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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.

To date I've only talked about the Spinward Marches overview books, which included six full iterations of the setting and four important magazine issues. However, GDW and others have also published a number of products covering individual worlds and clusters within the Spinward Marches; all of these products from past eras are likely to be very useful as you put together your own Spinward Marches adventures. This review covers the first of them.

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This eleventh review discusses Tarsus: World Beyond the Frontier, a boxed module that describes a world in depth. It was the first expansion for the Traveller Starter edition of the rules, which happens to be the very set that got me into the game.

An Overview of the Book

Tarsus explains the problem it was written to solve very directly, stating: "In a roleplaying game which covers the entire universe as Traveller does, it is sometimes possible to forget that a single world can easily be the site for more than one situation or adventure." Thus, Tarsus presents a world, Tarsus, in sufficient depth to allow for many adventures.

However, Tarsus also has a second, unspoken, goal. Starter Traveller was meant to bring new people into the game, and this boxed module was intended to complement that goal. Thus, there's some really basic, introductory stuff for the players (though not for the GMs; as I'll note, I find this box more of an outline for running adventures than an adventure itself, though that wasn't unusual for GDW products from the period).

The Tarsus box contains the following materials: a 24-page world data book, four 5-page adventures, three maps, and 12 character cards. I actually find these contents to be pretty scant for a box of this size, even when comparing them to other material from the same period, but we're so long past when this box was being sold based on the value of its contents as opposed to its collector's value, that this complaint scarcely matters any more.

The World Data book is the heart of the package, and it's quite good. None of the writing is supremely interesting, mind you, but it does an awesome job of describing one world.

I'm overall very impressed with the contents, because Miller & Wiseman have done a good job of creating an alien yet believable planet. There's: some good scientific information, such as the use of Trojan point satellites and the disc size of Tarsus' moon; some interesting color, such as the optical illusion of a "tunnel" that appears on one of the moons and some interesting foliage on the planet; and some good history, including integration of sector-wide events into a local landscape.

If I sat down and reread the world book shortly before running one or more adventures on Tarsus, I'd feel very confident in my ability to create an evocative, memorable, and alien world. If anything, I'd be worried about other worlds in my Traveller universe not standing up to comparison.

The Adventures are unfortunately much more lack-luster. Perhaps I expected too much from five four-page folios. However, I've seen other publishers do great jobs with mini-adventures like this (such as RQ's Borderlands, although those ran longer and the City of Greyhawk's one-sheet encounters). One of my biggest problems is that among the five folios there are only two actual adventures and the second one is still much more skeletal than I'd like.

Adventure #1 is "Openings". It really highlights the intention of Tarsus as a beginner's product, as it's almost entirely about a ship flying from its jump point to the planet--with pretty much nothing happening in between.

#2 is "Nobble Raunch". It's the only true adventure of the set, with a missing father and other troubles on a ranch leading to an investigation.

#3 is "SuSAG", which centers on the megacorp at the center of the previous problems, but the "adventure" is actually a very big overview of the megacorp in the system, with the GM left to generate pretty much everything to make an adventure centering on SuSAG work.

#4 is "The People of the Forest", which brings the adventurers in to investigate mysterious sightings in one of Tarsus' tangled forests. It's the other somewhat proper adventure, though it's still pretty big picture.

#5 is "Endgames", which I find a very ironic title because it implies that it closes up the story of Tarsus. However, it doesn't actually connect to anything that came before. Instead it offers a handful of adventure seeds and some weather rules. This folio also has a page and a half that are entirely blank, really underlining how little there is here.

There are certainly some nice ideas among these folios. I think #2-#3 and #4 would be adventures of interest to many Traveller players. The adventure shorts in #5 are a bit more bucolic and I'm not convinced that most players will want to ranch or run for office. Despite the fact that I'm sure I could get use from those adventures, 60% isn't a very impressive hit ratio, nor I do think the useful adventures are presented in a very good form.

The last elements in the box are all Individual Sheets. The maps are all printed in color on cardstock. There's a map of District 268, a two-page map of Tarsus, and a map of the "Tanglewald". They're attractive and useful (though I'm less sure of the usability of the Tanglewald map than the others). There are also 12 characters printed on really tiny character cards.

Overall, Tarsus is a mix of the good and the bad. Still, having great background and some somewhat usable adventures isn't too terrible, and I'll pull out that full-color District 268 map the instant players head in that direction.

I've given it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.

Applicability to Mongoose Traveller

If your players are near District 268, Tarsus is a superb supplement to get. It's as simple as that.

There are some minor compatibility issues. First, this is a Classic Traveller book. That means you'll have to adapt some skill rolls. Second, this book is set during the Fifth Frontier War. The war is far enough away, however, that it barely touches upon Tarsus. I don't believe either of those issues should make you even hesitate in picking up this book.

The biggest issue is probably finding it, as the two boxed Starter Traveller modules, Tarsus and Beltstrike, are probably among the rarest Classic Traveller GDW items. Even that's not too bad, as none of the GDW items are terribly hard to get ahold of. A quick skim shows some copies available at stores for $30-40. If it came up for actual auction, it'd probably go lower.

Style & Design

Though Classic Traveller's minimalistic designs looked good at digest size, I never thought that they were very attractive at full-size; there was just too much white space. Still, Tarsus is very cleanly laid out.

There were a number of things I did like in this set. First, the very fact that it was a box that let you have lots of elements. Second, the nice cardstock full-color maps, which are quite good looking.

Averaging minimalism with cool elements, I've given Tarsus an average "3" out of "5" for Style.

Conclusion

Tarsus does a great job of describing a rural world in District 268. It should be in the library of any GM running adventures in that area.