G:Traveller sourcebooks useful for other versions of Traveller?

[rancke]

[A starport definition] is just given in abilities, but doesn't say anything about capacity. How do you define a starport that has class A facilities but couldn't really service more than a couple ships at that level at a time? Does it matter if that's as many ships it's likely to see at a time?

IMO starports that have Class A or B or C facilities will still be rated lower if they don't have the capacity to service all their traffic properly. I've used that idea to explain Class D starports on stellar-tech, high-population worlds a couple of times already (Rethe/Regina[*] and Forine/District 268[**]). I expect to use it again in the future.


Hans


[*] "At one point visiting starships could not expect to get any service at all, at least not in a timely manner. Things are improving now and the starport will soon be reclassified to Class III and eventually back to its original Class IV status."


[**]Forine's starport would be Class A if it wasn't too small for the traffic it has to handle. As it is, casual visiting ships cannot be sure of getting even elemetary service in reasonable time, reducing its official class to D. This state of affairs has been chronic since 1104, when a construction workers' strike resulted in riots and extensive destruction of starport facilities. Every attempt to solve the conflict and remedy them since then has proved a temporary stopgap at best.

 

[Rindis]

Which is the thought that was forming in the back of my head as I wrote that.

I can't remember, are starport ratings given by the Scouts or the TAS? If the Scouts, than it is probably is just a functional rating of what it can do. If TAS, then a 'B' could be either 'has the capabilities listed for a "B"' or 'technically "A", but support is less than competent/capable, and tends to be over-priced'.

And while we're talking about the quality of 'setting' products (but wandering away from GURPS), what's the "expert" opinion of RoF? What are some of the better ones that have been done (beyond Spinward Marches Campain)?

Actually, scratch that last paragraph, is there a site that has good reviews of a wide range of Traveller products? (From GDW to Judge's Guild to SJG to QLI.) DGP I know about, the odder stuff I have to wonder about.

 

[selunatic2397]

I own all of the gurps traveller books and find them quite useful for my CT campaign.

 

[zonk]

...snip!... Rim of Fire remains my favorite but you will find some jewels in Starships, assuming you do not have the DGP product which is superior. Anything that Jon or Hans has touched is real gold, so it might be worthwhile to see what they contributed to JTAS and can be ported into MT without too much difficulties.

kafka I wasn't aware that DGP did any starship modules (other than Starship Owners Manual). If it was SOM does GT Starships have that kind of detail? I actually own GT Starships but somehow never bothered to read it and right now it's in storage.

Or perhaps I'm confused, what DGP product are you referring to here?

 

[Britti_Lover]

Any Traveller material will work with any Traveller rules.

Heck, I've used Traveller:2300 material in GURPS Traveller!

The best GURPS Traveller books for your use would be:

1) Nobles

2) Behind the Claw

3) Sword Worlds

4) Far Trader


GURPS Traveller for Gurps 3e was probably one of the finest RPGs ever done and well worth buying.

I'm well into Gurps 4e now - which is an entirely different animal. But I still use Traveller material from previous editions.

 

[Al_Beddow]

Two problems: 1) The amount of errata is far too low (i.e. there are a lot of discrepancies with previously published material that hasn't been errata'ed). 2) There are a number of internal inconsistencies.

My experience with SJGames is that their "internal quality control" basically sucks. The scale on some of their ship designs is wrong (for their mechanics).

- A ship that should have say, 400 "1 meter" hexes of floor space has on the diagram over double that just for the cargo hold.
- they give one of those black and white "scale bars" showing how big 1 meter is, and stating "1 hex = 1 meter", but then comparing the two shows that 3 1/2 hexes on the diagram equals 3 meters on the scale bar.
- Rules... they didn't keep track from book to on non-core rules (super strength and such), finally forcing them to put out compendiums I and II.

- The GURPS Traveller universe is an "alternate" universe where the assassination of Emperor Stephan didn't happen and the civil war never occurred.

 

[Captain Midnight]

The GURPS Traveller universe is an "alternate" universe where the assassination of Emperor Stephan didn't happen and the civil war never occurred.

For some folks, that's a feature, not a bug.

The best part of the GT materials in my opinion is that they provided a lot more pages for expansion of material that got very little coverage in the CT/MT material. Yes, some of their stuff has problems with errata, but just check out the MT errata for comparison.

In my opinion, the most useful parts would be Nobles, Sword Worlds, and the Far Trader/Starports/Starships trilogy. While there's a fair bit of system-specific content, there's also a ton of more general discussion that can be useful for anyone's game.

 

[Qstor2]

The best GURPS Traveller books for your use would be:

1) Nobles

2) Behind the Claw

3) Sword Worlds

4) Far Trader

I like First In and Rim of Fire a lot too. I think those would be great additions to any Traveller campaign regardless of the rules used.

Mike

 

[weasel fierce]

Ive generally found the military related books are very good.

 

[Britti_Lover]

:rofl:

someone else writes an adventure based on the previously published information that BtC ignored, you won't be able to use that adventure.

Any adventure can be modified to work with your Traveller universe - it just depends on how much work is needed to adapt it.

I wrote and had published for Traveller an adventure based on BTC.

At a recent SF convention I moved the adventure to the Apishlun subsector.

I don't KNOW how many times I've ran "Ranger" as a Traveller adventure - this superb adventure was written for 2300AD origonally.

 

[rancke]

Any adventure can be modified to work with your Traveller universe - it just depends on how much work is needed to adapt it.

Exactly. It depends on how much work is needed to adapt. I can ignore the discrepancies between BtC and previously published material as well as the next man, but why should I have to? What's the point of setting your campaign in a commercial setting if you have to go to the trouble to adapt the material anyway? The whole point of a shared universe is that you are cooperating with other people to develop a setting. Not just making up your own.

I wrote and had published for Traveller an adventure based on BTC.

Which one? (Just curious).


Hans

 

[Britti_Lover]

:rofl:
BTC is a source book for Gurps Traveller for Gurps 3e. I did not expect this source material to be EXACTLY like source material written for a different version of Traveller published by a different company.

Gurps Traveller for GURPS 3e is a completely self-contained RPG. From GT 3e book to GT 3e book it is quite consistant.

Adapting material written for this RPG from other RPGs will take work. "Keepers of the Flame" the Regency sourcebook for TNE is also a good book for the area - but it is REAL different from Behind the Claw and I've been able to adapt only some information from it to GT.

The Traveller Universe as described in Gurps Traveller for Gurps 3e is one of the best backgrounds ever published for role-playing. The Third Imperium is described in very great detail and all the players I've encountered liked it quite a bit.

It is an ATU (Alternate Traveller Universe) and I'm glad to see this one (no virus, no rebellion, etc.) be published.

I wrote the adventure "Hall of the Mountain Grill" that is part of the fabric of BTC and was published by SJG:

http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=1132

 

[rancke]

:rofl:
BTC is a source book for Gurps Traveller for Gurps 3e. I did not expect this source material to be EXACTLY like source material written for a different version of Traveller published by a different company.

Neither did I. I know very well how difficult it is to keep new material consistent with previously published material. I just don't see why that should absolve a writer from trying hard to do so. As for differences due to different rules systems, that's perfectly fine by me. What isn't fine is differences in the common background. I'm annoyed enough with the changes that were due to this (e.g. the 20% off internal volume for streamlined ships); I have absolutely no sympathy for careless mistakes.

Gurps Traveller for GURPS 3e is a completely self-contained RPG. From GT 3e book to GT 3e book it is quite consistent.

This is not, in fact, the case. There are discrepancies between GT books. In some cases they are discrepancies that arise from the new author basing his work on previously published non-GT material. For instance, what are the four worlds the Darrians and the Sword Worlders keep taking from each other? Is it Entrope, Winston, Anselhome, and Torment, or is it Terant 340, Torment, Trifuge, and Cunnonic? GT says one thing, BtC says another, and what Sword Worlds says is correct .

(It's the Entropic worlds.)

The Traveller Universe as described in Gurps Traveller for Gurps 3e is one of the best backgrounds ever published for role-playing. The Third Imperium is described in very great detail and all the players I've encountered liked it quite a bit.

I agree completely. The GTU is a good RPG background and described in very great detail. But I don't see why that should cause us to ignore the discrepancies and prevent us from trying to get all the details straight.

I wrote the adventure "Hall of the Mountain Grill" that is part of the fabric of BTC and was published by SJG:

As it happens, the information in BtC about Jesedipere is taken ungarbled from The Traveller Adventure. I never said BtC didn't get a lot right. Just that it got far too much wrong (IMO you get to "too much" long before you get into double percentage digits).

I'm aware of half a dozen mistakes in Sword Worlds (and there are probably some I haven't spotted) and I'm real unhappy about every one of them. Take a look at how many errata BtC already has. And that's not all of the mistakes at all (Which reminds me, I owe the new errata coordinator a long letter... I keep forgetting ).


Hans

 

[Britti_Lover]

:rofl:
You think the errata in Gurps Traveller for Gurps 3e is bad?

How about MegaTraveller? Or Traveller: The New Era?

Traveller:2300 had errata so bad you could not even design a character using it.

Fire, Fusion and Steel for TNE had so much errata - GDW published a small book to try to correct all of it.

Yea, I'd LOVE to get an RPG that does not have any - but I know I'm dreaming.

Maybe T5 will be a clean RPG - but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[aramis]

I never had a problem generating 2300 characters from either edition (T2300/2300AD).

FF&S1 (TNE) had a page insert, a quarter page replacement table, and a single sheet of typo corrections.

 

[Peter Schutze]

Traveller:2300 had errata so bad you could not even design a character using it.

>I never had a problem generating 2300 characters from either edition (T2300/2300AD).

Never had trouble with either version either and generated a coupla hundred detailed NPCs in case I or player decided they needed a relative/friend from school etc all of a sudden

My only complaint with character Gen .... and it wouldnt be 2300AD specific ..... would have to be skills creep. New skills appearing, in later products that weren't available for the players / pregen NPCs

 

[Britti_Lover]

Here's some quotes from reviewers:

"Traveller: 2300 is filled with Errata. My copy came complete with an errata sheet that was provided with most later copies of the game."

"Traveller:2300 is a bit thinner on the content than 2300AD with more errata. GDW always had a penchant for rushing out games, and this set is a fine example: An excellent idea, with hit-and-miss execution."

"I’m a believer; I believe that MegaTraveller had the best potential of any Traveller rule set ever released. What became the millstone around its neck were the expansive errata required to make sense of the rules."

And so on and so on. RPGs have errata. Gurps Traveller has errata. I fix errata with house rules. All my RPGs have house rules - I can't run them with out them. I'd like an RPG without errata - but maybe I'm just wishing for something that will never happen.

:rofl:

 

[sfchbryan]

Here's some quotes from reviewers:

"Traveller: 2300 is filled with Errata. My copy came complete with an errata sheet that was provided with most later copies of the game."

"Traveller:2300 is a bit thinner on the content than 2300AD with more errata. GDW always had a penchant for rushing out games, and this set is a fine example: An excellent idea, with hit-and-miss execution."

"I’m a believer; I believe that MegaTraveller had the best potential of any Traveller rule set ever released. What became the millstone around its neck were the expansive errata required to make sense of the rules."

And so on and so on. RPGs have errata. Gurps Traveller has errata. I fix errata with house rules. All my RPGs have house rules - I can't run them with out them. I'd like an RPG without errata - but maybe I'm just wishing for something that will never happen.

:rofl:

I would veiw an RPG without errata as the seventh sign...

 

[Rycharde]

Yep! Gotta love that errata. :smirk:

 

[Sturn]

Traveller:2300 had errata so bad you could not even design a character using it.......

I played a campaign with T:2300, I wonder how my players actually created characters if this was was true. 2300AD was an updated and expanded version, but T:2300 also worked just fine.

Maybe T5 will be a clean RPG - but I'm not holding my breath.

T5 is somewhat of a playtest, a 1000-page one made by a single person, I think we can assume there will be typos, errata, etc.