Review - Traveller: The New Era
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- čas přidán 26. 12. 2021
- A Muffin review of the 3rd edition of Traveller - the New Era rules from 1993, derived from GDW bringing their various games under one house ruleset.
(Skip to about the 2-minute mark if the intro isn't to your taste!)
DriveThruRPG link to the core Traveller: The New Era rulebook: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
SubscribeStar: www.subscribestar.com/willy-m... - Hry
These review videos of Mr.Muffin are a much needed public service as they manage to put so much context together: hobby historical, ludo mechanics and even cultural context.
Simply outstanding.
I hope new players can appreciate this channel for the treasure trove that it is.
A big thank you and a happy new year!
Thank-you, and a happy New Year to you, too! (And everyone, of course!)
Although... I'm not sure I want to review Ludo anytime soon ;) (yes, I know what you mean - but I still have PTSD from playing the game Ludo, both as a kid and with my kids!)
Some of the most detailed reviews on traveller yet, anxiously waiting on your T4 review
It will come :)
Great review, loved the intro graphics. It's really good to see a "defense" of TNE as I only ever see it being slammed (and almost always because of issues the reviewer had with the Virus setting). For what it's worth, I agree with you: the TNE setting is brilliant and open-ended in the true spirit of Traveller (something the stodgy Third Imperium sorely lacked). I like the Virus, I like the Vampire Fleets, I like the Star Vikings, I like the TEDs. The setup of the "technologically elevated dictators" always gave your players clear and meaningful things that they could do that week at the gaming table and allowed the session to have a sense of diplomacy, danger and ultimately accomplishment by the session's end. The only reason that TNE did not unseat MegaTraveller from my favourite version is the rules system... to me, combat felt wonky and swingy with all the d20s and most importantly of all, TNE poorly mimicked the brilliant DGP universal task system of Mega and yet somehow completely managed to lose its genius in the process. I mentioned in a comment on the MegaTraveller video that the MegaTraveller UTS effortlessly told stories of its own without any need for the referee... well the TNE system didn't do that, even though the task profile at least outwardly looked very similar. As a result, to this day, the core mechanic of MegaTraveller remains one of the greatest roleplaying game rule systems ever invented. Anyway, you can do the TNE setting with the MegaTraveller rules with no trouble, so that's where I like to play: somewhere deep in the "Hard Times", perhaps at the very earliest indications of the coming New Era. Interestingly enough, the Hard Times book foreshadowed a lot of this, particularly with its references to Star Vikings (although it admittedly did not flesh these out anywhere near as much as the TNE products).
For sure, Traveller is great in that setting and rules are not so hard-coded - and I think it's great that the setting-creation rules have largely remained the same across all editions. From a Virus - and Hard Times - perspective, that means all of those UWP regression tools work whatever the edition you use.
I think you're right with the presentation of tasks between MT and TNE. I don't think it's a coincidence that the general form of the UTP is used in T5 and MgT - one of the great elegances of MT, even if we don't agree on which is *best", I do lament that TNE didn't retain the UTP form in all of its glory.
Inclined to agree. TNE (and the Hard Times era leading to it) were both fine options as settings go. The fact that they existed wasn't stopping anyone from not using them and continuing their existing campaign or starting a new one back in the 3rd Imperium days. Heck, by the time Hard times came out many campaigns had already chosen to ignore the "official' timeline. Loads of people either passed on using the Rebellion timeline altogether or brought it to a decisive end early on, no matter what GDW did with it. TNE was a reasonable direction for the Rebellion/Hard times arc to go, but it wasn't the only one and so many folks were off the timeline already and to them it hardly mattered.
And it wasn't all that long before GURPS Traveller gave lazy GMs some printed material that extended the 3rd Imperium past the assassination, making it even easier to leave the Rebellion branch of the timeline to its own devices.
"Military people with an engineer's mindset"
Well, if you feel BattleTech feels like pulpy SF - they've succeeded in their goal 😉 But everything's not for everyone in this gloriously diverse hobby of ours - I'm glad you've found your niche, and that I've helped in some small way to confirm that for you.
And FFE is... just glorious.
Oh - find TNE World Tamer's Handbook, and mix that in with Pocket Empires, as a suggestion. That could be fun. From colony up.
@@WillyMuffinUK Yes, by TNE I meant not the Core Rules but FFS + World Tamers + Striker II + Battle Riders. I think this gives the best framework for building and fighting detailed solar system invasions, with planet maps derived from mineral concentrations and other economic considerations.
Your vid keyed me onto several other source books that I wasn't aware of though.
@@Noble713 Good stuff! You've also reminded me that I need to do something with Striker. There are some not too expensive, but reasonably nice SF minis put there that will suit it.
I loved FF&S. The errata was a real problem though. I would have really liked to see TNE books republished as a complete "collectors" set with all the errata fixed.
Now that would be nice.
Really love the animations and production values. Its funny I have been working on my own pulp update of the Twilight 2k 2.2 / Dark Conspiracy PC booster rules. Sort of throwing in disadvantages/advantages by making skill checks with D10/D20/D30.
Ouch... Impossible diff on a D10 is harsh!
I loved FF&S for TNE. I built lots of gear, especially weapons. I also have Twilight 2000 v2.2 as well and mostly liked the depth of the combat rules from the "house system." I had a love/hate relationship with TNE overall. On the one hand, we had a lot of fun with the setting, we had a hiver engineer and lots of vampire ship encounters and lot of RCES interactions. On the other hand, I never really felt like this setting belonged in Traveller. While I do play some post-apocalyptic games, I don't feel like the TNE background belonged in the OTU. In my headspace, it's an alternate Traveller universe.
Personally, I think it fits right in. Every single Imperium fell, and Long Nights were nothing new to the game before TNE arrived. I also see it as somewhat post-post-apocalypse. Consider the downward spiral and degredation of the OTU through MegaTraveller, especially the Hard Times era. TNE jumps that downward curve past its nadir - with the RCES and similar pockets very much moving things towards, perhaps, a Fourth Imperium. For me, it's an era of hope for the future rather than surviving the sins of the past.
@@WillyMuffinUK The Virus era is really nothing like the Long Nights. It's more akin to a thermonuclear war (with bits of Maximum Overdrive added) that kills nearly all life in an incredibly short time span. It's really depressing to me and everything you do in the 1105-1130 period will be for nothing (unless you're in the Marches of course). Then the Empress Wave hits, although I am unclear on how catastrophic that is. Thanks for the review though, I really do agree with most of it, just have my reservations about the setting in the official timeline.
@@azcoder I think you inadvertently hit the nail on the head when you say "nothing you do in the 1105-1130 period will be for nothing". Let's consider the Hard Times era. Everything in that era is about collapse as the Rebellion continues without anyone realising the whole thing is a pointless exercise. Pretty much all anyone can do is survive as society collapses around them.
Now let's compare that to the 1200 era. The RCES (and others...) are out there, bringing new worlds into the fold, pushing into the Wilds. They are gaining some understanding of Virus, and even have Virus working for them. Yes, scary vampire fleets exist. But hope is being rekindled. Virtually *everything* the players do in this era matters. Instead of effectively self-serving their own fame and wealth, they can directly contribute to the re-establishment of civilisation.
Anyway... It's OK to have different viewpoints :) Personally, I love the New Era for the "pushing back the dark" opportunities it affords players. But then, I kinda love every era Traveller has thrown at us so far, big huggable soap opera of a place that it is!
Great video but with animations please bear in mind the text size - some of us are viewing on mobiles and even with the screen resolution cranked up to maximum these were hard to read! Meanwhile I still have my own treasured copy of Fire, Fusion and Steel.
Don't panic! The tiny writing was straight out of Survival Margin - it was just really to illustrate the Virus making its way into things :)
It's tiny on a big screen, too. If I use those effects again, I will crank up the font size, if only for the Missus's eyesight's sake!
Nice, balanced review. I have a difficult relationship to TNE, I must admit. Like you I loved the crunch books - FF&S and the World-Builder's Handbook. Truth be told, I used these a lot as design sequence solo mini-games but never played in the setting at all. What I could not get on with was - the setting is a fine one, it's not the Traveller I wanted to play; I hated the layout, production qualities and art direction; I disliked Frank Chadwick turning Traveller into more of the sort of military simulation that was his forte - it was Traveller as Twilight 2000, and I feel that was an unhappy marriage. Still and all, I do agree with you that FF&S was a great resource, I just wish I'd had a version of it for Megatraveller that had been written by DGP (still my favourite version of the game). As to the stagnant setting, I don't think we had to tear the whole edifice down to introduce some more dynamism to the setting. But that's a battle that was long since lost :)
Well, the fact these days we have such a plethora of official Traveller settings, from Milieu 0 to Virus, fringes on all sides, and waaaaaayy off the map with Deepnight - I think we're spoiled :)
An FFS for MT would have been astounding, especially with DGP's eye for detail!
MgT needs one :)
That was my biggest criticism of the TNE books - they were godawful ugly and actively unpleasant to read. The LBBs were minimalist but they had style and were easy to read. MT was practical and featured more and generally better art, which was nice even if I missed those austere black covers. TNE was an enormous step in the wrong direction, and raised the question of whether GDW had simply fired everyone with any graphic design and layout skills.
@@richmcgee434 Probably - the T2k v2 books had the same problem.
I've always been of a mind to create rules summary sheets - both for play reference, and the act of writing them is one method of reading and understanding rules. But I can still remember the pain of doing that for TNE.
Love the game, love the covers, hate the way the pages are laid out.
Would like to see the Anglo/Saxon chronicles you reference.
Now there's an idea 🙂
Good review, TNE has always been a favorite. It was a little light on the setting details though, and more on how one ship crewed by PCs could make a big difference, as part of the Reformation Coalition's efforts, a Free Trader connecting planets in the Wilds or many other approaches.
For me, that is a strength rather than a weakness. Other opinions are available and valid :)
@@WillyMuffinUK Oh, I agree it's a strength! I should have said "I would have liked to hear more from you about how one ship..." :)
@@davidcrowe5524 Ohhhh! Got you! 🙂
Think my greatest regret from this era (aside from it contributing to the death of GDW) was not getting the K'Kree book that was almost certainly next in line after the Hivers. Really can't get enough on either species, and they've traditionally been at odds with one another for ages. Seeing what the Centaurs were up to post-Collapse in detail would have been nice.
The four Traveller 1248 books cover a lot of (speculative, non-canonical) post-collapse background too. Well worth hunting down copies of those, even the PDFs, if just for a good read rather than ever playing in that era.
@@FrostSpike Hint: Virus doesn't eat meat either.
@@davidcrowe5524 I didn't want to give too much away. 😉
@Rich McGee - I agree. K'kree are one of my favourite aliens in Traveller, and I was looking forward to a TNE treatment of them. Hey ho.
@David Crowe - it doesn't, but it can sure as heck make a mess of meat! Just ask Dulinor ;)
Thnk you!
You're welcome!
@@WillyMuffinUK sorry that I forgot the „a“ - writing comments on tablets without keyboards… by the way: I would really like to know how the rule-system works, how characters are made, how experienced they are after creation, how much they develop during gaming, … if you are interested in making another video about TNE, I would be happy, to get more details. We played classic Traveller since 1985 for more than 10 years and from 2015 Mongoose Traveller 1… TNE were never in our focus but 2 years ago I got a print via ebay. So I would like to get more info from a second perspective…
Best regards from Germany - and sorry if there are some typos. English is not my native language.
@@bobavontanelorn5713 I'd be happy to. I've done character generation videos for a few games so far, so doing one for TNE would fit nicely in with those.
Still have the core rule book. Could not bring it to the table, Shadowrun, Vampire and AD&D were the hype.
I suspect many people's "library of shame" is constructed from games no-one else could see through the blinkers and shades of D&D and the "in-vogue" games of various eras.
Hi Ian. I like all of your videos, but what I most want to listen to is a video of you explaining the differences between US and UK D&D. You mentioned a difference in the past, but you didn’t go into detail.
I did, and I will!
\o/