The Inside Scoop on Gaming

My father had finished his Master's thesis on archeology, and was anxiously awaiting his professor's judgment of his work. He finally held his work in his hands, and read the professor's comments, "This reads like a Sear's catalogue!" Subsequently, he dropped out of school and joined the army. This Traveller book reads like a Sear's catalogue. It contains page after page of planetary descriptions, and that's about it. Each planet gets a basic description in the GURPS Space format, with about one paragraph of flavor text to spice things up. Yuck!

The old Traveller books basically just had a map of the subsector on one page, with a series of UPPs (Universal Planetary Profile) on the other. This left a lot to the imagination, but you weren't paging back and forth trying to remember where things were.

The descriptions are okay, but where's all of the GURPS information that we need? There's a listing of a bunch of minor alien races, but they aren't described in GURPS terms. Couldn't they have put a little sidebar explaining more about these aliens in GURPS terms, or do we have to buy another book? The Aslan are mentioned again, but no statistics yet. Some planetary descriptions mention native flora and fauna, but these aren't described in game terms! On Tarsus, a nice planet described in a long out of print boxed set from GDW, one of the major industries revolves around the Nobble...a semi-domesticated stocky herbivore. So what? We have no idea what a nobble is in GURPS terms. This is an irritant, because as a GM I didn't buy this book to have to do this much guess work! I'm a lazy jackass!!! I was also distressed by the page of errata which was included in the book. It doesn't help me to allay concerns that this book was as hurried as GURPS Traveller.

There's a lot of information in this book, but it all feels frustratingly incomplete. I bought this book because its Traveller. I am hooked on this game like Heroin, but this book was a bad fix! It gets a "D." I won't say don't purchase this book, but don't get your hopes too high.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

GURPS Traveller Behind The Claw: The Spinward Marches Sourcebook
Author: Martin Dougherty & Neil Frier Category: game Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games Cost: 20.95 Page count: 146 ISBN: 1-55634-353-1 Capsule Review by Scott Shafer on 10/31/98. Genre tags: Science_fiction Historical Far_Future Space	My father had finished his Master's thesis on archeology, and was anxiously awaiting his professor's judgment of his work. He finally held his work in his hands, and read the professor's comments, "This reads like a Sear's catalogue!" Subsequently, he dropped out of school and joined the army. This Traveller book reads like a Sear's catalogue. It contains page after page of planetary descriptions, and that's about it. Each planet gets a basic description in the GURPS Space format, with about one paragraph of flavor text to spice things up. Yuck! The old Traveller books basically just had a map of the subsector on one page, with a series of UPPs (Universal Planetary Profile) on the other. This left a lot to the imagination, but you weren't paging back and forth trying to remember where things were. The descriptions are okay, but where's all of the GURPS information that we need? There's a listing of a bunch of minor alien races, but they aren't described in GURPS terms. Couldn't they have put a little sidebar explaining more about these aliens in GURPS terms, or do we have to buy another book? The Aslan are mentioned again, but no statistics yet. Some planetary descriptions mention native flora and fauna, but these aren't described in game terms! On Tarsus, a nice planet described in a long out of print boxed set from GDW, one of the major industries revolves around the Nobble...a semi-domesticated stocky herbivore. So what? We have no idea what a nobble is in GURPS terms. This is an irritant, because as a GM I didn't buy this book to have to do this much guess work! I'm a lazy jackass!!! I was also distressed by the page of errata which was included in the book. It doesn't help me to allay concerns that this book was as hurried as GURPS Traveller. There's a lot of information in this book, but it all feels frustratingly incomplete. I bought this book because its Traveller. I am hooked on this game like Heroin, but this book was a bad fix! It gets a "D." I won't say don't purchase this book, but don't get your hopes too high. Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 2 (Sparse)

GURPS Traveller Behind The Claw: The Spinward Marches Sourcebook