I have never owned any but found some offered to me at decent prices.
Which ones are worth getting and what are they about?
My preference is for E.C. Tubbs Dumarest type Traveller scenarios and some Bertram Chandler thrown in, plus a little Alien (the Sigourney Weaver flick) and Trekker (the Ron Randall comic). Any classic Traveller adventures in that vein?
Death station for sure.
Quote from: dar;829372Death station for sure.
Not to mention The Horde and Chamax Plague. :)
Later!
Harl
The Traveller Adventure is quite good. It's a big book and a whole free trader campaign.
The Sky Raiders from FASA is also really good.
What they said above. Death Station/The Argon Gambit and Horde/The Chamax Plague are two of the best double adventures out there. The Traveller Adventure is a good campaign and it has plenty of extra cool stuff packed in it. Mission on Mithril/Across the Bright Face and Shadows/Annic Nova deserve an honorable mention. Research Station Gamma, Expedition to Zhodane, and Safari Ship were fun. Also, if you are into naval squadron/fleet action, then Trillion Credit Squadron may be right up your alley.
Thanks for the info. Unfortunately the Traveller Adventure is not among those on offer, nor any 3rd party FASA or Judges Guild stuff. just some GDW adventures from 1 through 9 or so with a couple missing.
Quote from: Matt;829443Thanks for the info. Unfortunately the Traveller Adventure is not among those on offer, nor any 3rd party FASA or Judges Guild stuff. just some GDW adventures from 1 through 9 or so with a couple missing.
If they are affordable, get them all. Take the ones you don't like and resell them on eBay.
Cool. I appreciate what everyone has answered. Any others I should look for, whether from GDW, FASA, Judges Guild, or whoever. And I suppose most importantly: why that particular one?
Trillion Credit Squadron is one I will probably not use as I'm not into the huge galactic Navy thing...I don't use the Imperium setting at all but more something akin to the "Dumarest of Terra" novels I have read.
If you are an E.C. Tubbs Dumarest fan, I would not recommend any of the Traveller adventures. Any similarity they may have with Dumarest is so infinitesimal. Best to just make your own adventure if you have a great understanding of the setting already.
Really? Given that half the rules and terms used in the game are swiped from Tubbs I just assumed the adventures would follow suit. I've only ever owned the rules and supplements 6 & 7.
Each rule you think is from those series of books, has been tweaked in some way.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;829512Each rule you think is from those series of books, has been tweaked in some way.
Low passage seems to be low passage. Travelers seems to be travellers. An extra L. But I haven't played it in a while so maybe what you say is correct. The spaceship stuff seems to be from The John Grimes stories by Bertram Chandler.
I bought the Mongoose version of Traveller and was incredibly disappointed (poor '90s-style "cyberpunk" art, annoying editing errors like a race being described as the only major race descended from herbivores one page after another major race is said to be descended from herbivores, seemed like Traveller for Dummies as far as the changes to the original went) so I'm going back to the original.
Quote from: Matt;829513Low passage seems to be low passage. Travelers seems to be travellers. An extra L. But I haven't played it in a while so maybe what you say is correct. The spaceship stuff seems to be from The John Grimes stories by Bertram Chandler.
I bought the Mongoose version of Traveller and was incredibly disappointed (poor '90s-style "cyberpunk" art, annoying editing errors like a race being described as the only major race descended from herbivores one page after another major race is said to be descended from herbivores, seemed like Traveller for Dummies as far as the changes to the original went) so I'm going back to the original.
I don't know if you like PDFs or not, but the most bang for your buck in Classic Traveller are the FFE CD-ROMs. Here is the link to FFE's website. (http://www.farfuture.net/FFE-CDROMs.html)
Quote from: Matt;829513Low passage seems to be low passage. Travelers seems to be travellers. An extra L. But I haven't played it in a while so maybe what you say is correct. The spaceship stuff seems to be from The John Grimes stories by Bertram Chandler.
I bought the Mongoose version of Traveller and was incredibly disappointed (poor '90s-style "cyberpunk" art, annoying editing errors like a race being described as the only major race descended from herbivores one page after another major race is said to be descended from herbivores, seemed like Traveller for Dummies as far as the changes to the original went) so I'm going back to the original.
The original books state the same rules over and over and over again on the same page. Very Mojo Jojo. But that is Marc Miller's writing style.
Quote from: jeff37923;829516I don't know if you like PDFs or not, but the most bang for your buck in Classic Traveller are the FFE CD-ROMs. Here is the link to FFE's website. (http://www.farfuture.net/FFE-CDROMs.html)
Thanks for the info.
I'm getting good use out of Secrets of the Ancients.
Quote from: RPGPundit;829918I'm getting good use out of Secrets of the Ancients.
Is that setting-specific, i.e., tied to the Imperium thing?
Also, does it actually reveal the secrets of the ancients or is it just some vague stuff that leaves it open?
(I don't use the Imperium. Don't care for it.)
Quote from: Matt;829947Is that setting-specific, i.e., tied to the Imperium thing?
Also, does it actually reveal the secrets of the ancients or is it just some vague stuff that leaves it open?
(I don't use the Imperium. Don't care for it.)
Yes and no.
The Ancient were a race that dominated our region of the galaxy 300,000 years ago. They fought a great war among themselves, shattered a few planets into asteroid belts and then disappeared. Among the things they did was litter this region of the galaxy with abandoned bases and leftover trash. Along with taking Homo heidelbergensis (human circia 300,000 BC) and scattering them among the stars. Nobody quite sure what the deal with this was. It was either to use us as test subject or as servant.
Anyway this meant by the time Earth expanded into the Star there were at least two dozen worlds with native human civilizations and one of them, Vland, discovered intersteller travel two thousand years ago. Their expansion stopped just short of Earth and our first contact was with them.
The truth behind the Ancients was that they were basically the modern Droyne, an somewhat humaniod alien race that has biological castes. 300,000 years ago one of them was born as a highly intelligent immortal mutant. This individual had two generations of progeny and became known as Grandfather.
The Final War came when Grandfather felt his progeny was interfering with his work and he decided it they were a bad idea. So he wage war to get rid of them all. And in the Third Imperum Mileau, he succeeded.
After making sure that the ordinary Droyne were properly settled and taken care of, Grandfather used high energy gravitic to pinch off pockets of realspace into private universes. Many of these bubbles remained connected to our universe through a teleporter portal.
As it turned out one of the portal remained active on the planet Regina, a high tech, high population planet in the Imperium in the Spinward Marches. This is the focus of the Secret of the Ancients by GDW. The adventure includes among other thing a ancient ship that is essence a series of spheres connected via teleporter portal with the fuel and power planet stashed away in a bubble connected to the rest of the ship via a special portal.
The thing is that in the present day of the Third Imperium, the metaplot around Grandfather doesn't amount to much. He basically has these bubbles scattered around and it doing whatever research he wants to do. And he doesn't really care what the outside world is doing unless somebody manages to make their way in and bothers him. So for a non-imperium campaign, it is easy to use the material and just represent Grandfather as one of those weird Star Trek style uber beings coming out of nowhere.
There are also two very different versions of Secrets of the Ancients. The Classic Traveller version and the Mongoose Traveller version.
Quote from: RPGPundit;829918I'm getting good use out of Secrets of the Ancients.
I like it a lot, even though I don't care at all for the origin of the Droyne. Like Chirpers even less. Don't use either in my games. But I do like all the individual plot hooks in the book.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;830081I like it a lot, even though I don't care at all for the origin of the Droyne. Like Chirpers even less. Don't use either in my games. But I do like all the individual plot hooks in the book.
Cool to know. I don't use any of the Imperium races (Aslan, Vargr, Droyne, Zhodani, etc.) or setting and was wondering if this might still be worthwhile.
Quote from: Matt;830094Cool to know. I don't use any of the Imperium races (Aslan, Vargr, Droyne, Zhodani, etc.) or setting and was wondering if this might still be worthwhile.
It's useful to read through to learn how to make a sandbox adventure/setting of your own for Mongoose Traveller, if you've never role-played and/or refereed in a sandbox before.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;830198It's useful to read through to learn how to make a sandbox adventure/setting of your own for Mongoose Traveller, if you've never role-played and/or refereed in a sandbox before.
I'm talking about the original, not the remake.
Quote from: Matt;830577I'm talking about the original, not the remake.
The original Traveller stuff is mostly unremarkable.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;830610The original Traveller stuff is mostly unremarkable.
For instance?
I've seriously changed up the nature of the Secret of the Ancients adventure, it's not really going 'by the book'. Its been gonzoed up, as my recent blog entries (http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2015/05/traveller-campaign-update-monkeys.html)suggest.
Quote from: RPGPundit;831204I've seriously changed up the nature of the Secret of the Ancients adventure, it's not really going 'by the book'. Its been gonzoed up, as my recent blog entries (http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2015/05/traveller-campaign-update-monkeys.html)suggest.
Yes, was reading it the other day. Pending your follow-up installment.
Quote from: Matt;831326Yes, was reading it the other day. Pending your follow-up installment.
They come out roughly every two weeks, because that's how often we play.