What are the essential rules to play Traveller? My below findings were from a campaign that Robert Eaglestone and I co-GM’d (he ran half the games, I ran the other half) over a calendar year. Additionally, I ran a couple of Con games. It was a total about 50 hours of gaming. Rules were mostly Classic Traveller with a smattering of T5 thrown in on occasion. Our main resource was The Traveller Book.

Here were the rules we actually used during the game.

Campaign Games

Characters

• Character generation (since it was Classic Traveller this included potential death in character generation).
• Skill checks
• Characteristic checks (e.g. roll under Strength, no skills consulted.)

Combat

• Combat (including damage, armor, and range rules)
• Positive and negative die modifiers based on cover and other situations
• Combats vs. animals
• Mass combat rules for fighting large numbers of animals (mimicking the ‘Hordes/Chamax Plague’ probably rules to simplify combat vs. large numbers of creatures)

Vehicles & Ships

• Dealing damage by strafing ground target with shots from our ship
• Vehicle speed and vehicles taking damage
• Effects on occupant when a vehicle is destroyed
• Travel time from planet to orbit and between planets within a system

Gear & Trade

• Cost and availability of various gear
• Trading Tables (used once to calculator value of bales of high-quality hallucinogenic weed)
• These were the only rules we used in our year-long campaign.

Rules We Hand-waved

The following rules were abstracted and handled narratively (no dice rolling)

• Outside the game, ships were built and upgraded with armament, but the only thing that came in the play was ground strafing
• Jump rules and refueling ships (no dice rolls)
• Buying, selling and trade (didn’t use accounting tables; we hand-waved the accounting and said ‘you made enough to buy a ship’ or what have you)
• A mass battle between starships
• A nuclear explosion
• Welding a hole through a hull
• EVA

Con Games

The following additional rules came up during two convention games I ran:

• Fatigue
• Space hazards such as asteroids, x-ray burst and gravity sheers and their effect on a ship
• Damage on occupants of a spaceship when a ship was hit from the above effects
• Effects of ship damage on ship systems (e.g. grav plates malfunctioning) and the subsequent skill checks to repair of those systems
• Gambling almost came up (bar scene in The Neutron Star Directive) but didn’t have time to get into that

Solo Gaming

The other thing I’ll call out is that there is another type of game in Traveller, what I’ll call GM Solo Gaming. This is worldbuilding, building vehicles, rolling up characters, etc. I’m not including those activities in the above list, although that is certainly a great thing in and of itself. I would say GM Solo Gaming material doesn’t need to be in the core rulebook but can be located in a separate GM Guide.

Forum Comments on Essential Rules

Here are comments from Google+ on what others think are essential Traveller rules:

“Character advancement, i.e. acquiring new skills and improving old ones.”

“House rules such as: ‘Don’t use character death during characters generation. If you fail a survival roll, character generation ends. You immediately make an aging crisis check (as if one age group higher). You get your mustering out benefits and your character enters play with a medical discharge.'”

“Starship combat rules, but which ones? Players have preferences all over the map. One such poster said: ‘I use Mayday for adventurer level starship combat. The missile customization rules are awesome. For big battles, these days, I use MJ12’s Starmada AE or Starmada Fleet Ops. I never really much cared for the abstract nature of Highguard’s combat system. I guess it’s the war gamer in me.'”

“Psionics rules.”

“Alien character generation rules.”

“Once I get past character creation, ship creation, and the occasional planet creation, there is really only one rule that I find to be essential. You say you want to do something. the Ref has you roll 2D6. You add a couple of modifiers. If the total is 8+ you succeed at what you do.”

“I’ve been using that rule since 1979 and it has worked marvelously. Sure, depending on the group we concentrate more on the space combat rules, or ground combat, or skill use, or trading. For the most part, however, just the rule I stated above does 90% of the work for me.”

“I don’t think my last campaign used any rules beyond Books 1–3 and Supplement 4.”

“Then the question of what within that did we not use or handwave? I don’t think we actually designed any ships. We didn’t get into any ship combat. There was no drug use. We had no animal encounters. We didn’t use psionics.”

“Of course, ship design, ship combat, and animal encounters are still things I’d consider essential, we just didn’t happen to need them.”

“But I think one of the great things about Traveller is that we could have pulled in something “non-essential” if the situation called for it and then set it aside again once we don’t need it. A good example is the system details in the Scouts book. If we were going to do some in-system stuff, then that’s great to have. But most of the time that extra detail just isn’t needed.”

So…what other rules do you consider to be *essential* to run a great Traveller campaign?

A friend of mine was asking about how to create mini-adventures on the fly. Here are three key tools all GM’s should understand. Each technique has its own unique uses. I use all three depending on the context. At the end I briefly describe how I pull all three together for a campaign.

Rumors

A collection of about 10 rumors (usually a sentence), marked as either True or False, typically tied to a larger adventure.

False rumors are an interesting facet of dungeon exploration, because they let the designer – with just a line or two of prose – to really change the players’ perception and approach to the dungeon. (read more on rumors here).

In the Dungeons & Dragons adventure module B2 “The Keep on the Boderlands”, they have a list of rumors the PCs may encounter as they explore a town prior to entering the “Caves of Chaos” dungeon. Here are some of the rumors. Not all rumors are true; one marked with ‘F’ are False (or course, the players won’t know this):

1. If you get lost, beware the eater of men!
2. There are Dwarves living in the caves
3. A fair maiden is imprisoned within the caves (F)
4. Bree-Yark is yrch for “we surrender!” (F)

The the rumor that “‘Bree-Yark!’ is goblin-language for ‘we surrender!”. The DM is told that it actually means “Hey, Rube!” and, rather than a call for surrender, is a signal for any nearby goblins to come join in an attack! (if you’re not familiar with the term Rube, see here).

Many D&D adventure modules come with a list of rumors. If not, I’ll create my own and allow the PCs to do some information gathering before they dive into the actual quest.

Plot Hooks (aka ‘Random Encounter’)

Something that drops into the characters lap that entices the players to go on a quest.

An example: ‘Returning from their latest adventure, the characters find a dead goblin sprawled on the ground, purple-face up in the middle of their room. His swollen left hand, stuck in a glass pickle jar, is wrapped about some crumpled parchment. There’s definitely writing of some sort visible on the parchment.’ (Read this and other plot hooks here). Works best if you think about what is really going on behind the plot hook and you flesh out a short mini-adventure to tie to it.

Personally, my favorite plot hooks are simple, self explanatory, and location based. Basically a sentence written in present tense for a situation that, if pursued (or not avoided) will inevitably lead to a conflict. For example, here are two I whipped up this morning:

(Sea) You spook a pirate ship which is hiding in a lagoon or fog drift making repairs.

(Wilderness Road) In the distance a burning wagon smolders. Red-feathered arrow shafts prickle the corpses of retainers on the ground nearby. A small boy runs past you shouting ‘Help me!’. He’s pursued by brigands who already have his sister captive and wish to ransom the two orphans back to their uncle, a nearby baron.

In many cases, I’ll put together plot hooks tied to the PCs background. For example, here’s one I just created:

(Bendritch [Joe’s Character]) Bendritch glimpses a one-eyed man who has haunted his dreams since childhood. Bendritch watched his parents die at a criminal’s hand; this one-eyed man is the killer. He is part of a larger group of assassins. He was paid to kil Bendritch’s parents since they discovered the dark secret that the local ruler had been replaced by an illusionist whose doppleganging skills allow him to rule the area and feed his nefarious plans for world domination.

In both examples, that’s all the detail I’ll put into it. I’ll make the rest up on the fly.

See this great article on ‘how to create plot hooks‘.

Patron Encounters

A patron you encounter who offers you money to do a mission, typically with twists and complications.

If you are not familiar with patron encounters, these are a common way of capturing the beginning of an open-ended adventure idea in older Traveller products. Each one describes a basic mission or goal, as presented by a patron (aka the guy that hires you). It then offers you a list of up to six different options about how it could play out. These options provide inspiration, re-usability and options. If you can’t decide on a particular option, then you can roll a d6 and choose one. (Source)

Jefri haut-Oschem, Planetologist

Required: Life Sciences, Survival; Spacecraft

Reward: Cr. 2,000/day plus expenses.

Players’ Information

His Excellency haut-Oschem is a respected Planetologist, specializing in worlds that are nearly habitable. A planet might be a little too cold, or too dry, or be infested with a lethal native species. Haut-Oschem’s genius is in making tiny changes to a planet’s ecosystem or climate. All too often, a change can ripple out through the complex balances of a planetary environment and have unforeseen consequences.

Haut-Oschem requires a spacecraft and a crew trained in the sciences for a brief period of research – no more than a few weeks, possibly a month or two. While haut-Oschem has worked with the Scout Service in the past, this mission is entirely under the aegis of private research. The ship will be visiting worlds outside settled space.

Referee’s Information

Any character with contacts in the Scout service can find out that haut-Oschem has quarreled with the Survey section, and that his once-stellar career has dark clouds hanging over it. Something has gone wrong…

1. Haut-Oschem has been replaced in the eyes of the Scout service by a younger researcher, Harad Leish. Old haut-Oschem wants to prove that his theories and methodologies are still valid. Leish and a laboratory ship from the Scout Service are currently surveying a jungle world inhabited by numerous hostile species. To prove his worth, haut-Oschem needs to find a way for humans to live safely on the world before the Scout service do.
2. As above, but haut-Oschem is bitter, and his real plan is to sabotage Leish’s survey team.
3. Haut-Oschem has discovered that he made a terrible mistake at the start of his career. He approved the settlement of a world before he fully understood the ecosystem. Every few centuries, a species of carnivorous locusts hatches in vast swarms and devours everything in their path. The characters need to find a way to stop the insects from hatching.
4. As above, but haut-Oschem wants to preserve his reputation above all else. The characters need to stop the insects without revealing what they’re doing to the settlers.
5. Haut-Oschem discovered something very valuable on his most recent survey, such as a massive deposit of precious metals or alien technology. He wants the characters to help him recover it.
6. As above, but haut-Oschem is in a race with the Scout service. He’s not the only one to have read between the lines in his latest survey.

(Source)

Putting it All Together

See this great article on how to create a sandbox adventure setting using Patrons and other setting details. This is approximately what I do.

When kicking off a campaign, here are some steps I follow:

1. Create rumors tied to any larger adventures or campaign arcs. About 6-12. Mark some as False. List these on a single piece of paper and put into a dice table format. If possible, fit it only a 3×5″ card. Roll randomly for rumors. Players may hear the same rumor more than once. Often I’ll tweak it on the fly, creating a variation of a rumor the players already heard.
2. Ask questions about character’s background, and use the answers to create plot hooks tied to the characters. Write 2-3 plot hooks per character on 3×5″ cards. I’ll ask the questions in-game but create the plot hooks outside of the game between sessions.
3. Create 3 or more Patron Encounters. Each Patron Encounter equates to a 3-4 hour adventure session. At a con game I’ll let the Patron adventure play out in 3.5 or so hours. In home games in a campaign context, I’ll try to let the Patron encounter play out in 2-3 hours and leave some room at the end for players to roam around doing whatever they want at the end.

Organizing and Managing These Tools

I like to record plot hooks on 3×5″ notecards, with a label for the context. The context is the environment or location (city street, dungeon, tavern, wilderness, sea, etc.) or character (each PC has one or more plot hooks tied to their background). I’ll keep them handy and just flip through the stack when things are getting boring. If you’re nearing the end of a session and you’ve not had a good conflict or fight, just grab for a great fight-inducing plot hook and throw this at the PCs.

Aside from these 3×5″ plot hook cards, I generally don’t have further notes or ideas. I’ll whip up the other details on the fly at the table, adapting it a bit to the circumstances.

Having a 1) list of example NPC names  and 2) pre-generated NPC stat blocks are key tools to help things flow quickly at the table.

How many plot hooks, rumors, and patron encounters do you need? Ideally this is what I’d have:

• 3 plot hooks per environment (city street, dungeon, tavern, wilderness, sea, port), each on a 3×5″ card.
• 3 plot hooks per PC, each on a 3×5″ card.
• 6 Patron Encounters, each on a 5.5×8.5″ page in my notebook (letter size paper will work too of course).

This is enough to run a complete campaign. Usually I’ll create some dastardly, dark secret which they PCs will discover and (hopefully) defeat by the end of the campaign arc.

I usually don’t actually have all this prepared by the first or even second game. I’ll start a campaign with only 2-3 cards and 1-2 patron encounters, then build my card and patron inventory as I go.

Aside from these 3 techniques, I will also use 1 page Dungeons and pre-published adventure modules to supplement these tools in Fantasy campaigns. I non-Fantasy campaigns I use the techniques list below as my sole adventure prep tools.

Tips on Running the Game

Prep situations, not solutions. No planned adventure survives after the first encounter with the players. The players will be innovative and come up with plans you could never expect.  Prepping detailed solutions before the game on the players behalf will only waste time and cause you frustration when the players ignore your ideas.

Alternate GM’s Phase and Player Phases. What I mean by this is using the Mouseguard technique of having a short GM-prepared adventure, typically based on something like a Patron Encounter or Savage Worlds 1 Sheet. Once your adventure is done, usually in 2-3 hours, it’s now the Player’s phase where you let the players drive and do whatever they want. Encourage them to dig into unresolved mysteries. Go after their enemies. If things get boring, pull out a Random Encounter from one of your plot hook cards.

Ask Players What They’re Doing Next. At the end of the game, ask players what their plans are. They want to go explore the mountain range to the south? I’ll whip up some Mountain encounters before the next game.

Don’t Overprep. Prepping material that is never used wastes time and causes GM burnout. Just prep what you need for 2-3 sessions, material that you’re pretty sure will be used or can be used in future campaigns if you don’t use it in the current campaign. Metaphorically, you’re like a machine creating a railroad track for the players, but you only lay track a few dozen feet at a time, right in front of the players, and move the track constantly as you adjust to the direction the players are going.

Read Sandbox-Style Game Systems. Read Dungeon World. Some of the best GM advice on the planet is in that book. Fate Core is another great book to read with advice on creating issues that fuel a campaign. Fiasco is a great game to help you limber up and learn to ‘wing it’ when creating story on thy fly at the table.

Pirate/High Sea Adventure Hooks

For my friend running a 50 Fathoms game 🙂

8 Adventure Hooks for use on the High Seas

5 Pirate Related Adventure Hooks

Resources for Rumors, Plot Hooks, and Patron Encounters:

Great writeup on using Hooks and Rumors

How to make a Traveller sandbox

100 Plot Hooks

100 City Encounters

222 Rumors

Rumor/Random Encounter Generator

RPG Adventure Types

Tips on using rumors

Example of how rumors play out into ad hoc adventures

Hooks and Rumors

Traveller Patron encounters

Many folks who have visited my gameroom and played tabletop RPGs like D&D and Traveller with me have remarked on my table setup. It’s easy to deconstruct and reconfigure the room to instead setup a folding ping-ping table or put down an inflatable bed if we have guests. It’s also big enough they I can seat 8 players plus a GM (though usually it’s set up for 5-6 players plus a GM).

Here’s how I pieced it together along with costs.

• A Chessex Megamat which is 34.5″ x 48″ from Amazon (runs about $34) [view online]
• Two center-fold folding tables from Costco (runs about $67) [view online]
• A full-size black bed sheet from Target (runs about $11) [view online]
• A Lexan 36″ x 48″ clear acrylic sheet (runs about $67) [view online]

Total cost was around $250.

Stan’s Gaming Table

I use Costco folding tables. Very sturdy and rugged (as compared to some less expensive tables I used to have from Target which were a little more wobbly).

Costco Heavy Duty Folding Tables

I simply use a black full-sized bed sheet as a table-cloth. It’s not slick and has enough friction to keep maps and cards from sliding around. Easy to throw in the laundry once the Cheeto stains become noticable!

Full Size Bed Sheet Used as a Tablecloth

I use a Chessex battlemat which fits on the table with still about a foot of space along the table edges for players to put their books and character sheets and innumerable dice.

Chessex Megamat

I’m paranoid about staining my Chessex battlemat by forgetting to wipe off the wet erase markings. Also, I’m sometimes concerned about water marks or tears given some of the minis and soft drinks we junk up the table with. So I overlay a piece of Lexan on top of the battlemat. Lexan is more expensive than Plexiglass but is thinner and (supposedly) more scratch resistent. I’d probably have been just as happy with Plexiglass in retrospect.

Lexan Sheet

You can draw on the battlemat just fine. I can wait and erase the marking a month later and it comes up just fine.

Battlemat You Can Draw On Without Fear of Stains

Another use for the Lexan is to press maps flat and protect them. Here’s a Heroclix map that is hard to get flat.

Maps When Not Under Lexan

But when placed under the Lexan it is nice and flat!

Example Map Under the Lexan Sheet

Come game-time, I really like the table setup. We toss dice around and the maps are nice and protected from drink spills and don’t move around on the table.

Heroclix Figures on the Battlemat

While the cost was $250 for this setup, it works great for me. Hope you find these tips helpful!

Trying to protect your old-school RPG materials can be a pain, but I’ve found the perfect solution: Office Depot Expandable Sheet Protectors.

Unlike normal sheet protectors, which are overly snug and can even snag or rip the spine of a classic D&D module, these protects are a bit wider that normal and can easily accommodate 50 pages of material. See the photo here with one of my modules stored nicely inside. Just the thing to allow me to organize my material into 3 ring binders!

I run a 700+ member Meetup group called DFW Roleplayers. I hear from many gamers who are like me and are returning to the hobby after being absent from tabletop gaming from many years. How do you find players? What books do you buy? What supplies do you need? All common questions. Here’s my answer to one player on this topic:

Great to hear from you! I was absent from the game from 1986 to 2006 or so, so I made a similar trek.

First off, who you game with is the most important thing in my book, over what you play. My tips on finding a group: http://dfwroleplayers.com/find-a-game-group/

What gaming systems you like is another big consideration though. I find Pathfinder/3.5 too crunchy for my taste. 4e has a following in the area but 5e/D&D Next will be out late next year. Other games, notably Fate, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire and Savage Worlds, also have a strong following. 1e and Basic D&D and Castles & Crusades also has a following in the DFW area. Those are probably the top systems you’d want to check out. You can catch some Con games to play different systems, find what you like, and maybe make some gaming friends (which could lead to a group!). Organized play for Pathfinder and 4e/5e are great ways to game and connect as well. I’d say NTRPGCon is the best of them all for tabletop RPGs (local) and Owlcon is great and actually bigger (but in Houston).

2014 Texas Con Schedule

• Owlcon (Houston) Feb. 21-24, 2014 http://owlcon.com
• GamerNationCon.com (Plano) Mar. 14-16, 2014 http://GamerNationCon.com
• North Texas RPG Con (DFW) Jun. 5-8, 2014 http://ntrpgcon.com/
• Texicon (Ft. Worth) June 27-29, 2014 http://texicon.net/
• WaCon (Waco) Oct. 24-26, 2014 (Tentative) http://wacogamecon.com/
• There is AggieCon (College Station, http://cephvar.tamu.edu/aggiecon) and also ChimaeraCon (San Antonio http://chimaeracon.com/) but neither have announced their 2014 dates just yet

If you have a standard set of polyhedral dice and a pencil and paper you’re set for most any game (Fate and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire use weird dice, but any GM will have loner dice).

Find a group you like, they can loan you polyhedral dice, and then you can get the game books if you like, or borrow what you need from a friend. Some systems you don’t even need the book.

If you’re like me and most returning-to-gaming guys, you’ll spend a year or two trying different games at Cons, playing online and playing organized play, make some connections, then finally find a group you like which plays a system (or types of systems) which fit your style of gaming.

Also, if you’re open to it, gaming on Google+ via Hangouts and/or Roll20 is actually a great experience, and a great way to get exposure to different systems and players. I have two Friday night game groups (one OD&D on alternating Fridays, another D&D Next on the off-Fridays, and a D&D Next game via Roll20+Google+ Hangouts on Thursdays) so I’m pretty booked, and loving it.

Tabletop RPGs are great — you meet new folks, play a very social game, roll dice, use imagination, and make memories together. I tried video games and MMOs — never could compare in my opinion. 🙂

— Stan