Which Traveller Version Your Favorite & Why?

[Bravesteel]

So, I'm hoping we can have a completely positive discussion about this without going off the deep end.

Which version of Traveller is your favorite and why?

I would say that my favorite version of Traveller is Mongoose Traveller simply because it is easier for me to digest as a new player, and the books being readily available doesn't hurt.

 

[ffilz]

Classic Traveller for all the reasons Christopher Kubasik has been discussing here, on his blog, and other places.

The only other version I ever played was Mega Traveller, though I also own Mongoose, have owned T4 (and maybe TNE), and GURPS (and actually have at least some GT one account of having the 2nd Gurps Traveller CD-ROM).

 

[aramis]

So, I'm hoping we can have a completely positive discussion about this without going off the deep end.

Which version of Traveller is your favorite and why?

My homebrew rewrite of MT from CT and MT's first Principles.

Tasks at 3 point intervals, Striker style ranges, MT basic char gen. Haven't decided my ship paradigm yet...

 

[Whipsnade]

Classic Traveller for all the reasons Christopher Kubasik has been discussing here, on his blog, and other places.

Ditto.

I can easily "bolt on" bits and pieces from many other sources more because 1) I'm familiar with CT and 2) CT's structure makes it easy.

 

[The Pakkrat]

How to Earn My Business

And now the Business Section of Net-7 News...

Though MegaTraveller had its world content, beauty and story strife in its offered time period, I found I enjoy Mongoose Traveller in actual play.

Back in the late '80s, I purchased a short stack of on-sale MegaTraveller books at the friendly local gaming store. This was still the era of gaming fear, so sci-fi gaming was less stigmatized. At that high school age, the crunch of the game and the science was beyond my simple EDU of 6.

Today, I enjoy playing Mongoose Traveller because it is user-friendly to those new to science fiction gaming. Having come off a Fifth Frontier War setting using Mongoose 1st Ed., I can say it served me and the players well. All of us had a codified and collected set of gaming books to draw from and a baseline agreement of how I would run the game. From there, the players were happy to hear that I would draw from MegaTraveller and Traveller⁵ to aid in setting building and timelines to provide backdrop to the time period of 1107-1110. Psionics was made easier to understand, and tweak with individual flavor, without elevating it to superpowers in intensity.

Were I to sit in the Referee hot-seat again, I would progress to Mongoose 2nd Ed. as the Trade and Commerce rules of 1st Ed. made our group rich due to the fact that with enough Effect on a Broker roll, a profit of a game-breaking 400% could be attained. By the time we realized the game-breaking problem, our troubleshooting Travellers were stinking filthy rich with no real reason to keep Travelling. Mongoose 2nd Ed., I believe capped the profits in Trade and Commerce to 160%. That's much better.

I would love to see an Edition of Traveller that addresses the years 1133-1190, the years of (and I shudder to say it any louder than a whisper) Collapse right up and just before The New Era. I feel there is much story to be told in those years as not all of my favorite Gvurrdon Sector fell off the map and into the Wilds.

An Edition that takes the current Mongoose crunch and adds more story, on a Sector or subsector scope, would earn my business.

From a Market terminal at Roethoeegaeaegz Highport, this is the Pakkrat for the Net-7 News Business Section.

 

[GM Joe]

CT is my favorite edition. It's simple, I know it like the back of my hand, and nothing that's come along since has been better for me versus stealing the bits I like and using them with CT.

But the bottom line is that none of the editions that came after CT have captured my imagination as much, nor have they worked as well for me in play. There's something good in each, but none of them has been, on the whole, better than CT at being a fun Traveller game for me and my players.

 

[Vargas]

CT is my favorite edition. It's simple, I know it like the back of my hand, and nothing that's come along since has been better for me versus stealing the bits I like and using them with CT.

But the bottom line is that none of the editions that came after CT have captured my imagination as much, nor have they worked as well for me in play. There's something good in each, but none of them has been, on the whole, better than CT at being a fun Traveller game for me and my players.

This. Plus I own all of the GDW books and see no reason to invest more money in the game. (I also bought MT, TNE and GT; I've sold off the last two).

 

[Quint]

I marked CT, but it's a more complicated answer than that, currently I'm using or planning to use a CE re-write. I have really loved the various editions explorations of various era's of the 3I, but I'm done trying to run a 3I game because there's too much to keep track of, make sense of, and my players don't care.

I really liked character generation in MT, so I'm stealing some of that. I really liked some of the mechanics of MgT, so I using CE rather than CT. I like the simplicity of CT ship design, but I also like some of the related elements of T5, so I'm taking those. I love some of the verisimilitude of the details in GT and T4 so I'll steal them for use with my Imperium.

But mostly I enjoy a simple game engine, with a more CT or PT setting.

D.

 

[flykiller]

I can easily "bolt on" bits and pieces from many other sources more because 1) I'm familiar with CT and 2) CT's structure makes it easy.

I suspect reason 1 is the big driver. as for 2, surely you mean the lack of structure? ct seems more of a setting than a game.

 

[rhialto]

as for 2, surely you mean the lack of structure? ct seems more of a setting than a game.

Not if you only use LBB 1 - 3, S1, S2 and S4: much more game than setting then.

 

[LeperColony]

TNE for life! Though the actual system is terrible.

 

[savage]

T20 - I converted D&Ders with it. But i think this is more of a preference than a favorite. I like elements of TNE/MT. I liked playing CT.

Gurps and T5 are resources for me. T5 could use a few products of its own.

Mongoose. If i we're starting from nothing I'd got with MgT probably because of the wealth of material. However, I'd use MgT v1 because I own it and don't want to spend more on systems.

 

[sfchbryan]

I go with MT myself.

I don't actually have to flip through a pile of books looking for a task, I simply generate one on the spot.

Once you have a set of manuals that have all of the errata integrated into it (and in my case, anything else I found useful), you have a robust rules set that can be used in any milieu.

I don't use the Rebellion timeline, of course - that was an utter pile of poo.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

As a rule system, I favor MgT overall because the task resolution system is streamlined compared to CT and made a bit more robust compared to MT. The combat system allows for potential multiple actions per combat round.

For campaigns, well, Solomani über alles.

If it sounds jingoistic, guilty as charged.

 

[Reynard]

Any one true favorite is difficult as I love Traveller in general (and own them all). Classic is alright in it's simplistic way and I believe Mongoose did it great honor by answering the questions "What would Classic be like if we modernized it while keeping the basics.". Mongoose make the game simple and subsequently fun.

I loved MegaTraveller for its detail of information down to the almost literal nuts and bolts for us construction fanatics which leads to my love for T5's detailing including making non-humans really part of the game.

 

[infojunky]

Can't we love all of them?

In that I have found bits in every edition that I have found useful.

 

[mike wightman]

As a rules system to base my homebrew on then CT.

As a setting CT's proto-Imperium, MT's Hard Times and TNE are equally interesting to me.

My most played setting is my episodic Long Night campaign.

 

[Quint]

Can't we love all of them?

In that I have found bits in every edition that I have found useful.

Agreed, I have found Hard Times excellent for applying changes to UWP's post-conflict.

D.

 

[coliver988]

Can't we love all of them?

In that I have found bits in every edition that I have found useful.

Pretty much that. My baseline is CT for the simplicity, but I borrow a lot from several other versions.

 

[Bravesteel]

Pretty much that. My baseline is CT for the simplicity, but I borrow a lot from several other versions.

You know, as I begin to understand more and more I find that I am coming around to this approach.

T5 makes my brain hurt, and makes me feel like an idiot when I have to reread the same page over and over, but I can tell it has a lot of good ideas.

Mongoose Traveller is great, but seems to go a little farther down the "gamist" path than I would prefer.

Changing vote to Classic Traveller from Mongoose Traveller.