Freelance Traveller - Critics’ Corner

Riding Shotgun

reviewed by Jeff Zeitlin

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2026 issue.

Riding Shotgun. Peter Rudin-Burgess
Parts Per Million Limited https://ppmgames.co.uk
42/44pp., PDF
US$9.99/UK£7.55

Reviewer’s note: This product is available in both “TAS” and Cepheus-compatible forms. There are minor differences between them, based on the minor differences in the rules between the Cepheus Engine core rules and the current Traveller rules. There are also minor layout differences (which accounts for the differing page count); the content is otherwise identical between the two.

“Road trains” are what is often referred to as “tractor/trailer” vehicles with multiple trailers. The usage is most common in Australia, where three- and four-trailer configurations are not uncommon; in the United States, a road train with two trailers (most common) is more generally referred to as “tandem trailers”; the rare three-trailer configuration is often called a “triplex”. Two-trailer road trains (or “tandems”) are known fairly widely, in many areas where rail transport infrastructure is limited or nonexistent.

Riding Shotgun takes place on a world that can be treated as a low-population desert world. The PCs are hired to bring a road train of liquified propane (LPG) between the two main cities on the world, then bring back a road train full of food. Normally, this would be done by employees of the company whose CEO is hiring the PCs, but there is suspicion of paid sabotage. If the PCs takes the contract and complete it successfully, the payoff will be waiving of all fees and servicing their ship, plus a cargo (at no cost to the PCs) that they can sell for their own profit (if the PCs have a ship of their own), or (if not) standard passage from wherever they are to the world, then back off-world afterward, plus Cr5000 per person.

Naturally, nothing is going to be as simple as it’s described. There are several decision points throughout the adventure that will take the subsequent activities in radically different directions; for any given scene described in this product, there is essentially one path through the adventure to get there. I am generally reluctant to give too much information about an adventure, to avoid “spoilers”, but to give an idea of the breadth of this adventure, the PCs could easily find themselves on either side in a battle between security forces and “terrorists”; they could end up being either knowing drug smugglers or “mules”, or they could end up gathering information that would allow the exposure of a drug manufacturing ring.

While it’s not required, having a PC who has gone through the “Driver” career in either the Criminal or Commercial specializations could be useful in this adventure.

I wish I could say that the adventure was presented without flaw, but there are some issues which the referee will have to take note of and correct for.

There are minor inconsistencies in the various descriptions of aspects of the mission; it would behoove the referee running this adventure to be thoroughly familiar with it, and adjust accordingly. As an example, it is noted that the tractor is “self sufficient for … fuel for 24 hours” – but there’s no place for it to fuel up after it leaves the point of origin, and at the speeds given for the road train, it will take anywhere from 115 to 173 hours each way, plus layover. A second example is differing stats for one of the NPCs, though the supporting text suggests that the second set of stats should be used for a different NPC than the name actually attached to them. A third example is the cargo promised for the basic mission; at the beginning of the adventure, it is described as Raw Materials, near the end when listing outcomes, it’s Basic Consumable Goods.

There is one noticeable flaw in the TAS version which does not appear in the Cepheus version: The Table of Contents has several entries where instead of the page number, the text “Error! Bookmark not defined.” appears. In most cases, it is obvious what the correct page number should be, but this is the sort of thing that really ought to have been checked before posting the document to DTRPG.

Overall, I’m not sure that I can recommend purchasing this adventure; while it’s got a bunch of good ideas at the core, I think the assembly and sequencing – and proofreading – could have been better. The Cepheus version of the adventure specifically says in the DTRPG description that the sample contains the entire adventure, and that if you’re not able to pay the list price, feel free to save off the sample and use that (you’ll have to put up with “Sample file” branded across each page, but no content is obscured).

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