NPC Motivations System for 2300 AD

2300AD was one of my favorite settings back in the day, and I have used it as a basis or inspiration for countless campaigns since the mid 1980's. You may or may not be familiar with this ancient bit of gaming tricknology, but it fits well with Savage Worlds and it's own "playing cards for everything" design ethos. It is a simple way to quickly generate motivations and personalities for NPC's, using two playing cards. 

NPC Motivations System for 2300AD

Blasted Heath: Traveller Campaign Premise and Character Generation

Campaign Premise: PC's are the low-tech inhabitants of a world they know only as Auseklis. You are all members of Clan Seydlitz. The founders of your grandfather's generation were miners and technicians at the Seydlitz mines in the mountains outside the city of Harezmino. This was one of several great cities in the Human world of Auseklis. In turn, Auseklis was one of several Human-ruled worlds, but Humans were not the only species out there. Apparently, a hundred years ago, there was a war. 

When the plagues came, and people died by the hundreds of thousands, society started to collapse; everyone knew the Shedoma brought the plagues. Some were driven mad, spreading death through their bites. Other plagues killed with a cough. Your wise ancestors hid supplies and weapons in the mines and protected themselves from the outside world. But then, one day, a Shedoma fleet came to Auseklis. When the bombs fell upon the cities and military bases of Auseklis, the great fires and explosions destroyed the fragile ecosystem of Auseklis. Your ancestors sealed themselves below ground, with plans to ride out the worst and then fight the Shedoma when they inevitably landed. But the invasion fleets never came, it seems.

When your ancestors came out for the first time years later, Auseklis was unrecognizable. The air was filled with dust storms, the grassy plains were deserts, and the great cities were ruins. Few animals survived, only the toughest and strangest, and many regard survivors as an easy source of fresh meat. No Shedoma were found, though signs of landings were not far from the city's outskirts. Over time, contact was made with other survivor groups. But these encounters soon turned ugly, as groups competed over scarce resources, and the leaders accused one another of surviving by making traitorous deals with the Shedoma. Eventually, this evolved into constant warfare between communities. 

Auseklinites know there are other worlds out there or were; perhaps they have forgotten Auseklis, or maybe they are all destroyed. The aliens were a hideous race of multi-limbed insectoids called the "Shedoma". The survivors also know that for many years any use of large electronics or radio broadcasts brought fire from the skies. There are lights in the night sky that move faster than the other stars; the elders say they are alien spacecraft and thus a bad omen. 

The night is dark and full of terrors.

Gaming Seasons

So here's the plan for the next few months. I like the idea of running campaigns in "seasons", treating each session like an episode. Especially like a BBC or Amazon mini-series with 8-12 episodes. This alternating format allows me enough time to create and run big story arcs, and still lets me switch it up and maintain variety. Just swapping every session breaks momentum and spreads my energy in too many different directions. It is better to run seasons instead. 

Alt-Onin will run for four or five more sessions, playing out the scenarios that I have already written or am currently working on. The group will make it to Kyoto, and get established in the city. That's probably four or five sessions. After that, it will go on hiatus for a while, and I will run the next big arc of Traveller again (I haven't even started writing it yet). After we finish that one, we will start "Season 2" of Alt-Onin. This next Japan story arc will focus on the actual first year of the Onin War (1467-68). I have other, longer-term plans for the campaign (including Mongols, piracy on the Inland Sea, and so on) but nothing fleshed out yet. For the record I'm not tired of Alt-Onin at all, just like I was never tired of Traveller at all. I just had a "yen" to tell a Japan story for a while. Now I'm feeling ready to head back out into space soon. 

When I start planning Traveller Season 2 for real, I will probably hit the group up with long annoying questions about what aspects interest each player the most. I would like very much to explore some PC back-stories. Most of the PC's have interesting entanglements in their past that lend to storytelling, despite the enormous size of the Traveller setting. The most likely starting point for Season 2 will be a few months later, starting at your icy base in the 985-373 system. There are a number of storylines to expand on from Traveller Season 1, and I'll focus my energies on the parts you find most interesting.

That's all for now. 

TTW - The Belgardian Revolution of 1106

Outcome: The Ruby Costa boarding squad played an important role in the recent Belgardian coup d'etat, led by CMDR Aurimas Rumsa.

985-373 and Belgard (Updated)

985-373 - The system is a charted by otherwise abandoned system, designated as a "Red Zone" by the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service because of the many hazards to the system. These include astrogation hazards in space and both radiation and biological hazards on the system mainworld. It is also an occasional haunt of pirates.

PC Briefing - BNV Istvan systems and defenses

 

Image from http://swc.fs2downloads.com/reference.php?subdir=Misc/Gunship/Handree_Deckplans/

Gabriel and Velscur

The war between Baraccai Technum and McClellan Factors in the Trojan Reach is about to get a lot hotter, as the MV Ruby Costa begins its operations in the Egyrn subsector. The MF'ers are trying to open a Jump-3 bridge between their headquarters in Mertactor and the Florian League, something that would upset the apple cart in the Trojan Reach. 

Janus and Caldos

This article introduces Janus and Caldos, two neighboring systems that are the Spinward entrance to the Sindalian Main, aka "The Dustbelt". Unlike some previous posts, this is not a recap of prior events. Instead, it is a briefing for what you will be coming into. It will eventually be added to and turned into a traditional recap. The date will be Day 312 of the year 1105, 

Solaria - Arc Resolution

 

A lot happened in the final session on Solaria, which was dominated by the resolution of both the "corporate shenanigans" and the "biowar agents" story arcs, which wound up being combined into a single action. Additionally, a bit of speculative trade was done, some money was made, and the hold is partly full of quality wines and liquors. At the end of the session, the attending players unanimously decided it was time to move onto the next planets, Janus and Kaldos. 1XP was also awarded. 

600-ton Long Freighter

Converted from a Subsidized Liner of the sort common to Charted Space, the Long Freighter has been stripped of passenger-carrying capability, trading it instead for increased cargo space. The conversion yard removes all but four of the staterooms and five low berths for the six crew and any incidental passengers), as well as the common areas and the launch docking areas. In their place, the Long Freighter now carries two double beam laser turrets for self-defense, a "Slow Boat" for refueling and cargo transfer, and the ability to carry 260 tons of cargo. Like the original liner, the Long Freighter is not streamlined; this is not an issue thanks to the 19-ton capacity of the slow boat carried aboard. Long Freighters are externally similar to their ancestors, differing only in the absence of viewports, the addition of large cargo doors, and similar minor changes. The class mostly operates in regions away from "mains", especially in sparse frontier areas like the Trojan Reach. 

Solaria

The PC's arrived at Solaria, a TL8 agricultural world with a population of about sixty million. The populace lives mainly on the coasts of various tropical marginal seas and islands, as the interior is desolate, dangerous wilderness. Solaria is a breadbasket and could serve as a food source for all of the worlds in the local cluster, assuming the local elites could shuck off their reactionary ways. Whichever company secures this trade would benefit greatly and MF knows that. Even worse, MF is trying to establish a J-3 route through Odin to Mertactor. It is important that the MV Ruby Costa prevent MF from establishing itself here first.

Odin and Thor

In order to progress the story along to elements that are more interesting and involve more players in the action, I decided to "off-camera" this portion of the travel. This included the worlds of Odin and Thor, as well as a minor ship-to-ship encounter in the Thor system. In the interest of moving the story along, this encounter was gamed out using the M2SSSC and several random die roll generators on Google. No PC's were killed or seriously injured, and only minor freebie loot was acquired as a result of this. If you are satisfied with this method, I will probably handle other portions of the MV Ruby Costa's travels this way, narrating the repetitive bits in favor of the exciting and interesting parts of your journey. 

Mongoose 2e House Rules

We will apply the following tweaks to the Mongoose 2e Traveller rules for the "Trojan Trade War" campaign. These will be updated as new situations occur.

Velscur

The MV Ruby Costa dropped out of jump space near the inner gas giant of the Velscur system, exactly as intended. Lt. Crider quickly detected the Vargr corsair, the Raalzatu, cruising towards them. After about a day of maneuvering to lure the corsair in close, the PC's sprung their trap. While the Raalzatu got the first hit in with a strafing run by its light fighter, the MV Ruby Costa quickly finished the Raalzatu off with a quick succession of hits at long range with her particle accelerators. Between the direct damage to the ship and the lethal radiation, the corsair was left dead in space. The PC's closed to boarding range and assaulted the corsair through its main deck. Resistance was light and uncoordinated, as only a handful of Vargr raiders had survived exposure to 1200 rads of gamma radiation. 

Psionics for MgT2 - Temporal Cognition

Temporal Cognition is the ability to perceive the past and future, and to a lesser extent influence future events. While it is similar in some ways to Clairvoyance, it is much rarer in most sophonts; it occurs with a frequency on par with Teleportation, at a DM+0. Of all psionic talents, Temporal Cognition is the one most often confused with supernatural or divine powers. Temporal Cognition offers some disturbing implications about the nature of space and time, and of fate and free will. The referee will have to decide exactly how much information they give to a player when this talent is used. In general, clues will come in the form of visions, symbols, and impressions rather than in clear certainties. After all, the future is always in motion. These abilities are covered in existing 1e materials, but this is my hot take on it. 

MgT2 Oghman Raider (500 tons, TL9)

The TL9 500-ton Oghman Raider is the most common raiding vessel constructed by the clans of Oghma.

Laser Barbettes, Bays, and Spinal Mounts

One of the large gaps that I noticed in the MgT2 naval architecture was a complete lack of laser weaponry larger than turrets. While at Tech Levels above 10 there are a wide variety of energy weapons that are more powerful and longer-ranged than lasers, it is still possible to build viable large warships at TL9-10. For such vessels, large lasers of various sorts are likely to be in common use as primary and secondary weaponry. 

Additional Melee Weapons for Traveller (MgT2)

Melee weapons fall out of fashion as primary battlefield weapons quickly after TL4, though small blades remain in use long after that. Swords and other such weapons tend to be carried as sidearms or in a ceremonial role by royal guards, parade units, or nobles. Pirates and other thuggish criminals often carry them for their intimidation value, even at higher tech levels. Below is an assortment of melee weapons not described in the MgT2 Core Rules or in the CSC. 

Mongoose 2e Super Simplified Space Combat Rules

On the subject of quick and dirty starship combat, I cranked out this Frankensystem. It's ugly, and in dire need of refinement, but it'll do for now. The perfect is the enemy of the good, after all. A lot of the space combat in Traveller is between small-ish vessels, less than 1000 tons displacement. This sort of combat isn’t really that complex, I think it’s pretty interesting myself, but it’s not the aspect of Traveller that my players are interested in. In such a case, it would be able to resolve a fight between their Q-Ship and one or two pirate ships relatively quickly, with broad strokes, and get on with the narrative side of the fight. This system was inspired by a number of sources and borrows heavily from the Mg2e core rules, the mass combat systems of GURPS and Savage Worlds, and from Paul Elliot and Omer Golan-Joel’s “ABSTRACT CLASSIC TRAVELLER SPACE COMBAT”, from “Darkest Stars #1”. 
These rules are for resolving starship brawls, assuming both sides mean to fight and are not running. Each turn represents several six-minute space combat rounds, abstracted into however long seems right. If details need to be tracked, use the regular combat system. 

Mongoose 2e Super Simplified Space Combat Rules

Braudel and Goria

Having set a stealthy course across the Outrim Void, the MV Ruby Costa jumped from Orsech to Kydde, and then to Braudel. Braudel is an isolated world marked as a Red Zone by both TAS and the IISS, and the PC's opted to simply refuel at the system's largest gas giant, notable for a striking ring system. The refueling went without incident. Lt. Kryder noticed immediately, however, that the Red Zone Warning Beacon was not transmitting. Someone or something had taken it out, and they were unable to locate the buoy satellite. They noted the irregularity and did a J-3 to Goria.