I’m doing most of my gaming online these days, but I’m hoping to return to physical gaming for the first time since the Pandemic sometime soon. I’ve been tinkering with an idea that I thought I’d share here, since maybe this idea is inspired? It might also be hubris, it’s hard to tell.

One of the things I like about Traveller is that the characters quickest and easiest way to change their capabilities is stuff. Skills take months to learn. Upgrading stats is slow. Hiring specialists is expensive (and takes up precious passenger space, in Free Trader campaigns). You might not have much skill with a gun; but your drone will. You might not be great with a lockpick, but a lockpicker will do the trick.

What you have, and having the right tool for the job, is an appealing idea for mechanical attention. That is, I think enforcing the inventory and encumbrance rules can enhance gameplay. Picking out the right equipment to bring along with you on a dangerous exploration of a wreck, or being caught with your rifle left aboard the ship are both things I want to be part of my game.

The problem is that this book keeping can be tedious. I’ve worn holes in paper character sheets, I’ve got google docs with formulas that make my eyes cross. Taking stuff seriously very quickly takes me into doing-actual-accounting stuff, which means either automation (lots of front end work) or lots of book keeping by hand. I feel like noting down the specific location of my kit on a daily basis would be a lot of erasing. At the same time it’s an important way to highlight things like local atmosphere (filter masks? full on vacc suits?), law levels… all things that provide the all-important “dynamic contrast” between worlds; one of the things I really like about Traveller.

So I don’t want to keep making and erasing lists, I want something more dynamic, something tactile players can step back and build an impromptu inventory out of for attending a dinner party.

I want item cards.

I’m thinking these are either ordinary index cards (if I’m not worried about getting a cramp from hand-writing) or a custom printed business card with space for what the item is, a page ref, where it came from and it’s TL, value… and maybe a little bit for its stats, if its a gun.

Something like an index card would be the best – that’d be big enough to put down a complicated items rules or even a vehicles most basic stats and status.

The other thing? Physically tracking inventories and item locations.

In my mind this is just ordinary envelopes. Everybody gets a on-their-person envelope (and one for their quarters, when they get it) – note the max encumbrance on the envelope… and prepare new envelopes for locations where items are stored; ships armory gets all the guns as cards. Vacc suit closet gets an envelope. The air/raft glovebox (containing, naturally, whiskey, revolver, expired registration), you get the picture. Stuff gets moved around as it gets used.

This makes it easy for folks to track encumbrance. Everything has got its rating and weight and hands required. Just make a pile of what you have and we’re golden. No need to tell the Ref you’re taking (or not taking) a gun, just shift the card around.

This probably isn’t going to be what you want to use for a military campaign, or even a high level mercenaries game. This is more for the hardscrabble free traders who do the owner/operator and freelance troubleshooter thing. The more entities involved, the more onerous this whole process would be. Four folks tracking their four charcters would generate maybe a hundred cards, but adding in tracking for NPC’s or employees and it’d add up fast. It might also be tedious busywork mid-session, especially if the gear is quickly discarded.

There’ll be some variation, too. Buying corporate gear from a starport will have a flat QREBS score. It’s megacorporate stuff that’s been being manufactured on Vland at ruinously low cost since the second Imperium. It’s neither good nor bad, just average across the board. Meanwhile locally purchased gear? That gets a random roll. So if you want something “fine” it’s around (and easy to note), and if you want personality you get the random roll. I’d limit it to a single roll for any single class of gear, just to avoid letting players shop for too long. But I’m tickled by the idea of the characters getting to look at a cool high tech sniper rifle before sighing loudly that its safety clicks off constantly and the sight is so big you can’t fit it through the air/raft door.

conclusion

Nothing mind-blowing – hell, there are commercial versions of this for plenty of games. I’m not sure I’d buy a traveller version. But I do like the idea of my handmade ones. I’ll post up again if and when I get the chance to try it.