Song references have become something of a recurring idea here at Close to the Edit. I cannot think of a time in my life where a song hasn’t either defined or reflected a feeling I have had. I can still remember the songs from all three of my weddings. If they weren’t actually played at the services they were echoing through my brain the entire time that I stood there.
When I was twelve I played D&D incessantly. We dabbled in Chivalry & Sorcery, and I had a Phraint in an Arduin campaign. Still, most of my days were spent either reading Fantasy or playing in a Fantasy Campaign. I was playing at a small hobby shop in Lincoln, Nebraska, and one day a guy walked in with these little black books. Anyway, I think I have told this story before. I am resisting the urge to go back through my columns and look. He was going to run a game called Traveller, and since I didn’t feel like racing slot cars, and since I was already addicted to roleplaying I figured I would give it a try. To say that it changed my life is not too much of an exaggeration.
A few years later when I saw the Matrix for the first time I knew that the cyberpunk age in literature at least and probably completely in fact, was over. What I had written, as good or bad as it may be, would probably be subsumed into modern life before I finished listening to the song on the radio while I drove home. I think that feeling has been confirmed and the idea of cyberpunk as a distinct thing is long gone.
Every once in a while you hear an old song that is covered by a new band. Sometimes it is a painful thing to hear a song that you loved so much destroyed by an artist who just seems to miss the point. Every once in a while, usually when you aren’t looking, someone takes a song and makes a new art of it. They understand the aesthetics of the melody, the meaning of the lyrics, and the point of the work. Once they have finished you not only have a new song, but you also have an appreciation of the older version as well. That is exactly how I felt when I finished reading the new version of Traveller from Mongoose Publishing.
There is a lot of good to say about the game and how it pays homage and respect to the many versions of Traveller that have come before, while still managing to be a new game in some ways. However, this isn’t about boundless praise. Well at least not usually. It may be about the list of things that I don’t like about this game is a lot shorter. Rather than write an agonizing 4,000 word review, I would prefer to write a more succinct appreciation.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Traveller, the core mechanic is historically a 2d6 roll 8+ to succeed mechanic. The system is slightly more complex than this, but this is the basic mechanic. Mongoose has kept this idea intact, and improved on several of the failed versions as well. The setting is the Third Imperium, a huge setting encompassing 11,000 worlds, six major races, and one very large deus ex machina.
There are a couple things that annoy me in Mongoose Traveller. One is an error of execution; the other is an error of omission. There are other small things that bother me, but most of those are trivial. What I want to say mostly is that I like this version of Traveller as much as have ever liked any version of Traveller. For Traveller aficionados I think it combines a lot of the most positive parts of Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, and Traveller4. I think it adds some really excellent collaborative elements, like the connections rules in character generation and ship shares.
As I have written before, I think that the three necessary parts of character motivation are survival motivations, team motivations, and heroic motivations. I am certain that few other games provide a similar opportunity for team interconnection in a mechanic, and provide incentive for using them. There is similarly a team interconnection mechanic for acquiring starships, which further reinforces the importance of teams within Traveller, a necessity to my mind.
My largest complaint about the new version of Traveller from Mongoose is the Starship construction rules. While the overall technology system and equipment seems to combine the classic Traveller tropes with an internally consistent model to explain the inconsistencies with modern technology. The starship rules seem to ignore quite a bit about some established Traveller constants. I think that this was the result of reaching for too much; that and some possibly bad tables. While I haven’t done exhaustive tests, the ships I designed felt inconsistent. Fuel tonnage seemed too high, unarmored ships seemed too fragile, and computers and electronics still seemed too big.
High Guard, the Mongoose Traveller starcraft and naval supplement, will hopefully correct these errors. With the number of additional starship systems online for Traveller it is odd that they would choose to develop their own rather than simply buying or licensing one of the fan-created systems. While I think it is flawed, it isn’t horrid. One thing was pointed out to me recently. The deck plans for the new scout courier seem to place the airlock right in a position that would make it impossible to use.
Of course personally I don’t see why most Traveller ships aren’t spheres. It just seems to be the most coherent and straightforward use of space. Sure, smaller ships being wings or lifting bodies make a certain amount of sense. At least they do to me. Still dispersed-structure ships make no sense in any context. I mean maybe for a space station, like the current ISS, but even then it is problematic.
By matter of comparison the Character Generation rules seemed almost perfect. I have already mentioned the ship shares, and the connections rules, but the overall feel of the system is completely Classic Traveller. Since the purists have been screaming for respect to the old ways I think they should be remarkably happy. Not that I think they will resist the urge to complain, I just think they should.
As I mentioned before High Guard will address the Starships and Naval characters somewhat like the original High Guard did before. There are several other support products due out as well. Since the success of any RPG depends of support products I think this is great. First up is the Spinward Marches book. The classic Traveller adventure setting is ready to go. Mongoose has gone outside for this one, getting the awesome Martin Dougherty to pen the book. As many of you know, Martin has developed the Regency alternate setting for The New Era, and has immense credibility and respect in the Traveller community. I am fairly sure this book will be great.
Soon after the Spinward Marches we have Mercenary, for expansion of ground forces, and I am sure equipment and weapons. Close behind that should be 760 Patrons, a general adventure and campaign resource. Then the aforementioned High Guard. For GenCon expect Beltstrike, which as many of you may recall was a kind of mini-game and support product for the asteroid miners of the Traveller setting, and Traders & Gunboats with tons (literally) of crunchy starship goodness.
So generally it seems Mongoose has a plan and they seem to be executing it fairly well. I don’t know exactly who is writing the supplements apart from the Spinward Marches book I have already discussed; I do hope Mongoose is actively seeking people with strong Traveller chops as well as the ability to write. I think the Traveller communities, old and new, will more readily embrace the work if they know and respect the people working in the line. Not to say new guys won’t have a lot to bring to the table, they certainly will. Still it is true that the maxim holds.
Shortly after the publication of the Traveller Core Rules we should also expect the Traveller System Reference Document, which will open the floodgates and allow third-party development of alternate settings, alternate starships, alternate careers, and alternate everything for Traveller and the related SF games from Mongoose.
Yes, not having an experience system for character advancement in the Core Rules is my biggest pet peeve. It drives me up a wall when such an obvious and important idea is left out. This is compounded by the fact that it is one of the most striking criticisms of Classic Traveller, and something players complained loudly about even in 1980. I just think it is a very tragic mistake in an otherwise awesome game.
One final note, Marc Miller’s Traveller5 seems to be inexplicably delayed. While Mongoose Traveller is supposed to be the accessible mass-market version, Traveller5 was to be a sort of cap system with tons of fiddly bits for Traveller “gearheads”. I recently dropped Marc a line asking for clarification or a revised timetable. I have not yet received a reply. Hopefully I can follow up this column with a look at that as well.
See you next month.
I had a dream
Oh, yeah
Crazy dream, uh-huh.
Anything I wanted to know
Any place I needed to go
Hear my song
Yeah...people dont you listen now? sing along!
Oh, you dont know what youre missing now.
Any little song that you know
Everything thats small has to grow.
And it has to grow!
Push push, yeah!
California sunlight, sweet calcutta rain
Honolulu starbright--the song remains the same. ooh! ooh!
Here we go!
Honolulu now...
Sing out hare hare, dance the hoochie koo.
City lights are oh so bright, as we go sliding
Sliding
Sliding through.
