I don't have a copy of Traveller anymore. But what I do have is a little book called Universe. It's not quite as old as Traveller- it came out in 1981. But it's got a lot of the same minimalist feel as classic Trav.

Anyhow, I started playing with it the other day. I never could get it to run, because I could never convince people to play. In truth , it's kind of a sucky game. But in places it's brilliant.

So I thought I'd get it out and start messing around with it.

Ok, the whole point of Universe is that it's very very procedural. The GM section basicly shows you how to generate a star system starting with the star.. then generating the planets, then the moons, determining the civilizations of the area.. then the resources, and where they are...

And you have to set up routes in between planets.. and then the routes between star systems.

You go from table to table to table. And it just keeps building.

It's very 'science' grounded in a lot of ways.

There aren't any aliens really, and the tech stuff is very basic. There are NO space combat rules in this game (those were in a supplement called 'Delta Vee' which I also used to have. I can't find it now, though). Robot rules are included with the main rulebook though. This seems to be a standalone game.

So the point is, you need to concentrate on this resource game.

To my delight, it's pretty good. But it lacks some things. Most characters (of course) don't have enough money for their own starship. But they COULD rent a cargo pod on a starship, and fill it with cargo. Travel IS affordable. And really, even a kinda down on his luck colonist could scrape together the funds to buy whatever resources were cheap on the home planet.

What it lacks is rental prices. Like how much can they rent that cargo pod for? I could see a starship captain who wants to pay his ship off renting out unused cargo pods to paying customers.

So a good way to get started playing this game as a trading game might be to do that: "I spend 300 mils on a ticket from Nereidus IV to Kamberlon. I spend 1 Tran on pod rental. I fill up the pod with as much Cesium Ore as I can buy..."

Once you get started trading, (and getting cash flowing in) the possibilities start to open up. You could start exploring places for undiscovered resources, set up mining operations, asteroid belt mining.. trading with low-tech civilizations.. that sort of thing. Once you start moving around and trading, you can start generating encounters- pirates, alien wildlife, rival traders.. etc.

It was very cool to see how that game is supposed to work. I never got it back when I was 14 or so. But now I see it.

So anyhow. Universe. SPI. Did anyone else have this game?

Nope, I did at one point but it lost out to downsizing for a move.

I do have Tower Ravens universe which is messed up in entirely different ways.

There was a pretty die-hard group of Universe fans that set out to post on every last rpgnet scifi game thread for a few months.  Do a search, you might get lucky.

I bought a copy for $2 at a local game store used game auction a few months ago.  I haven't given it a good read yet -- honestly I bought it for Delta Vee, which came with it -- but now I will.

I--ahem--stole Universe when I was 17. There was a lot I liked about it, but in general I've never got on with SF in games. I traded it for RQ stuff*.


[*EDIT: I also traded Traveller for RQ stuff, so there you go.]

I've got Universe, along with Delta Vee and Star Trader. That last was published in SPI's SF&F magazine, Ares, shortly before the TSR takeover. It's a space trading game set in the same universe, with a very interesting set of economic rules and subsystems. Basically you run a shipping corporation, and the game provides a very wide range of options, from taking out loans to concentrating on divergent strategies (triangle trade versus passenger trade vs market manipulation), to using various kinds of connections to take advantage of legal and illegal opportunities that spring up. The suggested integration with the RPG was to use the board game as a background/scenario generator, though IIRC there wasn't any strong mechanical interface.

I would like to run the game...someday. Although having now played some 2300AD, I'm not sure that doesn't fill the bill & then some for the kind of gritty, "hard" exploration-oriented game I'd like.

What instantly appeals to me here, never having read Universe, is the partly table-driven bottom-up generation of the gameworld. I'm re-reading the Wilderlands these days, and it's the same deal. It's like an idea engine.

Quote from: droogI--ahem--stole Universe when I was 17.

With this confession, how do you intend to do penance?

!i!

If it's worthy of Tangency we'd rather not know.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaWith this confession, how do you intend to do penance?

I will run FATAL.

If that what it takes, no need, ego te absolvo etc.

I have Universe (and Delta Vee).  I have never played it.  But I adore it.  Just flipping through it brings back memories of when I first started roleplaying, and everything was fresh and exciting and unknown.  The whole '70's look and feel, the wargame rule numbering scheme, the charts and tables to create everything...  Although I didn't play with anyone else, I rolled up tons of characters, generated star systems and planets, put together robots and spaceships... It was like I'd found Traveller all over again.

Years back, I actually started working on a campaign called "New Universe," which was going to use the Universe game world, but with a different rules set.  I think it was either SpaceMaster or GURPS.

eskatonic

Okay, I'm going to hi-jack this thread for a related pursuit.

At first, I thought that Universe was the game that a friend brought over to my house back in 1989, but it's not.  The game he brought over was also Traveller-esque -- it focused on rolling up random aliens from random star systems and then exploring the universe to encounter them.  As I recall, the game didn't involve playing individuals, but rather an entire race of people exploring the universe.  I recall that he had two 5.5x8.5 booklets, type-written, maybe one had a blue cover, and a big hex map that you used to plot out star systems.  The books were of quaint production values, and at the time they were probably ten years old, so the game would have been from the late 70s, maybe up to 1980.

Does any of this sound familiar?

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaOkay, I'm going to hi-jack this thread for a related pursuit.

At first, I thought that Universe was the game that a friend brought over to my house back in 1989, but it's not.  The game he brought over was also Traveller-esque -- it focused on rolling up random aliens from random star systems and then exploring the universe to encounter them.  As I recall, the game didn't involve playing individuals, but rather an entire race of people exploring the universe.  I recall that he had two 5.5x8.5 booklets, type-written, maybe one had a blue cover, and a big hex map that you used to plot out star systems.  The books were of quaint production values, and at the time they were probably ten years old, so the game would have been from the late 70s, maybe up to 1980.

Does any of this sound familiar?

!i!

If anyone would know it would be John Kim.

Doesn't quite match the physical description, but Starfaring, maybe?

No, nothing that goofy.  The game was played pretty seriously.

Good guess by way of the time period and production vaules, though.

!i!