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XTML biweekly   Wed Jun 15 21:00:04 EDT 1994    Volume 1 : Issue 9

Today's topics:

BUN# =AMN= =DATE====== =FROM==========  =SUBJECT/BODY==========================
   3    58 13-Jun-1994 BORIS ZAIDFELD   Re: Looking for Adventure ideas << On S
   3    60 13-Jun-1994 Steven M Bonnev  Re: Imperium << Well, I don't play much
   3    61 14-Jun-1994 gerald.s.willia  Re: CT: looking for adventure ideas << 
   3    62 14-Jun-1994 Derek_Smith.LOT  Re: IMPERIUM << Stefan Matthias Aust as
   3    63 14-Jun-1994 Peter H. Brento  GM:adventure ideas << Lately we've had 
   3    64 14-Jun-1994 c_hamilton%w036  HG: Striker and nukes Q << I was readin
   3    65 14-Jun-1994 TML Administrat  Re: Is it gone yet?  << Rob Dean <robde
   3    66 15-Jun-1994 langsl@cbr.hhcs  re:Scenario Ideas Posted... <<         
   3    67 15-Jun-1994 Stefan Matthias  Re: Imperium << To Steven M Bonneville 
   3    59 13-Jun-1994 mgood@MIT.EDU    CT?: Imperium, the game << Stefan says:

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Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 58
Date:   Mon, 13 Jun 1994 00:01:32 -0400
From: BORIS ZAIDFELD <cs911408@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca>
Subject: Re: Looking for Adventure ideas



On Sun, 12 Jun 1994, Stefan Matthias
 wrote:

> Hello.
 
> That adventures seems all to be combat missions with a short briefing,
> a shoot out and a rewards collection. IMHO very boring and I don't
> like such kind of military campaigns. Looks like a dungeon walk, you
> you ask me.

Agreed.  

> So I wonder if anybody has some ideas for some 'good old' adventures
> (hopefully without mercenaries) (s)he could post here.

Umm..   What about undersea exploration mission, with some Earth quake in
the middle, and the characters are traped in a submarine, let them figure
away out before the oxgyen runs out..  umm..  just brain storming here..
 
> For example, the adventure about that TL 16 space station in Challenge
> 72 had a good idea -- but the adventure again was a "kill all what
> moves" type of setting. Or is my prejudice true, that the combat part
> in the TNE rulesbook is so large, because all the game should be about
> is combat?? (I don't hope so.)

Yeah, I liked it too.  Might use the settings in my planned Reformation
Coalition Adventure soon.  You can always change the story line a bit, so
less combat is elimenated, thus, an adventure with out combat.  It
shouldn't be too hard..

The combat section in TNE is large because they are trying to make a
realistic combat rules.  You can always modifie, or not even use them if
you wise.  you have the power.  :-)

        Take care,

                -Shalom Zaidfeld
                -Toronto, Canada




------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 60
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 13:51:08 -0500
From: bonnevil@mermaid.micro.umn.edu (Steven M Bonneville)
Subject: Re: Imperium

Well, I don't play much, so only the obvious ones:
 
Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de> writes:
 
>Movement: Do you allow a jump into deep space? (I would think no,
>because you can only jump along the green lines and you don't know the
>jump number of the ships.)
 
No.  "Jumps are possible only along the routes printed on the map" and
     "A jump must be from a stellar hex to a stellar hex.  It may not 
      begin or end on a portion of the jump route between the ends."  
      [MOVEMENT -- Hyperspace Jump]
 
>Is a jump from deep space to a world allowed? (Maybe the same missing
>jump number argument, but what if the distance is shorter than the
>lines that connected that world?)
 
No.  Same reasons.  This would make sublight travel fairly pointless.
Imperium uses a "tramline"-style hyperdrive, not the Traveller one.
 
>We tried an extension rule, that a monitor can be transported with 4
>transports. Comments?
 
Monitors actually can move to another system -- but only by sublight.
I don't know what the ramifications of your change are otherwise.
 
>Is it sufficient to have a tanker with the jumping fleet or has the
>tanker stay at the tertiary star? Or has it to be there one turn in
>advance?
 
Yes.  "When [a tanker] moves to a tertiary system, it is immediately 
       capable of refueling friendly ships, enabling them to leave 
       the hex using hyperspace jumps."  [MOVEMENT -- Refueling]
 
>We changed the rules (in IM) that all capital ship can transport
>fighter, too. So only outpost can be transported only be tranports.
 
What does this do to Motherships?  I mean, if you can carry even one
fighter unit on a B(x), then why would you build one of those nearly
defenseless motherships?  They're cheap, and maintenance is low, but
they're awfully fragile.
 
>Who declares a break off first? Attacker or defender? (I vote for
>attacker)
 
Attacker.  "The phasing player is the attacker" 
           [COMBAT -- Space Combat]
                   
  Steve Bonneville
  <bonnevil@mermaid.micro.umn.edu>
  

------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 61
From: gsw@aloft.att.com (gerald.s.williams)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 08:04:01 EDT
Subject: Re: CT: looking for adventure ideas

Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de> writes:

> So I wonder if anybody has some ideas for some 'good old' adventures
> (hopefully without mercenaries) (s)he could post here.

I too dislike the overemphasis on mercenaries.  In my first Traveller
campaign, the Ref told us to use Book 4 or 5 to generate characters,
since characters generated by the other methods didn't measure up.  I
did, and got a character that IMHO had far too many skills.

Fortunately, I went on to other Refs and to Ref myself.  Here are some
of the better experiences I have had:

o Playing a displaced barbarian king (ala Conan) aboard a marauding
  pirate ship.  This was good "light" Traveller.

o Running a "first contact" scenario, where a group of Terrans in
  orbit around the moon in the near future detect neutrino emissions
  coming from the wrong direction.  What surprised me was how the
  characters made very good use of the fact that their equipment,
  while being much lower-tech, had some great strengths since it was
  designed quite differently.

o Just plain going as you please.  If the players are involved, they
  can often initiate everything by themselves.  The Ref merely needs
  to hold on to the reins a bit.  This is the most rewarding form of
  Traveller, if you ask me.  Of course, you might want a few partly
  thought-out adventure threads that they might find themselves in
  (although winging it works too), plus you probably want to keep
  track of what's happening in the rest of the campaign.

I've found that the best games involved nothing from the Traveller
background at all.  That's what is so good about the CT background,
IMHO.  You got a feeling that the common people did not care much
about politics and empires (except maybe at Core).  I put together
a campaign once set in Diaspora during the Rebellion.  I put it in
a "backwater" locally isolated cluster of stars and made the planets
generally disagreeable to outsiders (a common taint in the atmosphere
of each of them).  Certainly there was some trepidation about the
possibility of conflict with the Solomani, Aslan, and Daibei all
around them, but they had gone through changes of ownership in the
past and the lives of the occupants of that cluster never changed too
much.

My point is that your campaign background strongly influences what
kind of adventures you are going to have.  You need to establish
where the characters are going to be mostly and flesh out that area.

If they are going to be doing trading in starports, put together a
bunch of starports and some ships that they might encounter and
determine what businesses and such are operating in the sector.  It
should be easy to lead them off somewhere with a lucrative deal, but
the focus should be on making money (for the characters at least).

If they are going to be pirates, figure out where their base of
operations is (an asteroid field?) and what traffic passes within
their striking range.  Try to avoid the temptation to put an Ancient
base there.  I think we got the Ref rather annoyed when he had our
pirates find an Ancient base and we chose not to explore it any
further than figuring out its defenses (that technology stuff was
too dangerous).

The Diaspora campaign I mentioned was in a backwater with many
criminal types and such (ripe for adventures).  I had one thread
where a local crime lord had been secretly testing out mood-altering
drugs on a planetary scale.  But this was the focus of the campaign,
not simply an adventure.  The adventures were mostly related to that
overriding goal, and once the crime-lord was stopped, there were
links to other activities that the crime-lord was involved in.

I never much cared for the "Adventurers for hire" type campaigns.

    ,-----------------.
    |Gerald S Williams|
    |gsw@aloft.att.com|
    |  (610)712-7237  |
    `-----------------'

      _  |     ____/    _  |
     /   /    /        /   /
    /   /  ____ |     ____/
   /   /        /    /
______/  ______/  __/

 AT&T DSP tools development


------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 62
From: Derek_Smith.LOTUS@CRD.lotus.com
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 09:44:41 EDT
Subject: Re: IMPERIUM

Stefan Matthias Aust asked:
>>Is a jump from deep space to a world allowed? (Maybe the same missing
>>jump number argument, but what if the distance is shorter than the
>>lines that connected that world?)

Steven M Bonneville replied:
>No.  Same reasons.  This would make sublight travel fairly pointless.
>Imperium uses a "tramline"-style hyperdrive, not the Traveller one.


As a matter of fact, Imperium DOES use the Traveller hyperdrive.  If you
plot out the Imperium map in THREE DIMENSIONS (you have to extrapolate
with some of the Stars that have Imperial names, but they're there...)
you discover that ALL of the green lines represent Jumps of 2 Parsecs
or less (Jump 2).  This is in line with the technological levels 
prevalent at the time of the Imperium's first contact with the 
"Solomani."

There probably were ships that travelled to deep space and then to another
system (having enough fuel for multiple jumps, hence could travel along
non-standard routes...) but these were probably non-standard ships
(therefore didn't have a major enough impact on the war(s) to warrant
inclusion in the Imperium counter mix.


- --Derek R. Smith - Lotus Development Corporation, Cambridge, MA

"My Karma ran over my Dogma..."

------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 63
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 09:40:31 CDT
From: Peter H. Brenton <pete@biochem.uchicago.edu>
Subject: GM:adventure ideas

Lately we've had the opportunity to compare traveller with
AD&D a lot, an inevitable comparison for the hard core RPG
group.

The conclusion we came to is that the traveller adventures
need to be more varied than the AD&D ones (at least, the ones
we play).  

Traveller is much more of a vehicle for playing roles.  The
framework (character generation) is IMHO less limiting to
the development of an independent personality than that
of games like AD&D.

That said; the best adventures I've played/GM'd were clue 
followers.  The term 'clue followers' distinguishes this
from a mystery-type adventure which is only one type of clue
follower.

Usually, each clue is accompanied by a problem to overcome.
Examples of this are firefights, persuasion tasks, problems
to solve...etc.  This clue will lead on to the next and so on.

Alright, alright, stop talking theory and give out some meat.

THE TEASER:
The Setarans of Mertractor IV were a race whose time had come
and gone over Two Thousand years before the coming of humaniti
to this part of space.  Their ruins on the arboreal world of 
Mertractor IV bring tourist, students, and professional 
archeologists alike to this remote corner of the Spinward Marches.

Now one archeologist, Professor Bernard Sheafhouse, whose work on 
these ruins is well known in professional circles, is hiring
your organization (a salvage & transport firm) in a very secretive
fashion to go to one of the remote worlds of the subsector.  He says
he has evidence that the Setarans, thought to be a non-spacefaring 
race, had actually colonised a few planets.  If true, this would be
one of the premier discoveries of his career, and of his profession
in recent times.

Ok, cut to the chase;

There are several possible adventure outcomes/plotlines.  In the 
interest of space, I'll summarise my own ideas.

1.)  The professor is quite rich, and more than a little loony.  He has 
several shards of a medallion in a vacuum storage box which he occasionally
tries to manipulate to figure out which is which, and how they go
together.  He will occasionally let a player try, but there are just too
many missing peices.  He will offer to hire the player's starship
and actually purchase some excavating equipment and orbital sensors
geared to finding underground ruins and voids (a really good densitometer
would suit this task).

Using some (indeterminate) clues on the medallion the professor takes
the characters to a relatively low-tech, recently (w/in 1000yrs)
colonized planet nearby (w/in the subsector) to search for ruins.
There are several possibilities, the first few of which turn out to
be nothing.  The last one turns out to be an illegal mine, run by
local slave traders.

There are many choices at this point.  It could be that there are a few
small ships in orbit belonging to the bad guys which try to shoot the
player's ship down, successfully.  also, the players may decide to mount
their own rescue op with rewards in mind of a very generous (when it 
comes to slave traders) Imperial gov't.  Once shot down they could be
captured, or they might stumble on the Professor's ruins.  There could
be something useful among the ruins (some "magic" alternate technology
which allows them to escape or disable the bad guys), or the ruins could
point to something else.  Go figure


Possibility number
2).   The professor is brilliant, and dead.  He had already contracted
the players before being murdered, yes murdered.  He sent off the medallion,
which is more complete than in the last scenario, to the players, along
with a holorecording explaining that the Setarans were more advanced than
anyone thought, and it turns out Mertractor IV was a *colony* of the 
Setaran people.  The homeworld should hold wonders of alternate technology
and treasures to an archeologist (and others).  Unfortunately, he says, there
are others who are fiercly interested in the profit side of this discovery.

Without getting too detailed, the adversary in this plot is whoever murdered 
the professor.  There should be clues pointing towards his estranged
assistant, his wife, and perhaps a collegue.  Any of these are candidates
for the "bad guy".  There are not enough clues to take anyone to the
planet of Prof. Sheafhouse's dreams, but these clues should be gathering
until the players can figure it out.  As the last clue falls into place the
"bad guy" should be revealed (they?) in time to steal the clue, and perhaps
put the players in a room with a devious device to bring about their demise
(ala the old batman series).

The rest is almost history; the case, followed by a confrontation, gun in
hand, with the "bad guy (oops, or bad gal)" at the planet in question (which
may turn out to be just another colony), and some incident involving the 
alternate technology of the Setarans.  Note this tech should be different, 
not more powerful (necesarily). Perhaps they've developed a "stun field"
or semi-intelligent robots.  in either case the limits of age of the stuff
and lack of spare parts/correct energy recharge would be good.

OK, that's enough for now.  Hope the clouds were seeded for future
development...

PEte


------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 64
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 13:52:43 EDT
From: c_hamilton%w036_nw@MWMGATE1.mitre.org
Subject: HG: Striker and nukes Q

I was reading JTAS #24 the other day and saw an article by Leroy W. 
Guatney titled "Ref's Notes: Suggestions for High Guard and TCS 
Campaigns".  It had an interesting table which used Striker Book 2 to 
generate damage tables for varying-yield turret-launched nuclear 
missiles.

Unfortunately, it did not give the table for bay nuke missiles, it 
only said they were "25cm CPRs" instead of the "15cm CPRs" of turret 
nukes.

So, can anyone help me either by:

(1) Sending me the values for bay missiles if you saw the article and 
have them handy

(2) Allowing me to pay for photocopying and mailing of the appropriate 
Striker Book 2 nukes section, if you have Striker

Thanks.

- -- Chuck
clh@mitre.org


------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 65
Subject: Re: Is it gone yet? 
Reply-To: traveller-request@engrg.uwo.ca (TML Administrator)
From: TML Administrator <traveller-request@engrg.uwo.ca>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:44:29 PDT


Rob Dean <robdean@access.digex.net> writes:
> Has the horrible message eating monster been banished yet?

I think it's fixed.

James

- -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
James Perkins, List Administrator                       Eugene, Oregon, USA
Traveller Mailing List (incl. The New Era)   traveller-request@engrg.uwo.ca
Xboat Traveller Mailing List (Classic & MegaT)   xboat-request@engrg.uwo.ca

------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 66
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 13:24:04 +1000
From: langsl@cbr.hhcs.gov.au
Subject: re:Scenario Ideas Posted...


                  I N T E R O F F I C E   M E M O R A N D U M

                                      Date:  Sent on: 15-Jun-1994 01:25pm
                                      From:  Alistair Langsford
                                             LANGSFORD ALISTAIR
                                      Dept:  Information Services
                                      Tel No:289 7870

TO:  Remote Addressee                     ( _xboat@engrg.uwo.ca )


Subject: re:Scenario Ideas Posted...



gsw@aloft.att.com (gerald.s.williams) writes:

 ....snip...
<Fortunately, I went on to other Refs and to Ref myself.  Here are some
<of the better experiences I have had:
<
<o Playing a displaced barbarian king (ala Conan) aboard a marauding
<  pirate ship.  This was good "light" Traveller.

Any example exploits you'd care to recount as possible scenario 
inspiration, or NPC descriptions?

<o Running a "first contact" scenario, where a group of Terrans in
<  orbit around the moon in the near future detect neutrino emissions
<  coming from the wrong direction.

If you can remember the details I wouldn't mind a rough outline of how you 
ran this one. I'd like to run a 'first contact' scenario one day, and can 
always use inspiration.

<I never much cared for the "Adventurers for hire" type campaigns.
 
So how did you run your campaign? Who were the PCs? How did they get 
involved in the adventures? 

- ------

Peter H. Brenton <pete@biochem.uchicago.edu> writes:
 ....scenario threads deleted...

<OK, that's enough for now.  Hope the clouds were seeded for future
<development...

Good stuff. But I for one wouldn't mind if you had posted a bit more on 
this. And do you have any other ideas?


Thanks to both of you for the comments and ideas.

Alistair,
langsl@cbr.hhcs.gov.au


------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 67
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 20:19:43 +0200
From: Stefan Matthias Aust <sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de>
Subject: Re: Imperium

To Steven M Bonneville and Matt Goodman:

Thank you for your answers. Either I can't read the rules carefully
enough or they're baldy translated. 

[Capital battle ships can carry fighters]

This improves the usability of that ships. Otherwise, I personally
think they aren't worth their money. Perhaps for the Imperial player if
he loses that ships before maintenance and adds them to the recycling
stack. 

[Terra never win]

If you play the campaign, the Terran player has to try to lose his
first game, without losing many ships. Because the Terran has higher
production and he will profit better from peace time, he has better
chances to win the next two games. The Imperial of course must now not
only win but also destroy his enemy.

[ground combat -- shielding]

Ah. Thanks. Now I understand the rule (I think ;-). That changes
ground combat. But the odds are still much too bad. 

bye.
- -- 
Stefan Matthias Aust // ...and they told us, what they wanted
                    //  was a sound that could kill someone...

------------------------------

Bundle: 3
Archive-Message-Number: 59
From: mgood@MIT.EDU
Subject: CT?: Imperium, the game
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 94 09:19:05 EDT


Stefan says:

>I've made the observation that in IM the Imperial players wins more
>often than the Terran player.

In my experience, the Terran player has won ONCE: when the Imperial
player didn't set up on the Terran's doorstep.  Once the terrans
had Procyon and the other junction (the double star: I don't 
remember the name), the game was over pretty quickly.

>Movement: Do you allow a jump into deep space? (I would think no,
>because you can only jump along the green lines and you don't know the
>jump number of the ships.)

No, in the 2nd edition of Imperium, it clearly prohibits this.  You
can only jump along the "green line" jump routes.

>Is a jump from deep space to a world allowed? (Maybe the same missing
>jump number argument, but what if the distance is shorter than the
>lines that connected that world?)

No, I think from a rules POV, once you're using sublight movement,
you have to continue using it until you get to the destination.

>We tried an extension rule, that a monitor can be transported with 4
>transports. Comments?

Since basically you're trying to dissassemble and then reassemble a
battleship, and  since they take a turn to replace, I wouldn't favor that
rule.

>Is it sufficient to have a tanker with the jumping fleet or has the
>tanker stay at the tertiary star? Or has it to be there one turn in
>advance?

We played with the rule that the tanker had to be with the fleet, but
if more than one fleet of ships were just passing through a hex that
required them, the tanker had to stay in that hex.

>We changed the rules (in IM) that all capital ship can transport
>fighter, too. So only outpost can be transported only be tranports.

Hmmm.... again, that's interesting, but then it eliminates the
need for REALLY expensive mother ships... it does make capital
ships more useful: I like this one :-)

>Combat: Terran monitors aren't useful at all. Terras only effective
>weapon (I as an Imperial player are afraid of) are the missile
>boats. If the Imperial player has the smaller fleet, there's a 72%
>chance, that range is long in the 2nd combat round, too. That's often
>enough time to destroy the Terran fleet.

You are absolutely correct.  A fix we discussed but never tried
was to make the beam weapons work at 1/2 strength at long range.
Terran Heavy Cruisers and Strike Cruisers are neat too.

>Do I undervalue the Bx ships? I think, they aren't worth their money.
>Because you will go bankrupt because of mantenaince costs.  So we
>reduced costs by 1 for all ships.

Do you mean maintenace costs?  Battleships are effective
at blowing things up, but expensive to maintain.  They're 
just about the Terran's only serious advantage, too. How do you
want to modify them?

>Who declares a break off first? Attacker or defender? (I vote for
>attacker)

Attacker declares first.

>If all ships of a fleet are visible, the complicated ship allocation
>phase has been proven to be superfluous, because our `chaotic
>challenging' "I will attack this ship, then I will defend with that
>ship -- no that will be attacked, too." lends to the same result.

We just let the person who had the most ships pair them up.

>Is the combination High Intensity Short Range Missile Fire allowed?

Yes.

>I never found Suicide Attack useful at all. The +1 bonus isn't worth
>the destruction of the own ship, I think.

It's useful if 1) you're attacking a ship with only missles
that has no missles left, 2) if you HAVE TOO take out a larger
ship.  It is a toss up.

>I think, surface combat is broken. Neutralized troops are dead - they
>only don't know yet. I think, a -1 (or -2) DM to their combat strength
>would be a better rule. What means the rule, that shielding troops can
>limit the combat but that the rules say that combat go one until all
>units of one side are destroyed? If two troop counter fight together,
>will there stength be added? Will the defender destroy only one of
>them or both together?

I don't know about the first one: I liked the % reduction of 
ground troops in Fifth Frontier War.  This is how screening (shielding)
works:

The defender has three units, two troops and an outpost.
If the attacker has two jump troops attacking, the defender can
use his two troops to engage the two attackers.  Those four units
fight until one  side or the other is destroyed.  Even if
the attacker wins, the outpost can't be attacked until the 
nexty ground combat phase, because it was screened.

>If there's a Terran strength 4 jump troop (JT4) attacking a strenth 2
>regular imperial unit (RI2) and an outpost, the RI2 will do defence
>fire, having a chance of 1:6 to destroy the JT4, then the JT4 will
>have a 5:6 change of destroying the RI2 ?? Let's assume that none of
>them will be destroyed. So, the RI2 will be supported by the outpost
>and chances change to 2:6 and 4:6 ?? Correct? The JT4 will probably
>win and destroy the outpost next, because it can't destroy the JT4.
>Too easy...

The Terran troop is screened, and can't attack the outpost until
the next ground combat phase.  Theorhetically, the IMperial player
could drop Jump Troops on the planet, and change the course 
of the battle.  Since the Imperial plaer always wins space battles,
this is pretty likely ;-)

>We changed the rules that landed ships etc aren't destroyed but
>captured (if that's possible due counter limitation). 

Then I guess you can't use them for screening...

>Also there's the
>rule that damaged ships has to land to be repaired. So an attack may
>be very valuable...

No, I'm against this one.  Ships the size of Battleships would
have to be repaired in Orbit, in my opinion.

>Btw, has anybody tried to use the rules with another map?  Has anybody
>`designed' other types of ships or even better, a formular for a
>general design?

No, but it's doable.  I think at it's heart, Imperium is a great game
with some serious balance problems...

>bye.
>- - -- 
>Stefan Matthias Aust // ...and they told us, what they wanted
>                    //  was a sound that could kill someone...

Matt "Earth Can Win!" Goodman

------------------------------

End of XTML Biweekly
******************
