Recent content by FreeTrav

Much better; thank you!

What was, IMO, even more annoying was that it was Imperial measurements for the US (or North American) editions only. Overseas editions were SI-ized. And the tradition in Traveller was already SI units, universally - Traveller never officially used Imperial units (except in GURPS Traveller...

I don't know that I'd go so far as to claim PTSD on their behalf, but whiplash and "versioning fatigue" are certainly reasonable diagnoses. I lived through most of that period (I came to Traveller while Classic '82 was the 'current' version), and while I can't claim that my perceptions are...

I'd be curious as to the price of the Merchant's Edition in print; this is not listed as having a print edition on DTRPG, and the PDF is only US$1. I can't see a shop selling a print edition at comparable price point (even assuming that they're doing so with Mongoose's blessing).

Not exactly "compatible" with MS-Word, although the current version claims to read and create them - but be warned that it does not perfectly preserve formatting across implementations: Your Word-generated ODT won't look quite the same in any of the OpenFork* Writer implementations as it does in...

While I'd agree that they're not quite enough, I think the Explorer's Edition and the Merchant's Edition are steps in this right direction.

The January/February 2026 issue of Freelance Traveller has been posted for download! This issue features Jim Vassilakos' overview of "One Player, Multiple Gamemasters" as a framework for PBEM or on-line gaming. It's an interesting approach that just might be more conducive to "novelization" of...

I'm sure you (and everyone else) already knows this, but GW was, 'way back at the dawn of time, an authorized distributor in the UK for Traveller. They chose to go their own way with Warhammer, and no longer work with outside agencies on anything else.

Poul Anderson. "Pohl" is Frederik (author of the Gateway/Heechee books, among others).

Actually, when looked at from this point of view, it's not the players whose awareness of GNS theory is required; it's the marketing department. In this case, it comes under the heading of 'know your customer', and - for the most part - the customer for Traveller is the player who - whether he...

Directly, it doesn't. But understanding how a particular game fits the model and how that in turn relates to player styles does offer ... I guess I'd call them "thought patterns"... for focussing any marketing efforts in what would likely be the most productive directions.

I don't see the Game-ism in Traveller; there's no "win/lose", there's no progression after character creation, none of the characteristics that are associated with "games". There aren't any means to change the adventure to improve the story because you're telling the story as it happens - the...

So a novel that is written in the first person present tense isn't a story? Plays and musicals and movies don't tell stories? I think you and Mr Gygax need to check your definitions.

The role-playing is the collaborative storytelling. The player-characters (along with the referee) are working together to describe/portray events, conflicts, personalities, et cetera, following a plot that the referee (or the author of the pregenerated module the referee is running) has worked...

Recognizing that thread drift is A Thing, and trying to bring it back to the original topic - making Traveller more popular with TTRPG players - an article that I'm formatting for the upcoming issue of Freelance Traveller made mention of a thought pattern that I think is still valid, even though...