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

[Paul Farquhar]

Ohhhh, thats a good thought. How is chargen gonna work in a 5E reskin?

You get a saving throw to avoid dying.

 

[Gradine]

I think that going modular with "class"/career design, ala D20 Modern or even Star Wars Saga Edition, could potentially work well. Going the traditional 5e class-and-archetype route where multiclassing is an afterthought or charop thing would not be a very good fit.

 

[Anfelas]

Backerkit pre-launch went live a couple of days ago,

Get Ready for Traveller 5e

From World's Largest RPGs - Get Ready for Traveller 5e

www.backerkit.com

 

[kronovan]

I so much dislike the idea of the Traveller verse being played with D&D 5e rules, that getting all my concerns/criticisms down would result in a very lenghty and not so readable post. Just need to say, my players and I spent way too much time trying to find SciFi magic in a bottle with d20 (d20 Modern/Future was my 1st buy after a decade+ away from TTRPGs), that I'm not keen on exploring the genre with 5e. Fortunately, not much long after d20M we discovered Mongoose Traveler 1e and really enjoyed it - still homebrewing for those rules with Cepheus Engine.

We tried Babylon 5 d20, 1st d20 Star Wars, Gamma World 6e, Interface Zero d20 and they all fizzled. And more recently Esper Genesis and Ultramodern 5e, which we didn't care for. For my SciFi lovin players and I, classes along with their restrictions just get in the way of what's fun about playing and evolving a SciFi archetype in a futuristic setting. And the core d20 dice mechanic, can often seem too swingy for such settings. Admittedly Star Wars Saga, True20+SciFi and Starfinder were decent, but IMO they're exceptions and quite different from the D&D rules they were derived from.

Not to be overly negative, but over the past few years I've developed a dislike for the biz practices of Hasbro-WotC. So, I'm not thrilled to hear about a quality TTRPG publisher like Mongoose partnering with them. One of my concerns is that this might detract from Mongoose's efforts on some of their less known TTRPGs. Personally, for me it doesn't matter that much - armed with a couple of core books I'll homebrew to my hearts content. But IME TTRPGs that aren't well supported, tend not to be known or attractive to gamers and makes it hard to find players interested in playing them.

 

[Dire Bare]

I so much dislike the idea of the Traveller verse being played with D&D 5e rules, that getting all my concerns/criticisms down would result in a very lenghty and not so readable post. Just need to say, my players and I spent way too much time trying to find SciFi magic in a bottle with d20 (d20 Modern/Future was my 1st buy after a decade+ away from TTRPGs), that I'm not keen on exploring the genre with 5e. Fortunately, not much long after d20M we discovered Mongoose Traveler 1e and really enjoyed it - still homebrewing for those rules with Cepheus Engine.

We tried Babylon 5 d20, 1st d20 Star Wars, Gamma World 6e, Interface Zero d20 and they all fizzled. And more recently Esper Genesis and Ultramodern 5e, which we didn't care for. For my SciFi lovin players and I, classes along with their restrictions just get in the way of what's fun about playing and evolving a SciFi archetype in a futuristic setting. And the core d20 dice mechanic, can often seem too swingy for such settings. Admittedly Star Wars Saga, True20+SciFi and Starfinder were decent, but IMO they're exceptions and quite different from the D&D rules they were derived from.

Not to be overly negative, but over the past few years I've developed a dislike for the biz practices of Hasbro-WotC. So, I'm not thrilled to hear about a quality TTRPG publisher like Mongoose partnering with them. One of my concerns is that this might detract from Mongoose's efforts on some of their less known TTRPGs. Personally, for me it doesn't matter that much - armed with a couple of core books I'll homebrew to my hearts content. But IME TTRPGs that aren't well supported, tend not to be known or attractive to gamers and makes it hard to find players interested in playing them.

WotC is not the villain some folks make them out to be, but anyway, to the best of my knowledge, Mongoose is not partnering with WotC at all. They are using the 5E rules via the CC license, that's it.

And this is a win-win for fans. For those like you, who are not interested in Traveller 5E, Mongoose is continuing to publish the core game. And for fans like me, who are excited to check out the Traveller universe with a ruleset we are familar with, this is shaping up to be something pretty dang cool.

 

[aramis erak]

I find it T5E a repugnant idea on multiple levels -

• first off is brand confusion with T5.
• second is that I don't see D&D 5E/ WSRD5.x as being good for the style of play that Traveller generally encourages
• third, it means that Star Frontiers is less likely to get a new edition

I may be a MegaTraveller grog, but I have a soft spot for SFAD... which was the second RPG system I played (counting BX and AD&D as flavors of one system, tho' others might quibble about that.)

I don't deny 5E needs a SF setting.
I don't deny that Traveller needs an edition for the D&D crowd... I just genuinely don't Like it being needed.
That said, once it ships, I'll see to it there's room for it on COTI.

 

[Anfelas]

A played a lot of T20 after its release, it was a much better game than the D&D haters want to credit it. It was overly complicated in character generation, but it did have the clunky life blood rule that made combat Traveller levels of lethal regardless of level. I much preferred it to GURPS Traveller and its ridiculous points buy everything and no life path.

For a time T20 was the only major print iteration of Traveller and from it we were gifted with the CotI forums...

I think a lot of the potential for this 5e version is to get the elephant interested in Traveller again. Once hooked they will buy up all the classic material... or better yet build their own 5e universes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I find it T5E a repugnant idea on multiple levels -

• first off is brand confusion with T5.
• second is that I don't see D&D 5E/ WSRD5.x as being good for the style of play that Traveller generally encourages
• third, it means that Star Frontiers is less likely to get a new edition

I may be a MegaTraveller grog, but I have a soft spot for SFAD... which was the second RPG system I played (counting BX and AD&D as flavors of one system, tho' others might quibble about that.)

I don't deny 5E needs a SF setting.
I don't deny that Traveller needs an edition for the D&D crowd... I just genuinely don't Like it being needed.
That said, once it ships, I'll see to it there's room for it on COTI.

5e has several SF settings.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A played a lot of T20 after its release, it was a much better game than the D&D haters want to credit it. It was overly complicated in character generation, but it did have the clunky life blood rule that made combat Traveller levels of lethal regardless of level. I much preferred it to GURPS Traveller and its ridiculous points buy everything and no life path.

For a time T20 was the only major print iteration of Traveller and from it we were gifted with the CotI forums...

I think a lot of the potential for this 5e version is to get the elephant interested in Traveller again. Once hooked they will buy up all the classic material... or better yet build their own 5e universes.

T20 is a good game. Played a fair amount back in the day.