Improvised Radio Theatre - With Dice

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This month, Mike and Roger dissect Mongoose Traveller and a couple of campaigns Mike has run with it.

We mentioned: Kult and more Kult at the Bundle of Holding (ending on 6 November), Arkham Gazette at the Bundle of Holding (ending on 1 November), "The Alice in Wonderland Thing", JAGS Wonderland (also downloadable), Secrets of the Ancients, GURPS Illuminati, Les Misérables and Javert, though now Michael thinks of it the character in the scenario also has elements of Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick, Islands in the Rift, Patricia C. Wrede's writing advice, Roger's trade software, GURPS Spaceships, and Starship bridge simulator (this is the one Roger has played; there are now others that do similar things).

Striker is indeed a minatures wargame based around Traveller. The extracted-from-Azhanti-High-Lightning game Michael was thinking of was probably Snapshot. See also the canonical list of Traveller boxed games.

The Kaufman Retrograde is a tactic for Star Fleet Battles which takes advantage of two things: most ship weapons fire into the forward arc, and torpedoes and similar weapons don't inherit the velocity of their launching ship but travel at a set speed on the board. So you face the enemy and retreat. You can shoot at them just as much as they shoot at you; and their torpedoes have to cover the range plus your movement, while yours have to cover the range minus their movement. In the version of Artemis Roger played, the computer-controlled enemy ships blindly move towards the players' ship at a fixed speed, it's easy to control the separation between you and them, and torpedoes have strictly limited range, which makes the tactic even more effective.

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Music by Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com and other royalty-free sources.