PDA

View Full Version : Pirates of Drinax



jp1971
May 21st, 2020, 13:39
Hi all,

I'm loving the MGT2 ruleset. I just wrapped up Marooned on Marduk with my group last night.

Is anyone using Fantasy Grounds to run Pirates of Drinax? If so, would you mind sharing some pointers?

I'm new to Fantasy Grounds, but my understanding is that I could start a new campaign with the MGT2 ruleset and add story entries, NPCs, images, etc. as we go along.

Looking forward to any pointers you guys share.

Thanks!
Jameson

backwardoracle
May 21st, 2020, 16:08
The first thing its huge, really huge, your players can easily get sidetracked, and there are plenty of opportunities to do so.

You'll need dozens possibly hundreds of extra NPC's, put them in manageable chunks though, and maps lots & lots of lovely maps.

Make sure your crew can handle the main jobs on the Harrier, don't let them have too much stuff especially in the way of armour. Diplomacy is quite important try to get a "Face" among the pc crew. Really really flesh out the Allies, contacts etc. as these can be quite important. encourage you players to come up with various schemes to achieve goals, this will save you a lot of effort as to what the players actually want to do.

Adventure one, is pretty straightforward, but can have various consequences down the line & there are plenty of NPC's to interact with. encourage your PC's to think about this. Actions have consequences!

There is more so much more to this. I'd advise starting them off subsector (Sindal) and work out from there, Adventure one helps with this.

Ship combat can be avoided for the first adventure, so you can wait a bit till thats added (Coming soon) as its a straightforward (ish) chase.

Check the resources list for lots of things that will help you. I'm positive more will be added.

I've kept this brief as I know several of my players are on this forum.

you can drop me a line with any specific (spoiler) questions I'll gladly help

cheers

MadBeardMan
May 22nd, 2020, 00:33
Hi,

Backwardoracle speaks very wisely.

Make sure you read everything, understand the motives behind all of the NPC's and prepare for the time the Travellers go off and 'do something else'.

I've been working on the official conversion but it's a way off and it only provides you with the stuff in the books, not this extra content.

I started my team at Wardn, Lunion (Spinward Marches) then sent them into the Sword Worlds, down to District 268, across to Pax Rulin and now down to Sindal, where they'll pick up the hooks, I'm thinking of running Reach 5: The Borderland Run as it's based near to Drinax and is a great intro to the Aslan Hierate, they're not all angry warriors....

This has given me the time to convert Book 2, it's about 40% of the way through, which I've been sharing with them (as suggested) as they travel across the subsectors. Book 1 is converted upto the first 3 adventures, I've also got the story entries for the 1st adventure ready for when my Travellers get there.

High Guard is underway, it's almost done (I've stopped to get the v1.1.2 ruleset updated), should be back on it next week.

Cheers and good luck!
MBM

backwardoracle
May 28th, 2020, 14:37
:)
"prepare for the time the Travellers go off and 'do something else"
This is going to happen often, very often, my particular group is indeed so wrapped up in somethings that they sometimes forget the "big picture" the more they delve into the individual needs of planets and how to bring them into the "New Empire" or simply resort to basic raiding which gains a nice income, but without a place to trade it at a significant margin they will end up probably broke & hunted throughout the domain.

MadBeardMan
June 7th, 2020, 00:48
Folks,

Now that Referee's Briefings 1, 2 and 3 are with Smiteworks, and that Reach 4 is out, Reach 5 is waiting for live and Reach 6 is nearly with Smiteworks my focus now, outside of coding the ruleset is to complete the conversion for Pirates of Drinax. Now it'll need High Guard and Ship Combat, but let's not worry too much about that....

Cheers,
MBM

Panossqual
February 6th, 2021, 12:56
Folks,

Now that Referee's Briefings 1, 2 and 3 are with Smiteworks, and that Reach 4 is out, Reach 5 is waiting for live and Reach 6 is nearly with Smiteworks my focus now, outside of coding the ruleset is to complete the conversion for Pirates of Drinax. Now it'll need High Guard and Ship Combat, but let's not worry too much about that....

Cheers,
MBM

Any news on this? I would love to buy and run this adventure on FGC!
Thanks,
Panos

GregRex
February 6th, 2021, 13:49
@Panossqual MBM recently made a post about all MGT2 products in development here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?65781-Official-Mongoose-Products-on-Fantasy-Grounds

It looks like it's close :)

jp1971
February 6th, 2021, 14:26
@Panossqual MBM recently made a post about all MGT2 products in development here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?65781-Official-Mongoose-Products-on-Fantasy-Grounds

It looks like it's close :)

So exciting!!!

Panossqual
February 6th, 2021, 15:18
@Panossqual MBM recently made a post about all MGT2 products in development here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?65781-Official-Mongoose-Products-on-Fantasy-Grounds

It looks like it's close :)

I can't wait :-)

MadBeardMan
February 6th, 2021, 15:25
Morning All,

It's very close, with a good session or two it'll be sent off, then it needs to go through testing and then to SmiteWorks.

The Drinaxian Companion is hot on the heels though, I hope to have that finished within the next few weeks, same process for it.

I'll post here as soon as it's off for internal testing.

Cheers,
MBM

Panossqual
February 6th, 2021, 18:45
Thanks for sharing! I am holding off until it's ready, as it's such a heavy campaign that it would take me ages to build manually.

Stargrove
February 12th, 2021, 22:52
Not to hijack the thread but I am interested in reading this adventure. I have seen a black book called Pirates of Drinax on DriveThru RPG and a bunch of other books with both red covers, a few blues ones with Drinax in the name, and at least a couple of more normal looking ones that also have Drinax in the name. Now I do know from the old days (been a Traveller fan for a long time) that Drinax is a world in the Trojan Reach sector but beyond that do not know how all these books are related to each other. Can anyone provide some insight please?

Stargrove

MadBeardMan
February 13th, 2021, 12:57
Not to hijack the thread but I am interested in reading this adventure. I have seen a black book called Pirates of Drinax on DriveThru RPG and a bunch of other books with both red covers, a few blues ones with Drinax in the name, and at least a couple of more normal looking ones that also have Drinax in the name. Now I do know from the old days (been a Traveller fan for a long time) that Drinax is a world in the Trojan Reach sector but beyond that do not know how all these books are related to each other. Can anyone provide some insight please?

Stargrove

Hi Stargrove,

This is a great question. The easiest way to know what's 'New' and was part of the Kickstarter is to look at the wording, you'll see all books begin with 'Pirates of Drinax'. You'll notice a majority have single colour fronts with gold lettering and no art. The main books are all part of a splicase set, and the Books Marked I, II, III, IV, V and VI (Gods of Marduk etc) are all additional adventures expanding the main books.

Note those 'Patron' adventures are now re-printed in the recently released (hardback book just released) Drinax Companion.

Asides from those Patron adventures a few more PDF only books were released, these did have Artwork on the covers as they're more 'generic' and offer information such as on Theev or around the cluster of systems etc. Again, all these have the wording 'Pirates of Drinax' at the start ot the title.

Here's a link to a list of all the applicable books (as best I could filter).

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=pirates+of+drinax&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=

Hope this helps,
Thanks,
MBM

MadBeardMan
February 13th, 2021, 13:05
Folks,

Here's an update on it. Next week sees a major CoreRPG update that affects MGT2 ruleset Once that's done with I'll be sending this, so by this time next week Pirates of Drinax Campaign will be off for internal testing and then Smiteworks testing.

v1.2.2 next week sees the addition of Spacecraft Battles (Encounters) being added. They also export to the SCT, so Pirates will also be updated to add these as soon as I've updated the internal tool to do so.

Excited.

Drinax Companion will follow very soon, please note it has re-printed the Patron Adventures (Gods of Marduk I, through to VI). I won't be releasing these for FG until post Drinax Companion and make sure it's clear if you own the Drinax Companion (which I do recommend) you don't buy them.

Cheers,
MBM

Stargrove
February 14th, 2021, 02:03
Ok, so to most effectively run this campaign what do you recommend that I get?

MadBeardMan
February 14th, 2021, 14:28
Ok, so to most effectively run this campaign what do you recommend that I get?

If I was coming into this without any knowledge and wanted to run that campaign i'd make sure I had:

Core Rulebook (2020 update version)
High Guard
Pirates of Drinax Campaign Box-set
Drinaxian Companion (if you buy this, DO NOT buy the other smaller Pirates of Drinax: titled PDF's, as all of them the Patron/Sector Info/Harrier Details) are all part of this book as well.

If I wanted to expand the Pirates Campaign even more, I'd look at the Shadows of Sindal book as it's got 3 more adventures (the 3rd is a cracker if you ask me), and they're written to tie in with the PoD campaign.

Now for the moment, the two Core books are in FG, and Pirates of Drinax is probably 2 months away (it's complete this side but has to go through testing/checks etc). Drinax Companion is hot on the heels of that (probably 6 weeks later) and then Shadows of Sindal is after that.

So depends when you want to start playing, though I love books and read them aside using FG to run them.

Cheers,
MBM

esmdev
February 20th, 2021, 13:29
If I was coming into this without any knowledge and wanted to run that campaign i'd make sure I had:

Core Rulebook (2020 update version)
High Guard
Pirates of Drinax Campaign Box-set
Drinaxian Companion (if you buy this, DO NOT buy the other smaller Pirates of Drinax: titled PDF's, as all of them the Patron/Sector Info/Harrier Details) are all part of this book as well.

If I wanted to expand the Pirates Campaign even more, I'd look at the Shadows of Sindal book as it's got 3 more adventures (the 3rd is a cracker if you ask me), and they're written to tie in with the PoD campaign.

Now for the moment, the two Core books are in FG, and Pirates of Drinax is probably 2 months away (it's complete this side but has to go through testing/checks etc). Drinax Companion is hot on the heels of that (probably 6 weeks later) and then Shadows of Sindal is after that.

So depends when you want to start playing, though I love books and read them aside using FG to run them.

Cheers,
MBM

Not to pile on the books but I would also recommend Central Supply Catalog for all campaigns cause players like stuff! :)

MadBeardMan
February 20th, 2021, 20:07
Hi Folks,

8pm here. Been putting some finishing touches and that's it. Had to email Mongoose as the Bug-Salvage class isn't in 2E/Mongoose Traveller, so it's now a Vulture-Class.

So what now? I need to export all the adventures again, make sure all works in FGU and then package up, should be with Smiteworks this time tomorrow.

The Drixanian Companion is then the conversion focus, after a massive ruleset update which is coming along, though due to reasons I've got to spend some time on VTM as that needs some love.

I'd suggest to you, if you can wait, I'd wait for both PoD and the Companion as it's worth it.

Cheers,
MBM

MadBeardMan
April 2nd, 2021, 22:53
And drum-roll..... it's gone over to Fantasy Grounds!

Yep - so now just a bit of testing and then should be ready for you all.

For your money you'll get:

14 Modules:

Campaign Reference Manual (includes the 10 adventures, plus details on how it all fits together)
Trojan Reach Reference Manual (includes stuff about Aslans, Drinax and other bits around the Campaign)
Ships of the Reach (includes all Aslan/Imperial ships in/around the Trojan Reach)

10 Adventure Modules - including all tokens, npc's, images, encounters/battles/spacebattles etc

Large Image of the Trojan Reach sector (largest I'm allowed to provide)

And not to forget all the various support files, hundreds of tokens for NPC's, Animals, Robots/Androids, Ships and Vehicles. All the new gear, vehicles and spacecraft, plus just lots of information

Enjoy all the hard work by Mongoose and then by myself and the small team here trying to squeeze it into FG's format.

Cheers,
MBM & the Team

Panossqual
April 2nd, 2021, 23:20
I have been looking forward for this! Can't wait to introduce my party to the Trojan Reach!
Thank you so much!

Guzalot
April 3rd, 2021, 00:39
Awesome! I've been looking forward to PoD for a long time. Thanks for all your hard work MBM!

johnecc
April 3rd, 2021, 04:01
Great job, MBM. You do amazing things for our enjoyment, and it is much appreciated.

adzling
April 3rd, 2021, 15:39
woot!

MadBeardMan
April 3rd, 2021, 17:13
Folks,

Also to let you know that once MoN (for Call of Cthulhu) is out the door, that's the end of my backlog for it, so more time for Traveller, which means I'll complete Drinaxian Companion then Shadows of Sindal as soon as, the Drinaxian Companion is already underway.

Huzzah

Guzalot
April 29th, 2021, 00:57
Can we expect to see Pirates of Drinax in the online store any time soon?

MadBeardMan
April 29th, 2021, 01:35
Can we expect to see Pirates of Drinax in the online store any time soon?

Just awaiting final testing on the final 2 adventures, then hope to 'address' the reported issues this weekend and re-submit for internal testing.

So can't say when, but SW have got more people doing the internal reviews now, so hoping that addresses the delays.

Will post here when all over to SW.

Cheers,
MBM

Guzalot
April 29th, 2021, 20:48
Thanks for the update. I've really been looking forward to PoD.

esmdev
April 30th, 2021, 01:43
I'm sure the big projects really slow down the works. I can't imagine working on Pirates of Drinax AND Mask of Nyarlathotep at the same time. It's enough to force a sanity check.

MadBeardMan
May 2nd, 2021, 16:02
I'm sure the big projects really slow down the works. I can't imagine working on Pirates of Drinax AND Mask of Nyarlathotep at the same time. It's enough to force a sanity check.

Correct. The issue with both is that you have to a) convert the entire book and create ref manuals and then b) create the adventures which is like doing 80% of it again! Takes it's time. I also split down the massive time sink doing other smaller works, as that gives the impression of getting things done.

Anyway, PoD is fully finished, it's been internally tested and now sent to SW for them to do theirs!

Huzzah
MBM

Grommit57
May 17th, 2021, 04:27
pounds head on desk, waits impatiently for smiteworks

Guzalot
May 17th, 2021, 19:58
pounds head on desk, waits impatiently for smiteworks

This

MadBeardMan
May 18th, 2021, 22:31
Folks,

SmiteWorks have hired extra resource on their hand to help poor James with his huge workload, so as JTaS Number 1 is coming very soon, so hopefully this huge Campaign isn't far behind.

Cheers,
MBM

Guzalot
May 22nd, 2021, 05:17
Seems to me like Smiteworks puts Traveller 2E pretty low on their list of priorities TBH.

esmdev
May 22nd, 2021, 13:58
Seems to me like Smiteworks puts Traveller 2E pretty low on their list of priorities TBH.

Pretty sure with the exception of D&D 5E it is first in first out. Everything is slow to make its way to the store. The problem is that they had one guy doing an ever growing list of testing. Once the new hire gets up to speed hopefully will help out the bottleneck.

esmdev
May 27th, 2021, 18:51
MBM, now that you've finished Pirates of Drinax, Mongoose dropped an email that they've updated the source material with tweaks and corrections.

MadBeardMan
May 27th, 2021, 20:53
MBM, now that you've finished Pirates of Drinax, Mongoose dropped an email that they've updated the source material with tweaks and corrections.

Yes typical isn't it, so I've requested what's changed so I can get it updated whilst it's with SW testing.

Cheers,
MBM

johnecc
May 28th, 2021, 02:34
Damn Mongoose!!!! Hope this doesn't delay the PoD release too much, the group I am playing with just started a one off adventure to get to know each other before starting the campaign. GM is hoping the module will be released by then.

MadBeardMan
May 28th, 2021, 11:21
Morning All,

I've got off of Mongoose the changes, there aren't that many. Some are what I reported when I did the conversion. I'll get these over to FG as soon as I can. Shouldn't delay anything on their side, it will give me an excuse to ask where it is in the testing queue!

Cheers,
MBM

Grommit57
May 28th, 2021, 17:23
Awesome! Waiting on PoD to start my game.

esmdev
May 28th, 2021, 17:42
Morning All,

I've got off of Mongoose the changes, there aren't that many. Some are what I reported when I did the conversion. I'll get these over to FG as soon as I can. Shouldn't delay anything on their side, it will give me an excuse to ask where it is in the testing queue!

Cheers,
MBM

It's good to know that Mongoose is keeping their books compatible with FG modules. ;)

MadBeardMan
May 29th, 2021, 15:18
Hi Folks,

I've applied all the errata which is as follows to the FG modules, and have sent those off to SmiteWorks, now to pen an email.

Kteiroa is misprinted as "Kteireo" in Book 1, pp. 77, 91, 198, 199, 259.

The Sindalian name of Kteiroa is referred to as Piper in Book 1 (pp. 83, 84), but Stross in Book 2 (pp. 15, 180). Change to Stross.

Book 1: Page 58: Hroal's fleet references a 300-ton Bug Class Salvage Hauler. I believe this is an artifact from the 1st Ed version, as no stats are given for this class. The Salvage Hauler in 2nd Ed is the 400-ton Vulture Class.

In The Demon's Eye, Lemuel's surname alternates between Volin and Vinus. Each is mentioned 5 times (including once in the appendix). Go with Volin.

Book 2, Page 185. The last paragraph refers to Falcon as "Falkenburg".

"Toiho (...) is contemplating the planet of Pourne (Tlaiowaha/0704) – like Keaih, it is a waterworld". Change to “Toiho (...) is contemplating the planet of Pourne (Tlaiowaha/0704) – a fluid world/”

The reward for the 'Keaih Patron Mission' is "a shipping contract with the Company of Profits That Rise Like Mist. This contract involves shipping roughly 1,000 tons of cargo between Keaih and Vorito every month, at a rate of Cr2200 per ton". Change to Cr10000 per ton.

Browne is listed as 30 Billion in the book 2 pg 187 but travellermap lists it as 90 Billion. Change.

Check Aslan weapon and armour stats with Aliens of Charted Space 1 – if there is a difference, go with Alien 1.

Book 1, Page 259: ". . .so these ships are deployed mainly against foes outside the Imperium" That should read "Hierate", not "Imperium"

Trojan Reach page 15 last line
"laid wait to the countryside" should read "laid waste to....

Stargrove
May 29th, 2021, 19:14
Cam someone provide a link to the errata for PoD?

MadBeardMan
May 29th, 2021, 19:17
Cam someone provide a link to the errata for PoD?

It was emailed directly to me, so the post above is directly off the word doc I got, not sure where else it is.

Stargrove
May 29th, 2021, 19:20
I guess that will teach me to buy books off Amazon instead of directly from Mongoose. I wonder if they are going to post it on their site.

esmdev
May 29th, 2021, 21:02
I guess that will teach me to buy books off Amazon instead of directly from Mongoose. I wonder if they are going to post it on their site.

It is likely that the info MBM posted above is the extent of the errata. The email I got pretty much said the changes were minor.

MadBeardMan
May 30th, 2021, 13:50
It is likely that the info MBM posted above is the extent of the errata. The email I got pretty much said the changes were minor.

Yep, it's the exact errata direct. I've emailed Matt to find out if the errata is posted elsewhere, it's likely to be on the forums.

Do any of you here that don't use Twitter use Facebook or another social media? I'm finding more marketing is required, FGC are doing great things but need to spread the word further. CSC still owes me around 1,000 cups of coffee to cover my time and stress!

Huzzah

MadBeardMan
June 3rd, 2021, 01:33
Hey Folks,

I got the feedback from internal testing today, suffice to say it was quite a list but expected as PoD is HUGE. The good news, just a few hours tonight and 2/3 are addressed.

What they want me to do is to 'put the ships' from Book 3/High Guard in as ships, so I've added a new field 'Class' to spacecraft so the ships will be listed as 'Scarab II', but the class is 'Vulture-class Salvage Hunter'. So it means you have the ship twice, once as the Class (if you load Book 3) and once as the name.

I'll be adding class to 1.2.4 which is coming along very nicely.

Cheers,
MBM

MadBeardMan
June 5th, 2021, 14:55
Hi Folks,

Sent all the fixed issue for PoD this afternoon.

Plus added the errata file I got from Mongoose.

Cheers,
MBM

johnecc
June 5th, 2021, 15:56
Good to hear. My group just finished a one off game, like 30mins ago, we may do one more, depends on when PoD comes out.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

MadBeardMan
June 5th, 2021, 16:00
Good to hear. My group just finished a one off game, like 30mins ago, we may do one more, depends on when PoD comes out.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Thanks, I'm just reviewing where I was with Drinaxian Companion, as I want that over within the next week. Then with Shadows of Sindal adventures soon as well (my lunchtime challenge), I can draw a line under Drinax.

Cheers,
MBM

Evil Aardvark
June 6th, 2021, 02:21
Thanks, I'm just reviewing where I was with Drinaxian Companion, as I want that over within the next week. Then with Shadows of Sindal adventures soon as well (my lunchtime challenge), I can draw a line under Drinax.


I, for one, am grateful and excited about all the work you're doing here. I've been holding off starting a MgT2 campaign until I could go full-PoD, and I can't wait to get going. Thank you!

MadBeardMan
June 7th, 2021, 01:29
Folks,

Just to let you know. I'm done on the Drinaxian Companion, so I'll get that to Smiteworks as soon as they give me access to the upload folder. It's a great addition to PoD.

It includes, Patron Encounters (is available as individual PDF's), expanded system information (is available as individual PDF's), the updated Harrier chapter, and modified repairs system, plus more Sindalian gear, ships, more NPC's, more info on piracy, getting away with it, being hunted down, building bases on so on.

So if you backed the Kickstarter, the individual PDF's are collected in this book, and added to the additional info. I won't be converting the individual PDF's now, as this book is much better value. Though if there's a call for it I could look into it.

Anyway, during the week I'll finish off Shadows of Sindal, it's 1/3 done. More adventures for PoD, though you can run these on their own, and I honestly think the 3rd of the 3 adventures is just about the best adventure I've seen for Traveller for a good few years.

Cheers,
MBM

esmdev
June 7th, 2021, 03:23
I'm for the combined release as a single purchase.

Guzalot
June 15th, 2021, 16:31
Woohoo! PoD is in the online store. A bit pricey but I understand. Lots of development for a niche market so I'm willing to pay the premium.

MadBeardMan
June 15th, 2021, 16:34
Woohoo! PoD is in the online store. A bit pricey but I understand. Lots of development for a niche market so I'm willing to pay the premium.

Someone has bitten the bullet and bought it. I understand it's not cheap, I just want to say to people this took me a year to convert.

3 Large Books
10 Adventures
Tokens 100+
Ships, Aslan + Imperial (some seen in other products now)
NPC's - Many many

It's just huge and I'm sure I've (and the testers) have missed something, but was kinda hoping it would drop next week with the updated ruleset with the initial criticals and power stuff on it.

Enjoy
MBM

Trenloe
June 15th, 2021, 16:35
Someone has bitten the bullet and bought it. I understand it's not cheap, I just want to say to people this took me a year to convert.

3 Large Books
10 Adventures
Tokens 100+
Ships, Aslan + Imperial (some seen in other products now)
NPC's - Many many

It's just huge and I'm sure I've (and the testers) have missed something, but was kinda hoping it would drop next week with the updated ruleset with the initial criticals and power stuff on it.

Enjoy
MBM
Brilliant work young man! :)

JohnQPublic
June 15th, 2021, 17:29
I was hoping for more like $75, but even at $100 it's worth it just for the time it saves me in map prep, let alone NPCs. Thank you MBM!

MadBeardMan
June 15th, 2021, 17:33
I was hoping for more like $75, but even at $100 it's worth it just for the time it saves me in map prep, let alone NPCs. Thank you MBM!

It could be that price in a sale, but you're not allowed sales for at least 3 months (Steam rules I think). Mongoose set the prices on the printed material because they're a small company and every $->£ counts, plus with the £ gaining again on the $ it means less.

But enjoy it and the next books in the Drinax series will be released as soon as they can, Companion is already being prepared to send off.

Cheers,
MBM

Grommit57
June 15th, 2021, 17:47
Been waiting for this to hit FG. Now I can start my game. Thank You for all you hard work Sir. It is much appreciated.

Ramid
June 15th, 2021, 18:45
And "Almost" on my birthday ! DLing it as i type im a happy lad :D

chumbly
June 15th, 2021, 21:57
when you see what actually is all in there and all the tables, tokens, reference data... WOW MBM WOW... actually at the price it is, a
REAL BARGAIN.....in terms of contents... it's like 6 or more standard modules... This is Huge, Thank you Mongoose, MBM, and Smiteworks...

Chumbly

johnecc
June 15th, 2021, 23:31
Congratulations MBM, that was obviously a huge expenditure of time and effort, and I am sure the FG Traveller community appreciates it.

As for the price, when you consider that the pdf is 592 pages, it is one of the largest campaigns I know of, so well worth it.

I know my GM has been waiting for its release, we started a group just a month ago, played HighNDry, and about to start a new adventure this weekend. Not sure if it will be PoD or another one off yet, depends how much prep GM needs.

Thanks

esmdev
June 16th, 2021, 00:41
If 4 players and 1 referee each contribute $20 (the equivalent of a 2-3 hour premium movie on Disney+ or HBO Max) they get months, if not years, of happy space opera entertainment without breaking anyone's bank. :)

Evil Aardvark
June 16th, 2021, 00:49
I've picked up a copy of PoD, although I must admit I did balk a bit at the price. I've been thinking about why that is, and I realized that I know why I had that reaction.

I know that there is a lot of work to convert, but I find it a bit painful because I'll never use the majority of the work that's been done. I have the pdfs, I'll always have the pdfs, if I want to read the adventure, I'll read those. In FG I only want the "crunch" - maps, gear, vehicles and NPCs - I, personally, have no interest in the text of the adventures.

Now, I'm not trying to short-change anyone, I know that there's a lot of work to convert things, but I wonder if there's an opportunity here. Mongoose is releasing a strong pipeline of content, and the FGU support is falling behind. No complaint there, we know that MadBeardMan is doing a heroic job trying to keep up. Is there an opportunity to produce conversions that are "crunch" only, use the reduction in work per product to produce more, to catch up, and perhaps make more money out of it? I'd happily pay 75 or 80 percent of the cost of modules today for a version without the text of adventures and background material. It'd be worth the same to me, actually, it might even be worth more since it'd be faster to load, will clutter up FG less, and sharing with players will have less chance of accidental exposure of plot material.

I don't know if any of this is realistic or practical, but producing twice as many products at 80% of the price would seem to be a commercial win. And nothing stops anyone from going back and filling in the textual material as a follow-on.

Just a thought, could be nonsense.

esmdev
June 16th, 2021, 00:55
Congratulations MBM, that was obviously a huge expenditure of time and effort, and I am sure the FG Traveller community appreciates it.

As for the price, when you consider that the pdf is 592 pages, it is one of the largest campaigns I know of, so well worth it.

I know my GM has been waiting for its release, we started a group just a month ago, played HighNDry, and about to start a new adventure this weekend. Not sure if it will be PoD or another one off yet, depends how much prep GM needs.

Thanks

I have been considering how to start such a game and my thought was to run some of the reach modules first for the travellers to build rep in the area to attract the attention of the king, using them as a prologue to the main storyline.

PoD definitely requires thought before jumping in. Since it is a sandbox style campaign the travellers can easily make a sudden left turn into the twilight zone if you blink and you kind of need to have an idea of what is where in relation to where they are. The core adventures are sometimes separated by several jumps and travellers will be travellers.

johnecc
June 16th, 2021, 01:23
The core adventures are sometimes separated by several jumps and travellers will be travellers.

Well, the crew does have to get off the ship from time to time to remain sane, plus you have to resupply and spend some of that hard earned loot....oops, I meant salary

Panossqual
June 16th, 2021, 18:08
Hi,
I picked it up yesterday. Excellent work MBM you should be proud of yourself. Thank you for your hsrd work and for giving us the chance to run this campaign by removing part of the effort and preparation needed. I can now focus on making this world come to life and create custom material and npcs, instead of copy pasting images and text from the pdfs. I am close to finish running a camp of Masks of Nyarlathotep too. It's a pity, I did not get the chance to get this one premade too. Cheers!

adzling
June 16th, 2021, 18:38
thanks mbm, just picked it up!

digitalirony
June 16th, 2021, 20:07
Thanks! I just grabbed it for myself. Been watching and waiting so long. Astounding work as always.

greyseasunder
June 17th, 2021, 18:12
Picking up my copy today! So. Much. Stuff. in the store right now. Going to have to wait a bit for some of the other recent titles like Aliens, The Great Rift, etc. My groups next Traveller is session is next week and I've been successfully skirting the whole PoD campaign, as I knew it was going to be up on FGU at some point. Comes at a great time as my players are juuuuust about ready to dive into it. Thanks again MBM for putting this together. I know we all here really appreciate your efforts- we wouldn't be able to play without your work.

MadBeardMan
June 17th, 2021, 22:07
Hi All,

I've pushed an update for PoD tonight.


[Fixed] Sun & Shadow Adventure now links to local Gazelle Class Close Escort instance in the 3.02 Spacebattle.
[Fixed] Book 1. Broken links fixed within Chapter 11.
[Fixed] Book 1. Missing Lyonesse III Spacecraft Image.


Should be updated next Tuesday as normal.

Cheers,
MBM

Ramid
June 21st, 2021, 13:24
Just ran my first session with the FGU PoD material session 31 of my campaign so far
Loved it :D

MadBeardMan
June 21st, 2021, 14:53
Just ran my first session with the FGU PoD material session 31 of my campaign so far
Loved it :D

Awesome, first thanks for purchasing it, I know $99 is a fair chunk of money, I hope you understand how much content you've now got. Please use as much as possible and enjoy even more.

You find any niggles/issues then let me know and I'll sort them as soon as I can.

Cheers,
MBM

Ramid
June 21st, 2021, 14:57
Thank you:) so far found no problems.
As for the price i am fine with it considering the amount of material offered as well
as the work in importing and arranging it. It made my job much easier having
everything in Fg rather than switching between the Pdf and FG :)

adzling
June 25th, 2021, 16:00
i used it in our pod campaign for the first time last week.
worked well and was happy to not have to spend time screenshotting and cross-pasting stuff to zoom.
nice work mbm!

RobP
September 29th, 2021, 22:56
I've picked up a copy of PoD, although I must admit I did balk a bit at the price. I've been thinking about why that is, and I realized that I know why I had that reaction.

I know that there is a lot of work to convert, but I find it a bit painful because I'll never use the majority of the work that's been done. I have the pdfs, I'll always have the pdfs, if I want to read the adventure, I'll read those. In FG I only want the "crunch" - maps, gear, vehicles and NPCs - I, personally, have no interest in the text of the adventures.

Now, I'm not trying to short-change anyone, I know that there's a lot of work to convert things, but I wonder if there's an opportunity here. Mongoose is releasing a strong pipeline of content, and the FGU support is falling behind. No complaint there, we know that MadBeardMan is doing a heroic job trying to keep up. Is there an opportunity to produce conversions that are "crunch" only, use the reduction in work per product to produce more, to catch up, and perhaps make more money out of it? I'd happily pay 75 or 80 percent of the cost of modules today for a version without the text of adventures and background material. It'd be worth the same to me, actually, it might even be worth more since it'd be faster to load, will clutter up FG less, and sharing with players will have less chance of accidental exposure of plot material.

I don't know if any of this is realistic or practical, but producing twice as many products at 80% of the price would seem to be a commercial win. And nothing stops anyone from going back and filling in the textual material as a follow-on.

Just a thought, could be nonsense.

In many respects, I think this is a great idea. Many of us Referees already have the printed books and PDFs, so the majority of the text and images are quite trivial to move over to FG. It's because of this, that I feel I wouldn't be getting the most out of the FG POD package.

This kind of leaves me in a quandary.

I know a lot of hard work and effort went into the conversion and I'm pretty sure that for a referee that does not own the physical materials/pdfs, it is actually very good value for money. But if you already have those books and PDFs, I'm not so sure that the value is there, as the majority of what's in the books can be easily imported into FG on an as-needed basis. Especially in PODs case as even with the official FG module, the referee will still have to create a lot of their own materials anyway due to the open ended nature of the campaign.

I can't help feeling that the FG versions of the adventures shouldn't just be a 1:1 conversion. Doing this limits the value of the product for referees that already own the physical books - which I suspect is most of us. Instead, I feel that the FG versions of the adventures should take advantage of the fact that they are running on a computer, so as to help ease the referee's considerable work load (especially in POD).

For example in POD's case, I would do exactly what Evil Aadvark suggests, just have the crunchy bits in. But then I would go further and program all the tools into the module that would help the ref run this campaign. Stuff like trackers for player's relations with planets, automated rules implementations of the POD specific rules, asset trackers etc etc. This way you end up with a product that stands by itself and offers something different from the books. This then makes it a much more attractive proposition for referees that already own the books - even if the FG modules cost the same as the original books. As for refs that don't own the books and PDF's, it would encourage them to get both - which would be an easy sale as they would be buying two very different packages.

In my mind I can justify the cost for a package that supplements the PDFs and printed materials, but I find it a lot harder to justify that cost when they are essentially the same thing being bought twice.

Right now, I'm finding it really hard to push the button and spend the money, as the books and PDFs already have everything that I need. I admit that I'm a little biased, as I'm a programmer - see https://ancientarmies.wordpress.com/ for an example of what I can do on one of my home projects - it would be relatively simple for me to automate much of the import process, thus further diminishing the perceived value of the FG versions.

RobP

paragade
October 1st, 2021, 16:29
In many respects, I think this is a great idea. Many of us Referees already have the printed books and PDFs, so the majority of the text and images are quite trivial to move over to FG. It's because of this, that I feel I wouldn't be getting the most out of the FG POD package.

Much like how D&D Beyond can sell bits and pieces of a sourcebook, even down to buying individual magic items or statblocks, I'd spend a lot more money if I didn't have to buy entire books that I already have when I'm just looking for certain item stats or the like.

Grommit57
October 1st, 2021, 17:22
Prices are set my Mongoose and they are really proud of their stuff. This has been brought up several times and Mongoose insists on charging hard cover prices for digital copies. Can't even get a bundle put together to at least save a little money.
So the choice is buy it or find another game I guess. Currently this is my game of choice so I buy it.

RobP
October 1st, 2021, 21:39
Prices are set my Mongoose and they are really proud of their stuff. This has been brought up several times and Mongoose insists on charging hard cover prices for digital copies. Can't even get a bundle put together to at least save a little money.
So the choice is buy it or find another game I guess. Currently this is my game of choice so I buy it.

My quibble isn't with the pricing. I think given the effort MBM put in, the FG version of POD is actually good value for money..... provided you don't have the printed versions.

The majority of the POD books provide background details for the campaign with 10 or 11 not too detailed scenarios that a referee would need to work on before they can be used. To use these scenarios one has to read the background material in the books, and whilst I can't speak for other people, I find it much easier to read the background information from physical books (or even the PDF's) rather than FG's rather limited means of viewing text.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that MBM and Mongoose are missing a trick here. They could produce the nitty-gritty only versions on FG for a lot less time and effort - or maybe even create a FG POD-Lite version based on the existing FG POD. This can be sold in parallel with the heavier POD at a much discounted price for the people that already own the books.

Or alternatively make the FG version of POD a must buy for the book owners by adding a lot of automated book-keeping and mechanics - after all that's what computers are for! :)

Paragade further up the thread mentioned D&D. It's kind of weird, in that I don't quite feel the same way about the FG D&D adventures. I think it's down to the fact that the D&D rules are much more automated and the purchased FG D&D adventures are a lot better because you get scaled maps with built in sighting lines and room descriptions and full automation. For example for the Lost Mines, I bought the FG version and it was so complete, I could start running it straight away with little to no prep - that makes the adventure worth the money. This contrasts heavily with the Traveller adventures which all need heavy legwork before they can even be used.

I think there is a fundamental difference between how WOTC write adventures and how Mongoose write them. With a WOTC adventure you can buy it, and can pretty much use it right away after a quick read because they include absolutely everything you need to run the adventure and this translates well when converted to FG - as one can simply buy'n'play and rely on the completeness of the adventures and the superb automation of those rulesets to carry you through.

The Traveller adventures by contrast, tend to leave out a lot of detail that the referee is expected to fill in before running the adventure.

For example, I'm running The Last Train out of Rakken-Goll (the ship owner in my campaign is a noble who got deposed by his sister who claims he is dead and is relentlessly pursuing him, so that she can claim ownership of his estate - Sir Willard reached out to offer him temporary shelter - but that's another story :) ). The Last Train adventure is a typical Mongoose adventure in that it is missing many of the required maps and details needed to run the adventure. It even has missing stats for some of the main NPC characters - like the residents of West Farm, despite them being described in detail within the text. This means that as a referee, I have to do a lot of prep work to fill out those missing details.

Alas, I have found this to be the case with all of the Mongoose Traveller Adventures that I have bought so far. None of them can be run out-of-the-book. They all need considerable work before they can be used.

This isn't a Traveller thing though. Adventures in the earlier editions of Traveller like CT and T4, were on the whole, much more complete (there are a few exceptions though :) ).

This causes a big issue for the FG versions of the Traveller adventures. Without detailed maps, keys and NPC's, the FG ones tend to be just background information centric. Even where the odd map is provided, you can guarantee the FG ones have no line of sight or even a scale (in essence they are just images and not FG maps per-se) - not MBM's fault as many of the book maps lack a scale too (the two maps in Last Train adventure are scale-less). So you are essentially buying an adventure that is for the most part, just background text. Alas, this background text is better consumed from a printed book rather than through FG's rather limited interface. In fact, a lot of this information doesn't even need to be in FG as the players will never see it anyways.

This kind of renders the FG Traveller adventures almost pointless. Buying them won't save much prep time over the printed materials, as you will still need to manually create all the details and assets that were missing from the original adventure anyways.

Grommit57
October 1st, 2021, 23:02
I get your point but you're complaining in the wrong place. Mongoose never ever reads this discord forum and I honestly believe they don't care even if they did read it. You should be over on their website and hitting them up there.
As far as pricing goes their stuff is overpriced by a lot imho. Charging hard cover book prices for a digital copy is just greed and not good business in the long run, considering how little info is actually in most the adventure modules. It's little more that a synopsis. Even PoD the majority of the info can be found elsewhere on the interwebs, completely free (and legal in most cases). All depends on how much work you want to do and how much imagination you have.

MBM does a great job and I'd like to see him make enough to do this full time, but he can only convert the material given to him.

I think we are mostly agreeing for slightly different reasons.

JohnQPublic
October 2nd, 2021, 07:03
The conversion of text isn't the time/money sink in the equation. It's the crunch that requires all the time and that justifies the cost. If you removed the text, it would probably only lower the price a small fraction.

adzling
October 2nd, 2021, 16:15
the only real way to do this is convince mongoose to give buyers of the books on FGU a copy of the PDF.

won't help folks who buy the PDFs first but I can't think of any other way to do it that doesn't involve excessive bookeeping

Panossqual
November 26th, 2021, 17:28
Hi,
Are there any plans for Drinaxian companion ans Shadows of Sindal?
Excellent work on this. We are now on session 16 and has been a joy so far!

MadBeardMan
November 26th, 2021, 20:45
Hi,
Are there any plans for Drinaxian companion ans Shadows of Sindal?
Excellent work on this. We are now on session 16 and has been a joy so far!

Yes, it looks done (Shadows of Sindal), I need to review it and address any tweaks from the testing notes.

And btw it's brilliant

The Drinaxian Companion is with Smiteworks, it's going through their review. So hopefully will be release soon.

Cheers,
MBM

Panossqual
November 26th, 2021, 21:22
Excellent, looking forward for these.

And thank you for your excellent job!



Yes, it looks done (Shadows of Sindal), I need to review it and address any tweaks from the testing notes.

And btw it's brilliant

The Drinaxian Companion is with Smiteworks, it's going through their review. So hopefully will be release soon.

Cheers,
MBM

Ryuson
November 26th, 2021, 23:35
Hey folks. Thought folks on this thread may be interested: Black Friday sale of Pirates of Drinax (at least on Steam) - 25% off.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1661590/Fantasy_Grounds__The_Pirates_of_Drinax/

MadBeardMan
December 2nd, 2021, 10:01
Been told a few days ago that:

Shadows of Sindal is going through their review process.

Drinaxian Companion has been through and I supplied the various fixes needed, so hoping that will swiftly be re-checked.

Cheers,
MBM

adzling
December 21st, 2021, 16:28
Drinaxian Companion is out!

MadBeardMan
December 21st, 2021, 16:31
Drinaxian Companion is out!

Yep, I have feedback on Shadows of Sindal.

They require me to add Line of Sight to the Maps, so I need to learn all of that, and I might just make my own digital maps as the ones in the book are erm, basic.

But enjoy Drinaxian Companion, it's a lovely book.

Cheers,
MBM

Starwolf
April 10th, 2022, 22:45
Sorry to necro this thread, but I am about to run PoD, and ran into book keeping issues with the campaign. As there are a lot of small moving parts about alliances, systems, rival pirate groups, loot, repairs etc, I find that there is difficult to keep recording details coherent. I prepared tables I hoped my players could keep recording their activities in, but FGU limits editing of notes to the owner of the given note.
I dont need automation, but a way to generate an table of transactions and statuslists that can be updated by all players, as time to time a player will be away.
How did you handle the recordkeeping of system status, loot etc?

Boldtaar
April 10th, 2022, 23:07
Take a look at Player Agency Extension at the forge.
Great tools for keeping notes both for payers and GM when running campaigns.
Try to delegate some of the note keep to the players, like trade records.
I create fright and mail as cargo items and makes notes in description where it was pick up and destination
https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/511/view

Grommit57
April 10th, 2022, 23:18
I can confirm that. Player Agency works great in Traveller.

esmdev
April 11th, 2022, 01:09
Sorry to necro this thread, but I am about to run PoD, and ran into book keeping issues with the campaign. As there are a lot of small moving parts about alliances, systems, rival pirate groups, loot, repairs etc, I find that there is difficult to keep recording details coherent. I prepared tables I hoped my players could keep recording their activities in, but FGU limits editing of notes to the owner of the given note.
I dont need automation, but a way to generate an table of transactions and statuslists that can be updated by all players, as time to time a player will be away.
How did you handle the recordkeeping of system status, loot etc?

My players generally keep session info in their own notes areas (usually public so they can compare) and I keep private notes and separate public notes of things that I think they need to know.

One of the players handles cargo and ship finance in a public note though this may soon change with coming ship changes.

Unfortunately deep down FGU doesn't want multiple people handling the same record at the same time, which is a good thing, but also inconvenient. There have been some workarounds published for CoreRPG but I don't know if they work with the Traveller ruleset. You might look into Player Agency on the forge and ask in the forum there.

esmdev
April 11th, 2022, 01:21
I can confirm that. Player Agency works great in Traveller.

That's great news. :)

Starwolf
April 11th, 2022, 07:22
My players generally keep session info in their own notes areas (usually public so they can compare) and I keep private notes and separate public notes of things that I think they need to know.

One of the players handles cargo and ship finance in a public note though this may soon change with coming ship changes.

Unfortunately deep down FGU doesn't want multiple people handling the same record at the same time, which is a good thing, but also inconvenient. There have been some workarounds published for CoreRPG but I don't know if they work with the Traveller ruleset. You might look into Player Agency on the forge and ask in the forum there.

I have looked at Player Agency, and it will be an addition to my games. That said, with Pirated of Drinax, there are a need to update records directly and not make a new entry to a subject. I can understand that several players should not have write access to a note/record at the same time. But if the GM could give ownership to a note/record at the beginning of play in case the previous owner cant attend the game for instance. Thus only one player can write, but the others can view the note/record.

adzling
April 11th, 2022, 15:09
we use google sheets linked from within fantasy grounds using the third party weblink extension

Starwolf
April 11th, 2022, 18:57
we use google sheets linked from within fantasy grounds using the third party weblink extension

I have decided to use google sheets too, however I am not going to ad another extension to fgu at the moment.

adzling
April 11th, 2022, 19:48
You should consider it as it's easy to install, reliable and it will solve your problem ;-)