Freelance Traveller

After-Action Report: TravCon(UK)2024

by Timothy Collinson

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2024 issue.

TravCon is back!

After a three-year hiatus following Covid and lockdowns, the UK Traveller convention returned to Cambridgeshire for its 15th outing. There have been some changes. The biggest was the gaming taking place in Alconbury Hall, three and a half miles down the road from Redwings Lodge where some 35 of us were accommodated. This had the knock-on effect of no formal gaming space for Friday night, and this meant TravCon was a little reduced from previous incarnations to a “four slot” convention with three four-hour games on Saturday and one five-hour game on Sunday. There were five games in each slot.

The convention gift this year was a lovely neoprene dice tray sporting the image from the cover of In Search of Angels along with a BITS dice bag with a bright sunburst. We made our usual trip to the curry house next door for an evening meal. Now under new management, it appeared to be identical except that it was the Royal Spiceland (not just Spiceland) and the prices had, unsurprisingly, gone up.

Having said there were only four slots, a handful of us found a small lounge  and managed a three-hour game on Friday night as an alternative to sitting in the bar. Well done Nigel F for running Interesting Times for five players. It involved a merchant crew in Fornast Sector as they travelled through five worlds to rescue a cousin of the Captain from incarceration. Trading along the way we spent some time balancing the large repair needs of the ship against actually being able to buy cargo. As cargomaster (and, as it happened, the only one with a rulebook to hand), I took on the duties of looking up potential purchases on the standard trade tables. Given the ship was so run down, it became obvious we’d be better off paying to repair or replace the whatever was most pressing, and shipping freight rather than buying speculative cargo. But not before I’d rolled two sixes on the d66 table (pages 244 – 245 of Core Rulebook Update 2022). Exotics! On the spot, Nigel came up with a corgi-sized dragon which he didn’t think would appeal to us. Little did he know our captain. Spending MCr2.5 of our far-too-stretched MCr5 funds, we acquired not so much a cargo as a ship’s mascot. Although several of his crew feared he would return from the purchase with an actual corgi on which someone had stuck some wireframe wings. Fortunately, for his ongoing captaincy, it did turn out to be an actual tiny dragon. Later on, I found a buyer for the creature but the captain refused to part with it. We eventually rescued the cousin and the dragon played no part in that, but guess what everyone playing will remember the adventure for? The iffy decision making and the cuteness of the creature was already being discussed around the breakfast table next day. All from a throwaway thought from a harried referee wanting to get on with the plot.

Previously Redwings offered two rooms which could take two game tables, and a room (or two) which could just about take one table, one referee and six players. The change in gaming venue now meant we were in a village hall with four gaming tables on the floor and one on the stage. The size, the high ceiling and the number of Travellers all getting excited, meant that acoustics were difficult. Echoey and noisy, it wasn’t as snug as playing at Redwings, although there was more of a sense of a convention gaming together. In that respect it was very like the Faversham RPG weekend the Boys from the Baltic Star organized.

In the centre of the hall was a large table of bring and buy bits which attendees could offer/take and a selection of BITS items for sale. On one side of the hall was a kitchen and a ‘quiet room’, the vestibule, and toilets. I was very glad of the quiet room to do the CFS stops I need to fit in in order to get through the day. However, it was increasingly apparent as the weekend wore on that there were concerns that the Chirper game on Sunday might be too loud/obnoxious/distracting. It was soon decided to banish the high-pitched miscreants to their own private space. This was a good move, and I simply moved my lie-down into the vestibule and hoped I didn’t get trodden on by those popping out for a break. It was entertaining watching Andy and another traveller shut themselves in the room to chirp away at each other as a test while we stood outside listening to the noise volumes. Perfectly acceptable. Indeed, with any talking or movement in the hall at all, it became inaudible.

Breakfast as usual at Redwings before everyone transferred down to the hall. In an effort to reduce some of the strain on our glorious organizer, Andy Lilly, he’d arranged for another to take on the management of the gaming, the slots, the adventures being offered and so on. Step forward Richard Talbot who did an excellent job of corralling us into some semblance of order. His wonderful Scottish lilt added particular piquancy to his reading of a game blurb which warned of the Traveller’s impending “dooom”. As usual, signups were prior to each session but in a very slight change this year, to avoid something of the melee that often occurred in front of the whiteboard previously, Richard called those present up to the sheets in alphabetical order, reverse alphabetical order, age order and so on. However, those running games were allowed to express a preference before the general signup in lieu of being given a small discount on the convention cost as previously. The shoestring that BITS uses to run TravCon has been tugged tight by the cost-of-living crisis and this seemed a fair emolument. I benefitted in that I got to play in the Chirper game which was only running once this year. (Due to extremely high love of the series, Andy has in the past run his Chirper game three times across a weekend to satisfy demand). (And yes, we asked again if he could get on with publishing them so they could reach a wider audience.) (And yes, Jane P still hates the things…)

Travelling is no fun at all

Speaking of which, I should thank Jane for driving me up to Redwings and acting as chauffer for the weekend between the two sites. My usual travelling companion, Tess, had had a diary conflict and disappointingly couldn’t make TravCon. Jane had dragged me to Faversham and the RPG weekend the Boys from the Baltic Star put on a couple of years ago and evidently the experience hadn’t been too traumatic to try again. I remembered her car is small and didn’t pack as much as I might have done, but I still had to have a rethink when she arrived and I once again saw just how tiny the vehicle is. (I meant to check but think it’s a Toyota iQIn the United States, this car is sold as the Scion iQ if you want to see just how small.) It’s less than 150 miles from my home to TravCon but it still took 5 hours to get there. We took a 40 minute break on the way but as usual the M25 was a pretty miserable experience, often reducing us to crawling along in first gear. Or whatever the equivalent in an automatic is. The journey home, in constant rain all the way, was only marginally quicker. But this time with too much cloud to watch aeroplanes close overhead as we passed Heathrow.

Batch 24381

So, for the first game slot, there was no point in signing up. I was running Batch 24381. Although nerves were setting in and had someone else wanted to run another game instead, I’m not sure I’d have complained. This is a new adventure I had written earlier in the year. It had occurred to me that across all of Traveller, across all the years of publication, I was really struggling to recall any adventure that had really dealt with anagathics. They are there in the rule sets from the start and get mentioned a fair bit, particularly in relation to nobles, but I could think of no treatment of them in any depthI should note that the one exception I could find was in Philip Athan’s “Anagathics: Doping the Inevitable” Freelance Traveller November/December 2023, but even that didn’t include a scenario or anything.). That thought, together with the experiences I’ve been having over the last year with regard to cancer diagnosis, learning I might not have survived the summer just gone if it hadn’t been found, two lengthy and difficult hospital stays and ongoing recovery even now, meant that an idea was forming in my mind that would turn out to be something of an elegy to aging and the elderly. Perhaps it suited the audience of Traveller players as well. Even the son of one of the regulars said to me that he was beginning to feel the effect of his aging rolls and he’s just a whippersnapper.

The advantage of having written the adventure several months before was that it was ‘complete’ and ready to go rather than being cooked up at the last minute. The disadvantage was that it was no longer fresh in my memory, and I was having a hard time making myself reread it to remember all the details. I’m not entirely sure why that was but I kept finding just about anything else to do rather than that.

I had discarded the idea of coming up with a set of PCs to include in the adventure as I have done for previous adventures. This was because a comm with Mongoose had encouraged me to think that it was better to write something that any set of travellers could experience. So I tried to write it such that the PCs could be a typical merchant crew looking for profit, a squad of mercenaries working for a patron, a group of scientists interested in furthering their research, a robe of nobles pursuing stability for their family name, a team of scouts exploring the odd properties of some flora or fauna, or, of course, any mixture of the above or even a gang of ‘other’ types with all sorts of reasons for adventuring that are known to the other characters or not. I knew that I had sets of such travellers from previous adventures I’ve written so I could recycle them for the convention. I packed up envelopes containing each ‘set’ with the idea that the players could choose how they wanted to approach it. Never make it easy on yourself must be my motto. (One set I accidentally printed on A3 paper so they were effectively (very) large print character sheets. I probably should have handed those out as they fitted with the theme of aging faculties.) 

As it came to the crunch however, I decided not to offer my group of scientists from Ashfall. They’re Darrians and didn’t really fit into an adventure set in Core Sector. While I could probably have filed the serial numbers off, I decided it would be more fun to dig out Book 10: Cosmopolite and use the Academician career which I’d been reminded was in there while I’d been looking up the Research rules. In fact, I also spotted that there were two Functionary roles that I could use for an administrator and a technician to support four scientists which would make a set of six as is traditional. Thanks to a new handy tool that Charles McK has created for me which produces sets of UPPs at will, I didn’t have to roll the dice 36 times but could just get straight onto running them through a few terms with random dice rolls and coming up with short biographies for them. I was quite pleased, given I did it all entirely randomly, that they had a good range of Science and other skills which I thought would be complementary. 

While I think about research, I also had to hand copies of the three Traveller rule sets I’m aware of, just in case it became important and a player wanted to stop to explore something like that in detail. One of the highlights of Ashfall was finding one pair of players in the bar during a break thrashing out the outline of the paper they were going to present when they returned to their university. Although I was fairly sure that there wouldn’t be time for this kind of thing in this adventure. I already had over 12,000 words, 26 pages and some 15 scenes. Some of the latter were very short but it all takes time and I was fairly certain that the whole adventure wouldn’t fit into a four-hour gaming slot. For the record, the research rules can be found in Rim Expeditions (The Universal Research Mechanic – great for giving an overview of how big or small a project might be and at what stage the research is), Book 10: Cosmopolite (for rules which require a bit of preparation by the Referee but can give engaging puzzles), or MegaTraveller’s Referee’s Companion (a dice based, mechanistic option which you can run ‘on the fly’ but isn’t as role-playing oriented).

Of course, creating these six characters in the week before TravCon was really just displacement activity for actually reading the adventure and making myself familiar with the details once again.  <sigh>

When it came to it, both sets of players opted to take the scientists which was gratifying that they got an outing and I could see how they worked, but perhaps a missed opportunity to see how other groups of PCs might have approached the adventure. As it happened, even with identical PCs, the different players meant the two experiences of Batch 24381 weren’t the same in any case. One group got into the hacking that was an option; the other used a drone at a critical point; one group came up with blackmail and sabotage as a way of dealing with the climax, the other spent more time at the research base I’d created. Both found ingenious uses for their wide variety of Science skills none of which were specifically related to anagathics – which was deliberate.

LEGO^® miniatures

On the subject of the research base, part of my inspiration for the adventure was because some 18 months earlier I’d stumbled across the LEGO^® models for NASA’s Artemis mission when visiting the flagship LEGO^® shop in Leicester Square, London. One kit is a rover, and one kit is of a lunar base. I’d loved building them and letting my imagination run wild but with a small house, technically a chalet bungalow, I had also promised my wife I’d at least try and auction them off should TravCon ever get going again. So, when the PCs left the starport in their ATV for the base I could say “we don’t have to imagine this” and deposited the rover on the table. To make it worthwhile, it seemed a perfect moment to reuse the ATV schematics and breakdown table I came up with for our planetary excursion on Yebab during The Traveller Adventure. Thematically, I could play up on the age of the ATV and its old technology and driving interface (but which was easier to fix because it had mechanical parts and so forth). I’d even had the schematicsYou can find the schematics, d66 rules and a mini-scenario on DTRPG but they’re also a freebie with any other March Harrier Publishing product if you’d prefer. They are my thanks to those who’ve purchased my adventures. printed large on a PVC sheet which made them rather attractive and a nice thing to find in the glovebox to help the mechanic tackle the problem(s) they encountered5.

Once we got to the base, I produced a typical, simple floor plan of the base – my best effort in PowerPoint which never looks as attractively designed as some things I see around other tables. But I could then add “we don’t have to imagine this” and produce the LEGO^® base (plus some extra modules I’d designed and ordered via Pick a Brick). This went down well and provided some table fidget opportunities, but I would have liked to have made it more central to the adventure. I had considered this but realized I couldn’t go too far down this route without making the adventure useless to anyone without the LEGO^® sets. Indeed, the Artemis sets are already discontinued which seems a shame. As a side note: I think this may be the first TravCon adventure I’ve ever run with any kind of models/miniaturesFor those who would like to see what they looked like however: https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/lunar-roving-vehicle-60348
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/lunar-research-base-60350 (but with three extra modules and a link unit I added. I didn’t use the lander which seemed out of keeping with Traveller) (The minifig with the metal detector became an excellent figure when one of the PCs wanted to do atmospheric testing with a device he’d specified in the initial stages).
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/space-science-lab-60439 (which was ready to go in case an extension was required/useful).

In the 0900 session all the Referees were under strict instructions to finish by 1300 because Andy had arranged for Mongoose to run a lunchtime Q&A session. Given I had far too much material for four hours, I was quite pleased to finish at 1259. We’d not covered everything and had bypassed the combat opportunities but at least it meant we got to the finale and have some kind of closure. What I hadn’t realized in writing it was just how downbeat and elegiac the adventure would be. No one said out loud that they hated it or thought it disappointing and there were enough positive noises that I was hopeful a second run in the evening didn’t need me to have rethink the whole thing in the non-existent intervening time, but I suspect the adventure might play out better as a short campaign.

Other Games

In this slot also were various games I’d have loved to play but unfortunately clones aren’t available. The titles, Referees and blurbs are here to whet your appetite, hope they might get second runs at some point, show the variety on offer, and perhaps even inspire your own adventures.

Derelict – Jeff Mindlin – The Bayern Flotilla, on the longest voyage of discovery Humanity has ever undertaken, has stumbled upon an unusual ship in distant orbit around a red dwarf star. A ship means intelligent life and as the encounter team for the expedition, it’s your job to investigate…

Cowboys vs Xenomorphs – Jane Polwin – welcome to the Wild Wild West!  Cowboys, Indians… and then the aliens arrive. [This is a published adventure from Mongoose’s 1st edition.] [I understand it went well but resulted in a TPK.]

30K Rock – Steve Hampshire – Your holiday has been interrupted by an emergency evacuation aboard this rather tatty Far Trader. Still, the jump to safety is nearly done.

The Spoils of War – Steve Quick – An alliance of Aslan Clans has invaded a human world in neutral space between the Imperium and the Hierate. Although the invasion largely went well, the various factions now need to agree arrangements going forward. Under a truce, the various leaders meet.

Mongoose Q&A

Another change to previous TravCons was the introduction of some special guests. Andy had invited Matthew Sprange and Isabella Treccani-Chinelli to come and spend an hour with us answering questions. To that end, Andy had also organized a sandwich run so that we didn’t have to leave the Hall to go foraging for food. Richard T had come round during the morning session to take our orders and returned with boxes of eats – so thank you to him for making that easy.

Matt and Bella sat on the stage as we gathered around on the floor of the Hall to quiz them on anything we could think of. Andy was already teasing me about my list of hundreds of questions. I had an armload, some of which I got to ask, some of which were asked by others and some of which were personal to me in any case and could best be tackled via email.

Questions ranged from the future of Mongoose to the future of Charted Space; the possibilities of this, that or the other type of adventure or sourcebook; or the design philosophy behind their decisions. They also had advance copies to show us of titles that are currently being shipped to the UK such as Bounty Hunter and Shannon Appelcline’s This is the Free Trader Beowulf history of Traveller publishers. The session was wide-ranging and might have benefited from submitted questions to a moderator, but the freeform nature of the hour was relaxed and friendly. Even when one of our number, who shall remain nameless, began his question about a trade software programme with “I hate Mongoose” but had the grace and the gumption to shout out at one answer that was popular with all of us, “I love Mongoose”, Matt took it all in good humour. It was clear that we’d all found the hour illuminating and successful enough that I hope it warrants similar at future conventions. At one point Bella was talking about Bu and Embla’s Guide to Starports of the Marches, which I wasn’t surprised to learn was based on the campaign she was in, so I took my opportunity to ask her to sign my own copy and afterwards asked Matt to sign my copies of Core Rulebook, Adventure Class Ships and Small Craft Catalogue – although he did worry that he was devaluing them. I knew it would be hard to avoid being a fanboy. (I also experimented with asking Bella to sign an issue of JTAS electronically on my reMarkable although I’m not entirely sure whether there’s any point!) Many thanks to Matt and Bella for travelling all that way and providing prizes for the wrap-up session awards.

The ‘popular’ answer, mentioned above, concerned Mongoose plans to have a suite of web-based software packages to help with character generation, stellar system design and, of course, trade. Other answers talked about Christopher Griffen joining the team, the TAS programme now including classic Traveller and perhaps in the future, 2300AD. Matt outlined the three different ways you can publish for Traveller (TAS – which lets you use Charted Space but is PDF only, a ‘Traveller Compatible’ licence from Mongoose which allows PDF & Print, and ‘you can do anything’ option providing you’re not charging any money). An interesting note was that Mongoose no longer takes a ‘cut’ from TAS sales on DTRPG (DTRPG still takes 35%). Matt also talked about the forthcoming miniatures from 2nd Dynasty but that he didn’t feel Mongoose was the right company for heavyweight boardgames (when asked if there might be a new Snapshot). Talks were ongoing with Roger Sanger over Digest Group Publications material which sounded encouraging. Matt wasn’t committed to developing other eras in the Traveller timeline either because they didn’t want to go over old ground or because it would be difficult to support with follow up volumes. They are working on a classic ‘Book 9’ with Robert Eaglestone which would cover pirates and be in the format of the Little Black Books. They are planning on a large trader campaign along the lines of Pirates of Drinax. This would be set in Islands subsector and was being worked on by Christopher Griffen.

Land Grab

Andy sensibly called a halt at 1400, not because we didn’t have more questions, I certainly did, but because it was fairer on Referees in the second slot if we could get going with their adventures. So, there was just time to grab a cup of tea before we were on to the next thing. In my case it was Land Grab being run by Simon B. This was a continuation of the Angel’s Share saga of which the early episodes have been published as In Search of Angels. I was pretty certain that with that pedigree and Simon as Referee it would be a good game and I wasn’t wrong. You can find the characters we played in ISoA and I ended up with Douglas Perrin who is about as near to a leader as the crew have. We were offered the opportunity go hunting with a Baron on his personal fief, which comprised an entire world. We encountered Sir Reginald sponging off the Baron and began to see just how supercilious both he and his steward were. One of our number definitely had designs to arrange a ‘hunting accident’ after barely a day of him. Without spoiling the plot, I hope, some Aslan enter the picture and we, after some thought and work, are able to avoid a confrontation turning into armed conflict. We just barely refrain from dispensing with Sir Reginald along the way but see him get his comeuppance before we’re finished.

Previously I’ve used some self-made TravCon note booklets to help me keep track of what’s going on and to aid in writing these reports up afterwards. There is space for the title, the players, the PCs, the location/date/Patron etc. depending on what’s relevant and with a small hex grid and square grid in the corners in case that’s useful. On the reverse of each page is room for further notes and spaces to nominate for the awards at the end of the convention. These booklets are great souvenirs of past conventions and I’d wish I’d come up with them sooner. This year, I took a risk of not having a physical memory and putting the form into my reMarkable so it would be all electronic and not take up storage space back home. We’ll see if it has the longevity of paper, but one advantage, particularly useful with Land Grab, was being able to add extra note pages at will when I felt I wanted to write more than a page or two. Of course, neither print nor electronic rectify my atrocious handwriting.

As a quick note on the reMarkable, I’ve had the “2” for four years now and have loved it and use it every day (great for reading, note taking, journal keeping and even trying to learn to sketch). The reMarkable PaperPro (11.8” screen and colour) had just come out before the convention and realizing it would be perfect for larger sized colour role-playing material (it is), had decided it was a luxury that I should at least try. I won’t be sending it back. Several others at the convention took the opportunity of taking a look at it but I had to race off to do something else so I missed what anyone made of it.

Also in this slot

Anytime, Anywhere, Anyhow – Richard Talbot – In the Third Imperium, a special rescue service exists for the elite, this is the adventures of Rescue Squad 20, Travellers’ Aid Society.

A Nice, Easy In and Out – Dom Mooney – one of your fixers has come to you with a nice and easy job; you simply need to empty a warehouse located in Corptown M5 of all the off-world sourced control hardware and get it to an extraction point so they can get it off Deluvia. They’ll split the proceeds with you 60/40. The Brixton system: a semi-lawless system, under the protection of Thesulia, Brixton is dominated by corporates and criminals, and it can sometimes be hard to tell which is which. Located far rimward of the Solomani Confederation, the system was originally settled by STL seed ships from Terra.

Operation EndEx Cleanup – Derrick Jones – military life, possible harsh words, but nothing too bad. No pokey drill, assault course or violence versus players. But there will probably be lots of explosions and blood, in theatre of the mind only…

The War Room – James Firminger – as members of a Sword Worlds cabinet war room, you must prevent the outbreak of war with a rival nation.

The Manor

I’d heard good reports of The Manor, a local pub which does food, so I was up for someone’s suggestion that we head there for an evening meal. We left just after sign-up for the evening games which once again I didn’t have to stress about as I was running my adventure again.

A short walk down the road, we arrived at the pub to be warned that they were busy and food might be a while but with almost 90 minutes we decided to give it a go. We were only just in time as another group from TravCon arrived soon after and were turned away as, although there were seats, the staff clearly felt the chef was reaching capacity. Thanks to the wait, we could drink and chat in the meantime. I hadn’t quite gathered what I was ordering and was a bit taken aback when it came. I’d asked for Duck Breast on the Rock and if I thought about the ‘rock’ bit at all probably assumed it was some kind of salt or something. I wasn’t paying enough attention – partly due to tiredness, partly noise, partly haste, partly preferring to chat to people than bury my head in a menu. It was wonderful being able to chat with fellow travellers. From Nigel and his son Karl, to “my GM” Alex – both of who I’ve written about previously as contributing to that ineffable quality of Traveller community. 

When the food actually came, mine turned out to be barely cooked duck on (apparently) a volcanic slab of stone that was more than sizzling hot. The idea being that you sliced up your meat as desired and let it cook in situ. Which was kind of fun although I was rather too exhausted by that time to really enjoy the experience. Was I really paying the chef to do his work for him!? Having said that, the meal was very, very tasty and worth the wait and the hassle. I’d certainly recommend the place for future conventions but would also recommend booking ahead. The food had indeed taken a while to arrive and only barely allowed us to get back to the Memorial Hall a minute before the evening game slot was supposed to start. Still, a minute to grab a cider to lubricate a failing throat (too much talking!) was all that was required.

Batch 24381 redux

Straight into my adventure for a second time. This time I had the added nerves of not just “my GM” choosing to play, but also Andy, our conference organizer. I’m not 100% certain but I think, in all the years of TravCon, this was the first time I’d ever had him sit in on one of my games. No pressure then.

For an adventure with only four key scenes, really, it was interesting to note just how different it felt with different players even though they’d once again chosen the academicians as their character set. Perhaps this was a missed opportunity to not offer the choice and have the scouts, or nobles, or merchants but perhaps the scientists are a more natural fit for the scenes, or perhaps there were more good memories of the Ashfall set of scientists than I might have expected. It certainly feels like a change from pretty much every other Traveller game I’ve played.

Another difference between games, was Alex’s partner Kez sitting in as an observer in this one. As she was on my righthand side I (persuaded?) her to read out the news bulletins I had which the PCs encounter at various points. This worked really nicely as a different voice and gave me a moment’s rest. (The idea of them, should anyone wish to do similar, is to provide additional “clues” buried amongst other items which are tiny bits of extra Library Data or just there for colour/camouflage. I generally have them for Jump emergence as comms start picking up traffic again and any obvious ‘next morning’ or similar moments. They had become something of a ‘thing’ in The Traveller Adventure after foreseeing that the news items in the Trade War chapter would be a bit unsubtle on their own).

On this run through the players, or the characters, spent much more time investigating around the research base and less time infiltrating a baddie towerblock. IIRC they did the latter mostly by electronic means which saved time, but did make me wonder if I should have more interesting hacking rules/mechanicsI think Jeff Z has written some, so I ought to have them to hand.
No, the rules are by John McClain; I just wrapped the text of the article around them –Ed..

I also needed to bear in mind that with six near genius and highly skilled PCs (and pretty inventive players), there was no problem with making some task checks Formidable. Even so it was touch and go sometimes. We got to the downbeat ending just at the time we needed to finish (2330) and with epilogue and wrap up, only finished ten minutes after time. Which, for me, wasn’t too bad, but did mean we needed to exit sharpish as we had to have vacated the hall by midnight and Andy and Simon had a couple of clearing up tasks to do.

One great encouragement from this session was John G, midway through, deciding that the new campaign he was about to start when he got back home wasn’t going to be whatever it was he had been planning, but was going to be this adventure. If he could have a copy of it. Is Cleon the founder of the Third Imperium? I guess I can’t really ask for more.

Jane had patiently waited for me after her game finished a few minutes before time, and we headed back to the hotel. Some, I think to spend time in the bar chatting, others to drink, many perhaps doing both. For me though it was collapse and the ironic struggle to sleep because your brain is so full of ‘stuff’ – people, adventure, ‘could have done better’.

Running in Parallel

The Chase – Robin Firminger – six go chasing robbers in the outback. The latent power of the “Rainbow Pearl” are soon to be revealed to the famous six as they bring villains to justice.

Drugs for Life – Dom Mooney – you have been hired to escort a courier from the Justified to the refugee township of Fidoscata on the surface of Diluvia so they can complete a deal. Once the deed is done, all you need to do is to get them and the proceeds back to Sky City. Simples. (see above for a description of the Brixton system)

Cold Dark Grave – Neil McGurk – a salvage mission undertaken by a small asteroid mining team in order to save their family-owned company from financial doom. [This has been previously published by BITS (and is highly recommended as I’ve played it previously!)

Sunday and Chirpers

After the usual breakfast in the bar, it was back to Alconbury for the final session of TravCon. Once more my Referee reward of an early option saved me from the scrum of signing up. Good job as at previous TravCons Andy has run the Chirper adventure du jour as many as three times to accommodate demand. This year, Evening’s Peak would only run the once and places were limited. The game had been banished to the side room to avoid disturbing the other tables and off we went. I wasn’t sure my voice was up to the falsetto chirping but we were all soon back in the habit, as it were, and supplying plenty of silliness and fun without any input from Andy. The series really has proved an absolute success in terms of players keeping ‘in character’ for much larger swathes of time than I’ve seen in any other role-playing games anywhere. But there is a plot and Andy struggled bravely as ever to get us focussed on what was going on. Still on Persephone, we were getting a (psionic? we never call it that) call for help and decide to see what we can do. One of the traditional moments of this game is Andy’s famed (if unseen) d66 table of bits of trash we’ve picked up in our day jobs and then seeing what creative use we can make of a probably broken this or apparently useless that. There are items that have become so (in)famous, like the incredibly smelly cheese that can be used as a ‘distraction bomb’, they elicit a cheer when they’re rolled. And yes, we pleaded with Andy once again to look at publishing these adventures so they can have a wider audience.  They more than deserve it. I won’t spoil the plot save to say that we got out into the hills, found an encampment of nomad chirpers who made us lot look intelligent and thence discovered REDACTED. 

For those of us paying attention it was quite fun, in a meta way, spotting the recycling of a couple of maps from Andy’s adventure The Long Way Home. Fortunately, it’s many ages since I’ve read that book, so I had no memory of the details and no enjoyment was spoiled. I’m rectifying that right now – it was the first book I plucked off my shelf next day when I was at home with time to spare. (While the original BITS book The Long Way Home isn’t currently available to buy, the Marc Miller’s Traveller (T4) version Long Way Home can be found on DriveThruRPG and includes the same maps of a Settlement and a Complex, I’ll say no more).

Four more games I couldn’t play

Hyena – Richard Talbot – on the world of Kaylon, the Civil War has been decades in the fighting.  Then the Third Imperium came and tried to fix it. Kaylon died a great death as the armies clashed and the nuclear bombs fell. No one won. In the aftermath 8 Imperial soldiers must navigate what remains of Kaylon and return home. Everyone else seems to want to stop them…

A Ticket to See Oasis – Graham Spearing – What were you thinking? Maybe the chart data was old and there would be more opportunities than indicated on Digenis Akritas (E450420-7 De Ni Po), Hyperion Subsector, Vanguard Reaches? No, no there aren’t and lugging your enormous armoured frontier trader anywhere costs credits that you don’t have. It’s no wonder that this old starship line was discontinued as an uneconomic credit monster. How long is your mortgage term? Oh, that long… So it is that we find you with a round of drinks in the Diadem Hope, one of the few receiving tavernas in semi-derelict Digay Town, the main settlement, splayed around the Class E starport/plascrete clearance. Trouble usually comes your way, and with it, opportunity…

Bluebeard’s Wives – James Firminger – fight through a cyberpunk city to rescue an innocent woman. Treading into the hellish underbelly of where only your cybernetically enhanced runners walk unafraid. A cyberpunk Traveller adventure inspired by the classic fairy tale. Fast paced action.  Rules lite.

Traveller Wargame in 15mm – Simon Bell – set on the world of Garda Vilis, the mercenary company Aces & Eights are sent into deal with a series of terrorists who have seized a remote mining base. Stand by for your briefing…. This is a sequel to the minatures wargame I reported in ‘After-Action Report: TravCon 2018’8 and once again features Simon’s wonderful battle terrain and miniature figures, vehicles and buildings.

Wrapup

I’m not entirely sure what happened to lunch but by then I’d had, on top of breakfast, a cookie, a brownie and a KitKat so I wasn’t at all hungry and didn’t eat again until I got home that evening. Andy wrapped up Evening’s Peak at a suitable point a little short of the posted finish time which gave him a chance to begin moving towards the wrap up session. I had lots to pack up in any case and needed to use my best Persuade skill in order to avoid taking home things I was trying to clear out of the house to make room for new Traveller books which are coming apace. From the small, like a couple of Terran Trade Authority books to the larger – three big LEGO^® boxes. I rolled a success but perhaps only an <8> as I gave away a couple of things at the end.

The wrap-up was shorter than we’ve had in the past as Andy wasn’t running an auction and kept the Awards brief. But as usual we’d been asked throughout the weekend to nominate suggestions for the matched pair of a Starburst for Extreme Heroism award and a Ping!  F*** It! Award. The former for and or acts of bravery or something beyond the call of duty and the latter for something (or things) that have gone horribly wrong. The PFI went to Graham S for trying to get a biosample from an alien intent on doing the PCs considerable harm. Perhaps that should read an Alien intent on harm. A very nasty specimen and Graham’s scientist character didn’t really stand a chance. It didn’t stop him however, and he dutifully died a grisly death. All was not lost as the prizes this year were supplied by Mongoose and Graham took home a collector’s edition of High Guard Update. I didn’t get a picture of this, but Dom M did and the photos are posted with his ‘After-Action Report’.

The SEH (and a collector’s edition of the Core Rulebook Update 2022) went to Richard T. The vote was unanimous for his labours in arranging all the Referees and games (and other behind-the-scenes work such as snack provision across the weekend and the Saturday sandwich run). Relieving some of the demands on Andy who is occupied rather more than full time in real life running a business, was what meant that TravCon could actually happen. I think his SEH reflects the sheer joy and relief of TravCon being back again after its three-year break.

Unrecognized in the award ceremony, but not unnoticed by some, I had a chance to thank him before I left, was Simon B’s contribution to some of the really unsung jobs going on in the background. From acting as gatekeeper when the Memorial Hall’s carpark might have been overrun by a next-door event, to being there on Saturday night at midnight to assist in packing up, I’m sure there were other jobs too. Thank you. Finally, it would be remiss not to acknowledge and thank Andy himself for all his labours both this year and over the years in putting on such an involving and excellent weekend. We were really glad to be back and are already looking forward to next year!

 

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