Looking Back on Mongoose Traveller

[rust]

Having designed the third setting and having started the third campaign
since Mongoose Traveller has begun to be published, it could perhaps be
interesting to take a closer look at how Mongoose Traveller has influen-
ced my roleplaying.

The most important change probably was the introduction of the new li-
fepath character generation system. I had always liked the character
generation of Traveller The New Era because of its choice of many dif-
ferent civilian careers, and the Mongoose system added events which
gave each character an interesting background for the players to build
their roleplaying upon.

Moreover, it was not at all difficult to adapt the system to my setting,
with modified careers and events, creating a character generation sys-
tem that produced exactly the right characters for the campaign. Plus,
there were lots of good ideas in third party publications, too, that made
the campaign even more interesting, for example a Cleric career.

At the time when the core rulebook was published, I was mostly using
the various GURPS books for world design and technology. Although I
always considered GURPS a bit too complicated for my taste, it seemed
to be the most detailed and "realistic" system available, and the techno-
logy assumptions of earlier Traveller versions did not fit my ideas of my
settings.

That changed with Mongoose Traveller's core rulebook and especially with
High Guard. They provided easier to use versions of exactly the options
I needed, for example the hyperspace drive, solar sails and railguns as
starship weapons. Today I still use GURPS now and then to complement
Mongoose Traveller, but all of my setting's ships are now built with Mon-
goose Traveller technology.

As for the ships I was too lazy to build myself, I found that both the ma-
terial published by Mongoose and the exceptionally good material pub-
lished by third party publishers provided all my setting required, and in
more and more interesting variations than earlier Traveller versions.

These were the two most important changes Mongoose Traveller brought
to my roleplaying, but all of the books I have bought had at least some
new, interesting and useful ideas that helped me to improve my setting
and campaign, with Scout being my favourite one until now.

In fact, my current setting and campaign started as an attempt to "revi-
sit" an earlier setting, but now in an improved version based upon Mon-
goose Traveller instead of GURPS, because the players have come to
prefer Mongoose Traveller and wanted to see what our old favourite set-
ting would look like within its framework.

Looking ahead, my main problem is that Mongoose Traveller is not yet
complete. I still use GURPS Space for detailed world building, I still have
no Mongoose Traveller systems for robots and vehicles, and some more
equipment would also be nice to have. However, I know that the books
I need will be coming (soon, I hope) and will allow me to fill the gaps.

So, looking back, did Mongoose Traveller "deliver" ?

Well, there have been minor disappointments and things I would have
preferred differently, but all in all: Yes, I am a quite happy customer.

Ah, just some - too many, probably - thoughts ... :roll:

 

[cbrunish]

This was similar to something I was thinking of writing last night.

In comparison to CT, I feel that MGT is a pretty good product. True there are somethings I don't like (Mercenary being one of them) but over all I feel that they did a good job!

CT was an excellent game but with all of the supplements and books it left the core services somwhat lacking. I personally fixed this with my house rules. Even added a psionic knight (jedi knight) and light saber to the rules.

The only beef is with some of editing. Sometimes it truly is horrible. But fortunatly the Mongoose fixed this somewhat. Even letting the customer return a book for a new copy and free book! Not bad at all.
And it (the editing) was not nearly as bad as T4 (which was really terrible). :shock:

The core book really does have everything one needs to start a campaign. High Guard is really nice. The only problem is that you have to refer to the core book if you want to create a ship. Just a pet peeve. Mercenary had a couple of services I was happy to see but the rest didn't seem to live up to the original. The Spinward Marches was simply excellent. This product was done really well. Of course MJD did a pretty good job for Gurps so this was to be expected. In this aspect, I feel that it is superior to supplement 3 (Spinward Marches) of CT.

The think that I really like is that MGT flows into CT to the point that its easy to use old adventures with slight modification (usually ships and maybe npc's). This is really nice!!!!! This way I have a large number of adventures ready to use for a Traveller campaign.

Over all, I feel that MGT is a great buy. And I hope that the Goose keeps up the good work!

 

[kristof65]

I'm merely a couple of months into my campaign, but I'm liking MGT much better than any previous version myself. I think part of the reason is the speed of releases so far - I've already got nine books beyond the core, and there are still a few I haven't purchased yet.

Still, having just about everythign that was ever published by GDW and Digest Group for CT and MT, I still feel things are missing:

- I'm surprised we haven't seen an Alien book yet. It's been over a year, and so far the only alien book on the schedule that I'm aware of is Aslan, and it's still a month out. The schedule of alien books really needs to be pumped up. Or, at a minimum, do up a 10-30 page pdf that at least touches on the MGT specific char gen rules (in more detail than the core) for each of the primary OTU races.

- we really do need a world builders guidebook.

Those are the two I feel are "critical" at this point. Beyond that, I'd like to see MGT versions of the Starship Operators Manual and a Merchants book that not only expands their char gen options like Mercenary, High Guard and Scouts, but gives us both expanded AND streamlined systems for dealing with trade.

 

[AndrewW]

- I'm surprised we haven't seen an Alien book yet. It's been over a year, and so far the only alien book on the schedule that I'm aware of is Aslan, and it's still a month out. The schedule of alien books really needs to be pumped up. Or, at a minimum, do up a 10-30 page pdf that at least touches on the MGT specific char gen rules (in more detail than the core) for each of the primary OTU races.

Well at least Aslan is on the horizon, it certainly goes beyond 10 - 30 pages for Aslan character generation. Beyond the character generation it's a bit like Spinward Marches and covers the Trojan Reach, along with some Aslan ships.

- we really do need a world builders guidebook.

Those are the two I feel are "critical" at this point. Beyond that, I'd like to see MGT versions of the Starship Operators Manual and a Merchants book that not only expands their char gen options like Mercenary, High Guard and Scouts, but gives us both expanded AND streamlined systems for dealing with trade.

I'll second all three of those.

 

[kristof65]

Well at least Aslan is on the horizon, it certainly goes beyond 10 - 30 pages for Aslan character generation. Beyond the character generation it's a bit like Spinward Marches and covers the Trojan Reach, along with some Aslan ships.

Hmm - not sure my intention was clear.

I'm glad Aslan is coming. But we seem to have no idea what is next, nor how long it will be till we see Vargr, Hiver, KKree, etc. At the current rate, it could be years before they all get done.

What I was suggesting in the meantime, to help tide people over until those detailed books come out, is a 10-30 page document that expands on the info already in the core book as far as far as generating these aliens with MGT - it wouldn't have to be much - a paragraph or two on using exisiting careers for each race, along with a mishaps and events table specific to each race, and maybe a ship specific to each race.

Or heck, even a short series of Signs & Portents articles with the same for each race.

 

[AndrewW]

Hmm - not sure my intention was clear.

Your intent was clear. Just mentioning at least we will be getting something soon.

 

[kristof65]

Your intent was clear.

Oh good - I sometimes wonder if I make myself clear.

Just mentioning at least we will be getting something soon.

For which I'm very happy. And yet, I'm still not satisfied - I want the Vargr, KKree and Hiver books within a week of the Aslan one! :twisted:

Seriously - at this point, it would be nice if they'd at least announce the next Alien book or two.

 

[GypsyComet]

I'm not certain the Aslan were the best choice for first treatment, having been mis-handled extensively by everyone except GDW* in the past. That said, I look forward to seeing the Aslan book.

Vargr, by comparison, are easy. They are sufficiently familiar in their origins that we all know a proto-Vargr or two, and there are few wrong ways to play one, unlike the Aslan.

The Zhodani are also going to be a challenge from a role-playing point of view. GDW's treatment years ago was not terribly helpful for role-playing purposes*, and the GURPS treatment was flawed, IMHO. I admit to some bias when it comes to the Zhodani, however, having done a fair bit of work on Zhodani space...

The Droyne are a bit of a cypher, and always have been. I would welcome a treatment that dealt with the Droyne in both modes: the NPC "group mind" of societal Droyne, and the PC "retiree" Droyne. Just like ST Voyager's 7-of-9, the discovery of individuality probably has a profound effect on a retired Droyne. It may take a psychologist to write that one well, though...

Darrians and Sword Worlders certainly wouldn't hurt from being revisited. The Darrians got short shrift from GDW* and GURPS, but the Sword Worlds got an amazing book of their own in the GURPS line, written by someone from the right cultural background.

At that point you either have to visit more of the Minor Races behind the claw, or venture out into the wider Imperium and visit the K'Kree and Hivers.

-

*-the original GDW Alien Modules are great books, but tend to be very academic in flavor. Getting into the mindset (or "head space" as a friend used to put it) of the various alien races was not something GDW did enough of in print.