Traveller: The New Era

Review


Title: Traveller: The New Era
Company: GDW
Category: RPG System
Reviewer: Parker Whittle

Traveller: The New Era is the latest chapter in the continuing saga of GDW's Third Imperium milieu for the Traveller rules. It follows MegaTraveller, which was an attempt to unify the vast body of rule books and supplements developed during Traveller's long and successful reign as the best known sci-fi role-playing game.

Traveller: TNE continues this evolution on two points: first, it ends the interstellar civil war introduced by MegaTraveller, casting known space into a technological dark ages induced by a sentient life form known as Virus (hence the New Era). Second, it brings the Traveller system into the fold of GDW's new "House Rules" system which has been use in other GDW games, including Twilight: 2000 (second ed.), Dark Conspiracy, and Cadilacs and Dinosaurs.

Unlike previous incarnations, the TNE rule book is bound in a single paperback volume, nearly 400 pages long. Although the overall organization is good, the text is dense and many of the paragraph headings are hard to see, which required extra page flipping and squinting during our play-testing. The table of contents is large and well organized, but the index (a single page) is hardly useful. Though I give GDW credit for including one in the first place, the proliferation of desktop-publishing software leaves little excuse for the kind of futile afterthought that a one-page index represents.

Traveller and MegaTraveller referees will notice significant improvements in character generation - an Achilles heel of TNE's predecessors, where characters could actually be killed during generation. This rule has been laid to rest in TNE. Additionally, players enjoy much more control over their characters' careers and skills than in the previous systems.

The list of careers is extensive, though not as well integrated into the storyline as I had hoped. Referees will need to modify the rules to ensure that the characters will be suitable for the campaign. The homeworld generation table prohibits most characters from receiving any high-tech skills and can severely unbalance the party with heavy attribute penalties for characters unfortunate enough to be reared in a hostile environment. Lacking a well architected point-based generation system, referees will need to fudge die rolls and ignore some homeworld restrictions to ensure that the party is well-balanced.

Using a modified version of the task resolution system introduced first in Traveller's Digest and later integrated into MegaTraveller, skills are now combined with a "controlling attribute" into an "asset" that is used for most tasks. Some skill/attribute combinations presented by the game, like Mechanic skill and Strength, seem inappropriate and the referee may wish to base tasks on different skill/attribute combinations as circumstances dictate.

World generation, encounter and animal generation, trade and commerce, and space travel are all largely identical to their original Traveller/MegaTraveller counterparts. World generation has been updated to show the effects of the imperium's collapse on existing worlds and is integrated well with the familiar rules. These rules have always set Traveller apart from other games in the genre, and it is good to see that they haven't been tampered with.

Starship design is conspicuously absent in TNE. Since this was one of my favorite aspects of the original Traveller, and after the hopeless abomination of vehicle design in MegaTraveller, I was hoping to see a return to elegance in the TNE rules - especially when I learned that Frank Chadwick was designing the game. Undoubtedly, vehicle design will be introduced in a later supplement. Referees hoping to make do in the interim with Traveller or MegaTraveller design rules will face a daunting conversion process.

The combat rules are well-designed, betraying Chadwick's experience in designing tactical simulations. In fact, as with most Traveller products, the rules have a hard time breaking away from their military focus. My only objection is that the slug throwers don't seem to do enough damage. Combat flowed smoothly, however, and was easy to run.

Starship combat has been completely redesigned, but the adventure we ran did not require any. At first glance, it appears to be an improvement on the previous systems.

The equipment list is somewhat shorter in TNE than the previous systems, especially the starship listings, and since many of the rules have been redesigned, converting your favorite items will be time-consuming.

Referees who already enjoy Traveller should find something to like about the TNE rules, and the chaos of a fallen empire is fertile ground for adventuring. For those who prefer a more traditional Traveller campaign, the Spinward Marches remain relatively untouched by the collapse. However, if you are happy with Traveller or MegaTraveller and you don't find the fallen empire premise intriguing, I must admit that there are few compelling reasons to purchase Traveller: TNE.

Referees considering their first Traveller campaign may be mystified by some of the references to material published in earlier versions of the game. I strongly recommend an additional investment in MegaTraveller's Imperial Encyclopedia to fill in the gaps.

If I were to choose between the three systems, I would have to say I have the least affection for MegaTraveller because it failed to capture the elegance and cohesiveness of the original. TNE is a much better effort, and is good for the character generation rules alone. My own Traveller campaign would likely be a hybrid of the original and TNE rules systems - simply because I have all the books available. If I had to run a campaign using the new system alone, I would find the system consistent and quite playable, with a few rough edges.

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