Traveller: Research & Rescue

Welcome, Traveller.

Our campaign continues...check out the hub here!

Pain.

The following are GameDoc's actual session notes:

Session Summary:

(Wow! A lot more happened tonight that I realized!)

Having returned to Tinath Spaceport, the Travellers make their way into Serson Province, passing by the Oracle, an ancient temple-palace built by an unknown alien civilization millennia before khan colonists arrived on the planet.

They deliver the recovered research data to Baroness Edda and file the necessary salvage claims for their ship, the Kingfisher. As promised, the Baroness agrees to pay for needed repairs and maintenance on the ship.

Pleased with the Travellers’ work so far, she offers to keep them on retainer as a bonded mercenary company while they remain on the planet and offers them a new job. An archaeological expedition to the largely unsettled continent of Valeive has lost contact. The expedition was sent by the Baroness to study ancient ruins there, assumed to be built by the same ancient aliens that built the Oracle. The Baroness directs the Travellers to locate the missing researchers and rescue them if necessary.

J. C. negotiates a fee for the group, as well as ensuring that they are allowed to secure their own repairs and bill the Baroness rather than having her own staff snooping around the ship. The Travellers are provided survival gear, weapons, and  transport and set off for Valeive.

As they approach the archaeological site, they are suddenly intercepted by three fighter craft identical to those that attacked the Kingfisher during their recovery mission.  Riley is able to evade them by dropping the transport into the forest and maneuvering through the trees. However this also leads them right into a violent sleet storm with near zero visibility.

Try not to botch the sensors check.  Again.

Their transport suddenly shudders and begins to dive towards the ground. They Travellers emerge from the crash injured, but alive. Inspection suggests that the transport wasn’t struck by a projectile, but grounded by some sort of gravity weapon. Before it’s power is drained completely, the Travellers send out a message to notify the Baroness of their situation and then set off for the ruins.

Hiking through the forest, they are attacked by a flock of winged, bat-like creatures. After shooting them down, Hernando discovers the creatures have some sort of cybernetic implants, including data ports leading to their brains. He and Sally May attempt to retrieve data from the implants but the programming language is gibberish. Hernado collects specimens for later examination and the group sets off again.

Finally arriving at their destination, they find no overt signs of the research team. Closer inspection reveals a few remains of a campsite and scattered bullet casings. It appears there was a gun battle of some kind, but there were no bodies or equipment left behind.

The ruins consist of a large stone plaza flanked by two ziggurats on the east and west sides. Scaling the eastern one, the Travellers discover a door at the top that appears to have been recently damaged. Prying it open, they find a shaft leading down into the ziggurat, apparently for a gravity lift. But the lift platform is gone.

Outside, from atop the ziggurat, Sally May sees a group humanoid creatures armed with rifles emerge from the forest. Half head for the western structure while the other male to scale up their one the Travellers now occupy. Amadeus attempts to make psionic contact with one of them, but is unable to. The creatures seem unaware of the Travellers for now, but it won’t take long. They are left with a decision: Engage the creatures directly, or escape down the shaft into the alien structure.

Why Don't Historicals Take Off?

Inspirobot knows what you really want.

A few years back when Flames of War 3rd Edition came out, we decided to take the plunge as a club.  We were looking for a new frontier, and most of us were thirty-something at the time.  When we went in, we spent a LARGE sum of money for four of us to get complete armies.

When we did, we went through our FLGS.  The store didn't carry Flames of War at the time, so our buy-in was the store's buy-in for Battlefront.  Alas, only a few months after our club was able to demo the game to the wider community, the few folks who decided to pick it up were trying to sell their models second-hand.  Eventually, much of it went to Ebay with very few games ever being played - and most likely not a "full" game but more along the lines of the starter forces and scenarios.

The demo games I saw that weren't given by our club lacked a basic overview of the game.  A lot of things veterans would take into account, such as the combined arms nature of the game, were simply ignored.  This made the scenario, and thus the game, a bore to slog through.

Yet, I don't think it was because the folks trying to demo the game or to collect and get into it were dumb.  When our club first decided to step off into Flames of War, we had absolutely no frame of reference.  I did almost two solid years of research before we even drew up the lists we would be starting off with.  I found that this research was essential to getting the game up off the ground in the group, as I could more properly craft the campaigns we were about to embark on.

In so doing, I learned all the differences between the units.  Since historical games rely on actual real-life material, all the units are labeled how they would be in the time period.  Know the difference between Sd Kfz 250/1C and a  250/8?  Or a 251 from a 250/9??  I didn't.

I wasn't really a WWII enthusiast per se at the time.  I had to study both the Flames of War rulebooks as well as actual historical documents to get comfortable enough to make the presentation of the game.  I scoured the internet, learning about the war in general and specifically the Eastern Front.  I found it fascinating how much I didn't know.

Yet there's the rub.

I found I was genuinely interested in the history.  For Flames of War, that's what you get for "fluff".  There's no make-believe stories in a lot of historical rulebooks - they might be what you would call "fluff-thin", most of the time.  Fact is, they don't really need to be anything else.  The "fluff" is literally all over the place, being that it's actual history.

You'll find that a lot of folk don't have the same passion for historical games as they do for robots and dragons.  A lot of that has to do with what folks are interested in...for example, WWII won't appeal to most younger people, just because it's like...history, man.  Without that WANT to learn about the history connected to a game, it just won't take root in a player.  They aren't motivated to learn the game or collect the models.

Maybe it comes with age.  As we get older, our tastes change and become more refined.  For some, historical games have an air of 'legitimacy' to them.  For others, it's fuddy-duddy neckbearding of the highest order.

How many of you have tried to get a historical wargame going in your community?  Did it take root to form an active community?  How many folks out of your group jumped in?

For us, we had several games going during the last club that were historical.  They took root pretty well, and there are WWII and Wild West posses somewhere here in the vault.  Overall though, less than 20% of our group joined each game with an investment.

Maybe it's all about presentation.  It's gotta be exciting - people will game whatever game is being played in the community if there are organized events and a welcoming atmosphere.  Don't forget to pre-pack your historical demo with all sorts of relevant facts and cool asides about the period and belligerents.  Yeah, it's basically a term paper - but you'll have fun and so will your group.

Welcome, Traveller

Welcome, Traveller!

A Mongoose Traveller campaign run on Fantasy Grounds by my good friend GameDoc, this post will serve as our campaign reference hub.  Here, I'll keep the sessions from our private social media group in a format we can easily access from any point in the future.

This reference point will be frequently updated until the close of the campaign.

*Last Updated 04/30/2021*

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Player Characters

Active

• J.C. Khaine
• Amadeus Khaine
• Riley
• Sally May
• Dr. Contreras
• Klaes Ashford

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Session Log

• A Tale of Several Backstories (07/23/2020)
• The Re-Taking of the S.S. MacGuffin (08/06/2020)
• Jumping Home (08/20/2020)
• Research & Rescue [Part 1] (09/10/2020)
• Research & Rescue [Part 2] (09/17/2020)
• Research & Rescue [Part 3] (10/29/2020)
• What Now...? (02/25/21)
• Scouting Run (03/11/21)
• Khaine's Not Dead (03/18/21)
• To the Moon! [Parts 1 & 2] (03/25/21 & 04/01/21)
• To the Moon! Finale (04/29/21)