And Now for Something Completely Different...

Different than what I'd planned on posting today, that is.

I was hoping to get some of my scanned horror resources (mostly hand-drawn maps and floor plans) posted this week. However, it seems that the image files of the pieces I'd scanned have been stolen by file-stealing Ninja Hacker Gnomes. (I suppose it's possible that I accidentally deleted them, but I find the Ninja Hacker Gnome theory far more compelling.)

Since that means I'll now have to find the time to re-scan all that stuff, I figured I'd post something useful in the interim.

To that end, here's a character sheet for the latest edition of a truly old-school game - and no, I'm not talking about 4E! I'm referring to Mongoose's version of the Traveller game system.

I didn't have the good fortune of encountering Traveller back in the day, aside from moderate exposure to it via Dragon magazine. Being a gamer in a vacuum, my RPG exposure prior to the late 80's was mostly limited to TSR's boxed games. (Thus my first sci fi RPG was Star Frontiers.) I did flirt with various later editions - MegaTraveller and Marc Miller's Traveller ("T4") specifically. But none of these really grew on me. MegaTraveller was too clunky (and infuriatingly broken in a few places), and T4 was just too lacking in luster. (Although it was also populated with cool Chris Foss artwork - alongside what are, IMHO, some of Larry Elmore's worst pieces ever. Elmore's cover for Star Frontiers is, to this day, my go-to piece for sci fi RPG inspiration, but to say that his work in T4 disappointed me is a gross understatement.)

Even later (as in a couple of years ago) I ran a "Classic" Traveller ("CT") game set in the universe of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda that quickly fizzled out. Honestly, I like the idea of the game - a lot. I just seem to have trouble finding an edition that really hits the sweet spot for me. Well, make that had trouble.

Thanks to Mongoose's newest edition, I think my Traveller woes may be over.

I picked up the core rulebook for a song on eBay (almost half of what I'd have paid for it at Amazon) and spent some quality time with it a few nights ago. Boy, was I impressed.

The newest edition seems to preserve much of the simplicity and charm that I so loved in the first three CT "LBB's," but added the depth and robustness I liked from the later editions. After a first read, it looks like this edition has included everything I liked about the previous editions and excluded everything I disliked.

So now I find myself ramping up for a campaign in the Third Imperium, and really looking forward to it. I've finally got an edition that hits all the right notes for me - let's just hope it goes over well with the players!

Anyway, enough talk - here's the character sheet (based on the look and feel of my earlier Star Frontiers sheet):

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