Crossovers for Fun and Profit!
As some of the folks with whom I correspond on certain online gaming forums are only too well aware, I have a major jones for trying out Uncharted Worlds. However, I'm also fond of certain OSR material, so when someone I shan't name (to protect his reputation) posted an ad for an old black-box Traveler game, I jumped at the chance.
It's been a very, very long time since I had any chance to put my copy of Trav to any use, so I hauled it out and started rolling dice, and as often happens found more inspiration than I expected! So for your amusement, I present two versions of Dame Lieutenant Commander Marguerite Francesca Krakeni.
There are two versions because along with my tendencies toward low plagiarism (see previous posts), I also tend to recycle character concepts that I find enjoyable and interesting. At the moment, only the Traveler version is going to be in play.
TRAVELER STATS
4873BB Age 34 4 Terms 45000Cr (before equipment purchased)
Navigation-2, Vacc Suit-2, Engineering -1, Foil-1, Gunnery-1
Foil, Member-TAS
UNCHARTED WORLDS STATS
Privileged Military Starfarer (no archetype name yet)
Description: Manicured, Restless, Skittish
Mettle +1 // Physique -1 // Influence +2 // Expertise 0 // Interface +1
Skills
Luxury
Your clothing, belongings and quarters are all lavish and expensive. Gain one of the following NPCs as a retainer: Butler, Assistant, Consort or Advisor.
Name the NPC and give them a 2-4 word description.
Ms. Sforza, Erudite, Cunning Gentlewoman's Gentlewoman
Weightless
Ignore the Clumsy trait and/or movement restrictions inflicted by microgravity, low-gravity, freefall, climbing and jump jets. A successful (10+) Move while in those situations lets you describe a moment of exceptional acrobatic grace.
Navigation
When you plan a long voyage, choose 1.
The voyage will be:
• Fast – You know a shortcut.
• Safe – Choose a faction to avoid.
• Pleasant – +2 to Cramped Quarters.
• Profitable – If you deliver the passengers who are asking for passage.
Tactics
When you Open Fire or Launch Assault, you choose one or more consequences on a partial success (7-9), not the GM.
Assets
Evening Gown (Class 0 Formal)
Engineering Kit: Tools to repair and dismantle machinery. Hammers, drills, cutters, wrenches, welders, grips, cables, diagnostic tools, cage lamps, misc spare parts, etc.
Ceremonial Rapier (Class 1, Melee, Impaling, Stylish)
Boarding Armor (Class 2 Uniform, +2 Armor, Sealed, Armored)
So, in essence, I'm playing Bertie Wooster's distant descendant, a young woman of better breeding than brains and higher standing than smarts, who set upon a career in the Navy in hopes of actually accomplishing some greater good in her life. After a few close encounters with the old up and out school of promotion, she's now at loose ends after mustering out and ready to play la picara celestiel.
I have no idea where this is gonna go, but it's gonna be awesome!
(meandering historical aside from a grognard starts here!)
Now, for those of you too young to remember, Traveler was originally published as three slim black volumes in a boxed set. It was pretty bare bones--there was no grand story arc, no encyclopaedic setting, no map of the galaxy. The system was simple. Characters were simple. Character generation was not only totally random, there was even a chance that your character would die during char-gen. Every GM had the opportunity (indeed, the duty) of building their own version, with no limits on their imagination save those imposed by simple logic. (Later editions gave us the Imperium, the Great Rebellion, a massive computer virus, several alien races, and tons of extra crunch. Unfortunately, the more options you added, the slower the darn thing went and the heavier the paperwork got.)
Alas for me, I didn't find out about the Black Box version of Trav until I was well into college, by which time I'd already seen something called Megatraveler and long after I'd learned to be wary of totally random character generation systems. So most of my experience with this game was with the more structured background and complex rules. I also invested in another offshoot of the same rules called 2300AD, which I enjoyed a great deal.
Fast forward about twenty years and I stumbled across this thing called Stars Without Number, which I like to describe as the coolest bits of the old Basic boxed set of Dungeons and Dragons crossed with the Black Box Edition of Traveler. And then some guy named Vince Baker wrote this crazy thing called Apocalypse World, which some Canadian fellow named Sean Gomez hacked into something else called Uncharted Worlds, and here we are!
(end of meandering, pedantic, old-timer aside)
It's been a very, very long time since I had any chance to put my copy of Trav to any use, so I hauled it out and started rolling dice, and as often happens found more inspiration than I expected! So for your amusement, I present two versions of Dame Lieutenant Commander Marguerite Francesca Krakeni.
There are two versions because along with my tendencies toward low plagiarism (see previous posts), I also tend to recycle character concepts that I find enjoyable and interesting. At the moment, only the Traveler version is going to be in play.
TRAVELER STATS
4873BB Age 34 4 Terms 45000Cr (before equipment purchased)
Navigation-2, Vacc Suit-2, Engineering -1, Foil-1, Gunnery-1
Foil, Member-TAS
UNCHARTED WORLDS STATS
Privileged Military Starfarer (no archetype name yet)
Description: Manicured, Restless, Skittish
Mettle +1 // Physique -1 // Influence +2 // Expertise 0 // Interface +1
Skills
Luxury
Your clothing, belongings and quarters are all lavish and expensive. Gain one of the following NPCs as a retainer: Butler, Assistant, Consort or Advisor.
Name the NPC and give them a 2-4 word description.
Ms. Sforza, Erudite, Cunning Gentlewoman's Gentlewoman
Weightless
Ignore the Clumsy trait and/or movement restrictions inflicted by microgravity, low-gravity, freefall, climbing and jump jets. A successful (10+) Move while in those situations lets you describe a moment of exceptional acrobatic grace.
Navigation
When you plan a long voyage, choose 1.
The voyage will be:
• Fast – You know a shortcut.
• Safe – Choose a faction to avoid.
• Pleasant – +2 to Cramped Quarters.
• Profitable – If you deliver the passengers who are asking for passage.
Tactics
When you Open Fire or Launch Assault, you choose one or more consequences on a partial success (7-9), not the GM.
Assets
Evening Gown (Class 0 Formal)
Engineering Kit: Tools to repair and dismantle machinery. Hammers, drills, cutters, wrenches, welders, grips, cables, diagnostic tools, cage lamps, misc spare parts, etc.
Ceremonial Rapier (Class 1, Melee, Impaling, Stylish)
Boarding Armor (Class 2 Uniform, +2 Armor, Sealed, Armored)
So, in essence, I'm playing Bertie Wooster's distant descendant, a young woman of better breeding than brains and higher standing than smarts, who set upon a career in the Navy in hopes of actually accomplishing some greater good in her life. After a few close encounters with the old up and out school of promotion, she's now at loose ends after mustering out and ready to play la picara celestiel.
I have no idea where this is gonna go, but it's gonna be awesome!
(meandering historical aside from a grognard starts here!)
Now, for those of you too young to remember, Traveler was originally published as three slim black volumes in a boxed set. It was pretty bare bones--there was no grand story arc, no encyclopaedic setting, no map of the galaxy. The system was simple. Characters were simple. Character generation was not only totally random, there was even a chance that your character would die during char-gen. Every GM had the opportunity (indeed, the duty) of building their own version, with no limits on their imagination save those imposed by simple logic. (Later editions gave us the Imperium, the Great Rebellion, a massive computer virus, several alien races, and tons of extra crunch. Unfortunately, the more options you added, the slower the darn thing went and the heavier the paperwork got.)
Alas for me, I didn't find out about the Black Box version of Trav until I was well into college, by which time I'd already seen something called Megatraveler and long after I'd learned to be wary of totally random character generation systems. So most of my experience with this game was with the more structured background and complex rules. I also invested in another offshoot of the same rules called 2300AD, which I enjoyed a great deal.
Fast forward about twenty years and I stumbled across this thing called Stars Without Number, which I like to describe as the coolest bits of the old Basic boxed set of Dungeons and Dragons crossed with the Black Box Edition of Traveler. And then some guy named Vince Baker wrote this crazy thing called Apocalypse World, which some Canadian fellow named Sean Gomez hacked into something else called Uncharted Worlds, and here we are!
(end of meandering, pedantic, old-timer aside)
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