I should have learned by now. It's happened before in various games.

My lunchtime players have been going off piste again. (i.e. off the 'planned for' activities of the session).

They're working their way through my Second Scions' Society adventure which has very very wealthy noble dilettantes on their weekend get together - a dinner, a solar sailing yacht race start and an auction. It all takes place on a massive 1000 deck orbital station around Anther - Jump 4 from Capital. The station is known for it's 'hidden gardens' - corridors filled with plants and flowers etc from the common to the very rare. Some of the PCs have a goal of picking up some rare or expensive plants either as drugs for a friend or gifts for a relative and so on.

I knew today's lunchtime would hit that section of the story and they've had some fun 'dressing down' (but still way too posh for the 'lower decks') and finding an alleybrat rather than a formal Estates Division guide to show them round.

But for some reason, as well as the plants they were after, they took it into their heads they wanted to see some of the underlife of the lower parts of the station. They'd never been on decks that only had two digits numbers for example! Spotting a dubiously dressed trio in the Lower Park who were touting for business (but I genuinely thought would just be part of the scenery!) they decided they would approach them, chat to them and find out why they'd gotten into prostitution. I'm still not sure if this is some charitable mission of the PCs or the players trying to wind up the referee by throwing me a curveball. (They could tell this wasn't part of the adventure I'd written...)

So amidst much humour and trying to keep the noise down for the students outside (we've already moved from a venue on a quiet study floor in the Library to the ground floor where noise isn't policed), I've now got to come up not only with some prostitute characters for next time but some back stories for them. I think one of the Spica books will do for the basics but I'm NOT googling "why become a prostitute"! Not while I'm at work at least.

I should have known. In one well loved reminiscence of TravCon one (nameless) player/PC, arriving - finally - after days of surviving in a vacc suit across the inhospitable terrain of volcanic Spume (a Darrian world), spotted the local lady of ill repute and disappeared with her for the rest of the adventure for the longest shower in the history of the Confederation. At least I'd named that woman!

Another bunch of players in another game hit town looking for rumours and - perhaps very astutely - checked out some bars for such characters reckoning, reasonably, they'd know the lay of the land. Sorry, I probably could have worded that better. Anyway, that's where Briz and Garv Theekston came from (https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/characters/timothy-collinson/marburg.html).

Ah well, we'll see if this current crop of PCs ever do find their plants and get to the Count's reception that was *supposed* to be today's main event, next Monday. In the meantime, I'd better get die-rolling and thinking. As well as deciding if this encounter will lead to a whole side adventure. The players do seem to like skiing on virgin snow...