Judges Guild CT Materials and other Q's...

[ShapeShifter]

Greetings, fellow spacefarers!

I'm brand-new to the forum, and very new to Traveller. I just ordered Books 0-8 and should get them soon in the post.

Getting into a new RPG is very bewildering, but I'm excited about a change of venue from the tried-and-true fantasy/S&S-based RPG experience.

(If these Q's are in the wrong place, my apologies, Mods.)

1) Is anyone familiar with the Judges Guild CT materials, and if so, would they be worth the investment?

2) Are the Supplements necessary? I thought about getting the collection of supplements, but decided to wait after having read the rules first.

3) What is the font in which the titles of the books are printed, if anyone can identify it?

4) Has anyone adapted CT for use with a ERB Barsoom-inspired campaign?

5) Is anyone aware of a source for making numbered hex maps, suitable for making charts for CT?

6) On the traveller wiki, I had read a fascinating article on the Ancients, and wished to know more about them. Is there a single source of data on the Ancients available? I've heard of a module called Secret of the Ancients, IIRC. Is this the best place to look?

7) Is the Library Data on this website the same as what is in the supplementary books, or this person's homebrew for his own CT Universe?

Thanks in advance for your time.

ShapeShifter/William.

 

[robject]

Hi William,

Welcome, and hope you enjoy Traveller. There are no bad questions. More or less! All of yours are fine, anyway.

I'm familiar with one of JG's products -- fifty starbases -- and some people like it. I didn't. The supplements all quite affordable, IIRC.

The Traveller supplements are well worth the price; however, I'd instead recommend buying the Classic Traveller CD-ROM if you've got $35. It has nearly everything from the first edition, including Books 0-8.

Some folks here do know what the original font was... ah right, I think it was Optima (I could be wrong there).

I don't know specifically about Barsoom, but many people have used CT for many settings, so...

There are (free) software tools for making hexmaps. Ask around... or wait for the info to come rolling into this thread...

Secret of the Ancients, aka Adventure 12, does a more or less full disclosure on the Ancients. Don't read it unless you know you're not going to be a player, though, since once you know the secrets, well they're not secret anymore

I suspect that the link you provided is a great resource of Library Data, of the type which shows up throughout Traveller material; however, it is just a subset of the material in the supplements... and it might have some homebrew (though it may be 100% 'canonical').

 

[aramis]

If you don't mind that the Judges Guild sectors are "officially invalidated", they form a nice domain sized block. The maps suck, since they lack the data, but punch it in to a mapper, and let it crank out the maps, and you get nice maps. They have a different focus from the Supplement 3 and Supplement 10 sector books, but about the same detail levels overall, and a nice set of plothook tables in the back. (which S3 and S10 do not have.)

The Traveller Logbook is great. Very useful, adds a couple of house rules, too, that were excellent (and later adapted into 2300...).

50 Starbases is not great.

The adventures are decent, but not great.

The Supplements collection is worth it:
S1 1001 Chars - Loads of NPCs ready to go.
S2 Animal Encounters - less useful, but still nice.
S3 Spinward Marches - the sector almost everyone plays.
S4 Citizens - 12 new careers AND 600 more NPCs.
S7 Traders and Gunboats - Deckplans booklet.
S8 Library Data A-M - Setting info.
S9 Fighting Ships - 50 ships designed with High Guard... not terribly useful.
S10 Spinward Marches - the Other sector detailed in CT. More detail than the marches
S11 Libary Data N-Z - more setting info.
S12 Forms and Charts - useful forms for playing CT.

Note that S8&11 are consolidated into the Imperial Encyclopedia for MegaTraveller, and are rules-free; also, the marches world listings are in the MT IE, as is a nice pictures-included shoppie-store section.

In Re Barsoom: I knew a guy who did. It wasn't a great fit, but it wasn't bad, according to his players.

The Ancients ARE the Droyne. A12 Secret of the Ancients, AM Droyne, and Library Data give all that has been released for CT; little was changed on that score in MT, TNE didn't deal with them at all, and T4 didn't either.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Thanks for the info so far!

I thought I'd just throw the Barsoom reference out there on a hook to see if it got any nibbles. People I know say that AD&D is a better fit for ERB's Mars books.

I seriously thought about buying the CD-ROM, but I've heard some discouraging complaints about the quality of the scan, readability, etc. so I opted for the HC books.

I should be getting the rules in the post today or tomorrow.

*crosses fingers*

 

[Tysis]

I never cared for most of Judge's Guild material, and not just for Traveller. It struck me as very "bare bones" and could sometimes be used for ideas, but in general it was not worth the money.

When new, JG material was really cheap (both in price and quality). It was printed on paper that reminded me of pulp novels.

 

[Supplement Four]

Greetings, fellow spacefarers!

I'm brand-new to the forum, and very new to Traveller. I just ordered Books 0-8 and should get them soon in the post.

Consider the CT CD-ROM. It's the entire GDW game line for $35 bucks.

1) Is anyone familiar with the Judges Guild CT materials, and if so, would they be worth the investment?

Yes. Do a search for "INDEX THREAD" by me in the Classic Traveller forum. You will find several threads I made describing a lot of older, out of print, Classic Traveller publications. Most of the Judges Guild stuff is among them.

There are varied opinions on the JG stuff. I think that it's because of the horrible presentation the JG books have (printed on newsprint, art that looks like it was done by a 3rd grader).

But...if you ignore the presentation, there's some incredible good CT info among those supplements. For example, 50 Starbases, which Aramis panned above, actually has a quite good section in it describing CT starbases--the various sorts, what you can expect from one, etc.

Look at this link to find some of the JG book descriptions: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=11058&highlight=Index+Thread

But, don't forget to check the other INDEX THREADS, too, for info on other JG materials (helping you shop before you buy).

2) Are the Supplements necessary? I thought about getting the collection of supplements, but decided to wait after having read the rules first.

I think they are. Quite necessary. Again...get the CT CD-ROM for $35 bucks. You'll get the entire she-bang from GDW. And, you can't beat that price for the lot of it.

 

[robject]

For example, 50 Starbases, which Aramis panned above, actually has a quite good section in it describing CT starbases--the various sorts, what you can expect from one, etc.

I panned it first! Frankly the primitive style did prejudice me towards it almost from the start. Vanity.

 

[BigJackBrass]

Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium is particularly worth a look. These days I rarely use the expanded character generation of books 4 to 7: if you do then you'll find Citizens a little "underpowered" in that it's more in line with the original character generation of the basic set. Otherwise it offers not only a wider choice of character types but, as a result, a hugely expanded range of possible adventures.

Best value, as mentioned, is to get it as part of the CD-ROM collection.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Actually, the quality in the CT CD is not too bad. Given the amount of material on it, there was bound to be some problems, but it is definitely better than the MT CD (from all I have heard about it). Being able to copy and paste some of the tables/text is definitely a help at times.

 

[Icosahedron]

Yeah, there are a few bad pages in a whole archive of material, and if there's an odd paragraph you can't read, just ask a question here.

 

[Tysis]

Considering the low price of all the CDs I encourage everyone to take a look at them. There is some great material that can be used in all Traveller editions.

You can get the entire game line for both CT and MT for like $70. JTAS is available as well (ok not all the JTAS and Challenge issues but that will take some time), but then again this is a CT thread.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Sorry for the newb question: is JTAS the analog to Dragon mag?

 

[robject]

Sorry for the newb question: is JTAS the analog to Dragon mag?

Yes, that's exactly right. Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society is the full name.

 

[Supplement Four]

Yes, that's exactly right. Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society is the full name.

To add...

Some of the JTAS articles are the analog of Dragon Magazine in that they are neat articles written about the game.

But, also note, that GDW also used JTAS to bring official Classic Traveller rules to the game set--especially in the early issues. For example, there are expanded computer rules in one of the early JTAS issues that Marc Miller states could not be fit into Books 1-3 because of space limitations.

I whole-heartedly recommend the JTAS run (especially issues 1-24), and I consider them necessary supplements to a CT game.

There's A LOT of GREAT stuff included in the JTAS.

 

[Hyphen]

Dear Folks -

1) Is anyone familiar with the Judges Guild CT materials, and if so, would they be worth the investment?

I know many have panned 50 Starbases, probably for the poor starbase maps themselves, but I threw the starport building rules into the mix when I created a set of homebrew rules for what's in a 'port (along with Skyport Authority and a bunch of other articles).

Hey, I even scrubbed up one of them to become the initial Type C 'port that was first built on Tavonni (while the Type B was being built). And no, I haven't yet scanned it and uploaded it, sorry.

However, the Starports book from GURPS: Traveller blows them all away, written as it was by the late, great John M. Ford (who penned the Skyport Authority article mentioned above).

As for their other works, the GM screen is pretty good if you're going to run a purely CT campaign (CT = "Classic" Traveller = "Little Black Books" (LBBs) = Books 0-8).

3) What is the font in which the titles of the books are printed, if anyone can identify it?

Optima, from memory. If you want to create your own "covers" go to the Zhodani Base, look under "Goodies" and try the LBB Front Cover Generating Machine over there - it's pretty cool.

5) Is anyone aware of a source for making numbered hex maps, suitable for making charts for CT?

There are various subsector generators/viewers around on the 'net, maybe some people can point you in the right direction. I think the Zho Base may even have some blank forms? Or it has "QuickHex" available??

7) Is the Library Data on this website the same as what is in the supplementary books, or this person's homebrew for his own CT Universe?

I suspect that the link you provided is a great resource of Library Data, of the type which shows up throughout Traveller material; however, it is just a subset of the material in the supplements... and it might have some homebrew (though it may be 100% 'canonical').

<cough> That's my site.<cough> robject is right, it doesn't *quite* have everything, although I think it is complete up to the letter "S" or "T". Er, that is, for CT and MT (MegaTraveller), not the later stuff. As for whether it is homebrew or not, the provenance of every entry is shown at the bottom, mostly as clickable links to the "index" pages showing the details of the sourcebook(s). If something is homebrew, it is labelled "mine"; however, 99% if what is there is official (aka "canon").

Good luck with the game!

 

[ShapeShifter]

Hyphen: your site rocks. Seriously! For a beginning CT reader, I've found it immensely helpful in wrapping my head around stuff (which is confusing for me, until I get used to the setting info, games mechanics, etc.). Thanks!