Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

Thursday, July 13, 2023

What does Classic Traveller Do?

I have followed with interest  Brad Walker's postings on his blog about game design, and the wargame roots of the RPG hobby. In a recent post he says:

Classic Traveller retains its power despite being decades away from the spotlight, such that every other space adventure game is compared to it- including its successors. It has a separate and distinct play experience from both of the aforementioned, and has itself influenced many others after it (e.g. Twilight 2000).

I thought about Traveller's design and why the game has endured so long. This is by no means a definitive essay on the subject, merely my thoughts at this point.

What do the Classic Traveller Rules Do?

By the way, the short answer is
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Monday, September 21, 2020

The Perfect RPG Book?

 According to James Maleszewski, author of the blog Grognardia (far more knowledgeable and prolific than I am), there is a perfect RPG book, and it is:


The Traveller Book.

It has been my Traveller rules-of-reference since I got my copy as a gift from and old friend. Mine doesn't have the dust jacket, and I've penciled in lots of house rules, and stuck in rules/ideas printed from other sources. It is the book I turn to when I need to know the order of results on the Rumor Table or what small craft a Type-C cruiser has aboard. I admit that after 30 years, I've got so much of the rules memorized (or think I do) that I don't have to consult it except for details like table entries. I even wrote an index for it once, just for practice.

Read James' explanation here.


Image borrowed from Wayne's Books.

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Thursday, June 13, 2019

Crashing Suns

The Fantastic Technology of Crashing Suns

Last night I finished reading Crashing Suns by Edmond Hamilton, (AKA the World Wrecker) published in the August & September 1928 issues of Weird Tales.
Random Chance or just Carelessness? You Decide.

The story is set in our solar system some time in the future when the EIGHT planets are inhabited. [Pluto's discovery was still two years away.] The solar system is threatened by a rogue star hurtling on a collision course with Sol. This would result in annihilation of the human race and all its works.

The protagonist, Jan Tor, is a pilot of the Interstellar patrol. He is tasked with leading the expedition to the approaching star to find if there is a way to avert this disaster.

Space Opera, indeed.

The story is actually a straightforward affair of exploration, discovery, capture, escape, conflict and a last minute rescue. By now, this is a by-the-numbers tale of not great impact. We've seen it before. In 1928, though? This might have been hot stuff. Hamilton's reputation among space opera/sci-fi writers is outstanding, even if he's less well known today than during his lifetime.

The story's structure is heavy on exposition and description (needs to be, set in another solar system), light on dialogue and character development. Beyond their names, I saw only the scantest details to differentiate the hero and his companions.

But that's not what I found interesting about this story.
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Monday, November 19, 2018

More Traveller Literary History - Kalin


In E C Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novel Kalin, the titular protagonist finds himself out of cash on Chron, an Industrial planet of huge strip mines and forges, run mostly on slave labor. Dumarest avoids that fate, but if he's not working for the Company, there are very few other options. He gambles a little, but wins too much for the house's comfort, so that's not a source of income.

Along with some other travellers he meets, he goes hunting for creatures called zardles. Zardle meat is not appealing, but it is edible and better than not eating. 

 I have extracted some details of the creature from the narrative, to construct a Traveller animal description for it. I have written elsewhere about Frightening Animal Encounters, and these things definitely fall into that category. More than half a dozen of the hunters in Dumarest's party are killed by these foul beasts.

Just add lots of legs. And claws. And bad breath. And don't forget its poison.

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Thursday, October 18, 2018

More Traveller Literary History? or Not

Traveller literary history – or maybe not.

The Inverted Man


I thoroughly enjoyed Clarke's Hide and Seek short story, so when I brushed up against another one of his from the following year, I stopped to say hello.

It was a dull conversation. I am really disappointed with The Inverted Man
(Thrilling Wonder Stories, V36, #2 June 1950) Perhaps I should have read the cover story instead.
Here, there is Something at Stake. Look at the guy's eye. He's thinking "Get her clear of the line of fire, and this chump is Mine."

The story concerns a power plant engineer named Nelson. He is caught inside his new very modern generator apparatus when a freak set of circumstances throws it into overload. There is a huge thunder-clap, and Nelson goes down, but survives.

In the hospital, the doctors discover that Nelson has been Inverted: he is now a stereo-isomer of himself. His left hand is now his right, his hear is on the other side, etc. He reads and writes backwards.
So far so good, right? Good old H G Wells Invisible Man stuff. But at this point Nelson fades into the background. He has no more dialogue and takes no independent action.

The focus shifts to Dr Hughes, another engineer at the power company. Three science lectures later, Hughes tries to recreate the conditions of the accident to put Nelson 'right' again.

I'm going to ruin the ending now, so if you want to read this story, stop here.
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Tuesday, May 1, 2018

More Traveller Literary History - Toyman

I have now read the first three books in E.C Tubb's series "Dumarest of Terra". This week I finished Toyman, (#3).  But this is not a book review.

Marc Miller himself named the Dumarest saga as a major influence on Traveller. So how does Traveller reflect Tubb's universe? There are several things. First there's the word Traveler, which the protagonist uses to describe himself.

Although Toyman all takes place on one world, there is discussion of High, Middle and Low passages. Since I've now had a PC die in Low berth, I appreciate more the gritty feel of the desperate who travel Low.

Earl Dumarest wears Mesh armor, and carries a big knife (a Blade). Some NPCs use lasers, alongside clubs and whips. Thus the uneven distribution of technology across space, and the inclusion of primitive weapons in the game.

The planet Toy (not really a joke) is an example of Government Type 1: Company/Corporation. Stockholders run Toy, and whoever has the most shares has the most influence. The guy with the biggest share  is (again, not a joke) the Toymaster.
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Wednesday, April 4, 2018

More Traveller Literary History

John Eric Holmes, author of the Basic Edition of the World's Most Popular Role-playing game, also wrote another book, Fantasy Role Playing Games: Dungeons, Dragons, and Adventures in Fantasy gaming.  

In it he discusses a number of games that were on the market in 1980, including Traveller. He mentions, on page 46, a number of 'modern authors' from whose works Traveller is derived. The list is:

  • Poul Anderson
  • E.C. Tubb
  • Robert Heinlein
  • Larry Niven
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley
  • E.E. "Doc" Smith
"to mention a few."

 I would add to that list for my own TU and games:
  • Andre Norton
  • Leigh Brackett
  • H Beam Piper
  • David Weber
  • Harry Harrison
  • Alfred Coppel
  • and Edgar Rice Burroughs

Who inspires you to adventure in the realm of Traveller ?
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Friday, September 23, 2016

Animal Encounter - White Apes of Barsoom

John Carter - ruling Barsoom like a Boss.
 I am having a heckuva good time reading the John Carter novels. I'm into the fourth book (Thuvia, Maid of Mars) now, and ERB has not disappointed.

Barsoom is vividly described and each book has introduced new and strange people, places and things. Today I'd like to share one of the creatures of Mars as a Traveller animal encounter. This is how John Carter describes them upon his first meeting, in A Princess of Mars:


“The creatures were about ten or fifteen feet tall, standing erect, and had,  like the green Martians, an intermediary set of arms or legs, midway between their upper and lower limbs. Their eyes were close together and non protruding; their ears were high set, but more laterally located than those of the Martians, while their snouts and teeth were strikingly like those of our African gorilla. Altogether they were not unlovely when viewed in comparison with the green Martians.”  (chapter  6)
Here he describes them at the opening of The Gods of Mars:
"They stand fifteen feet in height and walk erect upon their hind feet. Like the green Martians, they have an intermediary set of arms midway between their upper and lower limbs. Their eyes are very close set, but do not protrude as do those of the green men of Mars; their ears are high set, but more laterally located than are the green men's, while their snouts and teeth are much like those of our African gorilla. Upon their heads grows an enormous shock of bristly hair". (chapter 2).
They are, of course, the great White Apes of Barsoom.

Making a few assumptions, I take their Traveller animal stats to be as follows:

Carnivore Killer 

1600kg 8D/3D [28/10]  Claws/teeth  (+4 to hit due to size) Dmg 6D+2 
Armor: Mesh  A2 F8 S3  2 attacks/round   Number appearing: 1D

They are big,(1600 kg) they are aggressive,(Attack 2+) and they are fast (Speed: 3). Even Travellers armed with guns should have a difficult time with these beasties. When they attack, they will move at best speed to Close range and use their claws, which are more deadly than shotguns or laser rifles. PCs with melee weapons can use their skill to parry (-DM) but the apes massive size & strength gives them a big advantage. Carter, who probably has Sword-5 plus the strength bonus was able to fend them off, but most PCs won't be that capable.
 
At the beginning of GoM, Carter and Tars Tarkas (who's 15 feet tall) are chased by a big gang of white apes, and can't outrun them. This leads to one of my favorite quotable exchanges from the whole series so far, which I shared here.

 Go read A Princess of Mars, available from Project Gutenberg and as an audio book from Librivox.

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Photos are in the public domain. 


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Monday, April 4, 2016

Red Tattoo Description Technique


I recently read The Man with the Red Tattoo, a James Bond novel by Raymond Benson. This is not a book review; the story was good but not outstanding. I want to talk about something else, something useful to both writing and gaming.

On pages 12-13 of the novel, the author introduces the villain (the titular Man) in the form of a mental run-down of “What does Bond know about this person?” Benson describes the villain in eight sentences, and in one paragraph, we know everything the reader needs to know about him.
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