Retrospective: Death Station

GDW's Traveller is justifably lauded for the wealth of tools it provided the referee in generating his own adventures, such as procedures for generating worlds, handling trade, and creating encounters, among many others. However, the company also published a large number of ready-made adventures, too, starting with The Kinunir in 1979 and I think they deserve to be better appreciated for how much they contributed to the success of the game. Though not all every Traveller adventure is a winner, many are classics.

One such classic is Death Station, one of two adventures published in 1981 as Double Adventure 3 (the other being Argon Gambit, about which I'll talk next week). Designed by Marc Miller, Death Station exemplifies many of the sensibilities of early roleplaying adventures by being compact and largely concerned with providing a referee with a location, a problem, and a handful of dangers with which to challenge the player characters rather than much in the way of background detail. 

The scenario's premise is simple. The characters are hired by Lysani Laboratories to investigate a lab ship orbiting the world of Gadden after communication with it has been lost. Upon arrival, they discover that most of its crew is dead, while the station itself shows signs of damage. Further investigation reveals scattered clues pointing to psychochemical experiments intended to produce a new type of combat drug that heightened personal strength, dexterity, and endurance. The experiments were successful to a degree, but sabotage by a rival company resulted in the entire crew being exposed to an early version of the combat drugs that enhanced their physical abilities at the cost of their sanity. Now deranged, they pose a threat to anyone who boards the lab ship.

In a sense, Death Station offers what might be called a science fictional "dungeon,” complete with "monsters" in the form of the deranged crew. The lab ship is mapped and divided into keyed areas through which the player characters must move cautiously, examining laboratories, storage areas, and crew quarters. As in a fantasy dungeon, each location aboard ship offers the possibility of discovery, danger, or both. Logs, notes, and physical evidence gradually reveal what happened, while the deranged survivors and similarly deranged lab animals ensure that exploration is never safe.

The influence of movies like 1979's Alien is clear, I think, but, rather than resorting to an unknown extraterrestrial threat, Death Station opts instead for reckless science running afoul of corporate espionage, which fits well within Traveller's more sober approach to SF. Even so, the adventure has great atmosphere, which is a big part of why I count it among my Top 10 Classic Traveller adventures. The scenario relies less on direct exposition than on the gradual accumulation of clues. Some of that is a direct consequence of its sparseness of its descriptions and room keys, which is as much intentional as it is driven by the shortness of the page count.  

Even so, Miller includes four pages of referee's notes that help provide not only a brief overview of what happened aboard the lab ship and why but also guidelines for how to run encounters with the deranged crew and experimental animals. This is useful, since part of the fun of Death Station is navigating its cramped rooms and corridors while its inhabitants also move about and stalk the characters. Also included in the notes is a discussion of the effects of the experimental combat drug, which is also helpful in handling encounters involving the crew who are affected by it. 

My own experience with Death Station is that it’s both straightforward to run and surprisingly tense in play. The confined environment of the lab ship, combined with the unpredictable behavior of the drug-crazed crew, creates a constant sense of unease. The situation is made more tense due to the fact that, once the characters understand what's going on, they likely won't want to kill the surviving crew but instead seek a way to subdue and possibly cure them – at least, that's what has happened when I've made use of the scenario in the past.

From chatting with other Traveller fans, I've come to realize I'm not alone in regarding Death Station so highly. Its premise is immediately understandable, its structure is easy for a referee to grasp at a glance, and its atmosphere remains effective. Like many of GDW’s adventures, it provides just enough detail to establish the situation while leaving ample room for the referee to elaborate as needed. That balance between guidance and openness is a plus in my opinion and it’s certainly why Death Station has a lot of replay value, even after more than four decades since its publication.