Classic Traveller Character -- Travis Komodo, Scout

We played a lot of Traveller back in the day. It was our go-to system for science fiction games. But I haven't played it for at least two decades. We never really cottoned to MegaTraveller and the Virus era was an anathema to us.

We came to a break in my biweekly game, and one bloke offered the games he could run. So, I offered to run Traveller. But I've never run Traveller myself, so that was maybe a little premature. But it looks like were going to play Apocalypse World and not Traveller, but two folks said they were interested at a later date.

In an effort to reacquaint myself with classic Traveller, I've started reading The Traveller Book, a one volume edition of the original LBB, plus a couple of adventures.

I made a character.

Travis Komodo
4 term Scout

STR: 9

DEX: A

END: 9

INT: 7

EDU: 5

SOC: 7

Electronics-2

Medical-1

Pilot-1

Vacc Suit-2

Mechanical-1

Air-Raft-1

Carbine-1

50,000 cr

Carbine

2 low passages

I also made his homeworld. This will be the starting point of the campaign I envision for the group. 

Mongram
(gas giants in system)

Starport C

Size 7

Atmo 8

Hydro 4

Pop 6

Law 6

Gov 8 -- civil service bureaucracy

Tech Level 9 

Trade Class: Ag, Non-Ind, Rich

After a 40 year regional collapse of interstellar civilization following a supernova event, Mongram's government finally raised their Tech Level enough and built the infrastructure to venture into space again. Now they're sending out scouts to find out what the local area looks like now. 

A Synopsis of Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures

Since I want to run Midkemia with the Beyond the Wall rules, I thought I'd post a synopsis of the rules. This is just a snapshot, not in-depth.

Character Generation

The unique aspect of Beyond the Wall is the character generation. Instead of rolling attributes, the rolls are a series of facts and events from the character's childhood and youth that affect the attributes of the character and give back story -- customized lifepath character generation by class. Character generation is also done as a group, and some events are shared with other members of the party, since you all grew up together. Along the way, details of the village and the villagers you all grew up in are created by the players.

Magic

The magic system includes cantrips, spells, and rituals. Cantrips are minor flexible incantations that can be cast at will. They produce small effects that can't do damage. Spells are similar to D&D spells, though there are no levels. A magic user can cast (Level) spells a day, and they are fast and suitable for combat. Rituals are long, involved spells that take hours to cast. Rituals are leveled. This set of magic effects really makes magic users effective longer without making them too powerful.

Other Features of Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures:

• B/X based
• 3 Alignments
• No clerics
• Variable hit dice
• Max. hits at 1st level
• AAC
• Weapon Specializations give bonuses to using a particular weapon, attack and damage
• Combat Knacks give bonuses to AC, initiative, damage, and saving throws
• Sense Magic ability, not a spell
• Classic saving throws
• Fortune points: help a friend, reroll, cheat death
• Attribute Checks, roll d20 under attribute
• Skills add to attribute checks
• Skills aren't necessary to do something, they just help
• Friends can help with relevant skill
• True names
• Silver standard
• Optional rules:
• Three way saves (Fortitude, Reflex, Will)
• Elf, dwarf, halfling
• Multi-classing

(Okay, good enough? I'm experimenting. Does this format give enough information?)

The Sunken Lands

I've posted in the past about Midkemia Press, and the Midkemia setting published in the late 70s and early 80s. I've started reading Heart of the Sunken Lands, a wilderness campaign of exploration, discovery, and getting either rich or dead. It really is a wonderful setting, and you could find ways to insert into campaigns not set in Midkemia.

The book describes The Sunken Lands, a vast wilderness created from a mountain range when the gate to Kelewan was closed 800 years ago (events in Feist's Magician). The resulting backlash of magic destroyed the mountain range and twisted the inhabiting people, creatures, and plants. 

Now, expeditions are mounted into the interior of the area, looking for gems, exotic animals and plants, wood, insects, and other resources. 

Jonril: Gateway to the Sunken Lands is a companion book that details the city of Jonril, situated just outside the pass into the Sunken Lands. The two books really go together. A large part of the purpose of the city is to supply the many explorers going into the wasteland. As in the California Gold Rush, it is the outfitters that get rich, not necessarily the prospectors.

The Midkemia books use the Tome of Midkemia rules, which were never published. They are vaguely D&D-like, with levels, Hits To Kill (HTK), and percentile skills. Monsters have Armor Ratings (translatable to AC), HTK, size, attacks, damage, and movement, and they are very easy to translate to D&D or a clone. So, it will be extremely simple to run using any D&D variant. 

I've decided that I want to run this. I want to use Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures for the ruleset. It has skills, and the magic is something I like. Building connections between the PCs through character generation is also a wonderful thing. I was thinking about using Heroes and Other Worlds, but the translations would be somewhat harder.

I went to FedEx Office and made 17"x22" copies of the players maps of Jonril, Tulan of the Isles, and The Sunken Lands (as well as a scanned image of the map).

To get used to the nature of hexcrawling in the Sunken Lands, I'm going to start by doing some solo explorations. Then I'll have some NPCs that have been through a few expeditions and have tales to tell.