbing a palace, you notice the locks are all made by a locksmith you knew as a kid and you know the trick of picking them.  This becomes a short-term of local benefit skill.

For 3xp you can get a longer term benefit. So if you live off the land for a while you can spend 3xp and gain a skill at living off the land. Or you could discuss with the GM a +1 on the die in certain circumstances.

Of course you can spend xp to advance a level too.

Yet, the joy I gained from reading this game is not limited to the simple and evocative rules, it's the rest of the book. It is stuffed with background material. Section after section of emotive and inspiring source material, describing the creatures, the lands, the peoples and the environment. But even this is only a beginning. The game embraces the weird, the unexpected and the downright odd.  Your characters walk around waving swords as they assault a castle that's really a crashed ancient spaceship. They dig, not for diamonds, but for the ephemera and refuse of ancient times, always hoping to find an artefact that gives them the power they crave.

Everything in this world, is different from what you'd expect. Despite the map being laid out in exquisite detail with extensive descriptions there is still so much more to discover.

The rules and the background material is not all that's to be found here. There's also an excellent section for the GM. In some games these GM sections simply provide a myriad of new rules. Not here. Instead this section is actually about how to play the game. How to be a good GM, how to insert the excitement and the fun for the players. Truly good material.

After you've read all that good advice you then get four scenarios in this book. These are all very original and bring the "weird" of the Ninth World to life.

As you've probably guessed I liked this game. Everything about this PDF is great. The art is fantastic, the writing is clear, the rules are simple and best of all, the heap of background material is full enough to give you a rich full session during the first play. Go get it now!

A not so great Traveller Session, report

Friday night is Traveller night, and I don't think I did too well. I believe my reffing was a little sub standard and I can't blame the illness for that!

Having blasted the Aslan and chased them away from their secret base the heroes were travelling back to Affran on the tincan ship when the Navy sent a Cruiser to intercept and take them on board. The evidence of the Aslan invasion has got the local Head  of Station very scared. He only has a few ships which are really only used to prevent piracy (unsuccessfully). The threatened invasion can not be countered with what he has on hand, and even sending for help, it will take months to collect together an amarda.

So he decided he needed the player's abandoned Aslan ship which they left drifting in the middle of nowhere as a kind of Trojan horse. So onto the cruiser which was stripped and emptied so that most of the free space could be filled with fuel bladders, and off into the middle of nowhere.

They emerged from jump and discovered a gravitational anomaly, right where the now disappeared cathedral ship had been. They dodged that and considered the best way to board their old ship. In the end they sent across a tether and pulled themselves across towards a hole punched by meteor. One of the heroes started drifting off when he lost his grip. At the same time the marines found themselves in a fight with the space-bugs down in the darkness of the hole. A line was thrown out to the drifter but the PC doing the throwing was attacked from behind by a bug. He was saved by a spectacular shot from Mr drifter!  Eventually he got pulled back to earth the ship, but only as the marines had had enough and were pulling back.

A short discussion ensued and it was decided to use the cruisers lasers to purge the hole of bugs. BLAM!  Bugs were cleared out, the meteor was vaporized and more of the ship was damaged, but at least there was a way in now.

They moved in, battled some more bugs and found that all of the still-pressurized sections had foul air, it was poisoned by the fuel leak they left when they abandoned ship.

Up to the bridge and then down to engineering. They transhipped a few engineers from the cruiser but these needed help as they were completely unused to Aslan equipment.

Two marines on patrol for more bugs went off air, and the PCs went looking for them, and discovered the big bad end of level boss bug chewing on the marine's remains. They engaged with laser rifles scoring some good hits but not enough to stop it. The huge beast laid into them seriously wounding both PC's before they eventually took it down.

Then time passed as the engineers started getting a minimum  portion of the ship pressurized with breathable air and the jump drive on-line.

And there ends the session.  I feel it was all a bit predictable. I think I may have given the players a little shock with the near-death experience. Next week I'll do my best to make it a little more exciting.

I've written a short piece of fan-fic set in the Ninth World, and that means it's set in the universe of the RPG, Numenera. It's actually posted on Doctor Felbrigg's Mechanicorium web site.

I found the concept of a priesthood built around the study of objects from another age fascinating.  Not really a religious as such but rather scientists dressed up in religion, it reminded of Asimov's Foundation series.

Solo rules for "Ticket To Ride"

I've had Ticket to Ride for a few years now, and have pondered the possibilities of solo play on many occasions, but only today did I put in the effort to actually get a working set of rules changes going.

I've played the following through and it works quite nicely.

The first thing to say is that this is a true solitaire rule-set, you play to see how high a score you can get, rather than playing against dummy players controlled by an A.I. Having said that, you will be playing against the game, as you  would in a cooperative game.  The challenge gets harder over time as you try to improve on your previous best.

Choose a colour to play with, any colour but black. We'll be using black to block routes as the game progresses.

Set the game out as normal.
Draw three tickets. You must keep these!
Draw two train cards to start off your hand.

Now, you start alternating turns, first you, then the game, then you, then the game and so on.

On your turn you can draw train cards or tickets or play trains as normal.

All double routes are active, but you may only use one, as per the normal rules.

On the games turn you draw a ticket. Find the shortest path between the destinations. Now place "one" black train on one of the route segments along that shortest route. You can not place black trains on both parts of a double route.  If the shortest route is occupied by either your trains or the black trains, find the next shortest route between the two points (even if it shares some of the same route) and play a train to block that route.In this way, every time the game "plays", it will block a route.

After you've played the black train discard the ticket. If you run out of tickets, shuffle the discards into a new draw pile. Likewise when ever you want to draw a new ticket you should shuffle the discards back into the draw pile first.

Continue playing until either your supply of trains gets to three or less, or the supply of black trains reaches three.

There is no bonus for the longest train. Instead you get a 10pt bonus if all of the destinations on your tickets are joined together in any way.

That's it. Nice and simple.

Yet another Classic Traveller session report

An excellent Traveller session last night. Our heroes were trying to organise a sale of one of their robots. They were looking to generate a bidding frenzy between the large houses on Affran. The first bid was 1MC, and they laughed at the bidder. So, that's two of the great Affran houses who now want their blood.

Their warehouse was attacked over night, in an attempted raid to steal the robots, but they took care of that with a few well placed lasers. the attackers were part of a mercenary company.

Then the Navy turned up needing their consultancy skills. The Navy considers them experts on the alien Aslan. This then, had them shooting out to one of the system's outer moons where a Navy listening post had gone quiet after a garbled message that mentioned the Aslan.

In then end, they found the listening post destroyed and the operators dead. Checking the security system and analyzing the digital records revealed that a small ship had launched from the moon shortly after the attack.

They backtracked the trajectory and this led them to another of the planets moons. There, they found a secret buried installation. When they examined the door, they found it was made for Aslan hands/paws. They blasted their way inside, losing a couple of their Marines (Vasquez and Drake) to an explosive booby trap. A pair of Aslan controlled robots appeared and took out Private Frost before they were taken down.

When they entered the installation there was a terrific explosion as an Aslan ship blasted of from a hidden silo. The P.C.s raced back to their own ship and set off in pursuit but only had an opportunity to take one shot, which they missed...

This is third Aslan incursion the team have happened across. First the illegal colony on New Horizon, the x-boat type ship that appeared in Imperium space and now a hidden base on this moon.

Video review - Maquis

This is my review of a free print and play WWII worker placement game

Another Classic Traveller session report

Role players never cease to amaze me with their ingenuity. I had a scenario all set up , and had thought through the possible outcomes, but in the end the players of-course do something unexpected...

It's a space game, classic Traveller. The PCs have a fantastic alien (Aslan) space craft, huge, well armed, armoured, and even a good jump drive. The last thing I ever expected, was that they would abandon it.

I'll admit that things might have looked a little tough...  The ship was being dragged slowly towards a massive mysterious alien ship by a huge inexplicable gravitational force. Asteroids and other space detritus was smashing into their ship as it too was dragged towards the alien. One of the impacts included some horrid space-bugs that tore their way into ship and started tearing apart the already injured Marine contingent in the Med-bay. The Hydro recycling system failed when the room was damaged by the strange gravitational forces. The Quantum Core interface had failed too. The Navigation systems were on the fritz and the jump-drive was smoking and sparking.

While all that was happening they detected the jump signature of a ship turning  up, but they couldn't see who or what it was.

Yeah. Things weren't looking great for them.

Then the alien ship that had started all the problems just disappeared and the gravitational waves along with it. They got the ship under control, but it was still infested with some very tough bugs. They opted to get the survivors into the shuttles and bug out (except for one N.P.C. who was locked up – poor mad Crow Gedes).

The other ship that had jumped into the system turned out to be an alien (Aslan). They used the Aslan shuttle they already had to false-flag their way into docking with the alien. It turned out to be an x-boat like ship, very little room but lots of jump-drive. They used their robots to rip out the air lock and "space" the Aslan pilot. Then fun and games commenced as they welded the human shuttle (they had one human and one Aslan shuttle) to the x-boat and rode it back to civilisation.

And so...next session starts with them on the star port having no ship, no money, and in orbit over a planet where the most powerful "Family" are likely to kill them on sight.  It's not looking good for the ex-crew of the S.S. Hairball.