Traveller D20

[Holy Bovine]

Cool! This is sounding really, really good!

I am a long time Traveller fan (never went in for the GURPS version though, classic Traveller was always good enough for me ). When I first heard about this I thought it was a pipedream - now it looks like a very real reality!

Happy-happy, joy-joy!!

 

[V-2]

All in all, it sounds good. But this one gives me pause:

Who D20 Traveller is Marketed For
New Players. While we hope the current core group of Traveller fans will check it out, we aren't expecting or counting on converting you.

Please, please, don't let that mean you're going to change the atmosphere and not just the rules. Don't make it space-operatic. Even Star Wars RPG doesn't sell, so don't go there. Please. I want hardcore hightech lingo. I want NO cover illustrations. In fact, I don't want ANY graphics in my modules. Except those cute b/w drawings by William Keith. And X-boat floorplans.

And what's with the races? What about the Hivers? They're cool!

Whoa, I'm getting worked up here...

 

[Wolfspider]

Is Traveller really "hard" sci-fi? I got the impression it was rather soft in that regard. Wolf-humanoids? Yeah....

 

[mhensley]

Please, please, don't let that mean you're going to change the atmosphere and not just the rules. Don't make it space-operatic. Even Star Wars RPG doesn't sell, so don't go there. Please. I want hardcore hightech lingo. I want NO cover illustrations. In fact, I don't want ANY graphics in my modules. Except those cute b/w drawings by William Keith. And X-boat floorplans.

And what's with the races? What about the Hivers? They're cool!

From what I have read so far, I'm not too concerned about them altering the atmosphere too much. They are working hand in hand with Marc W. Miller (creator of Traveller) so as to keep the setting faithful to what is canon. It will be a bit more heroic in style as that is the nature of the D20 system.

The Hivers and K-kree will not be included as playable races in the core rule book. They thought that they would be a bit too hard for most people to roleplay in any believable fashion.

 

[qstor]

wolfspider - Traveller makes a very strong attempt to be "hard" sci-fi. Wolf humanoids are explained by the fact that the Anicents powerful aliens in the mold of the Preservers of Star Trek removed canis lups genes from Earth and manipulated the DNA to give wolves intelligence.
The planet system generation has been given some knocks for being random but generally it strives to be in line with general scientific principles. There are no one ecosystem worlds in Traveller ala Star Wars. Traveller echoes the hard scif writing of Asimov, Niven, Clarke and Purnelle.

Mike

 

[Wolfspider]

Well, I don't know anything at all about Traveller, so I'm speaking from pure ignorance here. Is there FTL travel in Traveller? How do they deal with that? Artificial Intelligence/robots? Nanotechnology? Do they have laser guns and/or swords? What other kinds of aliens are there, and what characteristics do they have? I'm curious.

I'd love to find a good, hard sci-fi game. But all I've found that comes close is Blue Planet. (I've heard good things about Transhuman Space too, but I haven't checked it out yet.)

 

[Psion]

Is Traveller really "hard" sci-fi? I got the impression it was rather soft in that regard. Wolf-humanoids? Yeah....

Genetically engineered wolf humanoids. Yes. They just didn't pop out of nowhere.

Yes, it is fairly hard. There are unescapable soft SF trappings... like FTL drives. But Traveller used things like

- G-ratings for drives, and realistic travel times based on those ratings
- Worlds and star systems have realistic orbit times, etc.

The game can have a bit of a space opera spin to it. It is inspired largely by classic SF literature, but that includes such hard SF greats and Niven and Clarke.

 

[mhensley]

IMO, Traveller is hard sf enough to recreate the feel of most classic sci-fi fiction. In tv terms, think Babylon 5 not Star Trek. Star Wars is close, but there is none of the psuedo-religious Jedi stuff. Other settings that you could easily create with Traveller rules include Alien, Outland, BattleTech, Bladerunner, WingCommander, StarCraft, etc.

 

[mhensley]

What other kinds of aliens are there, and what characteristics do they have?

The main alien races in the default Traveller setting are:

Zhodani - offshoot human culture where everyone has psionic powers. Main bad guys of the classic Traveller setting.

Vargr - chaotic uplifted dog men that are usually encountered as pirates.

Hiver - very weird radial limbed race that are into manipulating other races via psycho-history.

Droyne - very much like the Urds in D&D (little winged reptilian guys) that are the descendants of a super advanced ancient race.

K-kree - centaur-like herbivores with an extreme adversion to enclosed spaces and carnivorous races. I expect that these will be the main bad guys in the T20 setting.

Aslan - cat-like race, think Kilrathi from Wing Commander.

Solmani - humans from earth. Yep that's right, we are aliens! Its too long a story to explain...

 

[Wolfspider]

Sounds very interesting. I like the alien races--they seem suitably alien.

However, it still seems very space opera to me. The cover that they have on the Traveller RPG page also reinforces this image for me. The human with the blaster reminds me of one of the dudes from Alien, but the wolfie guy screams Buck Rover.

In any case, I'll try to keep my mind open and give it a looksee when it comes out.