Traveller: which is best?

[Mark]

Which one is your favorite?

Of course, Id also like to know why you feel that way.

The original Traveler is the only one I ever played. Lots of fun. Sorry to go all "diaglo" on you...

 

[John Morrow]

Once again, I have the opportunity to pick up some older used manuals at a cheap price, and among them are some traveller books. There are 2 Traveller: The New Era books and a Megatraveller book.

MegaTraveller is, by far, the more "mainstream" of the two. Traveller: The New Era takes place in what is essentially a post-holocaust version of the Traveller setting that the later editions of Traveller and most Traveller fans seem to ignore.

This got me to thinking: Traveller is one of the most revised games out there, with it seems a new version every coupla years. Which one is your favorite? If I were to start trying to collect traveller materials, which version should I focus on?

I'll vote for Classic Traveller, perhaps with a few elements of MegaTraveller dealing with task resolution used if desired.

The important thing to remember if you start looking for Classic Traveller is that (A) the three core Books (Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3) contain only 6 (mainly military) careers, no bows, and very sparse setting material. If you want a lot of civilian careers and rules for bows, you'll need Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium. I point this out because it's not obvious at all. It's the result of the way Traveller expanded over time.

If you want setting information for the Traveller Imperium, you'll need the Subsector and Library Data supplements (Supplements 3, 10, 8, and 11). If you want starship deck plans, you'll want Supplement 7. Finally, the Traveller board games like Mayday add some details not easy to find elsewhere, such as missiles in space combat.

You can find a list of Classic Traveller material here:

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/infocenter/prodlist/gdw.html

If you prefer a more streamlined game with somewhat more complicated rules and character generation for all careers, perhaps MegaTraveller would be a better deal, since it includes a good variety of careers and treats them all with more similar complexity. To a certain degree, you can mix and match between Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller fairly easily.

The easiest way to get all of the Classic Traveller material is via the Far Future Enterprises reprints, though they really can't replace the feel of those little black books. Of the reprints, I think all are worth getting but the Books reprint and the Supplements reprint are probably the most important to get.

Of course, Id also like to know why you feel that way.

Classic Traveller is light and fast. It gets the job done.

 

[Harmon]

GURPs Traveller is the way to go. I played the original Traveler and was not impressed at all.

I really hated the "you can die during character creation," idea. That was completely.... well it wasn't the best of times when you started rolling and died five times in your first term.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I really hated the "you can die during character creation," idea.

T20 solved this issue as well

 

[Psion]

T20 solved this issue as well

Well, it was actually solved long before that. When they reprinted the LBBs for the boxed set, they had the "muster out wounded instead" rule as an option.

By the time MegaTraveller rolled around, the "muster out wounded" rule was default, and character death was optional.

 

[qstor]

I'm a fan of Traveller in all it incarnations. I have the MegaTraveller Boxed Set, which I bought at eBay about a year ago. It is a pretty neat system. I like GURPS Traveller for the Generalness of its info., and since I'm a d20 buff, I have T20 as well.

I'm a big fan of the setting too. I have most of the CT material, nearly ALL of the GURPS Traveller material, T20 and some of the Digest Group MT books which as mentioned by another poster are very well written. I don't have the TNE era main book but I have 2 of the other books for that line.

As another poster mentioned too. For the setting GURPS Traveller is my favorite, one where the Imperium never feel. I've played and run it a few times but playing played so much D&D over the last few years, if I ran Traveller again, I'd probably use D20 Future as a basis with a lot of T20 thrown in for good measure.

Although some people have mentioned that the space combat system is pretty bad for that game. I'd maybe use T20 for space combat.

I'd pick up some of the CT material and maybe one or two of the GURPS books depending on what type of campaign you're running. If you're running a trading campaign then GURPS Traveller Far Trader is well worth picking up for the material.

Mike

 

[qstor]

GURPs Traveller is the way to go. I played the original Traveler and was not impressed at all.

I have nothing but the HIGHEST respect for what Mark Miller did with the game early on and continuing till this day, even if the CT system isn't my favorite system. People used to joke about the computers in the CT game, that modern day 1980's onward computers seemed more advanced than the ones described in the rulebooks.

The skill options in the other versions seemed to be better suited as to what I wanted as a player so I tend to prefer those versions rather than CT. As a DM I like the star ship descriptions in other versions. But I've played CT in the past and if a game with friends came up, I'd gladly join them.


Mike