Traveller 5e coming from World's Largest RPG in cooperation with Mongoose Publishing


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WotC has nothing to do with this happening. If they want to do Star Frontiers -- and there's zero evidence that they do -- they'll do it and it'll do about as well as it would have in a universe without Traveller 5E.
They decided, unlike Mystara and Birthright, to zipyank Star Frontiers from the fan caretaker site... and monetize the core rules and adventures.
 

Let me be more clear: it needs a science fiction setting, not yet another space fantasy setting.
Ultramodern5 is a science fiction setting. So is A5e's Voidrunner's Codex if no one plays a psychic. That game doesn't even have a caster class outside of the psion and psyknight. Everything else is non-supernatural.
 

They decided, unlike Mystara and Birthright, to zipyank Star Frontiers from the fan caretaker site... and monetize the core rules and adventures.
Probably because there were a group of idiots who were possibly going to drag Star Frontiers ownership questions into court and Hasbro's legal team wanted to make sure the ownership question was locked down.

I will buy you a $1 EN Publishing gift certificate if WotC announces a Star Frontiers project at any point in 2026.

If they were going to get into science fiction roleplaying, it'd be with a different IP.
 

Ultramodern5 is a science fiction setting...
I wouldn't classify Ultramodern5 as a setting; at least not the original edition I own. It's more of a toolkit that's targeted at a variety of modern to far future genres, but IMO not a particularly good one. This is what U5 states at the beginning of the Adventuring chapter.

"Ultramodern5 supports multiple styles of gaming, from long-running campaigns to fast run-and-gun missions, and can service just about any modern or sci-fi genre from high-stakes espionage to the zombie apocalypse."

The U5 book takes such a kitchen-sink-with-everything-tossed-in approach, that it's hard to discern what it's targetting or embracing. For instance, instead of detailing adventuring aspects like hazards, environment, terrain and travel, its Adventuring chapter is instead a series of references to encounter maps complete with corresponding, numbered descriptions such as you'd find in any adventure. The book includes a number of 8x10 gridded tiles, a few encounter maps and 1 map of Bagdad, but for scale they're far more granular than what you'd expect for a setting. It includes 3 adventures, but their background is minimal to the point that I find them a bit too brief for even an adventure.

If the U5 book is browsed quickly, I could see someone mistaking it as having some semblance of a setting. Dias Ex Machina Game's Amethyst and Apex which are available for 5e among other TTRPGs, are much more akin to settings.
 
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I wouldn't classify Ultramodern5 as a setting; at least not the original edition I own. It's more of a toolkit that's targeted at a variety of modern to far future genres, but IMO not a particularly good one. This is what U5 states at the beginning of the Adventuring chapter.

"Ultramodern5 supports multiple styles of gaming, from long-running campaigns to fast run-and-gun missions, and can service just about any modern or sci-fi genre from high-stakes espionage to the zombie apocalypse."

The U5 book takes such a kitchen-sink-with-everything-tossed-in approach, that it's hard to discern what it's targetting or embracing. For instance, instead of detailing adventuring aspects like hazards, environment, terrain and travel, its Adventuring chapter is instead a series of references to encounter maps complete with corresponding, numbered descriptions such as you'd find in any adventure. The book includes a number of 8x10 gridded tiles, a few encounter maps and 1 map of Bagdad, but for scale they're far more granular than what you'd expect for a setting. It includes 3 adventures, but their background is minimal to the point that I find them a bit too brief for even an adventure.

If the U5 book is browsed quickly, I could see someone mistaking it as having some semblance of a setting. Dias Ex Machina Game's Amethyst and Apex which are available for 5e among other TTRPGs, are much more akin to settings.
Honestly I make my own settings, so a toolkit with a huge variety of material is exactly what I want.
 

I almost can't imagine a less appealing pairing than Traveler for 5e. Middle Earth Monopoly, maybe?

EDIT: Oh snap, it exists:
1771443870591.png
 

Honestly I make my own settings, so a toolkit with a huge variety of material is exactly what I want.
I'm a homebrewer at heart too and my most prized TTRPG books are toolkits or universal in nature; i.e. SWADE, True20, BRP-UGE, M-Space and Cepheus Engine. So for sure a book that does that well is going to support many a SciFi setting. That said, I do think referring to U5 as a SciFi setting is misleading. U5 is an attempt at a modern-SciFi toolkit, but with no where near the success of those I listed.
 


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