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This review is one in a series which will look at some of the many Spinward Marches setting books which have been published over the years and which describe the area. It'll offer advice as to which ones were the best and which will work the best with Mongoose's current, fifth-edition, Traveller gaming system.

As noted previously, there was no actual campaign book produced for the Spinward Marches during the MegaTraveller era of publication. Instead, to find coverage of the setting during that time you have to turn to The MegaTraveller Journal, which is focused on the Domain of Deneb.

This seventh review discusses The MegaTraveller Journal #3. If you want to find a Spinward Marches campaign book for the MegaTraveller era, the best you can do is put together issues #1 and #3 of the Journal, the first of which mapped out the Domain of Deneb, and the second of which provided all of its UWPs.

An Overview of the Book

The MegaTraveller Journal #3 marked a big change for the magazine. It marked the metamorphosis from a quarterly gaming magazine to an occasional gaming supplement. The reason was the typical one: magazines were too expensive to produce. So The MegaTraveller #3 was bigger and more expensive than its predecessors and also featured a sturdier cardstock cover.

As with the previous issues of The MegaTraveller Journal, issue #3 focused generally on the Domain of Deneb. Within that purview there were some articles that gave pretty good overviews of the setting, some which were very specific to the Rebellion time period, and some which focused more on crunchy rules and stats.

A series of relatively timeless background articles complement the sector data.

"Worldguide: Vincennes" talks about one of the two TL16 planets in the Domain of Deneb (Vincennes 0302). It's a nicely balanced look at how the tech level affects its cities, its geography, and its citizens.

"The Creduthaar", by William H. Keith Jr., is one of two articles about races of the domain. Originating on Ghatsokie (Deneb 0902), the Creduthaar offer a nice contrast: they look really nasty, but they're pretty nice. That contrast could leave them as a bit of a one-trick pony, but there's enough extra detail to keep them interesting in a game--especially their hatred of the Vargr.

"The Jonkereen" is another minor race article. This one talks bout a human subrace that was genetically bred to life on desert planets--then pretty much abandoned when genetic alteration went out of style. It shines a great light on a science-fiction topic that's largely ignored in Traveller and offers up a pretty interesting race besides.

Finally, "Domain Dossier: Jeramii Boden" an interview with the guy who is the TAS representative from 1105 to at least the Rebellion Era. I found it really insightful, because it talks about what the TAS life style is, and how those people bop around Charted Space. I felt like it gave me everything I need to introduce a true Traveller into the game (let alone the possibility of using Jeramii Boden himself as an NPC).

Only a few articles are really specific to the Rebellion era. That kicks off with "DIS Newsbriefs", which this time offers two pages of news. As always, there are a number of evocative possibilities for adventures.

"Megacorporations in the Rebellion Era" offers a nuanced overview of how the megacorps have responds to the Rebellion, then looks at every one of them. It's terrific big-picture background.

Finally the feature adventure "Rapid Repo" sends the players into the Vargr-occupied Corridor sector to recover some lost technology. If that sounds familiar, it's because you read my review of The MegaTraveller Journal #2, which has a very similar adventure. I'm pretty dumbfounded that DGP ran both adventures, because a GM just isn't going to be able to run both of them for the same group, even though they're tonally different. ("Rapid Repo" is a command mission which feels very militaristic, while the previous issue's "Defying the Wolf" was more exploratory and scientific.)

As I've reread these issues of The MegaTraveller Journal for review, I've found that I'm not that fond of DGP's adventures. They tend to have two somewhat annoying tendencies. First, a lot of them spend way too much time on purple prose intended to be read to the players. It's way more stuff than you'd want to read aloud. Second, a lot of them end up being a long series of skill checks, based no doubt upon the fact that DGP developed MegaTraveller's task system back in their earliest days. "Rapid Repo" suffers the latter fate, resulting in an adventure that's not only repetitive, but mediocre too.

On the downside, that one adventure accounts for about a quarter of the magazine. On the upside, its tepidness is the exception, not the rule.

The magazine closes off with some stuff that's either crunchier or more general. The crunchy articles include another ship, the "Sydkai-class Cruiser", another few pages of equipment in the "Traveller's Cache" feature, and more "Q&A" (though unfortunately it's more focused on MegaTraveller crunch than interesting Traveller background in this issue).

Finally, the two general articles really shine. "Alien Jokes" is just a set of light-bulb jokes, but I think it shows some great insight into the Traveller universe. The "Keith Brothers Interview" is the only interview that I'm aware of with J. Andrew Keith and William H. Keith Jr. These guys were pretty influential during the Classic Traveller era, and I thought their insights into the time were nearly worth the price of admission.

Generally, I think that The MegaTraveller Journal #3 has a lot of very good material in it. If I were reviewing the whole magazine without the Corridor adventure, I'd probably give it a perfect score, but with that I instead give it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.

(And I'll note here that there was one more issue of the Journal, #4, but I won't be reviewing it in this series, because instead of being focused on the Domain of Deneb, it instead published a huge Keith Brothers adventure set in the Gateway sector.)

Applicability to Mongoose Traveller

This issue of The MegaTraveller Journal probably has the most pages of content that can be easily applied to Mongoose Traveller--but that's because the magazine is bigger, not because the content changed.

In any case, the articles on Vincennes, the Creduthaar and the Jonkeereen could all be easily used in an 1105 Spinward Marches campaign. Though all of those articles have their foundations in the Deneb sector, it's very believable that Marches characters might journey to Vincennes and that the Creduthaar and the Jonkereen might be in the Marches. (In fact, reading Mongoose's Spinward Marches book, you'll see several references to the Jonkeereen on desert planets.) Similarly, you could use Jeramii Boden as an NPC in the Marches.

The Domain of Deneb System Data further gives you an opportunity to have UWPs for three of the sectors closest to the Spinward Marches. Though the sector data is c.1121, its probably close enough for most uses. This is another nice element for a Mongoose Traveller GM, though it's by no means the only place to get the data.

(To be specific, the older Travellers' Digest magazine focused on the Trojan Reach and Reft in issue #20 and on Deneb in issue #19. The upcoming Aslan book from Mongoose should similarly focus on the Trojan Reach as did all of the old Third Imperium fanzine--which is now available online. Perhaps most suprisingly, there are also 1117 UWPs for almost all of this same space in The Regency Sourcebook, GDW's sourcebook on the era for Traveller: The New Era. Which is all a long-winded way of saying that the extra UWPs for the Domain shouldn't be your only reason for picking up this magazine.)

As usual, the stuff that's more specific to the era will only be of use if you're running a really long-term Spinward Marches campaign, and the MegaTraveller stats probably won't be of any use at all.

Ultimately, as with The MegaTraveller Journal #1, I'd say that issue #3 is a nice addition for any GM running a campaign in the Marches, but by no means a necessity. It tends to cost $30-50 on the used market, just like the rest of the issues of The MegaTraveller Journal, but that feels a little more reasonable given it's twice the size of the early issues.

Style & Design

The MegaTraveller Journal #3 generally looks just the same as the rest of DGP's products. Fairly open pages, good artwork, and really nice one-page layouts for equipment and worlds. Notably, the "Domain of Deneb Sector Data" is made up to look like a mini-supplement, complete with front and back cover.

Today this layout style looks minimalistic but attractive, and thus I've given this issue a "4" out of "5" for Style.

Conclusion

The MegaTraveller Journal #3, the last issue to focus on the Spinward Marches, offers some good detail on some races and a world that could be used in any Spinward Marches campaign. The rest of the material is generally pretty good too (with the exception of the adventure), though much of it is more specific for the MegaTraveller game and/or era.

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