Author: J.Bland

I am a Decider.

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 44

I can’t overstate how well weekly short (2-hour) sessions are working for us. And the virtual tabletop. Everyone is tired after work, especially me, and the idea of going BACK out into the world after work is totally implausible. Well, maybe not totally, but it is an impediment. I don’t think we’d have such good attendance in-person. The ability to sit down after dinner, log in, and play for a couple of hours is great.

I introduced the NPC Jinx a couple of games back. I think Jinx is a great example of how Traveller gives you plenty to work with, without having long character sheets full of stuff. The character’s stats are, in words, small and not that strong, good dexterity and endurance, high intelligence, low education and low social status. 4 skills, all at level 1. A belt pouch with some stuff in it, possibly a dagger in his boot, no armor. Because he is clearly inspired by a young Flinx, from the Alan Dean Foster novels, he has a very low level psi talent that he really doesn’t understand and can’t control.

It is easy for me to get into character as Jinx, as I’m currently about 40% through the Pip and Flinx novels. Even without the psi talent he’d be a good NPC. It has driven home the point that good NPCs are perhaps the most enriching thing in an RPG session, and that Classic Traveller gives you what you need.

The players on our campaign are doing things “not on their character record sheets.” By that, I mean they are taking actions that are impactful in the game, clever,  and fun, often without resorting to their skills. It’s really great to see.

I have some other ideas to write about, but it is 7:11am and I’ve gotta get ready for work. More later.

J.Bland
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ITV Session 44: How To Ruin a Mercenary Attack

IY6026.349

SAFCO is onboard the Fortunate Sun, in the Samson Mining Spaceport on Uetonah.

Barney and Silvonius Janks introduce their new passenger (Jinx) to the rest of the crew. The youngster is impressed by the crew. They cautiously welcome him onboard. Lucky and Fardt recognize him from the Tavern earlier that evening.

The crew continues working on various plans before their planned departure in the morning.

Still having remote access to the Samson network, Caliban and Barney use Caliban’s tablet to plant information in the system – information they hope the incoming mercenaries will find. Caliban is easily able to get it in there. He makes an Admin-4 roll to insert the data in such a way that it is sure to be found by the mercs, but for it to seem like they just happened upon it. Caliban makes the roll easily.

Examples of the false info:

== Memorandum == Date: IY6026.285 To: Sergeant G. Gottfried From: R. Deckels, CFO Subject: Expected mercenary casualty statistics Your 26% estimate of mercenary casualties during the rebel elimination operation have been determined to be too low. Due to financial budget limitations, please take steps to ensure the casualty rate is no less than 78%. A performance bonus will be issued if the rate is 86% or higher. Suggested strategies: Place trusted personnel in charge of artillery assets to maximize friendly fire incidents once primary objectives have been achieved. Use regions known to have high natural predator populations for mercenary excursion and reconnaissance. Issue any and all items that have marked for disposal due to failed inspection, or items which are currently due for repair before return to service. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation during this time. Richard Deckels CFO
== Memorandum == Date: IY6026.293 To: R. Deckels, CFO From: Mitch McDonna, LLP Subject: Mercenary Insurance Policies
Hello Richard, In response to your inquiry, yes, there are no legal issues regarding independently insuring contracted workers without their consent, and being the recipient of any beneficiary funds. Attached is a form which is pre-filled out where all you should need to do is simply fill in relevant employee/contractor information, and beneficiary information for each one. Sincerely, Mitch McDonna, LLP

They plant several more horrible things in the system then log out.

While they do that, the rest of the crew looks over the star map and discusses next steps. They need to get to Prometheus. Silvonius has agreed to take Jinx to Listo, which is on the way. With a max of Jump-2, their only possible initial destinations are a return to Overon (a friendly and well known world) or AT-201, a Red Zone world interdicted for unknown reasons (not a good choice). The choice is easy, but what from there?

They consult the computer’s library program to supplement their own knowledge. From Overon they can get on the main Jump-2 trade route to Ridley, or a Jump-2 to Antebaron (which will still allow them to make the next jump). Ridley, according to Flint, is the garden world home of Ridley Consortium of Mining Planets (RCMP), and is known to be unwelcoming to random visits, it being the home/retreat for company execs. Antebaron is an industrial world and home planet of the Crabs, crustacean-like sophonts adapted to the planet’s corrosive atmosphere. There is a sizeable underground human habitat there. A good place to go for trade.

Next Day…

The crew wakes to find Fardt preparing breakfast with an enthusiastic Jinx helping him. Fardt is training him as a steward! Jinx is impressed to find out that Fardt is a qualified pilot as well!

During breakfast the crew chats. Lucky diplomatically inquires about Jinx’s apparent psionic ability, demonstrated at the dice table the night before in the Tavern. Jinx is unaware of any powers. He says he’s just lucky – always has been! Like when he ran from the big guy last night and a broomstick luckily fell and tripped his pursuer, allowing him to escape a beating!

The crew finds more cargo to purchase. 5 tons of machine tools. Caliban negotiates an insanely low price for them – hey are almost sure to make a killing by selling them elsewhere. Silvonius is out of money, but SAFCO has plenty. He agrees to transport their cargo for 15% of the profits on those goods. They purchase the parts and they load up.

Caliban takes one more chance to interview and record dock workers about the Pachyderms. As he’s doing this, Barney notices some cargo that looks quite different than the rest in the dock. It looks military. Calling Flint over, he inquires. The packing boxes do indeed look like they are for military gear, with military markings. He looks at some numbers on the outside of the crate, makes an Education roll, and realizes the crate contains Battle Dress! Obviously in preparation for the mercenaries attacking the Sophont Liberation Front. A few guys in Battle Dress with heavy weapons would wipe them out!

As the rest of the crew takes notice, a worker walks up to the box, taps some numbers or text into his tablet, and leaves. Another person driving a cargo mover picks up the crate. Caliban logs into the network on his tablet, finds that particular crate in recent arrivals. Barney has him change the storage location from wherever  the controller had entered to the spot their crates of machine tools had been.

The cargo mover driver stops, takes second look at his screen, scratches his head and shrugs, and puts the battle dress crate where they want — near the Favorite Son’s cargo ramp. Caliban give a pachyderm a granola bar, makes a liaison roll, and the creature pushes the crate onboard. The creature lumbers off.

NOW it is time to get the hell off this planet. Roger fires up the maneuver drive and the ship rises into the air. From his seat, Flint sees the cargo controller looking frantically for that box as the ship leaves the spaceport…

End of Session
IY6026.350
Elapsed time: 458 game days (1 year 83 days)

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 43

Not too much to report this time. A fun session with 100% roleplaying and zero combat (at least for the PCs).

The group split up into 3 sub-teams, which is fine. I enjoy keeping all the plates in the air, and I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at reffing for a split party. For one thing, it makes more sense for two characters to go off on some errand sometimes than six.

Fans of Alan Dean Foster will recognize the inspiration for the NPC I have inserted into the campaign.

J.Bland
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ITV Session 43: Subterfuge

IY6026.349

SAFCO is still on Uetonah. They have just gotten back to Samson City, but are outside the walls, discussing further actions. It is afternoon. They’ve spent the morning traveling through the jungle.

They return to the ship and discuss various plans, and then split into teams.

  • Lucky and Fardt go in search of a tavern frequented by miners in which to try to use Fardt’s streetwise skill to gain information, plant rumors, etc.
  • Flint and Roger go to find some cargo for Silvonius, so this leg of the trip will not be a washout.
  • Barney and Caliban will try to gain access to the Samson Mining network and plant misinformation for the incoming mercenaries to “discover.”

Lucky and Fardt find a busy establishment simply called “Tavern. They go in and start carousing. Fardt is not successful with his Streetwise-1 rolls, and not unable to really start any rumors. They go to the Collider table and gamble. Each loses some money. They meet a miner and Lucky pretends to be looking for work. The guy’s name is Harv Smithfield. Lucky chats him up for info about working conditions there, what the company is like, etc.  Harv becomes a friend to both of them. As they are talking, a ruckus breaks out at the dice table. They see a big miner yelling at boy of approximately 15 or 16 years for “cheating” at dice. The boy smirks. He is about 5’5″ tall, curly black hair,  dressed in a simple dark blue tunic over black trousers and boots. He has a belt pouch. The boy challenges the miner to one more round of the dice game. Just as it appears the miner will win, due to a poor roll by the boy, one of the miner’s dice tips precariously on its edge, finally falling into a losing configuration! The boy shovels the money on the table into his pouch as the miner erupts in anger, chasing him past Lucky and the panicking Fardt and out the door.

Flint and Roger go cargo hunting and snooping around. They find a strange cargo up for sale – 5 tons of liquor! (the cargo tables do odd things). It seems someone in the last 24 hours needed to dump it to make room for more valuable cargo, so the cargo handlers pooled their credits to buy it super cheap! Flint and Roger bring Silvonius, and the negotiate a good price that will profit the miners, certainly allow Silvonius to turn a profit, and will get the stuff off the cargo floor.

Barney and Caliban attempt to hack into the Samson network using Caliban’s TL13 hand computer, but are not successful. They leave the ship and go out into the dock to see where the terminals might be and how security is. They find a terminal. They see miners coming in from work, dirty and heading for the showers. They follow. They steal the laundry hamper from the showers and nick two Samson work suits and caps. Barney puts on one of the suits and approaches a terminal with Caliban. The terminal is occupied by a cargo handler. Barney asks if he can use it real quick to check on some cargo for “this guy” pointing to Caliban. He is convincing and the guy allows him to, after a brief discussion about Barney being a new hire. Caliban makes his Admin-4 roll by a significant amount, giving Barney a +2 to his Comp-2 roll to navigate the administrative systems of Samson. They make another good roll, and are able to hack the system enough that they can now gain access remotely with Caliban’s tablet. All this take some time. Flint and Roger return from their mission, see them, and stand in front of the terminal pretending to have a conversation, blocking the view of anyone else walking by. Having gotten the access they need, they leave, Barney changing clothes. They keep the two stolen Samson works suits.

Fardt makes a great Steward-1 roll later, preparing a fantastic meal on the ship.

After dinner, as Barney is checking some systems, he hears someone knocking on the hatch asking to be let in! He cracks the hatch and sees and adolescent male in blue tunic and black pants and boots. He allows him in. The boy wants to book passage to Listo, which happens to be on the route to Prometheus, to see his grandmother! He opens his pouch and they can see he has plenty of money. Silvonius grants him passage. The boy introduces himself.

“I’m called Jinx”.

End of session
IY6026.349
Elapsed time: 457 game days (1 year 82 days)

 

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 42

Another great session. I am very, very pleased with the creativity the players are using with their skill and even doing things that are not directly related to one of their skills. In real life people do that! I’m especially happy with the teamwork. Example: Flint is not a technical guy. He’s a soldier, with tactics. He had the idea of setting some traps for the corporate mercs, and asked Barney and Lucky if they could build some radio control decoy devices. Great idea! They made their rolls and were successful.

To me this is the essence of great roleplaying.  David (Flint’s player) did not feel limited by his character’s skills. He had ideas, they talked them through, and executed. Barney (the engineer and person with the highest Computer skill) and Caliban (master of bureaucratic systems and thinking) are working on some similar stuff.

After the encounter with the Lightning Bugs they made it back to town. They are discussing what to do now. Lots of really good ideas being generated. Amazingly, some of the ideas that came up I am already prepared for!

I had hoped to reach 5o game session by the end of this year, but it looks like we’ll top out at 45, which is still amazing. That will mean 15 session this year, which is a record for us.

J.Bland
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ITV Session 42: Lightning Bugs

IY6026.347

SAFCO begins the session where they left off, at the Sophont Liberation Front in the jungles of Uetonah. They have spoken to Jason Slimjack, the biologist/leader of the rebels. Before light’s out the team discusses what they wish to do next.

The next day, Caliban goes around interviewing rebels regarding the Pachyderms, with the idea that he can submit this information to some journalist and thereby get the media involved. He spends the day doing that. Flint is given a tour of the rebel base and assets, as he has offerred to use his experience as an Army colonel to assist them with tactics to defend the base should Samson mining attack with mercenaries.

At Flint’s suggestion, Barney and Lucky spend the day building some expendible transmiters/recievers to use for dirty tricks in the upcoming battle, like using them to lure the mercenaries to booby traps, etc.

The next morning, Jason meets with SAFCO and ask them to take his Pachyderm research data with them, and try to get it to the Imperial Office of Sophont Relations, on Prometheus. They agree. Caliban has made his Admin roll, and he knows the head of that office from his prior service. Sir Walot DeMaris, a minor noble and expert on inter-sophont relations. Caliban thinks highly of him and believes he would be hard to bribe or blackmail.

The team loads up the grav bikes begins their return to Samson City. About 10km along the way, with Flint and Roger taking the lead, Flint detects 12 small objects pursuing them, and gaining on them fast. (Flint wins a surprise roll against the incoming hostiles). He puts his bike on autopilot and launches a grenade behind the group of grav bikes, the cloud of incoming “things”. Four of them drop off the radar.

Suddenly SAFCO finds themselves being swarmed by football-sized fast-flying insects that look like colorful wasps. The eight creatures break into pairs, with one on either side of every grav bike but Roger’s. They are very fast, and move erratically. They’ll be hard to hit.

As the team and the bugs fly down the pyschedelic tunnel, the bugs begin to attack. Between each pair of bugs a powerful electrical arc blasts. They try to catch the humans in that arc. SAFCO returns their attack. Flint turns his submachine gun on the insects. Caliban uses his skill with the grav bike to execute an impressive move, attempting to smash one of the bugs with his bike. Lucky and Roger shoot. Barney pulls out one of the insecticide weapons they bought in town and kills two of them. During the chaos, both Barney and Lucky are hit by electrical bolts. They slump on their auto-piloted grav bikes, unconscious as the others race on. Flint is hit, the energy easily penetrating his normally effective combat armor, but he hangs on to consciousness. Roger is hit, but barely.

More fighting. Caliban kills one with his auto pistol. Flint and Roger manage to kill more of them. Finally there is only one Lightning Bug left, and it flies off into the jungle.

Backtracking, they find Lucky and Barney unconscious on the floor of the tunnel, their bikes safely stopped near them. Both are still alive. After ten minutes both revive. Roger used Med-1 on everyone to bring them back up to almost full strength.

After some rest, the team makes it back to Samson City with no further injuries.

Caliban suggests that they wipe the navigational data from their bikes, to safeguard the rebel position.

The team discusses additional actions they might want to take, like planting misinformation in the Samson computer system, to sow dissent with the hired mercenaries, etc. They discuss skills needed. Barney is working at Comp-2. With this and Caliban’s knowledge of administrative filing systems they might be able to pull such a thing off. Flint has some ideas as well.

They are not sure what Silvonius Janks will want to do at this point.

End of session
IY6026.349
Elapsed time: 457 game days (1 year 82 days)

 

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 41

A few thoughts on Session 41…

As is often the case I was tired by the time we started at 7pm. I have learned that if I am tired I need to go ahead and run the game. The group will energize me. That is what happened. I sat down at my desk, somewhat grumpy because the cat was screaming at me for some attention and my office was a mess because I’ve been painting miniatures. I “found my center”, calmed myself, didn’t throw anything around, and holy smokes it was good to spend a couple of hours with the group. Good to hear everyone’s voices, good to have the laughing and interaction, good to use our imaginations. Gaming is just so – bloody – good.

It is always easier to prep for a session if the group is already in the middle of an adventure. This seems obvious. In that case you don’t have to “come up with an adventure,” you just have to continue what thy were already doing or add more stuff to what they were doing. “What might happen next?” Even so, after three weeks of delayed games due to my work imposing itself on my life, I have to admit that imposter syndrome and generalized worry about the game being “good enough” were both trying to crawl out of the dungeon I normally keep them in. I kept them there. I have learned to just tell them to shut the fuck up. I am an experienced GM and I can run a game for two hours. And that’s what I did. With the help of our group.

During their trip through the jungle I was having Roger, the navigator, make Nav rolls in each hex. If he made the roll, it took them only an hour to get through that hex and come out going the right direction. They would have a 1 in 6 chance of a random encounter in that hex. If he missed it, they would still get through, but they had to make two random encounter rolls. It’s not like they were going to go the wrong direction. The grav bikes have navigation programs and radar. The trick was to use the radar to figure out which paths to take.

I made two random encounter tables. One for the jungle in general, and another if they were within five kilometers of the rebel base.

I tried to balance the tables between 1)things that could and very well might kill them, 2)geographical challenges, and 3)non-aggressive/benign lifeforms.

During travel through about eight hexes they had two random encounters. The first was with the Jungle Floaters, which are little balloon-like creatures.

When I was creating and describing these creatures earlier that day my goal was to create something mysterious, possibly beautiful, that would take up the party’s time but was not aggressive.

When the encounter was happening, it occurred to me how “cinematic” it was. Five explorers on grav bikes, in a bioluminescent organic tunnel, encounter beautiful, weird, benign little creatures, and having to determine if they were actually a threat, and moving past them. When you envision it I think it is really a wondrous and beautiful scene that exemplifies the best part of science fiction/space opera.

If you try to do things like that all the time, just as with combat, I think it gets old. Wonder becomes less wondrous when it becomes common. Still, we can go through so many games, and even entire campaigns, without there being any real beauty.

As I have written here, I have spent the last three years immersing myself in the science fiction of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and to a lesser extent the 90s. In particular, I’ve read a lot of the novels of Alan Dean Foster, set in the Humanx Commonweath. Foster is a master of creating vibrant worlds and ecologies, and I suspect all this reading has influenced me.

It may just be that the best thing you can do to improve your gamemastering is reading good inspirational material.

J.Bland
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ITV Session 41: Balloons

IY6026.346

SAFCO is in the jungle just outside the Samson Mining base on Uetonah. They’ve just encountered and killed three aggressive megabeetles. They are on their way to coordinates provided by a rebel operative at the spaceport, where they expect to find a rebel base. Their goal is to inform the rebels of the Sophont Liberation Front that Samson is gathering mercenaries and military gear and weapons with the goal of wiping them out.

They continue on their grav bikes through the twisting and branching Pachyderm trails. Roger and Flint are up front. Roger is navigating and Flint is monitoring his bike’s radar and otherwise on the alert for danger. Caliban is in the middle, with Lucky and Barney in the rear. They have at least several hours of travel ahead of them, as it is impossible to travel in a straight line through the thick and dangerous jungle.

Roger does a good job of navigating, but they do have a couple of random encounters.

First, while crusing through the Pachy tunnel, they encounter a swarm of what look like small floating balloons ahead. The things are of various shapes, about a foot in diameter. There is no breeze but the things are moving around, and the movement does not appear random. The party can see that each of the things has what look like sensory stalks distributed around their equators. The balloons are of various different bright colors, like most of the phosphorescent life in the otherwise dark jungle.

Lucky pulls out his binoculars to get a better look. The things do look like living creatures. He can see what look like rudimentary eyes on the ends of some of the stalks, while others are covered with unknown sensory organs. He also sees that the creatures have pores which open up and expel puffs of air, allowing them to move around in little jet-powered bursts.

The creatures are not moving any closer.

Caliban finds a broken tree branch and then moves his grav bike forward, toward the balloons. He reaches out gently with the branch to try to move one out of the way. As he moves the leafy branch near the creatures it quickly jets itself up out of reach.

Caliban now hears a “bubbling, cooing” sound coming from the creatures. They surround his grav bike and continue making the sounds. He is getting recordings on his hand-computer. He slowly moves his grav bike forward. The creatures move, letting him by.

The rest of the group slowly moves through the cloud of creatures.

They continue, Roger doing a great job navigating. About five kilometers from the desired coordinates Flint detects lots of movement surrounding them in the trees. They stop. Turns out to be a bunch of small monkey-like creatures. As they investigate, Flint’s radar detects some larger shapes coming down through the canopy. The monkeys scatter.

An amplified human voice calls out for them to put their hands up. A couple of rebels riding jungle crawlers come down out of the trees. The leader introduces himself as Ramirez. He recognizes them from their previous trip to this world, when they helped the rebels. Ramirez guides them to the base.

The base is essentially a huge treehouse, at least 100 feet up, above the first canopy, with at least 200 feet of canopy above it. It is built on a Togo tree, 60′ in diameter. They go inside a hollow part of the tree, up a ladder, and meeting Paula Masters, the leader of this base. SAFCO delivers the information. As they talk, out on a balcony overlooking the jungle, they inquire about the Pachyderms. What evidence is there that they are sentient? A voice from behind them says “I can assure you they are sentient. I have the evidence.”

They turn around to find Jason Slimjack, the biologist who was the reason for their first visit to Uetonah.

Jason explains that he’s spent time with the Pachyderms, and he has sent two information packages to the Office of Sophont Relations on Prometheus, but has gotten no support from the Imperium. The teams suspects that Samson Mining is somehow suppressing the information. Caliban tells them that there are many reasons that action may not have been taken yet, not all of them nefarious. He makes and Admin-4 roll, and he knows the head of that office.

Barney, Lucky, and Caliban go back to the grav bikes and inspect them for tracking devices. All three of them believe the bikes are clean.

Before retiring for the night, they ask Jason what the balloon creatures are. “Oh, Jungle Floaters” he replies. “They’re harmless, unless you pierce them. They have strong skins. You could hit one with a grav bike and it would just bounce off, but if you shot one it would explode like a hand grenade. They’re not sentient, though they are curious.”

The team retires for the night and discussed next moves.

End of session
IY6026.347
Elapsed time: 455 game days (1 year 81 days)

J.Bland
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Into the Void Ref’s Notes Session 40

First and foremost, SESSION 40! We have gotten to 40 sessions. It is now mid-September, and I hope to get to session 50 by the end of 2025!

This session was delayed by two or three weeks due to me finally getting Covid. After all these years the virus finally caught up with me. I wasn’t that sick, but I had ZERO energy for a couple of weeks. Though I honestly was tired last night I was more tired of not playing. So we played, and as always it was glorious because our group is glorious.

I didn’t have to do a massive amount of prep for this session as I had created maps, NPCS, situations, and “what is going on” weeks ago. Using the iPad to make maps for Roll20 is getting really easy. I love it. It’s actually fun.

desk with RPG gaming stuff and computerMy online GM setup has become are real mix of stuff. MacBook, two external monitors, iPad (I keep the Ref’s versions of the maps on the iPad), actual physical 6-sided dice  for doing quick rolls, and index cards. Yes, I’ve started using index cards to for NPCs, creatures, and general notes, even for online play. They are easy to handle, don’t get in the way at my desk, and frankly using them is easier than dicking around with flipping a bunch of screens around on the computer. My one recent addition to my gaming tech is some wireless bluetooth and outrageously expensive Apple AirPod Max headphones. I was just to tired of having the wire from my old headphones in my way all the time. We were at the Apple Store getting my wife a new computer and I tried them. They sound incredible and are of a very very high build-quality. So there – I am no officially a modern person.

So the PCs are on a journey through the jungle on grav bikes. A hex crawl. I had already prepared random encounter tables weeks ago, but realized as we were playing I’d not accounted for the confusion of traveling through the jungle in twisting, turning tunnels through the thick vegetation with lots of side paths and whatnot. Easy to get lost. Getting across a 5 km hex will take 3 or 4 times what it would normally. Impossible to even approximate a straight line. So quickly — the grav bikes have navigation and radar and a compass. One of the PCs has Navigation. So they agreed that he would take the lead (along with the tough guy, riding side by side) and use his Nav skill to guid them. So in each hex they enter, I have him make a Nav roll of 8+. If he makes the roll, they get one random encounter roll. A 1-in-6 chance of encountering something. If he misses the roll, that means it takes them twice as long to get through that hex, and I make two 1-in-6 random encounter rolls. Well, as luck would have it, he missed the roll in the first hex, got two random encounter rolls, and one resulted in the encounter with the three MegaBeetles and a fight. FUN!

I could have cobbled together a more complex way of handling all this, but that would get really old really fast. I am honestly kind of proud of myself for sorting this out in about 30 seconds as we played. I think I’m getting better at this. This is a lot easier than trying to map out hundreds of kilometers of crazy tunnels, and I think does a good job of representing the experience very simply.

I was also very happy they had a situation in which I could use the surprise rules and the PC Flint’s Leader and Tactics skills, and military experience, would be used to modify the rolls, as well as a negative modifier for the fact they were using vehicles. Another example of the simply elegance of Classic Traveller, the greatest RPG ever created.

Another small victory – we got the automatic fire rules right for the auto rifles and submachine gun first try, from memory!

J.Bland
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ITV Session 40: Beetle Battle

IY6026.344

SAFCO is on Uetonah. After some discussion of how to proceed, they meet the spaceport worker who Barney encountered  at Irma’s Imported Mooch Emporium, after chatting up a local about what’s happening on the planet. He suggests they meet again later at their ship (the Fortunate Son) as they might be watched here at the bar. Later they meet him at the ship.

The man says he recognizes them from their previous visit to the planet, when he fought alongside them in their last battle on the planet. He tells them he’s been unable to get a message to the Sophont Liberation Front rebels to warn them of the Samson Mining’s plans to wipe them out with mercenaries. Caliban asks him if he has proof the Pachyderms are sentient. He tells them that he rebel leader, Jason, has been studying them for well over a year and would likely have data. Barney is of course interested in this as well.

He has the latitude and longitude of one of the four rebel hideouts, about 40km away. SAFCO agrees to deliver his warning message to the rebels, as it will get them closer to Jason Slimjack, the leader, and perhaps they can help in some way to uncover the truth of the Pachyderms. He asks the PCs if they had EVER heard of the Pachyderms (amazing beings) before coming here? Especially the scouts! The would normally be aware of most major lifeforms. They admit they had never heard of them, and posit that knowledge of the Pachyderms has been intentionally kept secret.

The next day the team sets out to collect some supplies for the expedition. Flint tells Silvonius Janks they are going to scout out plants/herbs that perhaps would make good cargo, and they’ll be gone about five days. Fardt agrees to stay with Janks. Caliban goes to the rental shop where the team rented grav bikes on their previous trip. He finds them looking to sell ten grav bikes, as business is very slow due to the mine shutdown. He knows that they should probably sell for about 20,000cr each in good shape (he has Grav-1 and can evaluate them). He uses his Admin-4 skill to bargain, getting the price down to 11,000cr each, and convinces Silvonius Janks to bring them on as spec cargo. They should be able to sell them much higher elsewhere. Lucky, Barney, Roger, and Flint buy some insecticide spray bombs to deal with big bugs in the jungle. Barney and Lucky, together, use the day to build a flamethrower.  The group has brought 4 hand grenades each from their stash.

They will be ready to go the next morning.

Their contact gave them latitude and longitude, and said if they go there they’ll likely be found by patrols. This issue is that travel on Uetonah is difficult. The Jungle is so thick that the only good way to move through it is through the twisting and turning tunnels smashed through the jungle over the aeons by the Pachyderms. So traveling five kilometers in one direction as the crow flies is impossible. Flying over the jungle is possible, but the trees are 600-800 meters tall and form a dense canopy. In fact, there are multiple layers of canopy down to the ground, each its own ecosystem. So finding the rebels from the air would be impossible.

SAFCO leaves town, entering the jungle via one of the jungle tunnel entrances by the strip mine. As they enter the tunnel they again find it would be dark of not of the colorful bioluminescence the permeates the jungle.

Roger and Flint fly their bikes side by side in front, with Caliban in the middle, and Lucky and Barney side by side in the rear. Roger uses his skill as a Navigator along with his bike’s onboard radar and compass to weave them in the right general direction. In the first five kilometer hex he misses his Nav roll, which means they’ll spend twice as much time in that hex, resulting in two, rather than one, random encounter rolls.

As they fly through the twisting, glowing path, Flint signals to the group to come to a stop. Using his Tactics and Leader skill, as well as military experience, he has used his onboard radar and good old combat awareness to gain surprise against three MegaBeetles that are blocking the tunnel. The team knows from a previous encounter that these creatures are very tough and very dangerous, and aggressive. Flint and Lucky each throw a hand grenade, doing a lot of damage to the beasts – enough to make them mad. The rest of the team take gun shots at them. They manage to kill one of the beetles, but one rushes Flint on the ground and the one that was hanging from overhead rushes, upside down, to Roger. Both monsters attack and miss! The team blasts with autopistols, auto rifles, and Flint uses his submachine gun. After a couple of rounds they luck out and don’t get bitten or crushed and they kill the beetles.

WHEW! Uetonah is dangerous!

End of session
IY6026.346
Elapsed time: 454 game days (1 year 80 days)