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Borealis

SOC-4
Hello, Travellers. I'm a newcomer to this game, looking for a way to feed the gaming bug while avoiding my wife's wrath against that other RPG that just about everyone has played. Fantasy is right out; sci-fi, apparently, is not so bad. I choose to not ask further questions.

Anyway, I'm just here saying 'hello,' and introducing myself. I started gaming in the early 1980s, and I've played D&D, AD&D, 2e, 3e, V&V, Champions, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Marvel...lots of games. I've always been a fantasy buff, less so for sci-fi. But my nine-year old son is starting to develop an interest (we're reading A Princess of Mars together, which I've never read before) in the genre, so I'm looking at the possibilities of slowly (as in slowly, the ice age ended) introducing the game when he's a bit older.

I'm an old-school kind of guy, so I'm looking at the earliest version of the game. Since I've got plenty of time before I get to introduce it to my son, I want to start building a setting to both teach myself the game and to give him a sweet sandbox to play in. I've never been a fan of pregen worlds and settings, so I'm going to build my own. Fortunately, astronomers have done a lot of the prep-work for me...there are 83 star systems within a 20-LY radius of our sun, about 20% of which have potentially habitable planets. Since I'm not going thousands of years in the future, I should be able to put together some nice ideas.

So, I have a couple of questions. First, is there a product list that gives month of publication for the various supplements, magazines and adventures? I found one for D&D, which is insanely long, but I doubt that Traveller's will be quite that full. I like to look things over as they originally appeared, so a list like that would be awesome to help me with my collecting.

Second, has anyone done 3D subsector mapping, rather than flat-paper style? Or is that a bit too complex for the system? I prefer a hard-SF style, as realistic as is reasonable, mixed with space opera, so I don't think of the stars being all neatly aligned on the same plane.

Go easy on me, folks, I'm getting old and brittle...but my brain is churning ideas like crazy.
 
I'd suggest Traveller 2300, or 2300AD might fit the bill for what you're looking for. HOWEVER, the first edition of Traveller is available from the FFE website at http://www.farfuture.net/

~Cryton
 
Welcome!

The Traveller 5 website has a listing of most of the material available for Traveller and pretty much all the offerings (on CD-ROM) have a Contents page you can browse and there are some guides to help you get familiar with the Traveller universe. It's all broken down by game system (Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, etc).

http://traveller5.net/index.html

Following up on Cryton's suggestion of 2300AD, this guy has done some interesting and intense work on 3D stellar mapping for that game:

http://evildrganymede.net/wp/category/stellar-mapping-2/

He's also generated some subway-style maps for ease of reading and use.

If you like the maps or find something that suits your taste you can use pretty much any ruleset to play a near-Earth, near future campaign. Personally I would suggest Classic or Mongoose v2 as they are simple and straight-forward but have a lot of crunch, as well as oodles of support and material available.

Happy Travelling
 
I'll second what Cryton mentioned..

2300 has an excellent 3D map, with the 7.7 LY routes marked out. The CD has both editions of it: Traveller 2300 and 2300 AD

Classic Traveller has 2D mapping only, and with the range of drives available, that can be a bit hard to handle in 3D.

There are a bunch of editions; almost all include world gen, many include full system generation.

Given your desire for homegrown, despite their built-in settings, I'd recommend any of the following editions: CT, Traveller 2300, 2300AD, MegaTraveller, Traveller The New Era

All of these are available on CD-Rom or Thumb-drive via mail order from FarFuture.net (if you want thumb-drive, make note in the note to Marc).

What each edition offers:
All of them have a world generation, system generation, animal generation, and procedural mini-game character generation. Most have ship construction in the core, but all have it on the CD somewhere. Excepting

The main traveller line
CT, "Classic", is actually 2 editions on the CD. The CT 1E 1977 rules, the CT 2E 1981 rules, and the minor updates in The Traveller Book (1982) and Starter Traveller (1983)... a mixture of dice mechanics in the adventures, but mostly 2d6, and combat is 2d6, combat matrix, roll high. Character generation is table driven, random, minigame, with some limited choices.

MegaTraveller (1987) is a 2d6 unified mechanic "Task system" built upon elements of CT. While it's the first with actual setting elements in the core, it's really 3rd edition Classic in all but name. More choices than in CT, but procedurally very similar.

TNE (1992) uses 1d20, instead of 2d6, with a unified task system. More flexible character generation - buy skills each term based upon the minigame. Combat is task driven, as is MT, and it's compatible with Twilight 2000 2e, and Dark Conspiracy.

2300 Line
Traveller 2300 (1987) Same task system as MT - but different attribute scaling. Came out just prior to MegaTraveller. The mechanics are more closely related to those of TNE than MT... but not compatible.

2300 AD - same system as T:2300, with a few minor changes.

The biggest advantage is a more science-based world generation, and the nifty maps that are close to (but not quite) accurate star maps.

There is an adaptation of 2300 to the T20 rule system. It isn't compatible with the older editions, and requires the T20 rules.

There is also an adaptation of 2300 to Mongoose Traveller.

Neither the T20 nor MGT include 2300's world, system, nor animal generation, but make use of mods to the corebook's versions.

T20
T20 was an adaptation of the Traveller Universe and its tropes to work with D&D 3E...

Mongoose Traveller, 2nd edition
The only edition currently printed on dead tree. It's got a 2d6 task system, but it doesn't mesh with any non-mongoose editions' task labels.

If you're homebrewing anyway, it may be a better choice, as it's got a 2300 adaptation, it's in print, and it's not got heavy doses of setting in the core.
 
Borealis said:
we're reading A Princess of Mars together, which I've never read before
Click to expand...

A great place to Start!


Borealis said:
So, I have a couple of questions. First, is there a product list that gives month of publication for the various supplements, magazines and adventures?
Click to expand...

The Traveller Wiki has the Classic Traveller Bibliography.

Borealis said:
Second, has anyone done 3D subsector mapping, rather than flat-paper style? Or is that a bit too complex for the system? I prefer a hard-SF style, as realistic as is reasonable, mixed with space opera, so I don't think of the stars being all neatly aligned on the same plane.
Click to expand...

YES! And they will tell you all about it.
 
infojunky said:
A great place to Start!
Click to expand...
I agree. He's enjoying it so far (we're on chapter 9 now), and he got really excited when I told him about Doyle's The Lost World and Burrough's The Land That Time Forgot. I don't know what it is...something about dinosaurs, maybe...

The Traveller Wiki has the Classic Traveller Bibliography.
Click to expand...
I looked at that, and it does break it down by year...I was hoping to see something that gets more detailed, telling what month it was published in.

YES! And they will tell you all about it.
Click to expand...

I look forward to it.
 
Welcome, Borealis! I hope you find what you're looking for here. As far as the editions go I see several people have responded already, so I'll spare you my 0.2 credits worth and simply say again:

Welcome!
 
Borealis said:
I looked at that, and it does break it down by year...I was hoping to see something that gets more detailed, telling what month it was published in.
Click to expand...

BiTS did a published Traveller Bibliography, which might have month of publication in it. I don't have a copy so I can't tell you.
 
Welcome to the Forum, Borealis. Do not be afraid to ask questions, as there is a lot of expertise on the Forum.

Borealis said:
Hello, Travellers. I'm a newcomer to this game, looking for a way to feed the gaming bug while avoiding my wife's wrath against that other RPG that just about everyone has played. Fantasy is right out; sci-fi, apparently, is not so bad. I choose to not ask further questions.

Anyway, I'm just here saying 'hello,' and introducing myself. I started gaming in the early 1980s, and I've played D&D, AD&D, 2e, 3e, V&V, Champions, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Marvel...lots of games. I've always been a fantasy buff, less so for sci-fi. But my nine-year old son is starting to develop an interest (we're reading A Princess of Mars together, which I've never read before) in the genre, so I'm looking at the possibilities of slowly (as in slowly, the ice age ended) introducing the game when he's a bit older.
Click to expand...

To same your wallet some funds, you might wish to check out the E. R. Burroughs material on Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=e+r+burroughs

Borealis said:
I'm an old-school kind of guy, so I'm looking at the earliest version of the game. Since I've got plenty of time before I get to introduce it to my son, I want to start building a setting to both teach myself the game and to give him a sweet sandbox to play in. I've never been a fan of pregen worlds and settings, so I'm going to build my own. Fortunately, astronomers have done a lot of the prep-work for me...there are 83 star systems within a 20-LY radius of our sun, about 20% of which have potentially habitable planets. Since I'm not going thousands of years in the future, I should be able to put together some nice ideas.

So, I have a couple of questions. First, is there a product list that gives month of publication for the various supplements, magazines and adventures? I found one for D&D, which is insanely long, but I doubt that Traveller's will be quite that full. I like to look things over as they originally appeared, so a list like that would be awesome to help me with my collecting.
Click to expand...

You might want to make sure you get the online early copies of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society. issues 1 to 24, as those are not on the Classic Traveller CD. You can get a CD from Far Future or get them as an online download from DriveThruRPG. Aside from giving you an idea on how the game developed, they will give you LOTS of ideas. As for a single volume set of the rules, I would recommend The Traveller Book, or go with the Classic Little Black Books, aka LBB.

Borealis said:
Second, has anyone done 3D subsector mapping, rather than flat-paper style? Or is that a bit too complex for the system? I prefer a hard-SF style, as realistic as is reasonable, mixed with space opera, so I don't think of the stars being all neatly aligned on the same plane.

Go easy on me, folks, I'm getting old and brittle...but my brain is churning ideas like crazy.
Click to expand...

On the 3D mapping, I will defer to the ones with more expertise. I find that 2D mapping is perfectly fine for me, but 3D is clearly more accurate.
 
timerover51 said:
Welcome to the Forum, Borealis. Do not be afraid to ask questions, as there is a lot of expertise on the Forum.
Click to expand...
Only the fool thinks he never needs to ask questions. I like to think I'm no fool. My wife might disagree, but...

To same your wallet some funds, you might wish to check out the E. R. Burroughs material on Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=e+r+burroughs
Click to expand...
I love Project Gutenberg. I call it 'the library.' Verne, Wells, Burroughs, Merritt...lots of goodies to be found there.

You might want to make sure you get the online early copies of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society. issues 1 to 24, as those are not on the Classic Traveller CD. You can get a CD from Far Future or get them as an online download from DriveThruRPG. Aside from giving you an idea on how the game developed, they will give you LOTS of ideas. As for a single volume set of the rules, I would recommend The Traveller Book, or go with the Classic Little Black Books, aka LBB.
Click to expand...
Whichever is more affordable, definitely. I'm considering the CD, though; that would be convenient, having it all in one neat package.

On the 3D mapping, I will defer to the ones with more expertise. I find that 2D mapping is perfectly fine for me, but 3D is clearly more accurate.
Click to expand...
I'll think about it. The important thing is that it has to be playable, but I'm also trying to develop my son's scientific curiosity. He's a bright kid, he's just too attached to YouTube and Minecraft. So I want to get him looking at science and sci-fi, and if I can keep his interest for a couple more years, I'm definitely going to get him into Traveller.
 
castlebravo said:
Given your preference for a manageable 3-D setting, you might want to consider a synthesis of Traveller world building with the free Cosmos-2 stellar development system for the old Alternity RPG (from TSR/WotC). It can be used to make some interesting IMTU 3-D subsectors.

Link to the resource page for the PDF at https://www.alternityrpg.net/resources.php?cat=rules&rid=1375&detail=1 via alternityrpg.net

Welcome and cheers!
Click to expand...

I loved Alternity; I had every single supplement for Star*Drive. I never had any interest in Dark Matter, though; the X-Files is a show I've never bothered with. I much prefer space opera to conspiracy theories.

Thanks for the link; I'll check it out.
 
Borealis said:
I loved Alternity; I had every single supplement for Star*Drive. I never had any interest in Dark Matter, though; the X-Files is a show I've never bothered with. I much prefer space opera to conspiracy theories.

Thanks for the link; I'll check it out.
Click to expand...

Star*Drive is pretty much a close parallel to Classic Traveller or MegaTraveller in tone and feel.
 
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