Freelance Traveller

#18: Twenty Weeks of Traveller, Part Four: The Other Plot Hooks

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

In my last article, I summarized the plot hooks that I used to create weeks #3-11 of my recent Traveller campaign. This week, I’m continuing on with weeks #12-20. As before, I’ve linked the original adventure when my hooks came from published sources.. You can also refer back to the complete AP <http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?451150-Traveller-5-The-Spinward-Marches-Campaign> for more info on how I built out any of these hooks.

Plot Hooks #12-20.

12. Troubles Abroad. The players face a number of separate yet intertwining problems while aboard a luxury ship.

12A. Spys ’R Us. Not only is a spy aboard a luxury ship, but he’s also smuggling something. The players must find the smuggled goods—and the spy if they can.

12B. Cargo Thefts. Someone is stealing cargo; An Aslan detective is looking for the culprit. The players could get involved with this to help the detective or as suspects if they’re doing anything suspicion on their own (leading to the inevitable “we must find the real thief to clear our names” plot).

12C. Card Assassins! A card-game gone wrong leads to an assassination. But it’s not the card game that’s the cause of the problems but instead the victim’s deck of cards, which is a secret map to a lost treasure. The PCs become involved because they have the bad luck to sit in on the game. [“Aces & Eights” <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?articleid=20980>]

13A. Ungrateful Corps. The PCs expect to be rewarded by a corporation, but instead are offhandedly treated with disrespect. What’s really going on?

13B. Work of Art. A work of art intended for K’kree ambassadors has been stolen. The players must recover it from the local mob. [“Work of Art” <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?articleid=20819>]

13C. Hunter, Prey. An organization that once tried to befriend the Aslan is now being killed one-by-one by some large, feline-like predator. Is this the story of an Aslan gone mad or something deeper?

14. Death Station. Landing on a space station, the group finds it mysteriously abandoned … except for a few survivors who have become crazed killers. [Death Station <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=695>]

15A. Dogged Service. Reports of Vargr pirates turn into a more complex situation: an isolated group of Vargr has been put into forced servitude by very human corsairs.

15B. Ancient Devolution. Far beneath the surface of an asteroid lies an ancient laboratory which devolves peoples who stay there too long. It might be an ancient Vargr holy spot, an experiment gone very wrong, or something more.

16-17. Futile Resistance. A treasure is hidden on a planet under martial law, and one of the past leaders of the resistance wants to recover it. The group must get that leader secretly to the planet, help him recover the treasure (which is in a far-off land, trapped and guarded), and then get him back off-planet so that he can use the treasure to hire mercenaries to come back and liberate the planet! [“Aces & Eights” <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?articleid=20980>]

17-18. Gamma Ways. An Imperial Research Station has gone off the grid. Investigating the Research Station would be an adventure on its own. There’s also a hostile researcher who still controls its security systems and a number of dangerous animals kept on the station. [Research Station Gamma <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=615>]

19. Terror Tracks. Terrorists take over a space station just as the players are off-loaded onto it. But, they have further plans: to attack a local political gathering. [A Festive Gathering <http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=16286>]

20. We Don’t Like Your Kind Around Here. Planetary natives, who are rabidly xenophobic, try to drive other inhabitants off a planet as part of a general uprising.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve liked the other half of the plot hooks from my recent Traveller campaign and that some will find use in your own Traveller game as well. I also hope these two recent articles have shown that the the wealth of classic Traveller adventures remains very relevant. As part of my campaign, I ran two classic Traveller adventures, half a double adventure, and a few Amber Zones (to say nothing of other adventures I was working toward like Shadows and Twilight’s Peak and the recent Living Traveller adventure that I ran as week #19).

I’ve got two more articles planned for “season one” of this column, before I bring it to an end as well. Next month I’m going to finish up my discussions of genres by looking at SF subgenres, then in article #20 I’m going to finish up my look at the Imperium by touching upon the Spinward Marches itself.

I'll see you then!