Tools for My Referee-less Play

Made at https://zhodani.space.
Playing referee-less means you need to have ways of randomizing encounters, events, and so on without the specific knowledge referee would have in the game. One of the great things about Traveller is its rich, long history of random encounters and events and rolling up worlds and animals. So I'm going to make use of those tools.

That said, since I've never played referee-less before, so I'm going to feel free to adjust my practice as I move along. But here are some of the books I'll have for random events, etc., along with the basic rules.

Traveller Core Rulebook
High Guard
Central Supply Catalogue
Vehicle Handbook
Traveller Companion--I'll be using this for supplemental rules related to the environment, toxins, gravity, etc.
760 Patrons, 2nd Edition--One source of NPCs.
1001 Characters--One source of NPCs.
Starports
Animal Encounters--particularly the animal creation rules.
The Great Rift--Book 4, specifically, with the system generation rules.
Element Class Cruisers
Adventure Seeds
Starport Encounters
Flynn's Guide to Alien Creation--I'm expecting a few aliens along the way that need to be ruled up.
Campaign Guide
Powers and Principalities


I will probably need to create some random tables specific for this game. For example, I started creating a d66 "diplomatic" table. I haven't finalized this yet, but it essentially provides results of diplomatic negotiations with failures, successes, or tasks to garner favor (i.e., the dictator of planet A wants you to eliminate the leader of an nominal opposition party before he will even consider supporting the Imperium). I'll share this as I flesh it out. Also, I'll take any ideas for that and for other random encounters and results options.

I'll also make use of the random generator tools here: http://travellertools.azurewebsites.net/. This will be useful particularly for NPCs.

Finally when I need to randomize results that are not doable via simple die rolls, I will use The GameMaster's Apprentice, Science Fiction deck. This is a set of cards with a variety of symbols and whatnot. For example, if the PCs end up in an abandoned starship and I want to create atmosphere randomly, I can use these cards to provide drivers for that. The different runes, symbols, etc., play into how your interpret the results.

And, of course, dice. :)

Like I said, have any other thoughts or ideas for randomization, tools, etc., jump them my way.







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