Saturday, August 18, 2012

The campaign starts slowly 001-014,1112

The main character is ex-Scout Trak Davenport.

UPP: BCCCAA Age: 34

Pilot-3, Vacc Suit-2, Carousing-2, Engineering-1, Navigation-1, Communications-1, Grav Vehicle-1, Medical-1, Combat Rifleman-1, Streetwise-1, Gun Combat-0, Computer-0
Scout, 4 terms. 100t TL11 Scout Ship Not at Home (on loan), Cr80,000
Home planet: Easan is the Marlene Sub-sector: UWP A777967- C

A little more detail at The Characters page.

He is in the main city of Easan, his home planet, after being discharged several days ago. He visited his parents who are ambivalent about his change of career but no family dramas. The date is 001-1112.  Let's join him now:

Good to see the folks again after so long.  They don't really seem to care or not that I've left the Scouts after  16 years. Trak thought as he strolled down a fairly isolated street. Time to move on and see if Marlene looks different when working for myself.  There's a nice shipment of Blades I think I get for a good deal and should sell well on Garrison. Kentland was a great destination a few years ago, but with the hostilities as they are now between us, no way.
Suddenly, two men with illegal guns jumped out from an alcove.
"Hand over everything you have - now!" hissed the taller of the two.
Trak could see no choice - fight and die or bear the loss.  His favourite hat, watch and wallet.
"Bastards."
Totalling it up later, he was a 1000 credits down after replacing everything.
"Bastards."
The next day, the police came to the hotel room for a statement but Trak got the impression that they were just going through the motions.
In all the rush, cargo negotiation and managing to find some passengers, he had not spent a lot of time chasing up someone to help him run the ship.  Trak was not looking forward to being exhausted - one person for routine maintenance, pilot, engineer, navigator and steward.
Maybe I can find someone on Garrison.
Takeoff and jump was uneventful, always a good sign. One of the passengers stayed in his room the entire time which was a little frustrating to deal with.  While tired, working for yourself feels good; the bright shine of Garrison in the distance beckoned.

Traveller News Service
GARRISON/MARLENE (0604 - A67389B-A)   DATE 014-1112
| Arbay (0406) has declared war on Pruliki (0402).  The extent of mobilisation on both sides is unknown.  While tensions have been high for several years, it was hoped that recent negotiations would ease the tension.  Apparently they have failed.  Travellers are warned to stay clear of both systems.  No other systems have yet committed to joining forces on either side.


The mechanisms to get here (for those interested)
How this was translated from Solo Traveller flowchart and the die rolling:
  • Paid Traks' living expenses (Cr600 per week based on Social standing from MgT) and Cr150 for berthing Not at Home.
  • Got an event that was held up (and  wrote up a description of the held up encounter) and lost Cr1000 in money and items.
  • Encounter with law enforcers who I took to be about the hold up but the reaction was polite with no assistance.
  • Incidental cargo available was 10t Blades for modified base price $5,000/ton (50% value).  Took the lot.  Blades sell well on Poor worlds but best resell place is Kentland.  Easan and Kentland are in the middle of a subversive war so it may not be wise to go to Kentland.  Garrison is the next best.  Filled the rest of the cargo with standard cargo.  And filled 3 staterooms with 6 middle class passengers (Trak's Carousing-2 is Steward-1). Rolled once the MgT table for interesting passengers - Claustrophobic.
  • Trak's Credits remaining is Cr37440.
  • Note: Options did not appear going through the flowchart and I wanted to hire someone to expand the party. Ah well.
  • No encounters to 100 diameters and jump etc went OK, no events in jump, and ended about 100 diameters out from Garrison.
  • Subsector events:
    • Arbay (0406) declares war on Priluki (0402)
    • Kamiri (0703) begins a subversive offensive against Magbis (0304)

Notes
There was still lots of setting up to do.  I created a spreadsheet to run though Traveller Solo Flowchart and also to generate the numbers for events, patrons, encounters and reactions.  Excel is my friend.  But it makes working though a week much easier.  I also had to look up how reactions work, the list of expenses (scoutship annual maintenance I have upped and made monthly as per Mongoose Traveller - gives Drak extra expenses) and re-familiarise myself with starship operations.  But it is done and I've updated some of the blog's pages for reference.

War breaking out in the subsector was unexpected but may help with plot-lines later on.  Rolling up relationships between planets as per T4 Pocket Empires has proven useful in that respect, and also in other ways already.  The fact that Easan and Kentland are in a subversive war meant that the best cargo destination for Trak's Blades cargo is not really a good idea at this stage and forces a less optimal system choice.  All good.

It was all up a mostly uneventful couple of weeks.  No patron and no activities of choice allowed.  Maybe in the coming week.  I also have not really used the regions on the planet to their advantage yet.  That may come into their own with patrons (where there may be a region to target on a planet e.g. if have to break-in to to science research base on another planet, can find the nearest planet with a scientific region).  While it was a long time for me to do the first two weeks, the next few will at least go faster for the week to week stuff. I am looking forward to expanding the party from beyond just Trak, whether employees or other adventurers.

3 comments:

  1. I like how you are using your tables. Very cool. Looking forward to more.

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  2. Hi - your journey mirrors mine very closely having seen that post on solo gamers although I did play a couple of star smuggler before heading for my old traveller books. Interested in your excel work as I was doing the same...currently working on trade one that does a random inflation deflation price based on certain current game situations/planet outline.

    I am not sure about the solo flow chart as it does not give as much player direction as the starsmuggler one did. Currently hunting different flow charts of processes -- Good luck am watching your adventure with interest.

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  3. The solo flowchart definitely does not give as much direction as the Star Smuggler one.

    In fact, I had started down the path of using Star Smuggler and adding some Traveller-isation to it. The events,encounter, detection tables and usage of the regions does make a great framework to hang games off. But then I realised that was a fair bit of work to make the framework more generic (Star Smuggler is only really geared towards a single character paying off a spaceship, and the events are limited and geared towards hiring people and limited cargo). And then I saw a post inquiring about Solo Traveller and thought "why not?" While I am starting with a single ship and one character as per Star Smuggler, I am hoping to branch out a lot from this.

    But back to the flow chart - I see it more as a limitation on things that can occur in a week rather than providing direction on game flow. Similar results could be achieved by rolling some dice to see if an event or encounter or healing can happen in a week. The flowchart is structured to make it a little more exciting and random in the flow of activities that occur in a week. But I do like Star Smuggler's everything having an associated time component and end of day concept.

    I actually think the key to the game's continued excitement will be on two things: carrying out patrons job's and "discovering" the interactions and storylines that evolve from the events and encounters. The flowchart is to simplify and add a bit of randomisation weekly bookkeeping. But I haven't got far with either.

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