Real life intrudes, so my Retrospective on Traveller: The New Era must wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this advertisement for the game from 1993.
Real life intrudes, so my Retrospective on Traveller: The New Era must wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this advertisement for the game from 1993.
"Now Traveller is compatible with Twilight:2000 and Dark Conspiracy" is not really a compelling sales pitch. Besides the fact that there is not a lot of opportunity to create cross-compatible content with those very different settings, I can't imagine a T:2000 or Dark Conspiracy player thinking, "hmm, always wanted to try Traveller but only if it uses the rules I am already familiar with." And I can't see many established Traveller players wanting to learn a new ruleset.
ReplyDeleteJoin us in April for the first step into a universe of infinite errata.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of the consequences of the Law of Conservation of Rules Fetishism; specifically, that those people who think the rules are the secret key to unlocking RPG success will, eventually and inevitably, turn to a universal system (or at least core mechanism) in order to spread the goodness even farther.
ReplyDeleteI've played more T:TNE than any other version of the game. I can't blame anyone else for this state of affairs, but it has at least allowed me to develop a deep appreciation for the concept of not using these rules.
ReplyDeleteThe New Era: For people who liked everything about Classic Traveller except for the rules and the setting.
Delete@Mark And also thought the LBB covers were too plain.
DeleteTraveler: TNE...the setting no one wanted. I think every Traveler campaign I played in from that era began with the GM saying "we're going to use TNE rules but not this goofy new setting..."
ReplyDeleteI mostly remember seeing this and hoping the long, miserable Civil War metaplot would finally be over with and the setting could go back to something I might enjoy playing in.
ReplyDeleteNope. Not hardly. And shortly thereafter GDW closed forever.
In hindsight, I haven't enjoyed Traveller much since the LBB days, and to this day it's my preference for playing in the setting. And my deeply ingrained distrust of Mongoose means my time with newer editions of Traveller is pretty much over and done.
which is a shame as the new Traveller universe books are written by some die hard LBB traveller fans :) the rules are back to the classic ones (suitably updated) and the setting is back to Classic Traveller with the recent publication of the 5th frontier war book, moving things on from the classic Traveller timeline.
DeleteLike you i stayed away from the Mongoose version for years but i dipped my toe in on some cheap books and am really glad i did.