Classic Traveller, Downt Thole

Last night's game started with a bit of bad news for the PCs. A message was received on "The Discord" (their ship). It was a system wide broadcast by the administration advising everyone that all ex military residents in the system were being called-up due to the Aslan threat. About half of the players Mercenaries were on the call-up list. They decided to keep this to themselves and not pass the message onto their people on the ground.

Then came some negotiation back on the planet. A contract was even written for a loan of the alien artifacts that the PCs had collected on their extra-galactic jaunt, to the local archeologist. The players were very explicit that they wanted a huge reward if the items were to get damaged.  They also took a tourist trip down the excavation. They were able to present the archeologist with a lot of information from their own experiences which he found fascinating. The central shaft was only excavated down to the first horizontal tunnel which itself turned out of be partially collapsed. Some similarities and some differences were notes between this installation and that investigated by the PCs.

They ordered the items down to the planet and their shuttle did the transport duties. As it was flying in it caught sight of some movement on the outskirts of the dig site. When it went back spaceside it made a fly by on the movement but couldn't see anything.

The PCs were suspicious so gathered up some of their mercs and some of the semi-trained police and headed out to investigate. A laser beam shot over their heads from a group of rocks ahead. They returned fire with their devastating FGMPs. In response five lasers were fired quite deliberately over the PC's heads. Once again they opened a killing response.

Armed and armoured men broke from cover, and started an organised relay of fire and retreat. Our heroes drove straight in on their target and started wasting the bad guys one after the other until there was only one left who threw up his arms. During the charge, the cops ran away and another of the merc company was injured.

The prisoner was run back into camp and a call put through to the town to send out a clean up crew for the dig-come-battlefield.

What the players didn't know at this point was that the bad guys had just called for their extraction and they didn't want to get into a serious fight. But the PCs were killing them without allowing them to pull out.

When the cops arrived they were sent out to pick up the bodies and weapons. At this point the bad guy's pick-up arrived, found the area full of cops and their men dead on the ground, so instead of picking up, they dropped off a few bombs, laying waste to the cops and their vehicles, before racing for the horizon.

A quick call up to "The Discord" to the home team PCs was made but a failed sensors roll meant they couldn't see the ship or its destination. The call was followed up by the away team requesting a pick for the prisoner. they wanted to get him onto The Discord for questioning.

The scene shifted to the home team on the ship with their prisoner.  Talking through the bars of the brig they found the prisoner rather unbowed. He explained he was part of the mercenary company Bertrum35 and that there was a 10K bounty for his safe return to a Bertrum35 agent.  The PCs told him they weren't interested in his bounty. He was somewhat disbelieving, he thought as merc's themselves they would respect the bounty system. They were very clear that no one knew he was here and they would kill him if he didn't give them all of the information they wanted. The poor chap ended up crying in his cell.

Back on the planet the away team got a call to return to the main town. The governor had set up a meeting to which he had called all of the local leaders, he wanted to discuss the situation and try to calm everything down. He stipulated that everyone including the PCs should be unarmed.  That didn't go down well with the players. So the town square was filled with vehicles and the invited farmers and local leaders filed into the meeting hall but the mercenaries stayed outside making sure nobody got up to any shenanigans.

A deep bass sound alerted our heroes to a return of the bomber. They opened fire with their plasma weapons and scored a hit as it did a low roof-top pass over the square. As the bomber did a wide loop and turn back, the curious civies started coming out of the meeting hall.  The bomber made its second pass and dumped a load of leaflets but was hit a second time. This second hit did some damage and sent it spiraling off into the distance to explode.  The leaflets drifted to the ground and turned out to be an exhaultation to the people to throw off the shackles of their masters (Indes) and fight for freedom.

One of the farmers got in the face of a PC and started railing against their interference in a civil matter. A sniper of unknown providence took a shot at the PC, missed and hit this unfortunate citizen. The crowd panicked and scattered. One of them grabbed a rifle from his vehicle and was shot down, other people appeared to be going for weapons too, and the PCs declared "weapons free" on all armed people. Shots were exchanged as the mass of people scattered or ran to their vehicles and took off. The mercenaries and their police cohorts were amazingly restrained and only a few bodies were left on the ground when it was all over.

The governor was in despair at his failed plan, and realising that he would never be safe on the ground agreed to move his office to "The Discord", where he joined his wife.

The session really ended at this point, with some discussion prompted by myself, with an aim of forming a plan of action. The PC's mercenaries were hired to put down an insurrection and ensure that the taxes were collected, and had found themselves embroiled in an action that includes conflict with another mercenary unit and an unseen well funded adversary.

Discussion with the Indes representative included going to war with Outre, who are believed to be funding Bertrum35, but this was shot-down as it were, because a mega-corp war was financially unviable. A hit on the leaders of Bertum35 or even Outre was suggested and no firm decision made.

So we ended with no clear plan of action, so over the next week, I'm going to try and come up with a few suggestions to put to the players when we return.

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

How to play Hour of Glory (non solitaire)

Here's another video taking a look at Hour of Glory showing a more general overlook at play.

 

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

Classic Traveller, Who fired? - session report

Last night's session of Traveller picked up exactly where we left off last time. The PCs were in company with a squad or two of their own company, and a contingent of the local police on a tax collecting mission to a local farmstead.

One cop had been shot and the PCs had atomised the shooter and his cliff-top perch.

They started the session by using some computer skills to override the homestead airlock and crank open the outer door. One PC thinking this was taking too much time, and besides, house clearing operations were too costly, opened up with his plasma gun and blew the top corner off the building, thereby opening the interior to the near vacuum. Air, and household equipment blasted out of the opening.

At this point another shooter appeared on the opposite cliff, standing in the open and opening a rapid fire into the cops and PCs. This proved too much for most of the cops who had already seen one of their own killed, they broke. Diving into half the vehicles these cops took off. The PC's troops opening up a hot fire, riddled the shooter who tumbled from the cliff.

The PCs then cycled the airlock and entered the homestead. They found a dead woman inside, just behind the door. Her vacc suit helmet had not been locked safely on when the air had been let out. The players assumed at this point that the shooters had been man and son, with the dead woman being the wife. This was then confirmed when they found family photos. They found the money chits they'd been sent to collect, but also found an empty chit bearing the "Outre" mark. They took this with them and left the scene.

The column of vehicles was reformed and the chicken-cops who had run earlier were recalled and joined up. It wasn't long however before radio interference alerted the convoy that something was up.
The cops were really jumpy and decided to travel behind  the PCs and their mercs about a quarter of a mile back.

The now-expected ambush took place. A line of spider holes across their front erupted with shooters. the vehicle was riddled with bullets almost instantly but the mercs (and PC's) were fine in their combat armour. The heroes launched an immediate frontal attack on the line of shooters splitting themselves into two squads. They rushed the line directly ahead and then split, working their way along the line in opposite directions from hole to hole.

The "red" squad took a casualty to one of the mercs but carried on. The "blue" squad had a slightly more interesting time. Before they reached the end of their line of holes more shooters and a vehicle appeared on the cliff line above them. The merc squad was directed to take the rest of the spider holes while the PC dealt with the men above. The rest of the convoy with the cops in it, was not doing too well. One of their vehicles was destroyed and more cops could be seen on the ground.

The spider holes were cleared and one of the cliff top bad guys taken out along with the vehicle up there. The rest of them pulled back out of sight. The PCs decided to rejoin the beleaguered cops. They soon fell in with them and some nice shooting took out the rest of the shooters from their cliff top positions. The combat ended.

All but two of the cops were down, mostly dead. One of the PC's mercs was dead and one injured. There was one vehicle working, the injured were put on there and the living provided a walking escort back to town.

Back in town they met with the planetary governor and there was a bit of a to-do. He was not impressed at the death and destruction and the PCs were unimpressed with being led into an ambush. It soon calmed down when the PCs produced the "Outre" cred chip as evidence that someone was paying to stir up trouble. The governor collapsed in his chair. He revealed that Outre was a rival mega corp to Indes, the company that hired our heroes and own the planet.

The gov' went on to reveal that his family had been threatened, that the offices of the government had been threatened, that the taxes still needed to be collected and that an archeological dig on the far side of the planet also need to be protected as it was a major source of revenue to Indes.

With so much work and only one platoon to work with the PCs set up a training cadre. One fireteam was to be dedicated to giving the local cops military grade training, and with that training they could bolster the mercenary troops adding to their numbers.

A second fireteam was to be dedicated to protection of the Governor and the offices, bolstered by the downloading of one of their Aslan combat droids. One full squad would be placed on tax collecting duties as that was where the real money from this ticket would be coming (they are on a 10% promise). Finally, the remaining fireteam and the PC's are on duty protecting the dig.

At the dig site, a buried monolith has been found (think 2010) and a tunnel excavated. The PC's kicked the two cops already on duty, in the butt as they weren't doing anything other than playing cards and sleeping. They organised a patrol routine and then had a moment to take a tour with the head researcher. When looking over the finds, they discovered that these included a damaged ancient box very similar to the ones they discovered when they were warped through a wormhole to the dead planet a few months back...

As the referee I'm finding it quite interesting to handle this type of play. It's not just the PCs that I have to handle but an entire platoon at their command.

Consider this, if it were D&D the characters would effectively be 2nd or 3rd level in regard to hit points, but wielding weapons of a +10 nature with +3 shields. They can meat out the death and destruction but are still rather fragile. In lasts night's game the PCs where individually manouvering with a fireteam each, almost like a single creature. When the enemy got a hit I treated it as a team-hit and rolled a die to determine who got hit with the PC taking their chances with the others. It worked quite well the game was able to move quickly without handling each NPC seperately.

I have to say I'm a little disapointed in the Classic Traveller Mercenary book as it's rules for handling large numbers is rather lacking and I've had to apply my house rules.

House Rules-

A groups of characters only roll once to attack, not individually. If the PC is with the group they roll with their own modifiers to see if the group hits.

A hit on a group, means one individual has been hit. If a PC is in the group, roll a die with everyone having an equal chance of being hit. If the PC is hit, they handle it as normal. If an NPC is hit, roll 1d6, 1-3 dead, 4-6 injured.

I've also started giving the individual fire teams in their company XP, 1 per combat. A team with more XP is going to be "steadier" than one without. This XP total is used on the following chart:

0-3 XP , will stand their ground on 9+
4-6 XP , will stand their ground on 8+
7-9 XP , will stand their ground on 7+
10-12 XP , will stand their ground on 6+
13-15 XP , will stand their ground on 5+
16-18 XP , will stand their ground on 4+
19+ XP , will stand their ground on 3+

In a situation with a mixed group of XP totals I'll use the average. If new recruits are added to an existing unit they might well lower the rating, that is permanently reduce the units XP until it earns more.

And here is the map for the ambush:

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

How to play Hour of Glory solitaire

Hour of Glory is a great WWII sneak-em-up game that pits the heroes against the Germans and the clock. Normally a  game for 2-4, here's how to play on your own.

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

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.