Soviet Vehicles of WWII - Now on Drivethru

[Jame Rowe]

I admit that I'm scratching my head about why Traveller needs WW2 supplements.

Not an unfair question - and, I have to admit, part of it is self-indulgence on my part. While working through Merc II, we did a tank that was kind of an off-world version of a Tiger tank. That got me thinking what a real Tiger tank would look like in Traveller...

If you want a better reason (!), the book's description goes into possible uses, chiefly a providing a set of TL 5 vehicles that you can use in any campaign. Just change the names of them!

I still want to see a more in-depth treatment of low-tech (as in pre-English Civil War) planets, but maybe you guys are working up to it.

If you did it I could help.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Just to chip in, we are hoping to make Italian Vehicles available before the weekend!

Great. As for doing Vehicles of the Race, we would probably have to get Harry Turtledove's permission, though we could create our own alien species that invades Earth during World War II as well without using specifically his Race. Though I think there would be some value in hooking this to Harry's Balance series, and Harry might also find that he may sell more of these books as a result of a role playing game setting being based on it, but who really knows? Harry Turtledove has recently finished another Alternate World War II series, The War that Came Early, it is more a history buff what if, while the Balance series is clearly science fiction.

I must say the 'Balance' series is a very good one! I'd love to see a sourcebook for the Race's invasion. One thing I'd probably do is have several 'fronts' and get each player to make one character for each; part of the reason you get a very good feel of a global war is the way the action keeps bouncing from the RAF to Germany to Russia to the US to Manchuria and back

It's easy enough to create a Race Landcruiser from the vehicle handbook - although I guess you could have done the same for the WWII gear, as well.

Mercenary has a nice updated mass combat system, so it's easy to play out campaigns. As noted, all you really need are career tables for the soldiers, etc, with appropriate events and skills like "Battle Dress" subbed out for more era-specific useful ones (Drive?)

Also some people might want to play a Race character as well, basically they are heat loving diminutive lizard people from Tau Ceti.

 

[locarno24]

Great. As for doing Vehicles of the Race, we would probably have to get Harry Turtledove's permission, though we could create our own alien species that invades Earth during World War II as well without using specifically his Race. Though I think there would be some value in hooking this to Harry's Balance series, and Harry might also find that he may sell more of these books as a result of a role playing game setting being based on it, but who really knows? Harry Turtledove has recently finished another Alternate World War II series, The War that Came Early, it is more a history buff what if, while the Balance series is clearly science fiction.

Also some people might want to play a Race character as well, basically they are heat loving diminutive lizard people from Tau Ceti.

Would rather 'do it properly' if you're actually publishing it - a fairly blatant rip-off of In The Balance is fine for a home campaign but not for something put out by a company. Plus, it lets you then lift chunks of the story wholesale, and specifc characters as NPCs.

A similar (earlier) option is the Great Martian War - the discovery channel thing which essentially rammed WWI and War Of The Worlds together in a (steampunk) particle accelerator.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Great. As for doing Vehicles of the Race, we would probably have to get Harry Turtledove's permission, though we could create our own alien species that invades Earth during World War II as well without using specifically his Race. Though I think there would be some value in hooking this to Harry's Balance series, and Harry might also find that he may sell more of these books as a result of a role playing game setting being based on it, but who really knows? Harry Turtledove has recently finished another Alternate World War II series, The War that Came Early, it is more a history buff what if, while the Balance series is clearly science fiction.

Also some people might want to play a Race character as well, basically they are heat loving diminutive lizard people from Tau Ceti.

Would rather 'do it properly' if you're actually publishing it - a fairly blatant rip-off of In The Balance is fine for a home campaign but not for something put out by a company. Plus, it lets you then lift chunks of the story wholesale, and specifc characters as NPCs.

A similar (earlier) option is the Great Martian War - the discovery channel thing which essentially rammed WWI and War Of The Worlds together in a (steampunk) particle accelerator.

Yes I would. We would probably have to pay Harry Turtledove something to use his characters and setting (Through the purcase price of the product as consumers), on the other hand we would probably attract some of his readership to Traveller products, if his setting was published in a Traveller product, whether that's enough to justify borrowing HT's setting is an open question.

My guess is HT would probably charge a reasonable fee, at least as he sees it, if he wants to profit from this, the main thing is that if there was a Traveller setting based in his books, it would attract some Traveller players to buy HT's books if they don't already have them, that is the optimistic assessment, on the other hand, I don't know if the numbers would work, but then again, why do anything if that's the case. There is of course the Prime Directive setting, which is another borrowed setting of course, I don't see why HT's Balance series couldn't be adapted to Traveller, if he is willing to let this happen for a reasonable fee.

 

[locarno24]

I still want to see a more in-depth treatment of low-tech (as in pre-English Civil War) planets, but maybe you guys are working up to it.

If you did it I could help.

There was a half-interested query a while back as to whether people would want to have an actual age-of-sail sourcebook - the carribean age of piracy was suggested.

Would be interesting. Would also quite like to see a proper low-tech barbarian one (something like Alfred/Danelaw era).

 

[MongooseMatt]

There was a half-interested query a while back as to whether people would want to have an actual age-of-sail sourcebook - the carribean age of piracy was suggested.

This is actually going to happen - it is something I personally want to see for Traveller and as the owner of a games company, I am lucky enough to make that call. Even if I end up being the only player

Don't hold your breath, but it would be nice to see in 2015...

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

There was a half-interested query a while back as to whether people would want to have an actual age-of-sail sourcebook - the carribean age of piracy was suggested.

This is actually going to happen - it is something I personally want to see for Traveller and as the owner of a games company, I am lucky enough to make that call. Even if I end up being the only player

Don't hold your breath, but it would be nice to see in 2015...

Haha, perks of being boss

You won't be the only player, I'm really looking forward to this - holding my breath and hoping for the best