I had a great time running Mustering Out Blues last weekend, a two-hour session with four players, three “regulars” and one guest: Adept Play poster “Johann” took me up on my offer to get a little Traveller experience via the Pool, and created a character who would fit right in: ex-Fleet pilot Rory Cunningham, with a brokedown spaceship that he was trying to get flying. We assumed that he was friends or at least former comrades with Bo Andre, the other ex-Fleet PC, one of whose traits was “casualty of the peace dividend.”

As we assembled, I introduced Johann to the other players and asked them if they thought he’d get the genuine Traveller experience. One of them said, “Well, yes, the theme and trappings are like Traveller”; the other was like, no, this is something else. But he’s a purist.

We picked up where we’d left off (see Laser Duel on Dreni), with triumphant Spacer drifter-cum-Drenian duelist Wesley Kane on the field getting his back slapped by well-wishing onlookers tipsy on Vila Rostik cider. They shook their heads at the poor sportsmanship of his opponent, armiger Sohrab Hashemi. Rory and Bo watched the whole thing along with Tros Tenih, whose purchase of the Vila Rostik title and estate on planet Dreni was in escrow pending his satisfaction with the premises. Having learned that there were two competing factions vying for it as well, he was non-plussed. Everyone headed back to the ranch to drink more cider.

Tros had brought along the mercenary outfit Tanaka’s Tigers, in whom he had a small stake. I had the idea that, since die rolls could produce cash as an outcome, Tros’s investment in them meant that he could roll their dice to see how good a job they did. On a success that I narrated, they would foil Hashemi’s attempt to cause trouble at Vila Rostik; on a failure, some trouble would indeed occur.

Trouble it was. The next morning, Sima Karimi, the estate’s major-domo, came bursting into the room where Tros was trying to figure out what to do next, and told him that the spurn had gotten loose! “Fix it!” he commanded.

Rory and Bo sprung into action! In the Roll20 chat, Bo’s player summarized what I’d described.

Beuj “Bo” Andre: Aftermath of laser duel–morning–Tanaka’s Tigers…on patrol–alarms! Stampede-adjacent activity.

The spurn are stampeding!

Rory Cunningham: (Those are your farm animals?)

I had invented those in the interval since last we played, since I figured we’d spend some time out on the range.

Library Data Readout: Spurn — A type of Drenian domesticated animal with many uses. The product of ancient Drenian biotechnology, it has a photosynthesis-enhanced metabolism.

I didn’t do a great job of setting up the scene, but the players rolled with it, literally. Bo’s plan for him and Rory to split up to shepherd the spurn back into their corral morphed into the two of them in an air/raft trying to round them up together while somewhere out there (in the…midnight darkness? morning gloom? I’d lost the thread on when exactly this was happening) laser beams lanced out toward the herd. In the passenger seat, Rory got their attention…

Rory Cunningham: Herd animals

Earned Dice	0
Risky Dice	0
Bonus Dice	2
Result	1+0

The dice table is Roll20 output of a macro I created to roll for Mustering Out Blues. Earned dice are for skills (things like “Vehicle” and “Pilot” that you got from your career lifepath) and traits (per the Pool, features of your character that you’ve paid for in dice). Risky dice are for “negative traits” (not a Pool thing, they’re traits that give you dice to take them but which may produce success-negating failures as well as successes when you roll them). Bonus dice come from your Pool normally or from putting down cash on the barrelhead: 1,000 credits gets you 1 bonus die; 10,000 gets you 2 dice; 100,000, 3, and so forth.

If the result of the dice is positive, per the Pool you can either narrate (“take a Monologue of Victory”) or let the GM narrate and add a die to your Pool. To make it more Traveller-y, I’ve added the additional option of taking a payout instead of a die, on the same terms as you get for buying dice with cash: one success gives KCr1 (“one kilocredit”), two gives you KCr10, three KCr100, and four MCr1–one megacredit! A million credits! Now that’s Traveller! Of course, the GM gets to narrate where that money comes from.

Beuj “Bo” Andre: Rory, distract the spurn! I’ll go the other way!

No, wait, let’s take this air raft!

Beuj “Bo” Andre: Lasso the leader

Earned Dice	0
Risky Dice	1
Bonus Dice	2
Result	0+0

…but suddenly a laser lance sliced through the engine block of their air/raft and they could see shadowy figures moving towards them.

A laser light slices the air raft!

Silhouetted figures advance!

Of course! The spurn were agitated intentionally! How could I be so stupid?

I liked that line in the chat; I thought it meant I’d done something right by setting up the raid on the estate indirectly and developing it descriptively.

Things were looking grim for Bo and Rory, but luckily Wesley Kane had not been idle! At the first sign of trouble, he jumped into his own air/raft and soared high above the scene, where he could see what was going on upon the rolling hills of Vila Rostik. He called his new friends to sound the alarm, and they rallied to his side!

Wesley Kane: Calling the cavalry

Earned Dice	2
Risky Dice	3
Bonus Dice	2
Result	2+0

Wesley’s friends captured one of the interlopers and drove off the rest. We learned they were ronin-like armigers whose families had been displaced during the Imperial Annexation, hired by the Hashemis.

I probably jumped to the aftermath too quickly, upon reflection. I had already moved on from the stampede after Wesley’s roll, but Bo’s player was like, “Hey, what happens to us?” It might have been more satisfying in general to have cut back and picked up from those shadowy figures approaching the wrecked air/raft and made them part of the succouring forces summoned by Wesley. “You’re safe! We are friends!”

With things a little calmer, it was time to figure out what was going on. We went over what we knew:

Wesley Kane: the planet is a political mess. There are four factions: Arriviste=pro-imperial, Conciliation=lean Imperial; Reconciliation=anti imperial to a degree; Cultivation=militant, more Dreni than Dreni. Therefore, there’s always a counter for everything.

the villa is claimed by Esmaeel Karimi a rich Dreni that is widely disliked but very influential

Esmaeel Karimi was Sima the major-domo’s uncle. She used to work for him, but when she learned that he wanted to strip the place–which had been grown from a biotechnological seed in the early days of the planet’s colonization, and was thus an important part of the planet’s cultural heritage–and sell it for parts, she went over to the Karemis. But the Karemi claim was tangled up because one of them had used it to settle a gambling debt with the merchant from whom Tros had bought the deed, and the rest of the Karemis regarded the sale as illegal. But because the planet was balkanized, there was no legal way to settle it, not really.

Tros started to wonder about a military solution. After all, he’d brought along a troop of mercenaries.

Beuj “Bo” Andre: Paramilitary vs Tanaka’s Tigers!

Wesley Kane: local mercenary (or Armiger) vs Tanaka’s Tigers.

The Tigers lost a lot of equipment when they had to abandon their ship.

Sima Karimi: “Tros Tenih, you say you wonder if Tanaka’s Tigers are tough enough to stand up to the Hashimis and Karimis? I enthusiastically endorse your position!“

Whenever players want information that hasn’t already been established in the Library Data or something, I have some NPC react to their supposition with a random result. From this point on, I leaned in on Sima’s desire to save Vila Rostik as a Drenian cultural landmark.

Despite Sima’s endorsement, Tros thought better of going the military route. After all, he was in this to make money and he didn’t see a percentage in it. Should he just cut and run, per the terms of the contract of sale? The money was safe back on Traddi, the cluster capital, and he was well within the time frame for calling it off.

He called in his friends to talk it over.

Beuj “Bo” Andre: Woo! Cider!

Sell it to each of them, one at a time. Let them figure out who owns it.

They came up with a plan: Wesley would use his contacts to help Rory get the part he needed to fix his ship, Rory would head to the starport to get things started there, and Bo and Tros would start negotiating to sell the place to the highest bidders.

But Wesley was not happy with the direction things had taken. The player sent me a (secret) note in the chat:

(From Wesley Kane): Wesley sees Tros as a typical Imperialist maneuvering. He’s going to inform his friends on planet not to buy from them and let Sima know what is going on. I recommend that maybe she can get some money together to make the purchase herself.

The player had forgotten that this was a no-secrets game. With his permission, I posted his note to the rest of the players and told him, that’s your action. When he failed, I had Bo overhear the conversation with Sima. He was hurt at Wesley’s betrayal. He burst in and confronted them, and then proposed they go to Tros and get everything out in the open.

Sima Karimi: “Beuj ‘Bo’ Andre, you say you want me to go along with your scheme? I think we’re on the same page.“

Tros reassured Sima that she had misunderstood; he had meant that he would try to negotiate for a consortium of buyers to take possession under terms that would preserve Vila Rostik in perpetuity. Mollified, she agreed.

Meanwhile, Rory’s attempt to fix the ship on his own–where was Wesley with those parts?–didn’t work out, meaning the Port Authority taped the whole thing off as a radiation hazard.

Tros prepared to open the negotiations, and there was some talk at the table about the possible consequences. This was about the money, of course, but we were somewhat curious about the aftermath. Would the consortium actually hold together? On a success, Tros could narrate, but why would he? That mean’t he couldn’t take a cash payout.

We decided to make a table, which is what we do in this game when some degree of yes/no won’t quite do. After Tros took his money, what would happen on the planet? The players suggest things and I throw in my own ideas, trying to organize them so that “1” is the worst possibility and “6” is the best, with everything else falling at least approximately into line:

Referee (GM): 1 War breaks out between Hashemis and Karimis; 2 It goes into receivership and gets tied up in the court for years; 3 Tros Tenih is persona non grata on Dreni because it’s an illegal sale; 4 Karimi gets it and strips it for parts and Sima gets booted; 5 Constant bickering between coalition partners; 6 Sima puts together a coalition and is in charge of Vila Rostik.

But first Tros had to roll! He got 3 successes and was disappointed in his KCr100 profit. “Any merchant in the cluster would kill for a 20% profit,” Bo tells him. Tros gives Bo KCr10; Sima gets 5.

Sima Karimi: “Tros Tenih, you say you want me to be grateful for Cr5000? I completely disagree!“

And then what happens?

Referee (GM): What happens is consequence number 1…

So war it is! And it starts right now! Armigers start attacking! We need to get out of here, the players decide. “Head for the starport,” says Brom Tanaka, leader of the mercenaries. “We’ll cover your retreat!”

Wesley says, well, I’ve been driving this air/raft since we got here so I’ll get in and get out of here. Everyone else piles in, and Wesley rolls.

Wesley Kane: Escape to the Starport

Earned Dice	1
Risky Dice	4
Bonus Dice	2
Result	1+4

We go nuts, because five successes means he can take a 10 million credit payout! What the hell? How? Tros is baffled–how can someone get 10 million credits driving to the starport and all I get is 100,000? No, no, I say, it’s not like that. Something else has to happen. I think…Wesley, I think you become King of Dreni.

Beuj “Bo” Andre: Padishah Wesley!

Shah of Shahs

Shasharif!

Referee (GM): جنگ اشرافی

jang esharafi

Yes, it became a war of kings, I tell the players. Wesley, you got into the air/raft and was about to drive away, but something stopped you. Wesley said, “You should take a look at a trait I added to my character sheet.” I looked, and it said, Sometimes you have to take a stand.

Yes, by crumb! That’s what you learned from the laser duel. You said, the hell with this, got out, grabbed your laser sword, and fought back. By the end, when your forces took over Shehar Bonyad, the capital city, they made you shasharif, and your personal loot amounted to 10 million credits. “I think I’m going to retire this character,” Wesley said.

Two of the other players wanted to know what they did during the war. Bo was hoping to just get offworld. He failed his roll, so we made a table.

Referee (GM): 1 Casualty of the war 2 Prisoner of Shasharif Wesley I; 3 Maimed by laser sword; 3 MIA 4 Free to leave; fired as stringer; 5 Free to leave; don’t come back 6 Free to leave

What happens is consequence 4

Beuj “Bo” Andre: Oh man! You mean you wanted real facts? making things up is not allowed?

Meanwhile, Rory successfully ran guns to Wesley’s faction, impressing Colette, the naval officer with whom he’d had a messy break-up back in the day.

Tros delicately put it to us that maybe this was a good time to take a break from this game and play something else. He is not, like the rest of us, a Traveller aficionado, so it is only fair that we honor his request. One of the other players has a game he’s been working on, so we’ll give that a shot over the next few weeks or months.

Johann let me know that he had a good time, and identified some of the things he thought were cool:

I really enjoyed our game, specifically…

• zooming in and out for different types of conflicts, from herding a bunch of animals to setting up a complicated deal involving many parties,
• extreme rolls having extreme consequences (kingship),
• people not afraid of – and in fact asking for – harsh consequences (e.g. “war casualty” which really had to be on that table),
• spontaneously making up those tables, with input from everyone (except me, I’m afraid, as I was still getting my bearings),
• seeing a range of conflicts for Traveller (negotiating, repairing a ship etc.),
• The Pool with its choice of narrating or gaining dice

So I am very happy with Mustering Out Blues. I will run it at the drop of a hat; if you’re interested, let me know. I think I will try to run a game of it during the next NSR Camp Weekend in mid-July; if you’re interested let me know!