Category: Ref’s Notes

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.

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.

My 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!

Another fun session.

Two hours of roleplaying got the PCs back out on a mission.

I was very happy with this session. A number of good things happened. Before I get into specific great incidents of play, I want to say that all five players were doing smart things, interacting with the setting, asking the right questions, seeking out NPCs to talk to without my prompting, etc.

Since they were likely heading back to the planet Uetonah I had suggested they re-read the previous sessions on that planet, but David went beyond that. When his character, Flint, said he was going to seek out their newest frenemy, Alro Rupalian, and ask for help keeping an eye on the ship, I was delighted! I love seeing a player taking advantage of existing relationships with NPCs. That is just really good playing that is totally unrelated to character stats, yet it’s a powerful resource. Super, super good. It’s the kind of thing that is really only possible in long-form campaigns where an in-game history really develops.

In all the years of this campaign, and all my previous years of playing Traveller, I have never once use the rules for trading. Adding a bureaucrat to the mix of PCs has opened up a lot of possibilities in the game. I was reading the rules for trade and commerce and saw that the Admin skill can be used as a positive modifier when selling good. Well, Caliban has Admin-4, so that is a huge modifier on a 2d6 roll.  I also like that he used his Recruit-1 skill not exactly to recruit dock workers into employment, but to sort of recruit them as allies. I always talk about how Traveller skills should be thought of as “big”. This was a great use of that skill.

Fardt, the alien Gluck NPC, has Streetwise-1. In the past he has used that skill to the party’s advantage, but in pretty obvious ways. “Locate a sketchy hacker to do some work for us? Sure.” Fardt was out with William’s character, Barney (the engineer). Barney suggested that Fardt go eavesdrop on the Samson mining recruiters. So that was a good use of the skill. Then Barney asked him to use his Streetwise to start a rumor in the city that the Samson guys were not being honest – that the mission they are recruiting for is certain death! I let William make the roll for Fardt. He made it. I decided on the fly that this brilliant and creative idea should bear fruit, so I had him roll 1d6 to find out what how long the Samson guys would be delayed due to the rumor creation. He rolled a 4. So that simple action set the Samson buys back four weeks, giving the PCs a massive lead on them. Awesome stuff.

The examples above, I think, demonstrate why Classic Traveller is simply a great system. It gives you just enough rules to make it work, but gives the Ref lots of room to work. It is flexible.

As usual, I used a flexible round-robin method of running the game. I make a list of the players, and I simply go through the list, in order, asking each player what they are doing. We can break out of it whenever we need, but I always go back to the round-robin to make sure each player is getting a chance to do stuff.

I’m finding that as each player does something inventive and fun it is spurring that same kind of play from the others. They are feeding off each other’s play in a way that’s improving everyone’s game.

I have to admit that this kind of game is a little harder to run than simpler stuff. And simple can be a hell of a lot of fun, but this is just really satisfying.

For the record, what is “going on” is really quite simple, but will take some time to sort out. It could involve action and fighting, but I can think of other ways to move forward. I have created a lot of the NPCs they may deal with, rough descriptions of places, and thought about possibilities, but the players will almost certain do something I’ve not thought of. I hope the players are having fun. They keep coming back.

I’ve been thinking a lot about a more “defined” way of letting them improve the characters through experience, but now I’m questioning if it is even necessary. I don’t think it will improve the game at all.

I keep saying this with every new session, but I am really amazed we just finished Session 37. My D&D game is on session 36 in just over a year. Both of these campaigns are now much longer both in real time and in game sessions than anything I’ve done before.

I’ve been talking to people about the benefits of long-form campaigns, as well as listening to some podcasts about it. I am not averse to a good one-shot game. They can be super fun. But the stuff we’re doing in these two long-form campaigns with no defined end points is just so fun and so great, and really couldn’t happen in a shorter format.

Session 37 was perhaps the closest to a no-roll roleplaying session I’ve run. Most of the two hours was spent with the characters in conversation with each other or interacting with NPCs. Other than a few Gunnery rolls practicing with the laser turrets on the ship and two Admin rolls, it was all talk and roleplaying. I feel like the players are getting better at the in-character roleplaying part of the game. No, they aren’t acting like voice actors or entertainers. They are just playing their characters. Maybe I’m affording them more opportunities for this? I’m not sure, but it was fun.

This was still a very busy 2-hour session. I had considered throwing some action into it, or working in the start of a new adventure, but decided not to rush it. Everyone seemed engaged, so I decided to take my time and let things play out. The game will be better for it.

So, we have finished the Chamax Sessions in our Classic Traveller campaign. I used the Double Adventure /the Chamax Plague/Horde as source material, and the group actually discovered the Chamax origin planet and dealt with bugs on the surface and an alien escape ship in orbit around the planet.

This adventure actually took seven play sessions to do. Most of them were 2-hour sessions, so that is understandable.

I made a real effort to have potential skill use in this adventure beyond just bug killing. In particular, allowing PCs to add their Jack of All Trades modifier to rolls when I felt it appropriate. For example, when their background would indicate some kind of intuition in the area. As I have gone on and on about in person and online for years, most Traveller skills are BIG. They often encompass multiple implied sub-skills or entire professions. Players need to be able to use them. I’m doing what I can as Ref to nudge the players into thinking bigger with regard to their skills.

We are taking next week off, which will give me a breather and time to work on the next steps of the campaign. I want to do a better job describing things to increase “immersion” and I want to find some good non-AI imagery on the web to use during the sessions.

The players discussed a couple of items of unfinished business at the end of last night’s session, so we may go those directions depending on what they decide.

I love this campaign.

This adventure is taking way more session than I expected! That’s fine. We’re only playing for two hours at a time, and we usually spend about 10 minutes catching up before we play. I’m enjoying these sessions a lot, and I hope the players are too. It is great to not feel like we are rushing through an adventure “just to get it done.”

One challenge I had in last night’s session was keeping the one character who stayed on the ship (to make sure someone was there at the ready) engaged. William is a great player. He often is the one who goes up to the balcony to keep an eye on things, lags behind to make sure no one is following them, etc. Sometimes, as in these last few sessions, it means his character, Barney, isn’t  in the middle of the action.

However, over the last seven years of playing Traveller he understands how to keep his character busy, and find productive things to do, in this case supporting the away team. I can’t believe we’ve been playing this campaign for over seven years now, but we have, and all the guys are seasoned Traveller players. Well, Todd is new, but he’s an experienced gamer and it’s like he’s been with us the whole time.

I had a good time with last night’s session. I made a random table to determine how the alien ship they are on might malfunction. Gravity going in and out, information videos suddenly playing, lights on and off, maneuvering/attitude thrusters suddenly firing. It was also fun to have the PCs in vac suits – an added level of danger, as well as some zero-g antics.

When I review my own performance as Ref after these games, I continue to be dissatisfied with the descriptions I give of things. Like the interior of the ship. I feel like I’m paying a lot of attention to the big things in a session, but could spend more time thinking of atmospheric details. I will work on that.

Going on vacation for a week. More Traveller after that.