[RPG]: Traveller , reviewed by Jon 45 (2/4)

[RPGnet Reviews]

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13769.phtml

Jon Harmon's Summary:

The venerable <i>Traveller</i>'s latest incarnation is a solid ruleset that serves as a partial introduction to gaming in the Third Imperium.

Go to the full review (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13769.phtml) for more information.

[Stainless]

That's a fairly even handed review. Thanks.

The only thing I'd add is that there are a few typos and a little ambiguity in the first printing, but nothing compared to Mongoose's reputation or what is seen in many other games. Considering how quickly this went from writing to publication, it's not too bad. Thus, hopefully by the third printing (the first printing was sold out within one week of release!), it will see a corrected 2nd edtion.

[mxyzplk]

Yeah, the problem with every single edition of Traveller is that it's not a good introduction to Traveller.

To get any sort of a coherent sense of "what's the Traveller universe like" you always - Gurps Traveller, T20, classic - have to buy an antire suite of books and even then there's pretty fundamental questions about "No really so as a normal citizen, what's it like to... " that go unanswered. It's the achilles heel of Traveller and why it tends to only appeal to the same group of grognards and converts in incarnation after incarnation.

[Takei]

Yeah, the problem with every single edition of Traveller is that it's not a good introduction to Traveller.

To get any sort of a coherent sense of "what's the Traveller universe like" you always - Gurps Traveller, T20, classic - have to buy an antire suite of books and even then there's pretty fundamental questions about "No really so as a normal citizen, what's it like to... " that go unanswered. It's the achilles heel of Traveller and why it tends to only appeal to the same group of grognards and converts in incarnation after incarnation.

I think you're right, although in the case of Mongoose they're looking at using Traveller as the base rulebook for a number of settings. 3I citizen info would be irrelevant in a Judge Dredd game for example. It'll be interesting to see if the Spinward Marches book covers life within the 3I.

[capnzapp]

I think this is because Traveller attracts those interested in "hard sci fi", which in its old school is very hard indeed.

Things like flesh and blood, heart and warmth tend to fall by the wayside when people go bananas designing their own fusion reactor or grav tank.

That's at least my impression. I recall one adventure compilation for GDW's Traveller called "Smash & Grab". It was an utterly uninspiring laundry list of different military maneuvers, basically using high tech to best one Evil Overlord after another.

That might be the ner'ds dream, to finally be able to defeat the jocks using science, but it didn't leave much room for characterization of PCs and NPCs, no intrigue, no drama.

Very hard sci fi indeed...

[Jack Holcomb]

[QUOTE=capnzapp;8866316]I think this is because Traveller attracts those interested in "hard sci fi", which in its old school is very hard indeed.

Traveller attracts a lot of people with a lot of different interests. When I was 12 and I ordered the Starter edition from Sears catalogue for Christmas (no, really! 1983!), I just wanted something space opera. I was a Star Wars nut, the first SW RPG was still five years in the future, and Gamma World and Tunnels and Trolls just weren't getting me there. (And AD&D was what my older brother played...)


Things like flesh and blood, heart and warmth tend to fall by the wayside when people go bananas designing their own fusion reactor or grav tank.

There are gearheads in Traveller fandom--but I don't think they're qualitatively different from, say, the folks who spend a LOT of time figuring out optimum power builds in HERO or M&M, or the folks who look for the best synergistic bangs from their feats in d20, etc. I'd say it's pretty easy for "heart and warmth" to disappear in those deliberations, too. I don't like playing like that, but some do, and I'm not gonna say they're wrong. And since all RPGs are imaginary, I'm not sure what to do with "flesh and blood" there, except to say that Traveller's damage system always made my players VERY aware of their human frailty...

That's at least my impression. I recall one adventure compilation for GDW's Traveller called "Smash & Grab". It was an utterly uninspiring laundry list of different military maneuvers, basically using high tech to best one Evil Overlord after another.

I recall another GDW adventure (a boxed set) called "Tarsus: World Beyond the Frontier" which was about a group of characters who return to one of the PCs' homeworld to help save the family farm from various threats. And I ran most of "The Traveller Adventure" (a LONG campaign), which required all sorts of action, including a lot of interpersonal, in-character play. You could play Traveller any number of ways, and a lot of different options were supported.


That might be the ner'ds dream, to finally be able to defeat the jocks using science, but it didn't leave much room for characterization of PCs and NPCs, no intrigue, no drama.

When I watched the first episode of Firefly, my first thought was, "O my god, this is JUST like Traveller!"--and the characterization, intrigue, and drama were part of that impression. Clearly our experiences differ.

I'm very happy with the new Mongoose version. It feels to me like the return of an old friend--kind of like some of the D&D edition 1.5 stuff I've seen produced under the OGL. In fact, that's how I'd characterize the new version of Traveller: it includes some of the better innovations of later versions (esp. MegaTraveller), but it pulls the game back toward the wide-open feel of the original, mostly setting-less rules. This, in my view, is no bad thing, so long as you know what you're buying.

[satbunny]

I think a 2 for style is harsh. The style is deliberately minimalist and 1950s black and white SF. On that basis it meets the Traveller design remit very well.

[sturmkraehe]

I have to take issue with Capnzapp's conclusion as well.

No, it's not hard sci fi and no, it's not a game that values technology and vehicle design above character development. It's what you make of it just like any other RPG out there. As far as RPG's go, though, it's pretty abstract. This abstractness gives the GM a lot of latitude to build plot on the fly, but also requires the GM to be pretty creative.

What value you get from this game has a lot to do with what is put into it and I don't think the rules can be faulted if Capnzapp's experience was less than stellar.

" That might be the ner'ds dream, to finally be able to defeat the jocks using science, but it didn't leave much room for characterization of PCs and NPCs, no intrigue, no drama."

I find this statement ridiculous and demeaning. I suggest capnzapp try playing Traveller with a real GM. :-)

[Halfjack]

...and even then there's pretty fundamental questions about "No really so as a normal citizen, what's it like to... " that go unanswered.

There is no "normal citizen" in an empire composed of thousands of relatively autonomous and worlds with wildly divergent technologies, ecologies, and politics. *That* is what's daunting to newcomers to Traveller. It's a thousand settings in one.

[Jack Holcomb]

That's a great point, Halfjack. (I like your handle, BTW--so who's the other half?)

Not only do I like your point, but I'll amplify it. How many RPG settings go to any lengths to explain what "normal citizens" (whatever that means) do, esp in the main rulebook? Other than Harn, fantasy settings generally gloss it over--peasants is peasants, right? But even SF settings are generally pretty focused on big sociopolitical stuff, not people's daily lives.

The best SF game I ever played in was Blue Planet, and my GM, Jeff, kept having to remind us to change our assumptions. All of us had very small, very powerful computers with highly independent AI on us all the time--standard issue stuff in that setting--and we had to get in the habit of having that sort of processing power and search capability on CONSTANTLY.

And BP is a pretty unified setting next to Traveller. You can fit pretty much any society you can imagine into the Traveller framework. You have to bring your (sociological) imagination along when you run it.

Jack

[mxyzplk]

But "it's diverse" is a copout. Somehow they manage to generate lots of setting information in all the additional books. And the grognard community certainly doesn't treat any of that as optional suggested information as if this really were a "freeform" rpg.

And by everyday, I don't mean some peasant somewhere, I mean the average Traveller. How does one normally travel from star to star, are there starliners? Or is it always booking passage on smaller ships? How much interstellar trade is there? Does every single ship get boarded and searched by customs or is it like seaports today where maybe .5% of stuff gets looked at? In a universe with different "tech levels" what exactly is the legality/implications of carting a ship full of iPods to the renaissance planet? Etc. All of these are fundamental assumptions that change the way a game would run for PCs.

Anyway, the setting comes out later in big chunks, and it's a design laziness ported from the earliest versions that there's info in the core book - or even a core setting book - to sum it up. You all have heard of other settings for other RPGs and how they work right? Here's the main FR book that gives you the general stuff and then here's the neverending line of splatbooks that goes into detail?

Here, you have no idea how e.g. the military works in the future until you buy whichever military book they put out first. And then, future military books have the poor grace to refer to that book for stuff unveiled there, so you have to get all or nothing. It's a bad decision that hasn't been replicated by other RPGs despite Traveller certainly not being the only large scale or sci-fi or whatever other descriptor you care to put on it out there.

[Jack Holcomb]

But "it's diverse" is a copout.

Obviously I disagree. More on that below.

Somehow they manage to generate lots of setting information in all the additional books. And the grognard community certainly doesn't treat any of that as optional suggested information as if this really were a "freeform" rpg.

I hope you'll correct me if I misconstrue what you're trying to say here. If I do understand you, I think that you're simply mistaken about this.

I'm no expert, and I'm not sure I even qualify as a member of the grognard community, but you don't have to hang around a Traveller forum (e.g. Citizens of the Imperium) for very long before you pick up on the "IMTU" meme--that is, "In My Traveller Universe." There's a LOT of latitude in the fan community for Traveller players to pick and choose the parts of the Imperium setting that work for them, or even to reject it altogether. There seems to be a strong "let a thousand flowers bloom" ethic among Traveller players--thus the multitude of rules adaptations and the panoply of milieux and alternate histories both in and out of the Imperium canon.

Yes, there are probably some Traveller fundies out there, and like all fundies they're probably hard to reason with. I've seen no indication that they're a majority or even a significant minority.

And by everyday, I don't mean some peasant somewhere, I mean the average Traveller.

Thanks for clarifying that. Obviously, that's not how I read it.

How does one normally travel from star to star, are there starliners? Or is it always booking passage on smaller ships? How much interstellar trade is there? Does every single ship get boarded and searched by customs or is it like seaports today where maybe .5% of stuff gets looked at? In a universe with different "tech levels" what exactly is the legality/implications of carting a ship full of iPods to the renaissance planet? Etc. All of these are fundamental assumptions that change the way a game would run for PCs.

Traveller is meant as a generic game system in the same way that D&D is a generic game system--it's meant to generate certain kinds of characters and stories within fairly broad constraints. The Mongoose version is trying to go back that direction. Surely the flavorful details you ask for are better left to the game master to decide upon. Your Lensman game will look very different from my Firefly game--and (in the Imperium milieu) your Spinward Marches game will look very different from my Crucis Margin game. Yes, there's that cop-out again.

Anyway, the setting comes out later in big chunks, and it's a design laziness ported from the earliest versions that there's info in the core book - or even a core setting book - to sum it up. You all have heard of other settings for other RPGs and how they work right? Here's the main FR book that gives you the general stuff and then here's the neverending line of splatbooks that goes into detail?

Can we please be friends? I'm feeling a little attacked here. I'm also a little confused about the jab at splatbooks--it sounds like you're knocking them at the same time you're arguing that that's how RPG settings have to work.

OK, so here's the bit where I explain how "it's diverse" is no cop-out: Traveller's setting is, and has always been, a generative, DIY setting--not freeform, but full of potential and arrived at via processes laid out in the core book and GM creativity.
There are a lot of setting assumptions hard-coded in the game's systems, and the Imperium is only one of many possible instantiations of those assumptions. Character creation tells you that the military is a big deal here; the starship and other technology rules tell you that space travel is the only thing holding this setting together; the commerce rules give you a sense of the mechanism for that. The world creation rules give you a sense of the breadth of the setting--it potentially includes an enormous diversity of worlds.

Traveller also intentionally leaves it to the GM to work out a lot of the details. This was part of Traveller's ethic from the beginning, and if you read some of the old adventures they were unapologetic about leaving some work to the GM. I certainly get it if you want something a little more determined for your game; I like this.

Here, you have no idea how e.g. the military works in the future until you buy whichever military book they put out first. And then, future military books have the poor grace to refer to that book for stuff unveiled there, so you have to get all or nothing. It's a bad decision that hasn't been replicated by other RPGs despite Traveller certainly not being the only large scale or sci-fi or whatever other descriptor you care to put on it out there.[/QUOTE]

Does the Fading Suns core book give you a good idea how the military works in that universe? There's a lot of implied feudal stuff and Brother Battle and the Muster, but how does it all fit together? If you're like me you made it up, and when the book came out you worked it in or ignored it or some combination.

Do you have a solid notion of the workings of the GEO marshalls from the core Blue Planet books? What are their official powers, what are the laws they enforce, etc? If you're like me you made it up, and ditto the above.

I know, I know--I keep copping out. I can't get around the fact that ultimately every RPG core book has to stop and say "We leave the rest of this setting as an exercise for the reader." Sounds to me like the Traveller core book stops too soon for you, but I'd argue that it stops where it does as a matter of design. It's not your cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's a bad cup of tea.

[mxyzplk]

It would be one thing if Traveller was truly sold as a generic ruleset. It's not. The Imperium is interlaced into the core rules. Just not enough to use really, and then there's no single starter source on the setting.

My gripe isn't so much with the core book per se as the way the Imperium setting is always done. I'd be fine with:

Core "generic" rules
Imperium setting book <-- here's the problem, this doesn't exist
Specific setting splatbooks

-or-

Core rulebook with sufficient Imperium setting info <- also does not exist
Setting specific splatbooks

Only the oldest games- Traveller, D&D - get away with the sloppy design of having rules that are kinda generic but really are spiked with loads of setting assumptions that you'd have to go clean out to really use them as a generic ruleset. Traveller compounds this by, for no reason other than tradition, not having a good setting overview - in the core or in a "Meet the Imperium" dedicated book - but instead a series of splatbooks.

Sure, people like Traveller and get it and revamp the rules to use in other settings. It doesn't change the fact that that's not the way Traveller is designed and thus it supports that use case more poorly than if it were designed that way.

Fading Suns had about a dozen times as much setting info in its corebook as Traveller does, and then it had the "player's companion" that provided more setting info and options. *Then* it had the splatbooks.

Look, no fault of Traveller's initial design, it's fine for the 1970s when people didn't know any better. The other games put out then largely did the same thing. But somehow every modern version of Traveller feels constrained to make the same mistake, and even put out the same damn supplements named the same damn things. That's unhealthy.

[Jack Holcomb]

At risk of being the guy who won't let the other guy have the last word...

1) Part of the publicized intent of Mongoose Traveller has been to provide a platform for a variety of SF settings, including a reboot of the Starship Troopers setting and Strontium Dogs. Given that Mongoose also has had the license for Babylon 5, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it reappear as part of the new Traveller set of games. So to say that the new Traveller isn't really being sold as a generic ruleset seems kind of odd.

2) We might be using the word "generic" differently. I'm using it to mean "tied to a genre" rather than "without genre or setting assumptions." Yes, D&D and Traveller rules both have hardwired assumptions about the kind of stories, characters, and settings they will support. They don't pretend to be GURPS or Savage Worlds, and yes, they expect you'll DIY if you want to adapt it to something else. There are lots of gamers who are fine with that, and even consider that kind of design a feature, not a bug.

3) Yes, Fading Suns had a lot more setting in the core book. My point was that there's still a point at which you have to pick up the setting and make it up yourself, even with humpty-zillion splatbooks. You want more filled in from the start, and you want it filled in deductively--starting with the big picture and working down to details in splats. I get that, that's fine, but it's not the only way to do it, and there are plenty of us out here who like Traveller's approach and don't feel it's a mistake, much less that it's somehow unhealthy.

4) That said, the first two supplements for Traveller, shipping this month (or so the story goes), are 760 Patrons (the adventure book) and the Spinward Marches setting. There you go. Instant setting support.

OK, I'm letting this thread go now, so you get the last word if you want it. (I promise I'll read it.) Thanks for the conversation.

Jack

[mxyzplk]

Sure, and we'll see, I hope it goes well! I don't dislike Traveller, I like it - or more specifically, I want to like it. I have T20, which unfortunately was poor from both a rules and setting standpoint (see my review on this site for that one), and GURPS:Traveller, which while rich and high quality suffered from the no sufficient overview product/interdependent splatbook syndrome. But especially with it being OGL I am behind Mongoose Traveller; I bought it today in fact, as soon as my FLGS had it.

Of course you always have to make up some yourself - even in a setting as gratuitously detailed as the Forgotten Realms or similar - my concern is more that:

If you want to do the standard Imperium setting,
How do you get an overview of the setting standard enough so that it doesn't *have* to be gratuitously different from other people's Imperium campaigns or require you to do loads of guesswork,
Without buying (and waiting 5 years for) a long line of 10 highly targetted splatbooks? (Or relying on older lines, which is cheating.)

[mRgUnN]

Dear All:

I just got my copy of Mongoose's new release of the Traveller Core Rule book. I am very disappointed in the poor materials quality of this, my first Mongoose product.

The book is printed in black and white only, the paper is very cheap standard 20# stock; and the binding is glued rather than sewn. For a list price of $39.95, I expect better. By comparison; I got a copy of GURPS Space on the same day, the list price is $34.95, and the materials quality is far superior. GURPS Space is full color and the paper is high quality magazine stock; although the binding is glued as well.

Regards,

mRgUnN

[mRgUnN]

Yeah, the problem with every single edition of Traveller is that it's not a good introduction to Traveller.

Interesting take, one thing I noticed about the Character Creation section that tends to support your argument is, it did not mention anything about the races or types of humans. The first mention comes briefly in the aliens section, but no other details.

Regards,

mRgUnN

[RobertFisher]

I think the middle-of-the-road approach of an implied setting has been one of the great strengths of both classic Traveller and D&D. I think this is part of what made them especially suited to newcomers to the hobby.

Games that strive to be more generic have their place, and I enjoy them. Games that are more closely tied to a specific setting have their place, and I enjoy them. Yet, there is still a place for games that take a moderate approach. It is neither sloppy nor ignorance.

Should there be a general “intro to the Imperium” book? Perhaps.

[sunherd]

First I'l like to say: Great review. I'm definately buying this.

I've been looking for a good modern scifi game without a setting for many years now and this seems like a great system for a home-brewn world.

By comparison; I got a copy of GURPS Space on the same day, the list price is $34.95, and the materials quality is far superior. GURPS Space is full color and the paper is high quality magazine stock;

In my eyes the "black&white with simple pics" is a BIG plus. I have actually wanted to buy the recent GURPS books but all that "eye candy" gave me serious headache when I just looked at the pages in a shop :) So, a matter of taste, actually, not so much "bad quality". Simple is beautiful, and can be moody too when well done.