MGT Books

[zero]

So after reading through DFW's new ship design thread, I see that new ship design rules are in High Guard, which makes me think it might be a wise purchase as I do enjoy ship creation from the Core.

I came to wonder what new rules come in other books as I only have the Core, which seems to be quite obsolete in some matters with the other black books released.

So, could someone list new rules from the black books that replace (or add more extensively to) the rules as stated in the Core?

Also it seems my gf would like a Darrian char in a future game as I apparently forgot to tell her there are elves in Trav, so I'll probably be picking up the Darrian module in the future, recommended by anyone? :lol:

 

[AndrewW]

Really depends on what you are looking for. Yes High Guard has good coverage of ships, it doesn't replace the core rulebook for this but adds to it. Small craft and capital ships are both covered along with lots of new components. Along with naval careers.

Darrians would be a good choice if you are going to go with a that race.

As for other books, what are you looking for?

 

[GamerDude]

I came to wonder what new rules come in other books as I only have the Core, which seems to be quite obsolete in some matters with the other black books released.

So, could someone list new rules from the black books that replace (or add more extensively to) the rules as stated in the Core?

Also it seems my gf would like a Darrian char in a future game as I apparently forgot to tell her there are elves in Trav, so I'll probably be picking up the Darrian module in the future, recommended by anyone? :lol:

Darrians - great book, get it if you are going to have them be prominent in your game. Same for Aslan or Vargr if they are going to be prominently featured.

Just remember the core book is that.. the core, the start, the center that the rest of the universe revolves around.

 

[GamerDude]

Career books add expanded rules that go with the original. If you were to like, totally leave out the ship building section of the core book then the same part of High Guard really wouldn't be as helpful (if at all). NOTE: Look at what kind of player characters you are looking to have in your game. As an example, if you just can't stand Psionics, then Psion probably isn't going to do you much good - probably.

 

[GamerDude]

The books of ship diagrams? Smaller ships not bad, larger ships the diagrams are just too damm small to be of much use (for me).

Vehicle books. Military, Civilian. Pretty much identical design systems so if you only one vehicles for one OR the other, just get the one you want. If you're wanting lots of specific vehicles, get both.

Consolidated Supply Catalog - outstanding. Some things are still really lacking information, like Medikits, but plenty of weapons. Caveat - it can be really hard trying to match up a specific picture to a specific description/stat (unless you are a gun enthusiast maybe). Mostly because there can be like nine guns described on a page, but only eight pictures and such. Still I gave that book to a few people as gifts this last Christmas.

 

[GamerDude]

CHARACTERS, NPC'S, PLAYER AIDS
760 Patrons - Second Edition was light years ahead of the first edition. From soft back to huge hardback. I love it.

1001 Characters - always good for quick NPC's or to get someone new into the game without them having to first make a character.

TRAVELLER BOOK 0 - Get the PDF of this and print it out double sided for your players to have at the table. It is the short and simple explanation of everything the average player needs to know especially at the start. If you want leave out the pages with the two careers, Army and Navy, but the rest is great. Basic weapons, the basic range modifier tables, MOST of the skill descriptions without example tasks etc. I say MOST because I obtained six for putting out when I run at conventions (six cons a year average) and these are from the very first run, so there is like two pages (double sided sheet of paper) of skill descriptions missing. Also having the pocket Traveller books out was is a nightmare (no matter what you say, everyone runs to the equipment section).

 

[GamerDude]

Adventures - Prison Planet was a great update & expansion, really a small campaign in itself. Belt strike is nice, a campaign source book with some new rules/careers in it focused on life in an asteroid belt. Reign of Discordia - don't bother an 'easy conversion' (according to the author) that many on these forum weren't happy with. Crowded Hours is another book I gave as a gift this past Christmas, my only disappointment are the ship diagrams. Too small for the ship size but it is a hardback holding four nice adventures.

NOTE: My comments broken out by category so if others care to comment, things might stay a little 'cleaner'

 

[AndrewW]

Vehicle books. Military, Civilian. Pretty much identical design systems so if you only one vehicles for one OR the other, just get the one you want. If you're wanting lots of specific vehicles, get both.

Alternately, wait for the combined book. Scheduled for release July 2011.

 

[rust]

So, could someone list new rules from the black books that replace (or add more extensively to) the rules as stated in the Core?

The most important part of High Guard probably are the errata, as they
modify some rules of the core book:

Changes to Core Rule Book
The following amendments are made to the core rule book:
• Pulse lasers inflict 2d6 damage and have a –2DM to hit and
beam lasers inflict 1d6 damage. Beam lasers become available
at TL9.
• Missiles are capable of thrust 10, with the turns to impact on
page 147 halved (rounded up). However, missiles have limited
endurance of 60 minutes (10 turns) before they run out of fuel.
• Sandcaster munitions can be constructed with at TL5 allowing
low tech worlds to supply some of a navy’s munitions.
• Meson screens reduce radiation damage from meson guns and
meson flicker weapons. Radiation hits from these weapons
suffer a –DM equal to twice the active number of screens
• No launcher includes ammunition in its purchase cost. Missiles,
torpedoes and so forth must be purchased separately.

Otherwise High Guard mainly adds some components for starships and
adds design sequences for small craft and capital ships.

As for the other books, they mostly add new ship components for the sy-
stem of the core rules. They are not "must have", as it is not difficult to
come up with your own components, depending on what your setting re-
quires, but they are usually nice additions to the subject matter of the
book in question.

Darrians - yes, highly recommended, in my view the best of the supple-
ments so far.

The Vehicle books - stay away from them, their system is badly broken,
which is why a different system is in the pipeline to replace it.

Supplement 5 & 6 - The Vehicle Handbook: We have acknowledged that we have not been really happy with the vehicle construction system for Traveller. So, we decided to do something about it. This combined hardback not only features all the vehicles in the original Supplements 5 & 6, but also every vehicle we have ever detailed for Traveller, in all settings, plus a whole load of new ones! These have been married to an all new vehicle design system that is cleaner, faster and way easier to get to grips with. Those of you who have bought the original Supplements 5 and 6 will have a chance to pick up this book at a greatly reduced rate - more news on that later.

 

[kafka]

What is your budget? Well, I am a completist...so I am not the most objective person. But, I have found all the Traveller books to be of value. I would shy away from books of deckplans unless you are going run a campaign involving lots of ships and boarding actions...for deckplans are a good thing to have but not always at hand (plus the main rulebook nicely provides all the deckplans for the most common ships).

Vargr and Aslan should be bought when you familiarize yourself with the OTU. Therefore, Little Black Book - Library Data would be invaluable unless you picked up something from GDW/FFE.

Despite its flaws, I liked Mercenary and High Guard, as the rules provide a whole added dimension but if your campaign is going to be more James Bond, Agent is a must.

You said your gf likes Elves...well, the Darrians are Elves but she will probably like them anyway...be sure to pick up Sword Worlds (I assume the Mongoose will as good as the GURPS version) and the Zhodani - these will act as foils in your campaign.

Prison Planet is clearly the better of the three adventures (or if you count Crowded Hours, four) published to date. But, as a newbie, the adventures contained within the Traveller Compendium are actually very good. Similarly, I like Secret of the Ancients.

Others will come along that soon you will become a completist like myself.

 

[apoc527]

All of them, obviously! (I admit, I'm like kafka.)

I would say that the career books are excellent resources for almost any GM because they provide a lot of extra mechanical bits for hacking, stealing starships, fencing goods, arresting prisoners, finding bounties, exploring new worlds, fighting mercenary battles, etc. etc. etc.

The "ship books" are also great if you need ships (obviously).

The CSC is what personally made me "get into Traveller." Once I saw the CSC (on PDF first), I bought it in print and then proceeded to buy the rest of Mongoose's line (I'm missing only Judge Dredd I think because I really don't need that one).

The new 760 Patrons, Second Edition is great stuff. 1,001 Characters helps you to populate your games.

I could go on, but you get the point.

 

[zero]

I probably wont have Darrians feature prominently in any games (where in the Traveller map would they centre around anyway? Atm we're centring the game on the Orichalc subsector where the Soloman space meets Imperial space (with some Zhodani presence mixing things up).

Basically my gf who is my main player in my games loves elves and being able to play a "space elf" really appeals to her. If char gen is cool in the book I might play one myself in a new game.

Looks like I'll be getting High Guard and the CSC in the future, I think these will also come in handy when I eventually pick up the Chthonian Stars pdf too.

So I have Zhodani in my game already as a background element, I dont know if I'll pick up their book though. I got alot of info from the traveller wikia, enough that with Phoummathep, that is an A government world with Zhodani presense, I had the Charismatic Dictator a Zhodani Noble that is corrupt and taken over with their power psionic powers. Again a background detail but their growing power will be felt in the future (...probably) :lol:

My budget is small and I wont be getting all these books in one go, but it looks like I'll be getting Darrians (explained above), High Guard (ship designs for new games) and the CSC (I love being spoilt for choice with chars gear) atm.

 

[GamerDude]

Basically my gf who is my main player in my games loves elves and being able to play a "space elf" really appeals to her. If char gen is cool in the book I might play one myself in a new game.

If you want her to be basically 'human' but she accepts Darrians as "elves in space" then get the book and let her go for it. The thing is the fun. Darrians can be anywhere and, without playing Aslan or Vargr etc Darrians are a great choice.

PM Sent.

 

[GamerDude]

My budget is small and I wont be getting all these books in one go, but it looks like I'll be getting Darrians (explained above), High Guard (ship designs for new games) and the CSC (I love being spoilt for choice with chars gear) atm.

Screw the PM. If I can get your mailing address in an email, I'll GIVE you a copy of Darrians no charge. I accidentally ordered two and if I'm going to give it away let me give it to someone who I know will put it to good use (providing the 'space elves' for a forum member's gf sounds good to me).

Seriously. I can have it in the mail in a day or two after getting your mailing address.

 

[kafka]

Yes, having it set in Solomani Space with a dash of the Zhodani. You might not need Darrians. Those campaigns are the best but throwing in a Darrian agent trying to prevent dis-stabilization on Terra harkens one back to good old Ming. The secret would be to have the Zhodani actually trying to promote stability on Terra and the Darrians unwittingly by upsetting the Psionic Institute actually destabilize Terra further...

That way she can become an enemy of the state (in this case the Imperium) and need to find a way back to Darrian Confederation to clear her name.

 

[zero]

^ kafka, thats a pretty awesome sounding idea, with my established Zhodani Noble pushing a dominance through nearby space atm, having my gf being a Darrian as they fight against this threat (which would actually stabilise the frontier-like borders rather than dominate them) would be a similar prospect. Pm me as I'm pretty open to adventure seeds

GamerDude, as awesome as that prospect sounds, I'm not one to give personal details out like that, I hope you understand, thanks for your considerate offer btw.
I also want to help with whatever setting you are developing atm, but if you wished to talk via e-mail instead of pm purely so we could share names and addresses I'm going to have to decline for the same reason as above, again I hope you understand.
However, I am free to chat via pm and if you need anything from me to give credit to for my help, as Ive said before in this forum, credit can be given to "zero from the mongoose publishing forums". I really do want to be involved in whatever youre creating so I hope you will still have me involved in this capacity and credit-wise I have friends who know my handle here along with my gf so that'll be cool enough for me

 

[zero]

Double post, sorry :roll:

Basically just to ask if the book, Scout, has any extras in creating worlds. The one thing I like doing is making up world UWPs and creating a background and story for these worlds.

From the blurb on this book on the main Mongoose page it sounds like it might add more into world creation rules. Ive heard additional creation rules exist, like changing the level of density a world has, is that in Scout?

Also looked on amazon at Darrians and yeah, I'm not paying £50 from a seller, for any rpg book, let alone a supplement. High Guard at £15ish interests me, so I'll probably be picking that up soon.

 

[barnest2]

Basically just to ask if the book, Scout, has any extras in creating worlds. The one thing I like doing is making up world UWPs and creating a background and story for these worlds.

From the blurb on this book on the main Mongoose page it sounds like it might add more into world creation rules. Ive heard additional creation rules exist, like changing the level of density a world has, is that in Scout?

No :evil:
It sucks like that. It's pretty cool as a book, but there is nothing in it on world building.

 

[GamerDude]

Zero, not a problem. With identity theft and all these days you can't be too careful so I understand *tries to shove it down his Internet connection*

I'm in the middle of a big writing spree working up some mechanics the setting needs to be used with Traveller. The broad stroke framework is close to done, some of the medium detail work is in progress, a little of the fine details in the 'idea hopper'.

One thing I say is this won't be a big core book sounding like you're buying into a large setting and not know the publisher's plans are seven little words out on the fringe like a pimple on a frogs hind end. It's not 3I size but definitely way more than seven. It won't be a full Traveller Sector but will be many sectors right out the gate, the entire setting ready for play.

Early on the decision was made to avoid the crutch some settings use of "oh, we found technology from some long gone race... bingo gravitics, FTL, and a better Dwarven Ale!" No 'alien artifacts' no 'ancient races' etc. That is all fine and dandy for those who want that, or need that crutch to advance their story/background but we prefer something more original.

 

[AndrewW]

Basically just to ask if the book, Scout, has any extras in creating worlds. The one thing I like doing is making up world UWPs and creating a background and story for these worlds.

There is a world builders Handbook planned, but no information on when it might be done.

Also looked on amazon at Darrians and yeah, I'm not paying £50 from a seller, for any rpg book, let alone a supplement. High Guard at £15ish interests me, so I'll probably be picking that up soon.

Alien Model 3: Darrians is only £24.99 direct from Mongoose Publishing.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1809&qsSeries=51