The thing about Traveller is that there is such a huge amount of material. There was Classic Traveller (9 "Books", 13 "supplements", 13 "adventures", 6 "double adventures", 7 'games" and a bunch of other stuff), MegaTraveller ( a rework of the system, with a big shake up of the campaign universe, much of the stuff compatable with Classic, much not), Traveller: The New Era (several books, none of the crunch compatable with the other 2), Traveller 4 (new system, partially compatable with CT), GURPS Traveller (looks of books, but it was GURPS), Mongoose Traveller (in print now, very similar to CT but somewhat moderninzed), Traveller d20 (had the traveller vibe, but was d20), and the initial files for Traveller 5 (on a CD).
I have them all. Not every piece from every edition, but at least the core book and 3-4 books from each.
The damnest thing is that each one of has awesome bits and not awesome bits.
Classic Traveller: is lean and loose, but has some weird intersections and holes. It has 2 different starship design and combat sets of rules. The designs are fun, but the basic system has computer rules that are way too 1970's, and the advanced system is made for huge squadron battles and abstracts away all the movement. The personal combat system works for the basic weapons, but gets really broken when you add the additional high tech weapons from Mercenary.
Striker: was a 15mm miniatures game for fighting small scale battles in the Traveller universe. It contained rules for integrating into regular Traveller, and had a complete design sequence for vehicles, which the main rules did not have. I've always loved Striker. The design sequence is not fast and easy, however. It's probably harder to design a Striker truck than a CT space battleship. However, I've probably collected more than enough vehicles from the interwebs to not need to worry about desiging any more.
MegaTraveller: is an excellently integrated whole, but impossibly clunky in certain areas (combat and craft construction especially). It has the best vehicle book (101 vehicles)
TNE: okay that's the one I'd just as soon ignore completely.
T4: good character generation and combat, and the best weapon book (Emperor's Arsenal), but the books are of widely different quality--some excellent (Emperor's Arsenal, Mileau 0), some are the absolute worst (Starships, First Survey, Emperor's vehicles). The Weapon book and the Vehicle book, don't even have compatable statistics. There's one other really annoying feature. The most common roll you make is 2 and a Half d6's/ I really hate that half die business, and it almost wrecks the game.
T5: interesting features, but far, far too crunchy.
T20: I just don't want to deal with d20 NPC's anymore. It do the best at allowing starships, vehicles and personal weapons all interact with the other levels of carnage.
Mongoose Traveller; is actually pretty good. I only have one or two books, and really don't want to invest in the whole range again. I don't think it adds all that much to one of the other versions.
GURPS Traveller: I liked the StarMercs book alot, but am just not a GURPS guy.
What am I thinking? Right now, I think I'd like to play a Classic Traveller base game. I'd replace the personal combat rules with stuff from Striker. I'd add a few rules from MegaTraveller to give the characters a few extra skills during character generation. I'd use High Guard (CT book 4) for ship design, but cobble together rules from various editions to get a space combat system that allowed for maximum PC input.
It figures you wouldn't like GURPs, I got a cubic buttload of 'em :( As far as Traveller. I 'm pretty sure I have the Megatraveller book. I MAy still have my original Traveller books somewhere possibly.
ReplyDeleteI have a good amount of the original Traveller in orginal form, but most all of it in the reprint editions they brought out 5-10 yeats ago. I'm think about getting the $35 CD of all the classic stuff too, just ot make things easy to print out.
ReplyDeleteI know this might be a couple weeks too late by now, but the way Dave has described the system, mechanics, and his intended path for the campaign, I am strongly reminded of the TV series Firefly. A gritty crew of former soldiers (Mal and Zoey), a thug (Jayne), an eccentric and skilled ship's pilot (Wash), a skilled courtesan (Inara), an intuitive mechanic (Kaylee), a disgraced doctor (Simon), a renegade science experiment (River), and a preacher with a mysterious past (Shepherd Book). They fly around in a broke-down, yet sturdy and capable, ship performing missions that might frequently skirt the law, but act according to their own morality.
ReplyDeleteI meant to add that it's almost like Joss Whedon got the idea for this TV show and movie from an old traveller campaign or something he played in years ago. I'd almost be willing to suggest a similar campaign if it weren't for the fact we'd end up with a ship full of Jaynes and Mals.
Delete