Welcome to The Amber Zone Contest – 2015!
We have a lot of prizes. Have a look at the sponsor pages. All participants will get something. A big THANKS to our Sponsors. Amber Zone will also add $50 (at DriveThruRPG) for all participants to share.
The style of the entries should be in the style of the Amber Zones in the old JTAS. (First Players’ Information. Then Referee’s Information without any D6 options.)
The contest starts now and ends 31 October 2015. Write as many entries as You like.
After the 31:st of October 2015, all entries will be posted at the Amber Zone. The winner will be chosen by the Jury.
The Members of the Jury are BeRKA, Dylan, Mike, and Eric.
By entering the contest You allow your entry to be posted at the Amber Zone. All entries might also be posted in PDF format as a free down-loadable file at the Amber Zone.
All entrants will be given credit for their work and will retain the copyright on their entries.
Some general guidelines:
1, Each entry should be less than 2000 words.
2, One image may be used in each entry. You must either own the rights to the image, or it must be used under some sort of free license. Wikimedia Commons or Pixabay are good places to find an image that You can use. Please provide information about the image. (Is it Yours? If not, where have You found it? What license is used?) Note: You don’t need to use an image. You can also generate an image using the Pulp-o-Mizer or similar services.
3, Please don’t force the PCs to sign up for (what they think are) illegal activities. It is better if they find that out later, or in some way are forced to take illegal action… Library Bob at Ancient Faith explains it better. 😈
4, Please be a bit vague about the planet and types of star ships and weapons, so your adventure can be useful for many ATUs. (Unless there is a good reason for not being vague about these things.)
5, Please use a spell checker! 
6, This years theme is Big Damn Heroes.
Send Your entries by e-mail. Please use plain text format and attach (or link to) the image, if You select to use one. Word files will not be accepted! Send your entries to: 
IMPORTANT: Everyone that sends me an entry will get a reply. If you have sent me something and didn’t get a reply within a few days, then contact me again.
Please include a preferred nickname (that may be your real name) to show on the Amber Zone.
Please include your e-mail address (that you use on DriveThruRPG). If you are not yet using DriveThruRPG, then any of your e-mail addresses will work fine. Please also tell us if there is any Prize that you for some reason doesn’t need. (Maybe you already have it.)
The entries in this Amber Zone Contest are very good examples of the format. In fact, all of them would be suitable at some point to put in front of a group of Travellers. Provided that the Travellers are decent sophonts who respect life and through their actions, demonstrate that they can rise above their talents. This to me is the respect that they would deserve should they stand up and be counted.
The theme of Big Dam Heroes is cinematic in its scope, and a theme worthy of the founding literature which Traveller is based upon. That theme is what I used as a razor in the challenging task of picking out my winner. The few other rules were used to bluntly cut some of these adventures from the Top Three. My challenge is to take the role of the prospective Referee for granting me the opportunity to devise the adventure from the bones provided.
I am primarily looking for an Amber Zone that gives myself and my players the opportunity to excel beyond what a skill-set and high-tech equipment makes possible. I have found that in several of the submissions. What best showcases a group of Travellers as Big Dam Heroes is involvement in the story at its fundamental core. A story which can involve all characters in a group, despite lacking skills each character can move the action forward as a problem solving team.
A personal touch in regard to filling out the adventure is also required, and any help from the Amber Zone is greatly appreciated. No-one knows their players better then the referee, however any thought given to challenges in this area is important. It is this last point that gives me my top Amber Zone.
Aid & Comfort has all of these elements, and it is particularly the emotional content built in which swayed me. I am sure the author had much more material available. However, what was presented was enough to paint a graphic picture of what is at stake and how failure in a group’s approach would not necessarily prevent them from succeeding in the end. From the dust they can arise and even with their wrongful choices along the way, that would only colour their heroic moment.
My second choice is Wardn Gambits. Dam! This is a well written and twisty-turny espionage adventure under the guise of straightforward Mole Hunt. Plenty of background and an undercurrent of inevitability can stymie the Travellers attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery and emerge with their heads shaking. At the end they are feted as heroes, but the bad taste in their mouths of all the clues left unturned will lead to more adventure and peril. If I had stuck to the rules, the setting specific Amber Zone should have been cut. However, this is too good not to have taken second in my judgement.
The third choice is perhaps the most difficult as I have two to fit that spot. But…the visceral tone and clipped prose creating a tense atmosphere has to award Out Of The Frying Pan the bronze. Based in space and the peril of a variable sun, the Travellers are engaged in almost unwitting saviors of a doomed planet. Although it is one of the shorter submissions, it contains many if not the most suggestions I mentioned earlier on make an adventure which can be customized for the Players. The author includes numerous suggestions on actions and reactions and imparts their consequences to the Referee and Players. Like all of the submissions, I imagined and wondered how to fit this adventure to my Players and my campaign.
Well done to all submissions. I have greatly enjoyed reading them…and be sure I will be stealing your ideas to make my own game better. ;>)
Cheers
Max
Septic