Trail of the Sky Raiders session #3: Not breaking in

I’m running FASA’s 1982 Trail of the Sky Raiders, and this is my report of session #3 of Trail, or session #9 of our overall Sky Raiders campaign.

Click here to read my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders. (Or if you want to start from the very beginning, here’s my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.)

Oh yes, there will be spoilers. A lot of them.

The Travellers

Our players and their characters are Jon (playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak), Terry (playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois), Thomas (playing drifter Felix "Dusty" Pygrin) and Tom (playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka).

Jon can’t make it this week, so it’s just the four of us.

Alzenei Day 6: Lokhav’s apartment

The Travellers suspect Lokhav of kidnapping Lorain Messandi and have decided to break into Lokhav’s 17th-floor apartment using their air/raft. (We left it last session with them outside the apartment block.)

Between sessions, I decided that Lokhav lived with his girlfriend, Ket, and that she would be at home. But the players didn’t know that yet.

So, as we started, I wondered aloud what sort of measures a typical TL 12 apartment block might take to prevent ne’er-do-wells from using air/rafts to break in. And Tom suggested a 3m-wide anti-antigravity field to repel air/rafts. Plus, there are air/raft garages on the roof and a reception with a concierge-bot on the ground floor. (And they are structurally designed with air/raft impacts in mind. It’s not often I call for a civil engineering roll!)

(In hindsight, I should have said that Alzenei’s air/rafts were all autonomous vehicles – so there would be no garage as people would just rent one when they needed it. Maybe I’ll save that for the next TL12 city .)

While the Travellers are dithering in the air/raft, working out a plan, one of the apartment windows closes. There’s someone inside! Is it Lokhav? (The windows are TL 12 privacy screens, so they can’t see inside.)

The robo-concierge

Felix decides to bluff his way past the robo-concierge, so I channel Total Recall’s Johnny Cab. The robo-concierge is extremely helpful, but won’t let just anyone in – and eventually puts Felix through the Lokhav’s apartment.

Felix then has a slightly awkward conversation with Ket, Lokhav’s girlfriend. I rolled really low on her reaction roll (3), so she was extremely suspicious of Felix and his frankly sketchy reasons for wanting to come up. Felix made a great Deception roll, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Ket’s hostility. (Which is a shame, as Ket would have told him that Lokhav was home and had called to tell her he was going off-planet with work for about a month.)

So Felix then hacks the robo-concierge and gets up to the 17th-floor hallway, with doors to three different apartments. There’s nowhere to hide, but there are cameras, so Felix listens at the door. It sounds like Ket is talking on a vidphone (she is!), but Felix can’t make out the words.

After scrubbing the robo-concierge and camera files, Felix leaves, and the players decide to call it a night.

Alzenei City: Day 7

Alzenei starport

After failing to get very far with Lokhav’s apartment, the players are a little despondent, so I reminded them that at the end of the last session, they said they wanted to investigate the starport, talk to the police and translate the inscriptions on the mysterious plate.

(I’m not sure whether this is a function of my GMing or Trail’s design, but the players' despondency surprised me, given how much more Trail had for them to find out. Trail has loads more information they can learn, albeit not all relevant at this point.)

So the PCs headed to the starport, which (as established before) consists of a highport and downport, connected by a beanstalk. There, the PCs learn that there are two ships in port - theirs, and an A2 Far Trader called the Diamond.

However, another ship, the Type A Free Trader Golden Dreamer (operated by Kalaman Enterprises) had left earlier this morning. It filed a flight plan for Desaekhe via Qarant. Most suspiciously, a family of four was bumped from the Golden Dreamer just before it left, replaced by some Kalaman Enterprises operatives. 

The Travellers hack into the starport’s CCTV systems (using a skill chain) and see Lorain, Lokhav and a couple of thugs boarding the Golden Dreamer. Lorain looks under duress – she’s not going by choice.

All the signs are pointing to Qarant…

And I still can’t say “hegemony.”

The Institute

The players are all for jumping into their ship and heading straight to Qarant, but I suggest they do a bit of research first to learn more about the situation they are getting into. A quick check of the library data reveals that Qarant is jointly administered by the League of Suns (who have an E-class starport and a dig run by the Institute for System Studies) and the Descarothe Hegemony (who have another E-class starport next to their archaeological dig). Qarant’s entire population consists of the archaeologists and their support teams, and we have a short discussion about tech levels (which I’ve mentioned here before).

So the Travellers head to the Institute for System Studies for a letter of introduction, and bump into Drew Kensing, the useless noble who is in love with Lorain. Felix rescued Drew from a snikersnak on Mirayn, so I’m sure that will come up again. Anyway, it is agreed that Drew will accompany the PCs to Qarant and get in the way make introductions at the Institute dig site on Qarant.

Then the PCs go shopping and load up with TL12 goodies.

Jump

Finally, en route to Qarant, Sir Sidderon translates the text on the plate. Will the players spot the clue in the text, or will I need to use Lorain? We’ll find out next week.

And there we leave it. I think we have maybe one or two sessions left – and then onto the finale, Fate of the Sky Raiders.

Coming soon: Session #4: Island hunting on Qarant

Previously: Session #2: Alzenei City,  or start right back at the beginning with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders (or my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders).

Trail of the Sky Raiders session #2: Alzenei City

I’m running FASA’s 1982 Trail of the Sky Raiders, and I’m already improvising wildly! This is session #2 of Trail, or session #8 of our overall Sky Raiders campaign.

Click here to read my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders. (Or if you want to start from the very beginning, here’s my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.)

Oh yes, there will be spoilers. A lot of them.

The Travellers

Our players and their characters are Jon (playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak), Terry (playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois), Thomas (playing drifter Felix "Dusty" Pygrin) and Tom (playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka).

Jon can’t make it this week, so it’s just the four of us.

Alzenei City

The Travellers are in Alzenei City, and we started with some unfinished business from the last session.

The map and calling Lorain

We left the Travellers in possession of a map. At the end of the last session, Terry suggested running the map through an LLM-style AI to identify where it might be. Alzenei is TL12, so it seemed eminently feasible, and a successful roll later, I told them that the map showed an archaeological dig on Qarant, a nearby planet operated by both the friendly League of Suns and the hostile Descarothe Hegemony. Unfortunately, the dig is on the Hegemony side of the border

The PCs also called Lorain and arranged to meet her the day after tomorrow at their ship, the Tyrant’s Fate.

The call was interesting. At this point, the PCs already suspect that there is a mole in Lorain’s office, because Margayle told them that Ben Dumael died after calling Lorain’s office. So they were acting really cagy in arranging a meeting with Lorain. And despite all my attempts, they refused to show the plate during the call (which is what Trail needs).

So Lorain agreed to meet them on their ship in two days.

Killing time in Azenei City

With a day to kill, the PCs went their separate ways.

• Timo went into orbit and brought their ship, the Tyrant’s Fate, down to the lowport.
• Felix took his daughter, Josine, to the zoo. He pampered her with presents and promised to write more.
• Sir Sidderon had Lupin seen to (claws clipped, vaccinations updated, that sort of thing). He checked to see if they were being followed, but couldn’t see anyone.
• Mustafa failed to find cargo for Qarant, but learned that there is growing tension between the League of Suns and the Hegemony, which is bad for business.

Meeting Lorain

Finally, Lorain turned up at the Tyrant’s Fate, and the players had an incredibly awkward conversation with Lorain where they tried not to reveal too much, making Lorain suspicious. The conversation is awkward until the PCs open up and show Lorain the Sky Raider plate.

So the PCs explained to Lorain how they got the plate – and what happened to Dumaer. (Lorain had heard of Dumaer, but not seen him since before the Mirayn adventure. She certainly wasn’t aware that he’d tried to contact her recently.)

Lorain wanted to take the plate for study. She was interested in its origins, as it might justify her father’s theory that the extinct civilisation on Qarant was the victim of the Sky Raiders. (This is buried in library data, but luckily I remembered it.)

Lorain took a holo-recording of the plate and agreed to approach her sponsors and try to get funding for an expedition to Qarant for Cr: 500,000. She had a meeting with them in two days, at which point she would call the PCs. (I realise that any academics in the audience are laughing hysterically at this super-compressed funding timeline…)

Alzenei Day 5: The writing on the plate

With a day to kill, Sir Sidderon had the bright idea of fabricating 3D-printed copies of the Sky Raiders plate. (I have no doubt nobody considered this as a possibility in 1982…)

While cleaning it for copying, the fabricating facility discovered writing on the back. Without knowing what the writing said, the PCs instructed the fabricators NOT to copy it onto the replicas.

Trail of the Sky Raiders points the PCs to a learned NPC who can help them. However, between Felix’s Archaeology and Sir Sidderon’s Linguistics skills, they decide to have a crack at deciphering the writing. They roll well, but I decide it will take a couple of days of focused study.

Alzenei Day 6: Lorain kidnapped

Finally, I get to kidnap Lorain! 

So Lorain failed to call the PCs, and doesn’t answer her phone. So the PCs headed to her workplace, and discovered that she had been kidnapped. Also, her assistant, Lokhav, is nowhere to be found.

Suspicious of Lokhav (and rightly so), the players decided to break into his 17th-floor apartment using their air/raft.

But as we are approaching the end of the session and I haven’t planned for this (and Trail of the Sky Raiders doesn’t even mention Lokhav’s apartment), we end the session there.

Coming soon: Session#3: Not breaking in

Previously: Session #1: Leaving the railroad or start right back at the beginning with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders (or my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders).

Trail of the Sky Raiders session #1: Leaving the railroad

We’ve started session #1 of the 1982 FASA adventure for Traveller, Trail of the Sky Raiders, and the players have already taken us in a direction the adventure didn’t expect!  (Or session #7 of our overall Sky Raiders campaign.)

Click here to read my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders. (Or if you want to start from the very beginning, here’s my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.)

Oh yes, there will be spoilers. A lot of them.

The Travellers

Our players and their characters are Jon (playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak), Terry (playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois), Thomas (playing drifter Felix "Dusty" Pygrin) and Tom (playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka).

We’re starting with three players this week, as Jon, who plays Timo, couldn’t be with us as he was stranded in Shropshire.

A bar on Nomael

Trail of the Sky Raiders starts on Nomael, where the PCs spot a familiar-looking artefact in a bar – it is a Sky Raider’s artefact!

So that’s where we started, eight months after the last session. The Travellers had been paid for their adventure on Mirayn, were reunited with Timo’s Type S scout ship and were now on Nomael for some reason or other.

In the bar, they saw the artefact, realised it might be Sky Raiders' treasure, and bought it from the barman. The barman told them that an ex-Scout called Dumael had sold it to him. He didn’t know where Dumael had got it from.

First mistake

I made my first mistake in this scene.

The idea in Trail is that the players spot the Sky Raiders trinket, buy it, and then go to Alzenai to show it to Lorain Messandi. I thought that that would be enough, but Tom asked what his character’s motivation might be. So I mentioned that the similar-looking piece they saw back on Mirayn had been valued at Cr: 500,000. “Ahah, that’s my motivation,” said Tom. I should have led with that…

Chasing Dumael

Before leaving Nomael for Alzenei, the PCs decided to see what they could find out about Dumael, the mysterious scout who had sold the Sky Raiders trinket to the barman. They quickly learned that Dumael hasn’t been seen for a while, that he is based out of Alzenei, and that his ship is a Type-S called the Blue Viper.

The PCs also learned of the connection between Kalamanaru and the Descarothe Hegemony. It turns out that I find “hegemony” really hard to pronounce, which is unfortunate as I know it’s going to come up a lot…

(At this point, I’m already dipping into the Trail’s clues. Trail states that the barman remembers the name of the person who sold him the artefact, but it feels very early for this information to be coming out. Never mind, I’m sure it won’t be a problem…)

Alzenei City and TL 12 wonders

Trail describes Alzenei City in slightly pedestrian terms: “With ground transport obsolete, buildings are separated by wide, parklike malls; transportation is now largely tied to the network of subshuttle lines that apply grav technology to an underground mass transit system with great economy, efficiency and pleasing aesthetic effects.”

I wanted something a little more futuristic and different, so with my player’s help, we fleshed out Alzenei City:

• A beanstalk connects the ground and orbital elements of Alzenei’s starport.
• Alzenei City is partly submerged, and a kind of coral is a common building material.
• Genetic gill modifications are common (although Felix, who comes from Alzenei, could never afford them).
• A common form of transport is the personal G-tube, a two-person anti-grav sphere.
• Felix owns a small bungalow, which is probably a bit cramped with all four of them.
• Felix’s ex-wife and 12-year-old daughter live in Alzenei City, somewhere.
• Aquaria are popular on Alzenei.

And with that little bit of world-building done…

Chasing Dumael (again)

Rather than tell Lorain about the Sky Raiders artefact (as Trail expects), my group decided to learn more about Dumael first.

At the Scout base, they learned that he hired himself out for various unnamed duties, but that he had turned up dead in an alley three months ago. He did, however, have a girlfriend, Margayle Sharnon, in startown.

Felix knew of Margayle's, and led the PCs to it. There, they found a run-down lounge bar that had clearly seen better days (the aquarium had guppy-blight).

Margayle was out when they arrived, but told the PCs about Dumaer when she turned up. She told them that he vanished after arranging a meeting with Lorain’s office. He had seen her broadcast about the Sky Raiders, and had got excited about some artefacts she had. Then he died.

Margayle gave the PCs a map that she thought was linked, but didn’t know exactly where it was of.

(All this seems to be coming out extremely early. The players are already suspicious of someone in Lorain’s office, despite me trying not to signal that too hard.)

My other mistake

I wish I had played up Margayle’s grief more than I did. My defence is that the players had gone off piste and I hadn’t prepared Margayle in as much depth as I might normally have done. (Arguably, Trail itself pays lip service to her grief as well. She’s not even included in the NPC list.)

Next time

My top tip for anyone running a continuing ttrpg is, at the end of a session, ask the players what they plan to do next. So that’s what I did, and this is what they’ve told me they want to do.

• Work out where the map comes from. Scan it and let a computer match it with existing features (like giving it to a LLM).
• Talk to Lorain (at last!)
• Ask the police about Dumaer’s murder
• See Josine (nice – a bit of character stuff)

We’re taking a week off (because I will be recovering from Consequences), but we’re playing again at the start of December.

Coming soon: Session #2: Alzenei City

Previously: Session #6: Tomb of the Sky Raiders or start right back at the beginning with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders (or my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders).

Trail of the Sky Raiders review

Trail of the Sky Raiders was written by J Andrew Keith with art by William H Keith Jr and maps by Loren Wiseman. It was published by FASA, way back in 1982. It is the second part of a trilogy for Traveller, preceded by Legend of the Sky Raiders and followed by Fate of the Sky Raiders. 

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I’ve completed Legend of the Sky Raiders with my group, and we’re about to start Trail of the Sky Raiders. This is my first-impressions-ish review of Trail, and it's a bit too spoilery, so I’ve delayed this (and the subsequent session reports) until my players are far enough through the adventure for this review not to spoil it.

Physically, Trail of the Sky Raiders was a LBB-sized 56-page book with extra maps. I am using pdfs.

Oh, spoilers ahead…

The plot

The Sky Raiders is a semi-legendary culture which flourished 5300 years ago in the Far Frontiers sector. Almost all evidence of the Sky Raiders is derived from oral traditions, myths, and legends from a number of separate worlds in the Jungleblut subsector. Their origins, fate, and all details of their culture remain unknown…

Trail of the Sky Raiders picks up a few months after Legend concludes. Trail does include a way for those who haven’t completed Legend of the Sky Raiders to get into the adventure, but that’s not my group. (I imagine most groups play this as a trilogy.)

Anyway, Trail starts with yet more contortions to get the Travellers to where the adventure wants them. Some months after their adventures on Mirayn (in Legend), the Travellers are struggling as the ship they have stolen has turned into a money pit, when they spot an old metal plate in a bar that they recognise as a Sky Raiders artefact…

Except that my group of Travellers didn’t steal their ship, and they have their own Type S Scout ship anyway. Still, I didn’t worry too much about that – I knew that I just had to introduce the artefact. My players would recognise a McGuffin when they see one and would do the rest.

The PCs go to Alzenei to show the artefact to Lorain Messandi, their patron from Legend of the Sky Raiders. Unfortunately, before they meet her, she is kidnapped, and ruffians attempt to steal the artefact from the players.

Their investigation then takes the players to Qarant and an archaeological dig, where the players learn that a) the bad guys have the other half of the artefact, and b) their information is incomplete.

“They’re digging in the wrong place,” to quote Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes, the artefact is the Staff of Ra, and the dig on Qarant is Tanis...

Anyway, our heroes have to rescue Lorain and then solve the puzzle, leading them to the treasure that sets up episode three, Fate of the Sky Raiders.

The investigation

The first part of the adventure is an investigation into Lorain’s kidnapping.

The investigation is split into locations – the Institute, the Starport, the Scout Base, Startown, and so on. In a couple of cases, there are core clues (hey, we’re playing Gumshoe), but the PCs can uncover many others. 

Unfortunately, the general advice for running an investigation is a little overwritten: 

While searching for clues and information, the general guidelines presented below should be followed, modified by the referee as needed to cope with unexpected player actions. In every instance, however, the referee should be ready to improvise heavily, to drop clues into the course of the game that will set players on a new, profitable path of thought or action, even when their own inquiries would not normally give rise to this information.

Unfortunately, Trail doesn’t make it easy to “improvise heavily” as the clues are written as if they are found in specific places. For example, some clues are found on Lorain’s computer. However, the information could just as easily be told to them by a member of staff, or found in a news report, or some other way. So I’ve taken the text and (where I can) stripped it of its context so I can respond to my players’ approach.

I guess I can forgive Trail this – ttrpgs weren’t even a decade old by this point, and this would have been one of the first published investigations.

Anyway, there are enough clues to point the PCs to their next location: an archaeological dig on Qarant.

Qarant

Getting to the dig on Qarant is complicated by the fact that the planet is occupied by both the League of Suns (Imperial-leaning good guys) and the Descarothe Hegemony (Zhodani-leaning bad guys). And the dig is on the wrong side of the border.

So the PCs need to figure out where to land, how to get behind enemy lines, rescue Lorain, and find the treasure. Because there is treasure, which, if all goes well, the PCs will find before the bad guys. And that treasure leads specifically to the trilogy’s climax: Fate of the Sky Raiders.

So Qarant is broadly a sandbox – it’s up to the PCs to make a plan, and it’s up to the GM to react and respond.

There’s even a complicated bit about exploring an ancient temple that involves abstractly tracking how much time everything takes. (There isn’t a map – that would be too much like D&D, I guess.) This is needed because the bad guys are also searching for the players (the Referee rolls dice for that). But that’s a bit OSR for me – I expect I will montage the temple exploration, and I’ll bring the bad guys in when it makes dramatic sense.

My thoughts

Overall, Trail seems less railroady than Legend of the Sky Raiders. There’s a similarly artificial set-up, but once you’re over that, the adventure seems pretty solid: an investigation part to figure out what’s going on and where Lorain is, followed by a tricky situation to rescue her and a neat prize at the end of it.

(And frankly, that’s the model for so many other investigative scenarios. Most Call of Cthulhu scenarios follow that model.)

I think it’s also going to be shorter. There’s less stumbling about in the jungle, but we’ll see.

Criticisms

Trail of the Sky Raiders is pretty good, but it’s not perfect. Some fairly significant problems could derail the adventure, and I have a few minor criticisms. My minor gripes:

• The link between Legend and Trail adventure is pretty clunky. Once again, the PCs are down on their luck and desperate for cash. Thinking about it, it might have been nice if Lorain had remembered Dumaer talking about the plate and sending the PCs on a mission to track it down. (Or even just asking them to keep an eye out for anything Sky Raiders related, and to bring it to her.)
• While the clues are nicely grouped by location, they are still cluttered and overwritten. Clues are presented as being in specific places, without considering that the same information might be found elsewhere. (I know I should make allowances given this was 1982, but I see the same mistake being made today.)
• A clearer layout would help manage the clues, particularly mixing them up with the narrative. (I copied everything into a MS Word document, edited it down and simplified it to make it easier for me to run.)
• I was confused by references to the Serendipity, which turns out to be the name of the PC’s ship. But that assumes the PCs have the ship as described in the setup – my group doesn’t.
• As I discussed in an earlier post, the tech level on Qarant makes no sense.

What’s missing?

I felt a few elements were missing from Trail.

A countdown clock. Or at least some timed events. The investigation on Alzenei tells the GM to break each day into four periods (morning, afternoon, evening, night) and that the PCs can investigate one area at a time. (And must sleep for two periods in eight.)

But there’s no actual time pressure. It doesn’t matter if the PCs dawdle. There are a couple of events, but basically nothing really happens if the PCs take their time. 

Drew and Talia. Where are Drew and Talia? Drew is the noble who funded Lorain’s expedition in Legend and is in love with her, and Talia is Lorain’s friend and colleague. I would expect both to make an appearance here, as they already have a connection with the PCs. (I will add them if I can.)

Really big problem #1: The Sky Raiders plate

There’s a structural problem with the Sky Raiders plate: it has writing on the back.

The players aren’t told this when they first get it; it’s something the Alzenei research team tells them. The bad guys mustn’t get this writing first, so the players aren’t told about it until after they have transmitted a telefax of it (I’ll get to that below) to Lorain. (The telefax is then intercepted by a bad guy, which starts events moving, but crucially, the telefax doesn’t have the writing on it.)

This is never told to the GM. The bad guys must not learn about the writing – as that will give them the key clue that means they find the treasure before the players.

I only worked it out when I realised that I would need to describe the plate to my players, without mentioning the writing. Annoyingly, the image on page 4 of the book shows writing on the piece, but maybe that’s different writing. (It’s not an image to show to the players, as it shows both pieces together. But still.)

I don't think the players are supposed to see this...

During our game, the players wanted to make 3D copies of the plate. I ummed and erred, and one of the players suggested that the writing only appeared when the plate was cleaned up ready, for scanning. I readily agreed. Phew.

Really big problem #2: Sidestepping the adventure

Another issue is that the PCs could completely sidestep parts of the adventure. I’ve started running this, and my players have already got the map of the dig and worked out its location before they spoke to Lorain.

They then discovered the writing on the back, and thanks to having the right skills (and some good rolls), can translate without anyone’s help. So they can go straight to Qarant and find the treasure without involving Lorain at all. (In which case, she isn’t captured, and that part of the investigation doesn’t happen – and neither does her rescue.)

Now, that didn’t happen and Lorain was kidnapped, but at one point it was a possibility. And it’s more of an issue that Trail doesn’t really allow for that in its writing. It assumes that the players will follow the path as directed.

(Hmm. Does that make it a railroad? I don’t think so. Trail expects the PCs to take a definite path through the adventure, but it doesn’t take agency away from the players, which to me defines a railroad.)

Really big problem #3: The link to Fate of the Sky Raiders

Perhaps the biggest problem is the link to the Fate of the Sky Raiders, which is contained in some data tapes the PCs find.

If the dice roll badly, the bad guys might arrive early and capture the PCs, leaving the data tapes in their hands. 

And for Fate of the Sky Raiders to start as written, Lorain must end with the data tapes, and the bad guys must not know they exist.

If that doesn’t happen, the GM needs to rewrite Fate of the Sky Raiders to make it work. I’m sure that’s possible, but it’s a lot easier if the game goes as expected.

The far future in 1982: telefaxes

The far future was even further away in 1982 than it is today, and Trail features a marvellously futuristic device: the telefax. “She requests, strongly, that a telefax of the artefact be transmitted by phone (a standard feature of the Alzenei phone system) so she can begin work on screening it at once.”

Telefaxes, eh? How tech level 12!

Overall

Despite the niggles, I like Trail of the Sky Raiders, and so far, my players appear to be enjoying playing through it.

Next: Session #1: Leaving the railroad

Pulling on threads: Traveller’s random worlds

I really should know not to look too closely at the Traveller universe. But I can’t help myself…

The illustration

Anyway, this train of thought started with this picture.

I was looking through Trail of the Sky Raiders, looking for illustrations to use in my forthcoming review. (I’ve written the review, but it’s a bit spoilery, so I’m waiting until my players have worked their way through it before publishing it.)

I saw the illustration (on page 44) above, and thought, “Ahah, yes, trucks. Very TL 7.” Qarant (E558261–7), the planet upon which part of Trail is set, is TL 7, so at first, it made sense.

Then remembered that Qarant has fewer than 1000 inhabitants – its population code is 2. And most of those are archaeologists and their support teams. So it doesn’t have a significant manufacturing base – pretty much everything will be imported.

And then I thought about where it would be imported from.

Qarant

Qarant is an interesting world. The Traveller Map shows it as being within the Descarothe Hegemony borders, but technically, it’s shared between them and the League of Suns.

The League of Suns’ capital is TL 12 Alzenei, while the Descarothe Hegemony’s capital is Desaekhe (TL 9). Both are a single parsec away, and both are their empire’s highest tech level.

So if Qarant is importing anything from anywhere, it’s from Alzenei and Desaekhe. So that suggests that its TL should be 9/12.  

However, with fewer than 1000 inhabitants, Qarant doesn’t manufacture anything – so perhaps its TL is 0? Or just “-“ or “not applicable”?

I’m not sure how TL is defined, anyway. According to the SRD, Technology Levels measure the scientific capacity of a world and the complexity and effectiveness of a piece of equipment. (And the Traveller Wiki thus: A world's tech level is the degree of technological expertise, and thus the capabilities of local industry.) But what about places like Qarant, that import everything?

Or to put my question another way, what is the tech level of the Isle of Man?

So realistically, everything is imported. So why would the Descarothe Hegemony import trucks when they can import air/rafts?

The Descarothe Hegemony mystery

And looking a little harder at the Descarothe Hegemony reveals that it is punching above its weight.

The hegemony’s highest TL is 9, which means they can construct jump-1 starships. Yet their “empire” looks like this:

So that’s really awkward. Without buying longer-range ships (which they can’t easily service and maintain), travelling around the Empire is slow.

Trade and Zhodani spies

Luckily, the Descarothe Hegemony doesn’t have to rely on its own shipyards, as Trail’s library data tells us that, Though not aligned with any other government, the Hegemony has followed a policy of aggression towards the League of Suns (an Imperial client), while acquiring equipment, ships, and technical support from the Dominion of Alntzar and other nearby Zhodani clients.

The Zhodani influence isn’t covered in any detail in Trail of the Sky Raiders. I suspect it would be a different adventure if it did.

Worshipping random numbers

But I can’t get over the logic of Traveller’s random results, and the insistence that those numbers are treated as gospel. The dice said Qarant’s TL is 7, so we’re going to give it trucks, ground cars, and the like, even though there’s no local infrastructure. No fuel refineries, steelworks, or factories to produce the thousands of parts that make up a typical trunk.

So it must all be imported. And if you’re going to import a truck, why not import something better?

(In a similar vein, in this old post, I examine the puzzle that is Rethe/Regina.)

Dune starter set: Agents of Dune review

Agents of Dune is Modiphius’ starter set for their Dune RPG. It has a grand ambition, which is to teach roleplaying to people who have never played or run a ttrpg before, with play starting only a few minutes after opening the box. Does it succeed? It’s hard for me to say, because I’ve been roleplaying for over 40 years. 

But I’m going to try and figure that out anyway.

Caveats

I am not particularly a fan of Dune. I read Dune in school, and it was fine. (I may have been too young.) I may have tried to read some of the sequels. I can’t remember. 

I enjoyed the recent movies, but I don’t know the detailed lore.

Anyway, I bought this in Modipheus’ Black Friday sale. I wouldn’t have bought it at full price, but I did because I picked up the Masters of Dune campaign, and apparently, this is a lead-in. (And I also thought it might be helpful to understand the rules.)

I haven’t played or run the starter set – I have only read it. (Well, and run through a few scenes as a solo player.)

I’m definitely not the target audience for two reasons: I am an experienced roleplayer, and I’m not a Dune fan.

Given that, these are my thoughts.

Contents

The sturdy box contains:

One introduction leaflet, with a letter from the head of the PC’s house setting the scene and telling them they are taking over Arrakis from the Harkonnen. (Yes, this is an “alternate universe” version of Dune where the Harkonnen aren’t quite as vile as they are in the source material, and the handover to House Nagara isn’t a trap. You might not like this. I’m fine with it.) The back page has a summary of key rules: conflicts, attack sequence and determination.

Five 4-page pregenerated characters, all from House Nagara and including a mentat and a Bene Gesserit. The back page summarises the rules for skill tests.

Some counters with mysterious symbols. These aren’t always explained.

Five d20s with worms instead of 1s. They’re quite nice, and easy to read.

Two decks of cards, representing characters, assets and more. Standees are also provided.

Dice, counters, cards.

Handouts, trackers and maps. Various bits of card that are used during the game.

Adventure booklet. The core of the boxed set is a 116-page “campaign experience” that teaches the rules through a series of three acts, each divided into scenes. There’s a lot of text for the GM to read to the players – but they don’t need to read it all at once. Play can start pretty much as soon as the box is opened.

(Incidentally, here is a post from Modiphius outlining their approach to their starter set.)

The campaign experience

The campaign starts in Act 1 with the PCs being trained by the Harkonnens on Giedi Prime. Act 2 introduces the PCs to intrigue on Giedi Prime, while Act 3 moves the action to Arrakis. Each act is broken into scenes, with new rules introduced gradually. The story itself is quite fun, with dastardly Harkonnen, an assassination and spice harvesting on Arrakis.

So the first scene of Act 1 is “Seeking Discipline”. The PC’s shuttle is under attack. They are on the bridge and must first use the control panels to identify the problem. This is done by the GM reading out text, and the players responding to it (and rolling dice). Depending on the PC's actions (or the dice roll), the GM reads another paragraph.

So it’s a little like a choose-your-own-adventure, but with a GM.

My experience

To test it out, I took three PCs through the first few scenes, rolling dice and making player decisions. While it taught me the basics of the game, I’m not sure it was a good introduction to roleplaying. The focus is definitely on rolling dice rather than roleplaying, which seemed to be a bit of a miss.

And I expected the book to do less handholding as it went on, with the last few scenes presented more as a traditional adventure. But no.

While this approach is more restrictive than experienced players might like (there’s no tactical infinity here!), it allows for some intriguing moments that are effectively cut scenes. (For example, in an early scene, they are all attacked by traitors with dartguns. Friendly NPCs deal with the attackers (the scene is there to hint that all is not well on Giedi Prime), and the PCs aren’t in real danger – but there’s nothing they can do about it. I imagine some players may object to the lack of agency, but I didn’t mind this.)

Things that really didn’t work

I have no idea how successful this approach to teaching new players has been. I presume Modiphius tested it, but I don’t have any newbies to hand to try it out on. So I can’t tell.

But as I read through the campaign booklet, I tried to think about it as if I were new to ttrpgs. And I had a lot of issues…

Teaching being a GM: I’m not sure how well the game teaches being a GM. It teaches the rules, yes, but there’s more to being a GM than just knowing the rules. Even things as simple as sketching a map isn’t covered.

Scaling: Scaling challenges for different player counts isn’t explained. With my three test PCs, I found some extended tasks almost impossible. They would have been much easier with all five PCs, but there’s nothing that suggests you should be using all five, and nothing to advise a new GM what to do should they have fewer players.

Threat: Threat is the pool of GM tokens they can use to make the PC’s lives harder. The game explains how Threat is earned, and what it can be spent on, but it never explains when or why the GM should want to use it. Yes, I have a pool of Threat. So what? When should I spend it? And more importantly, why do I want to make things harder for my players? As GM, do I want them to fail?

Extended tasks: Extended tasks aren’t explained well. It took me a couple of readings to work it out – a diagram with the difficulty and boxes to be crossed off would have gone a long way. I ended up creating these anyway, but I suspect a new GM might have struggled.

Traps for the unwary GM: At one point the PCs are expected to ask about a prisoner – but the preceding text doesn’t mention a prisoner. And there’s no guidance on which of the PCs to use, if you’re not using all five. It turns out that one of them is critical!

And there are loads of odd little points that I picked up that a newbie might not. Why is the Move skill used to install a security system? Why is Determination used to buy a warehouse? And what on earth is going on with conflicts?

Okay, that last one isn’t a little point. It’s a huge point, so let’s talk about the system.

Dune’s system

Maybe new players take to Dune’s system like a duck to water, but I found it extremely odd. 

2d20

So Dune is an iteration of Modiphius’ 2d20 system. This essentially means for every task, players roll 2d20 and try to roll under the target number. The target number depends on each character’s Drive and Skill (added together), and the difficulty of the task indicates how many successes a player needs.

Spare successes can be used to build something called Momentum, which can be spent for various things – most often, more dice to roll.

So those are the basics. So far, so good. The problem (for me) arises with Drives and Skills.

Drives and Skills

Each character has five Drives and five Skills.

The Skills are Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand. They’re pretty self-explanatory, apart from Discipline, which is stamina and willpower.

The Drives are Duty (what is your responsibility), Faith (what your heart says), Justice (what is right), Power (what you want), and Truth (what the facts are).

And here are some tests the campaign book asks for

• Figuring out what is wrong at a control station.
• Deactivating an alarm system.
• Install spy eyes and listening devices.
• Rescuing a spice harvester from a sandworm attack.

While it’s usually clear what Skill to use (but not always – Discipline seems to have various uses), choosing the correct Drive seems fraught with confusion. And the GM and players have precious little guidance – they’re left to their own. 

And if I struggled with choosing the right Drive (why not always pick the highest?), it’s hard to imagine that new players will find it easy.

NPCs

Maybe things are different in the core rules, but the stats for NPCs are just like the stats for PCs.

This may just be me, but I like NPCs to have a cut-down set of stats. Frankly, in Dune, all a GM needs are typical target numbers to suit different levels of NPCs.

Maybe I’d make an exception for main NPCs, but most NPCs are bit parts and only need to be a couple of lines.

Why bring this up? Well, because there is stuff hidden in a statblock that is easily missed. For example, during Act 2, the PCs meet Sabrya Zavr, a CHOAM negotiator. We are given her full stats (see above), and her focus for “Communicate” (the skill she uses in the scene we meet her) is “Negotiation.” And because that focus applies to the task at hand, she rolls a critical if she rolls below her skill (Communicate – 7) instead of just rolling a 1. So she’s a super powerful foe in the negotiations that the PCs are carrying out – but this isn’t called out in the text; it’s only apparent if the GM pays attention to her stat block.

I know I would find it easier to have cut-down stat blocks for NPCs. I’m pretty sure new GMs would too.

Conflicts

Which brings me to conflicts. These cover situations that go beyond a simple series of skill checks. Although the starter set explains what they are, it doesn’t really explain why anyone would use the conflict rules rather than just skill checks. Instead, the conflict rules are introduced when the starter set uses them.

There are several types of conflict – negotiations, duels, skirmishes, and more. All of them use the same core minigame rules, which involve moving your assets into enemy zones and preventing your enemy from doing the same to you. Some actions let you move enemy assets, which I found a bit weird.

Anyway, I have a couple of issues with conflicts. (Although this is based mainly on what I’ve read, and solo playing one of the conflicts out in the book. Maybe they are better in a full game. I guess they must be, given they are a core part of the Dune RPG.)

First, they don’t feel like roleplaying to me. I’m not that keen when ttrpgs turn into miniature wargames when combat breaks out, and playing out a conflict is like playing a board game.

Second, I’m not sure how well I would run them. One of the reasons I don’t like running combat is that I’m juggling so many other things that I don’t really play the enemies particularly effectively. I forget bonuses, special attacks, and the like. I don’t use cover and special rules very well – I just forget while I’m trying to manage the players, plot, NPCs, and everything else. (If you want to give players a real challenge in their combats, bring in another player to play their enemies… But that’s another topic.) So I’m pretty sure I’d be rubbish at running conflicts.

Third, I am not convinced they feel like the things they are representing. The negotiation, for example, feels nothing like a negotiation and is instead a short board game. Maybe that’s not the case for conflicts, but the negotiation didn’t feel like a negotiation for me.

CHOAM negotiations

From a new GM’s perspective, I have other issues.

• How does one set up a typical conflict? The ones in the starter set don’t seem to have any coherent pattern. The negotiation is very abstract (is it used for all negotiation conflicts?), while the skirmish uses a map. What’s the difference? It’s not explained.
• In a couple of cases, there are special rules. For example, in the negotiation conflict, Sabrya Zavr goes twice. Why? Is that a general rule or a special case for this conflict?

As is probably obvious, I haven’t got my head around conflicts. They may be the best thing about the Dune RPG, but I probably won’t find out until I try them in battle. However, for a new GM, I am not convinced that the starter set explains them well.

Spice harvesting

Harvesting spice has its own mini-game, complete with an irrelevant map. Spice appears, and the PCs decide where to place their harvesters. Sandworms may appear, and Fremen may attack. And if the harvester survives all of this, then we find out if the harvest has been successful.

Harvesting spice on an irrelevant map.

A couple of oddities.

• The spice blow token in that zone modifies the difficulty of the roll for spice production. But it’s not clear if it’s modified upwards or downwards. I think it’s supposed to be modified downwards, so a +2 spice blow represents lots of spice (with increased chance of sandworms), but that should mean it’s easier to harvest.
• The minigame does not reflect that the PCs are the leaders of House Nagara and would have teams of people to do all this for them. Instead, they are running around, making the rolls themselves. (For example, the PCs must make Move rolls to save a harvester threatened by a sandworm. Move? Eh?)
• If the harvest is successful, the PCs can invest in more harvesters. But this just means the PCs are even more stretched as nobody else is making the rolls…

Dune RPG starter set – my overall thoughts

While I like the idea of creating a starter set that lets new players start playing within minutes of opening the box, I’m not sure Agents of Dune works. I like the idea of learning the game as you go along, but I would have preferred a more traditional ttrpg scenario that an experienced GM could use straight from the book.

I’m glad it wasn’t my first ttrpg experience.

Worse, the starter set hasn’t made me want to try the Dune RPG. From what I can see, the system is unintuitive, fiddly and has systems I don’t understand. And I’m no more a fan of the setting than I was before. I could be wrong about the rules, but the starter set hasn’t inspired me to give it a go.

RPG starter sets

I find myself thinking about ttrpg starter sets.

I recently bought the Agents of Dune starter set for the Dune RPG, in their Black Friday sale. I hadn’t planned to buy it, but I noted that Masters of Dune, a campaign I’ve heard good things about, was also in the sale, and I figured that if I were to get the campaign, then I ought to know how the rules work. And it was an excellent Black Friday deal.

So I’ve been reading Agents of Dune (a “roleplaying campaign experience”), and it has made me think about starter sets and, in particular, what purpose they serve and who their target audience is. 

Target audiences

So I don’t know what goes on in the marketing departments of modern ttrpg companies, but I figure there are several different audiences, and they all want different things from a starter set.

The complete newbie: Has never played (or run) a ttrpg before. Needs the starter set to hold their hand and explain both what ttrpgs are, as well as selling this particular ttrpg. Oh, and doing so in a way that they like it so much that they pick up the core rulebook.

Existing roleplayers who are new to the game and the system: This existing GM or player likes the sound of the game, but doesn’t know the system and needs to find out what it’s about without breaking the bank.

Existing roleplayer, familiar with the brand, new to the game: This is someone who has played games by the company before, but not this particular line. (So think of a RuneQuest fan who wants to try Call of Cthulhu.)

Veterans familiar with the game itself: Someone who already plays the game and doesn’t need a starter set. Or do they?

The market size gets smaller as we go down the list. Complete newbies outnumber existing roleplayers, who outnumber those familiar with the company, who outnumber those familiar with the actual line.

Who are starter sets written for?

This is probably obvious, but these different audiences have different needs.

A newbie needs their hand holding. Other GMs need a set of rules and an adventure, and maybe some bling.

What should starter sets contain?

We’ve pretty much got this sorted. Rules and an adventure. Pregenerated characters. Dice. Maps and miniatures or tokens to suit.

An adventure. Maybe more than one. (The Call of Cthulhu starter set has three.) Unique adventures make a starter set appealing to existing players. The first edition ALIEN starter set had the excellent Chariot of the Gods adventure. (I think Free League have made a mistake by putting the somewhat average Hope’s Last Day in their latest starter set.)

The Dune starter set has a longer, more involved adventure (almost a mini campaign).

Rules: Enough rules to play the adventure. As pregenerated characters are usually supplied, starter set typically don’t include character generation rules. Apart from character generation, the first-edition ALIEN starter set had the complete rules (I’m not sure about the current edition) and the cinematic adventures Destroyer of Worlds and Heart of Darkness could be played with just the starter set.

The Dune starter set takes an odd approach to the rules, explaining them as the adventure progresses, but it also includes a free download of the core rules.

Dice: Dice are pretty much mandatory in a starter set. A nice set of dice might encourage existing fans to pick up a starter set.

Other bling: Starter sets can include maps, tokens, miniatures and other bling. Depending on the quality of these, they may encourage experienced GMs to pick them up.

Should a starter set be aimed at complete newbies?

Maybe. I don’t know.

I guess if you think your starter set will appeal to newbies, you might need to write for them. But I wouldn’t tell them how to roleplay – I’d point them to a short YouTube video showing the game in action. Along with rules tutorials.

But I would note that most roleplaying games are ridiculously complicated (and I’m foreshadowing my review of the Dune starter set here), and unsuited for attracting newbies. So targeting existing roleplayers seems like a safer bet – unless the game is very explicitly aimed at bringing new players into the hobby.

What would I include in a starter set?

So my aim for a starter set would be to draw in existing gamers while also giving veterans a good reason to purchase it. I wouldn’t target complete newbies for the reasons stated above.

So a starter set must include:

A good adventure. Clearly, it has to include a great (and ideally unique) adventure. The adventure has to say, “This is how good this game can be.” There’s no point in including a mediocre adventure. The Call of Cthulhu starter set may include three investigations (which is good value), but none of them are new, limiting its appeal for veterans. 

The original ALIEN starter set included the excellent (although flawed, as I've discussed before) Chariot of the Gods – in my view, an excellent adventure. And it wasn’t available anywhere else.

Enough rules: The starter set must have enough rules to run the adventure. It doesn’t need character generation rules or starship building.

Again, the ALIEN rules are good. You get the complete rules (bar character generation), and Free League explicitly say that their cinematic adventures can be run with the starter set. So buyers weren’t compelled to buy the core rules – although many did. (I did.)

To give the Dune starter set some credit, while they don’t provide a set of rules (rules are explained as you play the adventure), Modipheus give you a code to download the core rules for free.

Some bling. Custom dice, maps, handouts, maybe a small deck of cards. And make them good quality. One criticism of the ALIEN starter set is that the dice aren’t particularly great quality dice. They look and feel cheap. I still use them, but I would rather have nicer dice.

Books that aren’t going to fall apart. And of course, it’s nice to have books that aren’t going to fall apart after a few uses. I’m still waiting for that – I find that starter set books (rules and adventures) feel very cheap and aren’t very robust.

My ideal Traveller starter set

So if I were to assemble a starter set for Traveller, what would I do?

I want to create a boxed set that gives new players (and GMs) the Traveller experience. Given that Traveller has a broad scope, I’d have to narrow it down. So let’s go for a merchant game, centred around the crew of a 200-ton Far Trader.

(And, yes, I know that the Traveller Starter Pack exists. It gets bonus points for being free, but it’s only in pdf and I’m not a big fan of either of the starter scenarios as I think they are overwritten, structurally unfriendly, and don’t really sell the Traveller experience to new GM.)

So what would my starter set include?

Rules: A cut-down ruleset. Enough rules to run the game, but no more. So no starship or world building, no deckplans (except as required). And robust enough not to fall apart after a few uses.

Pregens: I’m in two minds as to whether to include pregenerated characters or not. Generating characters is such a fundamental part of playing Traveller, I think I’d include the merchant career path. But only for merchants. And I’d fix the mustering out so that the group ends up as part-owners of a Far Trader, with a mortgage.

Maps: Two obvious maps – a large subsector map (maybe two or four subsectors), and a map of the ship. Plus other maps, if required by the adventures.

Adventure material: Three adventures, half a dozen patrons, and a few casual encounters (as the detailed NPCs used to be called). Enough material for a few sessions of play, along with advice for running the ship.

Dice: Some six-sided Traveller dice.

Other bling: If possible, other bling such as cards for key NPCs, or random encounters, or equipment. (Equipment seems to be a common use for cards in starter sets, but I must confess that I’ve never used them that way.)

A starter set focusing on a different part of Traveller (the Scout service, say), would have different adventure material but otherwise might be very similar.

I think that sounds like something I would be tempted to pick up!

Prelude

Anyway, all this is a prelude as next time I will look at the Dune RPG starter set, Agents of Dune, in more detail.