Moonstein V: A Traveller Braunstein

Why did I decide to do this?

I need to read this. Do you?

Who knows. I probably have too much downtime on my hands. Perhaps it's because Dubzaron is on hiatus. But I truly think it's because I love Traveller and the worldbuilding it implies. I love that its world is one of characters whose most impactful actions and skills came from their character generation. There is no "get the ruby" style adventuring for Referee controlled locales or dungeons full of treasure and XP for the Players. They are forced to make their own goals and reasons for doing much of anything at all.

I love that characters can show up as super rich Counts and such from character generation. And it's not unbalancing to the other PCs because they're not adventuring together. There's no "balance" to speak of. Just the game. And considering the lethality of combat, even the weaker PCs have a chance to get lucky and shoot down an 8 Term Marine who retired at the top. 

So is that what happened in this Braunstein on Turn 5? 

The World

Moonshine: Starport C, Scout Base, 8,000-mile Diameter, Standard/Tainted atmosphere, Hydrographics 90%, Population in the thousands, NO GOVERNMENT, Law Level 1, Tech Level 6. Non-industrial.

Pop 2,499

This information implies a swampy world. The "no government" roll implies these Barons of Moonshine are vying for control with their own little militias of modern day (not futuristic) tech. Jeffro dreamed it up as a sort of Appalachia in space and I push that further as we move forward. 

The Characters

Let's discuss the characters who were available and sent in orders for Turn 5. 

Firstly there is Drew Montague a former Marine who is a master with a blade and knows big gunnery. In his chargen he had a bad random encounter with a Baron Columbue who had his men beat him up and leave him in the street.

Then we have Blaine Cooper a former Marine Captain who also mastered the cutlass but loves laser rifles. A real tyrannosaurus of a man. His chargen backstory was much more positive than Drew's and acquired an NPC Patron in Baroness Luva who hired him on as security for an upcoming soirée. 

The main character of the first Moonstein even in 2024, Roare Garnett, is back! He's an ex-marine force commander who is brutal with and quick to pull his revolver. His backstory since last summer is he's been "hiding in the swamp" and now "gives swamp tours". I'm sure it's fine the guy who offed like 4 PCs last year will be a great tour guide in the wilderness. Have fun!

Count Zane Valstrom is a PC who rolled insanely high on the social standing stat so founds himself with a very nice title indeed. A count! He didn't write a blog but told me he recently arrived on the planet intending to "lay low" (yeah right, enjoy your crazy convergences and forced PVP, Pal!) He's looking for ambitious Barons who might find mutual benefit in his big fancy title and the social connections he has off world. 

Lastly we have Malcolm Krieger. A former Army Lieutenant who was pushed out of the service after one term onto the backwater swamp planet of Moonshine. His chargen action included hearing rumors of poisoned whiskey. Being so lazy, Kreiger intends to try and sell the information somehow. 

Initial Orders

I had players send me their orders in email. I printed them out and made notes trying to find a way to Converge their ideas. Most of the orders I received were variations on "I try to look around and see what's happening" but I was able to find enough convergence to get the PCs together for stuff. 

One important thing to keep in mind for a Braunstein, including a Method II Braunstein, is to find ways to keep players from turtling up. To find ways to make them be on a team or at odds. To give them things they want that only one player can have. 

Blaine's new job with the Baroness keeping her estate safe during a big party worked well with Krieger's claim to want to look for "big parties to meet patrons at" (paraphrase) so I had him go to the party Blaine was guarding. Krieger wasn't presenting hostile particularly so I just informed both players of them both being on site and told them to talk out whatever they wanted. Blaine found Krieger's rumor interesting and they convinced the Baroness to let Krieger come on to work with Blaine to investigate the rumor directly for a prize should it turn out well for the Baroness.

Count Zane said he wanted to check out bars and stuff so I decided to have the Baron from Drew's backstory encounter be at a bar I dubbed The Roadhouse (after the bar in "Twin Peaks"). The Baron has a bunch of info to run by the Count but Count Zane's player was busy irl so all that is still up in the air. Big plans! If you want it...

Drew's orders were that "Count Zane interested him" so I ran an encounter to see if he learned anything about the Count. He learned some (or all?) of what the NPC Baron was telling and asking of the Count. But what could it be?!

Roarke is a big of a wild card. His orders were humorous in that he wanted to drive into town "to resupply" and "advertise jungle tours and safaris" into the jungle-swamp. He was weirdly famous on this lawless swamp-rock so him coming back into town became a rumor in and of itself. Some other players may or may not be acting on this information looking for a friend!

How I Abducted Them

I answered some of that above. The term "abductive reasoning" is from Alexander Macris's book "Arbiter of Worlds". It's kind of backwards reasoning wherein you take surprising or strange information then explain backwards why it must be so. This sort of reasoning is done ALL THE TIME in real TTRPG play. It is what running a Method II Braunstein is all about.

I've already done a ton of this. You can follow me doing it in real time on my Twitter account under the #Moonstein hashtag. 

I made up the concept of Garmonbozia brand whiskey based on Krieger's "poisoned whiskey" rumor. That implied "Bob's Bottle Shop". Both are "Twin Peaks" references that hint at weirding things to those who get the reference. It's also being "imported from Madriguera" which is another planet in the same solar system that Jeffro's original Traveler Braunstein 

I made up that the Count bought out "The Roadhouse" for the night to chat with the Baron Columbue(sp) because the player was too busy to get back to me. So he's just going to spend the Turn getting drunk and partying. This also means the other PCs kind of know where and in what situation one important NPC and PC are for at least part of Turn 6. Will it matter?

Knock On Effects and Plans

I actually can't tell you all the Second Order Effects and in Turn actions the players took. Because fog of war! Lets just say that a "sour mash facility" (whatever that is) got burned down. And there may or may not be a hit out on multiple NPCs or PCs.

You'll just have to wait a little longer!