captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Hello all. I've been less active on the boards partly becuase of work, and partly becuase I decided to dedicate posting time to writing time on a pet project. For years the traveller community has tossed around the possibility of using the traveller engine for a fantasy (or at least sword age tech) RPG, and some great variants have resulted - (Mercator, Wanderer, Flynn’s guide to magic, Golans modifications, Jaime's Mace 
)
I hesitate to mention any for fear of missing some, butI've been inspired by all of them, so thanks !
It’s a simple premise that started this attempt: that Gygax and Arneson had different inspirations than the one(s) that became D&D. From this premise (so far) has come at least two variants I really like: Mazes and Minotaurs and Xplorers ; these ask “what if the font of inspiration for original three little brown book D&D was Greek myths, or Science fiction and a different miniatures campaign was being run in those fateful years by the authors and contributiors." Really well done, check em out.
This, then, is that, but spun thusly: what if the first ever RPG wasn’t D&D at all, but rather Traveler ? I’m not even going to get into the possibility of this actually having happened, I hasten to add, but rather just follow it up. Specifically, what if, as a result of TSR never having been formed or successfully launched, the so called “the fantasy game” languished in a box in a garage for many years, and in the fullness of time, it’s designers ended up at GDW – which IIRC, predates TSR.
For a variety of reasons, we suppose that the RPG genre was born with Traveller (probably via Star Wars to popularize it), and is all about SF; Fantasy becomes the red-headed stepchild of the industry . Adventure Simulations Games (as they are called) cater to an endless variety of SF settings and adventures all ultimately derived from Traveler.
Assume then that Gygax and Arneson finally convince GDW to try a new approach to travelling: something like that Robert E. Howard/Lovecraft genre , but the swords and sorcery version more than the pulp horror of Seeker (by Chaosium games); like in Fritz Leiber's stuff ? or, heck, Anderson's fantasy stuff...... Low tech, ya' know ? C'mon Marc, pleeeeeeze ?
And so, in 1977, following the phenomenal success of book 8 (Droidbots), The Adventure game is dragged out, dusted off, and months later, Book 9 Adventurer is released. What might that look like ?
My goals: as some people here know, I’m always flirting with low tech traveler. Ironically, I’ve also been on the “lets just not use D&D mechanisms and call it traveler” train, but it got me wondering –what if the mechanisms and design of Traveller were applied to the style and sensibilities of D&D ? And not just any D&D, but original three little books in a brown or white box edition D&D ?
Well, yes, it’ll probably suck……but that’s never stopped me, has it ?
So far, its been developed at a slow but constant pace on other sites, mainly those with free storage for files. I''ve got a distribution point now, so since I've freely worked from the SRD for Mongoose traveller, I thought I should give y'all a look at it, and solicit comments.
Next post, I'll have the download URL.
EDIT: moved here by request
http://www.box.net/shared/bha8gym72c
The seperate magic section for Adventurer has been updated to add clerical magic spells and rules.http://www.box.net/shared/8sl58qi3x0
I haven't added these changes to the main .pdf yet.
)I hesitate to mention any for fear of missing some, butI've been inspired by all of them, so thanks !
It’s a simple premise that started this attempt: that Gygax and Arneson had different inspirations than the one(s) that became D&D. From this premise (so far) has come at least two variants I really like: Mazes and Minotaurs and Xplorers ; these ask “what if the font of inspiration for original three little brown book D&D was Greek myths, or Science fiction and a different miniatures campaign was being run in those fateful years by the authors and contributiors." Really well done, check em out.
This, then, is that, but spun thusly: what if the first ever RPG wasn’t D&D at all, but rather Traveler ? I’m not even going to get into the possibility of this actually having happened, I hasten to add, but rather just follow it up. Specifically, what if, as a result of TSR never having been formed or successfully launched, the so called “the fantasy game” languished in a box in a garage for many years, and in the fullness of time, it’s designers ended up at GDW – which IIRC, predates TSR.
For a variety of reasons, we suppose that the RPG genre was born with Traveller (probably via Star Wars to popularize it), and is all about SF; Fantasy becomes the red-headed stepchild of the industry . Adventure Simulations Games (as they are called) cater to an endless variety of SF settings and adventures all ultimately derived from Traveler.
Assume then that Gygax and Arneson finally convince GDW to try a new approach to travelling: something like that Robert E. Howard/Lovecraft genre , but the swords and sorcery version more than the pulp horror of Seeker (by Chaosium games); like in Fritz Leiber's stuff ? or, heck, Anderson's fantasy stuff...... Low tech, ya' know ? C'mon Marc, pleeeeeeze ?
And so, in 1977, following the phenomenal success of book 8 (Droidbots), The Adventure game is dragged out, dusted off, and months later, Book 9 Adventurer is released. What might that look like ?
My goals: as some people here know, I’m always flirting with low tech traveler. Ironically, I’ve also been on the “lets just not use D&D mechanisms and call it traveler” train, but it got me wondering –what if the mechanisms and design of Traveller were applied to the style and sensibilities of D&D ? And not just any D&D, but original three little books in a brown or white box edition D&D ?
Well, yes, it’ll probably suck……but that’s never stopped me, has it ?
So far, its been developed at a slow but constant pace on other sites, mainly those with free storage for files. I''ve got a distribution point now, so since I've freely worked from the SRD for Mongoose traveller, I thought I should give y'all a look at it, and solicit comments.
Next post, I'll have the download URL.
EDIT: moved here by request
http://www.box.net/shared/bha8gym72c
The seperate magic section for Adventurer has been updated to add clerical magic spells and rules.http://www.box.net/shared/8sl58qi3x0
I haven't added these changes to the main .pdf yet.
