GM Tarondor's Secrets of the Ancients - Traveller

Game Master Tarondor

'STACHE ON!

Dev - You need to pick a specialty for Engineer and Gun Combat.

Conversely, Zirelle, you don't need specialties for any skill where you have a 0 rank. You're equally trained in all sub-skills.

So, for things where I moved from zero to 1... should I have kept that zero if it was one with subskills, and just listed a separate listing with subskill 1?

If you move from Electronics 0 to Electronics (Computers) 1, you can just list Electronics (Computers) 1. It's understood that you have 0 in all other sub-skills of Electronics. You only need to list a sub-skill if you have two or more of them at 1 or higher.

If you have Electronics (Comms) 1 and Electronics (Computers) 1, you don't need to list Remote Ops and Sensors (the other Electronics Sub-skills). It's understood you have a 0 in those.

If you move from Electronics 0 to Electronics (Computers) 1, you can just list Electronics (Computers) 1. It's understood that you have 0 in all other sub-skills of Electronics. You only need to list a sub-skill if you have two or more of them at 1 or higher.

If you have Electronics (Comms) 1 and Electronics (Computers) 1, you don't need to list Remote Ops and Sensors (the other Electronics Sub-skills). It's understood you have a 0 in those.

Okay, thanks. I wasn't sure if I would have a zero in the other subskills or not, but good to know. :)

Okay, so what do you guys want to do? There is an obvious plot hook to investigate the murder, but we aren't wanted or being paid to do that... should be just take the body back?

Also, does our tiny ship have any cargo area at all?

Also, does our tiny ship have any cargo area at all?

You can see the full stats for a scout ship on pp 190-191 of the CRB. And yes, it has 12 tons of cargo.

Since it has some cargo area, we could maybe pick up something to trade on the way back.

Well Erryll just went with "you're not the boss of us" ... mostly just to see if this guy gets all blustery or not.

The reality is, there are lots of tests that could be done to determine if Uncle Vlen was really using, or if the presence of the drug was incidental. We don't know when (or if) he checked in, we don't have the correlation of time of death to that arrival, we don't know if he even metabolized any of the drug: the whole thing could be fake, and this dude has given less than lame information like it's not being taken seriously.

So in planning for like the 6 weeks of travel time, yeah, we can for sure make Dev's maint fees if we use the hold correctly. We also can use the time & route to our advantage, like passing through Efate might be smarter even if it adds a couple weeks. Erryll will be making drinks ...

ROUTE

Friends. I'm laid up with COVID. Sick as a dog. I'll check in as and when I can.

Rest easy.

Take your time. Health comes before game. :)

I will be on vacation from tonight through Monday. I am not sure what my internet situation will be through the trip, but I will try and be available to post at least once a day. Bot me as needed if I am taking to long.

It's anniversary weekend so we'll be at Cedar Point. If you've never been, it's worth a google search.
I may get one more post in tonight.

I hope Erryll is okay. He hasn't posted for a week.

CONTACTS, ALLIES, ENEMIES, RIVALS

I'd like your permission to make some slight changes to your characters. Specifically, I want to assign some contacts who will actually be useful in this campaign.

Here's what I'd like to do:

Ben Farn: Enemy: Ven Yasha: A crime boss on Regina.

Chuck: Contact: Professor Ujinka: She is a researcher and lecturer in archaeology at the University of Regina.

Dev Vorn: Ally: Vlen Backett

Erryll: Ally: Former lover Juni Volsang. Research Assistant, expert on Ancient archaeology.

Zirelle: Rival: Gand Holcess, agent of Imperial Intelligence who interfered with Zirelle's piracy.

CONTACTS, ALLIES, ENEMIES, RIVALS

I'd like your permission to make some slight changes to your characters. Specifically, I want to assign some contacts who will actually be useful in this campaign.

Here's what I'd like to do:

Ben Farn: Enemy: Ven Yasha: A crime boss on Regina.

Chuck: Contact: Professor Ujinka: She is a researcher and lecturer in archaeology at the University of Regina.

Dev Vorn: Ally: Vlen Backett

Erryll: Ally: Former lover Juni Volsang. Research Assistant, expert on Ancient archaeology.

Zirelle: Rival: Gand Holcess, agent of Imperial Intelligence who interfered with Zirelle's piracy.

Well let me jump back in, being HIGHLY complimentary about the use of only ONE binary pronoun in this post! WOW!

So would we say Juni is male, female, non-binary, or a Sword Worlder?

Well, "Juni" sounds female to ME, but their sex is not a plot point, so you can choose.

Works for me.

Sounds good. Obviously, only a crime boss could be behind the Fondue incident!

Sounds good. Obviously, only a crime boss could be behind the Fondue incident!

That's actually a chapter in Erryll's memoirs: Saving Bacon, the Fondue Incident ;)

That will make a great movie scene someday.

Folks:

I'm sorry to have been away. My recovery from COVID is going poorly and leaving me exhausted. If I'm player in your game, please bot me. If I'm the GM - I'll be back in the saddle as soon as I can.

BTW, just was texting with Tarondor. He is fine but exhausted with enough energy to work but not much else. Just wanted to relay the message.

Hey folks! My strength is slowly returning and I am going to try to get back to gaming today or tomorrow. Please forgive a slow start, but I will do as my strength allows.

Normally I will not post in the middle of the night (I promise) but I woke up with the worst headache. Not going to review allllllllll of the char gen posts, but, didn't someone buy a grav belt? Not that we couldn't do ground based recon, but maybe a fly-by just to check the exits or something? Z's point is really well taken about US coming in with a gang, sooooooo maybe us checking that "the guy" didn't turn up with a gang would be smart. Just a thought. "Erryll" really needs a stim from his medpack right now ...

[ooc]Normally I will not post in the middle of the night (I promise) but I woke up with the worst headache. Not going to review allllllllll of the char gen posts, but, didn't someone buy a grav belt?

I don't believe so, no. I think you're remembering the sample character I put up, which many people copied. That character had a grav belt, but to my knowledge, none of the PC's bought one (too expensive).

Team Backett: we can do recon or we can not, but given that there's like a billion of us, what do we think of someone at least watching the main entrance? Erryll is in fact a doctor, but why patch people up when we could be careful ... ?

Dev has recon so he can keep an eye on the meeting spot and try to detect if it is an ambush or not...

I could have gotten a grav belt, but I think I opted for subdermal armor instead or something like that... I remember having the debate in my head, but not the exact arguments. :)

I have MagBoots if we need to walk up some walls. hehe

ERRYLL: Please post your character to your page! AND post a header.

I need to be able to reference the characters frequently. Please see the Player's Guide for guidelines on characters, and formatting of the header. This is important to make GMing fun and not a chore. Thanks.

BEN: Please format your header as shown in the Player's Guide. Among other things, your format doesn't list your UPP so it's not very useful to me - I still have to open your character to see what you've got every time. Thanks.

I will be going on vacation from the 23rd through the 30th. I hope to have internet and be able to post over the week at least some, but I won't know until the day of if the area we are in is covered. Feel free to bot me as needed.

I hesitate to insert myself into PC plans, but before we TPK here, I just want to reiterate the situation. Two men in full tactical gear with autopistols are coming to kill you and you're armed with a pair of swords.

Do you maybe want to try something different? If anyone has Tactics, this might be the time to make a roll. Or, just consider your options.

LOL...when you put it that way it really sorts of puts it into perspective!!

I mean, there's a whole house and they may not know you're present yet. You have options.

I know. As a player myself I am loathe to back down from a fight, but this would likely not be much of a fight.

Also, you -do- have weapons. They're just not working...

Sounds like we can't get the drop on them and take *their* weapons then... better reboot the server or whatever. Might have to let the woman die. :(

... Or, jump out the window (just saw Ben's suggestion in Gameplay)... but not sure what that amount of damage means. We don't have any normal stuff like rope which I would have in Pathfinder... are we going to survive the fall? I don't think the professor will.

Yeah, I had said to try to climb down and come in behind the attackers, after getting my medkit from the car. To GM's point though, there's fog of war covering a lot of places in the house. Based on the map, we've all passed by 4 rooms that we could at least look in, or hide in, or ambush the attackers from.

We could also use the professor as bait for an ambush. We could leave the door to the drawing room open, we could leave her visable, we could wait for the enemy to pass us by in the hallway, and attack them from behind then also.

Oh, I was fine with the ambush and fighting it out to begin with, but having her still be alive changes everything.

My thought was to get out in front of the group while other figure out a way out of here.
Unless we're all going out the window, those rooms seem like our best bet.

Pretty sure the DM hinted that we could reboot the systems in here... which would bring our weapons online again (swords still work, but they do less damage than guns). The problem is that anything we do that isn't getting her to a hospital could necessitate allowing her to die.

Also... if our ambush at the top of the stairs isn't going to work, then not sure why any other ambush would. I feel like the choices right now are 1) try to escape and get her to a hospital or 2) reboot the house systems and fight

Pretty sure the DM hinted that we could reboot the systems in here... which would bring our weapons online again (swords still work, but they do less damage than guns). The problem is that anything we do that isn't getting her to a hospital could necessitate allowing her to die.

Also... if our ambush at the top of the stairs isn't going to work, then not sure why any other ambush would. I feel like the choices right now are 1) try to escape and get her to a hospital or 2) reboot the house systems and fight

I think it's actually both of those. I thought the reboot was to reinstate security drones, but I could be wrong. We need to get these guys out of our way so that we can try to get the Prof to a medical facility.

That was sort of how I saw it too, we'd have to go through or around. Time to take some action.

I'm not saying an ambush wouldn't work. You might stab those guys to death before they know you're there. But if you don't, things would get ugly. I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew what the stakes were and that there were other possibilities.

There's plenty of house to hide in, if you wanted to do that, or you could get out the window, although it's a bit of a drop. You'd survive, but Professor Ujinka probably wouldn't.

I was hoping not to spell it out, but if their guns work, yours can too, if you fix them. A successful hard (10+) mechanic check can repair a weapon that has been neutralized.

but not sure what that amount of damage means. We don't have any normal stuff like rope which I would have in Pathfinder... are we going to survive the fall?

"2D" is Traveller notation for 2d6. So on average you'd suffer 7 points of damage from the fall unless you succeeded on an Acrobatics check. I'd also allow an Athletics check to climb down, though that's going to be slow carrying a dying woman.

When you suffer damage in Traveller, the first "hit" comes off your END. Any excess is split between DEX and STR. So for instance if Zirelle (who has a 6 END) suffered 7 damage, she would be at 0 END and lose either a point of DEX or STR. Endurance damage is something you can walk off - it's just being winded or slightly injured. DEX and STR obviously begin to degrade your ability to fight.

If either STR or DEX are reduced to 0, the Traveller becomes unconscious and any further damage is deducted from the remaining physical characteristic. If all three physical characteristics (STR, DEX and END) are reduced to 0, the Traveller has been killed.

Interesting, Paizo boards filtered Chuck muttering the "S" word. TIL.

I rolled some dice! YAY! I think we're still a bit hosed and Ben is alone...

Nah, we're not hosed. The hints are now telling us to fix the autodoc, and then IT can fix the professor.

Sorry for not posting...been out of it with a stupid cold!! Thanks, Zirelle for botting me!!!

K ... still not gtting it ... why are we letting the professor die?
We do not know where we are.
We don't even have active equipment yet.
We don't know the cars will work yet.

But we're going to head out to the cars and hope that they start and then hope we can find a direction to drive them in other than "away"?

This is a home that basically has a micro-hospital in it.
So I am unclear why we are leaving it.
Yeah, uh huh, it's Traveller; the team is also supposed to actually be Travellers. Knowing we have an autodoc on-prem (in addition to Erryll), would make any normal Traveller more confident. Why aren't we tho?


https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/AutoDoc

An AutoDoc or AutoMed is an automated medical unit, capable of performing medical procedures or even operations depending on the sophistication of its processors. The patient is placed in the unit after being stabilized, and the AutoDoc monitors vital signs, makes suggestions as to treatment options, regularly injects prescribed medication, and will initiate emergency resuscitation procedures, unless overridden, if the patient's vital signs drop below certain minimum levels.

On Earth during TL:7-9, great advances in medicine, sensors, and robotics brought about the Hypothermic Berth, wearable sensors, robotic (waldo and remote controlled) arthroscopic surgery. With the expansion into space, these were combined into a single unit which became known as the Automated Doctor or AutoDoc. Early units had built-in capabilities of a field medic and connected to communications systems to be remotely operated by doctors on other ships. Further advances made units more capable and/or smaller.

During the early Stellar Epoch TL:10-12 the standard AutoDoc has the capabilities of a nurse for diagnosis and treatment, Hypothermic Berth cold sleep capabilities, and remote control for remote surgery by a doctor.

By the mid Stellar Epoch TL:13-15, the basic AutoDoc is a grav stretcher for field triage and transportation (but no longer has the remote surgery capabilities). And the (standard) Advanced AutoDoc has full surgical tools and skills, Hypothermic and Early Stasis Berth cold sleep capabilities. Still other specialized units exist such that they except the grav stretcher for rapid handling of mass casualties, or specialized for limb or organ regrowth, or expanded capacity for multiracial requirements.[1]

Short answer is because Ben is the only one who knows it is there, and we have no idea, so we are trying to get her to a hospital.

I think there have been a lot of conflicting hints... there is a sword in the hall, you can fix your weapons, you shouldn't attack them at the stairs, you can reset the house systems, there's an autodoc, they are right outside the room do you want to ambush them now... but I'm trusting Ben and the DM that battle should be avoided at all costs in this game, having never fought in it before, and trying to work around that, this is what we have. We are trying to get away and we don't know there is an autodoc. Even if we went down the same hall, the door is now locked. Our choices are limited. OOC I get you... that is what I had already said I was doing... going that direction. The story has moved past that however, and in character, we're doing all that we know about to save her.

If you ask my opinion, battle should be avoided because it is quite deadly. But sometimes you have no choice. I think here you do have choices and it's up to you to choose among them.

I understand how the situation could seem to be contradictory if you think of the things I'm writing as "clues". I prefer to think of them more as "elements" that you can interact with or not at your option.

There is no right answer here, which I like.

I can tell you more about what the author intended when the scenario is over, but really who cares? What matters is what you heroes make of this situation!