Running Traveller - Part 6: Session 3
The players go hunting, after exploring several other options
The crew, having just accepted the job to escort the professor to a ruined city down on the planet's surface, stops to get more information. They chat up a stranded crew in the orbital station and learn that there's been some political fracas between the noble families that really control Harmony. The crew intuits their bounty target, Truk Duggular, is involved.
After a short ride to the surface, they arrive in the city of Landmark. All the extant cities on Harmony are on mountains, above the thick blows of dust and particulate that settle the lower regions. Landmark is a metropolis, with the rich buying offworld goods and living in spires at the former peak of the mountain, and the poor on the lower slopes.
After purchasing some locally made clothing to protect from the wind (thick helmeted ponchos), they do a little scouting and fact-finding among the criminal elements of Landmark. While Truk is low on most people's priorities, they make their way to a fixer situated in the rich district of the city, and finally abandon the pretense of helping the professor's expedition.
Our fixer, Reed Bleedo, knows that Truk is being protected by a noble family. He offers to help but only after the crew assassinate a well-connected seneschal. The crew go to the capybara racetrack and fake their way into some private rooms. After a brief temptation to abandon this task and instead smuggle ornate urns for the seneschal, they summarily dispose him. Except, by some unknown fluke this is discovered, and a hasty exit is required.
Referee Notes We squeezed one session is before a big break! I as a referee am enjoying the mercurial nature of the crew, Traveller is very well suited to players voiding any prep a referee makes, even mid-session. We also play very collaboratively and so the onus of creating drama doesn't always fall on me. And yes, the assassination of the seneschal was perfectly executed, but I threw some dice to see what the world reaction may have been and got two sixes!