Freelance Traveller

#17: Twenty Weeks of Traveller, Part Three: The First Nine Plot Hooks

Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared on the RPG.Net website in March 2011, and in the April 2011 issue of Freelance Traveller.

As I’ve written in my last few articles, toward the end of last year, I completed a twenty-session Traveller campaign. Though I invite you to read the complete AP <http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=451150> of the campaign, in this article and the next, I’m going to summarize all of the campaign's plot hooks, in short easy bits that you can expand for your own usage.

These plot hooks are all numbered per my session numbers, so that you can look at the AP if you want to see what I did with the hook. Some of the sessions were based on published adventures, which I’ve noted.

Plot Hooks #1-11

Sessions #1-2 were character creation and setup.

3. There’s Always a Boom Tomorrow. The ship that the players are traveling on faces cataclysmic problems, both in jump space and after it precipitates. [One Crowded Hour <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=11242>]

4. So You Say You Want a Revolution? The characters find themselves in the middle of a rebellion on a normally calm world. Do they side with the oppressed rebels or the lawful government?

5. Police Story. The characters are deputized as police to prove a friend that is accused of murder innocent. Is he actually innocent or guilty? Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time or framed? A serious, carefully plotted mystery answers these questions.

6. Watch Your Back. When the PCs try to report a crime to Imperium authorities, they find themselves on the run, because the locals are in bed with the very criminals that they were trying to report.

7. Assault on Asteroid X. Having tracked criminals to a system, the players must assault their asteroid base, first fighting in space then on the asteroid itself. But the asteroid contains not just criminals, but also mysteries.

8-9. Earth First. The group is hired to investigate environmental damage being done by a corporation. To succeed they’ll not only need to infiltrate the corporation, but also to befriend a more primitive local culture. [Nomads of the World-Ocean <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=688>]

10A. I’d Like To Be … Under the sea, something is destroying vehicles and aquatic life alike. With only the questionable protection of a submarine, the players investigate the menace. [“The Thing in the Depths” <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?articleid=21125>]

10B. Revolution Redux. In somewhat of a repeat of #4, the players end up amidst more civil unrest, here with workers fighting against a corporation. The catch this time is that the corporation is clearly playing dirty tricks, even railroading some of the lead protestors to get them out of system. But what can players do against the power of a megacorp?

11. Alien. The players search for a previously unknown alien race that seems to be hiding in the shadows of an Imperium planet.

Conclusion

That’s it for the plot hooks from the first half of my Traveller campaign. I’ll be back with the other half next month.