Traveller: A Dagger at Efate - RPG Review

[@brairag5744]

Seeing an upload from Seth always makes the rest of the day feel just a bit better.

[@richmcgee434]

I feel that.

[@pedrobernardo5887]

Seth & Summoning Salt... Best feeling uploads

[@CraigS-]

Best comment ever and should be said every time! 😄

[@dsan05]

Most chilled guy in the net!

[@obiteljskitablet9995]

I agree

[@deecap71]

I'm picturing Dweebles looking up from his character sheet and saying, "You get paid?"

[@MonkeyJedi99]

No, we get commission. That's better than being paid.

[@半蔵-x5h]

Nah Dweebles gets paid in exposure.

[@writerguy911]

These videos actually got me into Traveller this year and I am absolutely loving the system!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Awesome to hear. I love introducing people to new favorite games.

[@leerv.]

The character creation alone is so much fun!

[@alexsturge1181]

@@leerv. yea it blew my mind when I was messing around with it

[@Tinmann_77]

Wish I could find a traveler grp near me

[@leerv.]

@@Tinmann_77 Same. If my internet were better and not capped at 100GB, I'd try to get a Roll20 group together.

[@MaxWriter]

Wait! Jack gets PAID!?! Nicely done. I think this could also be a good premise for an Alien RPG scenario as well. Not everything has to be monsters and when the characters get aboard that ship and there's no aliens, what a twist!

[@chuth2768]

A bunch of eggs in escape pods or packed in heat-resistant reentry modules might make an alternate “warhead”

[@ADiceySituation]

Like that one episode in Season 1 of Torchwood where the people in this small out of the way village are being kidnapped not by aliens but by...cannibal serial killers. Scariest episode I'd seen, had to stop watching after that.

[@liamarken3023]

Hello Mr Skorkowsky ! I would like to thank you to introduce me to Traveller ! I study the English langage by myself and I learn a lot about it thanks to RPG books and KZbin Video. I was so happy the first time I understand how to create a character in Traveller (thanks to your series on the subject !). I'm about to start a campaign with my friends using the box set "The Great Rift" with some modifications by myself, did anyone already run the module sucessfully and have some tips to share with me ? Have a great day ! :)

[@SSkorkowsky]

Here's how my Great Rift campaign went down (this is about to be a long post): Players were told I wanted characters who were former military, scouts, spies, or government officials in the Imperium. Opens with backstory of PCs, including a high-ranking Diplomat and a high-ranking Marine General PCs, going to one of the world just on the edge of Imperial Territory to negotiate a trade deal. On the way they are captured by an enemy of one of the other PCs. They remember all of this later, as we opened with FLATLINED, which brings them into the Reft Sector. Rescued from the planet at the end of FLATLINED by a military ship. The ship is headed toward Chandler Station (a little further into the Reft). There they are told that officials will try to find out what happened to the Diplomat's ship that was stolen when they were kidnapped, but it might take a while, and getting a ride back to populated space will take a few weeks. While there, they see the mega-huge Deepnight Company ship Endeavour getting ready to begin its expedition. One of the PC's Allies is aboard the crew. This is intended to be foreshadowing DEEPNIGHT ENDEAVOUR much later on. About this time the PC's are summoned and told about 2 bodies of a team of spies working in the Islands Subsectors that came in the mail. The rest of that team is unaccounted for. One of the unaccounted team is the wife of a PC (they had a weird relationship because they met when they were both spies, and could go years without hearing from one another due to undercover work. He'd left the spy business, but she was still in). They are asked, as a bunch of former military/espionage/government people all known to be loyal to the Imperium, to go into the system and recover the data from the spy-ship Perfect Stranger, and bring it back (preferably with the ship). That's how we began ISLANDS IN THE RIFT, which served as the backdrop for the rest. Once they got the ship (I added a lot more to the planet it was on) they started toward the data dropsite to recover the data the old spy team hid (can't recall the planet name, but it's in the module). They get tied up in all the cloak and dagger cold war of the sub-sector and know at least one of the powers knows they're spies. I told the players to give me their planned flight path and I'd prepare accordingly. It was pretty sandboxy from here, as they visited various worlds. The adventures I got to run were CHARIOTS OF FIRE, RULE OF MAN COMMERATIVE, DEATH STATION, A DAGGER AT EFATE, RESCUE ON RUIE (springing the PCs wife who was captured by another nation as she was using forged docs to get to the same data-drop site), as well as some adventures I wrote. It was a badass espionage/covert campaign as they were flying around in the janky spy ship (I'd also made a few mods to the ship, including a primo sensor's suite because a spy ship should have top-grade sensors and decryption software). Finally they brought the Perfect Stranger back to the drop-off point. Here, I had planned on a misjump which would lead to the DEEPNIGHT ENDEAVOUR adventure that I had foreshadowed months before, but by the time it came around, it just didn't work as well for the group. It just wasn't our mood. So I had that when they came into the system, there was a runaway ship heading for the star that needed rescue. It was a small ship from the Deepnight Endeavour. They learned it was part of an expedition the Deepnight Endeavour had sent out along with a specialized Subsidized Merchant ship. They'd run into trouble and the Merchant ship was still on a planet. Among the crew was the NPC Ally who had shipped out with the Endeavour. The Deepnight company, who had a major office in Chandler Station, wanted to send a rescue team ASAP. The Travellers agreed to do it. So we did CHAMAX PLAGUE. After that, they turned in the Perfect Stranger, got their rewards. Some were given honors of knight. The Diplomat was made a Baron (I think), and was made the official Imperial Ambassador to New Home in the Islands. And they all lived happily ever after (Except for the General who died early on, but his replacement character, the official mascot for Shawarma Cat, lived happily ever after). It was a hoot. The Great Rift box set was essential for it, as I used a ton of its information about the New Islands and Old Islands sectors and all the crazy history of how it was populated and evolved. ISLANDS IN THE RIFT is a great campaign. Unfortunately, it pretends to be a module and is really short. So GMs have to add in all the crazy adventures they have along the way. But it is a campaign backdrop instead of a simple adventure. I'll review it eventually, but only after I reviewed all the other adventures we did along with it, so I can "Here's where we did this one, and here's where we did that one."

[@O4C209]

Jack always has the best ideas at the end of these videos. Seth should interview Jack on different methods to hook your players.

[@timd4524]

Definitely would have to tie at least one of the player characters to one of the older characters at least though, otherwise they really wouldn't know about the ship. It would just be another ship to the new characters. If one of the older characters was someone's uncle or something like that, it would create more character interest also. Or maybe there's a bounty on one of the older characters head. That would be a twist.

[@andrewrobinson4019]

Jack’s idea at the end would be an amazing way of setting up a trilogy of campaigns where the players discover that *the ship* is the main character.

[@Scanner9631]

The former PC Pilot had an accident and his bottled brain is the brain of the ship. Conditioned to follow this path, false sensor data fed in so he doesn't know what is actually happening. Death wish. Vengeance. Self sacrifice, he does this and dies but the rest of the team lives, even if stranded on a low tech world. Lots of options.

[@Alex-tx7ih]

The fact that they A) lost their maneuver drive is a perfect balance to B) knowing there is an armed nuke on board. That is delightfully cinematic!

[@Scanner9631]

They disarm the nuke and ... ...they get notified that the ship released a limpet mine which attached to their ship and armed as a bigger nuclear weapon.

[@gergokerekes4550]

I did run this scenario a few months back! one of my players is a harbor tug-boat captain. We all learned that day how you can pull and push a ship in a way to get it exactly where you want it to be. so they got out, blew the engines with charges and tugged the ship into safe orbit. Then tried to sell it along with the nuke. "The perfect self-destruct feature! perfect for smugglers!" they said. authorities were having none of that so they stole the ship with the nuke. They still have the nuke

[@gmradio2436]

The moment I read "tug-boat captain" I just knew this was going to end well.

[@Scanner9631]

Since Seths team had a brilliant computer guy I'm surprised they didn't try to cross connect the ships so that their computer controlled the other ships drives and other systems (leaving their ship out of control unless they have a backup).

[@SirGamingScotsman]

My Traveller campaign has been taking place in Reft Sector, mostly within the Islands Subsectors, I really like this region too. Been wanting to run Dagger since I read it in the new JTAS book and will probably get an opportunity soon as various galactic events are unfolding. Always look forward to any Traveller videos you do, but all your work is awesome. Keep it up!

[@leerv.]

It's Friday after work and Mr. Skorkowsky has released an adventure review! Thank you, Seth. I look forward to these, every time! This one is about Traveller, too! I just picked up a slew of the books from Mongoose and I'm ready for SPACE QUESTS! But first. I must read the lore background in Imperium and Solomani Front! :)

[@gommechops]

That critical hit was beautiful, although it would still have been good to have planned that, there is something about luck deciding those moments that really involves the players. I think that classes as something we would call 'a moment' at our table. Great stuff.

[@joeyj6808]

Did someone say TRAVELLER??? I instantly flashed back to basement gaming in the Solemanii Reaches, my tiny Scout braving all dangers...what a great game that was!

[@Scanner9631]

You just gave me a idea. The players are all little people and have to deal with first contact by their pocket empire with another civilization of normal sized humans. Just don't let them know in advance.

[@PeterFendrich]

I'm a simple man. I see a Seth upload; I watch a Seth upload.

[@SonofSethoitae]

Thank god for Seth, I'm prepping my first Traveller session and these reviews have been absolutely invaluable

[@SSkorkowsky]

Happy to be of help. Good luck on the session. Hope you all have a blast.

[@mrmaster9801]

For someone like me who has never played with Traveller, this was a nice advertisement of the game, well done Seth 👍🏻. Also, this adventure could be useful also in other scifi rpg, like Mass Effect 5e or Infinity, since it has that nice blend of action, space and mistery that fits well with those two settings.

[@bryanstephens4800]

I can totally agree on the TAS Journals. These have lots of extra bits of information and great story ideas and I think if you're a game master you should definitely look at least at getting the pdfs. Shipping for mongoose of the hard copies may take some time considering the supply chain issues Shane issues but if you buy them from mongoose you'll get the PDF for free. It makes for a fun surprise later when all of the sudden a book you ordered you forgot about to show up in the mail and you're like oh cool my journal is here. Kind of the way getting a magazine in the mail used to be fun.

[@SSkorkowsky]

The JTAS volumes are wonderful. I used the hell out of them when we did our Rift campaign. My only complaint was that sometimes I'd be like, "Ooh this would be a great time to use that thing I read in a JTAS" but then not remember which JTAS that thing came from. So I'd have to make my best guess as to which JTAS Volume the thing appeared in, check that, then check the next and the next until I found it. As for surprise books showing up in the mail, I've just gotten used to it because of Kickstarters always being late. So many times has a package arrived at my door and I discover a copy of that Kickstarter book that was like 12 months late. I don't even get upset about it anymore. I just accept they'll be late when I pledge. I've found the best way to 100% guarantee a delivery of a package that I've been waiting on is for us to leave town for 2 or more days. Even during Covid Times, when we're not traveling all that much, that one weekend that my wife and I leave to go see family for a weekend (of God forbit a whole week), that will be the moment where every package I've been waiting on for the last year will arrive and sit on my doorstep. Packages on my doorstep when no one is home to bring them inside also come with a 97% chance of rain. I don't make the rules.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

@@SSkorkowsky Just be glad your porch is not in pirate infested "waters"

[@ricksherman34]

You can get all of the original JTAS books + Challenge Magazine from Far Future and you get a CD Rom with a file that indexes all of the material. There is a TON of material that can be mined from these to keep building modules from for years.

[@bryanstephens4800]

@@ricksherman34 the problem is, i can't run one

[@KhanTrav]

This original adventure is what led me to add the Dagger in my campaign. Sternmetal is the owner and I have a few mustache twirling evil executives connected with the company that use Dagger for nefarious purposes.

[@macoppy6571]

Chasing the shadows of the last campaign's PCs is genius. Thanks Jack👍

[@TyRex-dr6sf]

I just finished binge reading the Valducan series, and I just wanted to say man that is one of the most fun and coolest series I've ever read. The whole premise is just cool as hell. Thanks for the inspiration!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Thank you very much. That's great to hear. Glad you enjoyed it. Also, there are 3 Valducan short stories out there. They're "field reports" from adventures prior to the first novel. You can find them in the 'Not Your Average Monster' anthology, as well as SNAFU: Hunters and SNAFU: Black Ops. One is Clay and Schmidt hunting a monster in the 1980s. Another is Malcolm's first trip into the Paris Underground. The other is a WW2 adventure with knights you've never met, but some were referenced in the novel, and a few of their weapons should be familiar.

[@jefferydraper4019]

The Traveller version of Airport '75. Sounds like a great adventure and I love how Seth gives great videas to fill it out. Seth if youre listening....time for a new War Story. Please!!!!!

[@marcuswelbymd7881]

Always enjoyable. For a small page count Amber Adventure you can certainly make it sound exciting. Jack the NPC adds flavour to your vids, nice touch

[@leerv.]

Seth, you may already be aware but Mongoose has this review linked on their homepage! Man, you're starting to become a "known quantity" among RPG publishers. Tell 'em Jack needs a new pair of shoes! :p

[@Scanner9631]

Jack needs a new flask, that one must be worn out by now.

[@docartemis2878]

A video from Seth is an excellent way to start my day, what a wonderful coincidence.

[@endieposts]

I have a soft spot for this as I have an early sketch for the Broadsword class cruiser - at this point called the Xenophon - that I bought from Marc Miller himself.

[@Noob2Ever]

Thank you for this! Love your Traveller videos, please keep them up! Your twists and changes to these modules are extremely appreciated. Keep being the best tabletop content creator on yuotube!

[@l0stndamned]

Nice video. You have a knack for making Traveller stories sound really cool.

[@SorryBones]

Love these videos, they introduced me and my buds to the system. I made a whole adventure about clones being unaware of their purpose as disposable labor slaves for an agricultural planet. It was a riot - figuratively for the players, literally for the PCs. Never woulda happened without you 👌

[@SSkorkowsky]

Happy to be of service.

[@burgesskj]

Great adventure, thanks for the reminder. I have the original JTAS volume this is in, and already have adventurers looking for salvage wrecks, so this will work well.

[@bbd121]

1:50 In your canon, what do you pay Jack in? 1920s dollars? 2020/2077 Eurodollars? Imperial Cr/MCr? Gold and silver pieces? And how does he spend the money across all the various universes/plains of existence? And why can't he bring his laser/meson handgun into the Cthulhu verse to shot a Star Spawn? And why can't he bring his trusty Colt 1911 into the Conan verse. Or is there actually more than 1 Jack? I have so many questions.

[@richmcgee434]

Wise characters only accept payment in UXP - Universal Experience Points, applicable for personal improvement regardless of game system or setting. Jack is anything but wise, so he probably gets his paycheck in NFTs and alcohol.

[@ClickClackMathRocks]

Jack is obviously paid in booze.

[@danhenry9108]

I figure he's reincarnated into various times and places. The same guy, but different lives. Only in the metauniverse of these videos can he remember his other lives (so he can reference those campaigns when suitable).

[@cameronjames3499]

The true reward that the Travellers get is the opportunity to star in a local propaganda film about their own heroic exploits. What's the name of that film? I'm glad you asked: Space Nuke!

[@Scanner9631]

Space Truckers

[@martinbowman1993]

Merry Christmas. Thanks for your work remastering Death station.

[@StolenFace11]

Keep up the traveller content! I’ve been hooked on it since watching your system review series

[@marcz2903]

"Seth says that's what he pays me for, so here I am." Jack, blink twice if you're in need of rescue...

[@timbuktu8069]

I played the original version of this. The first problem was that Efate was a high tech low law planet. It had no reason for a rebellion. Then I thought...Berkley. The players, very sensibly, hooked chains onto the Dagger and pulled it away from the collision course. The bomb was found and dismantled, but the real fun happened when the mercenary corporation wanted their ship back. We found it. We salvaged it. It's ours. We own it. We have the papers. It's ours.

[@shaddonon]

Fun fact: Lord Cthulhu RE-appropriates pagan traditions WITH BOTH FISTS. Merry xmas Seth, and happy new year everyone!

[@ctdaniels7049]

For a particularly clever motion-sensing turret, you might need something roughly human-sized to trick it. Perhaps the good ol' spacer's towel will be of use? :D

[@chewbaccavader6538]

As soon as Seth post a new module on his channel. Mongoose needs to get ready to start making it there number one seller for the next couple months lol

[@ernrsto1990]

Hello Everyone! Short question to you Seth and everybody playing Traveller: Have you ever tried alternative initiative system from companion? The one where everything happens simultaneously? Any experience or comments on that?

[@SSkorkowsky]

Never tried it. Sorry.

[@peterfiser]

There is a bit of audio clipping in this one. Centurion graphics at 11:13 are pixelated. Great video, as always.

[@christophertranter3475]

A Seth video and a Grand Tour special all in one day. Christmas has come early.

[@Melw44]

Always love to see your Travller content! Thanks!

[@blackwoodknight4913]

the only other person I've heard say HOOT is my mom, cool to see someone else use it

[@trunglerfevr]

My lunch break just improved 100% from seeing this pop up.

[@nabra97]

I'm gonna run it in ICRPG in a few days. There's probably not much left of an original adventure (considering that I converted it into a completely different system and different setting), but still. UPD: I have done it. The main star of the story ended up being enemy alien mold though (not a part of the original module and it wasn't even mold by my original concept, but it is now).

[@robbabcock_]

Great review! I don't even play Traveller but it still sounds cool.🚀😎👍

[@FUMOFFU666]

played that one before, our pilote player smiled at us and said " remember how huricane pilote changed V1 missile course ?" worked but as most huricane that tried it, finished stranded and had to abandon our ship. as for the bombe and the ship, don't know sensor didn't worked anymore.

[@knotsbygordion]

You and Slim Pickens. Jack, you're in good company.

[@OneEyedJack1970]

I never actually played Traveller, but I liked making characters. The only system I've ever seen where your character can die while you're rolling him up. "Ah shit... I didn't make it through my tour of duty." I did play a lot of Star Wars (D6), which I feel was strongly influenced by Traveller. In fact, on certain low-level adventures, I doubt most people would be able to tell the difference. The main problem with Star Wars was the 'lots of dice' syndrome that came with higher-level play. "Okay, I've got 8D in Sense and 7D in lightsaber, and I'm spending a Force point..."

[@dutch6857]

The travellers know one of the crew members of 'The Dagger' 3:27. "Hang on Nine-Fingered-Pete! I`m coming for you!``

[@MrTryAnotherOne]

I like the Droyne in the background. 😛

[@erikhanseisenheber]

Awww sweet a new Traveller video

[@NoFlu]

You know exactly how most PCs will handle this: Starport Comms Officer: Okay guys, I see you disabled the ship's drive and brough it to a halt. Is there anything of interest on the ship? PC1: No, just a whole bunch of garbage, they probably intended for it to crash into the Spaceport. Anyway, we got a shipment to make on time, so we gonna leave it here. K, bye. *deactivates comm's console* PC1 looks to PC2: You got the nuke disabled? Okay, load it up and lets get out of here before anyone else notices....

[@MonkeyJedi99]

This is so weird. I was just, an hour before seeing this video come up in my feed, thinking about the original Star Trek episode, 'For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", wherein a generation ship of sorts inside a large asteroid is hurtling toward an inhabited planet.

[@janwitts2688]

Have a great Christmass Jack and Seth..

[@robertgillis2345]

I just took my 3d printed Mercenary Cruisers off the printer and Seth video with the JTAS I first saw it in around 1980.

[@bundjohn]

……Jack gets paid?

[@SSkorkowsky]

His pay is mostly in the form of M&Ms and fake moustaches.

[@bryanstephens4800]

@@SSkorkowsky Wait, no booze? I thought he would work for drinks.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Nah. I hold booze rations very tightly and only give those out for special occasions or when I need him to do something extra weird, like dressing as Jane in the Two-Headed Serpent, Grista in BT-SHT 365, or that time Todd shot his eye out with a D20 in my Haxtec review. If I gave him regular booze, he wouldn't have agreed to do that stuff.

[@bryanstephens4800]

@@SSkorkowsky that is the true mastermind GM

[@davidbrennan660]

Most of the currency he has of little of use where ever Seth sends him I guess..... I know GMs.

[@frankmueller2781]

Seth always gets a thumbs up!

[@pattyviggers3581]

I love you Jack !!!

[@mrbroeders]

Ah...Seth. Sit back and enjoy!

[@sinkmonster1299]

Do you think you'll do a review of KULT? I've watched your previous reviews of it multiple times and loved them. Just got the core rules for Christmas and I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the system/scenarios for it!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Eventually, yes. We're doing a side-campaign of it. About half-way through Atrocity Exhibition. It's a super-long one, and we're taking our time. The PbtA system has taken some getting used to, but we're digging the game quite a lot. Gallery of Souls is probably the best introductory scenario, so you might want to start off with that one to help walk you through the process.

[@sinkmonster1299]

@@SSkorkowsky Thank you for the recommendation! I think I'm starting out with either Oakwood heights or the Gallery of Souls. Going to be playing cyberpunk red as our main system, with occasional one shots in systems like Call of Cthulhu, Kult, and others. Thanks for the assistance!

[@timd4524]

Love the Grinchthulhu.

[@Leverquin]

i am living for day when this man gonna review GURPS 3rd and 4th edition.

[@SSkorkowsky]

In that case, you might end up living forever.

[@Leverquin]

@@SSkorkowsky is this secret for ethanal life?

[@manfredconnor3194]

I remember this adventure.

[@AlVainactual]

The mercenary cruiser straight up looks like a DropShip from Battletech

[@richmcgee434]

Cart before horse there. BTech's Union and Overlord designs (and the many similar ones even later on) came along years after the Broadsword did.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Not incredibly surprising. FASA started out doing Traveller materiel before spinning off to do their own games. GDW and FASA shared a lot of talent, including the Keith Brothers. While I seriously doubt anyone at FASA intentionally copied the general design, there probably was a lot of unintentional carryover of what the writers were already familiar with.

[@AlVainactual]

@@SSkorkowsky I didn't know that, thanks Seth!

[@AlVainactual]

@@richmcgee434 Interesting, I had no idea

[@richmcgee434]

@@SSkorkowsky To be fair, the "roughly spheroid planetary landing ship" concept dates back to the Thirties, if not earlier. There's only so many ways to draw one of those things. Although it's a shame the Traveller and BTech ones aren't as gloriously over the top as the sphere designs in Smith's Lensmen books. They were so large and so heavily armored that their solution to making frontier landings was simply to pick an open space and land, with their own weight driving them deep enough into the ground to keep them upright. Real (lens)men don't need actual landing gear. :)

[@andrewdiaz3529]

Had a feeling you'd mention The Expanse during this.

[@TheParagade]

Patiently waiting on the Seth Skorkowsky rewrite now :P

[@davidbrennan660]

Smashing a ship with its M Drive powering it into a planet is like setting off a Nuclear device on impact..... the Nuclear is more an anti tampering device to avoid boarding parties taking control and allowing the ship to be investigated. Sweet ( twisted/ evil/ brilliant) end thought from Jack, you can see he would make a formidable Referee.

[@richmcgee434]

The smaller bomb in the original version would've damaged the ship (and killed the boarders, most likely) while leaving the hulk intact enough to still be a problem. Upgrading to a nuke means there might not be enough large fragments left to survive atmospheric entry, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. The Imperium generally takes a real dim view of using nukes anywhere, and would get involved in the investigation for sure. But yeah, spacecraft drives as powerful and versatile as Traveller's are all potential city-busters, or even planet-wreckers if they have enough time and space to run up to near-lightspeed. Even more realistically low-powered drives are seriously dangerous - Larry Niven said it best long ago: "a reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."

[@SSkorkowsky]

The nuke is clearly for anti-tampering. It's set for any ship larger than 1,000-tons approaching. At that size, tt would most-likely be a military vessel. However, 1DD, when upscaled to ship damage, is 1D6 damage. That's less than most turret lasers. Being inside the Dagger, it'd probably blow the Dagger up, but not likely to do much, if anything, to the approaching ship. Radiation would be the big threat, but military ships of 1,000+ tons are more likely to have beefy shielding. If the concept was, "If they try and stop us, we'll totally disable the Dagger so that its own momentum carries it down like a high-speed rock," then plastic explosives hidden inside the power plant and drives could do that. Why bother with a nuke? The reason to bother with it is to disable or destroy the approaching ship that set off the bomb. So I upped the nuke to the smallest nuke in the Central Supply book. Now it at least threatens the approaching ship, possibly taking it out or disabling it and turning it into the kinetic weapon hurdling toward the target.

[@Scanner9631]

@@SSkorkowsky Why bother with a nuke? Deterrent. Time wasting distraction. Disabling it does nothing to save the planet. Nuke could even be a fake (real radioactives just not configured as a working nuke) made to detect as real but non functional.

[@mathsalot8099]

Wow, 3 hours?! This game was a lot shorter than your normal ones. Since it's really just one setpiece, I'd guess my group would finish in about 90 minutes. Perhaps instead of disabling the PC's maneuvering, tag this mission into a longer running battle? Like a puzzle encounter before the final climax?

[@SSkorkowsky]

The session itself was much longer. There was a lot of flying around and doing stuff. They battled some tiny assassin bots their jerk former employer had put on their ship after the Death Station adventure. They built a shell corporation out of an office on one planet to handle the purchase and import of specific goods they didn't want anyone to know they were buying because they planned to corner the Combat Drug market. The part where they had to hop aboard a runaway ship was only one part of their day. Basically it was just one of those sessions where I just let them go and do what they wanted, but had a couple mini-adventures/encounters planned for if they visited certain systems or if I felt we needed to inject a bit of action.

[@Wolfphototech]

❤ *Yeah !*

[@Wolfphototech]

😁

[@assassinred426]

Hi Seth your series of Travelers how to for Traveler you mentioned in the future you may do a how to build a ship I was wondering if you were still planning on doing it. I've been racking my brains and trying to figure it out but having a visual explanation would be very helpful, and your previous videos for very helpful for me to start my own session with my group.

[@SSkorkowsky]

I still plan to, especially now that the 2022 Update includes Ship Building Rules. I'll probably do it in January. If not, it'll be February.

[@assassinred426]

@@SSkorkowsky cool look forward to seeing it

[@sirguy6678]

Fun video!

[@lizardwithhat4125]

Yeah I played this but in a homebrew setting... and it was a bit more complicated as the dagger was crewed by one desperate person hellbend on hunting down his former boss who was due to a visit.... but yeah it was great and the players liked it :3 I i think that jacks idea of having the Dagger replaced by a fromer player-ship could be seen as a happy-ending overwrite... but it is a intressting thought :D

[@oz_jones]

Oh god, that's haunting. Love it.

[@GreenDM]

Reading Ibenus right now, it's good!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Thank you. Glad you're enjoying it.

[@Radiotomb]

New Traveller from Seth? Awesome!

[@Vahktang]

Disable the Dagger sensor suite. Blow the air locks. Escaping atmosphere will take the ship off course. Nuke is set up for anti boarding as a High Tech planet will have all kind of defenses against in coming ships. Include some defenses on the Dagger to prevent insta kill. And the heroes sent find out that this is one of a flotilla. How to prevent?

[@SSkorkowsky]

Disabling the sensors without setting off the bomb wouldn't be much, if any, easier than fooling them in the way the adventure suggests. But... let's say we make it easier to do. Maybe 10 Difficulty vs 12. The PCs, don't have the confidence in their Sensor Skills to try the harder roll, so they opt to disable. Next they need to disable the M-Drive. Since the controls are removed, I'd require at least a Difficulty 4 or 6 Engineer. Easy roll, but some minimal risk of failure. Now I'd require some roll (Pilot or Physics or something with EDU or INT as the related stat. Piloting usually goes with DEX, but such a non-standard method of steering would be with brains instead of DEX) to vent the atmosphere in a way to guarantee it veers the Dagger off collision course with the planet (say Difficulty 8). Finally, a easy (6) Life Support roll to disable the iris valves from automatically slamming shut once they sense pressure-loss, otherwise their scheme would putter out as the mechanical safety measures kicked in and they only vent a fraction of the atmosphere needed to veer the Dagger I'd also do this as a Task Chain since its a single multi-part task to veer the ship. That would solve the problem, but require more overall rolls as the trade-off. Now the investigation of who did this can begin. Hopefully the depressurisation didn't destroy too much evidence.

[@MrTryAnotherOne]

If love those Traveller adventures. Maybe you should venture into some of the old modules, like 'Secret of the Ancients'.

[@AyebeeMk2]

Don't forget; if the pc's ship is a sub-merchant it does have military obligations...

[@samchafin4623]

Does Traveler as a setting talk about relativistic kill weapons, and why they wouldn't be used in war all the time, or used as a way to prevent war due to MAD?

[@massimocole9689]

9:00 Does it specify if the 1DD bomb is using the human damage scale or the ship damage scale? Cause it seems kinda odd that a 5 megaton bomb is 6 times weaker than a pocket nuke. 5 megatons is 330 times stronger than the bomb that leveled Hiroshima.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Never specifies in either. 1DD in Ship Scale is at least a true threat to nearby ships

[@massimocole9689]

​@@SSkorkowsky That's a shame. Seems like Mongoose could of had slightly different way of writing the different damage types to prevent situations like this. Like ship scale damage always being written in bold, regular damage not bold, something along those lines. Oh well.

[@pedrodelarastockler3919]

Hey Seth, sorry for the tall order, but when will you make a game diary series from the "Pirates of Drinax"?

[@SSkorkowsky]

Never played it. Skimmed it, but didn't feel like a good fit for us.

[@bannisher]

*just* in time for my lunch break.

[@PatrickLohKamp]

It says in the rules "A 5 megaton Nuclear device" figuring a Pocket Nuke is like 50kt / this weapon should be 100x larger yield / and ( knowing you need 8x the energy to get 2x the applied damage ) That's still like 12x more damage that should have been coming out. 12DD ( or ship damage/whatever would be HELLARAD' for the party to discover. Though knowing my party. they'd have cut the drives connection to ship's computer, and probably just run some kind of link-cable from their ship to the cruiser's ship to throw it off course. Or; blow the ship's computer link to the engines, and then, randomly de-power or drain the fuel going into the reaction drives to cause it to spin away from it's target? something nuts like that.

[@steveanderson6170]

Today I learned how to correctly pronounce Efate.

[@jamesnabors3643]

Yeah, I always thought it was a play on F8.

[@brettsimpson1505]

@@jamesnabors3643: same here. We always pronounced it F8 or E-fate. Whichever way, Seth’s Traveller videos are always well thought out and very nostalgic for me.

[@SSkorkowsky]

As I mentioned on another post, the pronunciation I used for it was that of the Pacific island Efate. Most of the Traveller systems are named after real words, so before a vid I look up how to pronounce it right (I already have enough trouble pronouncing stuff when recording). But when we played it, we called it "Ehfate" or something like that. The way I see it, proper pronunciation is totally subjective. Look at "aluminum" or "lieutenant" in UK versus American pronunciations. Both are correct for their region. And that's just with one language on one planet. In the Traveller Universe, with thousands of languages across a million worlds, each with their own accents and regional rules, there's uncountable ways Efate is pronounced, and all of them are correct. So however you pronounce it in your game is the correct way.

[@The_Custos]

What about a bit of battle then sent off after a victory?

[@benoitlabrecque4513]

The 6DD pocket nuke is a 1DD space scale nuke ;p

[@SSkorkowsky]

6DD becomes 6D in Space Scale, which is the same as a Space Scale nuclear warhead torpedo or missile. 1DD Space Scale is bigger than 6D Space Scale. The adventure never specifies if the 1DD nuke is regular or space scale. DD Space scale weapons are usually high technology or enormous. That's getting into anti-matter, plasma, or huge Bay weapons.

[@benoitlabrecque4513]

@@SSkorkowsky oups, your right, I miss-converted (been a while since I played :/ ) Great video btw :)

[@SSkorkowsky]

No problemo. I'm triple-specialized in messing up conversions. So what I'm hearing is that you need to play some Traveller again.

[@bigpicklerick]

I am going to add combat robots when I run this.

[@doompocalypse842]

JTAS tier list when?

[@hellyelcio]

an you make lore videos speaking of imperial nobles?

[@skylarking12]

You don't need to stop the ship, just throw it off the doom course. Won't take much. Then take your time disarming the nuke.

[@azcoder]

I have pronounced Efate as "uh-fate" for 40 years now. And you pronounce it "a-fah-tay". Is that personal choice or is there a linguistic root for that? It trips me out when something is pronounced different after a long time. Another example was the gauss rifle, I used to pronounce it "goss" until I studied Physics at a university and found out it was "gowz".

[@SSkorkowsky]

It's how you pronounce "Efate" the Pacific Island (or at least that's how they pronounced it in the video I watched on Efate the Pacific Island, because I knew if I pronounced it wrong in the review I'd be getting "Actually..." correction comments on it until the end of time). One thing I've learned since I began posting RPG reviews is that a significant number of gamers are WAY more into precise pronunciations of made-up fantasy words than I would have ever imagined. They live to correct people on pronunciations, flavored with a side of scornful disdain. Among them are a few of long-time Traveller players who get pretty outraged if you say Zhodani, Regina, or a slew of other terms incorrectly. Many of the Traveller system names look like nonsensical assortments of letters to me (mild dyslexia doesn't help). Fantasy and Sci-Fi fiction is abundant with unpronounceable gibberish words that the author thought looked alien or fantastical or simply liked the way the word physically looked (Not kidding. I've known a lot of authors who aren't even sure how you pronounce many of the made-up words in their books. First time I had to assemble a pronunciation bible for an audiobook narrator was the first time I'd said many of those words aloud). So when playing Traveller, and I see a planet name or something, I just pronounce it how it looks to me, and we try to stick to that and never think about it again. However, when I was doing the review for The Calixcuel Incident and wondering how to pronounce Chalchiutlicue, I discovered that most of the system names of Traveller aren't made-up words. They're totally real names of stuff from a variety of languages. So I try to remember looking them up before a video, as to not butcher the pronunciations as badly and draw the ire of the internet. Total confession: We always pronounced it "uh-fate" too when we played it. And in your Traveller world, that is how people pronounce it. Remember that "correct" pronunciation is very regional. Just look at the correct way to pronounce "Aluminum" or "Lieutenant" in British versus American English. That's just one planet. Now imagine that across 2 planets, or even 5. In the Traveller Universe, with thousands of languages, each with possibly a thousand accents and regional differences across a million worlds, there's uncountable ways to pronounce Efate. All of them are correct. Wait... its pronounced "gowz"? Well, shit. I've been on Team Goss for decades.

[@azcoder]

@@SSkorkowsky Thanks for the detailed reply. You are right of course, regarding regional dialects and variations. Something like that could add flavor to a Traveller adventure if the players pronounce it one way, but some locals pronounce their homeworld another way. As far as Gauss, it's a German name and our profressor was a nuclear physicist so I just took his word for it. You know how German names are often pronounced differently in English so I don't think either way is wrong. Years ago I worked for a particular software company in Arizona and one day I got a call from Canada, and the lady says "this is the hotel Regina" and I had to process her pronunciation in my head because as you mentioned Regina above, totally different than I had ever heard or expected.

[@easterbunny3850]

I miss D&D reviews

[@SSkorkowsky]

No need to miss them. All of my D&D review videos are still available to watch (though I have been considering re-doing Secret of Bone Hill, as the original video was made very early on in the channel before I had decent equipment or had developed my review style or Jack).

[@easterbunny3850]

@@SSkorkowsky it would be great

[@ultralight9625]

Hey Seth have you ever considered doing a rpg philosophy video on railroading?

[@SSkorkowsky]

I brought it up in one of my GM Sins videos. Don't know what all I would add to a dedicated Railroading video. There's a little, but not enough yet to justify a full video on the topic.

[@richmcgee434]

@@SSkorkowsky Oh, that kind of railroading. Had a moment where I was wondering what a Thomas the Tank Engine RPG would be like. :) Hmmm. You know, you could probably build a Traveller adventure inspired by Harry Harrison's Planet Story novella, which is (sort of) about a crazed railroad enthusiast pissing off the local population by building a track without bothering to check to see if anyone was living in its path.

[@richmcgee434]

So, when will your full update and rewrite be published by Mongoose, Seth? :)

[@kennethholbert4748]

Wait Jack get's paid?

[@krispalermo8133]

Morning ..

[@stories_by_orin]

My 5e players just found a ship. They assume it is a spelljammer but it is in fact a traveler ship ;-)

[@sterlingmbarker]

Cthulhu sees you when you're sleeping 🎄

[@kennieminski7080]

Mercenary cruiser? You mean Union dropship.

[@proven22x52]

What gets me ia that most rpgs require you to buy 2 200page books to play but have no scenerios when the sceneriis are the real fun, seems like a misplay

[@SSkorkowsky]

Most of the games I play are 1 essential corebook (other books are optional), and the great ones are 1 corebook with at least one starter adventure in them. I'm always disappointed if there's not an adventure in the back. Agreed, it's a total misplay.