All posts by BeRKA

P-O "BeRKA" Bergstedt is the Zhodani Ambassador. :-) BeRKA started the Zhodani Base in 1994.
Adventures, The Base, Traveller

Zhodani Base Awards 2011

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Welcome to the Zhodani Base Awards 2011! 2011 has been a very good year for Traveller. There have been lots of new publications, and old ones have been made available on pdf.

The first category is “Best Fanzine“. The nominees are:

The winner of the category “Best Fanzine” is;

Freelance Traveller.

Freelance Traveller has delivered a new fine issue every month. The page-count may be greater in the other fanzines, but they haven’t delivered 12 issues in 2011.

Next category is “Best Adventure“. The nominees are:

The winner of the category “Best Adventure” is;

Spinward Encounters.

Spinward Encounters is a very fine product that I have written about before. If used correctly, it will give you lots of fun over many gaming sessions.

Next category is “Best Deckplans“. The nominees are:

The winner of the category “Best Deckplans” is;

HIMS The Pretty Penny.

HIMS The Pretty Penny is a very good looking deckplan that I have written about before.

Next category is “Best PDF Re-Release“. The nominees are:

The winner of the category “Best PDF Re-Release” is;

JTAS #23.

Issue #16 is also a very good JTAS issue, but since this is the Zhodani Base Awards, JTAS #23 had to win.

Next category is “Best ATU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the category “Best ATU Product” is;

Cascadia.

There are now lots of new Alternate Traveller Universes. This is a very interesting development. The winner starts small and presents one sub-sector, but it is presented in great detail.

The final category is “Best OTU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the category “Best OTU Product” is;

Zhodani.

Hey, what did you expect?

Adventures, The Base, Traveller

Start voting

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You may now vote on which of the “Patrons” you think are the best.

The Patrons You can vote for are:

Baby Boom by Ewan Quibell
Funeral Escort by Cheesy_Nacho
A day at the zoo by Steven Cabral
The Builder by Alegis Downport

Only registered users, facebook fans and participants in the competition may vote on the entries they like the most. Everyone else may still express what they think by posting comments. Facebook fans may only vote if they became fans of the Zhodani Base before Juli 1:st and are real persons.

Send in your votes using e-mail, or vote on on facebook.

The voting ends on November 7:st.

Start Voting

 Image from wikimedia.  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Mapping, Reviews, Traveller

Megara – For the blood thirsty

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Megara is the 12:th of the “Quick Worlds” from Gypsy Knights Games. This might not be the most interesting one in the series, but it is still a useful one.

Megara

The idea is that a referee can use this (or the other books in this series) in his/her own universe to save some time when a more detailed world is needed. The referee can then change anything (e.g. the name of the planet or the UWP) to fit a planet in his/her own universe.

The planet Megara has a UWP of C9887B7-D. If you want to match it with a planet in the OTU, then maybe the planet Dakar in the Ilelish Sector is a good match. Dakar has a UWP of B9887BB-A. Any planet with a star-port between A-E, size 6-9, atm 8, hydro 8, pop 7-8, gov B, law 7-C and tech-level 6-D would probably work fine. It is actually impossible to create the UWP of Megara using classic rules. The tech-level is too high. But nothing in this pdf suggests that the tech-level must be this high. There is a maglev train, but that might be imported.

In this pdf, there are descriptions of the system with an image of the gas giant, and an overview image of the system. There are some general description of the planet Megara, and an isodecahedron map. Then there are some more specific descriptions of the planet and the people and cities and politics, and of the big herd animals called Betas. Finally there are a few adventure hooks.

What I would have wished for would have been some more detailed adventure hooks, an image of the Betas (and animal encounter tables), some notes on gas giant refuelling (since the gas giant is within the 100 solar diameters from the sun) and maybe some notes on the seasons due the the eccentric orbit.

There are also some other problems with this pdf. I hope Gypsy Knight Games (and other publishers) will learn from this constructive criticism and avoid such problems in the future.

Continue reading Megara – For the blood thirsty →

Adventures, Reviews, Traveller

Spinward Encounters – Adventures in the Spinward Marches

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The contents of Spinward Encounters are really really good. I love adventure, and this book is packed with them. There are 64 Patron type Adventures (4 for each subsector in the Spinward Marches), and 16 Amber Zone type adventures. Many of these are well thought out, and are a bit longer than a normal (classic) patron or amber zone. A nice thing about a few of the amber zones in the District 268 is that the referee can connect them into a mini campaign.

Spinward Encounters

As a referee, you might think that only four adventures for each subsector makes this product a bit overpriced. But if you are playing in one of the two most popular subsectors (Regina or District 268), then it would be easy to lead your PCs into the five adjacent subsectors. Then you would have 24 useful patrons to play, and for Regina five extra Amber Zones, and for District 268 nine extra Amber Zones. If you play in any of the Vilis, Lanth, Sword Worlds or Lunion subsectors, then you can use 36 patrons if you let you PCs travel into neighbouring subsectors.

The problem with this book is that the layout is quite bad, and that there is no proper index. An index is something that would be very useful if you want to plan to integrate any part of the book into your campaign.

There are a few nice images in the book. I like the one with a Bwap and a Vargr on page 33. This image is probably meant to illustrate the patron at Jesedipere at page 16. As I said, the layout is quite bad… In this image you can spot the Serenity in the background. Maybe also in the image on page 27. That was a nice Easter egg. LOL!

Continue reading Spinward Encounters – Adventures in the Spinward Marches →

Reviews, Starships, Traveller

The Pretty Penny – A Pretty Deck-plan

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This product is a deck-plan of the Type M Subsidized Merchant “HIMS The Pretty Penny” from Scrying Eye Games.

Front Cover

It is the second deck-plan of about 20 that they have planned to release. I hope they do the Shivva Patrol Frigate. 😕

You can also get an air/raft in the same style for free.

The scale is 25 mm/square. The side of a square is 5 ft.  This fits a number of counters, card board heroes and miniatures nicely. But it doesn’t match the classic scale exactly (but close enough). It also makes the deck-plan of the ship quite large. The ship is fitted within 19 pages that you have to assemble yourself. It would have been nice if there was a hi-res image-file includes as well, so you could print it out on a large printer/plotter.

There are lots of details in the images. This is very nice compared to the standard classic deck-plans. Now you can see how everything will fit, and where all the rubbish will end up… Have a look at the engineering work station below. 🙂

Work Station

The need for deck-plans has always been there. In my group, and in other groups that I have played in, we have always used deck-plans. Even though there might not be any combat within the ship, it is always nice to see where your character lives and works. If there is combat within the ship, a deck-plan is a must.

Combat can be solved using standard traveller rules, or using special on-board rules like Snapshot.

Even though this is a very nice product, I will not use it. The reason for this is that my group is quite tainted by what the March Harrier from the Traveller Adventure looked like. The March Harrier is a type R. (The classic type M is a 600-ton Subsidized Liner.) There are a number of elevators in this ship. Where is the Launch? This is not the same ship. It doesn’t match the March Harrier. But for a new group it would probably be very nice to have this pretty deck-plan on their gaming table.

This is what I think a classic type R should look like.