Category Archives: Reviews

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.

Reviews, Science Fiction, Starships, Traveller

Traveller Inspiration: Free e-books

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Traveller was first published 1977, and was inspired by even older science fiction. While this means that the computer rules used in traveller might feel a bit obsolete, it also means that for some of the books it was inspired by, the copyright has expired. (The computer rules are quite easy to ignore or modify anyway, so that doesn’t matter much.)

At Project Gutenberg, some works that has inspired traveller can be downloaded in several formats that will fit your e-book reader. It is also possible to read them directly on the web.

Here is a suggestion of five books for you to download:

1, Space Viking by H. Beam Piper

In Space Viking, there is a group of planets called Sword Worlds that are named after legendary swords. Doesn’t that seem familiar… The image below of the spherical ships  is from the book. They look a lot like the Mercenary Cruisers from traveller.

2, Deathworld by Harry Harrison

Jason dinAlt is the hero of the Deathworld books. In the Traveller Supplement 1, 1001 Characters, you can find his stats as hero #3, the Rapscallion Gambler. Jason dinAlt is skilled in gambling and also has a psionic talent, that can help his gambling. In Traveller, gambling is a skill, and psionics isn’t impossible.

3, Gambler’s World by Keith Laumer

Jame Retief is a Diplomat for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne. In Traveller Supplement 4, Citizens of the Imperium you can find his stats as hero #5.

4, A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Hero #1 of the Traveller Supplement 1 is John Carter. In the Solomani Rim (0239), there is a small planet named Barsoom.

5, Triplanetary by E. E. Smith

Triplanetary is a Lensman prequels. Kimball Kinnison of the Lensman series is hero #2 in the Traveller Supplement 1. GDW also published a game called Triplanetary before they published Traveller.

Mercenary Cruiser?

Image from Project Gutenberg. Copyright expired.

Aliens, Reviews, Science Fiction

Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

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Yet another book that I recently read was Stranger in a Strange Land (the 1991 version), by Robert Heinlein. I bought this at the Fantasy Centre last time I was in London.

This is one book that I know I ought to have read a lot earlier, but as always there is never time enough to do everything I want to. Since this is one of the most well known books by Heinlein I felt that I had to read it. It is also important since this is the book where the word “grok” was invented.

The first part of the book is very interesting. The human Valentine Michael Smith, who has been raised by martians has problems with the Terran humans and their rules and cultural values. The martian ways of doing things are very different. This can be an inspiration when dealing with aliens in Traveller.

The second part of the book is just a religious rambling (with lots of sex). For me this part of the book was just silly, but others have founded religions based on it. 😮

Heinlein

Image from wikimedia. License: GNU Free Documentation

Finally, there is the Ultra-Condensed version. 😉

Mapping, Reviews, Traveller

Twilight Sector – A new TU

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Cool, a new traveller product to review. 😎

First we need to understand that Twilight Sector is not located a few sectors rimward of the Solomani Rim. It is not even located in the Official Traveller Universe. It is located in an entirely new Alternative Traveller Universe.

How dare they? Heretics! 😉

Well, this is actually a good thing. I have hoped for a long time now that someone would dare to make a commercial product for a new TU. The reason for this is all the problems there are with the OTU and that there are always some whining canon-heads that complains when you try to do something creative.

There have been other attempts to create other alternative traveller universe to get around the problems with the OTU. Two examples are Proto-Traveller and Dark Hunter. I have even tried to make my own traveller universes. One based on the Elite game, and one based on history.

In the Twilight Sector Campaign Setting Sourcebook we get a very good description of the history of this universe and of the Major powers. There are also many pages of library data in the end of the book. This is very useful since it is a new setting, and no old library data can be used if you want to play in this TU.

There are a few interesting differences from the OTU. First, there are no aliens (but there have been one or more ancient races). There are mutants instead. Maximum jump range is 8 (not 6). There are also interstellar radio with messages travelling up to 8 parsecs in a week.

Since the book is called Twilight Sector, I would have guessed that it would be a bit like other sector books (Rim of Fire, Behind the Claw or Gateway to Destiny.) But it wasn’t. There is no full description of a traveller sector with maps and UPPs for every world. Instead we get a very good description of half a subsector (6 worlds and two space stations). That was a bit of a disappointment when I had hoped for something else.

One of the worlds described is a copy of Earth called Terra/Sol. Even though a copy of Earth seems a bit silly, I am looking forward to read about why and how it was made. The ancients in this TU must have been much more powerful than Grandfather in the OTU. Maybe even as powerful as Slartibartfast.

In the book there are many nice images. Some are in colour. Some (like the cover) are a bit sexist. The worlds described have nice isodecahedron worldmaps and nice system maps. But the subsector map is quite ugly and not at all of the same quality as the other illustrations.

I really hope that Terra/Sol games will publish more books about this interesting TU. I also hope that this will inspire other publishers to make their own Traveller Universes.

Twilight Sector

Image used with permission. Part of Twilight Sector Carnival at Atomic Array.

Want to learn more about Twilight Sector? Read on…

Drop by Terra/Sol Games today!

Review written as part of the Twilight Sector Carnival at Atomic Array.