The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Behind the Claw is the first of the new "sector books" for the GURPS Traveller line. It gives details about the Spinward Marches sector, perhaps the best known and most used setting in the Traveller Universe.

Behind the Claw is organised into four basic sections.

The first section gives details about the structure of the Imperial Government in the sector as well as providing details on some of the corporations that can be found in the Spinward Marches. Some of these corporations (especially the megacorporations) are relatively well described, if only in an overview kind of way. Several of the minor corporations need not have been included at all, as they seem to have be put in at the last minute without a great deal of thought. For example, the description for the Delatest Corporation reads "This is a major winery on Zila." These short descriptions could have been made far more interesting by adding only a couple of more sentences to provide some sort of additional colour that a Game Master might be able to use. The sidebars in the first chapter also provide a potted history of the past twenty or so years of the Imperium.

I found that several of the corporate descriptions intriguing and wished that they had been covered in more detail. I would love to see Steve Jackson Games bring out one or more Corporate Information books to provide a great deal more coverage of the activities and politics of some of the megacorporations in the Traveller universe. Many of the largest corps are rich enough to own whole systems and their business practices are certainly dubious in some cases. Having detailed information about them and what their long-term goals are could be fascinating and could provide a new direction for many Traveller campaigns.

The second section of the book gives details about the different states of the Spinward Marches and some of the minor alien races that can be found there. Again, the information in this section is good to get an overview, but I don't really think that there would be enough information on any of them (especially the minor alien races) to base any serious long term campaign around. Hopefully, most of these will be dealt with in the Alien Races series.

The third section of the book is by far the largest, comprising of close to 100 pages. It is the actual sector description, with every system being described individually. This section has both its good and bad aspects.

The bad side is that I found it hard to read a lot of this sort of stuff at one sitting. There are a few paragraphs on each system, including details about their starports, size, water coverage, atmosphere type, population, government and tech level. I found it difficult to absorb a lot of this information, so I tended to skip it at times (sometimes to the detriment of my understanding). Some of the descriptions are interesting, while others I found to be less so. Again, because of the breadth of the subject being tackled, a lot of the information is pretty sparse in places.

The good side is that this book could provide an enormous range of adventure seeds for Game Masters. I've always liked books that generate a lot of ideas for game sessions (another example of this sort of book is Dunklezahn's Secrets in the Shadowrun Universe). I think this aspect is probably the saving grace for Behind the Claw.

The fourth and final section of the book has a few ideas for the Game Master. It gives tantalising hints about a few areas, topics that could easily be given a whole sourcebook each to expand on them at a later date. The chapter finishes with a set of tables for generating starship encounters when the PCs are inbound or outbound from any given system.

I believe Behind the Claw would be much for useful to a Game Master if it were available in some sort of electronic hyperlinked format. That way, the reader could use a search engine to look for specific keywords, rather than having to read through close to 100 pages of system descriptions. It would also be useful to be able to search for things like all the systems on X-boat routes, or systems that are owned by specific corporations. If it were on a CD-ROM, for example, the system descriptions could be made far more comprehensive (and therefore possibly more useful) than they are now.

Overall, I found Behind the Claw to be an enjoyable book. It's far more comprehensive in its coverage than the original system books that GDW published for Classic Traveller. Given the number of systems involved, the authors have done a fairly good job of trying to make them all individual (a daunting task from the outset). There are some fantastic seeds for games (or even whole campaigns) buried in here. However, unless you read through the whole of chapter three several times and take copious quantities of notes, I think it would be very easy to miss some of the gems.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Behind The Claw: The Spinward Marches Supplement
Author: Martin Dougherty and Neil Frier Category: game Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games Line: GURPS Traveller Page count: 145 ISBN: 1-55634-353-1 SKU: SJG02095 6601 Capsule Review by Geoff Skellams on 07/18/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future Space	*Behind the Claw* is the first of the new "sector books" for the GURPS Traveller line. It gives details about the Spinward Marches sector, perhaps the best known and most used setting in the Traveller Universe. *Behind the Claw* is organised into four basic sections. The first section gives details about the structure of the Imperial Government in the sector as well as providing details on some of the corporations that can be found in the Spinward Marches. Some of these corporations (especially the megacorporations) are relatively well described, if only in an overview kind of way. Several of the minor corporations need not have been included at all, as they seem to have be put in at the last minute without a great deal of thought. For example, the description for the Delatest Corporation reads "This is a major winery on Zila." These short descriptions could have been made far more interesting by adding only a couple of more sentences to provide some sort of additional colour that a Game Master might be able to use. The sidebars in the first chapter also provide a potted history of the past twenty or so years of the Imperium. I found that several of the corporate descriptions intriguing and wished that they had been covered in more detail. I would love to see Steve Jackson Games bring out one or more Corporate Information books to provide a great deal more coverage of the activities and politics of some of the megacorporations in the Traveller universe. Many of the largest corps are rich enough to own whole systems and their business practices are certainly dubious in some cases. Having detailed information about them and what their long-term goals are could be fascinating and could provide a new direction for many Traveller campaigns. The second section of the book gives details about the different states of the Spinward Marches and some of the minor alien races that can be found there. Again, the information in this section is good to get an overview, but I don't really think that there would be enough information on any of them (especially the minor alien races) to base any serious long term campaign around. Hopefully, most of these will be dealt with in the Alien Races series. The third section of the book is by far the largest, comprising of close to 100 pages. It is the actual sector description, with every system being described individually. This section has both its good and bad aspects. The bad side is that I found it hard to read a lot of this sort of stuff at one sitting. There are a few paragraphs on each system, including details about their starports, size, water coverage, atmosphere type, population, government and tech level. I found it difficult to absorb a lot of this information, so I tended to skip it at times (sometimes to the detriment of my understanding). Some of the descriptions are interesting, while others I found to be less so. Again, because of the breadth of the subject being tackled, a lot of the information is pretty sparse in places. The good side is that this book could provide an enormous range of adventure seeds for Game Masters. I've always liked books that generate a lot of ideas for game sessions (another example of this sort of book is Dunklezahn's Secrets in the Shadowrun Universe). I think this aspect is probably the saving grace for *Behind the Claw. The fourth and final section of the book has a few ideas for the Game Master. It gives tantalising hints about a few areas, topics that could easily be given a whole sourcebook each to expand on them at a later date. The chapter finishes with a set of tables for generating starship encounters when the PCs are inbound or outbound from any given system. I believe Behind the Claw* would be much for useful to a Game Master if it were available in some sort of electronic hyperlinked format. That way, the reader could use a search engine to look for specific keywords, rather than having to read through close to 100 pages of system descriptions. It would also be useful to be able to search for things like all the systems on X-boat routes, or systems that are owned by specific corporations. If it were on a CD-ROM, for example, the system descriptions could be made far more comprehensive (and therefore possibly more useful) than they are now. Overall, I found *Behind the Claw* to be an enjoyable book. It's far more comprehensive in its coverage than the original system books that GDW published for Classic Traveller. Given the number of systems involved, the authors have done a fairly good job of trying to make them all individual (a daunting task from the outset). There are some fantastic seeds for games (or even whole campaigns) buried in here. However, unless you read through the whole of chapter three several times and take copious quantities of notes, I think it would be very easy to miss some of the gems. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Behind The Claw: The Spinward Marches Supplement