Useful Elements in GURPS Traveller

[mbrinkhues]

On Randy's request not to de-rail his new material threat, I am starting a new one here to discuss what T20/CT/MT players can scavenge from the GURPS Traveller series.

Fair Warning, I am a big GURPS fan and I do not play T20. I use the Gateway Domain setting since I dislike the Bobby Ewing showering background of GT and I am tired of the Spinward Marches

Pictures

The most useful element of GT are the grafics and pictures scattered through the books giving a feeling to many dry words. Saying modular cutter with a crane is one thing, showing an action photo of it is another

The Trader books

These are Far Trader (Merchant Characters) and Starports (Ports and Custom).

Of those Starports(S) is the more useful describing and showing how a port works in detail and giving sample ports and port scenes. The cargo gear and starport small craft/spaceships alone is great and something severely missing in most Traveller incarnations.

Far Trader (FT) is semi-useful. The whole stuff on licences and legalities as well as modes of shipping can most likely be lifted. The trade system is either USE IT or DON'T, there is no "skimming parts of it". The Starships and Spaceships need to be converted but add some nifty ideas.

First Scout Thingy

First In (FI) aka First Eaten is about the scout service and system creation. There is a UWP to GURPS table so one should be able to go the way back. System Generation is very detailed and complex. If you are into that stuff, try the book. The insights in the scout service and it's para-military use are useful and some of the ships and gear scream "plunder me"

The Military books

These are Ground Forces (Army and Uncle Cleons Misguided Children) and Mercenarie (Amoral Scumbacks and Hireguns). So-so in useability.

Ground Forces (GF) gives nice insights in how the system works and shows some of the starships used to transport the grunts. OTOH equipment is GURPS specific and would need to be checked/transfered.

Mercenaries (M) is the less useful part of the pair. The tickets have the same problems as in CT and the gear list (aside from the Starships) is again quite GURPS specific. The sample units can be plundered.

Alien Races 1-4

The first three are the equivalent to the Alien Modules. Quit useful if you don't have the originals if you want to look up background. Not so useful for Chargen unless you know some GURPS

The last is about minor races, some for the much-missed CHALLENGE. Nice read through, semi useful

Setting books

Behind the Claw (BC) aka Behind the Flaw, Rim of Fire (RF) and Sword Worlds (SW) all describe the G:T "The Imperator lives" variant of the Spinward Marches (SW, considered buggy), Solomanie Rim (RF) and the Darrian/Sword World/Border Worlds region.

Semi-Useful due to the timeline-specific elements.

Starships

Could someone please offer Steve Jackson Scrooge McDucks Treasure/his firstborne child/a playmate/Whatever it takes for the permission to make a T20/HG compatible version? The tons of little add ons (Swimming pool and Wet bar anyone) in this book makes it really useful to spice up your ship(1)

As is the book is GURPS squared naturally.

Deckplan books

The Modular Cutter book has IIRC a T20 equivalent and the 600-ton Type M is with HG/T20 stats already.


(1) You can even have a stage installed to "Spice up your live". And sound-dampening if you only want the looks.

 

[kafka47]

Pictures over time the GT universe has got better and better but some of the early stuff is very questionable

Rim of Fire is an excellent sourcebook period.

Ground Forces gave real insight into the life of the Imperial grunt

Behind the Claw Despite all the bugs (and hell yes there were many) provided the best look of the Marches for me. Before that I only had the MTJ, Regency sourcebook & the Spinward Marches Campaign to rely upon. And, as nice as those products are they never brought it alive. Always wondered why the cover was not taken by main rulebook, fit perfectly...

Far Trader The economics is sound but it should come with accompanying software (heck, I could say the same thing about the whole line).

Did not care really for anything else, some of the worldbooks were interesting, likewise Nobles but they did not possess the Wow factor of say when I unwrapped the Rebellion Sourcebook or Gateway to Destiny.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
Behind the Claw (BC) aka Behind the Flaw, Rim of Fire (RF) and Sword Worlds (SW) all describe the G:T "The Imperator lives" variant of the Spinward Marches (SW, considered buggy), Solomanie Rim (RF) and the Darrian/Sword World/Border Worlds region.

Semi-Useful due to the timeline-specific elements.

Well, the Marches begin to diverge seriously around 1117[*], so most of the material in SW should be useful for the OTU. We even put in a few comments (well, at least one that I can remember offhand) about the difference, so it should be pretty simple to 'correct' for the events of those three years.

[*] It begins diverging in a minor way some time before that (in 1114?) when Norris is notified about his elevation to Archduke and leaves for Capital, but I don't think that made much of a difference to the Sword Worlds -- Norris had already set the events he was going to affect in motion by winning the 5FW and setting up the Border Worlds Commission.

I'm curious, what about SW do you think is buggy?


Hans

 

[mbrinkhues]

To quote my most beloved tactical officer: Oops!

That should have been ... Spinward Marches (BC, considered buggy)

And it's not so much me, I never checked it against older stuff but the voices of the SJGames Traveller Forum.

So, know I am off, beating myself with a small cat-o-nine-tails while chanting "Mea culpa" and bumbing my head on the floor...

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
To quote my most beloved tactical officer: Oops!

That should have been ... Spinward Marches (BC, considered buggy)

And it's not so much me, I never checked it against older stuff but the voices of the SJGames Traveller Forum.

So, know I am off, beating myself with a small cat-o-nine-tails while chanting "Mea culpa" and bumbing my head on the floor...

Well, I know of several bugs in SW (one egregious one is due to me leaving out a 'not' in a library data entry ), so don't beat yourself up. I was simply curious if you had found some that I didn't know of.


Hans

 

[Black Globe Generator]

I finally broke down and bought a GURPS book to use for my mostly-classic games: Space.

I had some places I wanted to go with star sysgen that I just couldn't get to using Scouts and Grand Survey, and GURPS Space is helping me get there.

I've been looking really hard at GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars, for the Vilani history and culture notes mostly, but I realized that most of it merely parallels stuff I came up with on my own (such as "dissenters" and penal legions) already, so thought I've been sorely tempted, I keep putting it back on the shelf at the end of the day.

 

[Jame]

I would be extremely happy if someone would port the GURPS computer system into other versions of Traveller.

 

[ElHombre]

There's a nice thing about the G:T books you mention: many of them are now about $10 each. Guess hwo bought about five of them?

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:

On Randy's request not to de-rail his new material threat, I am starting a new one here to discuss what T20/CT/MT players can scavenge from the GURPS Traveller series.

Pictures

The most useful element of GT are the grafics and pictures scattered through the books giving a feeling to many dry words. Saying modular cutter with a crane is one thing, showing an action photo of it is another

The Trader books

...Starports (S) is the more useful describing and showing how a port works in detail and giving sample ports and port scenes. The cargo gear and starport small craft/spaceships alone is great and something severely missing in most Traveller incarnations.

Far Trader (FT) is semi-useful. The whole stuff on licences and legalities as well as modes of shipping can most likely be lifted. The trade system is either USE IT or DON'T, there is no "skimming parts of it". The Starships and Spaceships need to be converted but add some nifty ideas.

First Scout Thingy

First In (FI) aka First Eaten is about the scout service and system creation. There is a UWP to GURPS table so one should be able to go the way back. System Generation is very detailed and complex. If you are into that stuff, try the book. The insights in the scout service and it's para-military use are useful and some of the ships and gear scream "plunder me"

I agree with you, Michael, about the Trader books; they are great for their detailed background and can help 'flesh out' aspects of a campaign. Otherwise, they are of limited usefulness. I would love to get my hands on a copy of First In or DGP's Grand Survey, but these babies seem to be getting rarer and rarer, and their prices are approaching the ridiculous. It would be outstanding if these were offered as a reissue, as Marc did with the entire CT line.

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:

Alien Races 1-4

The first three are the equivalent to the Alien Modules. Quit useful if you don't have the originals if you want to look up background. Not so useful for Chargen unless you know some GURPS

The last is about minor races, some for the much-missed CHALLENGE. Nice read through, semi useful

Setting books

Behind the Claw (BC) aka Behind the Flaw, Rim of Fire (RF) and Sword Worlds (SW) all describe the G:T "The Imperator lives" variant of the Spinward Marches (SW, considered buggy), Solomani Rim (RF) and the Darrian/Sword World/Border Worlds region.

Semi-Useful due to the timeline-specific elements.

Starships

Could someone please offer Steve Jackson Scrooge McDucks Treasure/his firstborne child/a playmate/Whatever it takes for the permission to make a T20/HG compatible version? The tons of little add ons (Swimming pool and Wet bar anyone) in this book makes it really useful to spice up your ship(1)

As is the book is GURPS squared naturally.

Deckplan books

The Modular Cutter book has IIRC a T20 equivalent and the 600-ton Type M is with HG/T20 stats already.

...

I found the Zhodani Alien Races book to be incredibly helpful as a background reference for a poorly understood, yet influential, Major Race. Not sure how many starship deckplans volumes are actually necessary, but who can resist wandering their corridors, in a virtual way? Not I!

As a longtime player of CT, I've felt chagrined at the number of alternate rules systems, if not ATUs, which have cropped up over the years. I suppose the djinn is out of the bottle, though. An amazing amount of canonical material is available now, much of it highly original, yet converting between different rulesets can often be a daunting task... very frustrating, at times.

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by kafka47:

Pictures over time the GT universe has got better and better but some of the early stuff is very questionable...

...Did not care really for anything else, some of the worldbooks were interesting, likewise Nobles but they did not possess the Wow factor of say when I unwrapped the Rebellion Sourcebook or Gateway to Destiny.

Agreed. Illos are great, but let's face it: their purpose is to sell copy, and they do. GT illos have improved with time, and also become more photo-real (a fact which I applaud). They do however seem to lack the drama of the less polished, older art of Keith, Jacquays or Barr, for example. IMHO, the WOW factor has never even been an issue with GT.

 

[jalberti]

I like the alien modules. I think they add some good details without conflicting with CT material.

I also liked Nobles and Starports. Both add details that do not exist in other Traveller products.