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Review of Grand Safari
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It begins with the premise that players all wish to join an exclusive exploratory club, in the OTU, this could simply be a specialized group of Scouts with higher than normal Social Standing – in short a gentle-sophont association. First, players are tasked with a series of tests, which are rendered as dice rolls, but give lots of leeway for role playing behind the rolls. Having the players “test” their abilities gives them an excellent bridge to playing the safari component. It is truly a safari adventure in that players are award a scale of points for killing, capturing, or photographing (holographing?) the different fauna or flora that is the object of interest. Superb plot twists ensure that no mission is identical not only is the environment magnificently described – for in any adventure – of Man versus Nature – clearly, alien worlds would offer a significant challenge that may be as challenging and unique as what they seek to capture. And, each of these worlds present interesting, varied fleshed out NPCs not seen in a Traveller adventure in a very long time. With different environments also come new vehicles. The artwork while still remains poser – it represents a fundamental quantitative leap from previous offerings. Furthermore, Watts has seamlessly integrated previous supplements in a complete package without giving away too much away – thus giving the tidbit that the Referee that does not have that supplement could still run the adventure (just not very effectively IMHO) well.
Furthermore, aside from the Safari adventures, included are additional adventures set in this untamed frontier that make this an invaluable purchase. Complete system details round out the package. This is truly a phenomenal investment. If there would be a criticism – is that there is a little too much white space, but given the very small size of GKG – that is hardly surprising. The white space is not due to the lack of filler material it is perhaps that this adventure might be better served if it were digest sized (although, I do like my A4) but that would probably lead to an increase in the number of pages and hence expense.
All in all, this is excellent adventure sourcebook that certainly puts other Traveller products to shame by raising the standard to that of a professional sleek standard comparable or even surpassing some Mongoose titles. It is akin to the moment, that you know that a small press moves to the professional look that makes it exciting. The adventures contained within do play out, as something that can be inserted into any Traveller universe, but, do work best with the ATU of the Clement Sector. The pregens are nicely balanced with great backstories – there is even uplifted Panda in there and many, many, many thanks for the excellent character art. All too often this is overlooked, however, it has been my experience that players often select characters from their “look” even not looking at the stats. This book is worth its weight in platinum and is chock full of little gems. With products like these GKG hopefully will be able to make the successful transfer from POD to occupying retail space for they have made the successful transition from the small independent publisher to small skilled and unique publisher. Undoubtedly, this trend will only continue as the quality of their products keeps increasing at an exponential rate. Criticisms of this work could still emanate from only their small size and small operating budget – it is hoped that more graphic designers and game writers will flock to this publisher to improve the overall presentation of this material. Perhaps, a kickstarter might be in order…
