Traveller: The Chamax Plague - RPG Review

A ship in peril leads the Player Characters to a remote planet in search of a lost expedition team and the horrible truth about what wiped out a lost civilization. Here are my thoughts, tips, and criticisms for the classic Traveller adventure The Chamax Plague.

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I mostly ramble about movies, tabletop roleplaying games, and random other things as they occur to me:

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Guest Starring Jack the NPC

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#Traveller #TTRPG

[yaldabaoth]

I don't know why Jack is so suspicious, the plot seems completely alien to me.

[jasonGamesMaster]

I honestly think my favorite running gag is "hold on - random npc - we're coming to save you!"

[matthill]

Hey, speaking of ripping off game ideas, here's a useful trick I've used a ton of times in Shadowrun: don't steal from the genre you're running!

Everybody rolls their eyes when you present an obvious copy-paste. Instead, steal from different genres, and modify them to what you're running. One time I was watching a western with a train heist, and I thought, "if you changed that to a maglev bullet train, and swapped the revolvers for 10mm automatics with APDS ammo, and traded the Well-Fargo gold bullion for prototype cybernetics processors coming from an Ares Macrotech research subsidiary, you'd have a pretty good Shadowrun adventure!"

Worked like a charm! Mafia movies make great inspiration for running thieves' guilds in D&D too, and it makes more your thieves' guild more instantly-relatable when everybody can reference Goodfellas for how the thieves might react to any given proposal. For instance, mafias/ thieves guilds love dealing in favors. "I'll make this thing happen for you, but in return you owe me a favor. Could be next week, could be next year. You owe me. Do you know what that means?" Plus, everybody has an idea what your thieves' guild is capable of doing, and what's within their power to ask for.

[NetworkedOuija]

You're an absolute legend for providing your handouts. Always happy to see new videos!

[ricksherman]

Thanks for continuing to support the Traveller system Seth !

[Snyback]

Oh god... I don't think we have a CD drive in any of our laptops around here anymore XD To be honest - when you recounted the similarities to Aliens I saw them, but before that part I got more Starship Trooper vibes (bugs, queen bugs, psionic abilities for the queens), but with the bugs being less smart/organised.
Of course that movie comes even later - though the book existed in 1981, so maybe it was a bit of an inspiration?

[TheManyVoicesVA]

"Hold on X, we're comin to save you!" Is my favorite recurring joke in all these videos haha.

[skylarking]

One of my two favorite adventures. My kids and I turned this double-adventure into an all-summer-long campaign. I came up with a little add-on that links Chamax Plague to Horde: The ship's boat from the Challenger is the one that fell into the sun at adventure's start. Turns out the survivor in that ship panicked, and left everyone else behind during the initial attack.

When the Chamax bugs attack the science team, they escape up the glacier on a tractor that breaks down on the ice, and continue on foot, dragging one injured member on a sledge made from scavenged tractor parts. Rescue team locates the tractor by following its bloody trail several Km's out of camp. It has a lipstick message scrawled on the windshield for Delradi from his scientist girlfriend: "Come get me" and an arrow pointing up the glacier. The survivor science team is holed-up above the frost line on the glacier. Delradi's girlfriend has mad survival skills, located a cave alongside the ice, with running water, where they all hole-up until the rescue party comes, attracted by a smoky signal fire of tractor parts...

The cave is warm enough for liquid water, the survivors think it's geothermal. It's not, though. During their med check after rescue, they are discovered to have mild radiation exposure symptoms. Again, this doesn't fit the known geological data for that region. Going back to the cave to check it out later, players discover the back of the cave is a hole leading into an alien laboratory, the radiation is from an old fission reactor still running; the radiation shielding's been removed on purpose as a means to kill any Chamax bugs that enter the complex. It worked, and the lab is as it was on the day of The Fall. Inside the lab is a developmental laboratory for the systems of the escape ark/colony ships that took off for a sublight flight to nearby systems. And dead, non-bug, alien skeletons; the engineers and scientists left behind to defend. There's a hangar/launch bay with the launch cradle empty and the secret overhead door closed, indicating a ship launched from here. You can see, breadboarded out, all around the complex, the escape ship computer systems and drive systems and hibernation systems in developmental form. All the evidence is here to point to a last-minute sublight starship evacuation to nearby worlds, which ties into Horde: our players will know right away what's going on with the unidentified saucers from seeing this lab. Instarspec will create an entire expedition just to investigate and exploit the discoveries of this lab.

In our campaign, there was an original Chamax sapient alien still in the hibernation test rig, it is revived automatically when the radiation shields are replaced on the fission pile. The alien uses the breadboarded computer system to translate and communicate to the players. We nicknamed him "Bug Rodgers" Bug Rodgers' mate is on the escaped ship. They couldn't thaw him out fast enough to take him along when they had to leave. Rodgers wants your players to track down the sublight ship.

A long while back I made an audio file of the last logs of the Sharrin Challenger and the science team, link here.

[gaminreasons]

I know you often come up with new ways to say "hey spoilers here, if you go past this point it's your fault." But the comment about reddit almost makes think it actually happened.

[bigteej]

I might have said this before.

But Jack's trigger discipline is both noted, and appreciated.

[deecap]

A couple of adventures after this, throw in Horde, just to watch the players faces when they realize what comes pouring out of that alien ship.

[jinxtheunluckypony]

It’s always wild when you see games like this that clearly inspired popular media. You’ve got to wonder how the scenario writers feel when that happens.

[ricksherman]

In the old school JTAS series, maybe around '81 or '82 there is an article that lists out Classic Traveller specs for Alien Xenomorphs.... When I get home I'll post the exact issue. ( JTAS #4) .

[burningphoneix]

My favorite reoccurring gag is Jack enthusiastically becoming a model employee when payment is mentioned.

[chriscooper]

Ran this (and its sibling-scenario "Horde") for a couple of different groups back in the day, plus a couple of follow-up homebrewed scenarios involving surviving members of Chamax's sentient race (as suggested in the epilogue of "Horde"). Turned into a mini-campaign, kinda. Definitely a fun run. Thanks for the trip down into acid-drooling darkness, Seth!

[michaelb.]

I had the pleasure to play through this adventure recently as my introduction to Traveller. It's a really fun adventure and our GM made it come to live with big deck plans and great atmosphere.
We were actually able to safe the ship heading towards the sun with some very lucky rolls. And boy were we freaked out when one of the tag-alongs sneaked off to go rummage through one of the cabins. We were expecting him to betray us or to be on the corps payroll for some shady operation. Turned out, he was just searching for his fiancée. 😅 So, also that variant works.
Thanks for the review and the handouts! Seeing your video pop up on my feed just made my day!

[JosephusHellyer]

I'm a simple man: I see a Seth video, I click.

[TabletopJunkieGames]

Just wanted to let you know, that your channel is a resource that I use for traveller. I have not played or run traveller 2e before but been wanting too. Its a wonderful well put together game.

[MrChupacabra]

Ah, the Chamax Plague: I remember reading this adventure even before I read 'Starship Troopers' (both are about Giant Alien Bugs in a way 😁)

[foleylione]

Seth I want you to know that I’ve been DMing since 1989 or so and you really helped me level up in the last few years by seeing how you adapt anything and everything in prep or on the fly. Now any adventure in any game system is much more possible.