Thanks for crossposting! Pardon my Lemmy ignorance, but I have a question. So, when you crosspost, it creates a copy of the linked thread on the new community? Meaning there are two separate but identical articles but on different communities with separate sets of comments? I had originally crossposted the first post to sci-fi, but I wasn’t expecting the two copies thing, so I thought I had done something wrong. I deleted the crosspost after that and left it only on the traveller community. Was I doing it ‘right’ originally after all?

Since you asked for it, there is now a follow-up post: Game Report: GM-less Traveller post.

As milkisklim said, I did write a follow-up post: Game Report: GM-less Traveller. I also added a link in the main body to it in case anyone stumbles in here going forward.

Thanks for looking out! Now I feel dumb, but it didn’t occur to me to come back here to add a link or tell people about the follow-up post. If there’s any help I can give to help you and your friends do the thing, please let me know.

I would say there was a good amount of discussion, but not an excessive amount. In most instances, the word pair meaning was pretty straight forward to interpret. There were some times that we had different interpretations of the word pairs, and there was more discussion that went with that. But, it was limited to us sharing our perspectives and agreeing that one was more likely, thematic, or interesting than the other option(s).

As an example, the trap scene was triggered with the meaning words ‘military’ and ‘trap.’ We all jumped to the same conclusion that the locals had some sort of militia and were intent on attacking us. There could have been other interpretations for sure, but our imaginations all went to the same place.

Later in that same scene, after we had talked down the attackers, we started negotiating and wanted to know what their motivation was. We asked for meaning again and got the words ‘repair’ and ‘obscurity.’ My buddies’ minds went the literal route, thinking that the locals had some sort of technology that was hidden and needed repairs. My mind thought that perhaps it was metaphorical, and these tribespeople wanted to repair their society, which was forgotten about by the King and Court of Drinax. I presented that interpretation and my friends responded with a “yes, yes, that one” which is what led to us trying to recruit them as allies.

So yes, there is definitely room for differing perspectives and discussion. I suppose your mileage may vary on how easily other players might settle on a meaning. The Mythic book actually talks about having a caller for group play, so one player is delegated to be the one that decides which meaning or course of action the group will take, after hearing the options.

Dang, somebody gave $2,500 (and ten cents) towards that bundle.

I would just say have fun and embrace learning as you go. I have not played this game but hopefully the rules light aspect allows you to not worry about the mechanics of the game and focus on story and fun. I like the cozy animal games like this, and I expect it will be similar in vibe to Humblewood and Mausritter.

The problems you encounter will likely have to do with being a new DM and will happen no matter what system you run. There is a near endless supply of new DM advice on the internet which you could search through. I particularly like Sly Flourish and recommend reading his Top Tips for RPG Game Masters. If you take that advice to heart, it will help you avoid the common DM pitfalls.

I wanted to circle back and thank you for recommending the Motif system to me. I read most of the core book and the world generator book. It does strike me as streamlined but robust. I pitched both Motif and Mythic to my friends for our Traveller game, and they decided to give Mythic a try first, since that’s what we were initially leaning towards.

Instead of the Traveller game then, I am going to try to use Motif on a solo Star Trek Adventures game I’ve been wanting to try when I have time. That way I’ll get a feel for it. Just wanted to say things for sharing.

Sure! I was planning on writing an update post after our first session of play. We did a session 0 and made characters so far. We were supposed to play over the weekend but I had to prep for my D&D game instead. We have this coming Saturday booked to play our first game. Is there anything specific you would like me to share?

This looks great, thank you for sharing!

This is fucking cool.

I see what you did there

I wonder how the books are different. I tried a solo Traveller game with Zozer solo first edition, and I couldn’t get into it. It was too much like a journaling game with not enough crunchy forced randomness. I wonder if the other versions are significantly different. I will probably get the second edition to see what it’s like.

I will say though, I do like the random tables from Zozer solo. Obviously it’s all tailored to Traveller which is a bonus compared to other solo systems. I particularly liked how it handled the character relationships. I will likely sprinkle in some of the random table use here and there and maybe use some of the character creation guidelines.

Thanks, Ross. That is the cooperative style we are thinking. I think we’ll have one PC each as our main characters, which we can channel the decision making through when needed, and interpret the results together. I think it’s a good plan.

We’ll document our sessions for sure, and I’ll try to do the occasional update. For sure I can do a retrospect once we get into it. I’ll ask the guys about a blog or video capture of the sessions. That sounds like work to me but they may be into it.

I linked to an article on EN World that has links to other sites. There is no store or checking out to be done on EN World itself.

I recommend contacting the customer service people for whatever website you’re referring to.

Okay, I bought those 3 books and I’ll check them out. Thank you for the recommendation, kind internet stranger!

I agree with you that it’s removing a big part of the game, but I hope the replacement is still fun. I think it’ll just be different.

We recently played a game of World Wizard, which has a similar cooperative narrative style to it. None of us had played that kind of game before and we really enjoyed it. This approach to playing Traveller was an idea to build on the fun we had in that game.

Also, happy cake day!

I haven’t seen this before but it looks interesting. Is the Story Engine the ‘core’ book, with the Character Engine and World Engine being something like ad-ons? I don’t think there’s anything keeping us from using multiple sources. I would be willing to give it a read and try it.

Yeah, I should, but that’s the thing – it makes it an obligation. The three of us plus a few more play in a regular D&D 5e game every couple weeks, that I am currently running. This game will be outside of that and we agreed that we would all like to play together. I definitely agree with you that running for small groups is fun, but I want to play too.

In reference to playing without a GM, that’s what the Mythic Game Master Emulator is for. It’s an oracle system where you ask it questions like you would a GM, and it generates an answer. As a group, we would come up with those questions, test them against the system, and interpret the results together.