Last nights game of Traveller saw a sad bombshell dropped on us all and I hope today’s blog does it the justice that it deserved. To say the bombshell was totally out of the blue would be untrue but it was something that myself and I can say with utter certainty, all of my players were upset to hear. I also was planning a bombshell for the group also but it was nothing like what totally rocked us in the early stages of lasts night Hangout.
So, to details. Last night I fired the Hangout up and was soon joined by many of the regulars, +James Austin player of Professor Babbage, +Scott Cadoo player of Tark, +Tom Tyson the player of Tyson the medic +duncan mcphedran who plays Moloch the engineer and +Dave Morris the player of Ushtug the all rounder. We were making some small talk as we began to get ready to firing up the game when Captain Beniades Lark’s player +Seth Blumberg arrived in the Hangout. Seth is one of the originals in this game and also I may have mentioned in a post or two one of the most knowledgeable players I have come across about Traveller. He loves the game with a passion and all of us totally respected that. Unfortunately he had joined the group only to let us know that he was now no longer able to join us in our game.
Seth lives in America and was getting up very early in the morning once a week just to join us in game. He played an awesome character that was larger than life with Captain Beniades Lark of The Larksong. They are shoes that I am going to struggle to fill as I NPC him in future games. On a personal note as I know Seth will read this I want to say it was an honour to have you in the game. Without your assistance and patience I am sure this game may have only lasted a couple of sessions before my lack of understanding of the spirit of the rules got in the way. You have taught me how to run this game and run it well. For that I thank you. All of my players that played with you all feel the same way and that is the game will not be the same without you and that you have really opened our eyes to what Traveller should be. We all wish you the best and want to let you know that there is a cushy grav chair at the helm at any time you would like to join us in the future. We also all want to say that we hope that it was only the early mornings you were having a problem with and nothing more serious.
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| And how I always imagined The Larksong. Good old Firefly again courtesy of politicaljesus.com |
So, this rocked the game and there was much discussion as to what would happen to the game from this point. You know, the past game had the players open fire in Regina against the security force of the planet (Regina is a stronghold of the Imperium with a strict law code) and all that most of them were worrying about was how they were going to tell Captain Beniades what they had done! Who cares that they killed a cop? They had to face the Captain and that is the kind of lasting effect that Seth had on the game. We talked for a good ten minutes about the implications of this revelation with essentially the decision that we would continue and that I would do my best to NPC the Captain until a longer term solution could be sorted out.
During this discussion I let go my relatively minor bombshell that the game, after next Wednesday would no longer continue on a weekly basis. It would become a fortnightly game for a couple of reasons. This was well received with a couple of the players stating that a fortnightly game better suits for them anyway. I am making it fortnightly so I can free up some of the time that I use preparing for this game for making my own. I am also going to be now a player at this time frame once a fortnight in a game of Shadowrun. So it was settled. There were major changes to the game but the largest was the absence of Seth and we could all live with the changes I made.
We played the game for about an hour and a half and the group got themselves out of trouble with some fantastic rolls. They shook the police pursuit, destroyed the police anti-grav vehicle they had appropriated (and a 12 storey parking complex in the process: 48 lives lost) and made it to a contacts house, erasing footage that they were ever at the Spaceport. It was a fun game with a bunch of laughs and some innovative player ideas that saved them all having to roll up new characters.
A short description to a much more complex series of events, but this post is not really about what happened to the game, it is about the loss of Seth. It is rare that you play with an individual that has such a large effect on a game in such a short time frame and I take my hat off to you Seth. From the players and GM of the tale that surrounds The Larksong keep Travelling and one day we just meet up way out in the black one day for a space brew!