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T5 cover ?

For me Andrew's pic, or something like that draws me in most. How and why is that ship there? What are the people doing on top? Are they stranded?.......

......It has to make me start imagining stories, but not be too specific and defined. Give me uncertainty, leave it open like the vastness of the universe..........
 
...or maybe this...

1_cover-2.jpg


(oops, Hunter's broken something...try this...)

http://www.TravellerRPG.com/CotI/Gallery/index.php?n=111
 
Last edited:
NO BINDERS!!
Must I remind some of you ol'timers that in the T$R days (before wizards ate them) they tried the binder idea for a monster manual? with suppliments for the game worlds you played on :greyhawk, forgottem realms, etc....

it was HORRIBLE to use, fruitless to keep 'whole' the way pages got ripped, got lost and mangled....

IMHO,IN THE NAME OF INFINITY, DON'T GO THAT WAY UNLESS YOU WANT THE GAME TO SUFFER...
 
Personally, I'd go with Ted's image. Its been a favorite of mine since I first encountered it. Something about the anticipation of closing in on a planet in a little Scout-and, intrinsically, Traveller IS about space travel. As for the scout refueling- GDW did it for the MegaTraveller Referees Companion cover (by James Holloway), and then, I did a variation myself on the back cover of DGPs Referees Gaming Kit, with the crew out on the hull, feeding some native charismatic megafauna...
 
No people on the cover, please, at least not in close-up view. The look of spacesuits, uniforms etc. tends to date incredibly fast (see Megatraveller).

No massive space battles either--PCs rarely if ever get to commandeer battleships.

A Beowulf or Suleiman-class in space (exploration/trade), with a planet as foil. Like that mockup on the T5 site or that "divider" Marc is selling--only with more, well, zip.
 
If I might be so bold..

Instead of the binder idea, what about a spiral binding? It would be the same size as the standard stapled binding, or even a saddle-stitched binding, plus it would allow the books to more easily lie flat on a table, or have their covers folded back without damaging the book.

Just an alternate idea.
 
Having published* works spiral bound, and having used a lot of spiral bound materials, there are several issues with spiral binding.

1) you need at least 60# bond for them to survive; the typical 20#-40# papers don't handle it well. 80# to 110# works wonderfully.

2) metal spirals deform easily, and the pages never turn nicely after.

2a) plastic spirals don't deform, Most, however, break if crushed

3) slightly more packing loses than perfect or saddle bound books. (Perfect bound aka Square bound is the most efficient, then smaller saddles, then hardcovers, then larger saddlebound books, then finally comb or spiral.

4) Spiral is more expensive in many cases. More driling, and then threading the siral. For all but the larger print houses, that's less likely to be automated, and thus adds significant costs.

*I've published stuff for work when I worked for the Mental Health Association. Credited as Editor on several.
 
And, on point #1, aramis, the heavier the paper, the more expensive and the less customers like it in a book (generally). :p
 
What I've read is that 40# is typical hardcover page stock.

40# is workable... but not really durable.

I've one game that survived much abuse (despite not being played much, the book was abused highly) and its on 110#... Rhand, by Leading Edge.
 
Rhialto the Marvelous said:
No people on the cover, please, at least not in close-up view. The look of spacesuits, uniforms etc. tends to date incredibly fast (see Megatraveller).

No massive space battles either--PCs rarely if ever get to commandeer battleships.

A Beowulf or Suleiman-class in space (exploration/trade), with a planet as foil. Like that mockup on the T5 site or that "divider" Marc is selling--only with more, well, zip.
Click to expand...

I agree. In fact, the Beowulf racing along with a planet in the background, getting scored by a beam weapon, perhaps a couple of bits of debris being blown off the hull, adds a little zip for me.
 
aramis said:
2) metal spirals deform easily, and the pages never turn nicely after.

2a) plastic spirals don't deform, Most, however, break if crushed
Click to expand...

This is sooo true.

Anyone who's had spiral notebooks from school get squashed by heavy books knows the pain of metal spirals.

I've got 10yo notebooks from the Maya Meetings in Texas in plastic spirals, and they're not very usable anymore. I'm afraid to open them up, because they might mangle the pages.
 
Spiral bound books never seem to fit right on a bookshelf either. The coils have to stick out so they don't get bent or crushed and jockeying books on and off the shelves tends to cause the pages to tear along that coil.
 
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