This is Free Trader Beowulf - A Complete History of Traveller on PDF & Pre-Order!

[Sigtrygg]

The dead give away is the title of the chapter in LBB:2 - Experience

As I said, there is no XP point system and no levels (which is how I would word it), but there is and always has been a way to develop your character. In CT it was no faster than character generation, and I can guarantee you it was used.
You imply HG was first in this bit: page 43 (pdf 44)

However simultaneous with the publication of High Guard, GDW
was also taking the first, tentative steps to develop (and publish) a
universe all their own.p/quote]

The quote in LBB:4 1978

Traveller assumes a remote centralized government (referred to in this volume as
the Imperium), possessed of great industrial and technological might, but unable,
due to the sheer distances and travel times involved, to exert total control at all
levels everywhere within its star-spanning realm. On the frontiers, extensive home
rule provisions allow planetary populations to choose their own forms of government,
raise and maintain armed forces for local security, pass and enforce laws
governing local conduct, and regulate (within limits) commerce. Defense of the
frontier is mostly provided by local indigenous forces, stiffened by scattered
lmperial naval bases manned by small but extremely sophisticated forces. Conflicting
local interests often settle their differences by force of arms, with lmperial
forces looking quietly the other way, unable to effectively intervene as a police
force in any but the most wide-spread of conflicts without jeopardizing their
primary mission of the defense of the realm. Only when local conflicts threaten
either the security or the economy of the area do lmperial forces take an active
hand, and then it is with speed and overwhelming force.

This to me shows they had the Imperial setting in their mind to publish as far back as 1978.

!979 brought us A:1 Kinunir which detailed the Imperium as a setting in broad (and later to be retconned) strokes,
LBB:5 rephrases the setting mentioned in LBB:4, Supplement 3 gives us the Spinward marches and a description of the Imperium (which immediately had me thinking about Foundation and Gibbon's History of the decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

Imperium: The lrmperium is a strong interstellar government encompassing 281
subsectors and approximately11,000 worlds. Approximately 1100 years old, it
is the third human empire to control this area, the oldest, and the strongest. Nevertheless,
it is under strong pressure from its neighboring interstellar governments,
and does not have the strength nor the power which it once had.

The final Supplement of 1979 was Citizens of the Imperium, which other than the title only mentions Imperial twice in reference to Darth Vader

Why conceit instead of concept? I notice a lot of American's us conceit when concept is a better word.

 

[ottarrus]

Gotta wait a week till payday, but next weekend is planned out already.
And anything written by John Ford, DGP, or the Keith Brothers supercedes anything written by anyone else other than Marc Miller or Frank Chadwick.
There. I said it.

 

[apastuszak]

Will there be an audiobook of this?

 

[Yatima]

Page 66:

Baron’s founder, James Steuard, was a member of the ‘AFC Association’, an interest group for ‘Armored Fighting Vehicles’.

Should that be 'AFV Association'?

J

 

[appelcline]

Page 66:



Should that be 'AFV Association'?

J

AFC is correct. I think the C properly stands for combat? At some time in the editing it looks like my original sentence "an interest group for armored fighting vehicles" got changed to "an interest group for 'Armored Fighting Vehicles'", causing the confusion. Another item for my minor list of tweaks at the end of the weekend, thanks!

 

[appelcline]

The dead give away is the title of the chapter in LBB:2 - Experience

As I said, there is no XP point system and no levels (which is how I would word it), but there is and always has been a way to develop your character. In CT it was no faster than character generation, and I can guarantee you it was used.
You imply HG was first in this bit: page 43 (pdf 44)

"first ... steps" wasn't meant to imply first publication, but of course writing is all about communication. Should be easy enough to to s/the first/its earliest/, thanks.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

Ooh looks like a sed command

My kind of language

 

[appelcline]

Ooh looks like a sed command

My kind of language

Yep. I've been a system administrator and technical writer for most of my professional life, with a few years out doing layout and editing at Chaosium. I still do technical writing a few days a week to pay the bills so that I can work on projects like This is Free Trader Beowulf.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

My forte is RDBMS design, development and implementation, just completed my 3rd Snowflake book

The Aspie in me struggles with all the well thought through data not being in relational tables for common ease of access, maintenance and use. Recent comments on this forum regarding inconsistent representation and use of common data would be much more easily resolved - one for another thread and time I think

Back on topic: Well done for writing your book. I am very much looking forward to reading soon

 

[Sigtrygg]

By the way are you aware of the separate feedback forum/thread for collecting things people notice?

This is Free Trader Beowulf: Errata

Loving this book so far. Other than the "Irish Tubbs controversary" only noticed one typo to this point: p. 70: second column "The Keiths, FASA and GDW were nott" not

forum.mongoosepublishing.com

 

[gilthy]

Picked up the pre-order for the book, and reading the PDF now. It looks awesome! Thanks, Shannon.

"It all started with the purchase of D-Day (1961)" reminds me of my first "gaming" purchase. It was around '78 (making me 13 or 14). And the local bookshop (here in the Netherlands) had someone who was into boardgames (and later on, RPGs) and they carried Avalon Hill and SPI board games. I bought Outreach (SPI, 1976), which has a map depicting a segment of the Milky Way. I tried to make heads or tails of it (and my father tried to help with translating it, his scribbles are still in the rulebook). And then it went on the shelf. I still have it, the plastic cover gone brittle with age...

 

[appelcline]

By the way are you aware of the separate feedback forum/thread for collecting things people notice?

This is Free Trader Beowulf: Errata

Loving this book so far. Other than the "Irish Tubbs controversary" only noticed one typo to this point: p. 70: second column "The Keiths, FASA and GDW were nott" not

forum.mongoosepublishing.com

I wasn't. Thanks!

 

[ThornPlutonius]

To quickly confirm, the file’s visual and other problems are very much apparent on my Mac.

Please could you notify when the files have been updated?

Ta.

EDIT: And also just to say that my account has gone into another stupid loop phase where it asks if I am a robot and tells me my password is incorrect....again. So it looks like I won’t be downloading an updated file any time soon....

I had the same capcha death spiral experience yesterday, for about ten minutes before I finally gave up and reported it to Mongoose (who told me they could do nothing because it is an outsourced security situation).

 

[CordwainerFish]

I had the same capcha death spiral experience yesterday, for about ten minutes before I finally gave up and reported it to Mongoose (who told me they could do nothing because it is an outsourced security situation).

Not to mention having to do a captcha to log in makes about as much sense as a sunroof on a submarine.

 

[ThornPlutonius]

Not to mention having to do a captcha to log in makes about as much sense as a sunroof on a submarine.

2-factor is far better.

 

[Geir]

Not to mention having to do a captcha to log in makes about as much sense as a sunroof on a submarine.

The sunroof is okay, as long as you keep it shut - you can see the pretty fish above you. The screen door on the other hand...

(Okay, the only car I ever had with a sunroof leaked. Not a good thing after I moved to Seattle)

 

[CordwainerFish]

The sunroof is okay, as long as you keep it shut - you can see the pretty fish above you. The screen door on the other hand...

(Okay, the only car I ever had with a sunroof leaked. Not a good thing after I moved to Seattle)

I live in a state where hot air balloons are more common than rain clouds (I am not making that up), so a moonroof is a nice thing to have.

 

[ThornPlutonius]

While I am loving the textual contents of this book, I am quite annoyed by Mongoose's continuing contempt for their paying customers who happen to use Apple computing platforms (MacOS, iOS, iPadOS). This contempt is demonstrated by Mongoose's continuing refusal to deliver pdfs that are compatible with Apple pdf rendering. My copy of the "This Is Free Trader Beowolf" pdf contains many images that will not display because Mongoose appears to be too lazy to ensure that their pdfs are universally usable by ensuring that the images in pdfs are actually compatible with ALL pdf readers. I own copies of hundreds of pdfs produced by many sources, but only Mongoose seems to be unable or unwilling to produce a pdf that will display properly in all pdf readers. The way to do this is well known, but Mongoose consitently ignores the problem, thereby making it clear that they don't want all of us to be Mongoose customers. Fie on Mongoose!

I am sad that Mongoose does not respect Mr. Appelcline's excellent work enough to ensure that it is delivered to all of Mongoose's customers in a problem-free form that is well within their technical capability, but apparently not within the bounds of what they are willing to do.

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's an issue that Apple should solve, not Mongoose.

Are you going to pay for the software and hardware that Mongoose would have to buy because of Apple's decisions?

You yourself could solve the issue by using different hardware and software, and yet you think that is Mongoose's responsibility?

 

[Yatima]

It's an issue that Apple should solve, not Mongoose.

Are you going to pay for the software and hardware that Mongoose would have to buy because of Apple's decisions?

You yourself could solve the issue by using different hardware and software, and yet you think that is Mongoose's responsibility?

You keep saying this, but as has been pointed out to you in this thread, all that is required is for Mongoose to stop using JPG 2000 files with a CMYK colour profile in their books. This can be checked on an iPhone or iPad, very common phones and tablets. It's not that hard.

What is your animus against Apple, exactly? This doesn't impact you personally it seems, but you never pass up an opportunity to jump into any thread this issue is raised in to gripe about the cost to Mongoose and how this isn't their issue. It's a legitimate customer complaint with what seems like a reasonable fix (convert images to a standard format rather than use a mish-mash of different formats).

Let people impacted speak about it, for goodness sake!