In Short
The Spinward Marches lie on the edge of the Imperium and showcase the sort of adventurous backwater locales that many
Traveller players want. With a history of the Imperium and overview of the
Traveller setting as a whole, this is an excellent product for anyone interested in hard science fiction gaming. While it does lack gorgeous artwork or short fiction, it more than makes up for this with clear writing and an incredible amount of setting information. The star maps of the region alone make the product worthwhile for anyone interested in open ended play, and the nature of the sectors easily create interesting adventure opportunities for any financially enlightened crew.
The Good: While some may view the writing as being a little dry, I very much enjoy how it clearly and neatly lays out all of the information a reader could want. The author knew what he wanted to say well before he said it and did a great job of structuring his thoughts. The sector maps are incredibly useful.
The Bad: Some readers may prefer smaller amounts of information on a large variety of worlds rather than a larger amount on a few worlds. Those interested in beautiful art and flashy production values won’t find that here.
The Physical Thing
At first glance this product seems a step below what most consumers would expect. At $29.95 this 142 page black and white softcover showcases a relatively small amount of artwork, occasional editing mistakes, and a little too much white space. Despite these flaws, I’m still quite pleased with the book. The sector maps are wonderfully useful, the writing is very clear and does a perfect job of communicating a lot of information without using any filler, and on the whole the product provides a whole lot of material that is directly useful to a campaign.
Under the Cover
If you want to purchase a single supplement for
Traveller, or any hard sci-fi game, for a solid setting then this is it. There are no rules here, and the product is as useful for your homebrew sci-fi game that just needs some star charts and interesting setting material as it is for the
Traveller fan. The book is broadly separated into setting background and sector information, so let me handle each in turn.
General setting background takes up slightly under forty pages. As near as I can tell the author set out to take official canon information from many, many years of Traveller and to succinctly restate the core information in a logical presentation. I really can’t say enough about how clear everything is and how impressed I am at the organization the author put into representing one of the most well known science fiction settings.
The Spinward Marches are a somewhat isolated region of space at the edge of the Imperium. The Imperium is an economic and military alliance focused primarily on spreading trade and wealth. It’s a top level government, and member worlds largely set and police their own laws. Only regions of space a bit out from a member world fall solely under the jurisdiction of this governing body.
Within the Imperium the Emperor rules with a variety of nobles taking control of the administration of different areas of space. These can range from lowly Knights to Dukes that hold their own court and command incredible power. As with the Emperor, it’s the maintenance of trade routes and the security of those routes that are of primary concern to the nobility.
Information on the legal system, armed forces, nobility, and corporations existing within the Imperium is all provided with a few pages of detail on each topic. Some groups, such as the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service, are perfectly designed for adventuring. In fact, just about everything presented in The Spinward Marches provides interesting adventure and roleplay opportunities.
The Marches are given moderate overall detail, including information on the local governments, languages, and technology levels. In effect, everything you might want to know while playing a band of free traders is here. The tech level disparities alone will allow for a strong reason for any profit seeking band to keep their ship in the air, as one planet wants plasma rifles and is happy to exchange rare gems and ore for them.
Geographically, the Marches are split into 16 sub-sectors each of which has a full page detailed map. These maps are very well done, and are perfect for any GM who wants to run a campaign where players are free to go where they like and do what they like. In addition to the maps, which communicate an enormous amount of information, about three pages of addition details are included on each sub-sector. This information tends to focus on interesting goings on that are of relevant to people traveling through the region.
The Spinward Marches wraps up with a solid sixteen pages dedicated solely to adventure and campaign ideas for the Marches. As with the rest of the product, the ideas are excellent and go straight to the heart of what makes for fun roleplaying campaigns. Suggestions for running merchant, mercenary, and nobles campaigns are presented alongside useful considerations of what life is like in the Marches.
My Take
This is a very well done product and it makes me want to start up a new
Traveller campaign just from reading it. The setting information makes a lot of sense while providing endless opportunities for adventure gaming. The openness of the setting is particularly compelling, and the ease with which a GM can run a sandbox-style game with this supplement is impressive. While I would have enjoyed more detail on individual worlds, it’s nice to have a solid overview while leaving the rest up to the individual GM.
Review Summary