Tag name:traveller

Traveller Session 1

First published 25th December 2024

After receiving a message from Earl Dumarest regarding a job offer, we all gather and meet in High-port, one of Flammarion Spaceport bars to get reacquainted and to share our experiences whilst we were separated. There is a Scout Way-station attached to the Spaceport, there is a Naval Base which is separate from the Spaceport. X-boats also stop on Flammarion.

We decide to make a party of our get together before meeting with Anders Ascaris the next day.

Engineering Brochure view of the Type K Safari Ship

We are shown into Anders office and welcomed, whom seems to be talking exclusively to Earl in the interim. He/we are offered something called detached duty working for the Scout Service but are informed that currently there are no ships available, but an alternative is being offered. It is a converted Safari ship Type K Safari Ship, jump 2 capability, military grade sensors, 11 staterooms. The only small issue is that the ship is not on Flammarion, but on Watson, a jump 4 away from our current planet. Transport on a subsidised liner has been arranged for all of us. Another problem is that the pervious crew abandoned the ship due to being brought up on charges of defrauding the Scout Service by taking the spare parts they were providing and selling them for
profit and then buying inferior replacement electronics and spare parts which led to it failing an inspection at Watson leading to the abandonment. The electronics on the ship are in poor condition, but the Scout Service will replace the electronics and any other parts that need to be replaced, and any other faults will be repaired.

Walston is a Tech level 8 planet with a C Class Spaceport, a Scout Base Warehouse, Walston does not however have the parts we need to make the necessary repairs.

Our Tickets for the Liner will allow us to jump to 567-908 E-O where refuelling will take place, and then onto Walston, where we will collect the Vagabond's Hope (the name of our ship).

Earl accepted the contract on behalf of all of us, rules of engagement are we can return fire if we are first fired upon, in the case of hijacking and piracy, we can initiate combat, Masuyo has a full recording of our conversation with Anders.

A view of a modified Type K Safari ship

Modified Type K Safari Ship in flight

Character Back Histories

First published 18th November 2024 (Last Modified 19th November 2024)

Timeline of character histories

Year Chase Stormburg Cyndariel Earl Dumarest Fiorana Junebug Masuyo Ryujin Tharbin
1059 Born
1061
1063 Born
1065
1067 Born
1069
1071 Born Born
1073
1075 Born
1077 Entered Naval Academy
1079 Born Joined a clique
1081 Joined Navy Became a Dilettante Noble
1083 Notable Military engagement
1085 Attended University Became a Merchant as a broker Appointed as an adminstrator
1087 Joined a clique Struck a good deal Family Scandal
1089 Became a scout Entered Naval Academy Joined the Marines Promoted
1091 Exemplary service Joined a clique Struck another good deal
1093 Joined the Scouts Joined Navy Abandoned Post
1095 Discovered a new planet Ship ambushed by enemy agents Romantic Relationship Took part in a planetary assault
1097 Joined the Scouts Promoted to Sublieutenant Promoted Reappointed to role as adminstrator as a Manager
1099 Discovered new planet Romantic Relationship Travelling in the service of the scouts Commanding Officer took an interest in career Romantic Relationship Struck yet another good deal Gained an inheritance
1101 Promoted to Lieutenant Promoted (and retained by the marines for another term) Promoted to Manager
1103 Caused a conflict Caused a conflict Explemary service for scouts Took part in a naval engagement Promoted to Sergeant Advanced Training Involved in Politics
1105 Entered Campaign Entered Campaign Entered Campaign Entered Campaign Entered Campaign Entered Campaign Entered Campaign

Events in the most recent term

During 1102 Chase and Cyndariel were, as part of their scout duties, assigned to a mission to a systems just beyond the edge of the Third Imperium. One of worlds visited was Gollere (Egyrn 0505), a regressed settlement which was well on its way to recovering space travel (it is at TL 7). During the visit some starships from a nearby system, Belgard. arrived to trade for agricultural supplies. The Belgardians are xenophobic, particularly when it comes to other starfarers and Chase and Cyndariel managed to raise the hackles of the Belgardian (mainly by boasting about their past discoveries in the Egryn subsector).

The Belgardians responded by launching a full scale invasion of Gollere and kidnapping both Chase and Cyndariel.

The Imperial Scout Service doesn't take kindly to this (particularly as both Chase and Cyndariel are serving members of the Scout Service with excellent service records) and organises a counter invasion to both return the inhabitants of Gollere to their previous government (a collaboration between specialised clans) and to free Chase and Cyndariel.

Since the scout don't have significant military forces of their own, a significant military operation is required, partially organised by Tharbin (safely back in the Spinward Marches). The naval assets included the hiring of the Leviathan Class Merchant Cruiser Nicholas de Nicolay who crew complement included Masuyi who was able to earn the cruiser significant additional funds as it travelled to Gollere.

Since this is a military operation several naval and marine personnel was seconded to crew of the Nicholas de Nicolay including Earl Dumarest (of the scouts and acting as the main liaison between the scouts, the navy and the marines), Fiorana of the Navy and assigned as the lieutenant in charge of the Armament of the Nicolas de Nicolay and Junebug as a corporal in the Marine section assigned to the rescue operation.

The rescue operation was a great success with Fiorana in particular gaining the Navy Lifesaving Medal for rescuing the gunners under her command when the Nicolas de Nicolay was rammed by a Belgardian escort vessel (its pilot having lost control during an attempt to deliver a close range broadside to the Nicolas de Nicolay).

On the ground Junebug took over leading the rescue operation when her sergeant was incapacited during the assault. Her actions resulted in her promotion to Sergeant.

Earl's success in managing to keep the tensions between the merchant owners of the Nicolas de Nicolay, the naval officers in charge of the naval personnel, the marine commander and his superiors in the Scout Service (who were funding the operation) was recognised by the Scout Service after the completion of the mission.

At the end of the term it is 'suggested' to Chase and Cyndariel that maybe they could better progress their lifes outside of the Scout Service!


Change History
19th November 2024
Add events in the most recent term and even out the columns in the table

Mongoose Traveller V2 Character Creator Plugin Details

First published 6th October 2024 (Last Modified 25th December 2024)

Description

This plugin adds a shortcode to add a sandpit for character creation experimentation. This allows for a new character to be created. The characters are saved locally in the browser (only) and can be exported in a format importable into Fantasy Grounds Unity.
[mongooseTravellerV2CharacterCreator /]

The following (minor) rules interpretations, clarifications and modifications have been made by this plugin:

  • Three of the initial stat rolls are made with a boon (i.e., roll 3D6 and take the best two).
  • Mishap 2 is always severely injured.
  • Skill specialisations are chosen at the end of character creation (rather than as you acquire level one in the base skill). This was to avoid overwhelming the player with options. However that does mean where you should be awarded a specialisation in a skill you, initially, get a level in the base skill instead. Also those skills which can be specialised are allowed to go above four until you reach that specialisation step.
  • In a few places where the official rules allow you to choose a skill in the skill tables these has been replaced by providing an entry for each skill in that table (making it have seven rows and a 1D7 roll).
  • The 'Any talent' entry in the Psion service skill table has been omitted (making that table have five rows and hence a 1D5 roll).
  • Connections do not allow the choice of any psionic talent.
  • Version: 3.279.0
  • Author: David Vines
  • Last Updated: 2024-12-25T10:58:49Z
  • Requires WordPress Version: 4.0 or higher
  • Tested up to: 6.7.1
  • License: Contains materials from Mongoose which are used by following the Mongoose fair use policy. The code elements were written solely by myself.

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    In particular note that this page explicitly does not grant consent to republish or distribute this plugin.

Change Log

3.279.0 - 25 December 2024

Fix to FDG export xml file (cosmetic fix)

3.278.0 - 18 November 2024

Bug fix - Adjust scout mishap3's contact and enemy counts. Provide enemy text on Scout event 3, Fix Typo's, Stop several events overwriting career event

3.277.0 - 18 November 2024

Fix typo. Add full life event list to the Notes of the FGU export

3.276.0 - 15 November 2024

Lock skills in the FGU file, Wording fixes, Bug fixes (citizen mishap4 and event3)

3.275.0 - 10 November 2024

Typo and small bug fixes. Rework the display of advancement options

3.274.0 - 08 November 2024

Added ability to embed text in the initial page (between the notes and the copyright notice)

3.273.0 - 08 November 2024

PDF Generation added

3.272.0 - 03 November 2024

Add Psionics

3.271.0 - 30 October 2024

Bug fixes

3.270.0 - 28 October 2024

Reword mishaps and events so that mishaps caused by events do not imply you leave the career is almost all cases. Add Anagathics

3.269.0 - 25 October 2024

Allow medical bills for injuries

3.268.0 - 25 October 2024

Add save and view options, add a free format field

3.267.0 - 24 October 2024

Fix multiple specialisations!

3.266.0 - 21 October 2024

Allow for multiple specialisations

3.265.0 - 18 October 2024

Added the remaining careers (apart from Psion) and the draft

3.264.0 - 12 October 2024

Add the army career

3.263.0 - 06 October 2024

Bug fixes

3.262.0 - 06 October 2024

Add more careers

3.261.0 - 27 September 2024

Add mustering out, export of characters, bug fixes

3.259.0 - 23 September 2024

Initial Version - pre-alpha (no mustering out, connections, end of character or export. Only pre-careers and rogues implements so far


The information on this page was retrieved by Plugin Information Version 3.263.0.

Mongoose Traveller 2e Character Creator

First published 8th September 2024 (Last Modified 8th November 2024)

Loading...

Name:
Species:
Human
Gender:
Female
Homeworld:
Age:
18
Cash:
Cr
Benefits
Associates
  • Contacts: 0
    • Allies: 0
      • Rivals: 0
        • Enemies: 0
          • Patrons: 0
            STR DEX END INT EDU SOC
            Score
            Bonus

            Skills

            Life Events


            DJV's Mongoose Traveller V2 Character Creator Plugin Version 3.279.0

            Setup for joining us on Fantasy Grounds

            First published 3rd September 2024

            We use a couple of bits of software to allow us to play roleplaying via a virtual tabletop:


            Discord

            A partial screen capture of the main discord app with the icon for User Settingshighlighted

            The location of the settings icon

            To allow voice communication we use discord. The desktop version can be downloaded for free from here. You do not need to pay anything to download, setup and use discord1. Once installed and you've registered yourself as a user contact myself or Neil to get an invite to what Discord calls our "server" (a collection of text, voice and even video channels).
            There are a few settings we require and/or recommend. You can get to the settings page via the cog icon at the bottom left hand corner of discord's window:

            A view of the discord voice & video settings

            My Voice & video settings

            Once there select Voice & Video and check (and if necessary change) the following settings (note you can click on the image to see at full size):

            INPUT DEVICE
            Which microphone do you want to use. If you have only one microphone you can probably leave this at the default2.
            OUTPUT DEVICE
            Which speakers do you want to use. If you have only one of set of speakers you can probably leave this at the default. If, however, you have both a set of speakers AND a headset you need to either change the default in Windows to send sound to your headset or choose which one discord should use here3.
            INPUT VOLUME
            Leave at the default of 100% unless everyone complains you're too loud. If you find someone else is too loud you can adjust just their volume as explained below.
            OUTPUT VOLUME
            If you're finding everyone else is too loud or too quiet you can change the global volume here.
            INPUT MODE
            Select Push-to-talk4.
            SHORTCUT
            Choose which key to press when you want to speak. I use the left control button on the keyboard5 but Neil uses one of his mouse buttons, You can choose almost any key for this.
            PUSH-TO-TALK RELEASE DELAY
            Move the slider to increase the time between when you release the push-to-talk key and the time your microphone becomes muted. Note that the default is 0 milliseconds and typically your fingers are ahead of your mouth and hence your final word gets either cut in half or muted completely. Mine is set to around 500ms which seems to work.

            There's also a section of settings for Notifications that includes a PTT Activate and a PTT Deactivate notification sounds. Note, however, that the notification sounds are NOT sent to the output device you chose in Voice & Video but just sent as audio to windows. So if your default windows output device are your speakers you'll need to go to your windows settings6, select System then Sound followed by App volume and device preferences and then, With the discord app running, manually choose the devices to be used for sound for the Discord application7.

            If you find that one person's voice is too loud or too quiet you can manually how loud they are by right-clicking their name in the voice chat channel and then moving the slider to increase or decrease their individual volume.

            Discord will check if it needs updates as part of its startup process and will do an update if necessary

            There are also mobile versions of the application for both Android and Apple available in their respective app stores. I do not recommend using a mobile for voice8 but I do recommend it as a way of seeing (and getting notifications about) the text channels.

            I strongly recommend going through the setup for discord well before the first game session since, inevitably, it takes a while to get the setup working exactly the way you want it to9


            Fantasy Grounds Unity main page screenshot

            Fantasy Grounds Unity main page

            Fantasy Grounds Unity

            You'll be glad to learn that there's less setup needed for Fantasy Grounds Unity. You can download it from their home page. You only need the Free Demo vesrion since both myself and Neil have Ultimate Licenses which allow us to host games for those with the free demo versiom. If you ever wanted to run a game you'd need to get the ultimate version since we have players with only the free demo version.

            The free demo version has, for players, all the features of the core license or ultimate versions.

            When the time comes we will lead you through how to join a game10. I do recommend that before every game session you fire up Fantasy Grounds Unity and look to see if it needs any updates. Our game sessions are widely enough spread out that there's usually some updates that have been made between our game sessions.


            Footnotes

            1. Discord does have a premium currency called Nitro to allow the purchase of additional features. We've not found the need to purchase anything.
            2. I do have two microphones potentially connected so I do set the device here.
            3. Similarly I do have both speakers and a headset so have to set the output device.
            4. This keeps the channel quiet except when someone wants to talk and hence avoids unneccessary distractions.
            5. Note that when I press the left control key to push-to-talk it still acts as a control key so I do have to be aware of that should I try to use any other key (for example to do something in Fantasy Grounds Unity).
            6. These instructions assume you're using Windows 10.
            7. Note that this is a real pain since whenever discord updates its main application the windows settings treats it as a new application and you'll have to go in and change these settings again - I haven't found a better way to do this so far.
            8. It does work but getting push-to-talk to work is not as straightforward.
            9. Don't get me wrong, it is good software but as seen above it can require a fair bit of setting up to get everything the way you want it to be.
            10. Assuming, of course, you have successfully set up Discord and joined the voice chat channel.

            Traveller

            First published 22nd May 2000 (Last Modified 18th November 2024)

            Character Generator

            In preparation for running a new Traveller Campaign, The GK Strategem, I've created a Mongoose Traveller V2 Character Creator. This new campaign will be in an alternate universe to that described below (mostly because my memory of those campaigns has faded to the level of mostly gone!

            Timeline

            I have, on and off, over the last couple of decades run a traveller campaign. Some players have expressed an interest in the timeline, so let's see if I can reproduce it from my limited memory.

            Approx -300,000
            Ancients abound developing many weird and wonderful devices and ships. It is rumoured that one or more of these still exists and that the vessel concerned is capable of Jump-6 without the aid of 60% of the ship being devoted to fuel.It is also believed that the computer system fred dates from this time.
            1109
            Date of my first campaign. A group of merchants and friends attempt to make a living in the spinward marches. They soon misjump and crash land on a remote system. They only escape when their cargo forces them to repair their 200-ton trader (after which it becomes a 150-ton trader!).
            1110
            Fifth Frontier War begins. The Zhodani launch a surprise attack on the Imperium aided by Vargr and the sword worlds.
            1111
            The Zhodani capture Regina, the Spinward Marches sector capital
            1112
            The capital of the Sword Worlds (Gramm) is devestated by a huge explosion. Riots ensue after it becomes apparent that the rulers cared more about protecting their main computer complex (which survived the explosion) instead of the inhabitants of the surrounding city (which didn't!).
            1113
            Imperium suffers a major reverse when a dozen stars spontaneously turn in supernovae. Although Darrian action is suspected (and the Imperium breaks off all treaties with the Darrians) nothing is proven. One of the systems lost is the Glisten system which was a major imperial starship construction facility (capable of constructing TL15 ships)
            1114
            The Zhodani capture Rhylanor, which had only recently become the new sector capital. The Imperials sue for peace with the Zhodani, who agree to sign a new peace treaty. The Imperium moves considerable deterrent force into their remaining portion of the spinward marches and a cold war begins
            1119
            The Zhodani launch a covert mission into the border worlds on both sides of the imperial/zhodani border. It disappears (although an internal zhodani report suggests that the use of people from planets which had been imperial might have a contributory factor, and certainly was very foolish).
            1121
            Unusual activity is seen around the ancient sites in the Five Sisters subsector including the recorded disappearance of a merchant vessel
            1150
            A passenger liner jumping between xxx and Trin's Veil fails to arrive on schedule

            Notes on the timeline

            As should be noted I run with a different universe to that of either Traveller or MegaTraveller. In my universe the Zhodani won the fifth frontier war and the Civil War never happened (and neither did the virus). I have used the virus as an alternative universe (unsurprisingly the players had needed some encouragement to do the 'right' thing!)

            At the time of my latest campaign (dated 1150), the Zhodani/Imperial cold war was just beginning to end. Some more normal contact was being resumed between the Zhodani and the Imperium and there were those considering resuming a 'normal' postal service.

            The Vargr were being their usual nuisance to all concerned.

            The Sword worlds were worried that they were about to be abandoned by the Zhodani.

            The Darrians have had a problem for the last thirty years. How do you convince someone that you didn't blow up twelve stars when your entire defence strategy depends on your enemies knowing that you can!

            More and more Aslan have begun to be seen in the Spinward Marches after decades of absence. They pointedly kept out of the fifth frontier war and appear to want to take advantage of the trade possibilities of being a neutral player between the Zhodani and the Imperium.

            The fred computer system

            An important element in at least two or more of my campaign has been (and may be still is!) the fred computer system. Fred comes in a 20-ton cargo package. Intelligence reports that it contains a TL20 sentient computer system and packs some pretty impressive systems:

            • Fusion Gun ('Man' Portable)
            • Gauss Rifle and Pistol equivalent
            • Black globe generator (although to be fair this needs to be connected to a ship's jump capacitors to be generally useful in ship combat).
            • Self repair capability

            Last updated: November 18, 2024 at 13:33 pm