TravCon 2026 Part 4

Susan and I played together in the second of two games run by Tom Mouat. I felt super fortunate to be chosen to play with Tom again as his games are always fun.

The scenario was called, Scout Base 947, run using Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition (with Home-Brew Combat Resolution), which just to reiterate were a great set of house rules. Recommended.

 

The briefing started with, "It'll never happen,"they said, but it did. About to strike out on their own after surviving a Scout career, in their slightly weird, non-standard 100ton Scout, their Reserve status was re-activated to do a survey of the systems in the Rim Edge Sector. 

It wasn't too bad though, apart from having to carry a 6 ton mission pod, and an uptight ass as a mission specialist, to do the actual surveys. It was all going pretty well, actually, with just one more long jump to the Scout base, refuel and get paid!

I played the uptight mission specialist.

We landed at the scout base, found it abandoned, and then super freaky shennanigans started. We made it off planet with everyone still alive to get paid, and I achieved my character's objectives without giving the game away.

Sunday was the final day.

I played Gee Cows to the Rescue! again, but with a different character, and stayed schtum about what I knew, but acted all excited by reminding the skipper about the battledress floating in space we found. 

It was worth a lorra, lorra money.

 

Then there was the lunchtime session, wrapping up with Mongoose's presentation, and followed by the presentation. of the three BITS awards. Referees can nominate players for the following awards.   

The Starburst for Extreme Heroism reflects the most heroic (if not necessarily wise) action taken by a character during the convention.

Kezia Herbert won the SEH Award for rolling a critical roll with a bane (3D6 remove highest) with a triple six.

The Derrick Jones award for the best role-player/role-playing moment in a game, named in honour of the man who died last year for inspiring people with his role-playing, and sharp wit.

Sarah Lilly won for playing a lovestruck character so well she was given a restraining order.

 

The PFI Award represents “Ping! F*** It!” – the catchphrase when a small, but critical component from the weapon goes “ping” and disappears down the back of the sofa. Nominations can cover almost any category of unusual death, demise or cock-up, or when something has gone catastrophically and hilariously wrong.

I managed to get my team the PFI award for the shenanigans I got us into playing Alex Treacher's The Extraction. This was the summary of what happened.

We were both totally whacked after the drive back home, and we slept like a log that night.

Thank you to Andy and Richard for all their stirling work, and to Kezia and Alex for encouraging us to attend. And, to everyone I played in a game with, or ran a game I played in, thank you. I had so much fun.

Much needed fun, as life has thrown me some unsettling curveballs of late.