Which Traveller should I get?

[dto]

I haven't played Traveller in almost 25 years. I played it a bit, though I never DM'd (my group actually designed modules that were played at the East Coast cons in the early '80s). I haven't played MegaTraveller, Traveller 2300, D20 Traveller or anything else. I did pick up a lot of the Classic Traveller books on eBay.

I'd like to introduce Traveller to my gaming group, which is pretty experienced at D&D and is currently playing Call of Cthulu. But which version of Traveller? I was thinking of waiting for T5 to come out on the assumption that it's the latest and greatest (and it comes from Marc Miller). But after reading some posts here, I'm not sure that's the case.

 

[savage]

versions

I leaned towards T20 years ago because I was converting D&Der's and the TNE era didn't have a large user base left. And of course, thanks to Hunter, we have this forum.

Other options include Mongoose a CT like option, Gurps, and of course T5 is in route.

Welcome back.

 

[robject]

If you remember the original version Traveller with fondness, then I'd recommend the Classic Traveller CD-ROM.

http://farfuture.net/

It has

The Traveller Book.
The Traveller Adventure.
Books 0 through 8.
Supplements 1 through 13.
Adventures 0 through 13.
Double Adventures 1 through 6.
Games 0 through 6.
Modules 1 through 5.
Aliens 1 through 8.
Special Supplements 1 through 3.


If you'd prefer an updated rules set, which nevertheless retains that original Traveller feel, you could try Mongoose Traveller. Mongoose Traveller is the most likely choice to satisfy your D&D friends, I think.


Alternately, you may pre-order T5, which as a bonus gets you into the playtest forum here on COTI. As a result you would have access to PDFs of character generation, skills, tasks, and combat. You'll get to evaluate the drafts based on what you like best about Traveller, make suggestions, and thereby strengthen the final product.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Get them all!

 

[dto]

Thanks. What's the difference between T5 and Mongoose Traveller? Why would I choose one over another?

 

[klingsor]

I tend towards 'all of them except T4' but the Mongoose one is pretty good but you need backup as there is not much background specifically for it yet. The best background is probably still from the first edition. I do not care for what they did to the setting with Megatraveller and TNE and I think TNE does not have the best system.
Traveller Hero. I cannot comment on this one as I have not seen it but I dislike the Hero system.
T20. Quite nice but I think D20 is not the right path.
GURPS Traveller. Not so keen on the system but great sourcebooks.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

I haven't played Traveller in almost 25 years. I played it a bit, though I never DM'd (my group actually designed modules that were played at the East Coast cons in the early '80s). I haven't played MegaTraveller, Traveller 2300, D20 Traveller or anything else. I did pick up a lot of the Classic Traveller books on eBay.

I'd like to introduce Traveller to my gaming group, which is pretty experienced at D&D and is currently playing Call of Cthulu. But which version of Traveller? I was thinking of waiting for T5 to come out on the assumption that it's the latest and greatest (and it comes from Marc Miller). But after reading some posts here, I'm not sure that's the case.

When i got back into Traveller, I chose to go with the game that started it for me and from which i have so many great memories of. That would be Traveller CT.

 

[savage]

Traveller

This is a very good point people are leaning towards. I have several versions collected over the years. Being able to strip out the rules you like and use them in your campaign has a good benefit.

At the very least mix and match adventures.

 

[Tysis]

Get them all!

I was actually thinking something close to that. You can buy both all of Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller on CD from FFE for like $70. You can also get the PDFs for different versions from drive through rpg.

What other games do you like? If you have been playing D&D or any other D20 game, try one close to that.

If you want printed books, then you are going to have to either print the PDFs yourself (I suppose an office store *might*; I say might because of the copyright laws) or go with a more recent version that is still in print. Mongoose and GURPS I guess; not sure about T20.

 

[morfydd]

hmmn

I would have to say Buy the Classic Traveller Cd and the T-20 pdf's or main T-20 book ..will give you plenty of background material to work with and make the transition easy if your group is already familiar with the D20 system..This will also allow you the easy ability to do crossover games. (if your group is into that)

 

[aramis]

My recommend:
Either T20, MGT or CT.

T5 is a toolkit, you'll need to be able to pick and choose, and that's not a great idea with a new system for your group.

T20 is solid, and d20 based.
MGT is fairly comparable to CT; both are relatively simple.

If you're able to cope with a great system but massive errata needing to be applied, use MegaTraveller.

Truth is, most grogs are hybridizing.

 

[IUnknown]

Tne

Well, I haven't played in a long time either.. but there's a small group of us that are trying to get organized enough to start up again.

My favorite was always TNE because I could mix it with some of the adventures from Twilight 2000. Plus the whole FF&S thing.

 

[DaveChase]

My recommend:
Either T20, MGT or CT.

T5 is a toolkit, you'll need to be able to pick and choose, and that's not a great idea with a new system for your group.

T20 is solid, and d20 based.
MGT is fairly comparable to CT; both are relatively simple.

If you're able to cope with a great system but massive errata needing to be applied, use MegaTraveller.

Truth is, most grogs are hybridizing.

I agree with aramis on this.

T20, there is lots of D20 stuff out there so you can add things easily to your game.
MgT, is the next 10yrs of Traveller license, so there will be lots of things coming
CT is the original and there are tons of stuff out there for it. The only thing is to pick and choose what direction you want to go.
The other Traveller systems are good sources of information.

I think it depends on how much you want to create things versus how much you just want to follow along and run things.

T5, though I like what I seen so far, I am only not suggesting it because it is not out yet.
IF you want to play along and stay abreast of the 'playtest' private forum and such, then yes get T5. But if you just want to jump in and not worry, think to much about things, See above.

Dave Chase

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

T20 may work for D&D players... but it's worth pointing out it's no longer in print, and scoring high sums on ebay on the rare occasions it's up for auction.

 

[IronCzar]

Mongoose Traveller.

T5 looks promising in some ways, but unless you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of tailoring the system, I think it'll be most useful as an addendum to a different version of the game (either MgT or CT, I suppose,) rather than as the basic platform itself.

T20 is pretty popular around here, this being the publisher's site and all. That said, I wouldn't point new Traveller players to it; I think the character creation, while clever enough, is kind of a kludgy shoehorning of Traveller character creation into a D20 framework that works only moderately well and is poorly explained at that; I found it impenetrable despite being quite familiar with both D20 and every other edition of Traveller. To be blunt, I would recommend T4 over it, despite some less-than-optimal design features of that version.

The rest of T20 is pretty solid, though - if you can get past the character creation and the fact that the task resolution and combat systems are a bit crunchier than the equivalents in CT or MgT.

If you want a more detailed system, I'd say use MegaTraveller - but be warned that there's a massive amount of errata (available on the web) that you really kind of need to have and use to make the system really work right.

I think Mongoose Traveller is the right place to point new people. It's not system-light, exactly, but it's pretty clean in actual table-level play, the character creation is rock-solid, and a wealth of CT material is almost seamlessly compatible.

 

[DonM]

I'm a rather big fan of T5, but even I have to agree, it's not ready for beginners.

Mongoose's Traveller Core Rules and Spinward Marches books are probably exactly what will get your campaign rolling. And they are all in print and easily available.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

T20 may work for D&D players... but it's worth pointing out it's no longer in print, and scoring high sums on ebay on the rare occasions it's up for auction.

It's available for download.

 

[spinwardpirate]

Can it be easily converted to CT or MGT? I was never much of a fan of d20 anything, so I steered clear of T20. That being said, I will admit a fascination for the Gateway book for background purposes.

 

[Supplement Four]

Can it be easily converted to CT or MGT?

Background text in T20? You can use it with any edition, of course.

The design systems in T20 were geared to produce output for either T20 or CT. In fact, many T20 supplements also have CT stats. Starship design will produce what you need for a CT game.

T20 rules? Not at all easy to convert to CT or MGT. They're totally different beasts. You'll run into problems like the weight of a +1 DM. Means different things to each system.

If you're going to play CT, though, then play CT.

From the FarFuture.com website, you can buy the entire GDW CT game set--everything produced for CT by GDW--on one CD-ROM for $35 bucks.

It's the best deal in the universe.

My suggestion: Go that way. Buy the CD-ROM and use it to decide which items you want to pick up in print (or just use the CD-ROM and forget about print).

 

[saundby]

My group is mostly casual gamers who had experience with D&D3.x (d20), OD&D, RQII, and a few of them the original CoC before we started playing Traveller. I got them to play CT, and we had a nice short campaign with it before MGT came out. They love MGT. So I'm now running an MGT campaign rule set (mostly) which I backfill with material off the CT CD with little or no conversion.

I have enough of a gaming budget these days to buy the Mongoose books as they appear. The material they have out now is enough to run a well fleshed out campaign. I'm looking forward to Scouts next month, too. But if you want bang for the buck, it's hard to beat the MGT core book coupled with the CT CD and the JTAS CD. Each CD costs about as much as a MGT book, but has the content of several years of publications.

Another thing is that though I've only ever used CT and MGT, the talk on this board has gotten me interested in the other rule sets. I'm planning on picking up all of them as my budget permits. I may never run games in most of them, but I'll enjoy reading them and probably bringing mechanics from them into my game. Bad jump takes the ship to an alternate universe? Guess what, we're rolling d20's until you can reverse the process and get back home... :devil: