GURPS Traveller: March Harrier Campaign Intro

High-level description:

This is a GURPS 4th Edition campaign, in the Traveller setting, set in the Aramis subsector of the Spinward Marches sector in the year 1105 of the Third Imperium.

The PCs are the crew of the March Harrier, a 400-ton Subsidized Merchant starship.  It theoretically requires a crew of 5, and has 13 staterooms (so 8 left for passengers), 13 low berths, and a 200-displacement-ton cargo hold.

The background of the campaign is making a living as star merchants: trying to find enough passengers and fixed-rate freight to carry from world to world to make a profit.  And possibly also looking for speculative cargo or other money-making opportunities.

Of course some less routine events might happen, leading to Adventures.

Player-facing information:

It's a science fiction game, with starships and laser rifles.  The Traveller setting is what GURPS Ultra-Tech calls "safe-tech", which means it feels like 1970s SF, not newer SF.  Not a lot of cybernetics or nanobots.  Think Firefly.

An important feature of Traveller is that there is faster-than-light travel, but it takes at least a week to travel to a nearby star, and there is no faster-than-light radio.  So news travels relatively slowly and interstellar governments are somewhat limited.

The PCs are ordinary (though skilled) humans.  Starting point values will be fairly low, advancement will be slow, and there will be caps on both attributes and skill levels.

Because the frame of the campaign is interstellar trading, at least a couple of players should be interested in that.  Other players might just want to play starship crew who don't deal much with the business end, and that's fine.

One major difference between a starship crew and many groups of PCs is that a starship has one or more owners and exactly one captain.  So the players need to decide who owns the ship.  The default setup will be that 4 starting PCs will each own an equal share of the ship.

Once ownership of the ship is determined, the owner(s) need to pick a captain and first mate from among qualified members of the crew.  Other important roles also need to be filled: pilot, navigator, sensor operator, communications operator, engineers, mechanics, gunners, steward, medic, cargomaster, launch pilot, ATV driver.  That is more roles than PCs, so most PCs will have multiple jobs.  (And of course there should be backups for every critical role, just in case something bad happens.) If there aren't enough PCs to fully crew the ship, the players can ask the GM to supply NPCs to round out the crew, or they can try to hire NPC crew members in play.

There will be combat in this game, but probably not every session.

There will be character advancement in this game, but it will be slow.  Your PC will not become dramatically more powerful.

There is an opportunity for one player to play a pre-generated character with a backstory important to the plot.  This character does not start the adventure as a member of the March Harrier's crew, but will meet them during the first game session.

Should I try to play in this game?

Do I need to be a GURPS expert to play?  No, I want to keep this pretty rules-light, and most of GURPS is "roll under your attribute or skill on 3d6."  There will be pre-generated PCs available for those who don't feel like making one, or you can have the GM or another player help you make one.

Do I need to know Traveller to play?  No.  I will try to explain enough of the background as we go.

What if I'm a Traveller veteran.  Should I play?  I'd prefer not to have players who've already read or played this exact adventure.  Other than that, Traveller experience is welcome but not required.

What rules do I need to own?  The free GURPS Lite PDF will get you most of the way there.  Almost all the skills will be in the GURPS 4E Basic Set.  I will use stuff from GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars, the 3E GURPS Traveller line (converted to 4E as needed), GURPS Ultra-Tech, GURPS Starships, and random Traveller books, but players don't need to know all that.

This will be a Rule Zero game.  Players need to be willing to abide by GM rulings rather than arguing.

How about dates and times?

I'd like to play once a week, on Monday nights, from 8 p.m. to midnight US Eastern time.  My goal is to play every week that a majority of players are available.  So if we have 5 players and 1 or 2 can't play that week, we play anyway.  I'd like to end each week with the PCs on the ship in a safe location, so that if someone can't make it one week, it's easy to just leave their PC on the ship rather than having to run them as an NPC.

What about software?

I want characters in GCS format; you can find GCS at https://gurpscharactersheet.com.  It's free and portable and excellent.  You need at least version 5.0.  I already added the Traveller templates that we need to the GCS master library.

https://travellermap.com  is a handy map of the Traveller universe.  (Search for "Aramis" to see where this campaign starts.)

The game will be run using FoundryVTT, but it's web-based so players don't need anything beyond a computer and web browser.

I plan to use Discord to coordinate things between game sessions, and for voice during play.

There will be Google Sheets for tracking money and points.

I'll do session recaps to this blog.

Character generation details:

(This is just a high-level summary; I will give more details to the players later.)

Starting PCs will be based on 150 points, with a -30 point disadvantage limit (including negative attribute costs as disads), and -5 points of quirks.

A -5 point Sense of Duty to crewmates is optional and doesn't count against the disad limit.

Partial, subsidized, strings-attached ownership of the March Harrier is a "free" campaign feature; you don't have to pay points for Wealth or Ship Patron or Ship Owner.

The Captain needs to take Merchant Rank 3 [15].

The First Officer needs to take Merchant Rank 2 [10].

Other Officers need to take Merchant Rank 2 [10], Merchant Rank 1 [5] or Courtesy Merchant Rank 1 [1].

The maximum starting attribute is 15.

The maximum starting skill is 16.

All PCs should use one of the occupational templates from GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars.  (If you don't have the book, they're also in GCS.)  Some particularly useful templates are Starship Commander, Starship Bridge Officer, Starship Engineer, Starship Deckhand, Doctor, and Marine.

A March-class subsidized merchant nominally has a crew of five.  (Pilot, Navigator, Engineer, Medic, and Steward.)  If we have exactly five players and everyone wants a different mandatory role then we have a full crew.  If we have fewer players or someone doesn't want to fill one of those roles, then the crew may be filled out with NPCs.  Note that crew members need to be paid, fed, and supplied with stateroom space and oxygen, so the bigger the crew, the harder it is to make a profit.

Most PCs should be human Imperial citizens.  If you really want to play an alien or non-Imperial, talk to the GM.

If desired, one PC may be a pre-generated non-crewmember who will be met during the first game session.

How are you picking players?

I will start by asking people I've enjoyed playing with in the past if they want to play.  Then, if there are slots left, I will advertise them on the Internet.  Once we have a full crew I will put anyone else who wants to play on a waiting list, and contact them if someone drops out.

When does this campaign start?

Once I manage to find 5 players, I'll try to schedule a Session Zero within a couple of weeks, and then regular weekly sessions after that.

How long will this campaign last?

I really don't know, but my best guess is about a year.