THE ROCKYMOUNTAINNAVY BOYS ARE ALL IN on the Traveller role playing game. This past weekend, we played another adventure. Unlike the previous session where I relied upon Gypsy Knights Games 21 Plots for inspiration, this time we riffed off our character and world generation time. We used Cepheus Light (Stellagama Publishing, 2018) as our rules set.
The adventure party, in a Scout ship, was engaged by their enigmatic contact to smuggle high-end luxury goods (handbags in a nod to RMN Mom) to a rich, but vastly overcrowded, planet ruled with an iron fist by a religious dictatorship. Along the way they were approached by the Space Patrol and surreptitiously engaged in espionage, they were double-crossed by a smuggler, they double-crossed the smuggler back, were harassed by the police, had to disarm an improvised explosive device on their ship, knocked heads with smugglers, ran from system defense boats, and dodged fighters.
After the session, both RMN Boys expressed relief that the adventure was over as it was stressful (in a good way). When I asked what part they liked most the answer was the dice. Several times during the game, I took one of my chunky Traveller dice and used it as a countdown timer. For instance, as they went to disarm the bomb, I placed the die heavily on the table.
CLICK!
As they discussed their plan – at some length – I picked up the die, rotated it to the next lower number, and placed it down hard on the table.
CLICK!
The Boys looked up in horror as they realized they really were working against a clock. They tried to disarm the bomb, but failed.
CLICK! The die rotated again.
They eventually disarmed the bomb, but the countdown die would come back again during space combat. They were jumped by a system defense boat during their escape. To show how long they needed before they could safely jump away the countdown die came back out.
CLICK!
“Let’s duke it out! Oh…my little beam laser ain’t so hot….”
CLICK!
“Let’s run away!”
CLICK!
“Uh, we need to do something more. Let’s get the Engineer to goose the engines and try some fancy flying and use Tactics.”
CLICK!
“OK, we got away. That was easy!”
CLICK!
“Where did those fighters come from? Hey, that hurts!”
CLICK!
“JUMP NOW!”
We are having lots of fun and I am sure there are many more adventures ahead. I just hope I can keep up with the RMN Boys and deliver good games.
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 