One of the fascinating aspects of early RPGs is how they slowly formalized the logic of play. Dungeons & Dragons may have established the basic parameters of what a roleplaying game was, but it often left many questions unanswered. Why do the characters delve into dungeons? Who sends them? The answers were left to the referee. The occasional NPC might offer a mission or contract, but these were incidental, tools of the moment rather than a foundation of play.
Traveller, meanwhile, took a different approach. While it certainly didn’t invent the concept of the patron – an NPC who hires the characters to perform a job – it brought that arrangement front and center. Patrons weren’t just another option; they were core to how the game was expected to be played. The “Patrons” section of Book 3: Worlds and Adventures includes a table of potential patrons designed precisely to facilitate adventure hooks through employment. The Traveller Book is even more explicit in its discussion of patrons:
The key to adventures in Traveller is the patron. When a band of adventurers meets an appropriate patron, they have a person who can give them direction in their activities, and who can reward them for success. The patron is the single most important non-player character possible.
I don't think the game could be clearer. Patrons aren't just a suggestion; their appearance in a campaign is a procedural expectation. Traveller assumes that characters, once generated and set loose in the universe, will look for patrons in starports, bars, or back alleys, seeking work. The encounter charts in the rules were tools to support this play style, providing both inspiration and structure.
The 1980 supplement 76 Patrons reinforces the centrality of the patron. Rather than present long-form adventures as Traveller had done elsewhere, it offers 76 short patron encounters for the referee to slot into his own campaign. Each comes with 2–6 possibilities, ranging from the mundane to the sinister.
The group is contacted by a newly married couple, who decline to give their names, but have reason to believe that their respective parents are not pleased with their union. They will pay Cr3000 to each member of a group who will escort them safely to a planet beyond their parents' sphere of influence.
Are the newlyweds telling the truth? Why do their parents disapprove? What happens when the characters decide to help them? The beauty of the format 76 Patrons introduces is its open-endedness. A patron encounter is not a fully fleshed-out scenario but rather a situation, a prompt that acts as a springboard for play, driven by player choice and referee improvisation. It’s a wonderful model that encourages episodic, player-directed campaigns, compatible with a wide range of activities: bodyguard duty, espionage, smuggling, salvage, courier missions, outright crime – you name it.
What’s more, this system makes sense within the larger science fictional context depicted in Traveller. The player characters are often former military personnel, merchants, or scouts, recently discharged from service with a pension, a few skills, and perhaps a ship with a mortgage. They’re not heroes out to save the world, but freelancers trying to keep the lights on. This framework gives Traveller a tone distinct from that of D&D. It's less about fighting adversaries in dangerous locales and more about negotiating contracts, weighing risks, and navigating a morally gray universe. The use of patrons supports a looser, sandbox-style approach to campaign structure, encouraging referees to present opportunities for players to involve their characters in a wide variety of interstellar hijinks.
Today, it's easy to recognize the importance of patrons in Traveller, because the idea of an NPC giving out jobs seems commonplace. But in 1977, just three years after the release of OD&D, few games emphasized this as a default mode of play. Traveller systematized the role of the patron and, in doing so, offered another way to structure an adventure, one rooted in negotiation, opportunity, and choice rather than exploration alone. That quiet shift in procedure helped lay the groundwork for decades of mission-based, open-ended roleplaying. I don't think it's any coincidence that, having played Traveller for so long, my default campaign frame includes lots of patrons to present opportunities to the player characters. The House of Worms campaign, for example, makes heavy use of patrons to this day. In my experience, it's a robust and flexible foundation that fosters engagement, supports improvisation, and sustains long-term play across almost any genre.
This might be inspired by the Dumarest of Terra series. Dumarest is always a stranger to the planets he visits, and often finds himself in the power of an aristocrat who either forces or pays him to perform some task that he has no reason to do otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI read Dumarest fairly late in my gaming career and I was amazed at how much of it was directly lifted into Traveller.
DeleteNever having played Traveller, this concept is one I first encountered in Shadowrun, which assumes the players will be taking jobs from a series of "Mr. Johnsons," which are the game's punk-anonymous version of patrons. It was the second RPG I played, and, coming as I did from D&D, I had no idea what to make of it; at first, I misunderstood the term "Mr. Johnson" as being the game's version of D&D's "Dungeon Master," and basically just bonked my players into a "dungeon" in the form of an office building... which went rather badly, given Shadowrun's far-more-lethal-than-D&D combat. Good times. :-)
ReplyDeleteEvery time I watch firefly I always come away with the impression that it is completely based on traveller. Down to how the whole show is almost completely driven by the Traveller brand of patronage….
ReplyDeleteGarnfellow at The Great Dungeon of the North shows the adaptability of the old 76 Patrons. He took one, and adjusted it for an extensive portion of the play report, and it's still ongoing.
ReplyDeleteIDK, James, while I certainly agree with you that Marc Miller placed patrons front and center as the most important NPCs in Classic Traveller (which is very much unlike its spirit guide – OD&D), I can’t help but think they (NPC Patrons) aren’t that common and therefore not as important as your article above may suggest to some (read: me).
ReplyDeleteAs for why I say this, I look to my copy of CT Facsimile Edition, Book 3, pages 25-27, for those who may be checking my facts. (Please do, as I’m new to CT and may misunderstand, misrepresent, or misinterpret something.)
First, locating a single patron seems to take the entire crew’s efforts for a whole week, in order to perform this exhaustive patron search, reading the rules as written therein. I understand various refs may alter the basic rules, but at least as written here, a great deal of time, effort, and energy is expended by a great many people to locate said patron (possibly). As I understand it, this would prevent the crew from performing other tasks, at least as I currently read/understand it.
Next, a single throw for the entire crew’s efforts is made. They have a 2 in 6 chance of success. If successful, two consecutive dice throws are made to then identify a possible patron (or rumor). A note to the d66 table on page 27 says rumors are to be viewed as “absent” patrons, therefore keeping the focus, at least, on patrons, whether one is physically available or not. At this point, it's suggested that the ref stop and consider rolling up the patron’s UPP, but states this isn’t necessary.
Following that, you then roll 2D6 to determine the reaction of the patron to the crew to see if the crew is found suitable for the patron’s possible task. The Facsimile Edition states that a throw of 7+ is generally appropriate to proceed. Still, I find this problematic, and it is a point at which I would change the necessary value to 8+ instead. A roll of 7 is “noncommittal” on the NPC reaction table, page 27. I don’t see how (nor agree with) a patron being “noncommittal” is sufficient for me to move into negotiations for sometimes nefarious dealings between patron and crew, etc. A roll of 8 on the NPC reaction table is “interested,” which is the minimum cutoff point for me (ref) to suggest a possible patron who would then go into detail on the offering, etc. At that point, the crew can finally accept, reject, or try to renegotiate with the patron as they see fit.
Checking my math, a 2 in 6 chance of finding a patron and a 5 in 11 chance of positive patron leanings only gives an approximate 15% chance of finding a patron who likes and appreciates what the crew has to offer (not withstanding whether the crew likes the job and wants to work with/for the patron(s).)
With only a 15% chance of finding employment via a patron, weekly, it becomes painfully apparent to me that, while patrons are floating around and looking for specific folks of a specific moral leaning, this isn’t the optimal way of paying the weekly bills. This brings my focus back to speculative cargos and trading as the primary means of keeping a crew together and being financially successful (or at least the greater possibilities thereof).
So, while patrons are given a special place in CT, speculative trade is king in CT. But, this also makes CT special as OD&D didn’t get into speculative trade as the primary money source for dungeon delvers. However, whether one is a scum or villain in CT or a murderous dungeon hobo in OD&D, both games seem to suggest to me that the players are on the wrong side of the law (read mostly or usually), and I’m ok with that when I play fictional characters, in a fictional setting, with fictional repercussions, which then give real-world insights to players and refs to ponder for ages to come.
Cheers, and please keep the CT posts/threads coming, James.
Speculative cargos are great, if you’re traders and have a ship that can haul enough cargo to make mercantilism viable.
DeleteAlthough trade is a popular aspect of the game, it’s not the only one. And frankly, it gets pretty boring tabulating profit margins. I do that here on Earth, trust me…
I don’t think it’s ever stated gaining a Patton is necessarily easy or even quick, but it’s definitely a huge portion of the game and available as a source of not only income, but adventure.
And, many times you don’t even need a starship, unlike trade. There’s no guarantee your group will start in possession of a ship, let alone a free trader.
Ah, “Traveller: Commodity Speculation in the Far Future”.
DeleteUsing the rules as written, arguably random encounters are a driving factor, with a 1/3 chance daily of occurring, without the PCs having to take any actions.
But did people play the rules as written? It seems Marc Miller didn’t, at least. James, do you?
Unfortunately, in time patrons became a form of railroad.
ReplyDeleteLike dungeons, I imagine.
DeleteIn my experience, the patron could be a license to improvise, like having a fairly honest patron become devious because the job was proving to be a bit dull. That was a problem for a campaign setting, but in the opposite direction from a RR.
DeleteAs with so many elements later adapted to video games, the Patron mission structure is pretty well represented in the Grand Theft Auto (3 etc) series. In a not very linear storyline the main character is introduced to a series of patrons, whom he can later contact to take on their missions.
ReplyDelete