So I finally gave in...

[howardfanatic]

And I bought Pocket Traveller...
The next time some one posts on here saying "I've had Traveller in the past and was uncertain about it. Is Mongoose's version an improvement?" you should all answer:
Hell. Yes.

Mongoose- congradulations. You have made a sci fi game that is exactly what I have been looking for in sci fi RPGs for about 20 years. It's very fun and, most importantly, it is APPROACHABLE.

Classic Traveller is a truly great game and with very good reason it has legions of devoted fans. It is also a military- NOT a generic- sci fi (it has not even a single science skill or profession anywhere that I saw), and it is very obviously aimed at military veterans/hobbyists. That's not a bad thing at all. However, if you enjoy the sci fi in the vein that I do - Asimov, Clarke, Herbert, George Smith- then you are all kinda out of luck.

Mongoose Traveller is a truly generic sci fi. After reading it, there is no sci fi setting I could not do with very little effort. That is a plus because I am busily scribing 2 novels, reading 3 others, working 40 hours a week, and trying to make it work with the woman of my dreams. I'm a busy guy. Waaaaaay more busy than I was in school. Thus, while I used to love and adore spending hours toiling away on house rules and adaptations, I do not have the time for it any more. That, and I'm just too lazy.

If you are undecided about Mongoose Traveller and reading this, let me tell you- it is worth the $15 whole dollars the Pocket Edition will cost you to get. It is a great game.

Now. When can we expect to see Dune, Robots, and Foundation done Traveller style?

And I'm STILL waiting on MRQ Conan!! :twisted:

 

[Sangrolu]

Good to hear. Was afraid the voices of reason my be drowned out by the CT purists over at CotI.

Now, when are you going to ship my adventures?

 

[howardfanatic]

Your adventures shipped out Tuesday. Would've been Monday, but we had severe weather here and the Post Office had no power. Should reach you fairly soon.

And CT is a really good game, it's just limited in scope and not presented in a very user friendly order. I get the impression that it's like classic AD&D- if you've played for years, then it is so familiar to you that you don't see how hair brained its layout is. lol However, if you are new to the game, it is a challenge. Not impossible, and even worth it if you're a military hobbyist or a military sci fi hardcore fan. Mongoose's Traveller, however, is extremely well organized and presented in such a way as to allow a far wider variety of sci fi settings.

 

[Sangrolu]

And CT is a really good game, it's just limited in scope and not presented in a very user friendly order. I get the impression that it's like classic AD&D- if you've played for years, then it is so familiar to you that you don't see how hair brained its layout is.

In some circles, those are fighting words.

CT's a great game and I had a lot of fun with it (and really, still do, as I pull out CT material and use it with MongT). But it was built from the ground up, so many of the features that came later in CT are folded into later versions of the game with the benefit of being able to integrate the supplemental materials and ideas more seamlessly.

 

[Dave Chase]

And some of us use a bit of all versions.

I cut my teeth on Chainmail, Traveller and such.
So, yes you will find that I own and use some of the parts of them.

I think in that RPGing in 10 years from now is going to look back and say, you are playing Mongoose Traveller, how ________ . You need to be playing the new and improved _____________ Traveller.

What is nice about how Mongoose is choosing to make it's Traveller version (by appearances so far that is), is that they are taking the core of good things from CT, adding a dash of this (version) and touch of that (version) and putting in some new things from T5 and their own touch.

Which I believe not only makes it new, but familiar as well.

Good for you Mongoose. And it doesn't hurt that you are well known company in the RPG world too.

OH, and I really like the pocket versions of the games you have done. Thanks


Dave Chase

 

[howardfanatic]

I don't know why they're fighting words... First, it's only a game. Second, I even said it was a very good game. Third, I fully realize that it was not all released at one time.

None of that changes the fact that it is poorly organized. Just as my undying affection for AD&D 1st can change the fact that it is hopelessly clunky and organized more or less at random. However, I've been gaming for over 25 years and I started with AD&D 1st. I practically have it memorized, so the disorganization doesn't bother me. (Besides, I gave up on D&D when 2ed came out. I play Warhammer 1st).

CT is a very good game, but not for beginners and not for those new to Traveller. Even if you were to get the 3 basic books, Citizens of the Imperium, and Robots- the books I thought were the core of the system- they would still be difficult material due to a high volume of undefined (mostly military) terms and acronyms. MongT is more of a generic sci fi game, allowing for a variety of tech and sci fi styles. CT is really a military sci fi. That is what it does best and it is the best at what it does.

So please, no fighting.

 

[Sangrolu]

I don't know why they're fighting words...

I know. Some people are just that way though.

I could name names, but my mamma taught me that's not polite.

 

[rust]

CT is really a military sci fi. That is what it does best and it is the best at what it does.

Yep, this is one of the main reasons why I prefer Mongoose Traveller, al-
though it currently still has some gaps, compared to the mountains of ma-
terial produced for CT: With Mongoose Traveller my setting's colonists, di-
plomats, scientists, and so on, are as well supported as the military and
paramilitary types are.

 

[snrdg121408]

Howdy all,

I don't own a copy of the pocket version, but I will agree that Mongoose Traveller does incorporate most of the older variants bits and pieces better.

Unfortunately, from an old retired submarine sailor's view point, there are still glitches in Mongoose's version that are similiar to those in the other flavors. Of course being old may have something to do with my perception.;-)

I think that Mongoose Traveller has quirks that are on par with the rest of the Traveller Rule sets, but the basics are still good.

 

[AndrewW]

CT is a very good game, but not for beginners and not for those new to Traveller. Even if you were to get the 3 basic books, Citizens of the Imperium, and Robots- the books I thought were the core of the system- they would still be difficult material due to a high volume of undefined (mostly military) terms and acronyms.

Hey, what about those of us that started back then? We didn't have much choice. Didn't really have any trouble with it myself though the experience of others could be different.

 

[Dave Chase]

...

... (Besides, I gave up on D&D when 2ed came out. I play Warhammer 1st).

Just curious, you are still playing 1st Edition Warhammer? I am envious, My 1st edition Warhammer game was stolen. I still have 2nd to 6th though. Gave up on it after 7th on

CT is a very good game, but not for beginners and not for those new to Traveller.

...

So please, no fighting.

Nope, no fighting from me, but I guess you are not saying much for others of today's generation when you say CT is not for beginners.
We must have been a hell of lot more intelligent than I figured, if CT is not for beginners. Since it was one of, if not the first popular SciFi RPG out.

Dave Chase

 

[captainjack23]

CT is really a military sci fi. That is what it does best and it is the best at what it does.

As a few people here may be aware, I actually feel that that is the fault of Mercenary -which started the whole gunporn aspect of traveller. Still, it was the market in those days - Twilight,Morrow, that kind of stuff. I think Ad&D was showing its age, and new things were itchin to be born -and the customers were still a big portion wargamers. Plus it was the cold war, and the military confrontation was everywhere; it's hard to remember how pervasive it was....

CT + supp 4 (the book, not the person), plus ship design from HG, was pretty much the core that I stuck with. That's a pretty good generic set of rules. I think that as a starter would have been a big hit - trying to digest all the suppliments and rules to start ? I don't blame you one bit.

But hey, I'm into MGT pretty big - so obviously we basically agree.

 

[GypsyComet]

CT is really a military sci fi. That is what it does best and it is the best at what it does.

As a few people here may be aware, I actually feel that that is the fault of Mercenary -which started the whole gunporn aspect of traveller.

Lets not forget High Guard (for CT), which quietly replaced the small ship universe of Book 2 with the Big Ship universe we've had since, and made fleet combat the default scale, into which adventure class ships fit poorly.

And Striker a bit later, which gave the ground-pounding gunporn folks all the remaining tools they needed.

MT did nothing to back away from that mode. Neither did TNE (that being *my* primary issue with TNE; I'm aware that YMMV), though it made some of the right noises.

I don't begrudge these developments within Traveller as a published body of work. A universe with this set of assumptions needs to be able to handle and define military hardware and operations, even if the PCs never see anything bigger than a gauss rifle in play.

What I begrudge is that many people playing that type of game came to believe that it the only mode of play Traveller enables. Advanced character generation replaces basic, High Guard replaces Book 2, no one uses those trade rules anyway, and why is the animal encounters chapter still here?

 

[howardfanatic]

CT is a great game. A lot of folks really love it and that's good. Personally, I really love old games. I miss boxed sets...

I'm not saying anything about today's gamers at all. CT is a disorganized work, just like all other RPGs back in its day. And it was, by GDW's own admission, a game not intended for beginning RPGers. It really shows. I followed it easily. It is not complex, only very detailed... and, man, did they need a glossary! lol I am only thinking of the raw RGPer who is not used to the archaic, who needs an editor or a consistent layout mentality of the old school RPG. Those guys developped brilliant systems and settings, but, wow, their enthusiasm far outstretched their ability to present it in a rational fashion. I lost D10 SAN reading CT and quite a bot more than that reading some of the other older games (Gamma Raiders= Cthulhu himself!)

I kid becuase I love.

As for the military sci fi-- it is a tremendously popular area of sci fi and very well respected. I am more of a space opera/hard sci fi geek myself. Asimov and Clarke are the best that ever set pen to paper in my never humble at all opinion.

Warhammer Fantasy RPG 1st edition. I've never actually played the minis game. But I freakin LOVE that RPG!!

Sub vet- that is so funny. Almost every CT nut I've ever met is former military. They must have really nailed it to have so many of you guys so loyal. That alone says something about the quality of the game!

Still, MongT is a damn fine game in its own right. If you like sci fi along the lines of Asimov, Bova, Clarke, or Smith it is a nearly perfect system.

NEARLY! perfect! lol. No game is perfect! "We have a system and it works!" :twisted:

 

[Bygoneyrs]

I must also chime in and say that Mongoose Traveller is pretty well done so far and I greatly look forward to many of the up and coming new releases that I have Pre-Ordered them all. Just got to have them ALL!!!

Penn

PS: For the record I am a new convert for Conan another Mongoose product and soon I will own all their 1st and 2nd edition books as well too.

 

[Dave Chase]

CT is a great game. A lot of folks really love it and that's good. Personally, I really love old games. I miss boxed sets...

...

I kid becuase I love.

...

Warhammer Fantasy RPG 1st edition. I've never actually played the minis game. But I freakin LOVE that RPG!!

Sub vet- that is so funny. Almost every CT nut I've ever met is former military. They must have really nailed it to have so many of you guys so loyal. That alone says something about the quality of the game!
...

NEARLY! perfect! lol. No game is perfect! "We have a system and it works!" :twisted:

I like some of the old games too. It is neat to see where we were 20 and 30 years ago on gaming and compare it today's games.

I thought you might be kiding some. I just wanted to make sure.


Hell, yeah, I loved the 1st edition Warhammer RPG too. I went nuts and bought 2 copies after cracking it open and seeing that you could be a rat catcher as a profession. And it had easy conversion from miniatures to RPG.
2nd Edition was good for what it was. But they missed the mark simply because they did not see that many of the sales of the RPG were those that also played miniatures of the game. They left that part out and sales were not quite what they expected.

Which is why some people love or hate MGT. Its an updated version of CT and so some will be extremely happy about some changes and some will never be happy.

I look at this way, THANK YOU Mongoose for giving the Traveller game a boost in popularity. It means there are more gamers/players looking at it and playing it, no matter what version you like the most.

Dave Chase

 

[snrdg121408]

Howdy howardfanatic,

I've loved science fiction and history since the mid 1960s. After enlisting in 1975 I was introduced to the SDSU gaming club and stumbled in to D&D which started my addication to RPGs. One day I walked into my favorite Game Store and saw a plastic bag with a small black book, actually three books, with a red stripe on the cover. I picked the bag up, looked at the contents, and was hooked. Since that time I've collected a number of non-Traveller sci-fi gaming systems and at least the core books of most for Traveller prior to T5. My reason for not having T5 yet is I'm still trying to decide on which one to buy menaning the CD-ROM or the books.

Yep, Marc and his team made a quality product that has stood the test of time so far. However, even a quality product can use some tweaking. So far Mongoose has done the best job at making Traveller the generic sci-fi envisioned in CT.

Sub vet- that is so funny. Almost every CT nut I've ever met is former military. They must have really nailed it to have so many of you guys so loyal. That alone says something about the quality of the game!

 

[Anonymous]

I agree that the layout of CT was chaotic - just look at some of those old adventures - brilliant content but terrible layout.

I don't agree that it was such a military orientated game as you describe. I have played for years - mainly merchant campaigns and odd jobs, planet hopping, solving problems with the very occasional merc ticket. Most people I know play that way. Twilight's Peak or The Traveller Adventure or recently MJD's adventures are typical of CT to me. Combat is much more deadly in CT than Mongtrav and so characters tend to avoid it until absolutely necessary - of course it is very exciting when it does happen.

I do agree that there is a large contingent of ex-military types who have always played CT too and the game is flexible enough to accomodate them.


Mong trav has sorted out the organisational issues well, added some great new ideas and expanded the game into other sci-fi (less "hard") areas to draw new players in. All good in my book. My only concern is that they also make sure it is possible to continue to play the old "hard" sci-fi way - where internal consistency is high and thus immersion is deep.

 

[howardfanatic]

[[wags finger]] It CAN'T be hard sci fi without SCIENCE skills, my friend! lol

CT isn't as hard as it could be. After all, anti grav is the least hard tech that we currently dream about. Well, time travel, but I'm way past burned out on time travel. Enough Hollywood! Enough!

As for the military sci fi angle, I guess that perception is enforced through the detail in the Mercenary, High Guard, and Scout books and the detail completely absent in the Citizens of the Imperium book. lol Still, there was a lot of detail in the Merchant Princes as well, so I guess my perception isn't perfectly accurate.

Still, CT is like many of those old games- they would not be around now if they had not been truly great then. CT is one of the 4 or 5 best ever. I'm glad Mongoose picked it up and did such a sharp job of it. It is a very good book and Traveller deserves to be a major game- at least on par with D&D (though that ship has sunk, in my not so humble opinion, unless you're talking about Castles and Crusades) and Call of Cthulhu.

I think that its very cool how CT attracts such a large military fanbase. That tells me that CT got it right. I figure vets know their stuff when it comes to military, and if CT gets their attention, then CT is accurate. I like that. I'm glad Mongoose put out a version of Traveller for hard sci fi and space opera enthusiasts.

Me personally, I like sci fi pretty much all round. Military (Heinlein, Weber, Moon), cyberpunk (Gibson, Shirow), dystopian (Orwell, Dick), space opera (Star Wars, Star Trek), hard (Asimov, Clarke, Niven)- about the only subgenre I don't care for is the primative stuff. Well, Rachel Welch and her amazing technicolor bikini aside... Oh, and I'm a bit burned out on the superman tale. Outside of Dune I've never liked those either. But I like Dune enough to make up for that lack. :twisted:

Warhammer 1st having the ratcatcher as a profession was an inspired bit of brilliance. I always loved how one, massive, phone-book sized tome was all you ever needed to play. I'm not like most gamers. I got really tired of the 3 books to play format pretty damned quick. Warhammer 2nd is also a great game. My main complaint with it is actually the magic system. I know it reflects the gameworld magic far better than the original system, but that originla system was just so blasted easy to add to and expand. Also, I felt a bit cheated getting a slim 2nd ed. I was used to that beautiful, beautiful phone book. lol I loved Warhammer mostly I guess because the cover had a punk rock dwarf getting his gore on in the chest of an orc. I saw that and my joy buzzer rang. lol

I'll say one thing about Traveller. It attracts friendly fans. Here and on CotI I've found folks to be able to carry on a critical converstion without resorting to infantile ego trips and personal attacts. That is refreshing. Some forums I've been to... Yikes. Some guys need to get a puppy. They are just WAY too insecure. lol It's a bloody forum, not a competition...

So, by that I'm saying- thanks for not being @$$holes. lol I'm sure I'm not the only relative newbie that appraciates it.

 

[Anonymous]

[[wags finger]] It CAN'T be hard sci fi without SCIENCE skills, my friend! lol

Thanks for your long post.
I don't agree with that bit ^ It is the very fact that the charcters lead kind of "normal" lives within the coherent setting which makes it hard to me. It sort of feels like -: there's anti grav and jump drives - what else has changed? The characters play all sorts of different roles which would plausibly exist. The science skills are there in the setting, but they don't necesarily make the adventure within it. Its not the charcters who have the science skills but the scientists in the background. Unless you character is a scientist - in which case you just give them the skills (physics 3, applied terraforming 2, asteroid mechanics 4).