Classic Traveller Lessons Learned thru Play (Reports)
It's been a bit since we caught up with intrepid Travellers of Frydheld Sector. Instead of a blow by blow play report I am going to try and summarize the moments that stood out to me and write some takeaways for Classic Traveller at the end.
Highlights
The crew took photos of a war criminal on a casino ship in Mato, but not before causing a massive gunfight that left many injured and bleeding!
They broke off to Reefhall for a little R&R on the military tourism world. Though they soon found it was ruled by the dread noble Lord Slurry who was experimenting on folks. Courageously they used one of their shipbound cavemen as an IED to kill the noble and his retinue.
The good ship and crew went to Neccte and had a barnstorming event! After that they took on a load of freshly grown dick pills and went to an army base to meet a patron. The officer asked them to blow up a horrific research station but upon arrival they met a kindly, hyper intelligent gorilla that now travels with them.
Zooming across they stopped in Mato to talk to their good friend the president and inquire about why the army would want to blow up a research station. They were interdicted by a yacht recognizing their stolen vessel and through quick thinking and charm snuck a warhead aboard the yacht and blew them up sky high.
On Terracea the Travellers hit the city. A wild night drinking, breaking and entering, pimping, and other hijinks ensued. But a ship of metal and ice crashed down onto the planet. The crew entered to investigate and some were consumed by the kindly sphere inside and others were blown apart in Baron Vulva Otario's last stand.
The survivors of the near full crew wipe licked their wounds on Oldshodonia where they got a hit on a place to pick up work from the Scouts investigating possible alien crafts and a mercenary asking them to knock off a diplomat from Terracea. They went to the diplomat's manor on the moon and somehow depressurized his home, poisoned him, and survived the rapid depressurization all without being caught or killed.
A huge thank you to all the players who made those sessions possible. They have been some of the most fun I've ever had running TTRPGs.
The Classic Traveller Message
Probably the most important lesson that Classic Traveller can teach you. You can never prepare an entire galaxy, trust your judgement, make it real, then keep it consistent from there. Even a singular sector could have 30-50 worlds, filling out all of those with maps, NPCs, and other detailed information would be an immense task that would make running a homebrew Traveller game a non-starter for most.
Use the range of tools for more than just one thing. I have been talking to Chaoclypse very often about running CT and we have been using core mechanics to run the game in our ways. I will sometimes use a reaction roll to see how dangerous or violent a patron mission will be eg. a negative reaction being a kill contract or a positive one being a rescue. Chao mentioned rolling again on the patron list and the encounter list to form the general vibe and difficulty of a mission! Classic Traveller has tons of procedures like this that you can use to cover I think something that is very potent for people to use is a special result happening on a result or higher. Say you have some rebels using old, unreliable equipment and they have Rifle-2. To quickly simulate that unreliable equipment you could say, on a 13 or higher the guns explode! By sticking these special events on the higher end of 2d6 results you can make sure that they only happen if enough skills are being used or other viable DM (dice modifiers).
Do not ever entertain the idea of making communication faster than the speed of travel. :)
Start with the core three little black books from 77 or 81, Facsimile Edition, or Starter Traveller only. Here is a list of the minor differences between these very similar versions. But do not dive headfirst into all the supplements for Traveller! There are a ton and they add a LOT to the game. They were never intended to all be used at once. Read through them, take what you like, and remix whatever inspires you. The core three books are MORE than enough for years of gaming.
Marc Miller wants people to make Traveller their own. There are no screeds about playing RAW or anything pushing people into one defined method of play. As a Classic Traveller referee you will have to make new skills, create new DMs, and adjudicate situations that lie outside of what the the core three books explicitly says. But that's okay because the books trust you to bring yourself to the game and make it your own.
Start as small as you have to be comfortable. If it's half a sector, that's fine. Even a handful of planets! The game doesn't require any hard math, the rules are stated plainly, just take your time to understand it for what it is.
I am grateful I get to run more CT and play in games others are running. I hope more people give the game a chance because I feel it's a style of play a LOT of people in the OSR/NSR sphere would slot into no problem. Plus it's free!