Straight Time (Prison Planet AAR 1)
Player Characters
Cai Singh
Avery Skitnik
Cosimo Loperfido
Mark Nakamura
Guanyat Secundo
Emma Kowalski
Ernest Finns (Sic)
The good ship and crew arrived on Newcomb and were shuttled off to prison. The warden gave a big, self aggrandizing speech about the virtues of hard work and Mark Nakamura tried to ask a question but the guards beat his head in twice. Things got worse for Mark as later in the showers he was jumped by some fellow prisoners and got his head bashed in with a bar of soap in a sock. He joined Cai Singh in the infirmary after a terrible mining accident wounded Singh.
Avery refused to give his recycled potatoes to a big inmate who beat his skull in and then refused to kill Avery when Avery challenged him to kill him.
Quickly the crew learned about the value of cigarettes Kowalski hustled some from a friendly guard in a card game. Cosimo had another idea about gambling and punched out Lucky Seven and took his credits, cigs, and dagger in the yard. A committee formed to dish out justice and after Cosimo pulled out a knife in a fist fight he won some rep and kept the shit. In the infirmary Lucky Seven paid some guards in info on a cigarette stash in order to frame Cosimo for contraband, but rumor of the search got wind to the crew. Kowalski had her guard friend dislocate her arm to be put in the infirmary and using Cosimo's blade cut up Lucky Seven. Mark and Kowalski blamed each other and were sent to the Danger Zone.
Young Avery Skitnik caught the eye of a drink fond nurse and began to recite poems to her during his free time. She took a shine to the kid and put him on laundry detail and before too long she was goo-goo eyed and ready to help the kid break out.
Old 60 year old Guanyat knows a thing or two about making time and spent his time turning some of the canned fruit into toilet hooch in order to trade for some cigs.
Mark and Kowalski were at ends in the Danger Zone. They fought and argued. Though they met a quiet man, Arpad. Who used his natural telepathic abilities to dissuade a guard from harming Kowalski.
During one of the weeks a guard was caught in a cell block and beaten to near death by the inmates. Ernest and crew quickly found a way to blame the local snitch Bobby for this.
Later on Cai Singh found Bobby alone in the one of the mining levels and beat his head open with a rock. Finding some cash and a tape recorder filled with dirt on other prisoners. They dumped the body in the passageway between mining levels and secured some various odds and ends they found for a future escape attempt.
And a lot more stuff I definitely missed. What a game!
Thoughts
Prison Planet feels to be as good as people make it out to be. There is something really engaging about the per week events and encounters. I could see something working similarly for long distance overland travel. I do echo the need to pre-roll encounters and events as otherwise there would be a lot of dead air in the session. Again the simple procedures and throws for module specific things are part of what really tickle my mind with a lot of the Classic Traveller stuff. The encounter system is something I really like in Prison Planet as it means you really are just unable to connect with someone you need to get a hold of.