Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 22

School is coming to an end, thankfully, and I'll have more time to post regularly in a couple of weeks. For now, I'm going to continue this series, because I'm halfway through the last book and I want to get it finished.

So, page 22 gives us a patron encounter table. And the first one on the list is...an arsonist. Really? So...the PCs can get hired to, what, start a fire? Actually, the whole first row of 'patrons' are nasty people. Arsonist, cutthroat, assassin, hijacker, smuggler, and terrorist. So, don't roll a '1' for the first patron roll, unless your crew is comprised primarily of 'Other' careerists.

The 6-6 entry on the table is 'rumors,' which is basically no patron, just some information that might be useful in starting an adventure. The rest of the patrons are a mixed bunch, with peasants all the way to nobles, diplomats and officers, governors and scouts, etc. Lots of variety, and sure to inspire some sort of adventure seeds.

Next up are some details on employees and hirelings. Basically, if you want them, you have to find them. The players tell the ref who they are looking for (in general terms: crew members, mercenaries, etc.), and the referee tells them who is available and looking for work. The 'interview' basically means rolling up the NPC to see what they can do, and the PCs can hire them or not, depending on whether the hireling suits their needs.

Next up is nobility, and we get titles for those high social standing scores. An 11 is a knight/dame, followed by baron, marquis, count, and duke at 15. This is an interesting sidelight in the game; instead of an enlightened, democratic 'federation of planets,' we've got imperial nobles and feudalist titles. I like it. The titles are hereditary and show high standing; even for non-governmental roles, nobles matter. They might even have ancestral lands and fiefs, and some of them do rule. There are princes and kings, even emperors, but you're not rolling one up.

Finally, we have non-player character reactions when encountering the PCs, which are just two-dice rolls that may or may not be modified. Rolls of 2 and 12 don't get modified; anything else does, which can push them above 12 or below 2 sometimes. However, the section ends before giving us the DMs or the table, so that will have to wait for the next page.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 21

Back after a school-and-work-induced delay. We're not quite halfway through this book, so let's continue.

On this page we have some tables. Two of them: The Random Person Encounter table, and the Weapons table. The random person encounter table uses the previously-seen 'roll two dice and read them in order' routine to generate 36 different results instead of the normal twelve. The last six, however, are blank, as mentioned on a previous page.

So, who can we run into in these random encounters? Here's the list; the numbers in parentheses are the number of times the entry appears on the table.

Peasants (2), workers, rowdies, thugs (2), soldiers (3), police (2), Marines, naval troops, adventurers, noble with retinue (2), hunters, tourists, researchers, fugitives (3), vigilantes, bandits, brigands, merchants, traders, religious group (2), and guards.

So, you're more likely to run into a nobleman in the streets than you are workers. Interesting. The separate listings usually have different numbers appearing and weapons, so there's a variety in running into some of these groups. I find it very interesting, though, that there are a lot of low-tech weapons on this list. Clubs, cudgels, daggers, swords, spears...if it wasn't for the firearms on the table, this could work as a fantasy encounter table, too.

Some of them have vehicles as well, but not as many as you might think. The vehicle is left undefined; the tech and terrain will be the determining factors in that. Some of them have armor as well, although nothing extreme (no battle dress).

The Weapons table was mentioned on the last page; you roll a die, and if you get a weapon on the first column, you use that weapon. If not, move to the next column. The first column is laser rifles and auto rifles; a 3-6 on the roll means you move to column 2. That column has shotguns, carbines, and revolvers, the latter two of which can be found in the regular weapons table as well. 4-6 means go to column 3, which has broadsword, sword, halberd, cutlass, and foil. Every one of these is already on the encounter table to begin with, so they aren't exactly 'special' weapons.

The table is mostly low-tech, no more than tech-level 6. Except for the laser rifle, all the weapons are things that we have access to today; in fact, they had access to them all in 1977. Even the guards have halberds and daggers. Hell, the Marines have revolvers and cutlasses. The vigilantes are better armed than the soldiers, with rifles and carbines (the soldiers have submachine guns).

So, these tables are a bit underwhelming. Obviously, they can be modified to suit the referee's campaign, but the feel of this is very much in the pulp style, with men running around with swords and revolvers instead of lightsabers and blasters. I would expect to add more variety to the weapons, though. Get some higher-tech stuff in there, at least. 

And there is a note that weaponry may be altered to conform to law level or technology index. Oh, that's a good point; some cultures have law levels restricting weapons, some of them restricting ALL weapons. So, that will have an impact on the table. At the same time, I find the notion of a high-tech city including hunters who carry rifles and spears. For a good visual of that, watch Jesus Christ Superstar (the movie version), which has Roman soldiers doing exactly that: carrying spears and rifles.

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) Review

Okay, I finally watched this one with my wife and son last night. It was a lot of fun, like I remember, and while it has been a long time, it was good to see the differences between this version and the album I reviewed a while back. Obviously, a movie and an old vinyl recording won't be the same. But the differences in the music itself are striking, nonetheless.

First of all, Ted Neeley was born for this role. He is absolutely amazing as Jesus, hitting the right mixture of all-knowing, all-wise mentor to the disciples, resignation to his ultimate fate, and his show-stopping performance of Gethsemane, pleading his case to know why God is about to allow him to be destroyed in the most horrible way imaginable. It's beautiful to watch.

Neeley is complemented by Carl Anderson, who plays Judas. I'll admit, when I first saw this movie, the notion of a black Judas threw me off; everyone knows the Apostles were Jewish, and they weren't black-skinned. But that's a stylistic casting choice, and it certainly works; Anderson's Judas is torn from the very beginning, trying desperately to hold back the landslide that he is sure is about to strike them all. In the original text of the gospels, of course, Judas is not what you would describe as a sympathetic character; he's a first-class, no-good rotten traitor who hands over the Son of God to be persecuted and crucified. But in this version, Judas gets some motivation beyond being a lousy traitor. He's scared, like the Pharisees, that Jesus' actions are going to bring down the wrath of the Romans upon them all, since the crowds are calling him the Messiah, ready to name him King, which the Romans would disapprove of in very explicit and strenuous terms.

There is more music in this version than in the album; a song called 'Then We Are Decided' is slipped in between 'Strange Thing, Mystifying' and 'Everything's All Right', providing a nice break from the scenes with Jesus and the Apostles. In the album, Caiphas and the rest of the priests don't show up for the first four scenes; this gives them an earlier introduction and provides a good explanation as to why Caiphas is so adamant that Jesus has to die.

The second new song is 'Could We Start Again, Please', which appears after King Herod's song as Jesus is being led back to Pilate for the fourth part of his trial. Mary and Peter sing a duet about how Jesus has gone beyond the bounds of reason to prove his message. It's a wistful song that fits nicely, and as I understand it became a permanent fixture of the stage play, unlike the other new song, which only appears in this movie (and on the soundtrack, of course).

Other songs have more to them than they did on the album, such as extra lines in the Trial Before Pilate, and I'm pretty sure there is at least one more verse in the Hosanna song. I'd have to go back and check the original, though.

Most of the cast from the Broadway show ends up in the movie; Neeley and Anderson, of course, both started out on the stage version. Two of them, Yvonne Elliman (Mary) and Barry Deneen (Pilate) were on the original album, as well. All are excellent in their roles, especially in those long-forgotten days before auto-tune was all the rage.

Now, for the one part of the movie my wife and son could not wrap their heads around: The setting for the movie. Sure, you've got Jesus wandering around in a simple shepherd's robe, and Mary is looking suitably Biblical in her attire, but you've also got most of the disciples wearing jeans or other 1970s' clothing. You've got Roman soldiers wearing purple wife-beaters and camo pants, carrying spears and machine guns at the same time. And you've got tanks. And fighter jets doing a fly-by over Judas after he's agreed to betray Jesus to the Pharisees. It's very, very surreal and weird. And yet, it works. Webber always intended for the play to have a modern feel, and Norman Jewison, who directed the movie, obviously agreed. The juxtaposition of the ancient and modern elements is silently explained during the overture, as a bus shows up with the entire cast aboard in their regular clothes. They actually take the props for the movie off the bus roof, change into their costumes right outside the bus (in the middle of the road in an Israeli desert; the 1970s were friggin' weird, man), before starting the actual movie.

So, why the tanks and machine guns? Why not? In the famous song 'Superstar,' which Judas sings after he's hanged himself from a tree in shame for what he did, Judas basically asks Jesus a bunch of questions about why he did what he did when he did it. 'Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication,' he reminds Jesus while glammed-up dancers do the most 70s routines you've ever seen behind him. Why did Jesus live then, and not in today's world where his message would have been instantly broadcast around the world? Of course, the movie doesn't answer that; it just moves on to Jesus' death on the cross, which is told in a much tamer manner than Mel Gibson did.

All in all, this is probably my favorite version, not the least of which because I like the new songs. The whole production, while it looks like it was done on the cheap, still shines. Regardless of the controversy about the story and how it's told in the movie/play, this is still a fantastic rendition of the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. It's a great movie, and I recommend it without reservation. And, as I said earlier, Ted Neeley absolutely nails the passionate Gethsemane song, and I'm sorry to any Ian Gillan fans out there, Neeley was better.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 20

We continue with the 'random' encounters section. After determining the clone-characteristics of the group encountered, there is a chance on the weapons table that there will be some special weapons. It's a bit convoluted, and I haven't seen the table to see how it works yet, but basically you roll on the weapons table, first column, and if you get a number, someone in the group has the weapon that corresponds to that number; if you don't, you roll again on the second column, and so on. Anyone with one of these weapons is considered to have skill level 1 with that weapon.

The encounter table has six blanks, which are to be treated as 'no encounter' results, although they can be filled in later at the referee's option to customize the table.

After the random encounter is actually encountered, reactions are checked to see what they think of the PCs. They might be hostile, in which case combat may erupt, although the procedures from Book One will sometimes allow one party to escape the other without conflict. But where's the fun in that?

Ah, looting the bodies! The most classic of role-playing tropes. That's why people usually play, isn't it? To kill things (or people) and take their stuff? Well, this is actually the first mention of that in Traveller. But yes, when you have a combat encounter and emerge victorious, the spoils of war (i.e., whatever the other side was carrying) are yours for the taking. That's comforting to know.

And that ends the random encounters; next up: Patrons!

This section starts out by telling us that an adventurer's primary and recurring goal in the game is to find someone rich who can help them get rich and famous. Patrons, then, are people who hire the PCs for a specific job. Best of all, if they hire you, they pay your expenses. Within reason, but I've not yet met a player whose definition of 'reasonable expenses' wasn't stretched to the breaking point.

So, these patrons hire the PCs to do their dirty work; it might be something routine, like guarding someone or something, or it might be riskier, like assassinating a target, for example, or stealing something valuable, or just exploring a recently-discovered planet and seeing if the place is worth setting up a colony of some sort. And if they do hire you to get something, they only expect to receive the something at the end of the job; anything else acquired in the process belongs to the PCs, not the patron. Sweet deal.

The patron system seems to be a pretty significant part of the expected style of play. You can look for one patron a week, through the usual channels: bars, taverns, etc. You get one die roll a week, and a 5 or 6 means you found a likely patron. More dice then determine what kind of patron you've found, and what they want. Oh, and they get a reaction roll, too. It doesn't matter if they are in dire need of adventurers to save their planet from a giant amoeba in space; if they don't like you, they'll wait for someone else to come along.

Once the patron is established, it's up the referee to get the details of what they actually want the PCs to do, and what obstacles might get in the way. So, patrons are basically quest-givers, and the referee has to figure out the rest himself. Well, it's not like that hasn't been a staple of gaming since the very beginning.

So, an interesting page. Obviously, patrons are going to be a big part of any game. It's actually a part of the D&D game that gets glossed over for the most part. I mean, most adventures have a 'patron' handing out the mission, sure, but random patrons? That's something new and different. I like it.

And that wraps up this page. More to come!

A Very Special Anniversary

March 17, 2007. A date that I will never forget, in more ways than one. Fourteen years ago today, I met the woman that would prove to be the love of my life, the woman of my dreams, and the mother of my children. It was a semi-blind date, and it was one of the best nights of my life.

I call it a semi-blind date because we met online a few weeks earlier, through E-Harmony. Yes, it works. I was living in Barrie, Ontario, and I had signed up at the end of February, and was matched with 31 women from further than I'd expected (one of them was in Pennsylvania). I sent out feelers to all 31, and received three replies. One was in Orillia, half an hour from Barrie; one was the aformentioned Pennsylvanian; and the third was from a town called Wallaceburg, a town I had to look up on a map because I'd never heard of it before.

It didn't take us long to realize that we had found someone special. We racked up eighty hours on the phone in two weeks, and we arranged to meet on St. Patrick's Day in Hamilton, at her friend's house. By then, I already knew that she was the woman I would marry; I'd already known it for a week.

We met, and we had a really great time. I met her four-year-old son, Ashton, and gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine book as a gift. We went to Kelsey's for dinner, and then to see Music & Lyrics starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. It's a great movie, although my view of it might be a bit biased considering the evening in general.

I dropped her off at her friend's house afterward, and ended up driving home at about two in the morning. I was on Cloud Nine the whole way home. She obviously agreed that things went well, and we made arrangements to visit each other even though we lived nearly four hours apart. They say long-distance relationships never work out, so we arranged to change that, too; three months later, I packed up and moved to Wallaceburg after proposing to her at the piano recital. And that's a story for another time.

We were married two years later; it was supposed to be one year, but actions have consequences, and our consequence is now twelve years old. She didn't want to be trying on wedding dresses when she was six months pregnant, so we put the wedding off and accepted the scolding from our priest. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, on this awesome and wonderful anniversary, I want to thank the most amazing, beautiful, special, fantastic woman I've ever known or ever will know, for fourteen years that weren't always highs, but were rarely lows. I wouldn't trade these last fourteen years for anything; I'm a better man because of her, and she's always supported me even when I did crazy things like sell life insurance or write books. She's a great cook, a fantastic mother, and a wonderful wife, with a tremendous faith in God and the most caring heart I've ever seen. My life is immeasurably better with her in it.

Happy Anniversary, Honey Bunny. I hope we celebrate a lot more together.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 18-19

Yes, I'm back with the gaming goodness. And I just saw that page 18 is very small, so I'm going to add page 19 as well.

Page 18 finishes off the vehicles with a short bit on water vehicles. Bigger vessels require crews, smaller ones can be handled by a single person. The options are small steamships (tech-4), motor boats (tech-5), and submarines (tech-6). No aircraft carriers or battleships, though. No cruise ships, either. There's nothing special about these boats, they're what you would expect them to be. They don't even get weapons options.

So, we move on to page 19. And thus begins...the Encounters! Ah, yes...the actual 'adventuring' part of adventures. We are introduced to the concept of NPCs, characters controlled by the referee (everyone that isn't controlled by the players). There are three types of encounters in Traveller: Ordinary/routine encounters, random encounters, and encounters with patrons. Who are patrons, I wonder? Sounds like 'quest-givers' to me. But then, I've played quite a few computer games in my time.

For any of these encounters, the identity or occupation of the person in question needs to be determined, then what they think of the PCs (reaction table roll, of course, because this is old-school gaming), and then the response from the PCs. These encounters can be informative, combative, or deceptive, depending on the nature of the character and, occasionally, the needs of the adventure.

Routine Encounters are just that: routine. Normal, ordinary people that you see every day and never notice. The villagers at the beginning of the Disney Beauty and the Beast fit the bill; people living their lives and just trying to get along. A store clerk is an example given; they're doing their job and that's the extent of it. Characters like that don't need a full write-up, just a sentence or two, if that, depending on the point of the encounter.

Random Encounters are different. These are people who are doing more important jobs, things that might involve the PCs in some way, whether as antagonists or complementary, depending again on the situation.

Interestingly, the Traveller version of 'random encounters' is far, far different from that in games such as Dungeons & Dragons. You don't roll these on a table; these aren't necessarily people who just happen to be in the neighborhood. A guard patrol at a building the PCs are trying to break into is an example of a random encounter. It's not routine, and it might lead to conflict. And combat. We are informed that the referee can always add these types of encounters to further the adventure, and sometimes, they are required to do so.

Ah, then we get to literal random encounters, where you do roll on a table. Once per day, roll a die, and if you get a 5 or 6 there is a random encounter of some sort. This is with people, not animals (those come up later). Cool, we are going to get alien wildlife here, too.

And yes, we get a random encounter table to determine what kind of person is being encountered. It's a two-die roll, reading the two numbers individually to get a result on the matrix (which isn't on this page). This table gives a basic description or identity, a dice range for how many there are, and other information that might be pertinent to, say, a pitched combat in the middle of a space station.

These characters also get the fundamental combat stats: strength, dexterity and endurance. But these people will generally be clones of each other (generate one set of stats and use it for all the people in the encounter). Later, if necessary, the other stats (intelligence, education, social standing) can be generated.

And that takes us to page 20, which we will look at next time. So far, so good.

Bringing Home Some Hot Chicks

So, we're definitely doing this farming thing. Yesterday we started planting some veggies; today, we brought home some baby chicks.

Those are marbles in the water dish; that's to keep them from falling in and drowning. You'll notice the dark feathers; these are called Cemani chickens. They are all-black birds. Their feathers, their skin, their meat, their internal organs...black all the way through. Naturally, the eggs are cream-colored. Because...I have no idea. But they are.

We are hoping that we got two hens and a rooster; we're going to be adding more birds eventually, but this is a start. They were supposed to be living in the house for the next few weeks to stay warm and grow, but the heat lamp was melting the plastic in the dog cage we were going to keep them in. So, they're in the garage, in a wooden crate. Ashton assembled the heat lamp while we were on our way home with the chirping critters, and they're currently having a grand old time exploring their square box.

Garrett is excited; I told him I had a surprise for him in the garage, and he came out to take a look. He was mesmerized by the little birds, pointing at them and smiling away. He's going to have a great time on the farm.

And this is them checking out their supper. We had to tilt the plate, because they couldn't get out of the food; the sides of the plate were slippery and steep. So, they can leave if they want to now. And that's a rolled-up towel which will serve as a nest.

All in all, it's a pretty exciting day. We're going to be building a chicken tractor next week, so that when they are ready (and when the ground is no longer inspiring a Bing Crosby song), we can get them out in the field, safe from the foxes and other predators. Then we're going to build a proper coop in the barn so they have a winter home as well.

It's a crazy lifestyle change from what I'm used to, but I'm looking forward to it.

Planting the Seeds of the Future

Well, we've had a couple of warm days lately, and a lot of the snow has melted away. Not all of it; it's only March on Prince Edward Island, after all. And the temperature's dropped again, so the water has turned back into ice.

But, today was a very important day for the Sprigg family as we took the first steps toward our spring gardening. We planted some seeds in a mini-greenhouse in the living room. Leeks, parsley, and hot peppers. We're using one of those Jiffy Greenhouse planters, where we've got the seeds planted in little soaked tablets of peat and covered. There's a grow-lamp over them as well, and this batch should be ready in time for May when the frost is expected to be gone. In a couple of weeks, we'll plant some more.

The best part of it was that it was a family affair; Ashton, our oldest, went out and bought them with Mom. I soaked the peat and put the seeds in the peat cakes, and Tanner made sure they were to the right depth and covered up. It's good for the kids to be involved with this now. Ashton will always be involved; he wants to farm the land anyway. But doing small stuff like this is good, especially doing it together.

We've got plenty of seeds left to plant, and we're starting to collect some seeds ourselves from the kitchen scraps. We've got green pepper seeds already, so that should be exciting to get them planted in a few weeks.

It's an exciting time, and while it's still just baby steps, it's a good start to what will be our family hobby farm for years to come.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Worlds & Adventures, page 17

So, we continue with vehicles. Actually, we have a brief section on how to use land vehicles. No driver's license is included, however. Basically, you have to roll to see if the vehicle has some sort of breakdown; a base 11+ throw means something's broken, although there are DMs for driving skill, the terrain, and the overall condition of the vehicle. The same 11+ throw can be used for any terrain difficulties, or you can just use animal encounter tables from (I assume) later in the book. Oh, and the local law level also applies to getting caught in speed traps or with traffic violations. All ground vehicles can be refueled from a starship's power plant; I guess they don't use enough to worry about draining the ship's tanks.

Next up, Air Vehicles. The rules mention (briefly) primitive stuff like gliders and hot air balloons, as unique local things on low-tech worlds. Your character's Air/Raft skill can be used to pilot the rest of the air vehicles listed here. Without that skill, you're not flying anything.

The first air vehicle on the list is the 'primitive biplane.' World War I technology, basically, tech level 4. It's...well, it's a biplane. It's not going to last long in a dogfight against anything else except a hot air balloon.

Fixed-Wing Aircraft are next (tech-5). This is the jet-version, which can fly at...600 km/h. Come on; that's not even Mach 1. There are mentions of seaplane versions, hardpoints for ordnance or auto-cannon, or larger versions. Still, that's a lame speed for this kind of plane.

Helicopters (tech-6) are next. They, like the fixed-wing craft, cost a cool million credits and do what you would expect a helicopter to do. You can get a twin-engine version for twice the price, and these things fly up to 250 km/h with a range of 600 km.

Then there's the Air/Raft (tech-8), or 'flier.' This one uses 'solid state null gravity modules' for lift and propulsion. It's got four of these (which cost a million credits each). The craft itself costs 6 million, and while it's limited to 100 km/hour, it's got unlimited range and endurance. They are usually open-top fliers, although you can get pressurized versions, and they take weapons and other optional extras.

Last, there's the gravity belt (tech-12/C). It's a personal version of the Air/Raft, with the same speeds and restrictions. But it only costs a million credits. Yay. Still, it's a very familiar (to pulp readers, at least) technology for science fiction.

Like the land vehicles, the air vehicles have to make regular maintenance checks at 11+, with a -1 DM for missed maintenance.

And that wraps up this page; we'll continue with more vehicles next time.

Winter Wonderland

There aren't any sleigh bells, but there's a whole bunch of snow glistening in the lane. And on the lawn. And on the roof. And on the cars... And it's March. Welcome to Prince Edward Island...

I know, we've been here almost six months now. Time flies when you're having fun. And we are having fun, despite the weather. It's a great island, tucked away between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and there would be a whole bunch of stuff to do if everything wasn't shut down due to COVID-19.

One of Ashton's favorite things to do here is go quadding; he's joined a club, and he's gone just about every Sunday. There was an 'outbreak' of COVID last week (something like six cases), so that wasn't happening last weekend. But he was back at it yesterday, so that's good to know. Life is almost normal here on the Island, except for seeing masks everywhere.

We're getting ready to plant seeds indoors to get ready for the spring planting. Right now, the spot we plan to dig our gardens is under two feet of snow, so we're going to wait on that for a while. We still haven't tapped the trees for maple syrup yet; we're just waiting for the spouts to arrive, and for the temperature to get to the right point. It's still a bit too cold yet.

I think one of the best parts of being out here is that it is so much more laid-back than Ontario is. Even in the small towns, Ontario feels ridiculously busy. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere, or do something. Out here, though, there's time to relax and experience things. It's a great change of pace, and one I heartily recommend for everyone, especially the city-dwellers.

Thinking about it, it's obvious that we were meant to not only come to Prince Edward Island, but to this particular farmhouse. We'd been talking about moving for years, but we never made any concrete steps to actually doing it. Nobody believed we'd ever leave, really. But when we started looking here, we found this house almost right away. And it had only been on the realtor website for a month or so. This was the house God wanted us to move into. And I'm fine with that. It's a major adjustment, but it's a good one. I know I've made up my mind that I'll finally plant roots here, and not just the plant kind. This is the first time I can remember feeling like I'm actually home. Thankfully, the rest of the family feels the same way: This is our home, now and forever.