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Review of GURPS:Traveller, Planetary Guides 1 & 2
This line of books fulfils a major need of Traveller, one which has existed since the series began, namely the need for detailed planetary systems to locate adventures in.
The first book "Kamsii" deals with a planetary scale tourist resort, the second "Denuli" covers an undeveloped world with a native intelligent race, threatened by smugglers who steal their eggs to use as jewels.
Both books use the same format, the inside front cover features a colour hex map of the planets surface showing the location of major settlements and spaceports, this is followed by "official" data covering the planet and the other worlds in the system.
The remainder of the books covers history, the planet as it exists "now", (Traveller year 1118), relations between the world and other political entities, characters you are likely to find there and advice on how to use the world in your campaign.
The back inside cover has a map showing all systems within six parsecs of the featured world.
These books are well written with little rules specific material, the second book has more rules related material because it introduces a new race, and a new character template. The illustrations are typical Steve Jackson material they serve their purpose, but are nothing spectacular.
However they are smaller than the standard GURPS books, this makes it difficult to shelf with the rest of the collection. The only error I noticed was in the second book on page 32 where an incorrect size is given for one planet.
I conclusion I recommend this series to gamers, it provides them with a ready made location to start/set their adventures and provides welcome advice on how to use this material in a non-GURPS/Traveller setting, something that the lack of rules specific material greatly assists.
