Reign of Discordia setting

[AndrewW]

Looks like the printed edition has made it to the schedule for an April 2010 release as expected:

Reign of Discordia is the core setting book in line of the same name by the celebrated game designer Darrin Drader and Reality Deviant Publications. RoD gives you what you need to know about the galactic civilization following the fall of the Stellar Imperium. Future sourcebooks and adventures will further add to the dynamic space opera setting presented in this core setting book.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/ ... =Traveller

[GamerDude]

Looks nice although only 7 careers seems a little "lite" for Traveller... but we'll see when it comes out.

[Treebore]

Awesome! I have the PDF (it was part of the Haiti drive at RPGNow) and was reading through it as much as I could (I HATE reading PDF's!!) and it was looking real good, so I'll definitely buy this so I can actually enjoy the reading experience.

[BP]

... (I HATE reading PDF's!!) ...

Yeah - and I have thousands of them...

Lately I've switched from using 2 high quality portrait 24" monitors to an inexpensive 32" widescreen HD TV ($400~500 U.S.) mounted sideways...

I had to build a custom mobile stand (to play with heights, room/light positions) and desk but man is it ever sweet! I'm now at the proper 4-6 ft from the screen (normal 'resting' distance for the human eye) with big crisp fonts and squint free whole page reading (though some powerpoint style pdfs are less desirable!).

It also is really great for reading online material (which is almost never formated for wide screen, much less normal landscape viewing) and for writing (and coding).

My custom stand/mount allows for swivelling and lowering for comfortably watching movies (I am still partial to my projector, but this is safely mobile and doesn't cost me an expensive bulb).

[Special note: LCD TVs aren't really made to go portrait - mine even states this - because they are made to let the heat rise. I mounted some old quite computer fans to a switched power supply to push and pull air thru - it will likely make the TV last even longer...]

P.S. - Oh yeah - and the new Amazon Kindle looks really sweet - its creen is pretty decent. They have a ~$250 digest size version (the one I saw) and a larger more expensive version. You can easily put PDFs on this (and a few other formats). Its has a nice feel, crisp and readable in sunlight and supposedly has a decent battery life.

[Morden]

Looks nice although only 7 careers seems a little "lite" for Traveller... but we'll see when it comes out.

Hey Gamerdude,

As the author of the setting and the guy who did most of the conversion to Traveller, let me tell you a little more about what you can expect and what my design philosophy was in creating the Traveller version. First of all, though this is a new setting, I wanted you to be able to port over as much material from the standard Traveller game to this one. I wanted this to be a new setting in the sense that there are different races, a different history, and a whole different set of conflicts, but in terms of rules, I wanted it to be as seamless as possible with the core of Traveller. That's the reason that I didn't focus on careers with this book. The bottom line is that the generic careers that you'll find in Mongoose's standard rulebooks will work perfectly well in this setting. In most cases, the technology transfers over on a 1:1 basis. There's only a few minor cases where that isn't the case, and you can probably find them fairly quickly once you have the book in hand. One major difference is that fuel must be mined from the atmosphere of gas giants and ships do not possess scoops - something that can be retrofitted into the standard Traveller ships by eliminating one entry on the ship sheet.

In short, what you'll find in this book is lots of setting material - not so much for new rules.

For those of you who are already enjoying it in PDF format - I hope you're enjoying it. I was proud that my book was able to offer some measure of relief for the people of Haiti.

[AndrewW]

One major difference is that fuel must be mined from the atmosphere of gas giants and ships do not possess scoops - something that can be retrofitted into the standard Traveller ships by eliminating one entry on the ship sheet.

Putting fuel scoops on the ship's is a matter of adding to the ship sheet, normally with Traveller streamlined ships have them anyway and some of the ones in the setting are streamlined and can be assumed to posses them if this change is desired. One would probably also want to add fuel processors in this case to refine the fuel, this could be taken from the cargo space.

[Travellingdave]

Putting fuel scoops on the ship's is a matter of adding to the ship sheet, normally with Traveller streamlined ships have them anyway and some of the ones in the setting are streamlined and can be assumed to posses them if this change is desired. One would probably also want to add fuel processors in this case to refine the fuel, this could be taken from the cargo space.

I think he means that fuel cannot be scooped by ships in his campaign world; it must be processed by special stations. Now, if you're taking about retro-fitting Discordia ships to work in regular Traveller, you're absolutely right.

I have the PDF and have quite enjoyed it. It's an interesting, post-Imperial collapse setting with a lot of adventure hooks. There's also a wealth of material there that can be ported into any Traveller game, like new races and technology, even if you don't use the universe that's given.

[AndrewW]

Putting fuel scoops on the ship's is a matter of adding to the ship sheet, normally with Traveller streamlined ships have them anyway and some of the ones in the setting are streamlined and can be assumed to posses them if this change is desired. One would probably also want to add fuel processors in this case to refine the fuel, this could be taken from the cargo space.

I think he means that fuel cannot be scooped by ships in his campaign world; it must be processed by special stations. Now, if you're taking about retro-fitting Discordia ships to work in regular Traveller, you're absolutely right.

Right that is what he meant. And I was referring to if you wanted to make them closer to Traveller, I did say if this was desired. Having done the ships for the Traveller conversion I'm aware of their capabilities...

[Travellingdave]

Right that is what he meant. And I was referring to if you wanted to make them closer to Traveller, I did say if this was desired. Having done the ships for the Traveller conversion I'm aware of their capabilities...

My apologies: I was unclear as to your intent and authorship. And if you did the ship conversions for the Discordia book in the first place, you'd certainly know.

I actually liked the fact that you couldn't skim in the Discordia universe. It was another bit that made it feel different from "regular" Traveller.

[AndrewW]

My apologies: I was unclear as to your intent and authorship. And if you did the ship conversions for the Discordia book in the first place, you'd certainly know.

I actually liked the fact that you couldn't skim in the Discordia universe. It was another bit that made it feel different from "regular" Traveller.

No apologies needed. Yup, I tried to do that with the deckplans as well by giving them more space then the Mongoose stuff.

[kafka]

Reign of Discordia is nice tidy session. I have written a review of it for Freelance Traveller (after RPG.net rejected it on the grounds it was too short -- 2 pages!).

Essentially, my review said it is a good setting but I found that it needs more detail to make it work. I have the d20 stuff and tried not be distracted by what I already know. So I only hope that more supplements will be forthcoming, as it is a different universe than the OTU (and a very good one) but the PDF/Main book leaves you wanting more...so perhaps some free things on the website or other low cost alternatives to bridge the gap between the release of the mainbook and the supplements that will follow.

[Morden]

Essentially, my review said it is a good setting but I found that it needs more detail to make it work. I have the d20 stuff and tried not be distracted by what I already know. So I only hope that more supplements will be forthcoming, as it is a different universe than the OTU (and a very good one) but the PDF/Main book leaves you wanting more...so perhaps some free things on the website or other low cost alternatives to bridge the gap between the release of the mainbook and the supplements that will follow.

I doubt you'll be disappointed. We have plans for the setting that include some low-cost material and additional books. Thanks for taking the time to write a review.

[FreeTrav]

Reign of Discordia is nice tidy session. I have written a review of it for Freelance Traveller (after RPG.net rejected it on the grounds it was too short -- 2 pages!).

I momentarily thought you'd forgotten to send this on, but on a quick dig through the various email boxes, I've found it. Per your request, I will not be posting it under your name - but I'd prefer to use the obvious pseudo-that-looks-like-a-name of "Franz Kafka" instead of just "kafka". Is this OK, or do you have a different preference?

[kafka]

Reign of Discordia is nice tidy session. I have written a review of it for Freelance Traveller (after RPG.net rejected it on the grounds it was too short -- 2 pages!).

I momentarily thought you'd forgotten to send this on, but on a quick dig through the various email boxes, I've found it. Per your request, I will not be posting it under your name - but I'd prefer to use the obvious pseudo-that-looks-like-a-name of "Franz Kafka" instead of just "kafka". Is this OK, or do you have a different preference?

just kafka is fine. Hopefully, it will the start of many reviews/articles. As I really support the endeavours of the fan community and feel it is my time to give back.

I doubt you'll be disappointed. We have plans for the setting that include some low-cost material and additional books. Thanks for taking the time to write a review.

Thanks for providing me with the PDF. I am always happy to review stuff.

[serene_muse]

My first thought on skimming this (from the Aid Bundle) was Star Frontiers' setting thought out with a bit of grit. For Traveller.

Excellent!

[Vile]

Looks nice although only 7 careers seems a little "lite" for Traveller... but we'll see when it comes out.

The bottom line is that the generic careers that you'll find in Mongoose's standard rulebooks will work perfectly well in this setting.

Not to mention one or two other career supplements from third party publishers!