RE: [TML] ADVENTURE: THE SURVEY WAFER - FOR COMMENT

That is great stylistically, but informationally dubious. “Habit” presumably means that the colony continues to exist through inertia rather than economic purpose. But it doesn’t actually explain what sustains 100,000-ish people on a TL6 world.

And while it’s plausible that it’s “cold”, there’s nothing in the UWP that establishes that; the adventure should probably explain why it is cold.

> Forty years ago the Clybourne charter company folded, and its master survey [...] went down with the charter vessel Kiln...

“Folded” and “went down” together imply two events, but the relationship between them is unclear. Did the company collapse because Kiln crashed? Did it fail first and the ship subsequently crash? Was Kiln making a final voyage? More importantly, this creates a plot question: why has nobody recovered this incredibly important record during the intervening forty years?

> the port calls ‘the Same’

Why? If there’s a local story, what is it?

> The colonial charter expires in three weeks unless the survey is restored to the record.

What does “restored to the record” mean? Uploaded to an Imperial registry? Certified by the Starport Authority? Submitted to a subsector government? Validated by an accredited surveyor? The entire adventure depends on this.

> The Starport Authority calls this a paperwork problem. Everyone who lives on Clybourne knows it is their whole future.

Nice. But again, what happens if the charter expires? Does Clybourne cease to be legally recognised? Does ownership revert to the Imperium? Can another corporation claim the system? Do the colonists lose mineral rights? Does the starport close? We’re told this is existential without knowing how it’s existential.

> One wafer survived the Kiln.

If the ship crashed forty years ago and nobody has reached it, how does anyone know that this particular data wafer survived? If somebody has reached it, why didn't they recover it?

> Whoever brings it dock-side owns the week.

Lovely phrase. I don't know what it means.

THE PREMISE

The underlying premise is good. You have a declining backwater, obscure Imperial bureaucracy, an old wreck, commercially valuable information, a patron who knows more than she says, a ticking clock, competing economic interests, and PCs who can potentially alter the future of an entire colony.
But that premise survives on assertion rather than causality.

The forty-year gap is the biggest issue. If Kiln crashed last month, everything works immediately. If it crashed forty years ago, the adventure needs a compelling answer to: “Why can it be recovered now when it could not be recovered at any point during the previous forty years?” The answer will probably become part of the adventure.

THE CHARTER PROBLEM

Why would a colonial charter require preservation of a forty-year-old system survey? More specifically, why does loss of the survey invalidate the charter?
There can absolutely be an archaic Imperial legal mechanism that produces this result. Traveller often thrives on bizarre inherited institutions. But we need the internal logic.

For example:

The original charter grants the Clybourne Company exploitation rights over specifically enumerated bodies listed in Survey Schedule A. The company is gone, but the settlement inherited those rights. Unfortunately, the authoritative Schedule A has been lost. A statutory review is approaching, and without the certified schedule, the colonial administration cannot demonstrate what territory its inherited charter actually covers.

And suddenly the survey isn't a bureaucratic magic scroll that keeps the colony alive. It is evidence of its legal rights. And that creates interesting complications because other people may benefit enormously if it remains lost. That's an adventure.

THE SEED-VAULT REVELATION

> It carries the coordinates of the original seed-vaults: the stores set aside for a recolonization that never came.

Great. So, what’s in those vaults?
- Seeds?
- Frozen embryos?
- Agricultural genetic material?
- Terraforming organisms?
- Industrial starter cultures?
- Colonisation equipment?
- Machine tools?
- Computers?
- Medical supplies?
- A complete TL-whatever bootstrap package?

> Sold quietly, that list is worth about Cr 10,000 to the wrong buyer.

Cr10,000? WTF! That’s low. I mean, useful money for a PC, sure, but for something important enough to transform the future of an entire colony? If the caches are valuable enough to create “leverage over a colony that never knew it had options”, their coordinates ought to be worth way more than just Cr10,000.

ALDA VENN

> Alda Venn has known that for years, and has spent them trying to reach the wreck first.

First before whom? Apparently everybody knows about the wafer because the colony's future depends upon it. So who are her competitors? And if Alda has known about the seed vaults for years, what has prevented her from reaching the wreck? More importantly, what does she actually want? The adventure currently leaves this open for several very different Aldas:
- She could be a patriot who wants the vaults used to revive Clybourne.
- She could be corrupt and planning to sell the coordinates.
- She could believe the Heritage Office should control the information to prevent corporate exploitation.
- She could be planning to blackmail the colonial government into reform.
- She could be descended from the original charter holders.
- She could genuinely intend to save the colony but has decided that the ends justify some spectacularly dubious means.

THE PATRON SECTION ISN'T ENOUGH

> She hires the team to reach the wreck, retrieve the wafer, and deliver it dock-side.

At this point, we still don't have an adventure; we only have a job description. A playable adventure needs obstacles, information and decisions.

At minimum, I need to know:
- Getting there: How far away is the Same? What spacecraft is required? Who provides it? Can the PCs use their own ship?
- The environment: Gravity? Vacuum? Temperature? Radiation? Terrain?
- The wreck: Where is Kiln? Is it intact? Buried? Unstable? Pressurised sections? Power? Automated systems?
- Competition: Who else wants the wafer?
- Complications: What prevents the PCs from simply landing beside Kiln, walking inside, picking up the wafer and returning?
- Discovery: How do they learn about the seed-vault data?
- Choice: Once they know, what can they actually choose to do?

Without those, the adventure currently resolves as: Alda hires PCs. PCs fly to moon. PCs retrieve wafer. PCs return. The end.
That's not an adventure, that's FedEx with vacuum suits.

THE TICKING CLOCK DOESN'T CURRENTLY TICK

Three weeks sounds urgent, but nothing presented so far explains why recovering an object from a known wreck elsewhere in the system should take anything approaching this long. Conversely, if offworld parties are involved, a single jump consumes a substantial fraction of the available time.

The author needs to decide what the clock is for. A good countdown generates escalating consequences.

For example:
- 21 days: charter review deadline.
- 14 days: an outside claimant arrives.
- 10 days: Starport Authority announces provisional suspension procedures.
- 7 days: banks stop extending credit to Clybourne businesses.
- 3 days: evacuation prices spike and civil disorder begins.
- 0 days: charter lapses and a rival corporation files its claim.

PLAYER AGENCY

I think this is not fundamentally about whether the PCs can retrieve the wafer (they probably can); the real adventure is: What do they do once they understand what it contains?

Give several factions legitimate but incompatible interests.
- The colonial government wants the survey submitted immediately.
- Alda wants the seed-vault information protected or exploited.
- A corporation wants the vault coordinates.
- The Starport Authority only cares about properly certified records.
- Some colonists want the vaults opened publicly.
- Someone else has a legitimate historical claim upon their contents.

Now possession of the wafer really does mean that the PCs “own the week”. That phrase finally acquires teeth. And importantly, there needn't be a correct answer.

STRUCTURE

I would recommend separating public information, Alda's story, and the truth. At present, the referee gets the truth immediately, but there's little indication of what the PCs know.

Something like:
- What everyone knows: Clybourne's charter review is imminent. The original certified survey is required. Kiln carried the last recoverable copy.
- What Alda tells the PCs: She has finally located Kiln and needs independent spacers to retrieve its surviving archive wafer before rival claimants do.
- What Alda doesn't tell them: The wafer contains the seed-vault coordinates.
- What Alda doesn't know: One additional fact that complicates her plan.
That fourth layer is important. Don't make Alda omniscient. Give the wreck a surprise for her too. Perhaps the “seed vaults” weren't intended for Clybourne at all.

Traveller adventures benefit from situations rather than plots. That means the author shouldn't write: PCs do A, then encounter B, then discover C, then confront D.

Instead provide:
- a location
- a timeline
- 3 to 5 factions
- what each faction knows
- what each faction wants
- resources available to each
- the wreck
- environmental hazards
- rumours
- and what happens if the PCs do nothing

Then unleash the players upon it.

So, the three things I would insist be fixed before anything else are:
- the forty-year problem
- the exact legal mechanism behind the charter deadline
- the value/purpose of the seed vaults

IMHO, YMMV
Regards Hemdian