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Interstellar Wars

robject

robject

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Can someone tell me about this supplement? I hear it's a good 'un. Is it a role-player's guide, or is it more of a reference? Are there character generation rules in it? Are there fleet rules? Are there ship design add-on rules?

And, could someone point me to reviews? (Yes, I'll also be googling for reviews myself.)

Thank you in advance.
 
robject said:
Can someone tell me about this supplement? I hear it's a good 'un. Is it a role-player's guide, or is it more of a reference? Are there character generation rules in it? Are there fleet rules? Are there ship design add-on rules?

And, could someone point me to reviews? (Yes, I'll also be googling for reviews myself.)

Thank you in advance.
Click to expand...

GT:IW is the setting book for the GURPS 4th ed. Traveller setting. So it is the full deal: it has the full GT CharGen, setting-guide, reference, etc.

SELECTED EXCERPTS from TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. A DANGEROUS GALAXY
THE TERRAN CONFEDERATION
Terran Colonies
Conquered Worlds
Being Terran
THE VILANI IMPERIUM
Outposts of Empire
The Mystery of Human Origins
Imperial Society
Being Vilani

2. THE EPIC STRUGGLE
SETTING THE STAGE
THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Rise of the UN
Using the Official History
The Conquest of Space
UNIFICATION
The Vilani Aristocracy
Opening Moves
The Pace of Operations
Terra on the Brink
The Empty Peace
How Did Terra Survive?
BREAKOUT
Protracted Struggle
The Albadawi Period
TRIUMPH AND UNCERTAINTY
Imperial Terra
The Imperial Collapse
Terrans and Colonists

BIOGRAPHIES:
The Sharrukin Clan
Shana Likushan
Lorette Strider
Yukio Hasegawa
Kadur Erasharshi
Umar bin-Abdallah al-Ghazali
Sharik Yangila
Manuel Albadawi
Arpad Kovacs
Hiroshi Estigarribia

3. TERRA
THE HOME FRONT
State of the World
The Citizen’s Life
Leisure and Entertainment
The Uplift Projects
THE TERRAN CONFEDERATION
Political Organization
Major Nation-States
Colonial Administration
The Phoenix Expeditions
THE TERRAN NAVY / MARINES
Operations
TERRAN GROUND FORCES
Army Slang
Operations
THE TERRAN MERCHANT MARINE
Major Corporations
Terran Starport Authority

4. THE IMPERIUM
IMPERIAL SOCIETY
Vilani Psychology
Advertising
The Vilani Hero
The Vilani Way of Life
Classes and Careers
Vilani Culture
Vilani Longevity
Vilani Architecture
THE VILANI IMPERIUM
Political Organization
Vilani Dissidents and Secret Societies
Sharurshid
Imperial Administration
Vilani Settlement Patterns

SUBJECT RACES :
Anakundu
Answerin
Bwaps
Dishaan
Geonee
Anachronisms
Nugiiri
Suerrat
Vegans

THE VILANI MILITARY
The Vilani and Glory
The Vilani Navy / Army / Marines (?)

5. THE KNOWN UNIVERSE
World Climate Table
Social Details
MAP: THE GALAXY
THE TERRAN NEIGHBORHOOD
Solomani Rim (Rim Province) Sector & Worlds Data

PLACING WORLDS
Step 1: World Type
Step 2: World Size
Step 3: Atmosphere
Step 4: Hydrographics
Atmospheric Taints
Step 5: Surface Climate
Step 6: Habitability and Resources
Step 7: Population
Step 8: Starport Facilities
Step 9: Government Type
Step 10: Control Rating
Step 11: Base
Technology Level
Step 12: Trade Classifications
Step 13: World Trade Number
Step 14: Trade Routes
Per-Capita Income

6. CHARACTERS
Point Totals
ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES, AND SKILLS
STATUS, INFLUENCE, AND WEALTH
Status
Administrative Rank
Military Rank
Merchant Rank
Religious Rank
Merchant Rank Table
Wealth
RACIAL TEMPLATES
OCCUPATIONAL TEMPLATES
JOBS

7. TECHNOLOGY
PERSONAL GEAR
Armor and Protective Gear
Communications
Computers
Software Costs Table
Medical Equipment and Care
Sensors and
Scientific Equipment
Survival Gear
Weapons
VEHICLES

8. STARSHIPS
STARSHIP SYSTEMS
STARSHIP OPERATIONS
Travel Times
Starship Costs
INTERSTELLAR TRADE
Distance Modifier Table
Trade Volumes Table
Speculative Trade System
Speculative Goods Table
Actual Price Table
INTERSTELLAR EXPLORATION
Survey Operations
Exploration Operations
Contact Procedures

9. STARSHIP DESIGN
DESIGNING A SHIP
COMMON SHIPS
(30 ship descriptions [Vilani & Terran - both military & civilian], ranging from 10 dton to 30000 dton)

10. STARSHIP COMBAT

11. CAMPAIGNS
THE DEFAULT CAMPAIGN: TERRAN FREE TRADERS
ALTERNATIVE CAMPAIGNS
Main Fleets
Commerce Raiding
Ground Warfare
Occupation
Exploration
Colonization
Diplomacy and Espionage
CAMPAIGN SEEDS
ADVENTURE SEEDS
Click to expand...


I don't have any reviews to point you toward, but in my personal opinion it is a fine supplement.
 
It is without doubt one of my favourite Traveller rules/setting books.

The ship design system is like a fusion of simplified TNE and HG - hull shape affects surface area, surface area limits the number of hardpoints and bays for example. My only complaint is it tops out at TL12 - with no meson screens or nuclear dampers.

Ship combat is vector movement like Mayday, with sensor rules, and repulsors :)
 
robject said:
Can someone tell me about this supplement? I hear it's a good 'un.
Click to expand...

It's pretty good as far as things go. If you have an "academic" interest in the IW period (which I do), I thought it was great fun to read. My only complaint with it was that the author used the trope of "europeans bringing smallpox to the new world" to partially justify certain events in the IW. I personally find that trope, besides overused, to be beyond the pale when applied to the Vilani. Beyond that eyeroll, I thought it was pretty well-done, particularly in explaining the course of the war.

robject said:
Is it a role-player's guide, or is it more of a reference?
Click to expand...

It's definitely a reference. It's like soup bones for an RPGer - interesting to make a stock but certainly little in the way of meat.

I'm a RPGer, so this part of my "review" of IW will be the longest. I have little interest in things like fleet battles or ship construction rules (I should note I enjoy fleet battles, it's just that I once preferred miniatures games to fulfill that itch while these days I play video games for starship combat). I feel that an RPG supplement should actually be largely system independent; it should be like kindling and firewood for a GM's imagination, particularly a GM who is in that rut of trying to find something to inspire him or herself as the seed for a game or a campaign. I don't play GURPS, but I was hoping for a supplement that'd could be used to set up an IW campaign for another system.

So with that in mind, IW as a Role-Player's guide basically ... well IMO, it pretty much fails. This isn't surprising to me and I don't consider it a huge black mark against IW because a lot of roleplaying sourcebooks fail at actually being useful to a roleplayer. There's a way that RPG sourcebooks are often written that has become so par for the course we kind of expect this level of "paper doorstop" and rarely think of "how could it be better?" IW is, unfortunately, par for the course in this respect.

Most of it are pages devoted to grand but ultimately fictional military-political history; fascinating stuff if you're someone who enjoys reading fictional future histories (I do). Some effort was made to describe the the societies and attitudes of the people of the period but this is very survey; the IW goes on for a long time (2114AD to 2303AD) and kudos to the writers, they do actually commit and suggest a "good" period to set games (2170AD), yet there is no section on "the 2170AD situation" with descriptions of what life is like during this period, what you can do during this period, how it is different from the periods before and after in ways that'd matter to the characters. Much of the rest of the book is devoted to starship construction and everyone's favorite filler: Equipment/vehicle lists. Since this is Traveller, we get a dose of that special kind of filler unique to Traveller: Pages and pages of subsectors in that dry and desiccated UPP style we've come to expect from Traveller supplements.

It may help a GM to get the "feel" of an IW game but not much besides it. It fails like a lot of RPG supplements in that it's simply too much of a "survey course" giving the broad sweeping stuff, but it lacks information that would really help a GM because I feel it doesn't drill-down far enough to the scale of player characters sitting around a table. It also lacks the crunch of: "What makes the IW unique as a setting?" During the period, especially early on, Earth was (roughly) a single political entity that was a federation of a bunch of independent nations that balked to varying degrees of being put under the UN. I personally find this to be the most unique factor of the IW, but the implications of this is something they don't really explore; presumably nationalistic rivalries do go into space but this is only touched on with some little anecdote about how Turkish and Greek expeditionary forces practically come to blows over who lands first on a planet or something similar - a kind of cocktail party story that's fun in a sidebar, but how it actually plays out for characters is completely missing. Do the Terrans canton up Vilani worlds they conquer? Is that official or unofficial? How exactly do Terran settlers arrive and integrate with the Vilani natives? There's no real examples. Similarly, while there's a lot made of Vilani schisms we don't really get to find out what kind of precise infighting goes on between Sharurshid and Makhidkarun (and what makes them different) that Earth might encounter and how the players could get involved. We're told that Sharurshid are merchants always willing to deal with anyone if they sniff a profit making the IWs easier, but there's no description of Makhidkarun. We're given pages of starships, but players spend more time dealing with things like ground vehicles. These get one page. As opposed to starships which get many pages and an entire construction sequence.

The book does have a few obligatory "adventure stubs" and "campaign stubs" but like a lot of RPG supplements it fails to fulfill what I consider to be fundamental factors in a RPG supplement around a certain setting; "what makes this era unique or at least different from others?" In fact, only 11 pages of 240 are devoted to actual adventure ideas during the IW period. Yeaaah. Less than 5% of the book.

(As a note before someone asks, "Well Epicenter, what do you consider to be a good RPG guide? For Traveller, on the crunchy end, I think that Hard Times is a fantastic RPG supplement - it gives you rules but also descriptions of what it really meant to live in the Hard Times during the Rebellion and lots of situations that'd come about because of it; the breakdown of trade and high-tech means that people are using low-tech as a stopgap here's the rules on low-tech stuff, when a society breaks down this is the kind of thing that happens on the level that matters to player-characters not Admirals and Emperors, etc. On the less crunchy end, Path of Tears is something I consider to be one of the best RPG supplements ever made for any system, let alone Traveller - here's a UPP, this is the situation on the world that is described by that UPP, and here's how the players can get involved. But there's more, here's ideas for further adventures that would come about because of what the players did, etc. If you didn't like that world, here's another world with the same treatment. And another. And another.)

robject said:
Are there character generation rules in it?
Click to expand...

Yes, though you obviously need the original GURPS book, it does have the typical skill packages and so on to plug into GURPS.

robject said:
Are there fleet rules?
Click to expand...

No. However, it does have a variant space combat system, which according to my GURPS-playing friends, was pretty good.

robject said:
Are there ship design add-on rules?
Click to expand...

Yes, there sure are. They're pretty good, again, according to my GURPS playing friends.
 
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epicenter00 said:
I feel that an RPG supplement should actually be largely system independent; it should be like kindling and firewood for a GM's imagination, particularly a GM who is in that rut of trying to find something to inspire him or herself as the seed for a game or a campaign.

[...] we kind of expect this level of "paper doorstop" and rarely think of "how could it be better?" [...]

It fails like a lot of RPG supplements in that it's simply too much of a "survey course" giving the broad sweeping stuff, but it lacks information that would really help a GM because I feel it doesn't drill-down far enough to the scale of player characters sitting around a table.

[...] like a lot of RPG supplements it fails to fulfill what I consider to be fundamental factors in a RPG supplement around a certain setting; "what makes this era unique or at least different from others?" In fact, only 11 pages of 240 are devoted to actual adventure ideas during the IW period. Yeaaah. Less than 5% of the book.

(As a note before someone asks, "Well Epicenter, what do you consider to be a good RPG guide?
Click to expand...

[I think that Hard Times is a fantastic RPG supplement because]

  • it gives you rules but also descriptions of what it really meant to live in the Hard Times during the Rebellion
  • and lots of situations that'd come about because of it;
  • rules on low-tech stopgap stuff,
  • rules on when a society breaks down this is the kind of thing that happens on the level that matters to player-characters not Admirals and Emperors, etc.
[I consider Path of Tears to be one of the best RPG supplements ever made for any system because]

  • here's a UPP,
  • this is the situation on the world that is described by that UPP,
  • and here's how the players can get involved.
    But there's more,
  • here's ideas for further adventures that would come about because of what the players did, etc.
  • If you didn't like that world, here's another world with the same treatment.
  • And another.
  • And another.

Thank you for taking the time to explain yourself further. It helps me.
 
epicenter00 said:
It may help a GM to get the "feel" of an IW game but not much besides it. It fails like a lot of RPG supplements in that it's simply too much of a "survey course" giving the broad sweeping stuff, but it lacks information that would really help a GM because I feel it doesn't drill-down far enough to the scale of player characters sitting around a table. It also lacks the crunch of: "What makes the IW unique as a setting?" During the period, especially early on, Earth was (roughly) a single political entity that was a federation of a bunch of independent nations that balked to varying degrees of being put under the UN. I personally find this to be the most unique factor of the IW, but the implications of this is something they don't really explore; presumably nationalistic rivalries do go into space but this is only touched on with some little anecdote about how Turkish and Greek expeditionary forces practically come to blows over who lands first on a planet or something similar - a kind of cocktail party story that's fun in a sidebar, but how it actually plays out for characters is completely missing. Do the Terrans canton up Vilani worlds they conquer? Is that official or unofficial? How exactly do Terran settlers arrive and integrate with the Vilani natives? There's no real examples. Similarly, while there's a lot made of Vilani schisms we don't really get to find out what kind of precise infighting goes on between Sharurshid and Makhidkarun (and what makes them different) that Earth might encounter and how the players could get involved. We're told that Sharurshid are merchants always willing to deal with anyone if they sniff a profit making the IWs easier, but there's no description of Makhidkarun. We're given pages of starships, but players spend more time dealing with things like ground vehicles. These get one page. As opposed to starships which get many pages and an entire construction sequence.
Click to expand...

That supplement is the inspiration for my IMTU, only I AM working out how this all works, only without the pressure of the Vilani Imperium to make everyone work together.

The answer is not well, but the price of actually opening up on each other is so horrific people are just muddling along and doing spec ops nasty to each other, and squeezing colonials which Isn't Going To Turn Out Well.

Humanity had horrible things happen, overcame and reached out to the stars, but the old nations are a boat anchor yet comforting touchstone in the Big Dark. They tried Freezing History, and Humanity is about to find out history goes on in spite of a will to 'happy times'.
 
Travellerspud said:
Isn't GURPS TL12 equivalent to Traveller TL15?
Click to expand...

Under GURPS 3rd Edition, yes. And all of the GT material was designed for 3E except Interstellar Wars, which was the Traveller-setting for their 4E ruleset.

The GURPS TLs were rescaled for 4th Edition. In 4E, GTL11 = ~TTL14-16. In fact, GTL12 in 4E is as high as the TL Scale goes, and is ultratech "magic" - Traveller's Ancients and/or the Galaxiad would fall under GTL12 in 4E.

GURPS Ultratech 4E specifically mentions the following in its bibliography on p.236,

Star Wars Empire: TL10-11^ "Safetech" *
MWM's Traveller: TL10-11^ "Safetech" *
Star Trek (TNG): TL12^ "Safetech" *
* The "^" means there are elements of Superscience (as compared to simple hard-science extrapolations), and "safetech" is a particular technological progression that makes certain assumptions about what is or is not available in a particular setting.
​
 
robject said:
[I think that Hard Times is a fantastic RPG supplement because]

  • it gives you rules but also descriptions of what it really meant to live in the Hard Times during the Rebellion
  • and lots of situations that'd come about because of it;
  • rules on low-tech stopgap stuff,
  • rules on when a society breaks down this is the kind of thing that happens on the level that matters to player-characters not Admirals and Emperors, etc.
[I consider Path of Tears to be one of the best RPG supplements ever made for any system because]

  • here's a UPP,
  • this is the situation on the world that is described by that UPP,
  • and here's how the players can get involved.
    But there's more,
  • here's ideas for further adventures that would come about because of what the players did, etc.
  • If you didn't like that world, here's another world with the same treatment.
  • And another.
  • And another.

Thank you for taking the time to explain yourself further. It helps me.
Click to expand...

I love the background as a Traveller fan, but I tend to agree:

An RPG book probably ought to be a game reference first.
  • It needs concrete example to engender game play.
  • It needs numerical and text representations (samples, adventures, etc.) to bring it alive.
  • It should have just enough back story to make the story happen and leave out un-needed background details unless they are setting the story for a later plotline or story arc.

And the artwork and illustrations are very important. they are the biggest aids in helping players visualize the universe. How does the saying go: " A picture is worth a thousand words."

That is something I find very vexing about so many of the Traveller races... Minimal pictures. I am having to research all the time to flesh out and fill in the gaps on Traveller species.

Been doing the same with Traveller polities, corporations, sector economies and sectors in general, etc.

That's the beauty of forums and the Wiki. It makes it very easy to build a universe bible for the story.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
 
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Aside from having the usual GURPS problem (altering Traveller to fit GURPS instead of altering GURPS to fit Traveller) it is a fine book as long as one understands that the coverage of the era is a bit fluid. The book starts by concentrating on near Earth and mid-IW as a role-playing setting, but does address the earlier years and then goes on to provide both a timeline and some mechanical assistance to play up to the final surrender of the Vilani Empire.
 
Spoiler, it turns out that the Beowulf class free trader originated as a Villani design that roughly translated to "sandwich" which got skewed to "hero" by the Terrans.

It's an okay book. I don't think I'd ever run it. I've never liked the way they handled the technology conversion. I'd argue that TL 10 - 15 are GURPS 3e TL 9 with various specific technologies added in. In GURPS 4e, lasers are TL10 so I'd probably make Traveller late nine to early ten plus jump drives and antigravity. The problem is that the armor and computers are much too good at higher GURPS Tech levels.

Anyhow, I'd put it on par with Mileu 0 and First Survey in terms of building a setting without really capturing anything that would make one want to set their game in the period. It's better edited and designed of course. One thing SJG gets right is the importance of editing and indexing.

Now if they could just wrap their head around the reasons they need a one book generic fantasy point of entry product. They have an sf one in GURPS Vorkosigian though I expect the setting puts off more people than it brings in. Generic is a strength that SJG doesn't seem to respect quite enough. But like many rpgs these days, the point of entry cost to do something like Generic Fantasy is simply too high to draw in new customers.

A mistake I hope isn't made with T5.
 
whulorigan said:
The GURPS TLs were rescaled for 4th Edition. In 4E, GTL11 = ~TTL14-16. In fact, GTL12 in 4E is as high as the TL Scale goes, and is ultratech "magic" - Traveller's Ancients and/or the Galaxiad would fall under GTL12 in 4E.
Click to expand...
Your comparisons are a bit different. GT:IW in itself make no references to the Ultra-Tech books or higher Traveller tech much.

GT:IW specifically uses the the GURPS 4 scale found in the 4E Campaigns Book pg. 511, as noted in GT:IW pg. 159. No mods from Ultra-Tech are referenced anywhere in the GT:IW book:
From Campaigns p. 511
TL0 – Stone Age (Prehistory and later). Counting; oral tradition.
TL1 – Bronze Age (3500 B.C.+). Arithmetic; writing.
TL2 – Iron Age (1200 B.C.+). Geometry; scrolls.
TL3 – Medieval (600 A.D.+). Algebra; books.
TL4 – Age of Sail (1450+). Calculus; movable type.
TL5 – Industrial Revolution (1730+). Mechanical calculators; telegraph.
TL6 – Mechanized Age (1880+). Electrical calculators; telephone and radio.
TL7 – Nuclear Age (1940+). Mainframe computers; television.
TL8 – Digital Age (1980+). Personal computers; global networks.
TL9 – Microtech Age (2025+?). Artificial intelligence; real-time virtuality.
TL10 – Robotic Age (2070+?). Nanotechnology or other advances start to blur distinctions between technologies . . .
TL11 – Age of Exotic Matter.
TL12 – Whatever the GM likes!
The technological assumptions are GURPS. The thing to keep in mind, you are shoehorning Traveller to conform to GURPS, so YMMV.


Once the items from IW and the basic books are factored in, the chart changes to
TL0 – Stone Age (Prehistory and later). Counting; oral tradition.
TL1 – Bronze Age (3500 B.C.+). Arithmetic; writing.
TL2 – Iron Age (1200 B.C.+). Geometry; scrolls.
TL3 – Medieval (600 A.D.+). Algebra; books.
TL4 – Age of Sail (1450+). Calculus; movable type.
TL5 – Industrial Revolution (1730+). Mechanical calculators; telegraph.
TL6 – Mechanized Age (1880+). Electrical calculators; telephone and radio.
TL7 – Nuclear Age (1940+). Mainframe computers; television.
TL8 – Digital Age (1980+). Personal computers; global networks.
TL9 – (2025-2127) Pre-Jump Colonization to 2nd ISW. Jump 1; Lasers (Beam and Pulse), Heavy Particle Guns
TL10 – (2128-2235) 2nd ISW-8th ISW. Max Vilani TL. Jump 2; Light Particle and Spinal Particle, Plasma Guns; Repulsors
TL11 – (2236+?) 8th ISW+. Jump 3; Spinal Meson Cannon, Fusion Guns
TL12 – Whatever the GM likes! (?? Jump 4, Jump 5, Jump 6, Dampers and Screens)

History ends in 2303. Hiroshi Estigarribia is given a bio, but his becoming emperor is hinted ("beyond the scope of this book")

The exact years for TL 9-11 for Terrans is from GT:IW p. 130 World Generation. The max TL a world may have depends on the year you generated the world for. The Max for Vilani worlds is always 10.
There are no references to Jump 4, 5, or 6, dampers or screens, so TL 12. Repulsors to deflect missiles exist

And on a humorous note Vilani TL is 10, except for Medical Knowledge which is stuck at TL 7 (GT:IW 160).
 
Nathan Brazil said:
Once the items from IW and the basic books are factored in, the chart changes to <snipped>
Click to expand...

That's not really very far off from the rest of Traveller. A little jinking to and fro but more or less compatible. Subdivide GTL12 and Jack's a doughnut:

GTL 12.1 - GTL 12.22 = TTL 13 through TTL 34.

Or, if you're more inclined to compromise, limit TL11 to Jump 2, back up GTL12 to equal TTL12, and then use the Traveller TLs from 13 on up. It compromises SJG's vision of how TLs work (with modern-day Earth TL as the inflection point) in favor of Traveller's TL tree.
 
However you make the conversion, GURPS4 TL should be in integer values as skill rolls, purchase prices and so on are based on the TL. Based on that, the option in UltraTech p.7 should come into play. I don't think Eight Drives as being GURPS4 TL12.


Hmm. I feel a unofficial conversion chart coming...
 
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