Which Traveller for me?

[san*klass]

I would like to say from the start that I am not trying to start any sort of "Editions war", I would just really appreciate some advice from fellow Travellers.

Having not played any Traveller since the mid 90's, I am in the early stages of planning a new campaign. It will either be 1130's, just as the Collapse is happening, or 1200's as the New Era starts. But, my problem is which version of the rules do I buy, to use?

I played the Classic (books 0-7) game back in the 80's, but can't now recall too much about it. I also played TNE in the early 90's, and can just recall that it was very complex, and waaaay too much detail for me to be bothered with now.

I guess that I am looking for medium complexity rules, with minimal expense (on EBay etc).

Rules that can give expanded (ie LBB's 4-7) coherent character generation and skill sets, thorough combat rules that support 15mm figures and can deal with melee & handguns & vehicles etc, star system generation that tells me how many planets in the system and what type and what the gravity is - but doesn't go into axial tilt and luminosity etc, and with some sort of workable starship combat rules included.

As I have already said, I don't want to return to TNE (unless someone out there can explain why my memory of its complexity is unfair??), and the LBB's are five pounds (or more) each, so quite expensive for the lot. I thought about MegaTraveller (which I have never seen), but many reviews seem to say that it is riddled with errors and quite unworkable?

All advice greatly appreciated. With thanks, in advance.

 

[whulorigan]

. . . and the LBB's are five pounds (or more) each, so quite expensive for the lot. I thought about MegaTraveller (which I have never seen), but many reviews seem to say that it is riddled with errors and quite unworkable?

One thing to be aware of is that you can purchase the COMPLETE past editions of Traveller on CDROM from FFE at what I believe are great prices:

http://www.farfuture.net/FFE-CDROMs.html

A fair amount (if not most) of the errata is already incorporated, I believe (at least for MegaTraveller, IIRC). Other errata documents for the rulsets are also available on FFE and right here on CotI.

Also most of the CDROMs include additional material, some of which was unpublished draft material or other things that never saw the light of day when the ruleset was in print.

 

[Quint]

Wow, I'd have suggested Mongoose Traveller but with the 2E coming out I'd somewhat suggest waiting for that to appear.

That said, you might be able to get a bunch of MgT stuff pretty cheap over the next year or so.

Otherwise I also strongly endorse the FFE CDROM's.

D.

 

[aramis]

From the sound of it, you want MegaTraveller for characters, and CT Bk 5 for ship design.
Actually, for ship design - note that MT uses the same ratings as Bk5 and T20 - T20's are slightly more nuanced.

So I'd suggest late-CT ship design (bk 5) or MGT ship design (either edition) with MT ratings.... and the rest on MT.

TNE's infamous complexity is really not all that high, either, but is in really obnoxious places: maintenance, ship building, and colonies...

 

[robject]

From the sound of it, you want MegaTraveller for characters, and CT Bk 5 for ship design.

I'll vote for Wil's first suggestion.

MegaTraveller Player's Guide for characters and combat, and High Guard for ship design.

For useful stuff, I would also recommend two more MT books: Imperial Encyclopedia and Referee's Companion. Both of these are invaluable for any Traveller ruleset.I used them for Classic Traveller games for a decade.

If you don't mind PDF, Far Future Enterprises sells all of the MT rules on one CD-ROM. And all of the CT rules on another CD-ROM.

 

[aramis]

Also note: The CT books are individually available on DTRPG, but given the $5 per book, if you wind up getting past 7 books, you're better getting the CD.
Useful ones for "mix-n-match Traveller" include:
Book 2 (for the player-centered trade system)
Book 5 (for the ship design) †
Book 8 (Robot creation)
Supplement 10- Sector book for Solomani Rim
Supplement 7 & 9 - ship designs
All the adventures (0-13) and double adventures (1-7) (easily ported to MT)


†or T20 - which said, T20 CD has the T20 core, which includes:
a very close variant on Bk 5 design.
a slightly more realistic system generation (better fit to the 2000-2001 era data available)
Better Bk2-style trade rules
an interesting HG combat system replacement, that can use the same ratings.
Some really good adventures
My name in it.

 

[rhialto]

If you don't mind PDF, Far Future Enterprises sells all of the MT rules on one CD-ROM. And all of the CT rules on another CD-ROM.

I heartily endorse this too: I was in a similar position a few years ago (being a tyro Traveller GM) and took this CotI advice and found it to be invaluable for someone trying to catch up on almost four decades of Traveller goodness.

 

[nobby-w]

I would like to say from the start that I am not trying to start any sort of "Editions war", I would just really appreciate some advice from fellow Travellers.
...

I still use CT and Striker, largely because of some legacy baggage (vehicle and ship designs etc, plus various house rules) that I can't be arsed moving off them. However, I think the MT character generation system is appreciably better than the Book 1 version and produces characters that are more balanced w.r.t. the extended Book 4-7 or MT extended CG systems.

One could port items between this and Mongoose without too much sodding about as well.

 

[robject]

I think the MT character generation system is appreciably better than the Book 1 version and produces characters that are more balanced w.r.t. the extended Book 4-7 or MT extended CG systems.

I really agree with this. MegaTraveller perfected CT character generation for me, and the characters are more version-portable.

Plus it has both basic generation and extended. While I don't use extended, I do mine it for plot ideas.

 

[mike wightman]

Mongoose Traveller core rules and the FFE CT cd.

 

[jec10]

I would sign up for the MGT 2.0 beta. The price is right and you'll get to improve the rules as you play your campaign.

 

[aramis]

I would sign up for the MGT 2.0 beta. The price is right and you'll get to improve the rules as you play your campaign.

No ship building rules...

 

[robject]

No ship building rules...

I don't recall what they added to the core rules that makes the book larger than 1.0. And they removed animal creation rules.

 

[aramis]

I don't recall what they added to the core rules that makes the book larger than 1.0. And they removed animal creation rules.

Whitespace and larger type. And cybernetics, and a subsector with a paragraph per system.

 

[robject]

Whitespace and larger type. And cybernetics, and a subsector with a paragraph per system.

Ah? Well progress must march on. Just be careful what you're marching on.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

Classic Traveller all the way .... I could never come to grips with the other editions. However there have been some great editions to the canon and story of traveller woven through it all.

 

[simonh]

No ship building rules...

Apparently those will be available to playtesters as word files.

With first edition MGT the original main rulebook needed to stand on it's own feet as a complete playable game and to provide clear value for money. Now that Mongoose have established a solid track record as a Traveller publisher, it makes much more sense to put all the ship design rules in one book as a single design system, rather than the disjointed kind-of-like Bk2 plus kind-of-like Bk5 split we have now. That cruft was useful at the time to create familiarity for Traveller fans, but now it's just a distraction. Mongoose have done a good job updating and improving the MGT mechanics in the last year or two. I can't wait to look through and evaluate the first 3 books as a whole.

I'll be interested to see what they've done with ship design, it sounds like they're departing significantly from the previous system, but from the POV of running a game personally it's a non-issue. I've always used ship stats from different editions interchangeably; the last time I ran an MGT game I created my custom ship designs using HGS in High Guard mode and annotated the resulting designs as necessary for MGT. For me, convenience and utility comes first.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Ulsyus]

One thing to be aware of is that you can purchase the COMPLETE past editions of Traveller on CDROM from FFE at what I believe are great prices:

http://www.farfuture.net/FFE-CDROMs.html

This is a really good point - excellent value for money, and all of the scenarios are fairly easily adapted to the latest version of the rules T5.

I'd have to recommend T5 as the go-to version of the rules these days. The others all have plenty of great reasons for being played, but IMHO T5 is top banana.

 

[robject]

This is a really good point - excellent value for money, and all of the scenarios are fairly easily adapted to the latest version of the rules T5.

I'd have to recommend T5 as the go-to version of the rules these days. The others all have plenty of great reasons for being played, but IMHO T5 is top banana.

And we're working to make it worthy of your compliment. The re-org is a good intermediate stage, as are the current errata corrections.

In my mind, there is one main hurdle to be leapt over: combat.

 

[ffilz]

As I read through, I'm curious what bits might be of interest from the later editions of Traveller. By and large, I'm inclined to stick with Classic Traveller, but if there's interesting bits from later editions, I'd love to hear more. Consider also that I have little to no interest in the OTU.

I am strongly inclined to pick up the MT CD-ROM, and I'd love to hear more about the bits in T20 that could be backported to CT.

Anything of interest in TNE?

Anything of interest in T4?

Anything remotely portable from 2300 AD?

Anything of interest in MGT?

Anything of interest in T5?

Thanks

Frank