SAFCOcast - Traveller RPG and Cepheus Engine podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

We're back again! It's that time of the year. Mayday is near, and thus it is time to talk about it. Joining us is the organizer of the online Traveller celebration, Frank Succardi, also known as CyborgPrime.

We talk about Mayday, and we talk about some of Frank's other projects, including some work he's doing with AI.

All the information about this year's Mayday Mayday can be found on Frank's website, here.

And of course, Franks product can be found as well on CyborgPrime Games.

You can find Che Webster's Roleplay Rescue blog/podcast here.

This episode's theme music is Crystal Math, by the Speculative Machines podcast.

Send us a voicemail on Speakpipe!  https://www.speakpipe.com/SAFCOcast

In this episode Bob interviews the creators of the Scoundrels of Brixton Cepheus Engine/Traveller setting and books, Jeffrey Jones of the RPG Ramblings podcast and writer Adam Kovac.

Relevant Links

• RPG Ramblings 66 on which Bob was a guest
• RPG Ramblings 100: with Bob and Adam talking about Traveller
• Jeffrey Jones RPG Ramblings publications on DriveThru RPG

Our main topic in this episode is sources of inspiration for your Traveller or Cepheus Engine campaign! Where do you get your ideas? How best to use those ideas?

Of course, we cover more than that in this episode too, with X-boat Transmissions, Internet Finds, and Imperial News.

Here are the relevant links mentioned in the show:

• Thought Eater Podcast. The blog is still going, but the podcast is not
• Ice Planet Horror - our campaign session review
• Hugh O’Donnell's Masters Thesis
• Other links from Hugh:

  http://thetroubles.uk

  https://www.de.ed.ac.uk/news/digital-education-informed-games-making

  https://mesadeguerra.com/entrevista-hugh-odonnell-the-troubles/
• Traveller RPG Character Barracks
• Bridge of Spies
• Cepheus Light: Upgraded
• Cepheus Deluxe
• Info on Cepheus Light: Upgraded on Omer's blog
• Long video review of Cepheus Deluxe by Graham Spearing
• Cepheus Deluxe short written review by Andy Slack
• Hostile setting revised
• Felbrigg's Game Planner
• Type S Scout/Courier 3d print project
• The Speculative Machines Podcast
• Patrick Kanouse reviews a new SF RPG - Death in Space - on the Dark Gate website. Linking here to all of Patrick’s articles there. https://www.blackgate.com/author/patrick-kanouse/

In this episode, we discuss the "boring, useless" skills that as teenagers we cringed if we got when we rolled up Traveller characters, and explore the possibilities of these skills with a little creativity.

We also do a quick recap of the online Mayday! even run by Cyborg Prime, Greg Caires and Ken Patterson, and Patrick Kanouse, as well as internet and rules finds.

We also found ourselves in the midst of a tornado warning! We're OK. North Texas is like that. 

Relevant links for this episode:

•  Cyborg Prime’s Youtube channel
• Patrick Kanouse's Two Brothers Gaming
• Robert Pearce's Hammer class 100 ton merchant
• Michael Brown's Angle of Incidence
• Felbrigg Herriot's Vacc Suit: the New Spaceman
• The Carcinoid Cancer Foundation
• Classic Traveller - One Shot Saturdays
• Wayne Peters - Deviant Art Page
• Interview with Christopher Rice, a GURPS guru, on the Roleplay Rescue podcast.
• A Random Subsector Generator for Cepheus Engine and a Subsector Editor
• Getting started in Classic Traveller blog post - Alegis Downport
• Value of Vacc-1 in Behind the Claw Podcast episode 3.
• New issue of Freelance Traveller
• New issue of Cepheus Journal
• StarForce: Alpha Centauri
• MayDay! 2022 - a weekend-long Celebration! of Traveller through online roleplaying
• Quarter Share - a novel (audiobook link)
• the Speculative Machines Podcast

In this episode we interview Ken Patterson and Greg Caires about the upcoming Mayday! event.

The first day of May – May Day – has special meaning to Traveller players due to the infamous Mayday call from the Free Trader Beowulf that has appeared on box and book covers of various variants of the game since its earliest years.

In 2021, May Day will be a Saturday – an ideal time to play Traveller.

To help the global Traveller community celebrate May Day, three groups of players have teamed up to create a unique day of Traveller-related programming.

Operating from its home base on Facebook, the Virtual Traveller group – the same people who organized the weekend-long online “non-convention” last October – will organize “MayDay! a Celebration of Traveller through online roleplaying.” GMs from across the globe will be invited to run Traveller games online using whatever communications tools they prefer and during any suitable time period based on their locale. The only requests are:

• All games must begin and be run during May 1st in the GM’s local time-zone;
• All games must conclude by 7 pm Saturday night Central US Time on May 1st to “clear the decks” for a charity game that will be broadcast live on Twitch (more about this below).

Based on lessons-learned from the Virtual Traveller weekend, MayDay! will be organized using Tabletop Events for simplicity game submission, player registration and communication. To cover the expense of using Tabletop, a nominal fee (likely $3) will be charged. That fee buys players their convention badges, and they can then join and play as many games as their schedules will allow.

More about MayDay!:

Tabletop Events: https://tabletop.events/conventions/mayday-celebration
Facebook Virtual Traveller Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/virtualtraveller Discord Virtual Traveller server: https://discord.gg/3WRUjXk

Both GMs and players are sought. Questions can be submitted via the links above.

If online gaming isn’t your thing, CyborgPrime is organizing the 3rd annual “Mayday! Mayday!” event, which consists of live interviews of Traveller authors and others who contribute to keeping the game popular and replenished with fresh material. Last year, CP interviewed both Matthew Sprange and Marc Miller, and generous prizes were awarded to members of the audience.

This year, CP intends to interview a variety of new voices, giveaway more and better prizes, give a platform to Ken Burnside of AdAstra Games to host some Traveller Squadron Strike vector combat simulations. The marquee event will be – like last year – the live broadcast of Patrick Kanouse’s Traveller game to benefit his charity The Carcinoid Cancer Foundation (https://www.carcinoid.org/).

Joining him as players are Two Brothers Gaming, High Shelf Gaming, and The Death Die Club. They will be playing Michael Brown’s Angle of Incidence: “A routine cargo run leads to a station orbiting a black hole and one man’s world of obsession, secrets, and madness. As the heroes help an intelligence agent investigate the mad scientist’s activities, they come to realize that they may bear witness to the ultimate adventure…or become just more bits of matter crushed by the black hole’s gravity.”

The Carcinoid Cancer Foundation’s mission is to increase awareness and educate the general public and healthcare professionals regarding carcinoid and related neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), to support NET cancer patients and their families, and to serve as patient advocates. We’ll be giving away a bunch of things, and you can even have an effect on the game.
The game will stream on High Shelf Gaming’s Twitch channel (https://twitch.tv/highshelfgaming/profile) at 8:00 pm Eastern. The game will include giveaways and opportunities to influence the game.

First, thanks to all our listeners for sticking with us! It has been two months since the last episode, which of course is not our goal, but life got in the way!

In this episode, besides the usual sections, our main topic deals with non-violent/non-combat Traveller (and other RPGs) sessions. Not arguing against a good shoot-em-up, but just using other kinds of challenges to create a good game.

We also mention Jeff's table of 2d6 outcome probabilities, so here it is!

Relevant Links

• Amber Zone Contest  https://amber.zone/2021/02/14/amber-zone-contest-2021/
• Greg Caires’s Classic Traveller One Shot Saturdays is still going strong!
• SciFiAtmospheres on Intagram.  https://www.instagram.com/scifiatmospheres/
• Vintage Sci-Fi Art. https://www.instagram.com/vintage_scifiart/
• Vintage_scifi. https://www.instagram.com/vintage_scifi/
• Alegis Downport has a nice review of the Traveller Book, if you would like to see what it looks like before purchasing.
• Gamicon Zinc: https://tabletop.events/conventions/gamicon-zinc
• Cepheus Journal 4 is available for download - https://cepheusjournal.com/downloads/
• Jan/Feb 2021 Freelance Traveller: https://www.freelancetraveller.com/magazine/index.html
• The Traveller Bibliography
• Yet Another Traveller Blog: the State of the Blog post!
• Our list of Traveller blogs and sites: http://www.safcocast.com/traveller-podcasts-blog-companies-and-their-humans/

In this episode we talk to Greg Caires about the October 2020 Virtual Traveller non-con that he and Ken Patterson organized. Always fun to talk to Greg!

Relevant links:

• Virtual Traveller on Facebook
• Greg's Classic Traveller One Shot Saturdays FB group
• Freelance Traveller Zine
• Speculative Machines Podcast

 

In this episode we read some great email's from listeners! Lots to think about! We also cover Internet Finds and Rules Finds, and discuss the latest session of our Into the Void Classic Traveller campaign! Relevant links:

 

• Writeup of our last Into the Void Classic Traveller sesion
  http://www.gaming.concretelunch.info/itv-session-19-the-alien-complex/
• Cepheus Journal #2
  https://cepheusjournal.com/downloads/
• Take on Rules - writeup of Traveller Core Rulebook
  https://takeonrules.com/series/lets-read-traveller-core-rulebook/
• The OK Grognard show on Twitch.tv
  https://www.twitch.tv/mark_cmg
• GURPSland article on using Robert Pearce's Traveller Geomorphs
   http://gurpsland.no-ip.org/geomorphs/
• GURPSland homepage, because it's a great GURPS resource
  http://gurpsland.no-ip.org/
• Ron Stepp's Andromeda LN2 blog
  https://andromedaln2.space/
• Our theme music for this episode is called Event Listener, from the Speculative Machines Podcast, by Trent Straughan. 
  https://soundcloud.com/speculative-machines/event-listener

 

In this episode Jeff and Bob discuss the basic elements of a Traveller game, as detailed by Marc Miller in the Traveller Book.

Before that Bob does a short correction from the previous episode,  we do Internet Finds, and some fun Rules Finds, as well as present the last of the planets submitted in our Random Planet Generation Smackdown! (that system appears below, under the relevant links). 

Relevant links:

• Freelance Traveller 'zine
• Reaver's Deep: https://www.reaversdeep.com/
• Cepheus Journal is now online: https://cepheusjournal.com/
• Independence Games has released the Opportunity-class Light Trader, with art by Ian Stead.
  https://independencerpgs.com/collections/new/products/opportunity-class-light-trader?fbclid=IwAR0Lc5QzV-UnhF5zZuqIfOumMuPkZZ6tViODkr6sr74XveUKWQtYwdt39LM
• Albacon, a UK-organized online con, has 3 Traveller session, including one by Greg Caires (who alerted us to this con).  https://albacon.co.uk/   Oct 3-4
• Of course, the Virtual Traveller non-con is coming up in October as well. Here’s the link again: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1205944649744350
• For anyone wanting to do some Swords & Sorcery with a Traveller/CE style system, Omer Golan-Joel’s Sword of Cepheus is now available in print from DrivethruRPG.  I was looking through my PDF last night, and it is really good. I ordered the printed version. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/304840/The-Sword-of-Cepheus
• In his FB group, Traveller Gaming in the Future, Ron Stepp has posted a spreadsheet tool called Adventure Class Ship Designer. I have not tried it yet, as I hate turning on my PC, but knowing Ron’s work I’m sure it is good. https://www.facebook.com/groups/512380172987060
• Speaking of Ron, he is a prolific creator of Traveller content, especially incredible settings and ship designs, and has started a blog on which to keep his work in a place less ephemeral than social media posts (I wonder how much he lost when G+ was disappeared?)? https://andromedaln2.space/
• The Speculative Machines Podcast, home of our music! https://soundcloud.com/speculative-machines

Faddle - from Pete Burke

C589632-8   Ni

 

Faddle is a cold, icy world with most of the surface covered in permafrost.  

There is a band approximately 400 miles wide around the equator that is comfortable and is actually considered pleasantly tropical.  The atmosphere is dense which helps create the effect Faddle is famous for - the floating "Udrassi" mats. 

Udrassi is a native organic lifeform that straddles the line between fungus, plant and animal life.  The udrassi combine into large circular floating mats that organize around a central hub.  On each hub,  three pools of amino acids are arranged in a triangular pattern - early colonists to the planet were able to quickly determine that by adding saline water of specific concentrations to the pools in certain sequuences, the mats could be raised, lowered or steered and also directed to attract or repel other floating mats. 

The mats are extremely strong - some colonists built houses and larger buildings anchoring into the mats themselves.  It wasn't long until early colonial families created resort hotel compounds for tourists by assembling larger mats together - and by manipulating the hub pools on the mats, small towns developed by combining mats together.
  

The planet is mostly a recreation destination - the floating lifestyle of the permanent residents is very laid back .  Some floating resorts stay in the tropics all year round, while others float to a mountain range south of the equator in the permafrost region where a ski resort has been set up.

In this episode we are focusing on two more of the random planets submitted during our Random Planet event a few months ago, this time from Dwayne "Hiverlord" Walstrom and Jonathan Daylett (check out his Desert World RPG - a great adaptation of a Mad Max style setting).

Before that we dig into a couple of items from X-Boat Transmissions, and end with a recap or our own last gaming session from our Into the Void campaign.

Here are the planet/system writeups...

From Hiverlord
Planet/System: Not Assigned
Rolled with T5 rules.
FV main star (no companions). Standard orbit. Temperate climate.

B735BDG-9 Hi In

GG=0 PB=3 No bases.
Importance (Ix)=2 Ranks worlds within a region
Economics (Ex)=BA9(-2)
Culture (Cx)=6D68
Population= 102 Billion
Hi=Hi population
In=industrial

With an extremely high population level and poor atmosphere, this overwhelmed planet is run by an accepting, yet overbearing and stern, Religious Dictatorship. The religion itself promotes, perhaps even encourages, Free Love, and has strict rules against contraceptives and most forms of abortion. Birth (and survival) rates are high, given the planet's TL of 9. Combined with longer lifespans associated with higher technology, the world quickly reached and exceeded its purported capacity.

Several nearby Agricultural worlds have a ready-made market with this extremely overpopulated system.

This world is located in a 'Dumarest'-style setting, with no significant interstellar powers. The reasons why this world hadn't begun expanding (aggressively or otherwise) is simple to deduce: with over 100 Billion citizens to support, it doesn't have any resources to spare for expansionist activities.

From Jonathan Daylett

Planet/System: Aristodma
CAB2654-9 R Ni

Large, extremely hot planet with a corrosive atmosphere and scant water. Rich in phosgene and hydrogen chloride, very valuable chemical compounds used in plastics and technology manufacturing. Due to the high gravity, the densest parts of the atmosphere are much lower to the ground, allowing for research stations, collection facilities and refineries to be built on the highest points of elevation.

The primary authority is a feudal technocracy. What began countless rotations ago as a corporately owned resource, Aristodma is now home to millions of people who live in ports, research stations, and other dense plastic fortresses. They are governed by those with the highest level of understanding of the environmental hazards present. People came here for the high risk, high reward lifestyle of gas-farming. Over the years, however, it became apparent that there were those more suited to the dangers involved, and they soon became leaders among the people. Generation by generation, the highly profitable gas-farmers have gained a reputation of shrewd but fair governance.

It has worked well enough, until recent years as a few other factions started to see the cracks in the system and decided to try and make their own ways of life beyond the confines of primitive feudalism. Now those in command have to contend with not only an environment that is actively trying to kill them every second of every day, but with a contentious minority group that steals technology and parts for building new facilities as well as a political faction that seeks to upend the centuries-long reign of those who see themselves as de facto rulers of Aristodma.