Down in the Barrow

1977 Traveller Session 1 AAR

ENG@MANTIS:~$ cmd-scan
SWEEP INITATIED...
SCAN_REPORT GENERATED
ENG@MANTIS:~$
ENG@MANTIS:~$
ENG@MANTIS:~$ cd /rpt/scan
ENG@MANTIS:~/rpt/scan$ cat SCAN_REPORT
±-1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8-+
1 |.............................| 1
2 |#..................#.........| 2
3 |.............................| 3
4 |^..........A.................| 4
5 |.............................| 5
6 |................F............| 6
7 |.............................| 7
8 |........................F....| 8
±-1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8-+

2-1 # JUMP TRAIL
2-6 # JUMP TRAIL
4-1 ^ FREE-TRADER (A) -- DESIGNATION//BEOWULF
4-4 A ANOMOLY DETECTED -- BEACON SIGNATURE 83//abaD//DC
6-5 F FLOTSAM
8-6 F FLOTSAM

Character generation was a breeze.
Player 1 (Charlie): B5B668, Cpt. Trevor Driven.
1 term with the Army, got some skills and a little bit of cash on the way out...most importantly, the good captain survived.

Player 2 (Paul): Character 1 died during generation.
Character 2, A64887, Raldy Jenking.
5 terms served with the Scout service. Made it out with several skills, a ship (The Mantis) and some credits.

I wasn't entirely sure how to get started after we did character generation, so I rolled 1d10, and 1d8 to determine which hex they started in, and also rolled on the random encounter chart on page 21 of book 3.

This had them starting down in hex 0108...empty space, with a peasant encounter. I decided it was a distress beacon from a group of peasants in a nearby system. I rolled 1d6 to determine which of the nearby systems it was - 2 hexes away in 0308, system C8768315. Players spent some time deciding if they wanted to check out the system or jump somewhere else. In the end they decided to travel to C8768315 to see if they could get some info on this beacon at the starport.

The jump and week that passed were uneventful. While were flipping around the book to check jump procedures I decided that the beacon was actually from a wealthy, but renegade family fleeing persecution from members of the current Oligarchy. I then rolled 1d10 and 1d8 to see what system they wanted to flee toward. This resulted in their destination being on the other side of the sector, E2258B95 (hex 0702).

The players spent a week at the station in 0308 and were able to find the information about this family, and setup a discrete meeting. Looking back, I think I should have rolled an encounter for the week they spent at the station, but it slipped my mind. The players began to negotiate the travel rates with the family, and I wasn't sure what a reasonable amount was so we landed on the family will pay standard Middle Passage rates for each jump. I still have no idea if this too much, or too little but I guess we'll find out in future sessions. Players spent the rest of the week on this station refueling the ship (with unrefined fuel), and sorting out monthly maintenance costs for the Mantis.

We ended the session with the next jump to hex 0407, which was uneventful.

Calendar
Week 1 - Jump from 0108 to 0308 - no events
Week 2 - Talk with passengers, arrange for travel, various ship maintenances (fuel, etc.)
Week 3 - Jump from 0308 to 0407 - no events

We all had a good time with the game. It was my first time playing or running any form of Traveller. It was cool how the story emerged out of a few dice rolls, but there was much more improv (is this role-playing?) than I am used to with my normal dungeon crawls. Also math. I haven't seen or looked at an algebraic expression in 16 years or so. We made a shared spreadsheet to track expenses and revenue, it felt a bit like space taxes. Not a bad thing, at all, just different than what I am used too. We will be returning to Traveller next week, and I'll keep writing these AARs for each session.

Things I need to look into for next session;

#1977 #biatch #do-not-read #emergent-stories #the-legends-are-true #traveller