I sometimes forget that Seth is Jack The NPC. He's got the role down so well that he truly dives into the character in these videos. Jack is also like a weird comedic version of Moorcock's The Eternal Champion, appearing in different places and times as different versions of the same hero: The Eternal Jack.
I have to remind myself that Seth is doing all the parts, it certainly seems like there are 4 (5 if you include Jack) different people in some of his videos.
As for the blimp idea I frankly love the idea that since this place is so rundown they just had to reuse old tourism blimps. Some blimps still have old ads for like Traveler equivalent to amusement parks and restaurants because they just didn't have the time or budget to remove them I also love the Gilligan Island reference with the skipper
I love the idea of some busted-up tourism blimp still sporting a restaurant ad or some "coming soon" for an amusement park that burned down 10 years ago.
Maybe I missed something, but as soon as Seth mentioned the players had to pass through customs at a spaceport I started wondering why the players didn't just up and say they were insurance adjusters looking for a downed spaceship. My "air drop" would basically have been a shell company, a personal injury lawyer and a pile of cash.
"You know it's a backwater if they still use miles instead of kilometers" Shot fired. The cool thing about these adventure reviews is even if you don't play the system, you can still use the general idea/layout of the adventure with another system or setting.
@Fred Freddy A yard is 36 inches and a meter is 39 inches. They are basically interchangeable IF very specific distances are not required. What's three inches between friends? On a more random but somewhat useful note, IF you use an interchangeable Yard/Meter scale, you should know that a normal [real-world] Human is around 20 inches across [from shoulder to shoulder]. However, we need a bit of room to feel comfortable moving around. This means that you can say that a normal Human generally OCCUPIES 1 Yard (or 1 Meter) of space. So if you set your floor map ranges to a scale of 1 square is equal to 1 yard (or 1 meter), you would be pretty accurate AND it is very easy for the players to adapt to this scale versus the D&D scale of 1 square equals 5ft (which can result in the need to occasionally do math to figure out the number of squares on a map).
There is a very strange notion in some quarters that metric is scientific and that English units are not. Often the fact that things metric move in ten counts such as 10 millimeters per centimeter is cited as well, either from a convenience standpoint or even as proof of the scientificness of the metric system (better get rid of that 24 hours per day, 360 degrees per full revolution, and 12 months per year nonsense). I won't bother with long-winded explanations, but neither system has a corner on being scientific. I have worked with mixed English/Metric units my entire working life. My preference? Both. Fortunately, the number of unit conversions needed to integrate the systems are few and simple. People need to use units that are meaningful to themselves. If bushels and pecks have solid meaning to you, use them. If minimums and drams are your forte, by all means, stick with them. But if you are truly a Traveller, then parsecs, AU's, and light years are a more likely focus.
Captain Kirk cheerfully switched from miles to kilometers whenever he felt like it. I assume that in the future when everybody is super smart, they'll use both.
@@BigFrakkinOgre Hmmm... You have a good point. There typically are thirteen full moons in a year (more if you go to a nudist camp). One problem... How ya gonna fix the Zodiac? Horiscopes will be all screwed up.
13:26 Best moment of that video!!!😀 I am in the middle of my first solo adventure and my characters just jumped in a new unexplored system with their scout/explorer ship Solon-1. They already had a successful encounter with space rodents infection in the ship at their seven days travel.😆 They where hired by a big Botanical company to travel at an uninhabited Terran world of the system in search of new pharmaceutical herds. What they don't know about is the planet's fauna and geological conditions and how dangerous those can be. But they will soon find out.....😉
Mid-20th century tech. ✔ Large body of water. ✔ Sunken ruins of a waterborne vessel. ✔ Small, rundown, insular towns. ✔ Yup. Was thinking along those lines myself.
Seth, I never thanked you for doing this Traveller video series! I used to play the game back in the '80s, and seeing it have a new revision and a resurgence is wonderful. I'm seriously considering picking up the new version to run with my players!
My biggest viewer demographic is 25-34, closely followed by 35-44 and 45-54. The 18-24 demographic is 4th place. Dunno if that's because I'm an old guy, or because I don't talk about D&D 5e, or simply because my jokes suck.
@@SSkorkowsky I think it might be due to the lack of D&D 5e. I'm in the 18-24 grouping, and have certainly noticed that most roleplayers my age haven't engaged much with RPGs outside D&D. And I like your jokes!
@@SSkorkowsky It might be the deep dives. It took me a long (Embarrassingly long) while to get beyond a more shallow "Rule of cool" into a place where structure and arc are more satisfying
Agreed. Though I only played the adventure “Shadows” that came with the black rulebook back in the 80s, I still remember the enjoyment I got making characters and getting immersed in the world.
Accidentally intentional hostages and a player going full tilt into something the GM assumed would be a minor thing. Been there, had to GM that. Another fun and enjoyable review!
You know, if It's a warzone, your crew could've gone in as "Military Contractors" working with the local government as part of the police force. If it's just a 20th century tech level, it wouldn't be hard to forge decent documents confirming it. It've also saved the company on doing an airdrop, as they could've used local resources to get what they needed.....
When I first glanced at the title and image, I thought it was a CoC adventure. ;) Those early Traveller adventures were usually open ended as the TJAS was always digest size back in the day. Also, recovering bodies after 7 years in the water. I am not sure that is possible, with wildlife and the natural breakdown of body tissue after the person dies. Unless there is some substance in the water that would preserve the body.
I treated them a lot like Lake Superior bodies (Old Whitey is still floating around in his wrecked ship since the 1920s and that's in just 80 feet of water). They really aren't kidding when they say Lake Superior never gives up her dead. There's a really cool Ask a Mortician video about it.
Haha I have this one but I've never run it. Glad to see someone else has, it's nice adventure. I have players in my game with sailing so maybe I can actually work this puppy in. This is the kind of adventure where those "rural random encounters" tables come in very handy.
I agree! Those random encounter tables can really spice things up. Either pick one or roll randomly. That would've spiced things up. Maybe run it so there's a small skirmish on the lake between rebels and the government, very low key, nothing huge, sorta like the Brown Water Navy from Vietnam patrol boats vs the rebel boats and the players get caught in the skirmish.
Fancy seeing you here. It's interesting to see how different yet the same two different referee's run Traveller. Back in the late 90's my table loved Traveller. Mainly because of the new Star Wars movie coming out and we were tired of playing the West End version. It wasn't SW, but it was sci-fi. I Guess as much as The Phantom Menace was Star Wars haha.
Anyone looking to spice up a diving adventure would do well to check out the 1977 movie "The Deep". Besides being a fun movie on its own it'll give you some great ideas to "creatively steal", and since it's not as well known as movies like "Jaws" your party is less likely to see it coming.
Customs Officer: and what's your reason for visiting our lovely planet? Travelers: we like scuba diving on ship wrecks. Old friend recommended one of your lakes. He had to swim back to shore after a ferry accident. Bet me 20 credits I couldn't find his sneakers.
My players were very sceptical almost reluctant to play traveller but once we started they've fallen in love with it. That's mainly because traveller can be geared to be either really serious or really goofy, and anywhere inbetween so i managed to gear it to where the players would want. It is very flexible and has lots of fun roleplay mechanics.
@@NefariousKoel i tend to have BAD luck when it comes to the Lifepath PC creation method. I've lost entire Family trees to it...It's still fun as all get out though.
As far as the pre-written scenarios, I think High and Dry is a great intro adventure. All you need to run it is the module and the corebook (or the starter set, which is the full corebook in box form).
My idea for this is that one of the big draws in the tourism days of Lake Okayama was there was supposedly a creature named Okie living there, a living fossil of a huge animal that went extinct long before Hazel was colonized. When the players get to the starport there'd be a bunch of Okie merchandise that would have been sitting in the back gift shop and that'd be the first thing to possibly get them to ask questions, then the hotel would have had store dedicated to Okie that would have merchandise that hasn't been taken off the shelves for a LONG time. Then as they are diving down to the lake, or if that boat you put it was there the divers would run into Okie and have to avoid it long enough to surface or it could erupt from the water and now it's three way conflict between the Travellers, the rebels and a lake monster.
Lovely review and overview! One of the things about Traveller is that, due to the scope of the game, there isn't a lot of detail given to the introductions of the adventure due to the fact that gaming parties can be coming at the story from different angles. Unlike the classic D&D modules, you can be just starting out, veterans, or experiencing a change of pace in your campaign. For example, while many of your criticisms of The Mystery of BT-SHT 365 are sound (maps, etc.), the loose lead-in to the adventure is a way of not railroading the GM, who could be dealing with a group of neophytes on their first adventure, a Firefly-style series, or a full-fledged mini-arc of the epic PIRATES OF DRINAX campaign. This is an example of the IMTU phenomenon (In My Traveller Universe) where the assumption is that GMs are going to alter the adventure to suit their tastes and party anyway, so the author can't fall too in love with a particular beginning narrative arc.
In my How to Run a Module vid, I explain that all scenario intros are really just placeholders that GMs can swap out for more suitable ones to fit into their campaign. Otherwise they can use the one provided. For example, in my my own Traveller game, the crew of the Cygnus Crucible (the ones from The Mystery of BT-SHT 365) were given this job by one of the Theeve crime lords who does a lot of contracts with corporations. He hooked them up with Sternmetal as a way to earn favor with the company for future contracts.
@@SSkorkowsky Thanks for the reply! That video sounds like one to check out. I really like your Traveller videos and am looking forward to more of them. It's great to see someone come across the system and get such enjoyment out of it.
This adventure reminds me of early James Bond movie plots, like Dr. No or From Russia With Love. Throw in some Rebel forces that visit the PCs when they're diving, take the topside PCs hostage and wait for the divers to return to the surface. The Rebels demand to know what they're doing near that old wreck (they knew it was there the whole time!); they assume something valuable is there, so they want a big cut of the take, say... 200KCr!
I just looked at the original JTAS #2 and discovered that the original adventure was 1 page long. ONE page! But I thought Seth said Streel was paying only 200kCr. The original paid 2MCr! Yeah, I'll be throwing in some Rebels that want a very large piece of that pie! Also, there are rules in there for TL7 Blimp Airships! Jack the NPC is onto something big! There is also another article on Undersea Adventuring.
If the air is too thin for conventional flight, I don't know that lighter-than-air vehicles would operate any better. I'd assume that would be an even bigger impediment to them. Rocket powered planes/drones with very brief flight times would be possible though, would be a unique and interesting challenge to avoid, and would add cool flavor.
WWII aircraft could fly to 10km MSL or so (higher for some aircraft), where the pressure is around 25% of that at sea level. So you would need 4 times the volume to get the same buoyancy without considering the increased mass of the bag and any more internal structure. At a wild guess, this would mean an airship twice as long as one on Earth (using the same proportions). Frankly, that's probably harder than building an airplane, because of all the weird resonance problems you can get with fluids and flexible materials, not to mention issues of fiber strength. Since even WWI stringbags could get up to above 7km (not all and not for long, because pilots would have hypoxia problems), I think it's likely that "too thin for aircraft" doesn't make much sense, since too thin for aircraft is probably too thin for people, too. You could increase the O2 concentration to allow for life at those low pressures, or use pressurizing breathing apparatus to do the same, but either of those would have many other serious effects. Which could be a lot of fun, but would require some serious work on the part of the GM. IME, the people who like to play SF RPGs include a higher than average proportion of people who think about things like the above. (It's part of the fun of hard SF, after all.) So it's worth considering the science a bit before changing things around.
If the air is to thin to support conventional flight there wouldn't be any liquid water. It would have boiled off. It seems more plausible that conventional air raft would be grounded by the ongoing conflict.
Third If Jack is interested in serious investment opportunities, I have a bridge that he can buy. For a modest sum it can be relocated to his condo.....
I'm not an aeronautical engineer by any means, but if the atmosphere is thin enough that fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft are impractical, zeps and blimps and the like are probably also handicapped. Their lift comes from the gas in their gasbags being lower density than the air around it, and a thin atmosphere will reduce the amount of lift by virtue of being less dense itself. They might still work okay - the air has to be thick enough for all those tourists to be comfortable, and probably has more oxygen content than ours does so they aren't light-headed all the time - but I don't think performance would be quite as good as on Earth. OTOH, maybe the gravity is lower too? Again, can't be too light or the natives would have long term health issues, but even a tenth of a gee would help with tourism and maybe offset the density thing enough to make zeps more viable? Not sure about the science involved in relative performance of lighter and heavier than air craft under varying gravity and atmospheric density.
seems like this would mesh nicely with the call of cthulu adventure with diving in it. possibly even making it a pulp adventure with civil war guerilla stuff
I like the shirt. One of my favorite antagonists for Dr. Strange was a multiversal varient of Dr. S who looked like a humanoid descended from a warthog. I think that the subtitle read "Dr. Strange vs Dr Stranger Yet." :)
Heh, I had just finished watching Seth's Traveller: Calixcuel review and mentioned how I have plans of developing an "Abyss" themed CoC session using chunks of it. Here comes Jack in this episode and throws that in my face, ha ha. Yeah well, still doin' it...
Seth, I notice you always review adventures "as a GM who has successfully run this." Does this imply that there are games which were not successful? It might be an interesting video if there are.
The statement simply means I ran it (versus many reviews out there where the reviewer only read it). The "successfully" part is an old jab from one of my earliest scenario reviews where a module that was a huge hit with us was called unplayable by a lot of people who clearly had never played it. It just kinda stuck around in my phrasing. However I've also run many games that just went sideways and burst into flames. Not often, and not in good while, but it has happened. But with those, I take responsibility for not preparing or adapting properly. I can always see afterwards where I messed it up.
@@SSkorkowsky Thanks for the explanation - wasn't meaning to imply anything about your GMing skills, or anything else negative, just wondered why you phrase it that way.
No worries at all. I freely admit I've had many a session go south and that I've made pretty much every GM mistake out there (and probably invented a few).
Okay, looking at one of the brochures at 5:30, it says, "Take a Child Free." I might have an idea on how to get those bodies through customs. "But the brochure said I could take one for free!" "That, sir, is too large to be a child." "He...went through a growth spurt." Also, to indicate that this is a war zone is to have a ton of "Scott Brown Properties" signs in New Okayama... Not sure if my players will get it though. I guess you will be getting more subscribers.
The original is was pretty different. It was about 3 pages and set on Cocta. Cocta isn't a world on the Traveller map, so I assume it was meant to be dropped into the Foreven sector, or just predates when Marc Miller decided to make a set universe. The rebel-controlled city in the new version is named Cocta, which I think is a nice nod to the original. I also got the impression the original was more jungle setting, giving it almost a South American Third World feel, which works as a backdrop for a place going through guerrilla fighting.
@@NefariousKoel I bought black cursade 50$ eBay. Rpg drive thru has PDF of all the mentioned. But Seth only reviews games he plays. I asked for more ravenloft . I personally think traveler sucks. Death to the false emperor!
I want to play this as a mercenary on vacation. A light working holiday, got to do something, but vacation just the same. Maybe scouting a location to train some recruits. The twist is no one believes it.
IIRC, 50 meters is a pretty deep dive. For pleasure dives, I think you want to keep it at about a third of that if you want to have any time on the bottom to enjoy yourself.
Thanks for your excellent and incisive videos. Long time traveller here but often get bogged down down with how to solve the problems of the recent scenarios (especially those from a certain writer who writes almost everything traveller these days - many many problems and often no clear plot and do you need unexpected primitive people in EVERY adventure??). You offer very intelligent solutions and more importantly the confidence to find solutions. Thanks.
Yeah, there is a definite style to MJD's scenarios and a lot of elements get reused (currently on the second adventure where an EMP takes down their ship). Many of them suffer the problem of epic backstories that take as much room as the actual adventure. Neat reading and all, but often the adventure feels second place to the backstory. He also goes for huge, near unwieldy casts of NPCs and their intricate relationships with each other. I don't have a problem with his style of adventure (many are great) but part of why I go for older or self-pub adventures is to get more diversity.
@@SSkorkowsky EMP being a common method of disabling a valuable ship for various reasons makes an awful lot of sense. Authorities want you to pay the docking fees, or have a ship to seize to pay them. Pirates want loot not wreckage and so on.
Thanks for you reply. I’m looking at theories of everything now and it repeats an idea from a scenario he wrote for the T20 (d20 traveller - yes that was a thing, not a good thing but a thing none the less). I just want scenarios with a clear plot and tasks - take out this ship, recover the blackmail documents, rescue the hostage, defend the town,or whatever with all the maps done properly, then info about the environment and political situation. and then the travellers can find a way to do it. Npcs only if they are necessary to the plot. Npcs are not a plot in themselves, however well realised. All his scenarios end up like the players are watching a movie.
Another great review. Missed this one back in the day. About the ferry though, why not tell them roughly where it is? They usually have set travel courses, and that one looked like it could have just been going to and fro across that neck of the lake. Anyway, thanks, and stay safe!
I sort of expected some sort of twist, like the data is more than just mineralogical, but something dire, and the PCs have to decide if they want to pass it on. Maybe that would work as part of a larger campaign.
Blimps would still need some sort of propulsion system. If propellers won't work for planes and helicopters because the atmosphere is too thin, is there enough atmosphere to propel a blimp? There could be because it would not need nearly as much force, but I think there is still a possibility that blimps couldn't work because, without sufficient atmosphere, all they could do is basically float in place.
Jack wraps up his planetary adventures after making a real estate investment? Scott Brown must have an office on Hazel. It is a war zone after all, right? Who else would work real estate during the planet's economic decline / civil war?
Hey Seth! Long fan of your videos : ) I really like your skits and the way you narrate the adventures. If I could bother with a recommendation, I want to get one of your audiobooks! But I dont know wich one to get D: I love medieval fantasy and cosmic horror, which one should I get that you approve the narration of!? Thank you!
Damoren (Valducan #1) and Hounacier (Valducan #2) were both Audie Award finalists for best Paranormal Audibook. R.C. Bray narrated them. So if you want to know the best audiobooks I have, that's them. They're modern-day monster hunting Urban Fantasy, so not medieval but have some definite horror edge (Hounacier I consider an action/ horror novel).
now that we have flown a drone helicopter on mars (code 1, trace atmosphere) I don't believe the whole conventional aircraft don't work...also what generator did you use to make the magazines?
While other commenters droned on about plausibility of airships and were throwing out physics numbers and real-world mumbo-jumbo that isn't much fun, you, sir, stepped up to the plate and offered a real suggestion. "Make it MORE alien and weird." I salute you.
Please review GURPS 4E. It seems like a very rewarding system, but I struggle to fully wrap my head around it. I would greatly benefit from your suave rendition of the rules. You can get GURPS Lite for free, so you can at least get a look at it for free! Thanks for your consideration.
One thing I would probably do is perhaps make the whole rebellion thing a sham and it's actually something that the government made up in an attempt to boost their tourism. So the reason a tour guide would be trying to make sure the players didn't go north, isn't because of any risk of them helping the rebellion but instead making sure they don't see all the "Rebels " who're actually just civilians who're being paid by the government. OR! If we want to make this a more darkly toned sort of adventure. The government pulled a Big Brother/1984 and are using slaves/manipulating innocent people into starting a "rebellion" so that they can get tourists who come to Hazel and pay the government to shoot and kill rebels.
I sometimes forget that Seth is Jack The NPC. He's got the role down so well that he truly dives into the character in these videos. Jack is also like a weird comedic version of Moorcock's The Eternal Champion, appearing in different places and times as different versions of the same hero: The Eternal Jack.
Never thought of jack this way. That will be my new Head canon
Well, that really *is* his function in the context of the videos.
wait.... thats the same dude
I had to watch SEVERAL videos before I realized that they were the same person... =(
I have to remind myself that Seth is doing all the parts, it certainly seems like there are 4 (5 if you include Jack) different people in some of his videos.
"I did add some different animals that people ride, just to add a little more alien feel."
*shows a straight-up chocobo*
As for the blimp idea I frankly love the idea that since this place is so rundown they just had to reuse old tourism blimps. Some blimps still have old ads for like Traveler equivalent to amusement parks and restaurants because they just didn't have the time or budget to remove them
I also love the Gilligan Island reference with the skipper
I love the idea of some busted-up tourism blimp still sporting a restaurant ad or some "coming soon" for an amusement park that burned down 10 years ago.
Great flavor! I'm putting this in my notebook so I can remember to do something like this.
One of the ads is for Scott Brown. Who else would be doing realty here?
Favorite moment "Suprise we're not going fishing."
He lied, they were..... a double bluff..... that is field security in a combat/ political nightmare.
Maybe I missed something, but as soon as Seth mentioned the players had to pass through customs at a spaceport I started wondering why the players didn't just up and say they were insurance adjusters looking for a downed spaceship.
My "air drop" would basically have been a shell company, a personal injury lawyer and a pile of cash.
"Kidnapping with a promise of payment " is the most PC thing i ever heard 🤣 sooo good
@@Grizabeebles Send lawyers, guns and money
@@tach5884 -- No sci-fi adventure can defeat a properly prepared legal professional.
"You know it's a backwater if they still use miles instead of kilometers"
Shot fired.
The cool thing about these adventure reviews is even if you don't play the system, you can still use the general idea/layout of the adventure with another system or setting.
Egg Zachary
"Using Miles instead of Kilometers."
- We call them "Freedom Units".
@Fred Freddy A yard is 36 inches and a meter is 39 inches. They are basically interchangeable IF very specific distances are not required. What's three inches between friends?
On a more random but somewhat useful note, IF you use an interchangeable Yard/Meter scale, you should know that a normal [real-world] Human is around 20 inches across [from shoulder to shoulder]. However, we need a bit of room to feel comfortable moving around. This means that you can say that a normal Human generally OCCUPIES 1 Yard (or 1 Meter) of space. So if you set your floor map ranges to a scale of 1 square is equal to 1 yard (or 1 meter), you would be pretty accurate AND it is very easy for the players to adapt to this scale versus the D&D scale of 1 square equals 5ft (which can result in the need to occasionally do math to figure out the number of squares on a map).
There is a very strange notion in some quarters that metric is scientific and that English units are not. Often the fact that things metric move in ten counts such as 10 millimeters per centimeter is cited as well, either from a convenience standpoint or even as proof of the scientificness of the metric system (better get rid of that 24 hours per day, 360 degrees per full revolution, and 12 months per year nonsense). I won't bother with long-winded explanations, but neither system has a corner on being scientific. I have worked with mixed English/Metric units my entire working life. My preference? Both. Fortunately, the number of unit conversions needed to integrate the systems are few and simple. People need to use units that are meaningful to themselves. If bushels and pecks have solid meaning to you, use them. If minimums and drams are your forte, by all means, stick with them. But if you are truly a Traveller, then parsecs, AU's, and light years are a more likely focus.
Captain Kirk cheerfully switched from miles to kilometers whenever he felt like it.
I assume that in the future when everybody is super smart, they'll use both.
@@billharm6006 Screw the 12-month year! A 13-month year makes far more sense. Damn triskaidekaphobics ruining it for everyone....
@@BigFrakkinOgre Hmmm... You have a good point. There typically are thirteen full moons in a year (more if you go to a nudist camp).
One problem... How ya gonna fix the Zodiac? Horiscopes will be all screwed up.
"Legends abound from the Hazelians on down, of the big lake they call Okayama"
Nice Edmund Fitzgerald reference there!
Underrated comment.
13:26 Best moment of that video!!!😀
I am in the middle of my first solo adventure and my characters just jumped in a new unexplored system with their scout/explorer ship Solon-1. They already had a successful encounter with space rodents infection in the ship at their seven days travel.😆
They where hired by a big Botanical company to travel at an uninhabited Terran world of the system in search of new pharmaceutical herds.
What they don't know about is the planet's fauna and geological conditions and how dangerous those can be.
But they will soon find out.....😉
Stern Metal motto: "Don't worry, I've got an angle."
From the early days when their marketing department was run by Captain Stern. :-)
This kind of sounds like it also could be the basis of a Pulp Cthulhu scenario with a little finagling.
Mid-20th century tech. ✔
Large body of water. ✔
Sunken ruins of a waterborne vessel. ✔
Small, rundown, insular towns. ✔
Yup. Was thinking along those lines myself.
It is! “Crash Dive.” Seth reviewed it. It was terrible. 😄
5:21 a rural town named Korbitt. Nice!
Seth, I never thanked you for doing this Traveller video series!
I used to play the game back in the '80s, and seeing it have a new revision and a resurgence is wonderful. I'm seriously considering picking up the new version to run with my players!
We're glad to see more people playing too!
My biggest viewer demographic is 25-34, closely followed by 35-44 and 45-54. The 18-24 demographic is 4th place. Dunno if that's because I'm an old guy, or because I don't talk about D&D 5e, or simply because my jokes suck.
@@SSkorkowsky I think it might be due to the lack of D&D 5e. I'm in the 18-24 grouping, and have certainly noticed that most roleplayers my age haven't engaged much with RPGs outside D&D. And I like your jokes!
@@SSkorkowsky It might be the deep dives. It took me a long (Embarrassingly long) while to get beyond a more shallow "Rule of cool" into a place where structure and arc are more satisfying
Agreed. Though I only played the adventure “Shadows” that came with the black rulebook back in the 80s, I still remember the enjoyment I got making characters and getting immersed in the world.
Accidentally intentional hostages and a player going full tilt into something the GM assumed would be a minor thing. Been there, had to GM that. Another fun and enjoyable review!
Seth, you better win another Ennie!! Your videos are pure gold!! Production, editing, script, and content!!! You rock at this!!!
Sadly, I was passed over for the ENnie nomination this year.
@@SSkorkowsky - Oh, that just ain't right. You'll get 'em next time!
Holy ship. I learned a yacht from this video. It really was a deep dive.
You're a horrible person and should be very ashamed for this.
You know, if It's a warzone, your crew could've gone in as "Military Contractors" working with the local government as part of the police force. If it's just a 20th century tech level, it wouldn't be hard to forge decent documents confirming it. It've also saved the company on doing an airdrop, as they could've used local resources to get what they needed.....
Nice.
All good till they radio to HQ to confirm when you ask for guns
When I first glanced at the title and image, I thought it was a CoC adventure. ;) Those early Traveller adventures were usually open ended as the TJAS was always digest size back in the day. Also, recovering bodies after 7 years in the water. I am not sure that is possible, with wildlife and the natural breakdown of body tissue after the person dies. Unless there is some substance in the water that would preserve the body.
I treated them a lot like Lake Superior bodies (Old Whitey is still floating around in his wrecked ship since the 1920s and that's in just 80 feet of water). They really aren't kidding when they say Lake Superior never gives up her dead. There's a really cool Ask a Mortician video about it.
@@SSkorkowsky Also no guarantee the native flora and fauna have the same or any interest in the corpses as on Earth.
No oxygen or sunlight=nice slimy corpses to lug around.
@@SSkorkowsky I watched that video. Nice reference.
I first thought it was CoC, too.
Haha I have this one but I've never run it. Glad to see someone else has, it's nice adventure. I have players in my game with sailing so maybe I can actually work this puppy in.
This is the kind of adventure where those "rural random encounters" tables come in very handy.
I agree! Those random encounter tables can really spice things up. Either pick one or roll randomly. That would've spiced things up. Maybe run it so there's a small skirmish on the lake between rebels and the government, very low key, nothing huge, sorta like the Brown Water Navy from Vietnam patrol boats vs the rebel boats and the players get caught in the skirmish.
Fancy seeing you here. It's interesting to see how different yet the same two different referee's run Traveller. Back in the late 90's my table loved Traveller. Mainly because of the new Star Wars movie coming out and we were tired of playing the West End version. It wasn't SW, but it was sci-fi. I Guess as much as The Phantom Menace was Star Wars haha.
"Think of it as a surprise fishing trip. Surprise! We're not going fishing." Still laughing from that line.
Anyone looking to spice up a diving adventure would do well to check out the 1977 movie "The Deep". Besides being a fun movie on its own it'll give you some great ideas to "creatively steal", and since it's not as well known as movies like "Jaws" your party is less likely to see it coming.
And Jaqueline Bisset is absolutely fantastic !
Customs Officer: and what's your reason for visiting our lovely planet?
Travelers: we like scuba diving on ship wrecks. Old friend recommended one of your lakes. He had to swim back to shore after a ferry accident. Bet me 20 credits I couldn't find his sneakers.
Interesting
I’ve never played traveler
I may have to do that.
You should 😍
My players were very sceptical almost reluctant to play traveller but once we started they've fallen in love with it. That's mainly because traveller can be geared to be either really serious or really goofy, and anywhere inbetween so i managed to gear it to where the players would want. It is very flexible and has lots of fun roleplay mechanics.
The Traveller system is pretty easy. Other than character creation, but that part is quite fun and a game in itself! Love me some Lifepath style.
@@NefariousKoel i tend to have BAD luck when it comes to the Lifepath PC creation method. I've lost entire Family trees to it...It's still fun as all get out though.
Please do! Check out The Complex Game Apologist's series on Traveller, he does a great job giving an overview of the setting and history of the game.
I tend to forget that TRAVELLER covers different eras off tech.
Seth out here just cranking out the amazing videos
Thank you. I've been curious about Traveler for a while and I think i may just purchase the book and give it a go!
It's one of the best sci-fi games out there :)
Where to start?
As far as the pre-written scenarios, I think High and Dry is a great intro adventure. All you need to run it is the module and the corebook (or the starter set, which is the full corebook in box form).
@@SSkorkowsky thank you! I just discovered your channel a week ago and I've been wondering how I never saw it before today. I live the skits!
My idea for this is that one of the big draws in the tourism days of Lake Okayama was there was supposedly a creature named Okie living there, a living fossil of a huge animal that went extinct long before Hazel was colonized. When the players get to the starport there'd be a bunch of Okie merchandise that would have been sitting in the back gift shop and that'd be the first thing to possibly get them to ask questions, then the hotel would have had store dedicated to Okie that would have merchandise that hasn't been taken off the shelves for a LONG time. Then as they are diving down to the lake, or if that boat you put it was there the divers would run into Okie and have to avoid it long enough to surface or it could erupt from the water and now it's three way conflict between the Travellers, the rebels and a lake monster.
Excellent as always. These always make me want to buy the scenario.
Lovely review and overview! One of the things about Traveller is that, due to the scope of the game, there isn't a lot of detail given to the introductions of the adventure due to the fact that gaming parties can be coming at the story from different angles. Unlike the classic D&D modules, you can be just starting out, veterans, or experiencing a change of pace in your campaign.
For example, while many of your criticisms of The Mystery of BT-SHT 365 are sound (maps, etc.), the loose lead-in to the adventure is a way of not railroading the GM, who could be dealing with a group of neophytes on their first adventure, a Firefly-style series, or a full-fledged mini-arc of the epic PIRATES OF DRINAX campaign. This is an example of the IMTU phenomenon (In My Traveller Universe) where the assumption is that GMs are going to alter the adventure to suit their tastes and party anyway, so the author can't fall too in love with a particular beginning narrative arc.
In my How to Run a Module vid, I explain that all scenario intros are really just placeholders that GMs can swap out for more suitable ones to fit into their campaign. Otherwise they can use the one provided.
For example, in my my own Traveller game, the crew of the Cygnus Crucible (the ones from The Mystery of BT-SHT 365) were given this job by one of the Theeve crime lords who does a lot of contracts with corporations. He hooked them up with Sternmetal as a way to earn favor with the company for future contracts.
@@SSkorkowsky Thanks for the reply! That video sounds like one to check out.
I really like your Traveller videos and am looking forward to more of them. It's great to see someone come across the system and get such enjoyment out of it.
I am growing to appreciate the production value of these episodes more and more.
DM: rebels board the boat.
player Seth: "BOMBSHELL!"
Thanks for the review, +Seth Skorkowsky. Always enjoy catching these. I like your style, and "Jack" is a nice bonus! 🙂👍
Excellent. My players are headed for a waterworld soon; I'm going to adapt this adventure to their destination.
Something tells me Jack might get involved in another "dice test" incident for that size joke.
"We're going to assign you a tour guide. Come in Joo Dee."
"Hello. I am Joo Dee. There is no war on Okayama Lake." 😜
My first car, an opel corsa with 21 years on her belt, was called Bertha. Sounded tough and trusty.
This adventure reminds me of early James Bond movie plots, like Dr. No or From Russia With Love. Throw in some Rebel forces that visit the PCs when they're diving, take the topside PCs hostage and wait for the divers to return to the surface. The Rebels demand to know what they're doing near that old wreck (they knew it was there the whole time!); they assume something valuable is there, so they want a big cut of the take, say... 200KCr!
I just looked at the original JTAS #2 and discovered that the original adventure was 1 page long. ONE page! But I thought Seth said Streel was paying only 200kCr. The original paid 2MCr! Yeah, I'll be throwing in some Rebels that want a very large piece of that pie!
Also, there are rules in there for TL7 Blimp Airships! Jack the NPC is onto something big!
There is also another article on Undersea Adventuring.
Thanks for the review! Great inspiration for a game I have upcoming!
I was looking forward to another one of these, really fun to watch! Great job, Seth.
If the air is too thin for conventional flight, I don't know that lighter-than-air vehicles would operate any better. I'd assume that would be an even bigger impediment to them. Rocket powered planes/drones with very brief flight times would be possible though, would be a unique and interesting challenge to avoid, and would add cool flavor.
WWII aircraft could fly to 10km MSL or so (higher for some aircraft), where the pressure is around 25% of that at sea level. So you would need 4 times the volume to get the same buoyancy without considering the increased mass of the bag and any more internal structure. At a wild guess, this would mean an airship twice as long as one on Earth (using the same proportions). Frankly, that's probably harder than building an airplane, because of all the weird resonance problems you can get with fluids and flexible materials, not to mention issues of fiber strength.
Since even WWI stringbags could get up to above 7km (not all and not for long, because pilots would have hypoxia problems), I think it's likely that "too thin for aircraft" doesn't make much sense, since too thin for aircraft is probably too thin for people, too. You could increase the O2 concentration to allow for life at those low pressures, or use pressurizing breathing apparatus to do the same, but either of those would have many other serious effects. Which could be a lot of fun, but would require some serious work on the part of the GM.
IME, the people who like to play SF RPGs include a higher than average proportion of people who think about things like the above. (It's part of the fun of hard SF, after all.) So it's worth considering the science a bit before changing things around.
If the air is to thin to support conventional flight there wouldn't be any liquid water. It would have boiled off. It seems more plausible that conventional air raft would be grounded by the ongoing conflict.
Could use the historical Battle of Lake Tanganyika of the First World War as a backdrop.
And watch African Queen for some further inspiration.
Thanks for these videos
“Not cool man, not cool” 😂😂
Third
If Jack is interested in serious investment opportunities, I have a bridge that he can buy. For a modest sum it can be relocated to his condo.....
I'm not an aeronautical engineer by any means, but if the atmosphere is thin enough that fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft are impractical, zeps and blimps and the like are probably also handicapped. Their lift comes from the gas in their gasbags being lower density than the air around it, and a thin atmosphere will reduce the amount of lift by virtue of being less dense itself. They might still work okay - the air has to be thick enough for all those tourists to be comfortable, and probably has more oxygen content than ours does so they aren't light-headed all the time - but I don't think performance would be quite as good as on Earth. OTOH, maybe the gravity is lower too? Again, can't be too light or the natives would have long term health issues, but even a tenth of a gee would help with tourism and maybe offset the density thing enough to make zeps more viable? Not sure about the science involved in relative performance of lighter and heavier than air craft under varying gravity and atmospheric density.
Dunno about how well airships really would work, but had I thought about it before I ran it, I'd have definitely put in an observation blimp or two.
seems like this would mesh nicely with the call of cthulu adventure with diving in it. possibly even making it a pulp adventure with civil war guerilla stuff
I really love how you handle and present the Traveller RPG (the overview and the reviews). It's very well done. Can't wait to see more.
Great review! I laughed when the surprise we're not fishing line was said.
I like the shirt. One of my favorite antagonists for Dr. Strange was a multiversal varient of Dr. S who looked like a humanoid descended from a warthog. I think that the subtitle read "Dr. Strange vs Dr Stranger Yet." :)
Those travel brochures you made are fantastic! Great video review, thank you Seth.
You can never have enough Blimp based technologies in a game.
I love your sense of humour especially from Jack the NPC, as an Australian I also loved the reference to miles being backwards
I played this, ages ago. I really like the blimp idea
Heh, I had just finished watching Seth's Traveller: Calixcuel review and mentioned how I have plans of developing an "Abyss" themed CoC session using chunks of it. Here comes Jack in this episode and throws that in my face, ha ha. Yeah well, still doin' it...
13:49 "A Surprise fishing trip... surprise!" I like that. "This isn't an alien abduction ... it's a surprise excursion to Jupiter. Surprise!" :)
Seth, I notice you always review adventures "as a GM who has successfully run this." Does this imply that there are games which were not successful? It might be an interesting video if there are.
The statement simply means I ran it (versus many reviews out there where the reviewer only read it). The "successfully" part is an old jab from one of my earliest scenario reviews where a module that was a huge hit with us was called unplayable by a lot of people who clearly had never played it. It just kinda stuck around in my phrasing.
However I've also run many games that just went sideways and burst into flames. Not often, and not in good while, but it has happened. But with those, I take responsibility for not preparing or adapting properly. I can always see afterwards where I messed it up.
@@SSkorkowsky Thanks for the explanation - wasn't meaning to imply anything about your GMing skills, or anything else negative, just wondered why you phrase it that way.
No worries at all. I freely admit I've had many a session go south and that I've made pretty much every GM mistake out there (and probably invented a few).
Okay, looking at one of the brochures at 5:30, it says, "Take a Child Free."
I might have an idea on how to get those bodies through customs.
"But the brochure said I could take one for free!"
"That, sir, is too large to be a child."
"He...went through a growth spurt."
Also, to indicate that this is a war zone is to have a ton of "Scott Brown Properties" signs in New Okayama...
Not sure if my players will get it though.
I guess you will be getting more subscribers.
The hotel sounds like one I stayed at in Houston.
Surprised there are not weather elements like storms, which can provide cover for the dive ops, but also could frustrate the search.
Good stuff Seth. I have a bunch of those older small pamphlet style Traveller adventures somewhere....I think. Wife may have thrown them out hahaha.
The original is was pretty different. It was about 3 pages and set on Cocta. Cocta isn't a world on the Traveller map, so I assume it was meant to be dropped into the Foreven sector, or just predates when Marc Miller decided to make a set universe. The rebel-controlled city in the new version is named Cocta, which I think is a nice nod to the original. I also got the impression the original was more jungle setting, giving it almost a South American Third World feel, which works as a backdrop for a place going through guerrilla fighting.
5:22 I love the Mad Max reference
"Seth Skorkowsky here...." -sit back and enjoy
Great Video! Thank You!
Sorry I'm so late seth. Thanks for posting a new review man! :)
RIP
Would you ever consider reviewing one of the Warhammer 40k RPGs like Rogue Trader or Dark Heresy?
Or Wrath and Glory
Since the d100 version of the 40k RPGs are out of print, it would be difficult or expensive to get them. There's a second-hand market demand for them.
@@NefariousKoel you can get the PDFs pretty easily on drivethrurpg (although not for what I'd consider to be cheap lol)
@@NefariousKoel I bought black cursade 50$ eBay. Rpg drive thru has PDF of all the mentioned. But Seth only reviews games he plays. I asked for more ravenloft . I personally think traveler sucks. Death to the false emperor!
I want to play this as a mercenary on vacation. A light working holiday, got to do something, but vacation just the same. Maybe scouting a location to train some recruits. The twist is no one believes it.
Wow, Jack coming out the door vicious
IIRC, 50 meters is a pretty deep dive. For pleasure dives, I think you want to keep it at about a third of that if you want to have any time on the bottom to enjoy yourself.
So, uh, did they remember to pay off the tour guide they held hostage?
To explain the change of logo, could say it’s a subsidiary, SternMetal Prospecting etc.
Thanks for your excellent and incisive videos. Long time traveller here but often get bogged down down with how to solve the problems of the recent scenarios (especially those from a certain writer who writes almost everything traveller these days - many many problems and often no clear plot and do you need unexpected primitive people in EVERY adventure??). You offer very intelligent solutions and more importantly the confidence to find solutions. Thanks.
Yeah, there is a definite style to MJD's scenarios and a lot of elements get reused (currently on the second adventure where an EMP takes down their ship). Many of them suffer the problem of epic backstories that take as much room as the actual adventure. Neat reading and all, but often the adventure feels second place to the backstory. He also goes for huge, near unwieldy casts of NPCs and their intricate relationships with each other. I don't have a problem with his style of adventure (many are great) but part of why I go for older or self-pub adventures is to get more diversity.
@@SSkorkowsky EMP being a common method of disabling a valuable ship for various reasons makes an awful lot of sense. Authorities want you to pay the docking fees, or have a ship to seize to pay them. Pirates want loot not wreckage and so on.
Thanks for you reply. I’m looking at theories of everything now and it repeats an idea from a scenario he wrote for the T20 (d20 traveller - yes that was a thing, not a good thing but a thing none the less). I just want scenarios with a clear plot and tasks - take out this ship, recover the blackmail documents, rescue the hostage, defend the town,or whatever with all the maps done properly, then info about the environment and political situation. and then the travellers can find a way to do it. Npcs only if they are necessary to the plot. Npcs are not a plot in themselves, however well realised.
All his scenarios end up like the players are watching a movie.
Man, I’m excited to try and run Traveller at some point
Another great review. Missed this one back in the day. About the ferry though, why not tell them roughly where it is? They usually have set travel courses, and that one looked like it could have just been going to and fro across that neck of the lake. Anyway, thanks, and stay safe!
I sort of expected some sort of twist, like the data is more than just mineralogical, but something dire, and the PCs have to decide if they want to pass it on. Maybe that would work as part of a larger campaign.
Nice
Blimps would still need some sort of propulsion system. If propellers won't work for planes and helicopters because the atmosphere is too thin, is there enough atmosphere to propel a blimp? There could be because it would not need nearly as much force, but I think there is still a possibility that blimps couldn't work because, without sufficient atmosphere, all they could do is basically float in place.
God damn Jack.... there’s torching a guy, and then there’s chaining him to ship’s engines.
Do you have any thoughts about Cthulhu Confidential? I would like to see a video about it from you.
OMG the travel brochures!
18:33 Well, assuming the hotel REMAINS STANDING.
If I ran this game I'd love to use those ideas
I love your videos!!!
Kind of reminds me of a cooler version of that one Call of Cthulhu one shot that also based on a lake dive
Jack wraps up his planetary adventures after making a real estate investment? Scott Brown must have an office on Hazel. It is a war zone after all, right? Who else would work real estate during the planet's economic decline / civil war?
No reference to CoC Review "Crash Dive"?! Missed opportunity like the blimps. ;)
16:00, why am I suddenly getting flash backs to the movie adaption of Sahara?
Hey Seth! Long fan of your videos : ) I really like your skits and the way you narrate the adventures. If I could bother with a recommendation, I want to get one of your audiobooks! But I dont know wich one to get D: I love medieval fantasy and cosmic horror, which one should I get that you approve the narration of!? Thank you!
Damoren (Valducan #1) and Hounacier (Valducan #2) were both Audie Award finalists for best Paranormal Audibook. R.C. Bray narrated them. So if you want to know the best audiobooks I have, that's them. They're modern-day monster hunting Urban Fantasy, so not medieval but have some definite horror edge (Hounacier I consider an action/ horror novel).
@@SSkorkowsky Thanks for answering!!
I'll be sure to get those then : )
Thinking about getting back into gaming after a very long time....any tips
now that we have flown a drone helicopter on mars (code 1, trace atmosphere) I don't believe the whole conventional aircraft don't work...also what generator did you use to make the magazines?
Bio Mimic Dirigible. The egg is the cockpit. Any bird, or flying creature. With kites as sky lifts.
While other commenters droned on about plausibility of airships and were throwing out physics numbers and real-world mumbo-jumbo that isn't much fun, you, sir, stepped up to the plate and offered a real suggestion. "Make it MORE alien and weird."
I salute you.
@@SSkorkowsky I've been obsessing on that particular idea for years. Synergy.
I don't even play this rpg but these videos are so darn fun and informative. Or should I say don't play yet?
I wanted to hear about the sad hotel.
“Sweet, sweet, juicy spoilers!”
:-) keep on making the best.
I will run this in Eclipse phasew
Please review GURPS 4E. It seems like a very rewarding system, but I struggle to fully wrap my head around it. I would greatly benefit from your suave rendition of the rules. You can get GURPS Lite for free, so you can at least get a look at it for free! Thanks for your consideration.
One thing I would probably do is perhaps make the whole rebellion thing a sham and it's actually something that the government made up in an attempt to boost their tourism. So the reason a tour guide would be trying to make sure the players didn't go north, isn't because of any risk of them helping the rebellion but instead making sure they don't see all the "Rebels " who're actually just civilians who're being paid by the government.
OR! If we want to make this a more darkly toned sort of adventure. The government pulled a Big Brother/1984 and are using slaves/manipulating innocent people into starting a "rebellion" so that they can get tourists who come to Hazel and pay the government to shoot and kill rebels.
Here is an idea, adding Mekton Zeta mechs to Traveller.
Jeez Jack, that was a low blow
"HEY SKIPPER'! Little buddie lmbo
13:31 - Love it. Made me LOL
I wonder if there is a Scott Brown planetary real estate firm.