• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

[CT-JG] Review Request

S

ShapeShifter

SOC-13
I'm thinking about getting one or more of the classic Judges Guild CT books. Can anyone provide a brief review of any of the below products (whether simply thumbs-up or thumbs-down, 1-10 stars, etc.)?

Drakne Station
Amycus Probe
Darkling Ship
Doom of Singing Star
50 Starbases
Rogue Moon Spinstorme
Simba Safari


Thanks in advance.
 
One can sum up almost everything from JG thusly: "Interesting idea, poorly executed." They tended to waste too much space on randomly generated NPC and creature stats, which you could easily do yourself, and skimp on story and setting, which are what you're generally looking for when you buy a prepackaged "adventure."

Amycus Probe, Rogue Moon of Spinstorme: Interesting ideas poorly executed. These were tournament scenarios, so they're short. Basically, you explore some alien ruins and don't find much of interest. Rogue Moon is the better of the two. Of everything on your list, it comes closest to being a fully-developed adventure.

Darkling Ship: no experience with this one.

Doom of the Singing Star: Another not-bad attempt. Huge maps of a ship that has rather illogical layout, but still -- huge maps. Some interesting scenario ideas, but that's all they are -- ideas. As usual, way too many NPC descriptions.

50 Starbases: Useful if you intend to run adventures centered on starbases or similar types of installations. (Nothing says that these things need to be only starbases. They can just as easily be mining colonies, small military bases, etc.) Some of the maps are excellent, some are execrable, most are OK. Some of the maps are hard to read because the hex grids are so dark. Still, this one is generally worth the money.

Dra'k'ne Station: Interesting idea, poorly executed. Another big alien installation to explore and find next to nothing. This one has good potential, though, if you put some effort into it.

Simba Safari: Basically an interstellar hunting expedition. If your players like traveling to distant planets, encountering exotic lifeforms, and killing them, this is the adventure for you. As usual, there's something really cool to discover, but the 'adventure' does exactly nothing with it. The included ship layout, however, is pretty good.

All of these fall into that category of supplements that can be excellent if you do all the work turning them into something. If you can pick them up cheaply, they're worth it. Don't pay "premium" prices for them.

Steve
 
The only JG supplements I found truly useful: the 4 sectors, and the Traveller Logbook. I never bought any of the adventures. But their 4 sectors provided a complete domain sized play area.

The Logbook includes a couple of optional rules.

Worth grabbing if you find them cheap.
 
Last edited:
Shapeshifter,

Steve pretty much said it all, as did Aramis.

I was definitely underwhelmed with the Judges' Guild products when I saw them "back in the day". When you remember just how bareboned RPG products were back then, you'll get some idea of just how "thin" the JG materials were/are.

IIRC, the Station, Probe, and Ship adventures were linked somehow. Whether they were a trilogy or just used the same background elements I cannot remember, and the fact that I cannot remember speaks volumes.

As Aramis suggests, if you can get them cheap, do so. Otherwise don't go out of your way.


Regards,
Bill
 
I see these on eBay all the time in huge lots where people post RARE OOP L@@K.

What a joke.

The adventures are pretty meh.

Given though that all these things were in print generally when Traveller was just LBB 1-3 pretty much, for that day, that's all there was.

I personally enjoy and much use 50 Starbases, with multiple copies.

Again back in the day, (I was 11 in 1977) the maps were good, and sparked my imagination, even if the degrees and such character "Expansion tables" were given with no rules, really.

Do Not pay more that a buck or two per book. Hold off for a month and search JG Traveller every few days.

I bought a giant lot of like 30 of those things, multiple copies, last year for 20.00 for a box of assorted, plus minimal shipping..it included Trav, some D&D scenarios, just a mixed bag of old JG stuff, new in the old JG Crinkly Shrink Cellophane that they were known to use.

With similar deals seen every few days.

Good luck.
 
I'll confirm the majority opinion on JG CT stuff, and specifically Bill's comment about being "underwhelmed". I also recall their production values as being inferior to most others; the few JG items I encountered looked yellowed and faded even in the shrink wrap, and the paper had a texture more reminiscent of newsprint than anything else.

I would acquire JG material for historical interest only; even then, I would not pay premiums to do so.
 
the paper generally is high-quality bleached newsprint; that's still a high-acid paper. The yellowing is acid degradation; given enough time, they will turn brown.
 
I find many of these reviews interesting in that one of the biggest complaints of most newer modules is that they are rail-roady... Most all JG offerings are bare-bones splinter ideas to be fleshed out by the GM. I think the 4 sectors are good and quite useful. Of the various JG Traveller products I own, I think Darthanon Queen is the most interesting in terms of adventures.
 
I'll be contrarian here.

I LIKE the JG CT stuff.

I think, if the JG stuff was printed in a format similar to the LBBs--same material but no newsprint and first-grader art--that many CT fans would have more respect for the line.

In other words, I think the JG stuff suffers badly from poor presentation but otherwise provides some very good CT material.

First of all, JG is the first to bring D&D style adventures to CT. Before that, the GDW stuff was the typically broad, open-ended, GM-makes-most-of-it-up style of adventure we see in the game.

With JG, "Dungeons In Space" were brought to the game, complete with large instellation, keyed rooms, and bad guys (usually with stats!). That isn't a bad thing at all.

50 Starports, the fairly short (but would fill the majority of a LBB) , is an excellent example of how good a JG supplement can be.

First off, the presentation is the typical horrible art printed on newsprint. Next, much of the book is wasted on some un-inspiring maps of starports (though some really like this section of the book).

What's exceptional about the book, though, is the first section. It includes a lot of data (that wasn't around at the time it was published) that helped a GM flush out a starport.

To this day, 50 Starports remains the best CT product that covers the ins-and outs of starports. No, it's not as detailed as the GURPS product. But, it does give you all the detail you need, in typical brief CT style, to understand and run a starport for your players.

I think it's a fanstastic CT product.

Add to the the adventures I've already mentioned, and I think it's safe to say that, imo, JG has provided a lot of goodies for CT the most CT GM should love.

Just gotta ignore the presenation art and paper.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I wouldn't part with my JG stuff.
 
So what your saying is that in 50 Starbases there are 14 pages of content out of the 95 that are worth having?

I'd say that some of that 14 pages content is duplication from the LBBs, with expanded sentances, and tables duplicate info from the LBBs in a slightly different format. So you could probably knock off about 4 pages of content as pure duplication.

Somthing that puts me off the JG range is the bad production. For me it's an effort to find the good stuff in the products becuase of having to waid through all the crap.

So for me having only about 10% of a product that is any good, and having to wade through it to find it, means it's not a very good product, so I have to make a value jundgment on it.

My value judgment is that if you can pick it up for a dollar, you can get something usefull out of it, but if you are paying anymore than that you are being robbed.

I think that prittty much summs up the rest of the JG range. If you can get it for say the same money you would pay for an hours parking, then you might get something usefull out of it, otherwise don't bother.

Regards,

Ewan
 
E.D.Quibell said:
So what your saying is that in 50 Starbases there are 14 pages of content out of the 95 that are worth having?
Click to expand...

Quite. But, those 14 pages are very well written (I'm taking your word for it that they total 14 pages) and the best source for Starbase info in the entirety of Classic Traveller, magazine articles included.

MWM's section in the Traveller Adventure instructing GM's on how to manage throws in the game is short, probably about 3/4 of a page total, but is also some of the best GM advice in all of CT. It's not always the page count that counts. Quality plays a part, too. And, if quality material can be expressed briefly, then why not? Most of CT is written that way. The page count on the LBB's isn't high at all.

And, BTW, that 14 pages would probably be something like 28 pages in LBB format.

That's a 28 page LBB, with good info in it--info not covered in that type of detail anywhere else in the game--that can be had for cheap.

If the book is a buck, you just got a very good deal.



Somthing that puts me off the JG range is the bad production. For me it's an effort to find the good stuff in the products becuase of having to waid through all the crap.
Click to expand...

I think the JG adventures are pretty good. Definitely worth having and playing.

I don't see a lot of "crap" in the JG stuff. There is some, but most of the rules and supplementary material is, to me, "pretty good".
 
Supplement Four said:
And, BTW, that 14 pages would probably be something like 28 pages in LBB format.

That's a 28 page LBB, with good info in it--info not covered in that type of detail anywhere else in the game--that can be had for cheap.
Click to expand...

That 14 pages is large type face, single column, ample white space with pritty poor art work, it would probably equate to about 14 pages of LBB.

GURPS Starports is only $8 in PDF and this is a far, far, superior product than JG 50 Starbases.

Regards,

Ewan
 
Hmm. Maybe I should talk to my supplier and just as if I can have those juicy "14 pages". :rofl:

Sadly JG's PDF's were taken down from drivethru. :(
 
Supplement Four said:
A couple of years ago, I started a project to review and catagorize all products produced for Classic Traveller, JG items included. Too bad we didn't keep it up. It would have been a good archive.
Click to expand...

Just get the material to Timothy Collinson, and if he has the time and the inclanation he'll do a profesional job on it (he's a librarian (and a good one) after all):

http://www.bitsuk.net/Products/Info/Info.html

Regards,

Ewan
 
E.D.Quibell said:
That 14 pages is large type face, single column, ample white space with pritty poor art work, it would probably equate to about 14 pages of LBB.

GURPS Starports is only $8 in PDF and this is a far, far, superior product than JG 50 Starbases.

Regards,

Ewan
Click to expand...

How hard/easy would it be to convert GURPS Starports to CT?

I just looked over the sample PDF of Gurps Starports. It certainly looks crunchy, but I'm concerned about having to get into yet another form of rules. If conversion is easy then I may buy it.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
IMTU & Resources
Replies
5
Views
1K
savage
S
G
The Proto-Traveller Book List
2 3
Replies
55
Views
4K
mike wightman
mike wightman
B
New life for old Judges Guild supplements
Replies
0
Views
965
bozzutoman
B
Back
Top