Signal GK

Adventure for Traveller

Review by Kerry Lloyd

Designed by Marc W. Miller , Additional design by J. Andrew Keith
Game Designers' Workshop P0. Box 1646, Bloomington, IL 61102
Relaseded January, 1985
Catalog No. 341
Price: $5.95
Complexity: Intermediate
Solitaire Suitability: None

GK is the abbreviation for Gasbimeku Kaarliin--vessel in distress. Signal GK is the Vilani equivalent of SOS and Mayday and is so treated by order of the Imperial Navigation Act of 103. Signal GK is a new Traveller adventure from GDW which takes the players on a cook's tour of an area near the Solomani-Imperial border as part of an interesting job.

Signal GK is printed in time-honored GDW style; the 5 3/4 by 8 3/4 inch booklet fits into the original Travellerg box. The color used for coding is a bright orange; the interior is a brightly colored adventure as well.

The adventure starts on Scandia, in Imperial space, and can lead the players, as part of their job, to Ochre, back to Scandia, Cymbeline, back to Scandia again, and finally to Terra itself which is now in the hands of Imperial authorities. The adventure is broken into three episodes, each worthy of one or more sessions of play.

The basic job given to the group is to contact and aid a defector in his escape from the Solomani sphere of influence. A scientist of wide renown in the field of semi-conductors and other electronic micro-circuitry, the defector is quite eccentric and is capable of handing the group more than their share of trouble. A ship and supplies are provided for the group. There's a Solomani agent trailing the players to prevent the scientist's defection and to ascertain whether there has been any leakage of important information by the defector.

The agent's assignment is to recapture the scientist if possible and kill him-and it appears he isn't too choosy about how many people he has to wipe out to do his job.

The eccentric scientist, should he successfully survive his initial defection to Scandia, convinces the players' immediate boss that he needs to visit the planet of Cymbeline to confirm a theory he has developed-that there may be such things as naturally occurring semi-conductor chips. The players are persuaded to accompany him and travel to the planet as the scientist's helpers and guards. just as they are ready to leave for Scandia again, with the study at least temporarily completed, the Solomani Security agent with a crew of well-armed cronies appear and try to put a permanent end to the study, the scientist, and the players.

Assuming the group and the scientist survive this latest contretemps, they return to Scandia, where their patron induces them to accompany the scientist to Terra. As they prepare to board their ship for departure, it disappears in a massive explosion; this necessitates using a liner, Ad Astra, for the trip. The climax of the adventure is the bombing of the liner while it is in refueling orbit around a gas giant. This is the inspiration for the adventure title, Signal GK. With the orbit decaying rather rapidly, the players must manage make-shift to save themselves, and their scientist charge, or have some other nearby ship respond to Signal GK, a universal scream for help.

All the materials necessary for running the full adventure are provided in Signal GK. Complete diagrams and layout of Ad Astra, a subsidized liner, a subsector map detailing parts of five different subsectors, and character descriptions for the major non- player characters (NPCs), are scattered through the booklet. Refere6 notes provide clues to motivations for the Solomani agent with more than enough data provided for a referee to handle the adventure. The course of events in the three episodes is not chiseled in stone. Almost anything can happen in the course of play.

One of the better adventures from GDW for the Traveller series, Signal GK is a good buy for referees who want to run some slightly offbeat sessions for their players.

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