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Charles Donnell
United States
Houston
Texas
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I had my interest in Traveller re-awakened recently after having picked up the PDF version of the Starter Edition Rules when they were given away not too long. So much so that I went out and got a copy of the core rulebook that was available locally (I’m still a sucker for having an actual, real book in-hand when I play…) and thought I should share what I found since I didn't find a review for this version already posted. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find enough time and some interested players to get a game of this together in the not too distant future.
Technical Stuff
Published in 2008 by Mongoose Publishing and based on the original Marc Miller version of Traveller, this rulebook has 192 pages in a standard hard cover binding. The book credits Gareth Hanrahan as the author and Chris Longhurst as the editor of this version with additional credits given to a large number of other for layout, illustrations, and play testing. I thought it was a nice touch that a special thanks to Marc Miller was included in the game as he is the original creator of the system and this work draws heavily upon that source. The book includes a fair number of illustrations done in a consistent black and white ink style which suits the style of the rulebook and the game at large very well. The rules are well organized and it is easy to identify the rules related to the different aspects of the game and where they are located in the rulebook.
Stuff That’s Included
Title Page (page 1) The title page contains the standard information one would normally expect – title, author, publish, other production credits, copyright, and library categorization information. Nothing fancy or special about it, but it serves its function well.
Traveller (pages 2 – 4) Pages 2-5 are given over to some explanation of what Traveller is and is meant to be – a science fiction roleplaying game – and goes on to define what a roleplaying game is and what the players can expect to do as the referee or players during a game. Suggestions as to the types of campaigns that can be played using this system – trader, explorer, military, and traveler – are also given along with a short synopsis of what each should focus on. Dice rolling conventions used in the game – typically either 2d6 plus modifiers against a target number or d66 although several other variations are used as well – are clearly defined in this section making it much easier to understand how the dice are expected to be used throughout the remainder of the book. The background and definitions of the Technology Levels used in the game are provided as well as a short example of in-game play. All-in-all this section of the book gives a good introduction to some of the underlying concepts and mechanics used in the game in very clear and understandable terms. I wish more RPGs would be so clear with these basic concepts up front rather than introducing them throughout the rules as it provides a basis from which to begin understanding the system. The only thing I found odd about this introduction is that the default setting for the game, the Third Imperium of Man, is barely mentioned in passing without much of an explanation or definition given to it.
Character Creation (pages 5-47) The next section of the book details character creation which uses a life path system to generate the initial characters and included at the beginning of this section is a character generation checklist which goes step-by-step through the process and is a wonderful tool to have included. I find this system to be quite well done in its implementation providing both a reasonable character build and giving some basic information such as a character’s planet of origin and former careers that can be used to develop a character’s backstory prior to the beginning of the actual game. The fact that the skills and abilities that a character has the opportunity to gain is tied into the career paths chosen by the player is a bit of sheer brilliance and reflects a well thought character generation mechanic. And while it is possible to generate a wide variety of character archetypes using this system, it is also worth noting that not all the career paths have equal development potential and that the system has a built in risk-reward scheme that favors taking greater chances with greater rewards for success, but also has a greater potential for disaster up to and including the possibility of a character’s death during character generation. I have only experienced a few character generation systems that I find as well done and enjoyable as this one. The last part of the section on character creation provides additional rules for alien species including specifics for a few such as the Aslan and K’kree that are native to the default setting of the Third Imperium.
Skills and Tasks (48-59) The section on skills and tasks provides the rules on how characters use the skills they possess to accomplish tasks throughout the game. The basic mechanic used for task resolution is 2d6 + modifiers against a difficulty level. The rules clearly explain the benefits of having training in a skill and how it is applied as a modifier to skill checks. There is also an interesting rule that a character making a skill check in an area they are untrained in suffers from a -3 modifier on the check (although this can be lessen if one has the Jack of All Trades skill). This makes it significantly more challenging for characters to accomplish tasks without the proper training. The rules for setting the difficulty level are also fairly clear and a good amount of text is given over to how the referee should set them for various tasks and checks. Interestingly, the rules include a statistical breakdown of the probability of success for skill checks at various levels of skills and levels of difficulty. This is a useful tool for the referee in deciding how to set the skill checks for the characters will face. The rules for taking actions during a character’s turn are also given with a good emphasis on the timing of actions. The last part of this section gives a detailed description of all the skills covered in the rulebook including some default actions that are covered by the skill and the relevant difficulties for those actions.
Combat (pages 60-68) The next eight pages give a breakdown for combat on both the personal and vehicular level including rules for determining initiative, taking actions during combat, ranges, reactions, and conditions or considerations that may affect combat on a regular basis such as automatic weapon fire, environmental conditions, etc. Most of these mechanics are well thought out and reflect an attempt to inject a level of realism into combat, including the lethality of it, without becoming so overly complicated as to bog down the game. By and large this system works very well although it does require the referee to have a certain level of mental dexterity to track the various modifiers that are in play as these can changes rather quickly. Overall, I found this combat system to be simply but elegant.
Encounters and Dangers (pages 69-85) The section of the rules on planetary encounters does a good job of providing a baseline set of rules for generating everything from wildlife, environmental dangers, planetary quirks, potential contacts, allies, and rivals. Also included were a number of charts to help with the generation of ‘generic’ non-player characters and wildlife as well as several pages pre-generated ‘generic’ non-player character stat lines and several more well developed non-player characters that could be used for potential contacts or rivals of the players’ characters. Basically everything the referee needs to start working on building encounters and scenarios for use in his game whatever the style of the campaign can be found here. The only odd inclusion in this section, at least to me, was the rules for recovery from wounds and injuries as well a more detailed explanation on how healing whether natural or through medical attention works in the game. I would have expected these rules to be included in the section on combat and damage, but can understand why they were included here as planetary and environmental dangers have the potential to be as lethal as combat.
Equipment (pages 86-104) The next eighteen pages of the rules are dedicated to covering many of the things characters can spend their money on including such mundane necessities as food, clothing, and lodging up items that are more exotic including plasma weapons, battle dress, augments, and more. Most of the equipment that can be purchased is geared towards combat, transportation, or being able to use a skill or set of skills more effectively. There are a fairly large number of options covering a wide range of technology levels, availability, and legality – the latter being a very interesting inclusion in the system as it opens up several possible opportunities and pitfalls for the players’ characters to explore. Most of the items are pretty straight forward, but a few may take a little more explanation to understand what they are and how the function in game.
Spacecraft Design (pages 105-113) One of the most important sections of the rulebook – second only to character creation – is spacecraft design and the rules for this do not disappoint providing both a complete and easy to use system for creating everything from the smallest scout ship all up to and including full scale warships. At the beginning of the section is ship design checklist and much like the one for character creation goes through the ship design process step-by-step and is a remarkably useful tool. The system is based on components included for the vessel against a displacement in tons. This is fairly realistic system and is similar to the way that real world naval vessels are designed. All the systems one would expect a ship to have – hull, engines, power plant, fuel, electronics, navigation, living quarters, etc – are all covered sufficiently in the rules to build realistic ships. There are also rules for weapons, armor, and defensive systems if the game has a more military or combative feel. The rules for designing ships from the hull up work remarkably well and even cover the cost of hiring architects to design them and the build times needed for manufacture at different levels of spaceports.
Common Spacecraft (pages 114-136) Immediately following the rules for spacecraft design are twenty-two pages covering a variety of standard designs in the default setting of the Third Imperium including a scout vessels, a mining ship, several types of traders, commercial cargo and passenger vessels, military ships, and systems craft. The designs include to scale deck plans for the ships included which provides a glimpse into a realistic layout for spacecraft at this level of technology. The whole section gives a good baseline for the ship technology in common use in the default setting and is a good starting point for both the referee and the players in creating new ship designs if they have an interest in doing so.
Spacecraft Operations (pages 137-145) A fair number of pages is given over to the operation of spacecraft which is no real surprise given the name of the game. The rules cover everything from maintenance and fuel costs to the operation of major ship’s system – including the skills relevant to make the most use of them – to encounters in the vastness of space. A fair amount of explanation is given to travel between systems including detailed rules for travel times and fuel consumption. There is a also a fair explanation on using a ship in salvage operations which can be a viable option to generate income for the characters.
Space Combat (pages 146-151) The next section of the rules covers combat between spaceships and just like the early section on combat between individuals and vehicles represents a fairly lethal mix of options. The system using an initiative based system, but movement and range are done on a relative scale making for a consistently shifting combat arena. For someone not use to a system such as this I would recommend running through a few mock combats before encountering one in-game (this is particularly true if you are the referee and are expecting a space combat). The rules also cover crew position and how this affects the operation of the spacecraft during combat and quick resolution of boarding actions which is a great inclusion. Much like the section on combat, the rules presented here provides a fairly realistic representation of combat without becoming so ponderous as to slow play down unnecessarily.
Psionics (pages 152-160) The next section introduces psionics to the game and with it an additional characteristic Psionic Strength and a new career path Psion, but as these cannot be selected by players during character generation without the permission of the referee they could be seen as optional rules. In some ways, the inclusion of these rules could be seen as a departure from the ‘hard science’ feel of the rules up to this point, but there are several other options the rules present that do this as well and the inclusion of psionics in a number of science fiction properties makes this more than forgivable I think. At any rate, psionics are broken down further into several talents including telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, awareness, and teleportation. While each of this can have profound impact on the tone of the campaign and give characters possessing them several new options and advantages, they also have built in limitations based on the character’s Psi score so the system does work. The rules presented also give options on how to augment some skills with the use of psionics or even replicate a skill for a short period of time. I have previously played in games where these rules were ignored, used sparingly, and fully embraced and each worked well without completely unbalancing the game.
Trade (pages 160-167) A very welcome addition for trader, explorer, and traveler games the rules provided for trade include how to find trade, what’s available, how profitable it is to haul cargo, generating income from passengers, and the interaction between different law levels and types of cargo including rules governing the options for cargos of questionable or that are illegal in nature. Characters with the right ship and connections even have the option of trying to haul mail for a profit. Again, another well thought out system that balances the risk and reward equation very well allowing characters a wide range of realistic feeling options to suit the goals and desires of their characters. This section is also a great tool for the referee allowing him to flush out the worlds visited by the characters in more detail and depending on his desire, time, and talent even having the ability to create trade routes between planets that can be used to entice or entrap players as the campaign progresses.
World Creation (pages 167-182) This section of the rules is aimed squarely at the referee providing the tools to help define and create the worlds the characters will be able to visit and how to expand individual systems into a subsector and then into a sector. The rules provide tools for generating the size, atmosphere, gravity, population, spaceport facilities, polities, trade routes, and pretty much any other large scale consideration needed to make believable planets. Using the system provided the quick generation of a planet takes only a few minutes and it is quite possible for the referee to generate an entire subsector within no more than an hour or so. Of course this would leave a lot of details to be filled in as the game goes on, but it is still a great jumping off point. This system can also be particularly useful if the game is focused on scouting out new systems.
Index (pages 182-188) The last seven pages of text in the book are a standard alphabetical index of the major topics contained in the rulebook with page number references. A very functional index, but nothing terribly exciting.
Advertisements (pages 189-190) Pages 189 and 190 contained advertisements for products from Mongoose Publishing with page 189 having short advertisements for Traveller: Fighting Ships and Traveller: Scouts and page 190 having an advertisement for Signs & Portents magazine. While I’m all for the publishers of games advertising and bringing us new and exciting content, I do not particularly like them using the interior page count of a rulebook to accomplish this.
Character Sheet (191) This page has a blank character sheet that would be functional for the game although the copyright listed on the title page would make reproduction of this page problematic, common sense would dictate that it was included as a tool for the owner of the rulebook to use. The character sheet itself is setup in a fairly standard organization and would serve adequately for its intended purpose.
Subsector Map (192) This page has a blank subsector map on it which is essentially just a blank hex pattern within a frame, but it suffers for the same legal versus common sense issue that the character sheet on the previous page has. It would also serve its purpose well enough if a player was inclined to use, but I think anyone who plays for any length of time will find or develop betters tools for this purpose.
Stuff I Liked
I really like the internal consistency within this rules set. The risk versus reward consideration is readily apparent in nearly every instance where it could be applied including the character generation system (!) and all forms of combat.
I like that the system was designed to (for the most part) reflect existing and potentially viable technologies rather than having to reach into the realm completely unprovable to deliver a science fiction game. For those who want to push the science boundary of the game to the near breaking point the game does present several potential options.
Stuff I Have Mixed Feelings On
I have mixed feelings about the way the rules sometimes gloss over the Third Imperium setting they present. So much more could have easily been included on this setting to make it come more alive in the rulebook, but at the same time by not fully flushing this out in this book a referee can easily adapt the setting to fit the wants of his group or even transplant the rules to a specific setting such as Starship Troopers or Babylon 5 without too much effort to have to change things.
Stuff I Didn’t Like
The only thing that I found lacking from this rule book was something for the generation of small craft which are defined in the rules, but also say the rules for them will be in a future supplement. To highlight such an omission in the core rulebook of the game is hard for me to accept – especially when I feel the rulebook was as well down as this one.
My Two Cents
For players who are interested in a ‘hard’ science fiction game which lends itself to a wide variety of options and settings without having an excess amount of rules crunch to deal with this game is at the top of the list for me. The system is well thought out and while I cannot say that it is perfectly balanced the risk versus reward system that exists in the game is very well done. Best of all, with the exception of the rules for generation small craft, everything you need to play is in a single rulebook that is just over a hundred pages in length. There are plenty of options to expand on this if you have the desire to, but you can purchase just this one book and have everything needed to play a complete game. Well, okay, you need a couple of other players, pencils, paper, and a couple of six-sided dice, but rules-wise its everything you would need.
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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Re: My Two Cents on the Traveller 5th Edition Core Rulebook.
One issue: T5 is NOT Mongoose.
The editions, in order issued:
CT (1977)
CT 2nd Ed (1981) - no livery change, but can tell by the damages being whole dice only
MT (1987)
TNE (1993)
T4 (1996) Properly, Marc Miller's Traveller
GT (1998)
T5 Playtest 1st Alpha Draft releases (1998)
T20 (2002)
HeroTraveller (2007) Properly Traveller Hero v5
MGT (2008)
T5 (2009) Beta on CD
Mongoose is the 10th edition of Traveller. Ignoring the spur-line of Traveller:2300 and 2300AD. 11th if you count the not-counted-by-Marc T:2300 but not 2300AD, 12th if you count both. But Marc also doesn't count CT2E as a separate edition from CT1E, despite a number of important changes, as CT 1E varies in content by printing.
(And if you check, I'm in the credits for T20 and MGT...)
Edit: Don's Correction added, linked up.
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Charles Donnell
United States
Houston
Texas
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Re: My Two Cents on the Traveller 5th Edition Core Rulebook.
Thanks for the correction.
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Donald McKinney
United States
St. Joseph
Illinois
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To add to Aramis' excellent list...
T5 Beta Playtest CD (2009)
That release would be considered T5 now, and is VERY different from its 1998 predecessor.
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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donm61873 wrote: To add to Aramis' excellent list...
T5 Beta Playtest CD (2009)
That release would be considered T5 now, and is VERY different from its 1998 predecessor. In quantity, yes.... but it's pretty close, mechanically, for what was in the 1998 stuff. 
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Posted Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:30 pm
