I'd like some feed back on the Prison Planet & Beltstrike Adventure books. Are they worth picking up? I am especially interested in Beltstrike. I used to have the old GDW Belter boxed set which I used a lot in my game.
Beltstrike/Prison Planet
- Thread starter Darkhstarr
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Sylvre Phire
SOC-9
Michael--
You might want to talk to Dave Rosser and his son about Beltstrike. I know they won a copy of it at my MGT event at Papio South last year. I don't know if they've had a chance to play through it, but I'm sure they've read through it by now in the mean time.
Pax et bonum,
Dale
You might want to talk to Dave Rosser and his son about Beltstrike. I know they won a copy of it at my MGT event at Papio South last year. I don't know if they've had a chance to play through it, but I'm sure they've read through it by now in the mean time.
Pax et bonum,
Dale
That boxed set IS Beltstrike: Riches and Danger in the Bowman Belt, Traveller Module 2.
saundby
SOC-14 1K
Beltstrike is good if you want belters in your MGT campaign. I didn't use the scenarios in the book, but I mined them for ideas. The other material is some of the best addon material for MGT IMO.
I got mine free with a book replacement from Mongoose, but I was prepared to pay for it, and it turned out to be worth more to me and my game than Merc, which costs more. It's worth the price. It and my Spica career book are the most-used MGT books aside from the core book.
I got mine free with a book replacement from Mongoose, but I was prepared to pay for it, and it turned out to be worth more to me and my game than Merc, which costs more. It's worth the price. It and my Spica career book are the most-used MGT books aside from the core book.
Beltstrike has received little use in my game but is likely one of the best supplements put out by Mongoose. It has good dumbed-down mining and geological information, in-depth look at belters and mining itself. The main book is a setting/adventure path that takes place in a non-Traveller universe. While the adventure isn’t my cup of tea, I still think it’s one of the best ones I’ve read. An interesting and astounding campaign of a start-up mining operation in single system. The ideas alone are worth it.
Beltstrike is worth the money.
Beltstrike is worth the money.
Appelcline
SOC-9
I wrote a full review of Beltstrike; I thought it was pretty good, though I've only used bits of it piecemeal in my campaign as well:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14444.phtml
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14444.phtml
Solomani666
SOC-6
I can't say I have ever used Beltstrike, but if you have run a Traveller campaign for any length of time, Prison Planet should almost be a necessity.
Having read and Ref'ed Prison Planet and own Beltstrike. Each have their strengths and weakness.
Beltstrike seems to be best used in fragments of a larger Campaign with no reason why players should keep coming back to the system other than if they were Belters (but then what would be the motivation for them leaving the system???). For it does contain excellent mining rules but as it has been said it adds flavour not substance unless you game is going to be centred around a Belter Campaign. I have found the adventure to be rather unsophisicated compared to Tripwire but that is naturally as Tripwire is a campaign. It is very good as a generic SF adventure but as for it being a Traveller adventure...it certainly is not OTU which it makes no claims to be. So, if you want OTU stick with the original Beltstrike and embellish it with the Mongoose product and you will have a winner.
Prison Planet is better written but sort of leaves the players hanging. I found it work to motivate them to be other than "good", so again best played within an existing campaign or provide solid motivations for escaping the prison. It does drag in parts but still feels true enough to the OTU. Could it be used without the OTU. Certainly, but there is enough of a Traveller feel to make it work.
Tripwire - to anticipate the question of some...the parts that worked worked very well. The parts, in which, you had to embellish failed. It is only nominally set in the OTU, as we have known it, to date. I don't want to be too harsh as clearly Mongoose is the process of re-booting the entire OTU and that process sometimes means that we have give up some of cherished notions/things for the greater good. So, when they release Secret of the Ancients Campaign later this year we might get a better sense of their version of the OTU.
Beltstrike seems to be best used in fragments of a larger Campaign with no reason why players should keep coming back to the system other than if they were Belters (but then what would be the motivation for them leaving the system???). For it does contain excellent mining rules but as it has been said it adds flavour not substance unless you game is going to be centred around a Belter Campaign. I have found the adventure to be rather unsophisicated compared to Tripwire but that is naturally as Tripwire is a campaign. It is very good as a generic SF adventure but as for it being a Traveller adventure...it certainly is not OTU which it makes no claims to be. So, if you want OTU stick with the original Beltstrike and embellish it with the Mongoose product and you will have a winner.
Prison Planet is better written but sort of leaves the players hanging. I found it work to motivate them to be other than "good", so again best played within an existing campaign or provide solid motivations for escaping the prison. It does drag in parts but still feels true enough to the OTU. Could it be used without the OTU. Certainly, but there is enough of a Traveller feel to make it work.
Tripwire - to anticipate the question of some...the parts that worked worked very well. The parts, in which, you had to embellish failed. It is only nominally set in the OTU, as we have known it, to date. I don't want to be too harsh as clearly Mongoose is the process of re-booting the entire OTU and that process sometimes means that we have give up some of cherished notions/things for the greater good. So, when they release Secret of the Ancients Campaign later this year we might get a better sense of their version of the OTU.
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