[Closed Recruiting] Mongoose Traveller Update 2022

I haven't filled any places yet. You are on the list.
That is a common enough situation. The game will probably slow down on the weekends, though we will try to keep it moving without needing everyone onboard.
Cool. You happy with us not using the existing setting material?

Absolutely!

Invites have been sent to Pedrop and WhtKnt.

Jump into General and ask any questions, then take a look at your Character Creation threads in the Setup subforum to get started whenever you are ready.

I will leave recruitment open for a while still --probably through Character Creation-- but four is a good number to be playing with.

I’ve been curious about trying out Mongoose Traveller after listening to some actual play podcasts last year. Since this recruiting thread has been active for a bit, I took the time to skim the Game Forum and clearly you have put a lot of thought into getting this adventure off the ground. It seems like you have four committed players who are developing some interesting characters. If you are still looking for more players I’d be interested in pitching a character who is a daughter of parents of modest means (and boring jobs) who dreams of getting off world and traveling amongst the stars. She sees two options for her: signing up for military service or joining exploritory service as a scout. She believes, with the uninhibited conviction of youth, that either path will lead her to a life of adventure. This is a very generic idea but so much of a character’s backstory is influenced by the dice rolls in character creation. Also, the party already has a spy, maybe two medically focused characters, and an engineer? So, depending on where they go I could try to fill in some gaps (maybe a scout with piloting/astrogation…)
I have the core rulebook and have reviewed character creation - I think I understand how to do it but things always crop up when you get started with an unfamiliar system.
No worries if you don’t want more players.

I'm new to PbP. I do not own any of the Traveller guides so I'm not sure if that would complicate the game pacing. Posting daily is a reasonable expectation for most days. Narrative driven is very desirable.

Let's maybe handle the existing new character's creations and then come back and see if others are still interested.

Six is definitely getting to larger numbers than I want on one crew, but if there is enough interest I could be persuaded to run a second, semi-independent ship and crew at the same time.

That sounds like a good plan.

You have a very generous definition of the word 'plan'. :)

If it does not take away too much from your time having a secondary crew could add a bit of extra flavor to your story. I'll keep an eye on the game and will be available. just let me know if you need anything from me!

They would not 'secondary' I would play both crews as equals. With this sort of thing I usually keep them far enough apart that they don't affect each other in the short-term, this can be tricky in games with technology, but Traveller does not have faster-than-light communications, so even if you are in neighbouring sectors it will take over three years for messages and updates to get through (unless someone makes the Jump and brings news).

We do have to integrate the lore generated between the disparate crews, but that can be fun if everyone embraces it. That is a primary reason we don't just run two games, that and the ability to merge the crews if we lose people, or to move players to the crew that best matches their pacing and story desires.

The idea of running two related but not directly linked games in the same setting is a really cool concept. I can image a ton of fun scenarios:
- Two groups are on "sister ships" exploring unknown areas of space for the exploratory service (Star Trek vibe)
- Opposing military ships searching for some rumored alien technology to give their side an advantage in an ongoing conflict (The Expanse vibe)
- Colonists trying to survive on different planets in the same system etc, etc...

It would be cool to see how one groups successes/failures could affect the other group. Say, one group of explores antagonizes another civilization then the other group has unfriendly NPCs to deal with. There is potential for really unique gaming experiences BUT this sounds like an absolute nightmare to GM especially with PbP where pace-of-play has such a high variance. I guess if one group is faster than the other then they just sort of dictate the events that might affect the other group?

Anyway, this is a cool idea vagueGM. Thanks for giving me something to mull over.

I only do this where I can keep the groups separate for the day-to-day events, we don't care about pacing until we have to bring people back together and then we can deal with any time-slip. But that is seldom an issue, or not one related to PbP and posting rates.

The rate at which a group posts does not really correlate to the pace at which they get things done or at which time passes, so a fast posting group might be dealing with minute by minute minutia and only pass a few hours of in-world time while a slow posting group may be dealing with grand, sweeping issues where a day passes with each post.

Of course time-slip happens, which is why I don't do this in games where they can talk to each other all the time. There may be news about happenings, and, as you say, they may end up with enemies they thought were friends because the other group messed up the relations, but we don't care about most of that till it comes home to roost.

If we know they are heading towards a meeting, we can lose a few weeks on the trip without needing to see it in detail in the story.

They do need to come together from time to time, or at least resync their 'events' else they are not really playing in the same game, just the same setting. The more it is done the easier it is, but it still does not happen after every job.

Relative timekeeping is always fun.

I think central questions are how much crossover you want to see, what kind of crossover you want to see, and how much of an impact Group actions have on the larger setting.

If the actions of the groups are relatively local, without much crossover, and without much impact on the larger setting events, then taking the "timeline" of a group and sliding it forward or back in "absolute" time to overlap with the other group where you wish them to intersect is relatively easy and painless.

If both Groups are having significant impact on the larger setting, or their actions in one adventure are likely to impact the setup for the other - "Yeah, that would normally be easy, but we had a team in here about a month back which hit that facility, and now OmniTech security is really keyed up - getting into that zone is going to be challenging" - then tracking their timeline against some central calendar is useful. In that case, having GM techniques in your back pocket to shove one Group forward in time ( or backward - it is science fiction ), to make one group align with the other, is useful: their low passage freighter is delayed, or they need to lie low until the corporate heat is off, etc.

This makes sense. I was imagining that the actions of one group could broadly affect the tone of the other groups experience with out getting too tied up in an exact time line. For example, perhaps two groups are playing in the Starwars universe: one is a group of smugglers working with a crime syndicate in the outer rim and another a team rebel soldiers attacking an Imperial strongholds in the same basic area. If the Rebel's sessions start going well then maybe the smugglers find there are less imperial ships than normal or the storm troopers are distracted and their characters have a slightly easier time. If the smugglers do poorly maybe some of the Rebel's contacts are more paranoid or they find supplies harder to come by. Nothing big or game breaking just a little change that shows a link between the two and adds a little flavor. It also wouldn't really matter when or if any one event occurred.

Nope, nope, nope. No Time Shenanigans! This is science fiction!

Exactly. Something like that. Though I usually tend to do that on a bigger/longer scale so groups A's immediate actions don't have any affect on group B. Rather a few missions will change the general tone and readiness of the Imperials. That keeps the exact times things happened from mattering. It takes time for ships to mobilise or for the contacts to get paranoid.

Apologies to @RogertheShrubber and @Cratchet and anyone else interested. After finishing the individual portions of Character Creation we have decided to start play with just the four players and characters we have.

If you are still keen on Traveller, maybe take a look at the other game on offer? You can't take the sky from me, Traveller

Thanks for the notice. I’ll check out the other game post. Good luck with your adventure!