First impressions: Traveller Explorer’s Edition

Mongoose has just released their Traveller core rules in a 75p 74-page “explorer’s edition”.

This contains:

• Character creation—scouts and scientists only
• Skills and tasks
• Combat
• Encounters and dangers
• Equipment
• Spacecraft operations
• Space combat
• Common spacecraft (a Scout/Courier with deckplans)
• World creation

So that’s very like the original little black books I started my roleplaying journey with, way back in 1981.

I picked it up because I’m thinking about running Traveller next year, and I wanted to see what the latest rules look like. Although I wrote about Secrets of the Ancients a few years ago, I haven’t played Traveller since the mid 90s, and I haven’t run Traveller since the early 80s. (And when I read Secrets of the Ancients, I ignored all the actual stats.)

Initial impressions

Traveller Explorer’s Edition feels very like the original Traveller. The system is still 2D6 with a target (usually) of 8. Character generation is still a mini-game (and there’s still a survival roll, but you don’t die). The weapons still include cutlasses, autorifles and backpack-powered laser rifles. Starship combat has been improved (thankfully), but everything else feels very familiar.

I like the clean layout. Two columns, lots of white space, clean illustrations, ragged-right text. It’s really nice to read, which is a very pleasant change compared to some recent games.

The skill list brings back many memories—it doesn’t look that different from what I remember. New to me are skill specialisations (so Pilot is subdivided into Small Craft, Spacecraft and Capital Ships) and level-0 skills (basic awareness).

Character generation is slightly more involved than I remember, and includes events. I tried it, taking the risky route of Scholar (Field Researcher specialising in archaeology). In my first term I was betrayed and gained a rival; in my second term I was put on some advanced training (but didn’t gain a skill—I must have flunked the exams). During my third term I was severely injured during a disaster, forced to leave and gained another rival.

Traveller Explorer’s Edition doesn’t include a character sheet and I don’t know if Traveller still uses the old 6-figure “UPP” (Secrets of the Ancients doesn’t), but in old money my character would be:

7B74A8 Science (Archaeology 2), Investigate 1, Medic 0, Diplomant 0, Electronics 0, Driver 0, Streetwise 0, Medic 0, Flyer 0, Admin 0. Cr 10,000. Age 30.

I have no idea if this is a good character or not. It feels light as they have only three actual skills. However, if I was doing this as part of session 0 I would have more skills—I could have two free skills from the Connections Rule, plus some from the “Skills Package” (Astrogation 1, Electronics 1, Gun Combat 1, Medic 1, Pilot 1, Recon 1, Stealth 1, Survival 1) which I assume is there to make the group more playable as whole.

On the other hand, my character already has an interesting backstory with a mishap and two rivals.

However, there’s no advice on creating GM characters. I don’t want to go through that rigmarole for every minor NPC that the PCs encounter, so I hope the main rules include guidance for generating simple NPCs on the fly.

It also feels weird to create a character with no idea of how they will turn out. That’s very different from all the games I’ve been playing lately, where players choose the attributes, skills and abilities their characters get. (Unless they’re playing pregens, of course.)

I haven’t tried spaceship combat or generating a world. Yet.

Overall?

So overall, I’m impressed. There’s enough here for me to run a game of Traveller (although I will get the core rulebook), and it makes it even more likely that I will run Traveller in the near future.