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.)