I talked about Traveller T5 going into Kickstarter back here. With only four days to go until the Kickstarter period ends, 1473 backers have signed up (ranging from 50 people committing $US1 each to show interest in the project to 8 people committing an eye-watering $US970 each to make this project fly) and over $US200,000 has been pledged.
After long thought, I committed to getting the book and the Jump Drive - essentially a .pdf copy on a flash drive - in spite of my earlier protestations. A chap using the handle Ojno the Red commented on my initial post, above, and his was the first piece of positive news I have heard from the very long development hell this project has languished in.
Will it satisfy everyone as a game system? I doubt it. The problem with Science Fiction is that there are many experts in specific fields and few generalists. This means that there is always someone ready to moan when you don't get a specific detail correct, no matter how unimportant it is to the general game or setting. And as it's a game, there will be those who love the game mechanics and those who don't. Cat Herding is an easier occupation than game designer.
So, I've staked my claim for a book for illogical reasons - just as well I'm not a Vulcan. I'm looking forward to reading the final book, and maybe running some Face-to-Face games as well. I think that once the rule book is out, setting and scenario material may very well follow - or you might actually have to use own your imagination, like we did back in the Little Black Book days, and make stuff up!
And in other news, I have just finished a big update of my modelling blog with new stuff I've finally finished painting. Those of you who are new here might like to take a look and see my other hobby - painting toy soldiers, specifically 15mm science fiction figures. I'm pretty pleased with the results (all the stuff I'm not pleased with gets tossed out the airlock).
Wednesday 27 June 2012
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Well good for you - I respect that you have offered your support and financial backing to a long laboured project which can only be good for the hobby. For myself, I intend to put my gaming dollars to support Mongoose's revival of Traveller 2300AD.
ReplyDeleteI hope both games flourish!
Thanks Paul. I have not heard a lot about Mongoose's Trav 2300 - do they use the Mongoose Traveller core rules?
DeleteI've always liked the near future/near space setting - it was the similar setting that got me into the Full Thrust starship wargame - well, that and the figures.
As I recall the original Traveller 2300 drew heavily on the GDW Twilight 2000 game system which was a fairly rules-heavy game. It worked all right from the players' point of view, as long as they were content to let the Referee do all the heavy lifting and didn't get all hung up on the gear-head stuff, though I recall sessions stalling over arguments about muzzle velocities and armour penertration vs range.
I would be interested to see what Mongoose has done with their version of the game - a possible future post for the Man cave?
It indeed does utilise the core Mongoose Traveller rules, and sets the system up as an alternate Traveller Universe, with a couple of minor rules changes to adapt some specifics. Because it IS traveller, much of that heavy lifting stuff is gone now.
DeleteMe too - I'm a big FT fan too and played a Stargrunt Campaign in the Tuffleyverse for over a year once (over a decade ago now).
Delighted to take requests! I have my book in hand and will write something up over the week or two so that it is appropriately comprehensive
I like your dropships on the painting blog, Dave. And the gashants are simply outstanding!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dylan.
DeleteI still have the Big Rig Dropship from Daemonscape to paint up - I posted some pictures of it assembled with blu-tac on Dropship Horizon - and working out if I can get away with just supergluing it, or whether pinning the cockpit and tail sections would be safer, as it really is a big model.
The gashants were one of those moments of serendipity where I saw a science fiction riding beast and I then bought some modern-period riders. 15mm.co.uk has two riding aliens - the saurian, as I have used, and an Ort - which you can buy separately from their mounts. As both ride the hunting lizard, it would seem that both can be converted to ride gashants.
In the Laserburn Starship Crews range there's a nice little jetbike - I bought three and three Saurians to ride them which, along with a GZG New Israeli grav bike and a Critical Mass Games ARC Fleet grav bike means I can almost do a Science Fiction version of the "Sons of Anarchy" - and as the Saurian can ride the jetbike, I think that the jetbike rider should be able to ride a gashant.
Using DAS (or Green Stuff or your modelling clay of choice) to make the saddle/saddle blanket actually gives you a bit of freedom to cheat with awkward mounted figures. When you look at some of the saddlery used on animals like camels, a high, wicker frame covered with cloth looks exactly like a blob of DAS in 15mm scale ;)