[Silhouette/Traveller]Hard Times Game (online)

[Kilgs]

Table: The thing you rest your beer on.

You can find draft Chargen rules in the File Library=>House Rules. They're not very well laid out but you can likely figure out the gist of it. They will require MT books for ranks. I'll see how far ahead I am but I've been delayed in working on it for several reasons.

Stuck on the Academic career also.

I wouldn't get too stuck on a character though since the actual campaign premise is not established.

Adapting the Mongoose ship rules is fairly easy since you just find a task difficulty and move it over to Silhouette mechanics/threshold. Moderate=Moderate, Difficult=Difficult.

I've been kicking through a solo Merchant Prince (Mong) game using the draft rules and it works just fine for the expanded trading rules with a few modifications. I even think it's a bit more consistent.

Still tweaking how the "Trader" skill works though.

I like your Privateering campaign. I like your Escape From Lucan campaign. I also like your Run Away A-Ley campaign.

How about melding them like this to maximize your players' draw:

The ship is subsidized by Margaret and her Domain. It has a long history of pissing off Lucan through Privateering and being a thorn in his tail. The vessel is fully paid for and the Letter of Marque is about to expire soon. The crew will need to find something to pay the bills soon and Tramp trading during Hard Times will only go so far. The captain has decided to take on Mercenary tickets as far as the ship's specs and her crew's skill-sets will allow as they duck and dodge Lucan's mad fleet, privateers, mercenaries and sympathetic ships.

I considered a few versions like this related to Margaret and/or Tukera. Just plain Privateers. Or Privateers hired to make contact with Tukera HQ in Ley. Or to make contact with the Imperials in Ley to sway them over. It's a viable option and we can discuss it.

 

[The Pakkrat]

Okay, having looked closely at Ley Sector, Empty Quarter and Fornast, there is the potential for some good story.

Thus, if invited, I'd still field a Merchant/Merchant Prince character, an Irilitok Vargr female. She's a long way from Asimikigir Confederation of the Julian Protectorate, satisfying the "long way from home" schtick.

Failing or barred from above, perhaps an Entertainer(Journalist) Career can also be amalgam for Silhouette/Traveller? Playing a galactic snitch is also fun.

As I write this, I'm trying to master spreadsheets for tracking Merchant Prince level of gaming. This raises the question of whether Mongoose or some other system will be used in mercantile pursuits.

The amalgam of Silhouette, MegaTraveller and Mongoose is still intriguing but a little puzzling. This makes a player overly-cautious about character generation. It forces uncertainty in Am I Doing It Right?

Still, yes, we are a ways off and talking out the campaign selectors is priority one.

From the Recruiting Office, this is the Pakkrat for Net-7 News

 

[Kilgs]

Adapting Merchant Prince (MgT) works the same as ship combat basically although there are some wrinkles to work out. Average=Average, Difficult=Difficult.

The same skills would apply (Broker, Admin etc) but the actual characteristic needs some ironing (Knowledge or Influence). But the 3d6 table works fine. We would use the same Cargo Modifiers from Merchant Prince. The only real monkeying comes with the difficulties in negotiating freight rates (Freight Rate table) and some of the other variable ones. So far, I've been taking the listed difficulty at half and adding +1. So Difficulty: 7= Silhouette Difficulty 4 etc.

 

[The Pakkrat]

Broker and Admin:
Intelligence/Knowledge if you aren't known and reputation or character has no place in the current location, e.g. Vargr Extents, Sword Worlds, etc.

Influence/Social Standing/Charisma if you are known and put your name out there and hope for the best reaction to your polity; assumes they care as well.

That's at least what I told my players. Once, the head Broker of our vessel tried to use his Social Standing on Menorb and the Vargr there looked at him funny when he stood up proud and listed all his titles, home subsector, military rank and commander of our vessel. Yeah, Vargr Charisma = 1/4 human Social Standing.

Just some simple suggestion, is all.

"Next time wag your tail, sir, if you want to really smile and be happy about the freight rate."

"What tail?"

 

[Kilgs]

Broker and Admin:
Intelligence/Knowledge if you aren't known and reputation or character has no place in the current location, e.g. Vargr Extents, Sword Worlds, etc.

Influence/Social Standing/Charisma if you are known and put your name out there and hope for the best reaction to your polity; assumes they care as well.

...Just some simple suggestion, is all.

And done! That's easy and provides some framework. I definitely want to get rid of the odd Stat/Skill combinations that Traveller had put in. Some of them didn't make sense to me but I also wanted room for the suave, charming trader and the numbers-driven analyst.

So that works well! Thanks.

 

[Kilgs]

Okay, I’m in better shape now. So, as I wind things up on this idea and get back to working on character generation rules, let’s clear up some things with fun votes… you can rate them by priority. Also, don’t vote unless you’re planning on playing.

1. ERA
-Gateway To Destiny (993IY)
-Rebellion
-Hard Times

2. THEME
-Privateers/Letters of Marque
-Conscientious Objectors
-Classic Free Trader ( or Run Away)
-Scouts
-Mercenary
-Other (?)

3. TIMEZONE?

4. PbP or Roll20/Skype?

 

[The Pakkrat]

As soon as I'm extracted and liberated from OENLAETSVAEG, I'd be happy to join.

1. ERA: Hard Times
2. THEME: Privateers/Letters of Marque with Merchant Prince sub-gaming
3. TIMEZONE: Eastern U.S.
4. Roll20+Skype, TeamSpeak3 and Mumble capable.
5. Still meaning to field a female Vargr from the Julian Protectorate, a corporate forward observer for the Menderes Corporation. I will need help rolling up the merchant-bridge crewman.
6. Sunday evening is barred for me as I GM for Mongoose Traveller: The Fifth Frontier War until early 1110. If curious: https://app.roll20.net/campaigns/details/619985/traveller-the-ares-adventures

 

[Kilgs]

1 out of 4 before we even start! ;-) We'll give it a bit more before I hop on G+ and advertise elsewhere.

 

[Enoki]

I could play PbP or Skype... or on a forum thread game. I prefer merchant or technical type characters to "tanks" but can come up with some interesting variants if allowed.
I do prefer less shooting more character interaction too. Let me know.

TZ = Pacific US (currently)

Prefer Gateway (ie., Glimmerdrift / Crusus Margin) have lots of systems in detail (non-canon) with NPC's available on them, etc.

 

[Kilgs]

I'm not dead. Just stuck deciding... Gateway 993/Rim War OR Hard Times. Still kicking them around. I definitely want a more risky, adventure/danger, military kind of campaign (ie. mercs/privateers) but both settings have their ups/downs:

GATEWAY
I love this domain and the Rim War is a fun setting but it's only a bit more dangerous than standard Imperium settings. It has the benefit of existing UPP's and the ability to use some published adventures, webapps for trading etc.

HARD TIMES
Much more interesting setting and lots of tough decisions/situations to throw at the players. But it does require a significant rewrite of all the UPP's... which is a little daunting. I did put together a Realmworks template to start recording them but the more time I spend on setting, the less I spend on campaign.

Give me a few weeks and I'll iron it out.
===
To settle some of the mechanics questions, I'm going to clean up my solo test-run summary and I'll post it. I do explain some of the mechanics (some modified on the fly) in that summary. I'll do that in the Adventurers forum.

 

[Kilgs]

UPDATE--Busy year.

I really, really want to use Hard Times. That's my dream setting... but slogging through Starbase and updating UWP's is taking a long time. I was trying to do it in Starbase but it’s just a poor substitute for Universe (which no longer runs).

I burned out on it in September and still hadn't worked much on actual campaign/game rules. I got the energy back in 2017 but I'd like to play with the mechanics, chargen, and just bang around playing some instead of updating UWP's night after night--so new pitches for a game!

My dream Hard Times game is going on the back-burner and I’ve started a different thread for some ideas in the Glimmerdrift Reaches (ala Gateway to Destiny) during the Solomani Rim War.

See here…
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=37408