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Review of GURPS Traveller Heroes 1: Bounty Hunters


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Bounty Hunters is the first (and to my knowledge only) book in a series by SJ Games to flesh out character templates for the GURPS Traveller setting. It is a well-done book that covers a goodly amount of material and isn't overly expensive.

The cover art is by BROM and shows a young human bounty hunter glaring sidelong at you. You get the feeling that this fella is a no-nonsense type and it really helps set the tone for this volume of the series. Interior art is par for GURPS Traveller books and depicts a number of bounty hunter-ish scenes from a space bar chase to a firefight to looking through a bunch of cargo, searching for someone or something. Overall, this is well-done mood-setting stuff.

The layout is also typical of GURPS Traveller books. It actually looks like a chapter in one of the larger books like Star Mercs or Far Trader for those familiar. Sidebars highlight interesting information from adventure hooks to in-character quotes that give you the bounty hunter's perspective and also the viewpoint of those who encounter them. I should mention that there is a working index in the back of the book for ease of finding major topics like the difference between skip tracers and repo men.

Chapter One outlines the Bounty Hunter profession. BH's and all their subspecialties including loan-default hunters (skip tracers) and starship recovery experts (repo men) are explained in brief but thorough detail. We also learn about company backed BH's versus freelance types. A very important and pervasive theme in this chapter covers the legal aspects of the BH including licensing requirements within the Imperium. How far is too far? What constitutes breaking and entering? At what point has the BH become more trouble than the criminals he/she is after?

Chapter Two is a nuts and bolts game mechanics chapter. It covers the advantages and disadvantages that would be appropriate to a BH campaign and BH characters. Character templates are provided for various BH character sub-types including Black Ops, Repo Men, Skip Tracers and Freelance/Company Hunters. The chapter ends with a teasingly short list of neat gadgets that a Boba Fett or Jubal Early-wannabe (Firefly reference for those Browncoat fans out there) could put to dastardly ends.

Chapter Three, possibly named after the number of pages it contains, covers some possibilities for adventure and campaign ideas. Will the BH be a main character played by one the players or will he be like Jubal from Firefly hunting down one or more members of the PC's party? Three (again that number?) very nice adventure seeds are provided here---any one of which would make a very nice one-off adventure of start to a campaign.

Chapter Four provides detailed character summaries for some sample characters. You get a lengthy laundry list of skills, advantages and disadvantages, and equipment along with a half page or so history per personality. There are some offbeat examples here and some classic ones. Very useful if you don't feel like rolling all this stuff up yourself. The final couple of entries involve companies that employ BHs including repo companies and bounty hunter guilds. Good stuff if you want Boba to have a little more reason than silver to chase your PCs.

Overall, BH is a useful book. It's well presented, organized, and contains a number of useful chunks of ore. Even better that ore doesn't have to be overly processed to be used in games even non-GURPS games for those who aren't overmuch fans of the system. It's reasonably priced and useful for multiple systems. If you're gaming in Traveller, Star Wars, or Firefly and plan on including a bounty hunter, I recommend this book.

Recent Forum Posts
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RE: Good review!RPGnet ReviewsMarch 2, 2004 [ 07:07 pm ]
Good review!RPGnet ReviewsMarch 2, 2004 [ 02:45 pm ]

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