Travel the Spinward Marches

Travel the Spinward Marches

Our Travellers seek to build and operate an anti-piracy operation in District 268. Many side adventures happen. https://travellermap.com/?p=-102.738

TYPE

Campaign

SYSTEM

Traveller

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

18+
About the adventure

Hi! I'm an experienced Traveller GM who enjoys running several ongoing weekly game sessions. These first sessions will be a series of short adventures to gather a group of 4-5 dedicated regulars for an ongoing campaign. The game is Mongoose Traveller V2. Expect deluxe custom content suited to your PC's background and interests. My objective is to gather a fun crew for an ongoing science fiction campaign in the Spinward Marches of the Imperium. Participate in the opening adventures to get to know each other, your characters' galaxy, and your GM. Expect a game style more like Firefly than Star Trek. My Tuesday session is full so I'm starting a second group. The campaign will involve a lot of salvage & scavenging with limited support from the Imperial Scout Service (ISS) and the Imperial Nave. Your PC's background & objectives should include doing well by doing good. Short term goal is to build and operate an anti-piracy armada to protect District 268 from pirates. The 50+ year goal goal is to help District 268 join the Imperium. Your PC may be as exotic as you like. Vargr and Aslan are particularly appropriate non-human aliens in District 268. All sorts of PCs could join this crew so long as they want to oppose pirates and reavers. My stories & games are a mix of existing adventures and my own content. Players have agency to decide upon their goals, methods, and approach. I typically rely on pre-written Traveller adventures for 2/3 of content and create 1/3. I'll alter my play style to suit the character party and the situation. Expect a combination of sandbox play and adventures-on-rails. Here's a partial list of Traveller adventures I have prepared and run for previous groups: * Intro to Travelling on the Tanagra * Find & salvage a lost battlecruiser from a war 30 years ago * Downtime on a tech 6 planet during extended ship repairs at a class B starport gets both interesting & dangerous. Heroes are called for. * Investigate & salvage a lost scientific lab ship * Beware the Health Police: Keystone-Cops style light-hearted comedy-horror on a dystopian planet, Survias, controlled by globalist oligarchs using biosecurity-based turnkey totalitarianism. Written in 1985. * Infiltration & espionage * Marooned on a low tech world * Investigate a scientific research station that has stopped communicating * Investigate the deep history of humanity and other sentient races. Is there a progenitor species that once spread life & intelligence through the seedling stars? Is it still around? * Heroes needed to protect miners in a remote mining installation * Robin Hood in Space * Naval combat between space ships. Sometimes I'll abstract this component for purposes of getting on with the story, other times, players willing, we can use a map grid and make this a game unto itself. * Player-driven adventures. I'll use pre-made adventures to fill in some weeks, as creating exciting new content every week gets challenging.

Game style

Rule of Cool (RoC)

Sandbox / Open World

2 NEEDED TO START
$25.00

/ Session

Details

Bi-weekly / Monday – 12:00 AM UTC

Campaign Length / 10–100 Sessions

2.5–4 Hour Duration

1 / 5 Seats Filled

GAME MASTER

Bruce

he/him

5.0

(20)

This game will begin once 3 players have joined

Each player will be charged when a session starts.

Report Adventure

Meet the Game Master

5.0

(20)

Neurodivergent

3 years on StartPlaying

53 games hosted

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Teacher, Creativity

Average response time: 11 hours

Response rate: 100%

About me

This storyteller delights in bringing joy and adventure to all. I run several regular weekly RPG sessions on Roll20 & Discord. I intend to ADD A REGULAR SUNDAY EVENING SESSION for a dedicated group. Game time will be a Sunday evening (in North America) time block of ~4 hours. Contact me if you'd like to hire me to run a custom game for your group. Here's my Roll20 profile: https://app.roll20.net/users/160701/bruce

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Reviews (20)

Proficiencies

Players say this GM is great at:

Storytelling

Teacher

Creativity

Casey  avatar

Casey

Played 18 sessions

When I first met Bruce he started off as a guy with a good sense of humor and someone who was fun to play with as we were both in the same Campaign. But when I heard he was going to DM I knew I had to play with him because his imagination truly knows no bounds. The world he is building is intriguing, yet simplistic in a way that even a moron such as myself can understand. He is fun with both our hits and misses when it comes to combat. And he puts up with me which is a feat all up in its own. Thank you for an amazing time and I'm happy you are my DM!

Sam avatar

Sam

Played 15 sessions

EXCELLENT DM! Bruce is a very friendly DM who is very well-versed in the rules. He allows for a lot of player creativity, and is extremely creative himself. He is very patient with beginners, and is able to clearly explain both rule questions and game sheet mechanics (e.g. DnD Beyond, Discord and Roll20) to beginners. Although he is good with beginning players, his deep knowledge and experience also makes him good with advanced players.

Kris avatar

Kris

Played 12 sessions

had a great first session begining a second shortly.

Richard avatar

Richard

Played 6 sessions

Bruce is well prepared. He is calm and always ready to help. He has a nice tone of voice. He speaks clearly. The story and the world are very deep and engaging. They are really good visual and audio help to set the mood.

Justin  avatar

Justin

Played 6 sessions

Great Game Master. Keeps the play active with appropriate visuals and descriptions. All players are engaged with throughout the game time. Provides a lot of support for new players before, during and after the game time.

Auditor Dean (Disturbed1Smurf)  avatar

Auditor Dean (Disturbed1Smurf)

Played 6 sessions

Bruce was kind to everyone, he kept the pace and incorporated player ideas quickly and seamlessly into the narative.

Character creation
Creating your character

Make your own character via Mongoose 2 Traveller. Make sure your PCs can play well with others as an effective team. PCs will acquire a small 4 cabin Scout-Courier vessel able to travel between the stars. Please write a small blurb to describe your PCs background. Each 4-year term deserves a sentence or two. Build your own story. I will read your background and will do my best to personalize adventures to suit. For example, if your PC is psionic expect this to affect the story trajectory. My games operate in hard mode and character death is a thing so consider making a back up character. When you create your PC I give you leave to 'cheat' once, one die roll. The purpose of this house rule is to allow your PC's career to fit your imagination. For example, you COULD use this 'cheat' to avoid a prison sentence but consider that prison might suit the story you want to tell.

The current party

Update: We now have two players. Further notes as character creation proceeds.

What to expect
Preparing for the session

Microphone & basic skills with Discord. I can train you on any technical issues that may arise. Have a working account in Roll20 and Discord. You don't need to know any Traveller rules. I run a fast-paced rules-light game and will gradually introduce what few 'rules' you need to know. You are free to create your own PC or to use a pre-made PC.

What Bruce brings to the table

I'll provide a VTT, maps & token, and lots of custom content. I don't use ambient music. I do sometimes provide sound effects & other special effects. For starters we'll play shorter adventures. Eventually, once we get a regular group, the ongoing story will follow the interests and commitments of the characters. Please create characters suited to, and interested in, building and/or operating anti-piracy operations in a 'backwater' portion of the Third Imperium. Additional plot elements will depend upon PC actions and interests. For example, a certain billionaire patron seeks to end Imperial Interdiction of a red Zone that should no longer be interdicted - but Imperial bureaucracy has great inertia.

Homebrew rules

GM generally sticks to Mongoose Traveller 2 rules but reserves the right to alter any and all rules as needed to fit the Rule of Cool. Your GM has been running Traveller games for since 1981 but is still learning intricacies of the Mongoose Traveller 2 rules set.

Equipment needed to play

Headphones

Microphone

Computer

Mobile Phone

Safety
How Bruce creates a safe table

My stories tend to be pretty tame and respectable. PG-13+. I prefer nothing more risque than, for example, Firefly & Serenity. This includes some pretty scary stuff but, notably, the more extreme events happen off stage. Players should speak to me if there are any themes or topics that might be problematic. While sexual themes might arise I typically like the scene to "fade to black" when it gets spicy. Take it to the fan fiction sites.

Content warnings
Alcoholism
Alcohol Use
Animal Death
Blood
Character Death
Classism
Death
Deep or Large Bodies of Water
Drugs (addiction, use, withdrawal)
Emotional Abuse
Execution
Fire
Gore
Guns
Hostages
Illness
Insects
Kidnapping
Language/Cursing
Lifechanging Injury
Medical Issues
Mind alteration
Mind Control
Murder
Paralyzation
Pet Death
Police Brutality
Prejudice
Slavery
Snakes
Spiders
Terrorism
Uncanny Valley
Violence
Sexual Content
Safety tools used

Additional tables

1 available

1 SEAT LEFT

Weekly / Wednesday – 12:30 AM UTC

Aug 6 / Session 14

5 / 6 Seats Filled

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