It must be my awesome GMing… OK, Just got over myself. Last nights gaming hangout place to be in the Asia-Pacific region apparently was in my hangout. I arrived, set up and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that two of my Reign of Winter players +Martin M and his wife Angie had said they would come along. I also knew that one of the coming players of Reign of Winter said they would come along also for a look +Matt Guyder . Last week it was myself, +Seth Blumberg , +duncan mcphedran and +Peter Byrne that made up the Traveller group.
Well, the time started and +Matt Guyder was the first to arrive, followed by +Martin M and his wife pretty close behind. Then came +Jonathan Henry up well late from his last game that bombed so bad it was apparently like “A bad first-time experience with sex” and he had been a woman “he would still be crying”. he is playing about with the format of a game that I think sounds cool but apparently did not hit the mark the first time around. He dropped in just to watch and give us a hand taking on a role or two if I needed him. He kept us all amused for some time as he is likely to do. Go to one of his hangouts, and if he does not make you laugh I will do the dance of joy in a mini skirt and post it to YouTube (warning statement of consequences I will perform may actually be a lie).
After that +duncan mcphedran arrived, the first of the originals! That is correct, I had four people (and myself) in the hangout before an original arrived. I thought that a little ironic. And then the next to arrive was +Dan Hall who I had thought was not coming after thinking about it through the week. Finally +Seth Blumberg rounded out the group. So at the end of last week I had said to the players I may keep it this small for a while and then get extras to come in as we go along in the future to the next week having a cohort of Traveller players six strong with an audience!
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| They are just in the top right of the Villis quadrant moving into the Lanth quadrant last night |
Lucky I did not plan things in detail! There were a few issues to deal with because of the increased crew. First and foremost was pointed out by the Captain who only had room for four crew members on the Lark’s Song. So the ship took off from Rangent and entered the space near the next planet on their journey Tionale. When they arrived the Captain found the spaceport in bad repair as if parts of it had been attacked and a swarm of fighters being kept at bay by a large warship that was at dock. The Captain kept a reasonable distance and contacted the space port who seemed very keen to get them to dock, to which the Captain complied.
The passengers of the ship (the church lunatics and the mysterious woman in black from last week) exited and the device that was planted on the ship last week ceased to operate. The Captain went to the starport manager and found out the warring had spread from the planet below. They starport was keen to fill their ship with refugees and pay them in spice. They also had a bunch of people that could function as new crew (new players… nice tie in me!). Filling their hold the group headed off planet and into Imperial space at the planet Extolay.
They entered Imperial space and were boarded for inspection (apparently by a guy with a perfect Japanese attitude according to +duncan mcphedran ) although they got inside the border and made a tidy little sum off the cargo (the Captain quite understated the fact by saying it should just cover monthly payments). Couple of the crew hit the bars and found out some information to help out the Captain with his next cargo whilst other crew members busied themselves finding out about the device that had been planted on the ship. Apparently it was organic and looked like several of the electronic boards had been extruded whole. Not to mention that they were apparently at least Tech Level 15 and not of any sort of tech the engineer had seen before.
Then the Captain kind of got signed up to a trial run on behalf of the Covert Intelligence organisation out of the Imperial Navy. While the role playing of this was going on there was some serious comments going on in the chat box of roll20 and I had to really try not to laugh at it. The Captain eventually signed up for the contract (which involves surveillance devices in the ship and a team of operatives clearing every member on the ship for the duty) much to many of the players disgust!
It was at this point we broke and it seemed everyone had fun. +Dan Hall kept saying he felt like he was 14 again which is kind of the vibe that I get from this. I never played this version of Traveller, but I did extensively play in a MegaTraveller campaign and this is bringing the memories flooding back of that. Except this time it is really mercantile based. My character when I was 14 was kind of a merchant I suppose. When you read merchant, think drug smuggler as he lead a group of pro-psionics users rife through the Imperium spreading psi-drug joy everywhere he went…
It has been two games in this and not a single act of violence taken by or against the players. Conflict and tension need not be built out of threatening the characters lives all the time! I am really enjoying allowing this campaign to build from the players own participation and all I need to do is keep the Universe functioning and keep throwing various plot hooks their way to see what they take and what they don’t. Do not get me wrong though, I have a long term plan for this campaign. I have a story that I want to tell in this space but I will start to apply it in layers, gentle cross threaded strands that will eventually build until the players can begin to get a glimpse of a whole.
Until that time, let the Merchant’s Rise!