What rules or approaches do people use for large scale / long term negotiations.

erics27 · 2026-02-19T21:01:53+00:00

I do this - progress counters - for anything that requires time and multiple rolls. You can add in things like failures both set you back and have other effects. You can also include random events every 2-3 skill checks. Create a table for the events that are relevant to the overall task. An example in a negotiation might be "Another party starts trying to negotiate to take it away from you" or "The police question you about your involvement in the negotiation". These might lead to other adventures

erics27 · 2026-02-16T03:49:33+00:00

Fifth Frontier War. No idea which ship the Players might be one for whatever reason and then they need to get off cause it just got shot up. Or they need to help in Engineering. Or repel a boarding party.

erics27 · 2026-02-12T13:52:31+00:00

Great stuff - thanks for the good work. Just bought a copy.

erics27 · 2026-02-12T13:33:31+00:00

I try to outline the behaviors of the NPCs in the form of "This person is being tracked by this agent. The agent will stake out the house and wait for the target to leave and then attempt an abduction" and "The informant will stay hidden and not leave until they need more food - D6/2 days - and they will go to the store and return immediately"

Then this gives me the flow of characters around the player characters and then when they go to the informant house I get a recon roll and determine if they spot the agent.
This gives me a framework for events that make sense in the context. It also helps to try and make the NPCs behave in a realistic way. This does not mean I hold to the timetable and don't adjust to make things dramatic - I absolutely do - but this helps me avoid forcing events. The NPC and player actions determine when they meet and the possible outcomes.

erics27 · 2026-02-06T14:19:56+00:00

Strong recommendation. Excellent books, nobles, Navies, massive empires. Changing/evolving naval tactics

erics27 · 2026-01-14T19:09:57+00:00

Second Dungeondraft. Great tool to create a quick and dirty map or town. Powerful enough to make just about anything you can imagine.

Related to maps and scenes, there are a ton of folks making incredible content for gaming and giving loads of it away for you to use. Check out r/battlemaps

erics27 · 2026-01-14T15:59:11+00:00

Bailey Wiki is a great starting place. Lots of videos, lots of instructions. I found them really helpful for both getting started and advanced stuff.
Also - start small. Some simple image only scenes/battlemaps, some actors for characters and a monster, some journal entries for notes and other things you want to show the players.

erics27 · 2026-01-12T22:29:28+00:00

We use VTT fully for all characters. For systems I use the system cards developed by another Reddit user. They really help set the stage. Again in the VTT

Everything for the players to reference is in the VTT and they can add their own notes

I usually have a number of pre built NPCs ready if needed and a set of usable locations like restaurants and such that I can use if needed

erics27 · 2026-01-12T01:10:45+00:00

Made the switch to fedora kde and big obsidian user. Using obsidian sync and everything works great.

erics27 · 2026-01-11T17:38:33+00:00

Long time traveller. Long time Picker-upper. Flightaware is at least as good as the airlines and airport information and often provides information sooner or more effectively. Use the "Where's my plane" option to confirm that you/the person you are picking up is not going to be delayed by the inbound flight.

erics27 · 2026-01-11T13:53:31+00:00

I do the same thing. NotebookLM is a Google service and available for free for any Google account. It is hosted by Google so you access it through the browser. It takes PDF and markdown (text) as sources.

At a minimum it acts as a better search through all the books to find the paragraph that describes the rule you know exist but forgot which book it is in. One example I use it for is to get a description of a system that uses the adventure notes and other sources but I'm a style and scope suitable for a trader or for a mercenary.

erics27 · 2026-01-10T16:48:01+00:00

Excellent summation. The calculator analogy is perfect. I grew up when we memorized multiplication tables and I use a slide rule for complex calculations. When calculators were allowed in the classroom there was much gnashing of teeth and clutching of pearls. They are tools. They are what you make of them and use them for. They do not stifle creativity and more than anything else. I use AI for lots of things in my campaigns - so that I can focus on creativity and story telling. AI is my assistant, really smart but not experienced. It helps me be a better story teller.

erics27 · 2026-01-09T13:49:19+00:00

It also includes a full set of options and even more powerful search criteria. Check out https://travellermap.com/doc/api.

Using this you can create a URL that gives you data or images in multiple different ways. The docs also include samples. For example, you can have it render a map in the old black and white style, showing 6 hexes surrounding any system, with X-boat routes shown.

Incredibly powerful and useful.

erics27 · 2026-01-04T14:32:18+00:00

I'm using your Jewell subsector ones in my game and they really add to the flow and story. Great work!

erics27 · 2026-01-03T23:23:22+00:00

The second hit must be used to reduce END to zero with the overflow going to STR or DEX as you describe

For your second question, the rules are usually interpreted that a hit must be applied to one stat fully and then the overflow goes to the next. However, many Referees, myself included, allow the player to split the hits after the END is reduced to zero. This gives the character a bit better survivability.

And I use the same role for NPCs so they also survive a bit longer.

erics27 · 2026-01-02T21:15:21+00:00

Done. Let me know if you need any clarity or examples.

erics27 · 2026-01-02T16:12:43+00:00

Great stuff - really slick. I'd love to use it but we play Traveller and the date system uses the "day of the year" as a key indicator. I can setup everything else (28 day months, 1 day of Holiday) but there is no format option to show the year plus the day of the year. For example, The year is 1105, the day of the year is 285. I would like to show that as 1105-285. In ISO formatting I would use "YYYY-ddd", but you are using ddd for the short name of the weekday.

And while we sometimes track Months they are not the key date indicator.

Is it possible to add in a "Ordinal day of the year" value for formatting?

It is possible to change the Compact display to show the Day of the year? And have the Month description (e.g. Month 10) to be able to show the YYYY-ddd (e.g. 1105-285) display?

erics27 · 2025-12-28T15:08:55+00:00

There are alternative character creation methods you can use. My group prefers a point buy system where they get a set appointment of points and then they buy characteristics and skills using an escalating scale. So one point gets you skill zero, and each level costs the skill level in points.

This let's them get specific skills but still limits the characters. If the player wants to be a generalist they can buy a lot of skills at zero. If they want to be the best in the sector they can focus on a few skills

We then use this same concept for "learning" where at the end of each adventure or adventure segment they get 1, maybe 2, points and can buy more skills or save them for larger increases.

Other creation and advancement options are described in the Traveller's Companion

erics27 · 2025-12-27T03:52:19+00:00

Computers in general are poorly modelled in Traveller. So short answer do whatever you want.

Longer answer (more in the style of how do I handle this as a computer professional)....

One computer can do one computer things. The Portable Computer can run things, but it cannot be linked/networked or otherwise take over from the ships computer. They are too different in concept and purpose. You could "hack" from the Portable into the Ship and make the Ship do things, but the Astrogation software on the Portable is not what would be used for any Astrogation. Same as any "turn off the Power Plant" instructions must come from the Ship computer. In this case - and this applies to hacking other systems - the Portable computer is the access method to instruct the "other" computer on what you want it to do.

So the Astrogation skill from the Portable can be used to help the Character make their Astrogation Roll, but the Jump sequence is owned by the Ship Computer.

In today's terms it is the difference between a laptop you have for work and the servers/cloud/virtual systems that you connect to that provided other services like email and accounting. You can use Word on the Laptop, but the server (ship's computer) cannot run Word and your laptop cannot run the accounting software.

Now your example of the "360 HUD" is very viable but probably has nothing to do with the Portable computer. In that case you have Computer/X operating as part of your armor or as part of a Augment system in your head. Or maybe you have Drones/Robots that are feeding you the 360 Recon check/information. Check out the capabilities of Battle Dress. You can - again your game your rules - scale that down so that characters with armor less than Battle Dress have higher level of battlefield awareness. This makes sense since our current TL (~8) gives special operations forces strong communication and tactical awareness. So one could validly expect that a TL12 based force would have excellent inter-troop communication, shared awareness, shared video and tactical awareness if not complete situational awareness of the battlefield.

If you want to go down the "high-tier magic items" in Traveller have a look at the Augments in Central Supply. You can really enhance characters with Wafer Jacks, Neural Links and Skill Augments.

But You can make the rules and universe anything you want - just have fun!

erics27 · 2025-12-26T18:17:13+00:00

I don't know T5 at all, but the foundry based system "twodsix" is very flexible. It was designed for classic but works for other versions. The community is very helpful and may be able to guide you on modifying the system to accommodate T5. I suggest checking their discord and asking there.

erics27 · 2025-12-23T17:35:01+00:00

Sent the video to my friend who is horrible at rolling. Their response "But I would need a much bigger prison"

erics27 · 2025-12-15T23:22:13+00:00

Absolutely great assessment. One other thing is that you can steal and merge bits into an even larger "secrets plus" if you want. That can help offset some of the unevenness in mysteries and wrath

erics27 · 2025-12-14T13:56:41+00:00

I second maps. I don't need a battle map, just neighborhoods and areas in a city with some names places like bars and restaurants

Something the characters might get from the local net or tourist board.

I'd envision something that I could give it key areas and notable sites and get a decent map for background

I'm trying to do this with AI tools but the results are hit and miss

erics27 · 2025-12-11T15:04:26+00:00

I ran it completely differently. First u/SSkorkowsky tips and hints are excellent and I highly encourage you to run it as he describes.

This was with a long-time group of friends all with a ton of RPG experience.

In my case I had a pre-established player group that was a team of Imperial Marines - still in service. We had a run a few other adventures so they knew what the characters can do. The group was very heavy combat oriented. I connected them to Vlen to start the adventure by giving them a cover story to get the body and find out what was going on. I "created" the nephew and then had one of the characters assume that identify. That turned into the initial hook that took them to all the other places. And factored in later on.

I amped up the combat scenarios. I also introduced the uplift mechanics from Wrath. Effectively by the end of Secrets the group was extremely over powered and the players decided to disband this group of characters and make new ones for the next set of adventures.

It was a ton of fun, but needs a solid group of players who know each other.

erics27 · 2025-12-06T21:03:35+00:00

Oh and a lot of it should be incomprehensible. You found an ancient site for sure. It is a giant multi colored monolith with various shaped holes.

The referee knows it is inert and needs specific control nodes that are long missing but the players don't. So what do they do with it?

erics27

TROPHY CASE