 April 3, 2012 - 1:37pm | I never GM'd Traveller but I'll say this much having played it before: Traveller = AD&D 3.5+ 'Nuff said  |
 April 3, 2012 - 3:22pm | LOL Shadowshack. I'm wondering if its just a mechanics issue or setting or format (all those little books to buy and perhaps you couldn't find the one you wanted or needed)? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 3, 2012 - 3:38pm | I own MegaTraveller that I picked up used. I don't know how that compares to the original Traveller though. I've never run it or played it but it is definitely more complicated than SF. There is also a lot more background information. It has some good ideas in it but I can imagine it is a bit harder to play than SF Personally, I'm a fan of lots of individual skills. <raises flame shield> I actually liked the way Zeb's was going with skills but didn't like the mechanics they implemented. <tentatively lowers shield>  The MegaTraveller skill system is similar in that there are lots of little skills that you can have varying profiencies in. It's been a long time since I've read the rules, however, and I don't remember much beyond that. Just glance through the books, there where lots of random tables to roll on for creating stuff and lots of details in their spaceship generation system. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
April 3, 2012 - 3:51pm | Tables slow play, and admittedly a system that I like is beset with tables [HARP]. I love SF because play requires very little table consulting (that should be qualified: particularly if you're using something like A Skilled Frontier" as house rule. This makes AD style play very fast and loose. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 3, 2012 - 5:19pm | I haven't played since Reagan was in office but here's what I retained from the game... > You start with aged/developed characters. You can play for 20 years real time and not develope them much more. > Character creation is kind of fun, because after you determine all the skills there's a "survival" roll you make and the character could actually die. Great if you get a crappy character, not so much when you get a good one. But it makes for some interesting stories... > It's a very "political" game. You're not playing for experience and developement, you're playing for wealth and power. > Rules-heavy but streamlined at the same time. I never got the hang of it as a player but I'm told it's pretty easy to absorb as a GM. The 4d6 resolution system seemed simple enough, but offhand it's not linear like d% or d20...with multiple dice there's a bell curve and I don't quite recall how that affected turn outs. I just remember it being easy to use...minimal modifiers and the modifiers were consistent and easy to remember. > Lots of books. The basic boxed set pretty much has all you need to play, but the play would be limited. The books serve to expand all the details. And boy howdy are there a lot of details. |
 April 3, 2012 - 9:11pm | I never owned any Traveller books to get into it. I always felt overwhelmed by all the huge star maps and obscure systems/planets within the Third Imperium. The rules always seemed complex, and I'm not a fan of Life-path systems. I like a game that is simple, and allows for fast chargen. Although, one advantage that Traveller has over Star Frontiers is how its actually an open-ended game like D&D (the Third Imperium started off an a sample setting in the LBBs), but by that logic, I can also strip tho Frontier form Star Frontiers and play it as a sandbox. I do have issue with the SF rules in how disjointed it get - more so, when you add Knight Hawks or Zebulon's Guide - then again, I can use a different set of rules. All-and-all, I have few good sci-fi RPG systems, and I have a lot of Star Frontiers books at my disposal. |
 April 3, 2012 - 10:22pm | I bought Traveller and several other RPG's back in the early 80's but I enjoyed Star Frontiers because of the rules. Everything else seemed too complicated for my JR high mind. Traveller did have some good background info though. My friend owned several of the books and I read them and liked their material. |
 April 5, 2012 - 8:10am | With a name like rattraveller where did you think it came from? There is alot to be said for both but the main differences were focus and scale. Traveller dealt more with one shot and small campaigns. Once your character completed the story they were in they weren't needed for the next one. Star Frontiers you started with a character and took it on series of adventures to build and build and become the superhero of Frontier. Traveller was and is huge. Star Frontiers had less than 20 planets to start and a history what a couple centuries old max. Traveller had more sectors than that. Sectors have 16 subsectors and each subsector could have up to 80 planets although 20-40 was more usual. While Humans were the primary focus their were many many races including 2 other human races (one of the human races was from Earth). In the end both are great systems but Traveller got more support from not only the company that produced it (GDW) but several other companies which made products for Traveller under the approval of GDW. The original FASA (makers of Battletech) started as the Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration. Basically GDW gave them a sector in the Traveller universe and let them run with it. Let us not forget there are approximately 10 editions of Traveller. If only TSR or WoTC had done the same for Star Frontiers. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
April 8, 2012 - 6:45am | So, rattraveller...how close was my assessment of the game? I only ask as I played it as a teen, don't remember a whole lot since then, and have found that as an adult certain analyses can be different with age and maturity ;) |
April 8, 2012 - 9:45am | Mostly on target except I would say it was more stat heavy than rule heavy. Creating deck plans for a starship is pretty easy but the stat figure for a starship is literally 20 symbols long if not longer. Oh and you needed a physics degree to figure out movement. The three starting books did give you alot to work with but were limited. The expansion books put alot more into the game and since they were 5" x 8" and usually not more than 60-80 pages they were something D&D never was affordable. Character creation is fun. Instead of starting with a character with some crazy background like an 18 year old farm boy who is an expert shoot and can pilot fighter craft cause "I created him that way" You rolled the stats for your character and then tried to get them a career which you could be denied and have to be drafted into another one. You took the character through years of service in their profession and picked up skills and things as you went. It was possible to die during character creation but most people just used the optional rule that you received a career ending injury and were medically retired or kicked out for some crime. At the end of character creation you had alot of stats and things to create a background from. Kinda the opposite of thinking of a concept and then crafting the character around it. Oh and since you spent 20 or 30 or 40 years in your service is how you had a starship at the end of character creation. You still might owe 20 years of payments on it but you had one because you earned it not won it in a card game. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
April 8, 2012 - 9:58am | LOL I remember the "physics degree" for ship combat rules. We tried it once and the GM said "let's just convert this to your Knight Hawks boardgame rules". |
 April 9, 2012 - 8:34pm | I have to say coming into this late, I have always loved traveller as it represented more of a hard scifi style versus the space opera style of SF. I enjoyed playing both for differant reasons. |
 April 10, 2012 - 6:54pm | Back then I didn't know anyone who owned Traveller. We played a lot of TSR games at first so it was natural to lean towards Star Frontiers. I wanted to play Star Frontiers after the Blastoff! article about it in Dragon magazine Sept 1982. I had to borrow my cousin's Star Frontiers sets just to play it. Traveller just wasn't close on the radar back then and I've still never played it even though I have read the books since. |
April 10, 2012 - 7:03pm | I think a kid I ran into at Lakenheath AFB played traveller but after I said I had Star Frontiers he never brought it up again. Wish I had located a hobby/gaming store while I was in England but got more into friends and girls that were not quite as geeky as me so I guess I just didn't do much with gaming while there other than talk Car Wars with a class mate who didn't live anywhere near me. Did play some chess but usually we mixed chess with beer and your game goes to pot when you do that. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 10, 2012 - 7:47pm | Did play some chess but usually we mixed chess with beer and your game goes to pot when you do that.
Okay, just for clarification...were you in England or Amsterdam? |
April 11, 2012 - 1:12am | Did play some chess but usually we mixed chess with beer and your game goes to pot when you do that.
Okay, just for clarification...were you in England or Amsterdam? as in piss poor and in the pot; perhaps that was a poor choice of words I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 22, 2012 - 3:59pm | I think a kid I ran into at Lakenheath AFB played traveller but after I said I had Star Frontiers he never brought it up again.
I've had similar experiences. I've always had the impression that people that played Traveller looked down on the Star Frontiers crowd. Something like the way AD&D players looked at Basic D&D. |
April 23, 2012 - 4:54am | I think a kid I ran into at Lakenheath AFB played traveller but after I said I had Star Frontiers he never brought it up again.
I've had similar experiences. I've always had the impression that people that played Traveller looked down on the Star Frontiers crowd. Something like the way AD&D players looked at Basic D&D. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 23, 2012 - 6:21am | Part of the problem which isn't really a problem may have been the marketing. Star Frontiers went with the colors and frankly a little comic book style advertising. Traveller on the other hand was a little more black and white and the game is a bit more complicated. In the end this is a checkers and chess thing. Chess players have a general feeling a superiority over checkers players and chess is a more complicated game but checkers does have a good strategy system and can be very complicated. Both are fun though and there shouldn't really be a gulf between them. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
