Not having played any iteration of that game, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on Megatraveller. I'm asking because of the current bundle of holding.

I'm already kicking myself for not buying the Dying Earth bundle, so wondering if I should get this one.

Megatraveller was my favorite version of the game. However, I have not seen T5 or Mongoose Traveller.

I really liked Megatraveller when it first came out, but it's been so long that I don't remember much about it.

We didn't like the system. I never ran it because I was so deep in the LBBs, but I've played in several MegaTraveller games that used the LBBs as the rules and just raided MT for setting stuff. Good stuff - not amazing, but good.

Personally, I feel Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine)'s - Stars Without Numbers RPG is a better overall system and setting for Near Future RPG sci-fi play than MegaTraveller.

Lots of great background material by the folks a Digest Group Publications.  Does the bundle include The Traveller's Digest issues because that's where the gold is.

The task system is okay but the only stats that matter are 5, 10, and 15.

The cleaned up Classic Traveller chargen is more balanced but still not on par with the Advanced Chargen methods.  The combat system works but is very wargamey and a bit weird in places.  Vehicles and starships are a mess that tries to merge Striker and Highguard.  The errata only appears in the final issue of Traveller's Digest.  Really, too much focus on the narrative stuff that DGP loved and not nearly enough on the crunch.

I've had 1st edition CT since it came out, but have never looked at Megatraveller.  I don't really have an opinion, one way or another.

But, I would suggest getting Mongoose Traveller before Megatraveller simply because Mongoose is the current version.  From what I understand over on CoTI, there's not a lot of difference.

I would also point out that you can get the complete Megatraveller books and supplements, etc on CD for about $35 from FFE directly.  CT is also available for the same price.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823326Not having played any iteration of that game, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on Megatraveller. I'm asking because of the current bundle of holding.

I'm already kicking myself for not buying the Dying Earth bundle, so wondering if I should get this one.

It had a lot of potential and good ideas. At first glance an improvement over Classic Traveller. But then came the errata, oh god, the errata. MegaTraveller wasn't quite broken but there were enough mistakes to make it annoying.

Also the design sequence was definitely for gearheads. The system did not have a simple option like the LBBs vs High Guard.

Personally I would just consider the MegaTraveller as a giant supplement and use Mongoose Traveller for the rules.

Quote from: Spinachcat;823334...Personally, I feel Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine)'s - Stars Without Numbers RPG is a better overall system and setting for Near Future RPG sci-fi play than MegaTraveller.

This. SWN is excellent and the expanded PDF is free!

Quote from: estar;823421It had a lot of potential and good ideas. At first glance an improvement over Classic Traveller. But then came the errata, oh god, the errata. MegaTraveller wasn't quite broken but there were enough mistakes to make it annoying...

Personally I would just consider the MegaTraveller as a giant supplement and use Mongoose Traveller for the rules.

Word.  The idea, feel, scope and whatnot of the whole flipping interstellar kingdom going all bugshit balkanizing grabbed me by the short hairs and has never really let go.  The support the game got via the Challenge magazine bits - specifically, the 2-3 page "timeline / what happened this month around the galaxy," stuff - added greatly to the "flavor," of the setting to me.

I also kind of liked the bits at the war(s) end where rogue AI controlled ships prowled the spacelanes and made a grim life that much worse for the poor sods who had managed to make it that far (i.e. the opening episode of the Battlestar Galactica reboot is what I imagined it was like in the twilight of the third imperium and it was glorious).

So far the only books they have are:

MegaTraveller
Rebellion Sourcebook

Referee's Companion
Hard Times
COACC
Arrival Vengeance
Astrogator's Guide to the Diaspora Sector
Assignment: Vigilante

Sounds like I might wait to see if they add the stuff that's on the FFE CD. I guess that if the bundle beats that price for the same content, I'll get it for the setting elements.

There are some things I liked about MegaTraveller (the Universal Task Profile, the DGP supplements), but it is rather a mechanical mess.

I haven't run in about 10 years, and I'm not likely to use it now. It was my first exposure to Traveller back in the 80s, but my warm feelings for it are mostly nostalgia. These days, I'd use it for supplemental material for a CT campaign.

Quote from: Spinachcat;823334Personally, I feel Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine)'s - Stars Without Numbers RPG is a better overall system and setting for Near Future RPG sci-fi play than MegaTraveller.

Setting: yes, definitely. System... meh. Mega-meh.

Quote from: estar;823421Personally I would just consider the MegaTraveller as a giant supplement and use Mongoose Traveller for the rules.

Do you like Mongoose over Classic? I've played both, sort of debating which is better. Compared to T5 or Mega, though, they're miles ahead.

MegaTraveller, to my mind, had a lot of very good ideas but then bungled their implementation:

Good idea: Get the best of the LBB Books and Supplements and put them all together in one revised version of the system.

Implementation: Some of the choices they make in expanding the system are more justifiable than others - for instance, I think expanded Scouts-style system generation really didn't need to be core - and DGP/GDW dropped the ball when it came to actually making this all consistent with each other. This is most evident when you compare the basic and advanced character gen systems - you still have the same problem you had in CT that characters made through the Advanced career systems are substantially mechanically superior to those made through the Basic system in the same careers. Admittedly, coming up with something like the UTP in order to give CT a consistent task resolution system was a really useful step, but Mongoose Traveller does much the same and is a more consistent system all around as well.

Good idea: As part of the above, take the additional character types introduced in Citizens of the Imperium and make them core, so the game isn't necessarily military-focused by default (but can be if the players so choose).

Implementation: Whoops, didn't provide advanced character generation options for any of those careers! (Again, this is something where Mongoose Traveller actually excels.)

Good idea: Get DGP to do a lot of the legwork, since they were the star third party licensees at this point anyway.

Implementation: DGP and GDW's computer systems were mildly incompatible, which meant that a lot of stuff had to be retyped on the fly by busy GDW staffers as it came in from DGP. This means that MegaTraveller is absolutely riddled with errata, some of it very serious indeed.

Good idea: Have an exciting metaplot event happen, like the Fifth Frontier War event during the Classic Traveller time period, so that players can feel that their adventures are making a small but important difference to the wider setting and so that the Third Imperium feels less stodgy and static.

Implementation: Out of all MegaTrav's big ideas, I think the Rebellion is the most successful, but only to a limited extent. The big problem, as I see it, is that it's an event unfolding across the whole of Imperial space, which is unworkably vast. The Fifth Frontier War was a great metaplot event because it took place over a sector-wide scale, which is just about big enough to make your PCs feel like small players on a vast stage whilst at the same time being small enough that the PCs can viably travel between the major focal points of the conflict in a reasonable period of time. That doesn't work on an Imperial-wide scale, so if you want to do a Rebellion campaign I would strongly suggest picking whichever pair of neighbouring factions excite you the most and focus on the conflict between those two rather than giving yourself the headache of trying to take the whole thing in.

Good idea: Get DGP to produce a bunch of canon support material for it to cover subjects GDW don't have time for on their schedule.

Implementation: Fine at the time, but the current owner of DGP is one of these guys who have very inflated ideas about the value of the IP they're holding and consequently demand unrealistic amounts of money of anyone who wants to buy them out or licence the products. As a result, there's a vast swathe of important MegaTraveller supplements which nobody, not even Marc Miller, can touch or put out as PDFs.

The way I see it, if you want a tidied-up version of Classic Traveller with a modernised task resolution system and a wider variety of careers offered in the core rules, MegaTraveller is kind of that... except Mongoose Traveller does all that as well, without being riddled with errata, and to a higher standard than MegaTraveller managed.

I'd say go for the Bundle if you can see yourself using the Rebellion source material with Mongoose Traveller (it really wouldn't be very difficult), and even then only if you are sure you wouldn't prefer the FFE CD-ROM.

Quote from: Brad;823451Do you like Mongoose over Classic? I've played both, sort of debating which is better. Compared to T5 or Mega, though, they're miles ahead.

I consider the core rulebook of Mongoose Traveller a cleaned up Classic Traveller.

The problem with MongTrav is that their supplements are pricey for the quality. That quality can be uneven. I own the core rules of MongTrav and a handful of supplement (Central Supply is one of them) and use the shelf of older editions of Traveller. I prefer to use the classic supplements from GDW, FASA, DGP, and Gamelords over other editions.

What I would say for MongTrav's supplement line is that they've got a few books here and there which are really handy for taking the game in directions that the original GDW run didn't account for.

For example, the Cybernetics supplement does a fantastic job of retooling Traveller to handle cyberpunk campaigns instead of (or in addition to) space opera. (Can you even imagine the impact having that set of rules could have had back in the mid-1980s, when Traveller's assumed room-sized computers started to look really goofy? Just think how GDW might have fared if they'd put out something like MongTrav Cybernetics + relevant core rules as a self-contained cyberpunk RPG back in the day - CP2020 might never have got its foot in the door.)

I agree that MongTrav is patchy whenever it's covering material that was already covered back in the golden age of CT, but it sometimes doessome really neat, exciting stuff whenever it turns its attention to a topic that the original line didn't address. Even then I'd read a review or two before necessarily taking the plunge, but I'd say some of MongTrav's supplements deserve essential status in any Traveller library, and I'd include Cybernetics in that.