World Builders Handbook - is there anything actually useful in it?

[nats]

What does the World Builders Handbook cover in terms of fleshing out the main world? - does it include animals tables, fauna etc? Or does this book just deal with the physical characteristics of systems and worlds? I dont just want another Scout CT book because stellar details arent that interesting, unless I am playing a Scout character busy doing a Scout career (not likely at all).

I feel too many Mongoose books focus on mundane jobs and unplayable features of the Traveller universe that most RPGers will never want to play much - such as massive navies in huge conflicts, large mercenary unit actions, stellar system design, political administration, noble families, conglomerates, etc, and not enough on typical 'Traveller characters' who are doing typical Traveller activities.

I think the Starship Operators Manual is a book that does cover what I need - and I need more of this sort of thing - and less 'High Guard' and the 'Fifth Frontier War' which will not affect typical Traveller characters in the slightest - other than raising the price of starship fuel lol. Whereas some of these background/filler books are interesting to detail the overal Traveller universe, they are of limited use during actual RPG sessions.

I really want a World Design Book that enables me to create an interesting fleshed out main world for my characters to visit, including star bases and star ports, trasportation systems, animals and ecology, terrain, cities/towns, customs, peoples, languages, laws, nightlife, social activities, sports, rivers, forests, taboos, etc - for example all the typical stuff you find out in travel guides when you are planning on going abroad to a country you have never been to!

I do not think from what is see that the current WBH includes this sort of thing at all. But I would like to be wrong.

 

[Vormaerin]

There is a shortage of "how to run the actual campaign" materials to go with all the "how to build the setting for the campaign" materials. But I don't agree that things like High Guard, Robots, World Builder's Handbook, etc are not useful.

I'm also not sure that "typical Traveller characters doing typical Traveller activities" is actually a thing? There's a lot of complaints about the mercenary sourcebook precisely because there ARE players that want to do mercenary actions. There are people who want to be Honor Harringon/Star Trek ship crew. There are people running Deep Night Revelation (the scout doing scout things) and cheering when Core Expeditions & Rim Expeditions (settings for exploration) are released.

But there is a tendency to act like folks know how to run "standard adventurers in spaaaace" and not actually provide structures and support for that. And some of those "standard structures" have fallen in popularity in fiction, so fewer people know how to do them.

For example, when I was growing up, there was lots of "space merchants" in fiction. CJ Cherryh's Merchanter books, Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League, Frederick Pohl's Merchant boooks, Andre Norton's Solar Queen. Even Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy touched on it. While it's not completely gone, it's pretty unusual in modern sci fi.

 

[Limpin Legin]

including star bases and star ports, trasportation systems, animals and ecology, terrain, cities/towns, customs, peoples, languages, laws, nightlife, social activities, sports, rivers, forests, taboos, etc - for example all the typical stuff you find out in travel guides when you are planning on going abroad to a country you have never been to!

Starports, Settlements and Animals tables and rules are in the MgT 1e supplements.

The advice of the WBH is to use only as much of it as you need. Ie you don't have to generate all that level of detail just for the sake of it.

I feel too many Mongoose books focus on mundane jobs and unplayable features of the Traveller universe that most RPGers will never want to play much - such as massive navies in huge conflicts, large mercenary unit actions, stellar system design, political administration, noble families, conglomerates, etc, and not enough on typical 'Traveller characters' who are doing typical Traveller activities.

That is possibly because Traveller is a ultimately a Sandbox style of game and not a 'hex crawl' game.

 

[rinku]

WBH has all the expected space and system stuff, sure. Some useful discussion and rules for interstellar surveying.

What it has that's NOT a revisit to CT Scouts are the planet and demographic stuff.



Essentially it's a reworking of the DGP MegaTraveller era World Builder's Handbook.

As you can see from the table of contents, there's 7 pages discussing the IISS, 55 pages on regular star stuff (although that is revisited in "Special Circumstances", which deals with exotic systems like black holes and megastructures, plus more common things like brown dwarfs and empty hex matters), 78 pages on detailing the physical aspects of a world (including climate and mapping) and 72 pages on demographics (which includes technology, culture and law). And the equipment chapter has stuff, of course.

So I make it 150 pages that only deal with expanding the description of a world's UWP.

 

[ColinD]

I use the book often when I want to describe a planet or get some inspiration for a new world, and like to re-read it like I re-read the Starships Operators Handbook and Traveller's Merchant's Edition. Like the Starship Operators Handbook, you can use as much or as little as you want.

If you want to see an example of how it is helpful and the community that supports Traveller here is a question I asked and the great response it got here is Banasdan World Building .

 

[Vormaerin]

I primarily use it to reverse engineer outcomes that I want.

 

[CordwainerFish]

I really want a World Design Book that enables me to create an interesting fleshed out main world for my characters to visit, including star bases and star ports, trasportation systems, animals and ecology, terrain, cities/towns, customs, peoples, languages, laws, nightlife, social activities, sports, rivers, forests, taboos, etc

I'd buy that in a hot second... but it'd more likely be a bookshelf. Maybe even a bookcase.

 

[Vormaerin]

Speaking as someone who majored in cultural anthropology & History back in the previous millenium, I think you'd need to start with "library" not book case

But, yes, more cool alien worlds would be awesome. I love Nomads of the World Ocean because the design of Bellerophon (the world) and the parts of its ecology (the daghadasi) and cultures (pylon & nomad) that we see are wicked. The actual adventure is seriously flawed, but who cares? That's the easy part to fix.

 

[rinku]

I really want a World Design Book that enables me to create an interesting fleshed out main world for my characters to visit, including star bases and star ports, trasportation systems, animals and ecology, terrain, cities/towns, customs, peoples, languages, laws, nightlife, social activities, sports, rivers, forests, taboos, etc - for example all the typical stuff you find out in travel guides when you are planning on going abroad to a country you have never been to!

I do not think from what is see that the current WBH includes this sort of thing at all. But I would like to be wrong.

WBH gets you up to presence of native like and its complexity and biomass.

It does well in generating population density and how many and what type of population centres exist.

Lots of expansion in regards to government and law.

Technology can be differentiated by category (electronics, medical, manufacturing etc).

Cultural stuff that further builds on what's in CRB, much more detail in regards to ports and bases, trading and economy.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I feel too many Mongoose books focus on mundane jobs and unplayable features of the Traveller universe

This is by necessity - Traveller fans are a very, very broad church.

In short, we do not expect anyone to buy every Traveller book. That is not the point. You really just need the Core Rulebook. Add High Guard if there is going to be a lot of ships in your game, pick up CSC if your players are magpies, grab a sector book to give you somewhere to explore.

If we come out with a book set in a sector on the other side of Charted Space that focusses on the musical talent of Bwaps... you probably don't need it! However, we may have identified a set of players who are dippy about travelling Bwap orchestras. Or we may just be really into them ourselves.

Use what you need, ignore the rest. Until you get that craving for Bwap jazz...

 

[nats]

I suppose thats fair enough I've always considered Traveller as a toolset not the law. I dont much like most of the 3rd Imperium /official universe stuff, although strangely enough the 3rd Imperium book does interest me a bit for its empire rules and operating customs. I guess you just have to pick and choose what you want to use. I've downloaded all the extracts from Drivethru so will read and see if any take my fancy.

They are very expensive books though to only get a few items of interest out of them that is the main issue for me. Which is why I want to be careful now what I buy. CT books were just £5 lol so it didnt matter much if you only got a few snippets of interesting stuff out of them for your own use. Of course that was a few years ago ....

 

[MongooseMatt]

CT books were just £5 lol so it didnt matter much if you only got a few snippets of interesting stuff out of them for your own use. Of course that was a few years ago ....

Worth pointing out that £5 then is a little more than £20 now - and that was for an A5 b/w softback. Our books are a little bigger

Also... Our new CT book (Pirates) is just £10

 

[Anstett]

...that focusses on the musical talent of Bwaps... you probably don't need it! However, we may have identified a set of players who are dippy about travelling Bwap orchestras. Or we may just be really into them ourselves.

Use what you need, ignore the rest. Until you get that craving for Bwap jazz...

Gimme that old timey Bwap beep pop

 

[Endie]

Worth pointing out that £5 then is a little more than £20 now - and that was for an A5 b/w softback. Our books are a little bigger

Also... Our new CT book (Pirates) is just £10

Five pounds in 77 is worth just shy of thirty pounds today! And the art budget back then was notoriously skimpy, too...

 

[wintertraveller]

I don't agree that things like High Guard, Robots, World Builder's Handbook, etc are not useful.

+1

 

[CordwainerFish]

Speaking as someone who majored in cultural anthropology & History back in the previous millenium, I think you'd need to start with "library" not book case

I could probably fill a shelf just with books currently in print on language construction.