Traveller RPG

[Billiam Babble]

I've been struck with a curious affliction recently which I'm finding hard to explain to non-gamers.  Over the last couple of weeks I've been obsessing over "classic" Traveller.

Like many D&D players in the 80's I bought Traveller hoping I would be able to run space opera adventures, only to find it very vague, open ended and perplexingly linked to background or aesthetic that was unrecognisable.  The starter set was aimed at goons like me who could be suckered into buying anything in a D&D shaped box, as opposed to the many pamphlet LLBs (little black books).

The Starter set:

 

Many years later, I've finally read some Asimov, Herbert (and even modern Iain M. Banks), these writers contextualise Traveller much shaper than Star Wars cinematic settings did.  Basically, Traveller made assumptions that a novice Referee would understand a sci-fi unverse where mankind was prevalent on many worlds, with a variety of differing technology levels, where royalty and officialdom went hand in hand, where starships have been around for hundreds of years and laser rifles needed heavy backpacks.  I'm less scared of the rules now, and some time ago made the connection (like many others have) that the trading element of Elite (BBC Micro, Spectrum et al) was based on the world generation and trade systems in Traveller.  

Those innocent strings of numbers!  
Our home planet of the future summarised as:
Terra A867A69-F
I mean that's briefer than "Mostly harmless".

Of course in the Starter Set there's no mention of anything as specific or familiar as Earth - that would be far too 20th Century.  
It babbles about The Imperium, navies, law levels, complex ship construction and missions prompted by "patrons".

Years later I get Traveller 2300 AD and even later the Star Wars RPG - suddenly both games fix my imagination-to-settings incompatibility problems.  2300 AD represented a recognisable future, with chunky tech and a smartering of Aliens hard ware. And Star Wars well, it did what in said on the tin.  I bought many other sci-fi games after that, but these illustrate accessible settings (it was only later that I bought TSR Star Frontiers out of curiosity).

In the odd sale I picked up some modules but they still baffled me - every few years I get out RPGs that I bought and flip through them and still try to work out whether or not they are playable.  Now it's more of an act of nostalgia, or a an analysis of gaming systems, dice mechanics, and so forth.  Traveller is beautifully simple with it's rattle of 2d6s.

Apparently, whilst I was away from RPGs, Traveller has gone through some changes, but now Mongoose have been reviving at least the spirit of the late 70's Traveller.  
 Also, the Internet happened.  
A random search the other day brought up so much stuff.

The Traveller home universe in one handy map:
http://www.travellermap.com/

Adaptable PDFs / sneak peaks of Mongoose's remodelling of classic Traveller:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/series.php?qsSeries=51

Even Wikipedia provides more background information now, than I ever knew before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_(role-playing_game)

A wonderful blog post and thread which had me transfixed:
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/01/no-game-for-young-men.html

d20 Traveller resource site:
http://t20.org.uk/

Another space atlas:
http://www.utzig.com/cgi-bin/iai/map_top.pl

Traveller Wiki
http://traveller.wikia.com/


So of course, I end up bidding on Ebay for Book 5 High Guard, and assorted adventures.

Make it stop!  I'll never own the whole back catalogue and can't start collecting the new Mongoose Publishing books!

I feel the only way to stop me from going after the whole collection of original supplements from second hand merchants and scandalous Ebay-ers is to buy the CD-ROM of PDFs sold by Far Future http://www.farfuture.net/cdroms.html

But as my friend recently said "but isn't the point that you have them in your hand, not on a computer screen"
(this is true, we sniff old games.  Like books, RPGs have a particular smell... )

It's a riddle, you see.  You buy one supplement and it makes a casual reference to something else.  You read about a starship and you want the deck plans ...  or maybe you just want the numbers on the little black books to add up right.

Please tell me that being a retro-completist is not a bad thing. ;)

Do any of you know of any good value 2nd hand games sellers - so I don't lose everything on ebay?

But enough of my nostalgic consumerist anxieties!


Okay, here's one for the miniatures buffs:

In the starter set there was a special offer for a 15mm figure.



Do you think they'd still send me the figure? :)







 

[Billiam Babble]

RPGNow are currently (at time of posting) giving the PDFs for this set away for FREE!

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=80190&filters=0_0_0_0&free=1

Of course, the PDFs won't smell right.