Jeff M. Hopper
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So I got a question for the group. What kind of adventures for Traveller would you like to see published? What kind of adventures would you like your characters to go through?
Published Adventures
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Daidoji Dave
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There's stuff I'd like to see one of, if they're done well, but I don't need a whole line in the same theme.
An abandoned orbital station/research outpost/mined out asteroid. Borderline dungeon crawl in space, but not so obvious it becomes something to joke about.
Some kind of heist, break in somewhere and retrieve something (or plant something, or alter something). These are time consuming to do right, you want a good floor plan plus exterior and environs, you want order of battle for the residents, you want angles for the players to work beforehand to gather information so they're not charging in blind, and you want enough material it's not just the GM feeding the players what they're supposed to do next. Kidnap the Archpriest for D&D is the best heist adventure I've seen for any system. (I assume Shadowrun must have some good ones but I don't know that line.) Divine Intervention is a Classic Trav adventure I like for execution, despite that I consider the premise a little weak.
Some kind of escape-the-lab adventure. Cryotubes and holding tanks empty and full, at least one dangerous xeno but some creepy empty rooms as well, plus tricks and things to interact with. This one in particular you get one but only one locked-in-the-dungeon adventure before it gets old. (And it still might be need to be a campaign opener or one shot rather than forcing the players to be captured. )So it's got to be good both to be fun for the players, and to stand out to GMs. (I'm reminded I keep thinking of doing a full conversion of Slaughtergrid from OSR D&D to Traveller rules, which would qualify, but haven't found the time.)
There's probably room for another Across the Bright Face, not literally on a moon but an ATV crawl across a hostile alien landscape of some kind. That's been done a couple of times but you're converting from Classic to use them, so a new one with MongTrav stats and modern map support would be welcome. But yet again, keep in mind what you're now competing against and put in the time on maps and alien encounters and maybe a few facilities on the way.
What's tricky is if it's not good I'd rather just run my own middle of the road effort. I'm looking for something as well done as Dead Planet for Mothership, Pirates of Drinax but shorter, or any of the others I mentioned above but for Mongoose Traveller.
An abandoned orbital station/research outpost/mined out asteroid. Borderline dungeon crawl in space, but not so obvious it becomes something to joke about.
Some kind of heist, break in somewhere and retrieve something (or plant something, or alter something). These are time consuming to do right, you want a good floor plan plus exterior and environs, you want order of battle for the residents, you want angles for the players to work beforehand to gather information so they're not charging in blind, and you want enough material it's not just the GM feeding the players what they're supposed to do next. Kidnap the Archpriest for D&D is the best heist adventure I've seen for any system. (I assume Shadowrun must have some good ones but I don't know that line.) Divine Intervention is a Classic Trav adventure I like for execution, despite that I consider the premise a little weak.
Some kind of escape-the-lab adventure. Cryotubes and holding tanks empty and full, at least one dangerous xeno but some creepy empty rooms as well, plus tricks and things to interact with. This one in particular you get one but only one locked-in-the-dungeon adventure before it gets old. (And it still might be need to be a campaign opener or one shot rather than forcing the players to be captured. )So it's got to be good both to be fun for the players, and to stand out to GMs. (I'm reminded I keep thinking of doing a full conversion of Slaughtergrid from OSR D&D to Traveller rules, which would qualify, but haven't found the time.)
There's probably room for another Across the Bright Face, not literally on a moon but an ATV crawl across a hostile alien landscape of some kind. That's been done a couple of times but you're converting from Classic to use them, so a new one with MongTrav stats and modern map support would be welcome. But yet again, keep in mind what you're now competing against and put in the time on maps and alien encounters and maybe a few facilities on the way.
What's tricky is if it's not good I'd rather just run my own middle of the road effort. I'm looking for something as well done as Dead Planet for Mothership, Pirates of Drinax but shorter, or any of the others I mentioned above but for Mongoose Traveller.
Funny you should ask this question, since I am thinking about reviewing a couple of the adventures written for Traveller.
Personally, I would like to see more adventures like the original Traveller Adventure from GDW, or the The Flaming Eye from Group Digest Publications, or the sequel adventures Long Way Home and Gateway! from Imperium Games. Essentially all three of these examples are a series of interrelated adventures that, together, form a larger story-arc.
Dungeons & Dragons has really been promoting these kind of story-arc adventures these last few years with any number of examples... Curse of Strahd, Out of the Abyss, Storm King's Thunder, etc. But these adventures do have one thing that I find a little annoying. They often have "side-quests," adventures that have little or nothing to do with the main story-arc.
Frankly, The Traveller Adventure, Long Way Home and Gateway! all "suffered" from something similar in order to try to accommodate a more sandbox approach. While laudable, a more "direct" approach to storytelling appeals to me personally, along the lines of the Lord of the Rings movies.
A couple of Dungeons & Dragons adventures that I have successfully run, Cormyr -- The Tearing of the Weave, and its sequel, Shadowdale -- The Scouring of the Land, struck an almost perfect balance in guiding the players along the story-arc without somehow limiting their freedom of choice and action.
I understand that's quite an ambitious idea. But you asked...
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