“The character is given constructive possession of a scout ship, without actual title to it. He may use it as he sees fit, but may not sell or mortgage the vessel. He is not responsible for payments, except for crew and some upkeep. Fuel is free at scout bases, and maintenance is available free at scout bases at class B starports.” – Traveller, Book 1, 1977 edition
Jumpspace, 126-3401
A few dice rolls reveal this is an essentially uninteresting week. That happens sometimes. I think this is the quietest week so far for Arion.
- Starport Encounter on Kov (p. 39): 31 – a damaged ship limps into port. The aslan haven’t started to move yet, otherwise it could be carrying news of their expansion. Probably pirates, then.
- Starship Encounter leaving Kov (pp. 40-46): 4 – no encounter.
- Onboard Events table in jump (p. 56): 31 – cargo shifts in flight.
- PC Reaction Tables in jump (pp. 19-20): 2d6 vs 8+ = 10; no problems.
- Starship Encounter arriving at Gazzain (pp. 40-46): No encounter. No piracy warning either.
- Starport Encounter on Gazzain (p. 39): 66 – no encounter.
“I thought there might be pirates,” Timon says as the Dolphin steps out of jumpspace near Gazzain. “Given that damaged freighter limping into Kov as we left.” One of his hands is bandaged where a crate shifted against him when the Dolphin dodged that freighter a bit too enthusiastically.
“No, thankfully,” Arion says as he completes a full spherical scan of nearby space. “Just as well, to be honest, we don’t have too much in the way of weapons.”
“We should fix that,” the Dolphin observes.
“Agreed, as soon as we have the money. Anyway, lawless or not, Gazzain’s part of the Confederation, and they have a base there so we should be safe from pirates. The Archive has a reciprocal refuelling and maintenance agreement with Confed, so I’ll land there.”
“And yet they say the starport’s full of pirates,” Dmitri muses. “You have to wonder what’s going on down there.”
“It’s full of ithklur,” Arion points out. “Confed probably thinks it’s doing well if they can keep the heavy weapons under control…”
GM Notes
In Mongoose Traveller, possession of a detached duty scout ship doesn’t seem to confer rights to free fuel and maintenance at scout bases as it did in Classic Traveller; but I like the Classic approach better, so that’s what I’m using.
In CT there was no limitation on whether the scout bases concerned had to be part of the same interstellar empire or not – there were no interstellar empires to speak of in the 1977 edition – which to me implied that all worlds operating scout ships were signatories to some kind of reciprocal treaty; we’ll fix your ships if you fix ours. And while it’s not explicitly stated in the CT rulebooks, Traveller canon is clear that some of those detached duty scouts are actually covert agents.
Consequently, a scout base in my Traveller universe(s) potentially contains scouts from many different worlds, any or all of whom may be spies posing as detached duty scouts. Hilarity normally ensues.
Halfway Station 3.0 
Comments on: "Arion, Episode 18: Constructive Possession" (5)
How would you compare the rhythm of play to your experience with THW Fringe Space? I get the impression that Fringe Space generated more story than Solo.
Well, I haven’t played that much of either one, to be honest – there are about 10 posts of Fringe Space and maybe 20 of Solo. In terms of the rhythm of play, Fringe Space generates more fight scenes, in more detail, while Solo deliberately avoids that by operating at a higher level of abstraction; so while the narrative between fights is much the same, I wrote more about the fights themselves in Fringe Space.
I also feel I’m spending more dead time in hyperspace using Solo; but I think that is because of self-imposed constraints around the story arc and the setting – part of the difference in tone is because in Fringe Space I let the dice take Arion wherever they wanted him to go, while in Solo I have specific objectives and destinations in mind for him; the unintended consequence is that there are a lot of planets which aren’t important to the story in between those that are. There are several options for dealing with that, but I digress.
From a more general viewpoint, Solo is faster and easier in play, and you can steer the narrative more easily; but you need a setting as well. Fringe Space has everything in one book, including the setting – or more accurately, the setting emerges organically during play.
Thanks. It seems that story-generating mechanics work much more rapidly than combat mechanics. Combat is its own story, with genuinely unpredictable outcomes, but can seem clunky in comparison.
I was looking through some of the old Arionad posts (April 2011) and came across “It’s surprising how little actual conflict the CT rules generate, left to themselves, isn’t it? The plots and combat require referee input, it seems.”
One thing I would add into Solo would be a couple of random adjective tables; they seem to have been handy in the Arionad in the past
Yes… if it wasn’t for my relentless obsession with minimising the number of rulebooks in use, I would add the Mythic GM Emulator for those.