Had our first real game of Traveller last night. Four players.
Marine, Scientist, Thief, and former Scout / now Drifter.
The initial adventure was purely stand alone, just getting used to the rules and character creation, but seems there was plenty of interest to make this into a regular campaign. Unclear if all the characters will remain, some interest in rerolling.
The players found themselves at a high trafficked Star Port with no ship to call their own. They checked out a local bar and found the drifter player while trying to scout out a ship to purchase. The drifter offered to point them in the direction of a reseller on the condition he could join the crew.
They didn't have much luck at "Crazy Sam's", his prices are so low he's crazy! The marine, using some military contacts, was able to secure a small scout class vessel in exchange for an off the books cargo transfer. They agreed.
They secured the ship and shortly were on their way. Meeting up with the contact freighter didn't go as expected, wasn't at the designated coordinates, but found shortly later by the scientist with a nice sensor skill check. Interference from the Gas Giant masked it's orbit. As they approached it was clear that a battle had occurred and the alien freighter's life support was fluctuating. They secured the area and proceeded to dock with the alien freighter. After donning their Vacc Suits the crew boarded the vessel and proceeded to look for the any survivors and the cargo they were meant to pick up.
Checking out engineering the Jump and Maneuver drivers were off line and heavily damaged, they were able to stabilize the life support but the damaged power plant was slowly over heating.
Oddly finding no survivors, all the cargo had been taken from the ship, but further inspection the shuttle bay was heavily locked down. After failed computer hacking attempts the thief used a plasma cutter and gained access to the shuttle bay. Having found their cargo they undocked their ship and were bringing it to align to the shuttle bay doors when the scientist assumed it would be ideal to open the shuttle bay doors for cargo transfer. Without depressurizing the shuttle bay the cargo was jettisoned from the shuttle bay, Drifter's quick reactions at the helm saved their ship from being damaged by the ejected cargo.
Time was taken to retrieve all remaining crew back onto their vessel and proceeded to chase down the ejected cargo. The drifter, unwillingly, donned his vacc suit and secure line and zero-g jumped out to meet the cargo. Securing the cargo they winched it back to their ship and secured it. Soon after this the alien freighter began to uffer damage and explode due to the power plant going critical.
Jumping to the rendezvous point they docked at a star port and waited for their contact. Shortly before their contact arrived they were aggressively met by a pair of armed aliens demanding answers for the freighter of which the players destroyed. The moment was tense (gun fights in Traveller are very deadly), the players argued their perspective and offered their ship's logs as proof. The aliens found this acceptable, after close inspection, and left.
Meeting up with their contact the players transferred the cargo and received some military slush funding to bring their vessel up to spec, due to the unexpected hazard.
Again, this was more of a learning experience for everyone, getting used to the rules and such. Everyone had a bunch of fun and sounds like more games to come!
