gridlore: The Imperial Sunburst from the Traveller role-playing game (Gaming - Sunburst)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2008-08-16 04:33 pm
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Drinking the Kool-Aid again...

I was drifting away from Traveller. I had pretty much stopped reading the TML, was focusing on Thousand Suns and D&D4E (like I'm really expecting to ever get a game together again) and happily accepting my status as an Elder (or is that Eldar?) Statesman of the Traveller universe.

Then Mongoose Publishing released a new edition of the Grand Old Game.

I resisted, honestly. I told myself that I didn't need another throwback to 1977. I had enough Traveller rules to choke a K'kree. I honestly wasn't even going to consider the game. Until I glanced at the preview pages.

whimper. They don't play fair!

So I ordered the book, and I'm impressed. Mongoose and Gareth Hanrahan have managed to capture the spirit of Classic Traveller while bring the rules into the 21st century.

So, being me, I'm already considering a setting (The Night is Darkest Before The Dawn, the Sylea Federation in its early days) and thinking about At Close Quarters version 2.0

Oh, one amusing note. Like any group, Traveller fans have developed their own jargon over the years. We use abbreviations to track the various editions; CT for Classic Traveller, TNE for The New Era, etc,. Want to guess what the accepted reference for Mongoose Traveller is?


RTT. For Riki Tiki Traveller.

[identity profile] cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com 2008-08-17 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
Just read the sample PDFs, sorry. Being unemployed means non-essentials have to wait.

I'll take your word for it that it's 21st century... what I saw, from rules to graphics design, looked like it could just as easily be 1990s (I'm especially thinking of TNE and late MT). I actually dig the retro covers more than anything, though a part of me is twitching at Merc and HG not being Books 4 and 5. :/

It looks like a serviceable edition and they definitely have respect for the material. I hope it does well in the market.