Starship Encounters and Traveller

Here we go: three of them, small ships, above us in the well. JUNO makes them as Type Js, weird configuration. Must have been hiding on one of those little moons. They’re signaling. Anglic’s pretty bad. They want us to cease skimming . . . and proceed to low altitude to be boarded. Oh, it’s on, it’s so on.

The very name Traveller implies character mobility—and with an interstellar scope, many Traveller campaigns are run as wide area sandboxes. Sandbox games often rely on good encounter tables in order to accommodate player agency: if the players decide to go upriver instead of downriver, or venture into the mountains rather than the swamps, encounter tables help the referee respond to these decisions in real time, keeping the game moving forward.

A good encounter table should be easy to use, provide results that are interesting and useful, and reflect the game setting. It’s enlightening, then, to look at the evolution of starship encounter tables over the history of the Traveller.

Classic Traveller

Book 2 of the original 1977 edition had starship encounter tables that were significantly changed for the 1981 revision. In the 81 edition, starship encounters are determined based on Starport Class. The encounter tables in the Traveller Book (1982) are essentially the same as the ones in the 81 rules, except for the addition of safari (Type K) and laboratory (Type L) ships.

There’s a lot to like about these encounter tables, beginning with their simplicity and broad applicability. A single roll determines whether an encounter occurs and if so, the encountered ship type, whether it is a pirate or not, and whether an additional small craft is encountered.

Since every star system in Traveller has a starport code, these tables can be used anywhere and the results reflect the local context: systems with higher class starports, presumably representing higher volumes of traffic, have higher chances for encounters with a wider variety of starships than systems with lower class starports. They also tend to be better patrolled: a naval or scout base further increases the chances for an encounter with an armed ship. A system with a Class E starport, in contrast, is a reasonably risky proposition, with an 8.32% chance of encountering a pirate in a mercenary cruiser or patrol frigate. Either one would be a tough fight for a free trader.

The very same strengths of this encounter system can also be considered limitations. As I’ve noted, it’s easy to have a simple, generic starship encounter table when you have only seven different ship types. But this becomes harder and harder to do as more ship types are added to the game. And a small number of results can begin to feel redundant after a dozen jumps or so.

And unless it’s a pirate encounter, the tables give no indication of motivation or activity. All you get is a ship type: it’s a solitary noun in search of a verb. Why is this scout ship in the system right now? What is it doing? Good encounter tables should leave something for the referee’s imagination, but they don’t need to leave everything. Just a little more detail would be helpful.

Finally, starports are at best an imperfect indicator of interstellar traffic. In Traveller, starports are generated separately from mainworld population, and presumably population is an equally important driver of ship traffic. A Starport D, Population A mainworld in Core Sector is likely to have far more traffic than a Starport A, Population 2 mainworld in the Trojan Reach. The Starport X table works well for an unexplored or backwater system with no port facilities, but not so well for an interdicted mainworld that is patrolled by the Imperial Navy.

The appeal and limitation of the CT tables reflect the inherent tensions between specificity and universality in game mechanics, and between simplicity and complexity. You can have simple, universal tables for encounters in any system, but by necessity these will have very little detail and personality. Or you can create more detailed tables with much more flavor that are only applicable for specific areas or circumstances.

CT Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats (1980), tries to address some of the limitations of the earliest starship encounter tables. Encounters simply occur in any system on a 2D roll of 6+.

If an encounter is indicated, the referee then rolls on one of six different subtables, categorized by encounter groups: (1) Express Boat Network, (2) Large Miscellaneous Vessels, (3) Merchant Encounters, (4) Gunboats, (5) Small Craft, and (6) Frontier Encounters. These tables incorporate the new ship designs detailed earlier in the supplement, providing more variety in encountered ships.

Another nice thing is that this system returns not just a starship type but also a mission or motivation—a noun and a verb—and thus establishes a more dynamic setup for the encounter. For example, “Subsidized merchant (type R) on charter.” But with only eleven entries per table, the results can also become redundant after a while.

The first encounter group is not applicable to areas outside the Imperium that lack an Xboat network; the sixth group is not applicable to highly populated, interior regions of an interstellar state. But by sacrificing universality the Traders and Gunboats tables create much more flavorful results by embracing specificity, and encourages referees to do so likewise:

The referee using these encounter tables should keep in mind that these tables are not immutable; they are intended to provide a basis for starship encounters. Similar tables may be constructed for use in specific star systems, or these tables may be modified to better reflect any specific region of the referee's campaign (42).

The FASA Adventure Class Ship supplements take this idea and run with it, providing even more specialized tables. Volume 1, for example, uses encounter groups that reflect not just a specific region in Charted Space (the Zhodani border), but a specific time (the Fifth Frontier War), as illustrated just by the titles of the subtables: (1) Planet is Zhodani Controlled, (2) Planet is Imperial-Controlled but Besieged by Zhodani, (3) Planet is Imperial-Controlled but Near War Zone, (4) Planet is Near the Front Lines, and (5) General Encounters.

Volume 2, in contrast, provides tables for regional and thematic encounter groups: (1) Within the Imperium, (2) Outside the Imperium, (3) In Reaver’s Deep, (4) In Far Frontiers, (5) Small Encounters, (6) Orbital Stations.

I was somewhat surprised that The Traveller Adventure (1983), which lovingly fleshes out Aramis subsector and introduces several new starship classes, does not contain specialized starship encounter tables.

MegaTraveller and TNE

One way to balance universality and specificity is to create flowchart tables that generate complexity within a generic system. This approach is used by MegaTraveller, but unfortunately the encounter system is confusingly split between the Referee’s Handbook and Imperial Encyclopedia (both 1987).

The Referee’s Handbook table for “Space Encounters” works much like the CT encounter tables. The referee makes one 2D roll, modified by starport, bases, and population. The result determines whether an encounter occurs—but rather than return a specific starship, it directs the referee to different encounter group subtables in the Imperial Encyclopedia.

The encounter groups are Merchant, Civilian, Non-Starship, Xboat, Scout, or Naval. Each group has associated subtables for specific ship type and mission. (Irritatingly, one has to go back to pages 38–39 of the Referee’s Handbook for an explanation of the various missions.) A final table determines the ship’s disposition. If the mission tells why the ship is in system, the determination tells what the ship is doing (coming, going, waiting, etc.). Using these flowcharts, you might roll a civilian encounter which consists of a “Yacht” on “Pleasure Tour” making a “Hasty Departure” from the system.

MegaTraveller Journal 4 (1993) contains, without any commentary, an updated and streamlined version of the encounter tables that fits on a single page. Nothing earth-shattering, but much better usability than the tables in the core books.

TNE Uses a very similar system to MegaTraveller, though the results are modified for the New Era setting. So it’s possible to roll both quarantine and vampire encounters.

The beauty of the MT/TNE encounter system is that it generates fairly robust, varied starship encounters with only a little more complexity than CT.

T4, Traveller Hero, and Traveller⁵

None of these systems, as far as I can tell, have starship encounter tables.

T20

Although the T20 ship list is fairly similar to CT, this edition uses its own starship encounter system with some interesting new twists. The chances of a T20 encounter are roughly similar to CT, with class A or B starports having more chances for an encounter than lower class starports.

If an encounter is indicated, the referee rolls on a table of encounter groups modified by starport class, bases, and interestingly, the players’ cargo: the more valuable the cargo, the more likely pirates are encountered. T20 has six encounter groups: (1) Pirate Vessel, (2) Merchant Vessel or Liner, (3) System Defense Vessel, (4) Other Vessel or Craft, (5) Scout Service Vessel, and (6) Navy Vessel.

Each T20 encounter group has a flowchart of subtables, very similar to MT but with a little more flavor. A Pirate Vessel encounter, for example, could constitute four Type S scout/courier ships lying in ambush for ships skimming the local gas giant; they will order the PCs to heave to and be boarded or they will automatically attack.

It seems notable that pirate vessels have their own set of flowchart tables. In T20, a ship carrying highly valuable speculative cargo (worth MCr10+ per ton) in a system with a Class E starport has a 7% chance of encountering a pirate (20% of an encounter, and 35% of that encounter being with a pirate), which is roughly comparable to the 8.32% chance in CT.

I can see the logic in having cargo value influence the odds of a pirate encounter. Smart pirates probably bribe or extort starport brokers, fences, technicians, and customs officers to report any vulnerable merchants carrying valuable cargoes. The pirates probably get tipped off long before system control receives a flight plan.

T20 assumes that a pirate encounter might involve 1–4 pirate ships, while other editions generally assume that an encounter is with a single ship. Multiple pirate ships make complete sense: after all, pirates should be expected to play unfair.

The T20 encounter system produces results with a good balance of detail and broad applicability. The book also has a thoughtful section on “Fleshing Out Starship Encounters” which is well worth the read.

GURPS Traveller

Neither the GURPS Traveller core rules nor Starships supplement have generic starship encounter tables, but GT: Behind the Claw has tables specific to the Spinward Marches. The GT books are generally faithful to the spirit of CT/MT, but are often have mechanics just different enough to make me reconsider some familiar game elements.

The Behind the Claw tables are divided into five different encounter groups: (1) Main Shipping Route, (2) Feeder Route, (3) Backwater System, (4) Frontier System, and (5) Outer System. The first three groups map directly to CT starport codes, but the last category is new and compelling. Even in a high traffic system, an encounter in the outer system is probably more like one in a low traffic system than an encounter within the 100 diameter limit of the mainworld.

Each category table determines the type of ship encountered: (1) Scout Vessels, (2) Navy Vessels, (3) Large Merchant Vessels, (4) Small Merchant Vessels, (5) Port Authority Vessels, (6) Local Commercial Vessels, (7) Alien/Non Imperial, and (8) Miscellaneous Private Vessels.

While most of these subtables map directly to MT encounter groups, the Alien/Non-Imperial table is also new and worth consideration. This table is very specific to the Marches with Darrians, Zhodani, Vargr, and so on. A similar table for Magyar sector would look very different with Aslan, Solomani, and maybe Wuan or Vegan encounters.

Finally, the BtC system has a Destination table similar to the MT Disposition table. Putting all of this together, we could generate a Backwater System encounter with a Sword World merchant leaving port.

Mongoose Traveller

Both 1st and 2nd edition Mongoose Traveller forego “Starship Encounters” for a more generic D66 table of “Space Encounters” that include starship encounters alongside unusual events such as “solar flare,” “asteroid,” or “collision with space junk.” Since the MgT core books are a generic sci-fi system only loosely tied to the Third Imperium setting, such a generic table makes some sense, though this is probably the least satisfying approach of any edition—somehow feeling simultaneously too generic and too specific, with only 36 potential results.

But that said, some of the non-spacecraft results could certainly make for interesting game encounters. I might be inclined to use some of these events for botched pilot or astrogation rolls:

• Derelict vessel
• Dumped cargo pod
• Escape pod
• Micrometeorite storm
• Rogue satellite or navigational buoy
• Solar flare
• Space junk

Closing Thoughts

Surveying the various starship encounter systems across editions, all had some compelling elements. For my money, the MegaTraveller system probably represents the best balance of trade offs—though I was surprised by the strengths of the T20 system. As I develop my own encounter tables for Magyar sector, I’ll probably look to all of these systems for inspiration.

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