Do GURPS and Mongoose Traveller remain in continuity?

[dlpulver]

The other minor races in the AR books were taken from the Spacemaster RPG - David Pulver wrote them for that game's "Aliens and Artifacts" books and I guess figured that they could fit into Traveller. I don't think they're considered part of Traveller canon really.

I think I heard that they had been part of his home Traveller game, got converted to Spacemaster, then converted *back* when he was part of the GT writers stable.

Most of the races (with two exceptions, which don't appear in the GURPS Traveller books) did indeed originate in my Traveller game. I don't play Spacemaster, but it turned out they needed an alien book and they made me what seemed like a good offer.

(Unfortunately, the writeups I had were too long for Challenge magazine, and GDW was not looking at alien book submissions for Megatrav or 2300 at the time, and I didn't want to convert them to Dark Conspiracy, although I did rough up an outline...)

Alas, ICE then proceeded to go bankrupt and neglected to pay me any royalties I was owed for the book, so after the rights reverted back to me, I mentioned to SJ Games they were available if they wanted them for a later GURPS project.

Fast-forward several years later: I had been asked to write the Zhodani supplement, and while working on it Loren Wiseman and Steve Jackson told me they thought most of the aliens fit well with Traveller and would I be interested in selling the rights to them to use as Minor Races?

Loren and I then had lengthy email conversations regarding which of the races he thought would fit into the Imperium; Marc Miller reviewed the initial draft and sent me an early copy of the T5 alien races rules to use. Loren also asked me to make on of the races into the Adaxxur.

Under their supervision, and with the input of numerous Traveller playtesters in a large open playtest held in the Pyramid forums, the races were further altered to better fit the Traveller setting. Several changes were made in the process, and they were published.

(Actually, bBecause of their origin I suspect the races probably got more "canon" vetting than most non-GDW developed submissions to JTAS did... certainly the same person - Loren - was involved in approving both JTAS "Contact" races and my submissions.)

So, that was the process.

 

[GamerDude]

I've been off the forums for the most part dealing with my wife's health (eight months *after* beint rushed to the emergency rm in a coma) to finally figure out she has leukemia.

I have every GURPS Trav book published by SJGames for GURPS 3rd, and all but the most recent MGP Trav books (hey I can only order so fast, right?), I was a playtester on the first run of the MGP Traveller Core Rulebook and ran a 3 year long GURPS Traveller campaign, plus over 60 MGP Traveller games at convention. That said this issue about "Traveller Canon", "GURPS Trav vs MGP Trav vs Other Trav" etc. has been running around on these forums pretty much since 2008 when MGP put out their core Traveller RB.

Now, what I am about to say comes primarily two sources: Sean Punch & a few other SJGames Staffers (in person discussion at Gencon 2008) and Marc Miller (via email).

First in the overall scheme of all original (GDW/Marc Miller/Trav4/Trav 5/etc) material Only the material published by GDW/in Trav4/in Trav 5 is "cannocal" Anything from any other publisher is anywhere from 'dissavowed' (like old Judges Guild) to "apocryphal"/"really neat stuff" like MGP Trav, GURPS Trav, etc. That is from Marc when I asked him what made up the "Traveller Cannon" so I could go hunt it down to own.

From Sean Punch... well he laughed when I asked the question and started out by pointing me to the core GURPS Traveller book.. "everything SJ Games publishes is an alternate universe, we say so right in the core book. What is there to not get?" From there the conversation turned to cover all the opinions, where they've been getting posted, how this has gone round and round on the SJGames forums, and even to certain posters (on both those and the MGP forums on the topic) and how after repeatedly having this clarified for them still continue to pound on the viewpoint that "GURPS Traveller" is "absolute cannon".


Personally I don't care what someone wishes to use in their game, that's up to them and only they can say what is "canon" for them.

But as far as how (in this question) MGP or GURPS Trav match to the official continuity? as close as they want/Marc Miller insists on. How much should you use of either? As much as *you* want.

 

[GypsyComet]

Loren also asked me to make one of the races into the Adaxxur.

I like the race you used, but not as the Addaxur.

 

[dlpulver]

Loren also asked me to make one of the races into the Adaxxur.

I like the race you used, but not as the Addaxur.

That's cool. If you're curious, before they were parachuted in as the Addaxur, they were actually a minor race located a few subsectors coreward of Regina subsector. (In my own campaign, Leviathan worked out very well, so after that the party went on a second voyage of trade, diplomacy and discovery beyond imperial borders after the Fifth Frontier War.)

On the canon issue, my impression is that the only absolute "canon" is the limited set of material so designated as "The Traveler Canon" by Marc in the FFE reprint of the core books.

My impression is that on a practical level everything else by any other publisher, or even by GDW not part of the original setting, is only part of Mongoose Traveller if the Mongoose writers choose to reference it in Mongoose books, and Mongoose material is only parts of GURPS Traveller is writers reference it in any GURPS books (although that hasn't really happened much, since the GURPS line wound down as Mongoose's got going). And none of that material - Mongoose, GURPS, or other versions - is part of Marc's super-canon unless as FFE book later decides to elevate it as such.