This was a blast to play through! This was my first time playing Traveller after hearing about it for years and owning books from previous additions.

One of the things that makes this such a great adventure is there are significant oppurtunities for heroics - if you like playing the good guy, but you may have to pay for your heroics.

Probably the biggest problem I had with this adventure was that when you reach the summit you have to cross a deep lake a distance of two American football fields while lugging big cases or presumably negatively bouyant ship parts (which it doesn't tell you how heavy or bulky they are while you are hauling them up the side of a mountain!). Oh, and you don't know what's in the water with you while you try and make this 200 yard swim with engine parts and your full pack of gear on. Hope you're an olympic swimmer! I don't see any way to deal with this other than inflatable rafts, which you DID think to remember to bring with you up the side of a mountain even though there was no warning you were going to have to traverse a lake at the top, right? You remembered your raft big enough for the whole group AND ship parts, right? Not only are you lugging ship parts up the side of a mountiain, but now you need to lug a boat up the side of the mountian TOO! Not exactly realistic. The module does suggest players could build a boat, but out of WHAT? There's some rocks! There are some bushes. There aren't even any trees to chop down and make a raft out of! There is NOTHING mentioned in the scene of the module that could possibly keep the group and their gear afloat! We had to return back to the bottom of the mountain and start over, although it didn't really cost us anything except 4 days of time due to climbing the mountain twice. And we left the ship parts at the top to make room for inflatable rafts on the return ascent. The adventure designers should have thought this one through a lot better, but if you're the story teller, you can fix the story pretty easy after reading through the whole module to see what I mean.

Also, the crew is disarmed by customs when they land on the planet. The module probably should have allowed them to obtain a hunting license with the planetary government. After getting to the summit and realizing they had to go back to town to get boats, I had them do a couple diplomacy checks to see if they could get a license for their long arms, and if not their hand guns before going up the second time because you're out in the wilderness and you have NO IDEA what's out there with you just in terms of wildlife alone! It's a frontier world! Other than the political situation, I'm surprised everyone isn't packing heat like in Alaska!

I ran it solo for myself and that went better than I would have expected, although I didn't let myself read too far ahead and made my decisions on how my characters would act before playing out the scene. I had so much fun; now I want to run it for a group of players! I did miss a few things and had to go back and correct a few minor things in scenes running it solo but it's pretty good for solo play and I think a great adventure for new players.

Now that I've read through the whole thing, I think I could run it 10 times better for a group than what I experienced, which was pretty good on its own. One thing that I DID question about the main story is HOW thin exactly is the atmosphere. After reading through the whole thing, I think the atmosphere is WAY thicker than I was at first lead to believe, which made a difference in the story due to the mountain climb. After reading through it I would play it out as if the atmosphere is like being up in the Colorado mountains around 8,000 feet (at this planet's sea level) so that the summit in the game (even though it's a relatively low elevation) is about the atmosphere of being on top of Mt. Everest. I originally thought the atmosphere at sea level was thinner than the top of Everest or equal to it, but that's not the way the adventure plays out. The way the adventure plays out, you wouldn't need any special breathing equipment on this planet (other than at the higher elevations) any more than you would going to Durango, Colorado. So, when they say "thin atmosphere" they just mean thinner than sea level on earth, but WAY thicker than at the top of Mt. Everest. I think the module should have spelled out that you don't need special breathing equipment on this planet at any of the settlements. My group went up the side of the mountain pretty much wearing SCUBA gear because I'm thinking "if the atmosphere requires special breathing equipment at low elevation we might as well be in space at high elevation". Then you really are hauling way too much gear up the side of the mountain.

Also, there's some significant climbing rolls in this module and the game doesn't seem to give any good rules for climbing. And what skill do you use for that? Profession(Mountainer)? It will probably be Athletics(Dex), but that's pretty generic for a very specific skill. Although, it's actually more of a very difficult hike than it is an actual mountain climb though. I imagine the incline of the mountain to be about 35 degrees in most places, enough to make it a dangerous hike for those unprepared but not so much a full on mountain climb except potentially in a few spots. My characters over prepared before knowing what they were getting into because I didn't read ahead due to running it solo. They also only had one out of five character with some climbing ability, which encouraged them to over-prepare. The rules do kind of mention that if you can get one person up a climb they can basically haul everyone else up (In the few places where you're actually climbing instead of hiking). So, I imagined them using that to their advantage and taking every safety precaution and using the extra time spent rules. Lots of pitons were used in strategic locations to limit fall distance as the group ascended as a team. And you definitely want the proper gear for a climb. Otherwise, the climb can be rather deadly if you don't take it serious.

The whole mission can potentially be accomplished without combat although there are a couple places where you could get into a fight. And fight or no fight, there's several oppurtunites for your characters to die here although a lot of them would be due to heroics.

There is no floor plan for the ship in the module, although I think it's a Scout/Courier Type:S from the core rule book. I just noticed they duplicated this ship as if it were something new in High Guard Update.

The description "Free Scout Ship" provides a drawing. NO FLOORPLAN. NO STATS. Once you've bought this adventure, you find out that there isn't actually a ship, but if the pc's finish the adventure, then Scout Service might grant the use of a ship but without stats or plans. Also, zero effort made toward drawings throughout. Draw a square, fill with brown, call it a building. Other than that, the adventure is good.

Many groups of Travellers want - if not outright need - a starship. This adventure, which would make a good campaign starter, provides the opportunity to not only give them one, but give them a good adventure as they acquire it. Interestingly, it's possible to complete the adventure without any combat - there's plenty of action to keep them busy, it just doesn't have to involve a brawl. That said, there are plenty of opportunities in which a fight could break out if the group so chooses...

It all begins with the offer of a ship. So it does help if the party has the necessary skills to pilot one, plot a course, and run the engines. Other than that, the party may include any backgrounds or skillsets. If one is a former Scout and has rolled a ship as a mustering out benefit, that's peachy, just tell him to report to the local Scout Officer to arrange for it. Otherwise one of the party's contacts has arranged for them to have one but they will have to fetch it for themselves - or if another party member has ownership or shares in a ship, use that ship instead only, again, for some reason it's elsewhere and has to be fetched.

The intention is that the adventure begins on Flammarion in the Bowman Arm, in District 268 of the Spinward Main. It's an interesting enough region to knock around in, and frequent reference is made to a campaign called Project Steel which is quite hard to find - there are copies on Amazon, although I don't believe it ever was released in PDF - seeing as it was released by ComStar Games/Avenger before Mongoose Publishing acquired the Traveller licence and others who had licences at the time lost them. Hopefully it will be reissued one day as it would make a good follow-on to this adventure. But I digress...

There is some background about the Bowman Arm and the various places to visit therein, especially a planet called Walston which is where the Scoutship IISS S001642-C, known as the Highndry is to be found, along with an explanation of why it's there. The explanation given to the party is that it suffered a major breakdown of its electronics on Walston and needs to be patched up and brought back to Flammarion for repair. In return, their expenses will be covered and once it is fixed they will receive the ship on a standard IISS 'detached-duty' contract. The notes cover the trip - it's not merely a question of making a couple of Jumps, good atmosphere building and reality here, also it gives a new group time to get to know each other - and finally the arrival on Walston.

Of course, this is where the fun starts. The ship is not at the starport on Walston. The party has got to find it before they can make an attempt at fixing it. Fortunately, there's plenty of information to find out by asking around in the local Star Town and beyond... they will even be offered assistance in retrieving their ship if they'd be kind enough to undertake the task its previous crew had contracted to do.

It all makes for a fascinating adventure, and an excellent start to a campaign. The level of detail at every stage is considerable and creates an excellent air of reality, a sense that there are lots of things going on that have nothing to do with the party and which would be taking place even if they weren't there. It's all part of creating a living alternate reality in which you and your group can immerse yourselves every time you play.

I'm a little disappointed in this product. While not a bad product overall, I did enjoy it the first time Ibought it from Avenger Enterprises. The publisher may want to take into consideration that the Traveller community is a long lived one. I understand the original publishers of this material may not be in business anymore and the rerelease will find a new audience, but a warning to those of us who have been faithful all these years would ba appreciated. That said, the product itself is pretty good. The material is well written and organized and the adventure itself is a great camaign starter. If you already own "Type S" from Avenger Enterprises you may want to pass this one by, or not as most Traveller players are collectors.

Nice starting adventure to give the players access to a ship with some quirks and history. I like that the advanture does not require any combat. I like that the book has a few neat maps of the locations in question to make it easier for the GM to explain the various situations. It is also a bonus that the adventure does not require any combat to complete. The main drawback is that much of the adventures events is based on the playing character always beeing out of luck or receiving the short end.