I can't believe we are at the end of May now. My plans had been to do a Sci-Fi month featuring Traveller but also doing some other games as well. The month got away from me and as I started my deep dive I decided to focus more and more attention on Traveller alone. And that is ok. This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time.
I do feel bad I did not get to Starfinder or the Expanse RPGs. I also wanted to review The Lucanii Drift adventure. I am sure I will get to those sooner or later.
Here is a list of all the Traveller posts I made in May.
- Mayday, Mayday! This is the Free Trader Beowulf... (Introduction)
- Review: Classic (Basic) Traveller
- Review: The Traveller Book (1982)
- Review: The Traveller Adventure (1983)
- Review & Retrospective: Traveller Board Games
- Review: Traveller Starter Edition (1983)
- Review: Traveller Alien Modules (1984 - 1987), Part 1
- Review: Traveller Alien Modules (1984 - 1987), Part 2
- This Old Dragon: Retrospective, The Traveller Articles
- Review: 2300 AD Traveller: 2300 (1986)
- Review: MegaTraveller (1987)
- Review: Traveller: The New Era (1993)
- Review: T4 Marc Miller's Traveller (1996)
- Review: Traveller20 (2002-2007)
- Review: Traveller Main Rulebook (2008)
- Review: T5 Traveller5 Core Rules 3-Book Set (2015)
- Review: Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition (2016, 2022)
- Review: Traveller and Cepheus SRDs
There is much, much more I could have done. There is 45 years worth of Traveller materials out there and I only scratched the surface.
I do want to thank everyone that came by and commented, shared their own interactions with the various rule systems, gave me advice and corrections. You helped make this a better series.
I suppose the natural question to ask is "Which edition(s) will I be playing?" I think it is a toss-up between the Classic 1977 Traveller and the new Mongoose Traveller. Both seem like they will do everything I want.
Next May I am thinking of doing Star Trek RPGs. Focusing on the FASA and Mōdiphiüs versions but also looking into the Last Unicorn Games and Decipher versions as well as the various versions of Starfleet Battles. It would have been great to do that one this year given all the Star Trek we have had on TV of late, but Traveller really had to come first. Maybe one day I'll do Star Wars.
Moving into June where I want to get back to some D&D! (Stranger Things is back!) I also want to get more monster book reviews in.
Soon after that, I have something special planned I am calling "100 Days till Halloween." So keep an eye out for that.
3 comments:
Before you wrap this month, I keep forgetting to link this RPG.net article:
https://www.rpg.net/columns/advanced-designers-and-dragons/advanced-designers-and-dragons65.phtml
If you haven't seen it already, it's got a fascinating rundown on GDW's sales figures from 1977 to 1986, with a link to the earlier article in the series with some more data. Traveller really put the company in the big time, and it grew by leaps and bounds during the early days when scifi RPGs were few and far between. That changed in 1982 when Star Frontiers and FASA Star Trek came out, and they never really recovered from the impact of having some very serious competition crop up.
Well worth a look to see what was going on behind the scenes in the early days of Traveller. I'm hoping the author continues the series, hopefully giving us data for later in GDW's lifespan.
I have both editions of Traveller 2300, which is a sequel to Twilight 2000 and has nothing to do with the Traveller-verse. For sci-fi these days though I like SWN:RE. Tim Brown would like to do another hardcore sci-fi game like he did with 2300 but doesn’t have the time. I wonder just how much of a market there is for a hardcore sci-fi TTRPG these days though. How many people play Fading Suns, or SWN, or any edition of Traveller or even 2300?
As for which version to play, my favorites are The Traveller Book, Cepheus Light (not the Upgraded version), or Mongoose 2nd Edition. Each has its own charms, and it's not too hard to use content interchangeably.
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