Traveller: Supp 16: Adventure Seeds

The game session arrives. You have not had time to prepare the game this week and then the players announce they want to jump to a system you have not yet fully detailed.

You need an adventure, quick.

This book finishes the referee’s toolkit ‘trilogy’ that started with Supplement 13: Starport Encounters and continued with Supplement 15: Powers and Principalities. Supplement 16: Adventure Seeds rounds off your toolkit by providing a variety of methods to generate new ideas for adventures that can be sprung upon your players with very little preparation – just the thing for a busy referee!

The goal with Supplement 16: Adventure Seeds is to give the referee a multitude of jump-off points to launch new adventures with the minimum of preparation or forethought. Combined with the other books in this trilogy, and you will be able to create complex adventures that will keep your players entertained for hours, while filling them with realistic places, people, governments and corporations. Your players will think you a genius for creating such rich and varied universes!

This book covers three key areas to aid referees in creating adventures.

Patrons

Most adventures in Traveller and, indeed, most roleplaying games, are driven by some kind of patron, a figure who motivates the players to search for a specific goal. Patrons are the drivers behind the events presented in this section, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. The following Plots and Rendezvous sections, when added to Supplement 13: Starport Encounters and Supplement 15: Powers and Principalities, form a complete referee’s tool kit.

Plots

Plots are an essential part of any game. A well thought-out plot can lead to hours of exciting gaming. There are many sources of ideas for plots; television, books, newspapers, all of which surround the referee. Occasionally, however, the creative spirit runs dry and pre-prepared material is beneficial. Additionally, the players usually have a great deal of control over their actions and may go in directions which the referee did not anticipate and therefore could not be prepared for.

Rendez-vous

The starports, towns and cities of every Traveller world contain a wide variety of hotels, bars, shops and other locations which may be of interest to your player-characters (players). The rendezvous described in this section are not intended merely as meeting places for your players, but also provide;

• Interesting characters with whom your players can interact.
• Potential plot links and/or patrons for expanding into subsequent adventures.
• Background colour, useful services, and sources of rumours and information.