flibbertygibbit

This is a follow-up to my previous post about setting up for a GM-less Traveller game. We have now had a Session 0 that covered tone-setting and character creation, and last night we played our first session (spoiler: it went great!). I am reporting back to share with you.

Session 0

I am a believer in the concept of a Session 0 so, even though I have been playing games for decades with these guys, I still asked to have one. The main focus was on campaign theme. Since Pirates of Drinax is a sandbox setting, I wanted to make sure we drill down to what we collectively wanted and agreed for the experience to be.

I am also a Sly Flourish fanboy, and I like his idea of the Campaign One-Pager. I created one for the Session 0, to identify the key ideas and serve as a guide document. The important bits are cut and pasted below in blockquotes, just in case someone wants to reproduce this thing we're doing.

CAMPAIGN PITCH

The King of Drinax offers a small band of trusted, resourceful bastards the chance to make their fortune. He gives them a ship and a letter of marque. They are to go adventuring in the Trojan Reach, a lawless region of space wedged between the Third Imperium and the Aslan Hierate. The travellers are charged to prey on shipping lanes and build support in the worlds once held by the Star Kingdom of Drinax, playing the great powers against each other. If they succeed, they will become royalty in the renewed kingdom. If they fail, the stars will be their grave.

TRUTHS

• The Star Kingdom of Drinax was once a mighty empire that ruled the Trojan Reach, but it collapsed two centuries ago after a devastating war with the Aslan.
• The Floating Palace of Drinax is now all that remains of the kingdom — an ancient, decaying orbital city ruled by King Oleb and his ambitious court.
• The Harrier-class Commerce Raider, an advanced stealth warship from Drinax’s golden age, is entrusted to the travellers as a tool to reclaim lost influence.
• The Trojan Reach is a volatile region filled with independent worlds, Aslan clans, Imperium border outposts, and pirate havens that are ripe for manipulation or conquest.
• King Oleb’s Charter gives privateers legal authority to raid enemies of Drinax, but it’s a thin veil of legitimacy in a sector where law is often what you make of it.
• The rise or fall of Drinax depends on how the travellers navigate a tangled web of alliances, rivalries, and ancient grudges — peace, war, or empire are all possible.

PATRON

King Oleb – The fiery, aging ruler of Drinax. A former warrior turned king, determined to restore his fallen kingdom by any means necessary.

MAJOR FACTIONS

• Third Imperium
• Aslan Heirate
• General Development Company

Everything up to this point is more or less straight from the Pirates of Drinax setting, intended to set the stage for the game. After discussing this piece, we focused on what theme we want. As I said above, Pirates of Drinax is a sandbox setting, where pretty much anything is possible. However, I thought it would be beneficial to identify the general theme and feel beforehand, so we have bumpers for where to steer the game as it plays out. For example, I don't find blood-thirsty murderhobo'ing to be fun (as you might do in a pirate game). The three of us discussed our desired themes and came up with the following:

THEMES

• Empire-building
• Privateering
• Robin Hood-esque
• Machiavellian-benevolence

CREW BOND

We all want better lives for the worlds and peoples of the Trojan Reach. Ex. stability, noblesse oblige “obligation of the nobles”, fairness and redistribution of wealth

With these themes and the crew bond agreed upon, we then set to making characters. Since there isn't a GM, we just shared the duties. If one of us had a question about a thing, the other two served as the GM for that question. We each made our characters simultaneously and stepped through terms together. So, we each did term 1, then went on to term 2, etc.

With that in mind, we did agree to some house rules at the outset:

TRAVELLER CREATION GUIDELINES

• When you fail on a survival roll, you may take 1 mulligan where you instead succeed
• Can optionally make multiple characters and choose the one you vibe with the most

If you are a Traveller purist, the mulligan on the survival roll might make your blood pressure rise. We figured that this game is for us and having that mulligan did help the other guys (I didn't use mine). We also decided on the multiple characters, to help ease the pressure that you'd come up with a 'good' character right away. However, all of us used the first character we made.

Session 1 - Getting started

With characters made, we scheduled our first game which happened last night. We had a ton of fun! As a reminder, we are using Mythic Game Master Emulator 2e as our referee, so I will be referencing mechanics from that system (I can explain further in the comments if asked). There was some initial clumsiness with navigating how the Mythic rules and Traveller character sheet worked, but it didn't take long to get going. The session took about 3 and a half hours, with about the first hour being spent finishing our characters.

Here are some quick bullets of the session:

• Scene 1: Taking stock of the Harrier and making repairs. We decided to start after our crew met with the King and received their charge. Most of this scene was deciding what to do about all the damage to the ship and spending ship shares to repair some of it.
• Scene 2: Hunting down Sindalian tech leads. In this scene we started leaning into the Mythic mechanics to ask if our characters knew of any places where we might find salvage that could be used to continue repairing the ship. We had heard rumors or wrecks on the Drinax surface. We decide to fly to the surface to make contact with one of the tribes that lives down there.
• Scene 3: It's a trap! The Mythic mechanic that throws curveballs did so, and we walked right into a military trap, placed by the locals. Considering we were coming here to ask these people for their help, we luckily talk them down and are able to negotiate.
• Scene 4: Turning enemies into allies. It turns out the tribespeople of Drinax are fed up with their station in life and being forgotten. The tribal leaders have formed a coalition to rebel against the King of Drinax and we just happened to be the first people to come down from the palace. We tell the coalition of our plan (recall the themes above) and convince them to help as allies to the cause.
• Scene 5: Living with the tribes montage. Mythic threw us another curveball which we interpreted as the tribes wanting us to live with them for a while, prior to them joining any alliance. We figure this is because they want us to understand their perspective and what they are going through in their lives. We ask Mythic a bunch of questions to learn more about the tribes and flesh out their peoples.
• Next time: Searching for lost tech. The montage scene seemed like a great place to end, so we set up for the beginning of our next session. The tribal leaders revealed that they knew where a Sindalian wreck was, and one of their people could guide us there. They make it clear that this will be a test of our trustworthiness.

Keep in mind, this was all generated using the Mythic rules. There is no GM and no adventure. We would ask Mythic questions (as you would to a GM), and Mythic would give yes/no type answers. Sometimes we would need more and use Mythic to generate meaning. Meaning comes in the form of randomly generated word pairs, which we interpret as a group. In this way, the story evolved as we played through it.

Takeaways

• Using Mythic as a GM was clunky at first but generated an interesting and surprising story
• The main downside to Mythic was having to reference a lot of tables for meaning and yes/no answers
• But, I think we also enjoyed the structure and crunch of the Mythic system
• Having 3 minds interpreting meaning was very helpful and likely contributed to the fun factor, as opposed to playing truly solo
• Overall, we all agreed that the game was way more fun than we would have guessed and exceeded expectations

I would like to get thoughts on my half-assed plan to coordinate a GM-less Traveller game for myself and two of my buddies.

Context:

• Our experience with Traveller is limited but not zero. I have never played Traveller but have read many of the books (mostly Mongoose Traveller, Classic Traveller, and Traveller5). I have ran a handful of sessions with the same two guys as players (we played through High and Dry).
• We are old hats at other games, especially Dungeons & Dragons. The three of us starting gaming together in middle school, which was more than 30 years ago now (yikes!). We've been playing together in a group pretty consistently since then.
• We are all also experienced GMs but we don't want to GM. I could run a game, but I would much rather play. We thought trying a GM-less system with a cooperative narrative would be a fun compromise.
• We have to play online. We live in different parts of the US so playing in person is not an option. We play via Roll20 with Discord for voice.

The Plan:

• Use Mongoose Traveller 2e for our core system. Of the Traveller systems I've looked at, MgT2e seems to be the most accessible and I have all the books now thanks to the recent sale. For added context, I also have all the Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, and Traveller5 books from Marc Miller.
• Set the game in the Pirates of Drinax setting. The internet seems to love this setting and set of adventures and, from the reading I've done, it does look pretty fun.
• Use Mythic Game Master Emulator 2e as our referee. This system has resonated most with me and the games I like. I tried the Zozer Solo First Edition and didn't really enjoy it -- the experience was too much of a journaling game for me. However, I now see there is a Second Edition, which I may have to check out.
• With these components in place, we'll make characters (which is scheduled for the 30th), establish a starting premise, and jump into our sandbox.

That is my basic plan. What do you think? Are there any pitfalls that I will undoubtedly fall into? Is there something that I absolutely must try? I would be interested in hearing any feedback.

Edit: You can read the follow-up in my Game Report: GM-less Traveller post where I talk about our Session 0 and first play session.