Where to begin?

[Othin]

Well I finally received two of the Traveller books I ordered. The classic supplements and classic short adventures.

The book company emailed me though and said that USPS had damaged the classic books 0-8 and classic adventures 1-13 and that they had re-ordered but that they're now on backorder

*sigh*

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Ugh. That really sucks.

Three weeks from today, Far Future Enterprises will be shipping a CD-ROM with ALL of the Classic Traveller books, supplements, adventures, modules, and board games (!), all for the low, low cost of just US$35.00.

Now if you're like me you enjoy the feel of a book in your hand, but damn! Thirty-five bucks! For something like fifteen YEARS worth of publishing!

Check it out.

 

[Icosahedron]

That sounds interesting. I've accumulated most of the originals over the years, but I might still shell out for the CD. That's about 20-22 GBP at a guess, or with a UK distributor's markup, about 25+ GBP.

The JTAS CD looks even more interesting, I've not aquired many of those. Just in time for Xmas.

 

[Othin]

Originally posted by Black Globe Generator:
Ugh. That really sucks.

Three weeks from today, Far Future Enterprises will be shipping a CD-ROM with ALL of the Classic Traveller books, supplements, adventures, modules, and board games (!), all for the low, low cost of just US$35.00.

Now if you're like me you enjoy the feel of a book in your hand, but damn! Thirty-five bucks! For something like fifteen YEARS worth of publishing!

Check it out.

That website is a blackhole and I find it impossible to easily locate anything on there. I never saw that link, I probably would have waited and just ordered that.

That's great though, thanks for the link. I'll probably end up getting that just since 99% of the games I'll be playing will be via forums and the text searching ability of the pdfs will be much used.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Othin:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Black Globe Generator:
Three weeks from today, Far Future Enterprises will be shipping a CD-ROM with ALL of the Classic Traveller books, supplements, adventures, modules, and board games (!), all for the low, low cost of just US$35.00.

[...]

Check it out.

That website is a blackhole and I find it impossible to easily locate anything on there. I never saw that link, I probably would have waited and just ordered that.
</font>[/QUOTE]Quite so, FFE should leverage its resources and get decent webpages up.

 

[MR TEK]

I for one would like to see a complete list of what is on the cds that have already been released. Mega specifically.

 

[sarahnewton]

Hi Othin,

I'd second the idea of getting hold of the classic traveller reprints. Books 1-3 are really all you need to get started - the rules may seem simplistic, but they are pretty easy to get the hang of quickly. Mercenary, High Guard, Scouts, etc, give you tons more detail as and when you want it, but I'd stick with just the basics for your first game.

As to scenarios, I'd plumb for Twilights Peak or Research Station Gamma - probably the former, as it includes plenty of starship travelling, trading, exploring Creepy Ancient Stuff, as much combat as you want, plus a nifty Mystery introducing the imperium's history in bite-sized chunks.

My personal fave for scenarios has got to be the Legend of the Sky Raiders trilogy by FASA. I don't know whether it's available as a PDF anywhere, but they were great for atmosphere and action - if a little off the beaten track! Indiana Jones in space!

Welcome aboard, hope the Traveller bug bites.

Sarah

 

[Ganidirsii O'Flynn]

Hey Othin. Welcome to TravellerGrogNet...

As you can see, there are as many opinions about Traveller as there are players. But don't let that get you down cuz this many loyal fanatics says *something* good about a game... Except Vampire. Vampire sucks

OK, first off, a warning about getting into SciFi gaming... It's WAY different than fantasy. In our WoW (et.al.) driven hobby, most players expect some sort of 'uber' payoff at the end of an adventure. The problem is that SciFi games don't really deliver a "Deathslayer Vorpal Broadsword of the Monkey". In Traveller terms, that would be Battle Dress (powered combat armor a'la Starship Troopers) with a Fusion Rifle, and you would be cracked up out of your mind to give a PC that kind of gear (because PC's are eeeeviiilll). Traveller rewards usually come in the form of training possibilities, contacts, influence with the powerful, bank payments on a ship, and so forth. That can be hard for some players to relate to.

So here are my somewhat heretical suggestions on how to get started as a SciFi gamer:

The be-all, end-all book for a new group of players and a referee is the (sadly) out of print Star Wars the Roleplaying Game 2nd ed {Revised and Expanded} by West End Games. Here's why I think so:
a) it's full color with lots of flash (art illustrating what the text is talking about, etc.),
b) character generation is ridiculously easy (and clearly explained)
c) it contains rules for Combat (on any scale), Ships, Beasts, and Aliens and,
d) it includes BOTH a solo adventure (to teach all hands how to play by themselves) and a group adventure for your starting PC's.

Sadly, Traveller material is often written with the grognards (like my humble self) in mind, and you have seen how difficult it is to start up as a newbie with no real help. That is something I really hope Marc addresses with the mythological Traveller 5th edition, but for now, that's how it is. And to make things even murkier, almost every version of Traveller out there has different game mechanics...

So, the next thing to do is pick a Traveller system and master it's basic mechanics (Character Generation, Basic Task System, Personal Combat, and Vehicle (or Ship) Combat). In order of MY preference, easiest to hardest to learn are: Traveller d20, Traveller 4th ed, Classic (1st ed.)Traveller (the Little Black Books), GURPS: Traveller and MegaTraveller. Your milage may vary. Note that EVERY version listed has great source material, so don't completely ignore them.

Then work out what part of the universe you're going to set your game and do a meta-plot (sort of a story-arc). The guys here at T20 have a great one in the Linkworlds Cluster, available as a pdf.

A little side reading is always good too. Stick with solid, non-liscenced sci-fi (skip the StarWars/Star Trek/Shadowrun/BattleTech, etc, novels), and try to keep an open mind about what you want to borrow for YOUR Traveller Game. Here's my top ten books for Traveller Refs (in no particular order):

*Honor Harrington series, Dave Weber
*Hammers Slammers series, Dave Drake
*Downbelow Station, CJ Cheryyah
*Starcruiser Shennandoah seris, Roland Green
*Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein
*The Fuzzy Papers, H. Beam Piper
*Startide Rising, David Brin
*Neuromancer, William Gibson
*Marching Through Georgia, SM Stirling
*Hardwired, Walter Jon Williams

Lastly, when the available material overwhelms you, remember the following phrase: IMTU (In MY Traveller Universe).

Hope that helps some, and welcome to the Grogs!

 

[Othin]

I'm still waiting to get my copy of the Classic Books 0-8 but I have really been enjoying reading the supplements and classic short adventures.

I'll probably use a few of the adventures from the short adventure book to start out with, and then begin to slowly head off into the (fuzzy) story arc I have planned.

Ganidiirsi, I have actually read many of those so that's good to know. As far as the Honor Harrington books, I have thought about picking one up a few times, but which should I start with since there are so many?

 

[Ganidirsii O'Flynn]

Othin,
The first Honor Harrington book is On Basilisk Station, which you can read for free at:
http://www.baen.com/library/


As you work on your fuzzy arc (because No Adventure Survives Contact with PC's), consider some of the classic Traveller themes:

*Making Payments to Merchant Prince: Free Traders,
*ProFors to Owner Aboard: My life as a Mercenry,
*Making Payments to "Bugger this! Why don't we just steal it?": Piracy and Loan Skipping and Crime,
*"You want me to eat what?": Survival and cultural contacts,
and lastly
*Secret Agent Man: The PC's a Troubleshooters

Of the Short Adventures, the one that'll require the least amount of rules twinking is, IMHO, "Marooned/Marooned Alone".

As always, you milage may vary...

 

[Ranger]

Don't forget to watch Firefly and Serenity. If you want the 'feel' of Classic Traveller, Firefly is it for many (most?) of the grognards. It also kind of shows the wide range of adventure possibilities for one crew in a Merchant campaign. Serenity is the 'wrapping up the grand story arc' (at least one of them).

Showing your group an episode or two of Firely can slso can be a way to convince your players to try Traveller. After they watch, ask them if that's the kind of game they'd like to play in.

 

[Hal]

For what it is worth, having gamed since 1978, and having a soft spot for Traveller in my soul - the following are my observations. As such, please be aware that my reasons for what I do are based on an accumulation effect of contact with the hobby of role playing

First: I spent YEARS (literally) looking for one game system I could use where I didn't have to study the rules set for westerns (Boot Hill for example), a set of rules for psionics (Original Traveller or CT), or a set of rules for fantasy such as Rolemaster, Dragonquest, Runequest, etc. When I finally latched onto GURPS, I had been using translating characters from one game system to another to yet another as I found various aspects of the rules set to be annoying or downright aggravating.

CT - only THE Second role playing game system I ever played in, with D&D in the white box/brown booklets being the first. Rich Ess was the GM at UB and I still have fond memories of discovering what happens when you wear a dead man's switch and you go unconscious unexpectedly As a fast and furious game system - the sky is literally the limit. There were some "internal consistency issues" and not being a subscriber to the JTAS material - was a major pain for me. Onwards to...

Megatraveller: a great system overall as far as character generation (and really nothing more than the Advanced character generation rules sets all combined into one - with a much cleaner task resolution system. It's fatal flaw in my opinion, was that it had too many typo's and needed far too much in the way of errata. I also sorta disliked the grand civil war mass melee presented in the history of the shattered Imperium. Enter...

Traveller: The New Era. For those who loved Twilight 2000, this was a GREAT edition. The Virus concept bothered me, but it did permit the GM and players to run in a universe where the big fall had come (dark ages to some of you readers) and there wasn't this overwhelming "FOUNDATION" style empire. Asimov was one of my early loves, and Harry Seldon would probably have loved the times we live in today But, alas - ship building rules while semi-easy, was also deceptively aggravating when it came to creating "hit tables" of what item got hit from what portion of the ship in ship to ship combat. Otherwise, as a rules system - really NICE! Of course, using FIRE, FUSION, & STEEL was a pain to some extent. Enter...

Traveller 4th edition. On one hand, I liked what they tried to do with it, on the other hand, the statistical probabilities were less enjoyable. It had the feel (to me) of a half-finished product with some holes in it. Enter...

GURPS TRAVELLER. As I mentioned earlier, GURPS became my final resting point as far as searching for a game system that I could enjoy. Having mastered other various game systems, GURPS was a breeze for me. I don't claim it is for everyone - but once you absorb enough of the game mechanics, you can create on the run "rulings" that fit the philosophy of GURPS even if you don't know the every single iota of rules ever created for GURPS. Unfortunately - GURPS grew from its humble beginnings in 1986. If you were there for the ride at the start, every new "accretion" was nothing compared to what was already mastered. To a newbie just starting out however? It can be daunting! Why I like GURPS TRAVELLER however, has more to do with my ability to "Wing it" with GURPS more than anything else. I also like GURPS VEHICLES for what I can do with it as compared with FIRE FUSION & STEEL.

T20 - oddly enough, I don't have this game, although I have tried to pick it up on EBAY and have lost every single time I've bid upon it. I guess part of it is my reluctance to purchase D20 style products when I myself Loath D&D.

So, my advice? Play CT until you want (or if you ever!!!) something more detailed. The STORY is what is important - and game mechanics that get in the way of that aspect are problems, not features.

In my next post, I'll detail a storyline I used, and how I was able to use GURPS VEHICLES to my advantage for it...

 

[Hal]

Quick synopsis of campaign I used for group:

In the beginning, there was this villian in ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) who wanted, schemed to become a Baron in the Spinward Marches. Villian found a Baron who had only two children as heirs, and knew that if the Baron died, and heirs died, Baronacy would be filled by the Sector Duke as a reward for services rendered in the upcoming war with the Zho's. Thus began the conspiracy to commit murder and commit acts of treason where infomation leaked to the Zho's would position the ONI operative to save the bacon in a really BIG way later on.

Enter monkey wrench #1: Assassin hired to kill baron, wife, and kids was in reality, an agent of the Emperor who was a member of an elite group called "The Emperor's Eyes". Said man was sent to infiltrate what was at the time, a worrisome situation the Emperor felt uneasy about - totally unrelated to the conspiracy being formed by the villian. Instead of killing the children, the "assassin" saved them, spirited them to a new world, and continued to go deep undercover with the conspiracy.

General gist of the campaign? Find out why a certain Gauss sniper rifle was important, why the slugs used by said sniper rifle were important, and why the currency in the box along with a sealed box with highly advanced locking mechanisms was given to the characters. In addition, the players needed to discover why the boy and his sister (now hired on as stewards for the ship) were being hunted by the ONI on an "unofficial" Level. One character was a recent Naval officer who had voluntarily separated from service - and was uniquely situated to discover facts that the players needed to help piece the puzzle together.

All of this adventure was pieced together and inspired by "How do I create a campaign based on a gauss rifle with the hitting power of an M2 .50 caliber machine gun?". Such a gun might not be dangerous against a starship right? But in the hands of an expert, it can sever armored hydrolic lines used to retract landing gear <g>. It can also punch impressive looking divits out of the tarmac nearby the crew.

In all, a space faring adventure with a mystery to solve, a lurking "Villian" who wasn't really a villian, a hidden Villian who needed to be taken down - and two frightened "orphans" who needed to be first, protected, and second - elevated to their birthright. Unfortunately, one of the players died of a heart attack before the campaign could be concluded

For me, I was lucky in being able to use GURPS VEHICLES, GURPS BIOTECH, GURPS TRAVELLER as sources of inspiration - let alone other various GURPS PRODUCTS. I must confess however, that the GURPS alternate 3rd Imperium universe where the original Imperium was not slated to enter the era of the Shattered Imperium made me a happy guy

Again - tastes vary from GM to GM, from gaming group to gaming group. If you're going to start off in a Traveller scenario - pick a story and include some mayhem, shake and/or stir in some human interest element, and let fly into a free trader or larger starship. Have starship, will travel kinda thing