Some More Things One Must or Must Not Do During Role Playing Games

Thus sayeth Mr. Welch:

851. When plumbing the depths of depravity, I must remember to come up for air.

856. A funeral is not a proper place for setting new fashion trends.

860. Under religion I cannot put Born Again Klingon.

861. I will not use undocumented zombie workers to help build my castle.

865. I do not put the cad in decadent, nor the rave in depraved.

867. We all play bards just to relive our favorite Spinal Tap moments.

868. I cannot have a gun with an area of affect larger than it's range.

872. Any gun that sets off the metal detector before I even pass through it is vetoed.

Um. Okay.
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These Dreams

Had a weird dream involving a woman who looked and sounded a lot like Emma Thompson, a grand hotel with an antagonistic staff, and a chief antagonist (Solomani Texan) who would not respond properly when I pull out an ID card and say things like "I am an Imperial Lord", "I have an Imperial Warrant", and "SHUT THE F**K UP!"

That's where I woke up.
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And Now...

The number of things that Mr. Welch cannot do in a role playing game is now up to 850:

827. My battlemech does not play Dixie every time I hit the jump jets.

829. Despite the song's claim, a pelvic thrust does not cause Sanity loss.

833. Overrunning a larger army is not a glorious victory if it happened at 3AM and they were still in bed.

Except in Texas when you overrun the Mexican Army at siesta time.

To continue:

837. Even if the rules allow it, I can't take the 1st Armored Division as an ally.

839. In the middle of a black ops no inserting a memo into the target's computer mandating 'clothing optional Mondays'.

842. When handed Dieties and Demigods and told to pick a god for my druid, I will skip right by the Cthulhu Mythos.

845. It's not a good idea to taunt Greek heroes with "Who's your daddy?"

Don't do this to Uncle Dennie, either...

To continue:

849. The FBI tends to notice when people buy several miles of hamster tubing at once.

850. Doesn't matter how practical, we aren't reanimating the dead dragon and having him haul that horde back for us.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.
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And Now...

The number of things that Mr. Welch cannot do has increased from 800 to 825:

803. If my personal carried firepower exceeds that of the Battleship Texas, there's a problem.

808. Covering fire does not include nuclear weapons.

813. Taking the orc warlord's skull as a trophy is acceptable. Not as a hand puppet.

816. The adventure wrap up is the epilogue. Not Miller Time.

822. If everybody in the room is in black leather, we're in the thieves' guild. Not a fetish club.

Um, okay...

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.
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Ship Names

I was going through some files and found a list of
warship names that I was going to use for a Tech Level-12
pocket empire:


Imperial Navy (Freya)


Resolution Class Missile Frigate (24 units)

Resolution, Resister, Revenge, Res-Publica, Realist,
Red-Giant, Retribution, Retaliation,
Revolution, Renegade, Red-Dwarf, Reaction, Rectifier,
Rent-Asunder, Red-Shift, Restorer,
Redeemer, Renderer, Remnant, Remainder. Renown,
Repulse, Restitution. Renaissance.


Nemesis Class Cruiser (8 units)

Nemesis, Corisande, Scourge, Lamia, Black-Star,
Victrix, Grendelsbane, Sungoddess


Freya Class Fleet Carrier (4 units)

Freya, Eos, Magenta, Columbia.


Ranger Class Light Carrier (6 units)

Ranger, Bonhomme Richard, Guerriere, Essex,
Enterprise, Hornet.


Aristotle Class Battleship (2 units)

Aristotle, Ayn Rand.


Audacity Class Destroyer (40 units)

Audacity, Adamant, Animosity, Enmity, Antagonist,
Adversary, Assailant, Contender, Aversion,
Antipathy, Aversion, Anger, Annoyance, Agitate,
Aggravate, Arrogance, Insolence, Flippant,
Sassy, Audacious, Brazen, Hussy, Annoyance, Tart.
Aspire, Ambition, Objective, Rancor, Venom,
Indignant, Bitter, Irate, Furious, Incensed,
Indignant, Inflamed, Aroused, Impassioned, Incited,
Fervent.



I haven't named any SDB's yet.

These Are Some Of My Favorite Things

One of my favorite online comics pages is SOMETHING POSITIVE.

In the current story a bunch of snot-nosed punks are going to make a pathetic attempt to scare old Fred MacIntire.

Little do they know that Fred once accidently made a human sacrifice to C'Thulhu.

Here's A Fact:

I like to read SOMETHING POSITIVE.
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And Now...

There are now 800 things that Mr. Welch is not allowed to do:

772. Not allowed to base a paladin off Lee Marvin.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled unreality.
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Someone Else's Thought For The Day

In deep space, nobody can hear you vent the trash, or the tax collector...

-- Mark Urbin, Traveller Mailing List, October 13, 2006

The Truth About Penguins In The Traveller Universe.

If anything, the apparently humble penguin is the central component to the mystery of why the Solomani, the Humans of Terra, were so slow to develop spaceflight and the jump drive.

The various species of penguin that we know of were Genetically Engineered by Yaskodray (a.k.a. Grandfather) as a means to suppress the growth and technological progress of Terrestrial Humans. The penguin brain while individually unimpressive, served as a component of a group mind which in turn functioned on Terra as a False Ruling Consciousness, an entity that the Solomani have commonly called "God."

The False Ruling Consciousness, being physically isolated on the Antarctic continent, would send psionic messages to various "prophets" who would in turn command their respective followers kill each other in progressively bloodier wars. This also had the unfortunate result of blackening the name of God in the minds of the Solomani as that the gods of most other races were more emotionally secure and far less prone to acting out.

It was when Claw and Beak disease was accidentally introduced to the primary penguin population by a British naval expedition ("Jenkins, STOP THAT!") that the False Ruling Consciousness became too weak to influence human affairs. Thus allowing the Solomani people to expand into deep space and attempt to take their rightful place in the Universe. ("Today, North Minehead...")
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Joke Warfare in the Official Traveller Universe

Stone Monument marking the last known location of the Unknown Joke.

Given the apparently static and uncreative nature of their culture the Vilani were in the habit of telling the same worn out old jokes for thousands of years. Members of the hereditary comedian caste would stand on the stage and recite the official identification or catalog number of the joke rather than actually tell the joke to their audiences. This practice would have terrible consequences when the Vilani Empire came into contact with the inhabitants of Terra.

One of the devastating effects which occurred as a result of contact and subsequent warfare by the Vilani with the Terrans were the masses of Vilani soldiers who were killed upon hearing a Terran joke, or were otherwise incapacitated while rolling on the ground laughing. It was not unknown for Terrans to escape from Vilani Prisoner Of War camps after disabling the guards through the use of improvised comedy or the repetition of an old Monty Python sketch. As the Interstellar Wars progressed the Terrans would open planetary landing operations by broadcasting translations in Vilani of several classic stand up monologues and comedy sketches. Although for some odd reason the Vilani were generally mystified instead of incapacitated by Monty Python's "Undertaker Sketch."*


German Leader Adolf Hitler personally tests an early prototype of the Nazi V-Joke at a Nuremburg Rally.

Along with the usual charges of biological warfare the Terrans have also been accused by some historians of deploying the so-called "unknown joke", which was allegedly developed by the British during the Second Terran World War, in use against the Vilani. While some variations of the Nazi "V-Joke" have survived to the present day (with a numerical designation assigned by Stand-Up Comedy Bureau of the local Vilani government's Ministry of Humor) there is no indication that the so-called "unknown joke" has survived in any known language of the Third Imperium or any other human interstellar power.


The Iraqi Minister of Infomation (commonly known as Baghdad Bob or Comical Ali) makes a pathetic last ditch attempt to practice joke warfare during the Second Gulf War.

It is possible that a not terribly competent historian, or another person with nefarious intent, could upon seeing video documentary footage of the stone marker over the resting place of the last known copy of the unknown joke, send a player character group to Terra to recover it.


*My mother on the other hand, was very thoroughly offended by the Undertaker Sketch, and forbade me to watch any further episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus. My literally rolling on the floor and laughing while she was in the living room probably was a factor in this decision.

I shortly thereafter bought my own small black and white television set for my own room.

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A Patrol Ship




(This ship was designed with High Guard Shipyard Version 1.13)
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The Generic Sol Subsector

As part of my project to create what I call the Private Universe
Mk2, I began to play with the possibility of going to a three
dimensional game universe. To this end I downloaded and played
with the ChView program.

Working on the premise of a maximum jump-2 equivalent range of
7.8 light years, I noticed that there was a set of routes that
could form a circuit starting and ending at Terra. I thought that
this was really neat from both the aesthetic and economic points
of view.

I decided in the end to use the standard two dimensional map. In
order to incorporate the circuit into that map I had to break
from the Imperium/OTU layout and move a few stars around. I also
decided to move Sol/Terra to a more central location on the map.

Presented below are my baseline stats for the present day, mostly
taken from Aliens Book 6 with some star names from Chris Thrash’s
list of near stars, of the generic Sol Subsector.

One of the other changes is that I moved 61 Cygni (Nusku) one
parsec coreward because it didn’t fall within 7.8 Ly of Ross 154.
This also made for easier access to the Vega main. It being a
binary system, I played around with the idea of having the Nusku
equivalent world at 61 Cygni A colonized by a group of hardcore
Spanish speaking Catholics who would name it Veracruz. And having
the tainted atmosphere world at 61 Cygni B colonized by a bunch
of very tolerant capitalists who would name their’s Ed’s Bypass.

The referee should also consider the possibility that some
tainted atmospheres in the OTU UWP’s may be the result of
industrial pollution on high population worlds.

A New Blog!

A new age of hope and spiritual growth...et cetera...and I'm still here, for my sins.

(Guess which BBC miniseries THAT line came from.)

So anyway, I've started a new blog to serve what I call the Private Universe Project II. This will be a realm for running adventures and naval battles with the Classic Traveller rules.

That is all.

(My Winamp player is randomly playing Suicide Is Painless.)
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