Traveller 5th Edition

ShawnDriscoll said:
You liked Mongoose Traveller enough to buy it. When I say don't like Mongoose Traveller, I mean don't like it and don't buy the book.

I did not buy it. I looked at it in the game store and went this it too damn bland. Went home and continue to run GURPs Traveller, TNE, and occasionally T4.
 
far-trader said:
I was in a game store looking at RPG new releases and saw GURPS Traveller. "COOL!" I picked it up, flipped through it, and put it back down disappointed. Didn't like it. And looked at other games.

How long did you look at the GURPS book? Did you just fan through the thing and put it back? Did you look through the book for more than 15 minutes? Were you a GURPS fan? What was the disappointment with that book?

Anyway, I was talking about the Mongoose Traveller book. GURPS Traveller was just a settings book.
 
lordmalachdrim said:
ShawnDriscoll said:
You liked Mongoose Traveller enough to buy it. When I say don't like Mongoose Traveller, I mean don't like it and don't buy the book.

I did not buy it. I looked at it in the game store and went this it too damn bland. Went home and continue to run GURPs Traveller, TNE, and occasionally T4.

So why are you in this forum?
 
ShawnDriscoll said:
How long did you look at the GURPS book? Did you just fan through the thing and put it back? Did you look through the book for more than 15 minutes? Were you a GURPS fan? What was the disappointment with that book?

(N.B.: I know your question wasn't directed at me, yet I'm going to respond anyway.)

I read GURPS:Traveller cover to cover, but it was a while ago. I'm not a big GURPS fan truth be told; I consider the system too fiddly. But I have only played a handful of GURPS sessions, and they weren't GURPS:Traveller.

I liked the art (loved some of it), the writing quality. I rarely find any serious faults in those regards with SJG products I've read.

What I didn't like was the feeling that (and I believe that this was the intent of the book) the product was mostly for old Traveller players who have GURPS playing friends and still love the 3I setting. (Specifically, the non-Virus 3I - didn't GURPS Traveller follow an alternate "CT 4-ever" sort of timeline?) I suspect that most if not all GURPS setting books have this problem though. There's not a "natural" setting or even genre for the game, it's just a toolkit for emulating your favorite setting or coming up with your own.

It's been a number of years since I read GURPS Traveller though, and memory is tricky thing.

The reason I'm on this board is that Mongoose's Traveller, for all of its minor faults, IS Traveller from my perspective.
 
hdan said:
didn't GURPS Traveller follow an alternate "CT 4-ever" sort of timeline?

The Traveller setting for GURPS is in the year 1120 and there was no rebellion or virus. GURPS Space was needed for the game. The GURPS Traveller supplements that followed covered everything about the 3rd Imperium races, ships, and territories.
 
I never liked Gurps myself and being a DieHard Traveller collector, I never ought any of that stuff. That says alot for me, because I buy EVERYTHING...but I did not buy THAT stuff.
 
2330ADUSA1 said:
I never liked Gurps myself and being a DieHard Traveller collector, I never ought any of that stuff. That says alot for me, because I buy EVERYTHING...but I did not buy THAT stuff.

You're missing out then. It's among the best written, most fully fleshed out material written for Traveller. Even if you hate the system, the fluff it adds is worth its weight in gold.
 
ShawnDriscoll said:
The Traveller setting for GURPS is in the year 1120 and there was no rebellion or virus. GURPS Space was needed for the game. The GURPS Traveller supplements that followed covered everything about the 3rd Imperium races, ships, and territories.
GURPS Space was most definitely NOT required. At all.

In fact, you could run a credible, fun, effective game using just the Traveller core book and GURPS 3e Lite. You didn't even have to buy the GURPS 3e Core book. GURPS 3e Lite was sufficient. (And far less fiddly, too.)

But, yes, GURPS Traveller followed an alternative timeline where Strephon was not assassinated. Instead, Dulinor's gig blew up on that fateful day, and never made it to the palace. Also, it started in 1120 or so, but by the end of the various supplements, I believe it made it to around 1128 or so.

EDIT:
Oh, forgot to add: At the end of the run, they published GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars. This was set in the years of the Interstellar Wars between the First Imperium and the nascent Terran Confederation. That was based on the newer GURPS 4e, and was a very nice presentation of Traveller and a new setting. It was very nice. Unfortunately, I guess it never sold well enough, as there were never any follow-on products for it. A shame, really, as it was a very nice setting.
 
daryen said:
EDIT:
Oh, forgot to add: At the end of the run, they published GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars. This was set in the years of the Interstellar Wars between the First Imperium and the nascent Terran Confederation. That was based on the newer GURPS 4e, and was a very nice presentation of Traveller and a new setting. It was very nice. Unfortunately, I guess it never sold well enough, as there were never any follow-on products for it. A shame, really, as it was a very nice setting.
There was no follow up because it was the last thing SJGames was authorize to publish before their license ran out. I've heard some say that permission to publish it was a "gift" from Marc Miller to SJGames, but I have no confirmation on that.

I do know that I have the book and it's ok, although it served more as the platform for some to start arguments about things at that time in the History of the 3I universe with certain viewpoints hammered home as "the only valid one" because SJGames was "Canon OTU" etc etc. *That* did turn me off on the book and now it sits in a box with my old GURPS stuff.
 
SJG's Traveller license has not run out. It certainly did not end when the others "sunsetted" (see http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/August_06_2007/The_New_Face_Of_Traveller ), it was exempted because of an arrangement made between SJG and Marc Miller as described in the Daily Illuminator I linked to.

If it had run out, they would not be able to continue to sell GURPS Traveller on e23 or continue to publish new issues of JTAS Online, so presumably it has been further extended past 2011.

GT Interstellar Wars was released in 2006 (a year before the other licenses sunsetted), so it can hardly be a 'gift', especially given that their license has been extended not once but twice since then.
 
SJ Games still publishes JTAS as an online magazine.
The GURPS Traveller series for GURPS 3 is pretty com-
plete, all important themes of the universe have got a
supplement, and to convert all of it to GURPS 4 would
hardly make economic sense, as GURPS 4 is not that
much different from GURPS 3, and the Traveller market
is already rather crowded because almost all of the old
versions are still available, Mongoose publishes new ma-
terial and Traveller 5 is on the horizon. Besides, most of
the authors who knew the Traveller universe well have
moved on, some to Mongoose and others elsewhere.
So while SJ Games still has the right to produce Travel-
ler material, it is probably prudent from an economic
point of view not to do it.
 
2330ADUSA1 said:
I never liked Gurps myself and being a DieHard Traveller collector, I never ought any of that stuff. That says alot for me, because I buy EVERYTHING...but I did not buy THAT stuff.

You missed the best Trav material produced. I own everything else since I started buying in '78. I never played GURPS (well maybe one game ~'82?) but after leafing through it I had to buy their Trav material.

That being said, T5 won't impact MGT sales. Price of admission is the 1st deterrent and the type of game is the 2nd. 2 different animals.
 
Wil Mireu said:
SJG's Traveller license has not run out. It certainly did not end when the others "sunsetted" (see http://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/August_06_2007/The_New_Face_Of_Traveller ), it was exempted because of an arrangement made between SJG and Marc Miller as described in the Daily Illuminator I linked to...
I appreciate the clarification... As much as I like many of the products from SJGames (and on my 4th year of subscribing to JTAS) I just don't go to their site much. In truth I just go for updated Munchkin deck/icon lists and to update my e23 purchases.

My info came from someone who is supposed to be a "highly respected, long standing member of their MIB" Looks like he was wrong... again.
 
It might be just because I started with MgT but honestly I'm not impressed by this. Nothing particularly grabbed me and much of it is an appeal to a sense of nostalga I don't have. That and having to give out about $150 is more then I'm willing to pay sight unseen even if it is for a six hundred page monster of a tome.
 
I'm sorry, I'm retired on disability as is my wife.. meaning limited funds. I have the T5 beta/pre-release CD and since right at the beginning this "T5 - the system that was supposed to be comparable with MGT - MGT compatible with it" was not compatible, not easily. I mean modifiers go the opposite direction making everything topsy turvy...

The only good I see in it is, maybe some new stuff on world.system generation.
 
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