As part of my ongoing High-Trust Trad timeline project, I'm about to mine a vein I've been zeroing in on for a while: CHALLENGE, the once and future JTAS.
While Traveller itself has been slim pickings for HTT (which suprises me) the cultures of military sci-fi RPGs more generally has been fruitful (which, also, surprises me).
So I'm hopeful, but prepared to be surprised all over again. 😅 Time to study every single scenario in CHALLENGE issues #25 to #77.
Update on this leg of the #AdventureDesign studies:
Issue #37 was a random lazy pick for the cover graphic, above, just because it came up easily with an image search, but as it happens, it's been a heck of an issue.
"Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright" is a crackerjack bit of 80s-style HTT.
"A Body Swayed By Music," same issue, is a pretty good MTT consolation.
There's also a Star Wars adventure, same issue, that's Low-Trust AF but still looks fun.
Meaty issue for roleplayers!
@SJohnRoss Maybe this has something to do with "military-minded people" knowing that (almost) nothing is certain, and they're planning for risk. All you have is lines of conflict, some assets, supply lines and objectives. What happens in "the fog of war" is what happens. No scripts, just principles, and contigencies.
So a designer like that would not prescribe "dramatic trajectories" or "puzzles", but list the elements present and likely and unlikely outcomes if someone _does_ something?
@Kobiac Yes, that's been my supposition as well since I started finding HTT creations in the Space Master and T2K lines ... that the thinking just fits.
@Kobiac The bottleneck is that thinking in military terms leads to designing only military facts ... which (often) gives us scenarios that are Action-Mystery shaped but thin on characterizing potential.
But when the designer suddenly has an idea for a nuanced motive or something else that adds a dimension ... bingo. Suddenly HTT.
@SJohnRoss NVTS: «Non-violent tactical scenarios»? 🤔😜
@Kobiac Well, non-violence is just another category of presumptive design, so that's never on my list of goals. 😅
I just round problems so that violence is no more viable than other approaches.
@Kobiac But yes to tactical! I often describe HTT as "rich tactics" compared to the "flat tactics" of mechanized play.
Mainly to annoy but also because it's true 😄
@SJohnRoss Let me know when you hit “The Horror Out of Partridgeville” at around #45.
@FredKiesche I will look forward to that 😅 I've done ten issues so far, and two adventures passed muster as Consolation Prize designs (as expected, the main bottleneck is that even when a Traveller scenario limits itself to relevant facts, those facts often lean heavily into _military_ facts).
My biggest surprise so far is how many issues have no adventures in them!
My biggest sadnesss is noting that Loren was the editor. Were he still with us, I'd phone him up and pepper him with questions. 😥
@SJohnRoss I miss him.
@FredKiesche Me too. I didn't know him super well, but we worked together at Steve Jackson Games for a little while, and he was a nice dude. Seeing him (almost) every day was on the small list of things I liked about working there.
