[RPG]: The Spinward Marches, reviewed by ShannonA (3/5)

[RPGnet Reviews]

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14307.phtml

Shannon Appelcline's Summary:

At times dry and at times brilliant, The Spinward Marches should be the first book in the library of any Mongoose Traveller GM running a game in the area.

Go to the full review (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14307.phtml) for more information.

[disziplin]

This was a very helpful review. I purchased the book based on it. Thank you.

[ldd23]

Thanks for the review. I dig the Traveller setting, and I've been wondering how the new books stack up against what's already out there.

[ShannonA]

I've got reviews of the two CT books coming up, so you should get some close comparisons over the next few RPG review days.

[mxyzplk]

So from your description - how much is this useful as a intro to the Imperium setting overall, for someone who's *not* a grognard? It sounds like it's not completely just a splatbook about the Marches, but is the Imperium intro product as well? So some other subsequent book about another part of the setting would probably semi-require this one?

One of the things I find the most frustrating about Traveller (at least T20 and MonTrav) is looking for what book is supposed to be "The Third Imperium Setting Intro, Not Just For Someone Who Already Knows It Anyway."

[ShannonA]

So from your description - how much is this useful as a intro to the Imperium setting overall, for someone who's *not* a grognard? It sounds like it's not completely just a splatbook about the Marches, but is the Imperium intro product as well? So some other subsequent book about another part of the setting would probably semi-require this one?

One of the things I find the most frustrating about Traveller (at least T20 and MonTrav) is looking for what book is supposed to be "The Third Imperium Setting Intro, Not Just For Someone Who Already Knows It Anyway."

The introduction to the Imperium covers 37 out of 140 pages. I'm pretty sure it's the only general introduction you're going to see (unless this gets pulled out and put into a saddle-stitched book or something).

It's clearly intended to be pretty basic. It includes "concepts and terminology" (which discusses a lot of the specific ways the universe works), a look at the main intelligent species, a history of the imperiums, and a discussions of how all the services, megacorps, nobles, and military elements work. As I said in my review, it enlightened me more as to how society is supposed to work and I thought it was the best part of the book.

As for the question of needing this book for totally separate areas: my impression is that The Spinward Marches is going to be used as Traveller's basic setting, period. There haven't been any other "Third Imperium" books on the schedule since 2008, but there are now two for this Summer. "Aslan" is going to cover The Trojan Reaches, which is directly rimward ("south") of The Spinward Marches, and "Tripwire" is set in Jewell, one of the Spinward Marches' subsectors.

(And as you'll see in my reviews over the upcoming months, there's a *lot* of great additional material you can find on the area as well.)

[mxyzplk]

Cool, thanks.

[committed hero]

Does this book have totally new material from what MJD wrote in Behind the Claw?

[ShannonA]

Does this book have totally new material from what MJD wrote in Behind the Claw?

I dunno. My previously unread copy of Behind the Claw is on-loan right now. I'll write a review of it when I get it back and I'll definitely talk about any content similarities then. All the reviews should be on this RSS feed if you want to watch for them:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/draw-rss.phtml?productLine=Traveller%3A+Spinward+Marches

My guess would be it's new material, because the writing in Behind the Claw was likely work-for-hire for Steve Jackson Games.

[Roger Calver]

Its new material but some of it of course crosses over with the content from BtC as both are linked to the OTU.