The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I've always wanted to play Traveller. I bought MegaTraveller when it was first published, and found the rules were so full of errata that I took it back and persuaded the store owner to let me exchange it for the GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Space. We created our own universe and had a blast. But still there was a little bit of me that kind of liked that Imperium place. When Traveller: The New Era came out, lots of people complained about it, so I ignored it. Besides, by that time I was an utter GURPS junkie.

Then Traveller 4th Edition came out, and I decided to give it another go. But where was that rich background I remembered from MegaTraveller? A few skimpy pages here and there, and some dreadfully clunky rules, and no sign of anything but starships and weapons catalogues in the near future.

Then came GURPS Traveller. Finally, the game I'd been looking for all those years ago! Because most of the necessary rules are in the GURPS Basic Set, the SJG edition of Traveller can concentrate on what it's best at - background. There's oodles of it here - history, politics, aliens, technology, really wild things.

OK, let's pretend you don't know much about Traveller. We're talking about a world based on those old Golden Age science fiction novels; Asimov's Foundation, Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League, you know the sort of stuff. If your memory doesn't stretch back that far, imagine Cherryh's Union/Alliance universe a few thousand years on. A huge and sprawling Galactic Empire, made up mostly of humans, but with various minor alien races within it, and other more formidable alien races pushing at it's borders. The Imperium keeps the peace in space, and leaves planetary governments more or less to themselves, as long as they pay their taxes and don't traffic in slaves. Noble houses and interstellar corporations vie for resources, minor wars are fought on backwater planets, and behind it all lies the mystery of the Ancients - exactly why didthey take humans from Earth in prehistoric times and seed them throughout the galaxy? Who were they? Why did they leave mysterious ruins about the place?

GURPS Traveller does a good job of describing this world, beginning with a short overview chapter, which is a good thing to photocopy and give to new players. Following this is a looong chapter describing the Imperium, with an encyclopaedic A-Z of the universe covering the major alien races, major historical events, customs, places, etc. The character chapter is an interesting departure for GURPS; character templates. Players can choose a template and find most of the complicated work of choosing skills etc. already done. Simply spend the 80 points necessary for a Diplomat character, write down the skills listed, then spend the other 20 points to customise the character as you want it. I found that people who'd never played GURPS before got the hang of this very quickly, and GURPS veterans breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of not having to do all that math. Of course, if you don't like any of the templates, there's nothing to stop you doing characters in the traditional way. There are also, naturally, character conversion tables for those using characters from previous editions of Traveller.

There are pages of equipment, together with notes on which equipment out of GURPS Space and the GURPS UltraTech supplements are suitable for the Traveller universe, and then a chapter on Travel, Trade and Commerce, which covers much of the important stuff about getting about in the Traveller universe. I was slightly disappointed to find that the Trade rules have been cut down to a single page, with more comprehensive rules to come in a future supplement, but you can't get everything in, I suppose. In a trade-off between complex rules which not everyone would use, and oodles of background, I'd take the background any day.

The last quarter of the book deals with spacecraft and vehicles. There's a useful illustrated catalogue of ship types, including floor plans of a scout ship and a free trader, the two ship types most likely to be owned by beginning characters, followed by ship design rules, cut down from GURPS Vehicles (quite where this leaves the GURPS Space ship design rules, I'm not sure), and yet another starship combat system. Personally, I'd stick with the Space Opera Combat System in GURPS Lensman, but that just my style of play. If you like moving little counters around on hex paper, you'll probably like this.

I'm not entirely sure that this will get a great number of new people playing Traveller who didn't before, unless they're already GURPS fans. I suppose you could get away with just this book and GURPS Lite, if you're prepared to make up rules on the fly to fill in any gaps. GURPS Space is supposedly necessary, but really it's only the chapter on Environments; the Stars and Worlds chapter is only useful if you intend to create your own planets (which you won't need to do if you get GURPS Behind the Claw: The Spinward Marches Sourcebook, which ought to have enough planets in it to last the rest of your life).

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

GURPS Traveller
Author: Loren K. Wiseman Category: game Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games Cost: $22.95 Page count: 176 ISBN: 1-55634-349-3 Playtest Review by Ken Walton on 11/07/98. Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future Space	I've always wanted to play Traveller. I bought MegaTraveller when it was first published, and found the rules were so full of errata that I took it back and persuaded the store owner to let me exchange it for the GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Space. We created our own universe and had a blast. But still there was a little bit of me that kind of liked that Imperium place. When Traveller: The New Era came out, lots of people complained about it, so I ignored it. Besides, by that time I was an utter GURPS junkie. Then Traveller 4th Edition came out, and I decided to give it another go. But where was that rich background I remembered from MegaTraveller? A few skimpy pages here and there, and some dreadfully clunky rules, and no sign of anything but starships and weapons catalogues in the near future. Then came GURPS Traveller. Finally, the game I'd been looking for all those years ago! Because most of the necessary rules are in the GURPS Basic Set, the SJG edition of Traveller can concentrate on what it's best at - background. There's oodles of it here - history, politics, aliens, technology, really wild things. OK, let's pretend you don't know much about Traveller. We're talking about a world based on those old Golden Age science fiction novels; Asimov's Foundation, Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League, you know the sort of stuff. If your memory doesn't stretch back that far, imagine Cherryh's Union/Alliance universe a few thousand years on. A huge and sprawling Galactic Empire, made up mostly of humans, but with various minor alien races within it, and other more formidable alien races pushing at it's borders. The Imperium keeps the peace in space, and leaves planetary governments more or less to themselves, as long as they pay their taxes and don't traffic in slaves. Noble houses and interstellar corporations vie for resources, minor wars are fought on backwater planets, and behind it all lies the mystery of the Ancients - exactly why didthey take humans from Earth in prehistoric times and seed them throughout the galaxy? Who were they? Why did they leave mysterious ruins about the place? GURPS Traveller does a good job of describing this world, beginning with a short overview chapter, which is a good thing to photocopy and give to new players. Following this is a looong chapter describing the Imperium, with an encyclopaedic A-Z of the universe covering the major alien races, major historical events, customs, places, etc. The character chapter is an interesting departure for GURPS; character templates. Players can choose a template and find most of the complicated work of choosing skills etc. already done. Simply spend the 80 points necessary for a Diplomat character, write down the skills listed, then spend the other 20 points to customise the character as you want it. I found that people who'd never played GURPS before got the hang of this very quickly, and GURPS veterans breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of not having to do all that math. Of course, if you don't like any of the templates, there's nothing to stop you doing characters in the traditional way. There are also, naturally, character conversion tables for those using characters from previous editions of Traveller. There are pages of equipment, together with notes on which equipment out of GURPS Space and the GURPS UltraTech supplements are suitable for the Traveller universe, and then a chapter on Travel, Trade and Commerce, which covers much of the important stuff about getting about in the Traveller universe. I was slightly disappointed to find that the Trade rules have been cut down to a single page, with more comprehensive rules to come in a future supplement, but you can't get everything in, I suppose. In a trade-off between complex rules which not everyone would use, and oodles of background, I'd take the background any day. The last quarter of the book deals with spacecraft and vehicles. There's a useful illustrated catalogue of ship types, including floor plans of a scout ship and a free trader, the two ship types most likely to be owned by beginning characters, followed by ship design rules, cut down from GURPS Vehicles (quite where this leaves the GURPS Space ship design rules, I'm not sure), and yet another starship combat system. Personally, I'd stick with the Space Opera Combat System in GURPS Lensman, but that just my style of play. If you like moving little counters around on hex paper, you'll probably like this. I'm not entirely sure that this will get a great number of new people playing Traveller who didn't before, unless they're already GURPS fans. I suppose you could get away with just this book and GURPS Lite, if you're prepared to make up rules on the fly to fill in any gaps. GURPS Space is supposedly necessary, but really it's only the chapter on Environments; the Stars and Worlds chapter is only useful if you intend to create your own planets (which you won't need to do if you get GURPS Behind the Claw: The Spinward Marches Sourcebook, which ought to have enough planets in it to last the rest of your life). Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)