 May 2, 2010 - 5:48am | First off has anyone read the zines: 1. Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society 2. Traveller's Digest what do you think of them and would you bother with dropping a buck on them on ebay? Also I found this deck plan product on bay that was interesting: http://cgi.ebay.com/Traveller-RPG-Klingon-G1-Gunboat-Deck-Plans-/370373639421?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item563bfd... I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 2, 2010 - 7:11pm | Traveller's Digest is ok. I believe they have 1 adventure per issue. Maybe ran for 21 issues from mid to late 80's to early nineties. JTAS - much better quality. Both are full of ideas that can be translated over to SF. You could also try Third Imperium - home grown mag from the mid to late 80's, 11 issues, free for download @ http://www.travellermap.com/thirdimperium/ Signs & Portents - mag by mongoose, free download, older issues have Bab5 stuff (among other things) starting about issue 55 you'll find Traveller stuff. Free download @ http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/series.php?qsSeries=13&PHPSESSID=4b7e74a95aa37392791bcc2c9a0f5ff0 Stellar Reaches - Fanmag, good stuff, 9 issues, free download @ http://stellarreaches.nwgamers.org/issues/ The Traveller Chronicle - Fanmag, pretty good, low quality (similar to traveller's digest) Freelance Traveller - Fanmag, supports Mongoose Version, 5 issues, free download @ http://www.freelancetraveller.com/magazine/index.html Travellers' Aid - supports T20, maybe 3 issues, not sure if this was a magazine or series of supplements, high quality Terra Traveller Times - This will take you back to the 80s, made on a Tandy 2000 with a dot matrix printer, free download @ http://www.geo-verse.com/TIMES.html How could I forget Signal-GK - fanmag, free download @ http://scottmartin.ca/Space_RPG/Other_peoples_stuff/Signal_GK/Signal_GK_Info.html |
 May 2, 2010 - 9:05pm | It's worth mentioning that most of the older traveller stuff, including JTAS, is available as pdf collections on cd-rom from the Far Future Enterprises website, the official home of Marc Miller, the game's creator: http://farfuture.net/ Pretty good deal for the price and amount of material on each collection. ~ Rich berentiu@gmail.com |
 May 3, 2010 - 10:50am | Lot's of good material to get inspiration for our fanzine.  |
May 3, 2010 - 10:57am | Thanks, you guys are awesome. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 4, 2010 - 4:20pm | Ping Artemis (sp?) here for more, he's a big Traveller fan. I had done Traveller ship conversions to SF in the past and finally nixxed it from my SF page (having finally detached myself from "gravity plates/decks perpendicular to main axis"), just in time for the Historic Adventure project to rejuvenate life into all those old deck plans. |
May 6, 2010 - 2:22pm | I just dropped money on my first traveller book Adventure 2, Research Station Gamma hope its a good one. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 8, 2010 - 8:39pm | Managed to find a fair amount of Traveller stuff on PDF format, 'floating around in cyberspace' harrumf! However, 2 of the books that were excellent for background information in the original game were the "Library Data" books - essays on different aspects of the Empire and a-z lists of background stuff that was quite useful for PC's to know. I think there was a regular column in one of the traveller 'zines. This idea could cross over into SF fairly well, as a column in SFman? |
May 9, 2010 - 4:42am | I own three Traveller books but can't seem to locate any of them at the moment...off the top of my head the designations are (which may not be spot on, one of the Traveller guys here ought to be able to list them with better accuracy): (Book 2): Starships - offers basic rules of ship construction along with movement/combat rules as a miniatures-environment game. (Supplement 2) Fighting Ships - Specs out a majority of popular vessels from the game. (Supplement 7) Traders & Gunboats - deck plans, 'nuff said! T&G was the one that got me into drafting deck plans for SF ships, I had actually come across this before I picked up Knight Hawks and used it as a basis for my original pre-KH house rules ship construction. |
May 9, 2010 - 7:15am | Managed to find a fair amount of Traveller stuff on PDF format, 'floating around in cyberspace' harrumf! However, 2 of the books that were excellent for background information in the original game were the "Library Data" books - essays on different aspects of the Empire and a-z lists of background stuff that was quite useful for PC's to know. I think there was a regular column in one of the traveller 'zines. This idea could cross over into SF fairly well, as a column in SFman? I'd like to see an example of that column or material for the purposes of writing some, would you have a PDF to share? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 9, 2010 - 9:53am | Of course jedion - when I wrote that, I only had a vague idea that i'd seen it done somewhere. I found a column in the Traveller Digest. Bear in mind, I've got 2.7Gb of Traveller PDF's, spread across about 7 versions. If you send me a message, I'll get back to you. |
 May 12, 2010 - 9:04am | I'd love to see one of the "Library Data" essays as well. I like the idea about short factoid articles for SFMan that players can get into the frontier culture with and GMs can spin encounters and settings around. -iggy |
May 12, 2010 - 7:05pm | Send me an email iggy (check your personal messages for my email address) and I'll forward the stuff. I can see that I'll have to start trolling scribd for traveler materials too. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 13, 2010 - 5:55am | Here are a few I jotted down when I was thinking about the idea - I thought it would be like an Interstellar Wikipedia. They're a bit tongue-in-cheek! Garulah, the (Entertainment): A very successful holo-drama about the mainly Yazirian crew of the starship Garulah (“Undefeated”) and its voyages. It is extremely popular with Yazirians and is the longest-running Yazirian entertainment show in the Frontier (12 seasons). Has been criticised for showing other races in a token, clichéd role, however. Last Meal, the (Tradition): A Human tradition on many interstellar ships, the crew will eat a last meal before Jump together. At this meal, any subject may be discussed and all the crew are considered equal in rank. Norbert Gefflin Clause (Law): Often abbreviated to the Gefflin Clause. Under UPF law, a group of individuals may set themselves up as a company (see joint ventures – SFKH campaign book), and their starship will be a company asset. If the company is declared bankrupt, the ship is seized to pay off the debts. Under a Gefflin clause, the starship is not listed as a company asset, but instead is under long-term exclusive charter to the company, so is not liable to be seized as long as the owner or captain are not officers of the company (they can be shareholders, however). Named after a highly successful corporate lawyer from Triad. |
May 13, 2010 - 11:56am |
Last Meal, the (Tradition): A Human tradition on many interstellar ships, the crew will eat a last meal before Jump together. At this meal, any subject may be discussed and all the crew are considered equal in rank.
Love this one.
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May 13, 2010 - 3:30pm | Oh, thanks a bunch w00t, the only one I borrowed from somewhere else is the one you like best! I liked the first one best myself, the thought of a Yazirian Star Trek is kinda funny!! |
May 31, 2010 - 8:33pm | Ok iggy, I've looked over the sorts of Library data that was in traveller- specifically the library data included in the adventure I just read. I've done this sort of thing before- there was a computer the PCs could find so I whipped up files that were on it. I also think there is room for this in SF and in the SFman zine too. its easy enough to make copies of the background info from a mod and give it to the Players but there is still room for creativity and the creation of the actual computer or library file. It just takes preparation. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 31, 2010 - 10:32pm | Thanks for the reminder Jedi. I need to get into those. I have had many terraforming projects for the yard dominating my time So I have only concentrated on the the Celestia 3D map stuff. I also just did a quick 1600 mile round trip to San Diego so that took my three day weekend free time I had hoped to spend on some SF. I'll look into the zips you sent during lunch tomorrow at work. -iggy |
 June 10, 2010 - 9:06am | One of my favorite magazines for Traveller was Challenge Magazine - filled with tons of short scenarios and lots of great information. Most articles were only three pages long (max) and scenarios had a 'bare bones' kind of feel but they were easy to flesh out with a few stats. The magazine covered Traveller in all it's incarnations, cyberpunk, 2300, Twilight: 2000, Space: 1889, and a few other systems GDW put out. Call of Cthulhu RPG Journals: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blogs/2951 Other journals: http://forum.abyssalgaming.com/blog/7-maxs-blog/ http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/blog.php/8662 |
June 10, 2010 - 10:15pm | Challenge Magazine was great Let's not forget: White Dwarf (issues below #100) Dragon Magazine Pegasus Magazine High Passage Megatraveller Journal Space Gamer Polyhedron (Living Galaxy articles (generic SciFi), Roger E. Moore rocks) Ares Magazine (dealt with Universe not Traveller) |
 June 16, 2010 - 11:09am | Challenge was excellent. My favorite game mag by far. Wish I could find it on pdf. The few i have are falling apart. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
November 6, 2010 - 8:16pm | Freelance Traveller has put out 5 issues since my post. http://www.freelancetraveller.com/magazine/index.html |
 November 9, 2010 - 12:09pm | I've always found Traveller to be an invaluable source of inspirational material for SF. I mean just look at all the ideas that can be used as adventure seeds from the character history section alone. I was never crazy about their game mechanics though prefering the simplicity of SF's percentile based system or even the pre 4th edition d20 system to traveller's system. By the same token I think Alternity is another great source of material that can be mined for SF, and Star Drive to me was always a reworking of SF with a harder Science fiction edge. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
 November 14, 2010 - 5:41pm | I Agree Deryn, I borrow a great deal from Star Drive. I have just finished getting all of the alternity stuff on PDF. I am starting to OCR the Dataware Supplement. I like the rules on robotic characters and hacking sequences. I think we can retool all of the Alternity Star drive supplements would be a good way to populate SF with further issues of Zebulons guides. I wonder what we need to do to get WOTC to allow that. Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
November 14, 2010 - 5:56pm | I shudder to think of WOTC casting their gaze on "the revival", and wringing their greedy little hands decide that there is a market for a retooled 4th edition based SF or Alternity, so I would not consider bringing it to their attention. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
