"Traveller 5th Edition - Anyone Received it Yet? Opinions?" Topic

I meant to post this on the SFRPG board as well, initially, but the system hiccupped when posting, so I couldn't do that, so thought I would re-post it here.

I see it appears that T5 is finally shipping, so just curious to see if anyone has purchased T5, and if so, what you think of it?

Comparisons to the original, little black books would be especially helpful, but I'm also interested in what new, and useful stuff is included in it too?

One of the guys in our RPG group is in on that deal. As of yesterday he hadn't received anything yet. He wasn't expecting it either. He made it sound like it was gonna take a while to pack them all up and get them in the mail… and autograph a bunch of them along the way.

The one review I saw complained that the book was too detailed and contained no index and a very small table of contents.

I've gotten my physical copy, and I've been reading an eBook on my iPad for a couple of weeks.

You're looking at 650 or so pages, with explanations of how the dice rolling system works, character generation, skills, the task system, ship design, world design, star system design, non-human design, item design, animal design and combat.

There is no setting information here. In this, it's quite like the LBBs in their original form.

This is a massive toolbox of rules, and it looks like you can create your own setting – there is more than one type of FTL drive, forex.

I'm only on page 156, but I'm impressed already.

There is at least one, well, whiner, on another forum who is now convinced that he'll never be able to play Traveller again. Presumably because either A) Marc Miller has squads of space ninjas who will be coming to take every copy of every other version of Travller out there, or B) during playtest, his version of how certain things worked (nobles, mainly) were considered, then dropped.

It's hard to take seriously someone who insists that the game creator and designer has ruined their own creation.

Is it too detailed?

Maybe.

maybe not.

I expect that a story-telling type of new system would have fallen flat.

I've been a fan of Traveller since 1977, and this version adds more flavor, and it's not, at this moment, tied to an "official" setting.

Thanks for the info.

Looking forward to more, when people have the time and inclination to share.

The lack of an index, and a small table of contents sounds less than desireable, for such a large book.

No doubt, the CDs will be more useful for looking up info, as needed, with a search function.

"It's hard to take seriously someone who insists that the game creator and designer has ruined their own creation."

Dunno, it works for George Lucas.

Marc did the ruin your own creation thing with T4 (which cheerfully ignored a lot of the Canon), but then realized that was a mistake.

The person of whom you speak may or may not get over it, but if its who I think it is he has a long history of taking Traveller materials waaay too literally.

The book needs more words, and a lot of the words it already has need to be rearranged.

Just opened mine. Those 3 LBB are now one Giant Black Book (GBB). The dice are cool as well as my Noble ID cards (Count of the Spinward Marches!). Judging a book by its cover, I gotta say it rocks. Look forward to the deep dive.

Lost Pict

Varlet fetch the 200T space yacht!

I've decided to go simple/old school for my next game… trying out the 'Stars Without Number' RPG.

sinenomine-pub.com

I received mine early last week, and have been reading them. As has been said, there is no setting information except for a timeline of the various eras leading up to the Third Imperium. It is a very much expanded and reorganized version of the original (LBB) Traveler and all of its expansions as released by GDW. It returns to the days when an RPG was a set of systems, and the GM and players were left to create the setting.

Lately, I've been dismayed by the number of people who really insist that a game include a fully fleshed out background.

I find that creating the background is certainly as satisfying as running the game – even if I start out with only a few planets, some governments & an inital plot, it can be a lot of fun for everyone involved.

Heck, when I was at Torrejon AB, Spain, back in the mid-80s, we played a Star Wars universe game with the LBBs.

Mako11, I expect the CD will be more useful for searching for things.

Besides, the book itself measures 8.5" x 11" x 1.7" – I have no idea of the weight!

I'm with you Whitestreak. I've been messing around with the new Morrow Project and I find too much of the background to be kind of iffy on how much sense it makes (in my mind) plus I have some different ideas I'd like to go with. In the end it's not a problem but there's a lot of stuff put in there that I don't need.

Just finished up reading some reviews of this product and they are very, very negative. Sounds like the editing and organization were pretty poor.

That is a shame, and hope it proves to be untrue.

Editing should be a no brainer.

Organization can be a bit more challenging, especially given the size of the project, but given all of the previous versions of Traveller, I think that should finally be nailed down by now.