| Stalkey and Co | 10 May 2020 9:01 p.m. PST |
I am resurrecting a 40yo project with Striker '81 and 100 of the Citadel [now sold by RAFM] sculpts by the Perrys. I have found the traveller wiki. It is very helpful. Still, a coherent narrative of the traveller universe would be good, so I was thinking of getting the GURPS source book. But I am open to suggestions. I do not feel like hunting down LBBs particularly, and would like a more modern concept of how computers will work in the future…or even now. The issue being that Striker'81 doesn't get contemporary war correct, much less far into the future. That being said, as an old guy, it isn't a deal breaker. Anyway, do go ahead and fire away!! |
Oberlindes Sol LIC  | 10 May 2020 10:39 p.m. PST |
I prefer the Mongoose Core Rulebook for rules. It keeps the feeling of the little black books, but with greater consistency and thoroughness. Mongoose's The Third Imperium: The Spinward Marches has a good, concise future history that tracks the official universe. I don't really think much about computers when I run Traveller. I assume that most of the space required by larger computers is workstations rather than rows of magnetic tape spools. I have played a lot of Striker (including with retired Army officers) and enjoyed it at all tech levels. You might also look at Striker II, which was a New Era product. |
| Thresher01 | 10 May 2020 11:04 p.m. PST |
I've read good things about the Mongoose re-release/update of the LBBs. Not sure I'd use Traveller/Striker for combat, though some have and do. Snapshot seemed okay for small skirmish games with a few troops per side. |
| emckinney | 10 May 2020 11:12 p.m. PST |
Mongoose Traveller suffers from their typical terrible editing. The basic space combat rules are literally unplayable because they contradict themselves in critical areas. |
 Parzival | 11 May 2020 4:57 a.m. PST |
Just to note, the LBBs and the Starter book (which essentially compiled and updated/corrected the original LBBs) are available as PDFs from DriveThruRPG, along with pretty much anything else you want to find. The great thing about Traveller is that you don't really have to go with much at all of "big history" background. Get the barebones right, and leave the "local" stuff to whatever you want it to be. Plus there's this, which is awesome: travellermap.com Pick a starting system anywhere in the galaxy (and I mean anywhere), and make up the rest as you go! Which pretty much is the entire concept of Traveller. |
 Saber6  | 11 May 2020 6:25 a.m. PST |
Parzival has a good suggestion. The latest release may seem overwhelming, but you only need to use what you want/need. as for what adventure, I think "Shadows" is a good one for starters. |
| Stryderg | 11 May 2020 6:41 a.m. PST |
Plus there's this, which is awesome: travellermap.com WOW! I knew the Traveler universe was big, but that's ridiculous! Thanks for the link. |
| Parzival | 11 May 2020 8:29 a.m. PST |
I believe "Shadows" is included with the Deluxe Traveller Set downloadable from DTRPG. |
| darthfozzywig | 11 May 2020 8:52 a.m. PST |
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| Thresher01 | 11 May 2020 8:59 a.m. PST |
Yea, there is that I've read about their editing too. A shame about the space combat issue, but to be fair, any of the Traveller space combat rules are pretty much unplayable as far as I can tell. |
| Oberlindes Sol LIC | 11 May 2020 9:57 a.m. PST |
WOW! I knew the Traveler universe was big, but that's ridiculous! Thanks for the link. From another perspective, the Traveller universe is very small -- only about 100,000 star systems in a galaxy of 100,000,000,000 star systems. But yes, you can use as much or as little of the official setting as you want. It's a very flexible system. I have run a game set in the Vietnam war using Traveller rules (admittedly, there was a crashed UFO involved). |
| darthfozzywig | 11 May 2020 11:57 a.m. PST |
Original Mayday is available here: link It makes LBB space combat hex-playable. |
| Martian Root Canal | 11 May 2020 1:29 p.m. PST |
I'm a big fan of Mongoose's 2nd edition Traveler. I've played every edition since the original, and it has done a good job of modernizing the technology while keeping the feel of the original books. |
| USAFpilot | 27 May 2020 2:31 p.m. PST |
Plus there's this, which is awesome: travellermap.com Wow, that's pretty cool. It really captures the feel of how big space is. And that's just one small section of the galaxy. Here is a real life example of how big space is: the Voyager satellite launched by NASA in 1977 will pass by the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius (which is also one of the closest stars to us after our own sun and Alpha Centauri) around the year 298,000 A.D.. Mind boggling big. Queue Kansas singing "dust in the wind". :-) |
