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The adventure centers on the crew of a merchant starship drafted into the Classic Traveller era Fifth Frontier War by an Imperial Navy short of both ships and personnel. The Forgotten War is set in a supposed backwater region of the classic Spinward Marches setting. The book is intended to be compatible with both T20 and CT, with the emphasis on the former.
Appearance: The Forgotten War is sized as an 8.5 x 11 document in landscape format. The cover reflects the style of the original CT ‘Little Black Books’ (LBBs) with its familiar red stripe and Optima font. Internally, each page is divided into two digest sized pages of text, also reminiscent of the LBBs. The text is clearly and logically laid out and there is little wasted space/blank areas in the product.
Contents: The adventure breaks down into the following sections:
• About This Book: An explanation of the style and setting of the book, references needed for play, with the emphasis understandably on T20, a description of the EPIC adventure system, a T20-centric explanation of how to award experience points and a short note on the merchant characters expected to be used in the adventure. (2 ˝ pages)
• Background: A high level overview of the governments and events which have a bearing on the adventure are presented. (1 page)
• World Data: This section contains brief descriptions of the eight star systems which appear in the adventure. A map of the District 268 subsector, with accompanying stats for all of its worlds, is also provided. (2 pages)
• Referee’s Overview: The overview lays out the general adventure, defines the basic elements of an adventure, (“push, pull, enigma and gimmicks”), and lists rumors that might be encountered by the PCs as they travel. (2 ˝ pages)
• Plot and Episodes: This is the meat of the adventure, containing the various acts and scenes that compose an EPIC style adventure. (10 pages)
• Starships: This chapter contains information on both starships and spacecraft which appear in the adventure. Three new types of ship have accompanying artwork and two of these; including the PCs nominal ship, have deck plans associated with them. (8 pages)
• Cast of Characters: Stats, both T20 and CT, for all of the NPCs in The Forgotten War appear in this section. (4 pages)
• Open Game License: The book is rounded out by the necessary legal boilerplate. (1 page)
Warning: Spoilers follow
Plot Summary: At its most simple, The Forgotten War involves the characters in transporting a contingent of Imperial Marines and a load of supplies across the width of the District 268 map. The Marines are pretty much the stereotypical team of hard asses direct from central casting but they provide the kind of firepower and experience which one would assume to be lacking among a merchant crew. The trip across the subsector is complicated by foreign commerce raiders, alien pirates and an Enemy of the State style plot involving an Imperial Navy ‘black project’ to develop anti-matter power. The adventure involves a goodly amount of personal and ship to ship combat.
The Good Stuff: The Forgotten War doesn’t stint on presenting adventure possibilities and works hard to convey life during wartime in the Traveller universe. Overall it is technically well written and strikes a good balance regarding the amount of detail contained in the individual scenes. Writing an adventure of this length is not necessarily easy to do, especially when there’s a fair amount of background data to impart. The Background chapter gives an excellent, concise description of the setting’s historical/political back story. The artwork is by Bryan Gibson, no stranger to Traveller, and is quite good. (In particular I like the one of the character’s ship coming in for a landing). References are provided for both T20 and CT source material equally and older Traveller players might get a kick out of the CT style visual presentation.
The Not So Good Stuff: Unfortunately, The Forgotten War tries to do too much in a limited amount of space. There are, depending on how you count them, three or four separate plotlines going on in this adventure and some seem tacked on simply to throw more action at the players. I understand the author is trying to convey that there is far more happening in the subsector than anyone imagines, but a few sharply drawn opponents would have served much better than several loosely portrayed ones. It would also have freed up some of the 12 pages devoted to ships and NPCs for other purposes. This leads into my next point. There are sections of The Forgotten War that simply feel padded out. Examples include:
• A whole page is devoted to the process of awarding experience points; the same section then goes on to state that this information is already discussed in the T20 rules.
• Sections of descriptive text are reused verbatim in more than one place.
• As mentioned, a third of the book is taken up by ship and character descriptions.
• A half page is devoted to describing how the EPIC adventure system redresses the problem of players feeling railroaded by linear adventures, despite the fact that the adventure can only be played in a linear fashion and includes the PCs being ordered around by the lead Marine. Lastly, there are a number of poorly thought out plot elements. For example:
• An impervious secret Imperial base is dropped into the adventure with no reasonable expectation of the PCs defeating it, yet it is key to understanding a good chunk of the events of the adventure.
• A super powerful experimental Imperial Navy ship being used to cover up the existence of a black project by shooting up whole starports instead of being turned against the forces which have invaded the Imperium.
• The characters are recruited to hunt down the assassin of a planetary leader, despite the fact that there should be no shortage of possible candidates for the job out of a local population of one billion.
The Forgotten War is an ambitious adventure which never achieves its full potential. Had it been more tightly written, it could have achieved a great deal more and possibly set the standard for other contemporary suppliers of Traveller support products to follow.
