Adventures, Starships, The Base, Traveller

Zhodani Base Awards 2012

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Welcome to the Zhodani Base Awards 2012! 2012 has been a very good year for Traveller. There have been lots of new publications and a few interesting Kickstarter Projects.

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

The winner of the “Best Cover” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2012 is: Solomani Rim: From Mongoose

There were lots of Traveller products with nice covers this year. Lots of love for all nice covers. This one was the one that I liked the most.

Next category is “Best Fanzine or Online Magazine“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Fanzine/Online Magazine” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2012 is: Freelance Traveller (again).

Freelance Traveller has again proved that they are the best fanzine by publishing (almost) monthly issues with lots of good contents for free.

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

The winner of the “Best Adventure” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2012 is: 21 Plots III: From Gypsy Knights Games

There were lots of fine Traveller Adventures for different settings published. This year I prefer one with a number of hooks that can be used for lots of settings.

Next category is “Best Ship or Deckplan“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Ship or Deckplan” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2012 is: Ship Book: Garuda Class MSV: From Gorgon Press

There was lots of fine ships for Traveller published this year. I liked the Garuda Class MSV since it can be used in my adventures and it looked cool.

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

The winner of the “Best ATU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2012 is: Outpost Mars: From Zozer Games

I am just a sucker for Mars… I hope they will do a lot more for this setting.

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

The winner of the “Best OTU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2012 is: Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society. Issue No.1-24: From Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW)

Even though it is a re-release, it is over 1200 pages of Traveller goodies. It just had to win.

A final bonus category this year is “Best Free Traveller Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Free Traveller Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2012 is: T5 Traveller5 Wallpapers From: Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW)

Those wallpapers are really nice. (Did you support the Traveller T5 Kickstarter?) Now, go and download all of the free Traveller Products. Why? They are free!

Mapping, Traveller

New Elite game at Kickstarter

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I just love Elite. You have a starship and travel between planets and trade and try to avoid dangers. You can equip your starship or upgrade to a better ship. (Does it sound familiar?) I played it a lot on my ZX Spectrum. I would have played it even more if the copyright protection hadn’t been so silly. Then I got a PC and played Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters. Now I play Oolite.

David Braben has now started a Kickstarted project for a new multi-user Elite called Elite: Dangerous. I want this new game and I support this project.

In the original Elite (and in Oolite) the game map is 8 “galaxies” with 256 planets each. I thought that a galaxy would work great as a sector for Traveller, so I started mapping Galaxy One for Traveller. So far I have mapped half of the sector (8 Subsectors). The starting position for the old Elite game is in the Old Worlds Subsector. The other 7 subsectors can be found here and here.

Adventures, Observances, Reviews, Traveller

Halloween scenarios for Traveller

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I have heard that there exists other games that might be easer to adapt for Halloween. There is even a horror game from GDW. But I want to play Traveller. So what are my options?

If you want to play a horror scenario for Traveller, then I would say that you should have a look at Challenge #46. It is a Special Horror Issue.

Challenge #46
Photo of my own Challenge #46.
(DrivethruRPG is showing the wrong issue)

In this issue you can find a 6-page article about scary wizards and witches, with three interesting adventure hooks. There is a four page scenario with some nasty surprises about salvaging a haunted scout-ship. The final (and maybe most scary) scenario is about encountering a ghost ship in jump space. It is written by Mike Mikesh. This scenario also includes deckplans of a 600-ton subsidized liner. All of these articles for Traveller are very good and usable. But there is more…

There is a scenario for Twilight: 2000, one for Space: 1889, one for 2300 AD, one for Cyberpunk, two for Shadowrun, one for Torg, two for Call of Cthulhu, one for Star Wars and one other (for fun). The one for 2300 AD would be easy to adapt for Traveller if you need another scenario.

Other horror scenarios for Traveller can also be found in:

  • Challenge #54: This is another Special Horror Issue.
  • Double Adventure 5: The Chamax Plague / Horde that could be turned into an Alien style bug hunt. (Also in JTAS #17)
  • JTAS 16: An Amber Zone scenario (called The Day of the Glow) about “Vampires”.
  • JTAS 15: An Amber Zone scenario (called chill) also about “Vampires”.
  • JTAS 5: An Amber Zone scenario (called The Werewolf Disease) that isn’t about vampires.
DTRPG-Halloween
Now go find those pumpkins to get some free stuff from DriveThruRPG.

EDIT: DriveThruRPG has now updated the cover image. Challenge #46 is now number 1 in the Top 100 Products list.

Traveller

John Lees

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It wasn’t that long ago that I would never have imagined that so important of a friendship could be struck via the internet. Maybe that’s the way the future will be. That sounds like something that John and I would discuss via our almost daily emails. We talked about what the future would hold as much from a sense or curiosity as the desire to flesh out what had become our joint passion the Twilight Sector Setting.

At first it was odd that someone would buy into something not of their own creation with such passion. But that was a clue revealing the true genius of John. For it was in the perfection of the form not necessarily in its creation which was his special skill and frankly I’m not sure I could imagine any human who could be better at that task.

It was the happy accident of a chance internet encounter that lead to our friendship as well. I only had the pleasure of meeting John in person twice. Both occurred at GenCon, once in 2010 and again in 2011.  It was there I learned much about the man. As much as the internet has extended our reach so that a man in Flint, Michigan and one in Kansas City, Missouri might meet and exchange ideas I believe it is by meeting someone in person that you can take their true measure. It was here that I was introduced to John’s warm nature, quick wit and a palpable intelligence that could not be denied. I’ll be the first to admit that John could be prickly at times. His opinions he held dear but the beauty is that he always approached them with a determined logic. It was often disagreements that lead to our best work.

We were in the midst of just such an occurrence this week shooting emails back and forth discussing how best to approach a design issue. I received his last email at Midnight and by the next morning my colleague and friend was gone. John D. Lees passed away on October the 2nd, 2012. For me the world is a much dimmer place. A man who might have been unknown to many but who is the very embodiment of the best that is tabletop role-playing has left us.

Adventures, The Base, Traveller

And the winner is…

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It was so difficult to decide the winner of the 76 patrons contest this year. There are 15 good entries. Of these, there are 13 that I want to use, and of these there are 6 that I think are really good. I must say thank you to all the participants for all the interesting, fun and playable entries!

I have now finally picked the winner. The winner of the fourth Summer Zhodani Base 76 Patrons Writing Contest is Greg Videll with the Patron called “Tourist Trap“.

The runner-up is Library Bob with the Patron called “Renovations“.

The winners will be contacted.

Loreen Eurovision 2012 winner
Another winner: image from wikimedia,
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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