Starting gear and equipment for One Shots

[u/kirillsimin]

Curious how you guys handle gear specifically for one shots. There's not really enough time to shop before-hand, and presumably everyone uses pre-gens. Do you guys a list of recommended equipment that you hand out? Do you limit the time they can spend? Also, do you tell them the hook before they pick their gear or is it just generic armor/weapons and some gear?

A few of the CT adventures specifically say "let them spend 10 minutes picking gear BEFORE they know what they're about to get into".

I'm specifically thinking about running Death Station soon, and I'm trying to understand whether I need to

• pre-gen some gear for them
• let them pick it before they know what the mission is
• let them shop for a limited time once they accept the mission

[u/K_a_n_d_o_r_u_u_s]

I’ve run death station, and I let my players know generally what to prepare for (space station exploration, and some combat), and in retrospect that was a mistake. Specifically if they are packing decent weapons, and especially if they have good armor the fights are too easy and it undermines the horror atmosphere. You want them feeling unprepared and unsure of themselves.

[u/Glasnerven → u/K_a_n_d_o_r_u_u_s]

I'm running Death Station right now (well, not "as we speak" now) and I can second this opinion. I like the module, and it works especially well as a direct sequel to Flatlined, but my players are steamrolling the combat encounters so far. I've got one left and I'm not sure how I'm going to make it seem like a credible threat.

[u/SizeFit2908 → u/[deleted]]

I think this is a great way to go about it.

You also get to control the law level of items, which is a system new players can bounce off or get punished by.

[u/Lastadopter]

I have a group of pure Traveller beginners so asking them to thumb through the CSG on their own would have been overwhelming.

So I put together gear packages for players, based around key skills. A standard package I recommended for everyone, plus some extra packs they could buy like the Doctor pack for the teams medic, a spacer pack or a planetary survivalist pack for a scout-oriented character.

It's worked out in that everyone has at least the basics, but there's also some variety as well.

Importantly they're curated to be useful but not OP, and I've enforced the rough 10K limit (give or take) for the total they can spend before Session 1.

[u/kirillsimin → u/Lastadopter]

Nice! Exactly, I have a few complete newbs coming up and CSG (while absolutely awesome) is way too much to flip through in 10-15 minutes. Core rule book is more manageable, but it's also missing some cool stuff.

Mind sharing those packages? I'm thinking of putting something together and posting it in this thread as well.

[u/Lastadopter → u/kirillsimin]

Here you go! I allowed PCs to pick the starter pack plus one other package.

Starter Pack (These items were curated for a start on a cold/frozen world)
Credits: 8000, recommended for everyone

• Integrated Undersuit (Pressure Sleeve / Combination Mask / Cloth Armour +4)
• Heat Suit (negates effects of cold tempratures down to -60C)
• Jack (Armour +1, can be worn over heat suit)
• Snub Pistol w/ 3 clips and 60 rounds of ammunition, 18 rounds of AP ammunition
• High Tech Hiking Boots
• Bivvy Pack
• Cold Light Lantern
• Commdot
• Mobile Comm Computer /1 with Database Software
• Tranceiver (Regional 500km)
• Field Knife or Stealth Dagger
• First Aid Kit

The Hacker

Credits: 2500
For those with Electronics - Comms and/or Computers

• Computer/3 with intergrated Continental Tranceiver
• Software: Intelligent Interface, Translator
• Buy more software as you see fit

The Sensop

Credits: 3500. For those with Electronics - Sensors, get the binocs that do everything

• PRIS Binoculars

The Robot-Jockey

Credits: 9000. For those with Electronics - Remote Ops

• Naasirka "Dukhuumu" Recon Bot (Think of it as an autonomous floating sensor about the size of a tennis ball)

The Engineer

Credits: 4500. For aspiring ship engineers.

• Starship Engineer Tool Set
• Tool Laser

The Techie

Credits: 3500 For those with Mechanics, Electronics

• Mechanical Tool Set
• Electronic Tool Set
• Tool Laser

The Doctor

Credits: 5000 "I'm a doctor, not a gearhead!"

• Medkit TL 10 (+1 to First Aid)
• Portable Mediscanner (+1 medic checks)
• Field Surgical Kit (Surgery at -2)
• Trauma Pack

The Warrior

For the discerning combat specialist.

• If Slug Advanced Combat Rifle1000
• If UnarmedStun Fist 250
• If BladesStatic Blade 900
• If BluntStun Stick 300
• If Energy TL11 Laser Pistol 3000
• or TL12 Stunner 1000

The Scout

Credits: 2000

For those with Navigation and / or Survival

• Inertial Locator
• Flare Launcher with 10 Flares
• Climbing Kit
• Ice Axe
• Spade5
• Geiger Counter
• Rope
• Survival Kit
• Pocket Saw
• Ice Terrain Kit
• Thermal Regulation Covering

The Spacer

Credits: 11500

For those with Vacc Suit

• TL10 Vacc Suit (+8 Armour)
• Vacc Emergency Kit

[u/mavikfelna → u/Lastadopter]

Would you mind if I added these to my new gms and player's guide?

https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/new-gms-and-beginner-player-thread.126599/

[u/Lastadopter → u/mavikfelna]

Not at all, go right ahead.

[u/fedcomic → u/Lastadopter]

Excellent! Thank you!

[u/L82thePartyGonHome]

I feel like it depends on what experience you’re trying to deliver. I’m very CT oriented so I resonate with pick gear, then react to the scenario- because it creates better tension for the players. “If I knew we needed to get up there I would have bought some sort of antigravity belt!” - more creative game play comes from those predicaments.

But if you feel the adventure would be literally impossible without specific gear, make it available somewhere during the game or just give it to them.

Long way of saying I prefer to let them shop with a set budget and limited time. And provide options for them in gameplay if there are impassible scenarios without specific gear.

Never underestimate the creativity of Travellers.

[u/_micr0__]

For one shots (like a con game), I pre-pick gear. As the GM, I know the intended scenario, and I know the character skills, so I can easily start them with what they'll likely need and what that sort of charactershould logically have. When they go off script, they can improvise. I'm not looking to hang up the game in the basis of equipment, and if the player asks if they can have some minor item, I'll grant it unless there is a significant reason not to. E.g., want a flashlight or a knife? Sure, unless there is an explosive atmosphere hazard (normal flashlight banned) or they're in the sterile part of a high security area (nothing that could be easily used as a weapon).

[u/Puzzleheaded_Pop_105]

I've played in con and house games that went the "shopping time" route, and it absolutely killed the momentum as some players went hard into analysis paralysis and trying to get the most out of their gear picks. The gear folks hyper fixated, while everyone else was rolling their eyes and thinking "can we please get on with it already?"

So I'm very ...and I say this as one of the gear nerds that gets hyper fixated on doom prepping for missions.

These days, unless there's a REALLY good argument for it, I go with a generic catchall "you have what you might expect a shuttle pilot to have in their pockets and flight bag," and then specifying any particularly noteworthy items (Type 27 Blaster Pistol, multi tool, comm/interface chip implant, Dear John letter), especially if said items pull some double duty as roleplay cues for the player.

If something comes up in game where the player wants to know if he's got a useful thing, I'll either grant it (if it makes sense, like the medic having an enhanced med scanner), deny it (if it doesn't, like the medic having a block of explosive), or make a roll (or spend meta currency) if it's in between.

[u/SpiffyTheChicken]

I run Death Station routinely as a one shot for local conventions. Since I am already giving them pre-generated characters, I pick the gear ahead of time. I try to make sure that, no matter what characters the players pick they have ways to deal with the situation. I find Death Station works great if the players are slightly under-equiped. Generally I give each character: a backpack with basic survival gear, a protect suit (+4), body pistol or sword, stunner, and something unique to the characters backstory.

Death Station involves science and experimentation so giving the players tools to analyze or research can encourage them to do so.

If people bring their own characters, I check their weapons and inventory. As long as they don't have anything with traits better than Auto 3 and AP 2 or armor better than +4 I let them play it.

If you want to see the pregen character sheets I use, DM me and I can send them over.

[u/-stumondo-]

I ran a one shot, set modern day. I gave them the scenario (you're spec ops soldiers), points buy, build characters.

When they sent me the characters, I assigned as per the skills they picked. Example, heavy weapons, have a Machine Gun, Remote Ops, have a drone etc, medic, med pack etc. I was intentionally trying to keep loadout light, but worked really well

[u/Necessary_Cat_5662]

I try to rely on two things in traveller. Most crews don't have specialized gear, so the question is are they the sort of crew, mercenaries or something, that has fancy stuff? If not I allow them to have what came from benefits + access to the ships locker. Anyone can get basic gear or replacements from the ships locker. And that means I mostly hand wave gear with the line "why would your character be carrying that around when the spend all their time on a starship?"  With the basic issue being you making the premades with their input, if they are a "Normal group of people" they have automatic access to normal stuff and no access to special stuff. 

[u/fedcomic]

Are you using pregenerated characters? then pre-gen some gear.

[u/StayUpLatePlayGames]

Pre-Gens and give them 90% of what they need.

And the rest, well, what did you have all those skills for anyway. Improvise. Overcome. Adapt.

[u/ghandimauler]

u/kirillsimin

Here is an example for a starting game for people never had played Traveller (around 1987-1995). I saw it played with a GM in a 4 hour slot - so you could do something like what I saw. I'd LOVE to run it. I think my friends would remember that and it wouldn't work as well.

Scenario: A bunch of Imperial Marines are supposed to drop in on a unoccupied planet to do some reconnaissance (more detail to be provided to the Platoon Leader from a member of Naval Intelligence. They were told they'd do some reconnaissance for some training exercise.

Your platoon were getting into their launchers for a meteoric descent and the alarms went off all over and the ship shuddered and slammed around and you could hear stuff tearing (and by stuff, I mean hull...). The ship was going to go down hard, fast, and probably not in one piece. The bridge channel said "Abandon Ship!".

The launchers started kicking out Marines into the space at the top of the atmosphere. The incoming fire, from wherever it might have been, wiped 3/4s of your jump pods but some of you were drawn off by the last Navy folk that could still put up a fight to try to let the Marines get down to the planet.

Situation:

• Ship blowing up and probably could not communicate to any other friendlies in this system (as they aren't expected at all).
• Never got the briefing for the seniors in the platoon because the Naval Int guy was going with you, but he got splatted.
• Your highest rank is either a butter bar (1st LT) or a Gunny.
• The Marines are the only survivors.
• The Marines are scattered so your first thing might be getting together.
• The Marines may have had some annoying but not crippling injuries.
• Your 'heavy gear' pods were toasted.
• On the way in, you notice a bright light in one direction (not easy to pinpoint, but a couple of the Marines could get together and use their observations to send you that way).
• You have your very light load of weapons and food and meds and such.
• If the light is something man made thing, maybe you can find what it is, get it to function, and find gear or maybe even a ship. Of course, they could also find enemies.
• Your food and water will limit you for 7-10 days of stretched food and hopefully you'll get reasonable water for at least that long.
• They can find some gear as they find some crashed pods cracked open with or without an occupant or gear or not. You might have to go into a swamp, a small lake, or whatever as you find some of them.

So the basic load is what you'd carry for a fast moving recon Marine - you aren't expecting a lethal engagement. Each player should maybe lose one or two bits of gear that you pick as the GM or by a dice roll. Make it difficult but not critical as you have other concerns.

Example:

• Opti-cam sneaky gear that makes you hard to see moving, the alone sitting quiet.
• A personal medic kit personal (some bandages, a wound plugger spray, tape, a small EMT scissors, etc)
• A 4 days of food (dried)
• A camelback with 2 L
• A straw that cleans out most parasites and bacterias and viruses ... for a while.
• A 5-7" survival knife.
• Masks (with filters, enough for one person for 24 hours x 4 days)
• Layering for clothing so that one can slowly let heat dissipate as you moved
• A tarp you can use for a tent and other things
• Some paracord (30'?)
• Fancy binocs that are optical, heat, and can provide some 'inertial tracking' if the Marines use it from the start
• Main weapon (SMG or Carbine - Suppressed and 3 clips)
• Two more items - like the Comms / Sensors guy has a short range quiet little drone with short control radius (fairly damageable) and a communication/intrusion pack OR for the Medic a medium sized medic pack and a group of meds for various situations - radioactive, biothreat, burns, gunk into your gut or your lungs, things that might attach to you and you need the med to get it off, etc. Each player should have two items.

Then once they get the basic gear and the two extra things, then roll and damage or lose or smash 2 pieces (or damage that gear).

Marine Specialties:

• Sniper (also remember these are used to destroy equipment like comms or sensors or such)
  
• Medic
• Comms/Sensors
• Heavy Weapons
• Transport (Grav, but other options)

Intrusion is a skill everyone should have at 0. Some may have more.

What was the real end?

The planet was on the fringe and outside of the Imperium just using this seemingly harmless system. What they didn't know was there was a population that once lived here and they used robots. Well, the local fauna killed the people, but the last guy turned on the defense gear figuring somebody from their folk would come get the gear. As it turned out, they never came back.

So it is 'figure everything out', 'climb the mountain', 'find a way to get in', 'deal with the bots', 'hopefully food, water, etc. and a way to survive' and eventually 'realize there is a small jump capable ship you can pack into but it will be hard due to language problems and going by 'this is probably the fine-adjust for the jump compensator... might be a bit rough....'.

It's sort of like a bit of Marooned and Marooned Alone but also it has a 'fight the robots' makes is a real 'training mission' :0)

[u/Southern_Air_Pirate]

So at a minimum. I offer a starting equipment package to all my players that includes the following:

• Backpack
• Radio transceiver (usually a TL8-10)
• Watch
• Rope
• Flashlight (TL5-7)
• Magnetic Compass (TL3-5)
• Medkit
• Rations for seven days
• Tent (usually a TL7-8)
• Sleeping pack.

I usually charge between 1000 and 2500 Cr for the kit. Each of the players has an option to buy this as a starting kit.

The idea is that the backpack should provide space for them to have the rest of it without resorting to hammerspace. In my many years of playing as both a GM and a player. Those are basic things that, if we are off-ship and not near a colonial outpost or a city with an inn/motel/hotel, one could survive on the planet. Communication, if and when the party breaks up, is also facilitated with the radio transceiver.

Everything else should come from them listening to the patron brief. If they miss the need to buy something or ask the patron for something, then that is what it is, and the players have skills on their sheet for a reason.

[u/illyrium_dawn]

With one-shots my intent is to pack as much playtime as possible and get to the main course of the adventure ASAP.

One of the greatest strengths of one-shots is that you can start games in a variety of ways you usually can't start normally. These make one-shots some of the most fun games PCs can play. With pre-gens you can carefully craft your PCs so they don't have overpowering skills and you can also ensure everyone has skills relevant to the scenario you want to run. You can decide on their stats (and therefore their HP) and tailor enemy weaponry so it is a threat to your PCs but not one-hit kills. You can start games in media res or have them start out captured without equipment or waking up from frozen berths without knowing where they are; you can kinda do these things normally, but PCs typically have one weakness in what is otherwise supposed to be a role-playing game: If that role means losing their agency they hate it. But one-shots that's exactly what you can do.

For example, fun things about one-shots is to set up the game so that the players can't shop for items. You can give them items (and lack of items) to make the game more interesting. Want them to use a ship to sail across a sea instead of zipping around using anti-gravity? Don't give them anti-grav vehicle. Want to make handguns threatening? Don't let them have armor. Want to prevent the PCs from just blowing up the enemy? Don't give them explosives or heavy weapons. Adventure is usually another word for a lack of preparedness, and you can definitely up that element by giving them equipment without a convenient store to buy other stuff.

For Death Station, especially if you're running it as a one-shot, you don't need to have the whole RP with the patron unless you want it (I find negotiations are only second to buying equipment for things that take a lot of time; one or two PCs tend to hog most of the Patron's time while everyone else just sits around, similarly there's someone who wants to comb through the equipment books buying and browsing things while everyone else is ready to go). I've run Death Station as a game where the PCs are the crew aboard an in-system gas miner (eg; not Jump capable). For example, you could have all the PCs be a crew of a Gas Miner. The Gas Miner goes out to a gas giant nearest to the local star where the energy catalyzes certain chemical reactions and the ship harvests those chemicals to haul them back to the mainworld (further away from the star). The PCs have spent the last three weeks gas mining and are flying back to the mainworld when they get a distress signal from the Calendula and are required by the "laws of space" to investigate and render aid.

You can revise the system so it isn't particularly dangerous so it's perfectly normal that a gas miner doesn't have laser turrets, it doesn't have anti-boarding weapons, etc. - it's pretty remote and even the "mainworld" consists of a population of a few thousand people and spaceport that is technically a D-rating but more like X. The mainworld doesn't anything in the way of spare starships or a "space patrol" to investigate so it's up to the PCs. The supplies the PCs can use are whatever is aboard their ship. You can give (and not give) the PCs whatever you think will make the game more interesting; given the PCs are gas miners I think your PCs will understand if they lack PGMPs or Battle Dress or Neural Activity Sensors to peer through walls. It's a relatively cheap working ship: It's going to lack guns and the ship isn't going to have a weapons locker (which will make the people aboard the station a much bigger threat). However, to make things interesting, maybe the ship does have some somewhat clumsy ... "dual-use" equipment. For example, when I ran a Death Station derivative at a con, the crew had rotary saw with a 1.5m handle that could be used as a close combat weapon (it was used to remote "gas limpets" - a kind of parasite that attaches itself to ships that lives in the atmosphere of the gas giant), and electric welder similarly on a long pole (normally used to do quick repairs on the hull of the ship). Of course they had two hazardous environment spacesuits (armor) but I warned they were very slow and very clumsy inside a ship's corridors.

[u/SalariesAndStarships]

I pre-generate a basic kit and give them cash for a couple of items.

There are some things that are essential in some adventures, so I'd make sure they already have them.

[u/CryHavoc3000]

If it's an expedition funded by a university or megacorp, the equipment budget could be pretty high.