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Eric Dodd
New Zealand
Martinborough
Wairarapa
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Adventure 8: Prison Planet was published in 1982 by Game Designers’ Workshop for their Traveller Science-Fiction RPG. Not to be confused with Adventure 2: Prison Planet for the Mongoose version of Traveller, which appears to be a totally different adventure in a different place.
"Sometimes, travellers break the law. Sometimes, they get caught...Will the prisoners live to complete their sentences? Can they escape? It’s up to you." Most Traveller groups might be more correctly described this way: "Travellers are always breaking the law. Sometimes, the GM gets so much firepower up against them that they think it’s better to surrender. Now you can run this adventure." However you’ve managed to get your players into the jug, here’s a classic SF RPG representation of all the prison cliches. How is it as a playable adventure? And is Prison Planet still of use in a modern game?
PRESENTATION:
Prison Planet comes in the classic little black books format of original Traveller releases. The highlighted colour is deep purple, man. There are no drawings or character sketches, but there are 7 maps, ranging from a planetary map in hexes to individual plans of the prison complex. The Traveller standard format is generally very readable, and headings, sub-headings and bolding are all used well to help you find the contents you’re after. The game mechanics are shown in the standard format of rolls to succeed, followed by modifiers for appropriate skills or situations. There is a good Contents page, but no index.
CONTENTS:
Prison Planet is a 64-page book, split up into 9 sections. The Introduction can be read by Referees or Players, portions of chapter 2 are to be read to players as their introduction to the prison, and all the rest of the book is for the Referees only. The setting for the prison is the planet Newcomb in the Banasdan subsector of the Solomani Rim, in the 1108th year of the Imperium. Newcomb is a fairly inhospitable and uninteresting planet, away from the main trade routes. The prison is built on the site of an old pitchblende mine, and the players will find themselves undergoing hard labour in difficult conditions. The Introduction discusses the skills that will be useful for some or all of the characters to possess. 8 pre-generated characters are included, but any characters can fit this adventure OK. The final page of referee’s notes in the introduction explain the unique structure of this adventure. Once the players are introduced to their cells and the basic of prison life they will plan their actions in a week by week format, hopefully gaining useful contacts, information and items to allow them to escape (or for wimps, to gain time of their sentence and a more comfortable stay). Players will need to be patient and realise that ill-formed plans will lead to humiliation, injury or death.
Chapter 2 is titled "Entering Prison". Players will gain some basic information on their way from orbit to Newcomb, though more organised players might find useful information with research. Pairs of players will end up sharing cells, being assigned prison numbers that will be their prison "names", as far as the guards are concerned. Depending on the campaign set up, the players may have outside contacts willing to help them, or they can be "assigned" one. Finally, the new prisoners face the Warden’s arrival speech which should remove any thought that the prisoners may receive fair or humane treatment.
Chapter 3 "Running the Adventure" gives the details the Referee needs to make Prison Planet work. For each week of captivity, each group of prisoners assigned to the same work area receive one major Event, as well as having a limited chance to undertake other actions as their work schedule and captivity allows. Initially NPCs will have a random reaction to the players, modified by their general characters. Players will have to work hard to earn the respect and trust of prisoners or guards, and of course these two groups are generally opposed in their outlook on life. The more the players suck up to the guards the more they will be hated by the other prisoners, and vice-versa. There are some specific rules for Prison Reputation, which is built up by winning fights, wounding prisoners or guards, not backing down in fights or squealing to the guards and for surviving a year or more in the pen. Basically, once your player gets to the stage that they can say: "You don’t understand - I’m not locked up with you, you’re locked up with me" and not get beaten up by prisoners or guards then they have a solid reputation. Until then they must learn who is in charge of the cell block they are held in, and who the useful (and trustworthy) contacts are. The more people that trust the players the more information they will gather about making a successful escape. They might even find an escape committee with plans already in motion...
The random Events are supplemented by a series of 13 incidents that are supposed to happen in order, perhaps over a period of years. The final incident can be used as a last-ditch escape attempt to finish the adventure off, one way or another. There’s plenty of contradictory and misleading information given out here, which the players will have to shift through as best they can. Perhaps one player will have to play the good boy to get access to computer records to verify this information, but even the guards and warden may not know everything how (or if) previous escapes happened.
Chapter 4 details all the major NPCs, the "Prisoners, Guards and Staff" of Newcomb prison. There are 61 prisoners, 18 guards and 9 other staff including the Warden and his assistant detailed, though this is only a portion of the total prison population. All are detailed with UPP, major skills, reputation and basic character. The prisoners are a diverse bunch, and the guards and staff also vary in attitude to their jobs and the prisoners. In Chapter 5 are listed the 54 rumours about the prison, guards, prisoners and escaping from Newcomb. The physical layout of the prison itself is detailed in the next section, including maps of each of the six layers - the Surface, the Administration Level, the Prison Cell Blocks, the two Mining Levels and a Natural Cave Level. Some areas will be very hard for prisoners to enter, and most of the sensitive areas are under surveillance from guards, cameras or both. The final section covers the rest of Newcomb, from the wilds surrounding the prison to only major population centre on the planet, Circle City. This frontier town offers the only scheduled way off-planet, and the characters will require plenty of cash in bribes and tickets to get away without being caught. Perhaps some honest employment might be undertaken for a while to raise the funds, but if the characters have made it this far they are hardly likely to let a this final stage stop them from escaping from Prison Planet.
ATMOSPHERE:
The default atmosphere of the adventure is of a rundown and badly-managed prison, ruled by a lazy, incompetent and corrupt warden. The guards are underpaid, bored and brutal. The administrators are disinterested or embittered. The prison is supposed to turn a profit from the pitchblende mining so the prisoners are constantly forced to work harder and are punished for failing to meet their quotas. It’s Shawshank in Space, or Cool Hand Han Solo. There’s not much incentive for players to follow the prison rules when there’s a chance hey may be beaten and hauled off to the "danger zone" to work anyway. If the group has been framed then they might get out alive by legal means - but what fun would that be? Perhaps a crusading or vengeful group might return to destroy the prison by violence or through closing down other prisoners.
VERDICT:
This is an unusual but rewarding adventure that can be played in many different ways. For a Traveller book the character descriptions are well detailed and suggest plenty of subplots and memorable characters for campaign use. You can follow the guidelines of the book and run the adventure for a group of travellers on a week by basis. This makes Prison Planet particularly well-suited for play by email. Because of the time frame and the need for help and information from the other prisoners, the adventure would work well as a solo adventure. Once you’ve played or read the book you could follow the rules and play it is a solo adventure with a few extra rules - even knowing where to look for certain information and contacts will only shorten the game and not necessarily make it easier.
Instead of the default setting you could use the prison as the basis for a rescue, infiltration or assassination mission. The players could be agents sent to determine the truth of the terrible conditions at Newcomb Prison. Can they get enough incriminating information before they are found out by the prisoners or the warden? What happens when their planetary contact is killed and they find they are on their own? You could also use this adventure to start a campaign similar to Blakes Seven. The players are all criminals (plus one railroaded political prisoner) on their way to the penal planet, but somehow they capture a spaceship on the way and decide to attack the prison looking for crew and to avenge the atrocities of the guards. There are lots of potential ideas here. The basic design and personnel of the prison could be converted to any modern-day or future RPG with just a little effort.
Bad points? Well, it is pretty cliched. Players who know their prison movies will not be surprised by too much they find out about the prison and the people in it. The assumption appears to be that is that this is a male-only prison, though this isn’t stated and you could fit in your own gender roles without much work. Although an adult product dealing with drug use, violence and suicide, there’s no mention of sex between prisoners, though again you are free to infer this from the descriptions. I’m not entirely sure that survival in the wilds of Newcomb is going to be likely for many groups if you rely on the random encounter tables. As Referee you should allow for a dramatic encounter with a human group at the last moment before the party dies of thirst - whether they are friendly or not. You should also be careful not to crush the players too much - make sure they get the point that they are limited in choices by being in prison, but that they do have a chance to take steps towards escaping.
So highly recommended for Traveller players or all types, and for any modern day or near future game where the players might just have to get locked up. You know they deserve it, but after Prison Planet, the players might just thank you for it!
IR#15
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