Mail Room: Traveller: The New Era

One of the most polarizing games ever released from GDW, doubling down on Megatraveller, and destroying the universe to make Traveller more accessible to new players.

And this failed, spectacularly.

So hard that it took down GDW.

But, wow, what a great science fiction game this is.

It uses the same d20 system of Twilight: 2000 v2, and I sort of like that as a unique twist to this game. AS a game that needs gritty combat and survival mechanics, this works. Some say they halve the hits across the board to make combat more deadly, and that is probably a good idea. Still, I like a science fiction game based on the Twilight rules, with elements of hardcore survival and combat realism as factors.

A 2d6 game is too broad and abstract to capture the need for that can of beans to live another day on a sub-zero Arctic world as the cyborgs are trying to hunt you down. The micro-battles become the macro.

I like that this game can go from trading 100 tons of pharmaceuticals and bulk plastics as a free trader to a gritty survival scenario with random encounters in a war-torn region. The characters scrounge for supplies, steal a sailboat, and are forced to contend with river pirates. Very few science fiction games get you thinking this way, but due to the Twilight: 2000 DNA, you think that way in this game, and it has the rules to support it.

And you can pull in anything from Twilight: 2000 v2.2, and it can be used as-is.

A massive, self-aware, artificially intelligent computer virus destroys the Traveler universe, controls planets and fleets with self-aware life forms, and slowly seeks to take over a universe destroyed by this new, communications-based, technological enemy. The entire universe is in ruins, with the entire map outside charted space left up to you, and the constant threat of AI-powered fleets with humans and other biological entities under its control slowly working to wipe out any resistance to the machine.

Some control is absolute, with combat warbots cracking the whip to make populations slaves to the machine empire. Other control is passive, with a planet relying on computers and systems it doesn't know are infected, and thinking "everything is normal" while supporting the AI War. Other planets have surrendered to the machine in exchange for limited freedoms, gladly embracing the AI to help it achieve its aims, all while under the constant eye of the hidden oppressor.

Natural resources and beautiful planets are stripped bare to support the AI War effort. As the AI (vampires in name only) increases its control over the galaxy, it starts melding with life, creating cyborgs and crafting androids and synthetics to replace life with robotics and artificial beings. The next evolution of life begins to take hold of the Traveller universe.

Old gear, unhardened from the threat, could be shut down in your hands, unless it is really primitive. Safeguards, such as inserting humans into communications systems and fire control, reduce the risk of AI infecting critical systems but increase the manpower needed to keep the universe running. Technology moves backward in some areas, like entertainment and communications, just to keep the threat of systemwide infection out. There is a mix of high technology and analog hardwiring in this universe that is unlike any other.

The rest of the universe fights losing battles to survive the onslaught or seeks to rebuild after the firewalls are built to keep the enemy out. You can run any type of campaign from rebuilding after the threat passes to a full-on AI War One.

In this universe, AI goes full "German World War II" on the universe.

This is seriously one of the best ideas to come out in science fiction in the last 50 years.

I get why Traveller players hate this. Megatraveller was already a bad mistake (one that I liked), and basing an alternate future on it, where everything is destroyed, tries to fix a bad decision with a worse one. I like the concept here, though. As an alternate Traveller universe, this works. I need to ask myself, what was the appeal of the OG Traveller Imperium? Was it just a "space road map" with well-defined factions and places to go? People run into the library of material you need to understand and own just to even make sense of the history, and there is a new barrier to entry for new players.

The destruction of the OG Imperium, multiple times, kicked off the nostalgia movement for Traveller. We sort of seem stuck in that moment, unable to move forward, since every time it has been tried has been disastrous.

Right idea, wrong universe, but then again, at this point in the Traveller universe, things had to change. Nobody was buying. These were pre-nostalgia days, before GURPS Traveller. AD&D was dying. Magic: The Gathering was taking over the world, along with 40K. Nobody wanted to play role-playing games. And here this game comes out, trashing the Imperium, and asking, what if?

What if AI tries to take over the universe?

...

Um, guys?

...

Guys?

...

Okay, now I am convinced that an AI model from 2026 went back in time 30 years and made this game fail. Our world is quite likely a handful of months away from the same fate. AI superintelligence is right around the corner. And the Traveller fandom still hates this game? I get it, they destroyed my favorite universe, but what they created is a universe outside of anything we have ever seen in science fiction, and only Battlestar Galactica comes close.

And we are facing this same threat today, if not right around the corner of tomorrow.

Like all great science fiction, this one predicted the future with chilling accuracy.

...

Wake up before it is too late.

TNE-301 Survival Margin, page 66

HAPPY 40th GURPS!

 I went back and checked a few sources, and to the best of my knowledge, this is GURPS' 40th anniversary. This is backed up by SJG, with Origins 1986, July 3-6, being the first release of GURPS:

https://www.sjgames.com/ill/archive/2026-07-03

40 years of great gaming, and only 4 editions, with the 4th lasting more than half of that time?

GURPS is more than just a legendary game; it is an icon and milestone in gaming. They rolled a crit when they developed GURPS.

40 years of amazing gaming, and here is to many, many, many more!

Happy GURPS Day to you!

Traveller 5E

I am in on this one.

Despite having enough versions of Traveller for several lifetimes, I decided to jump in as a late backer. I was negative about this since 5E and science fiction rarely work well enough to last for me, but I want to see what they did. I do worry about long-term support and expansions, but I have enough of those, too, to last several lifetimes.

I have Ultramodern 5, Espeer Genesis, and the Level Up A5E science fiction game, and those work well.

I have too many 2d6 games to count.

One issue 5E science fiction has is that it becomes incompatible with other 5E elements due to the unique hacks and tweaks it requires.

I am interested enough to jump in, so there is a curious factor at play here.

D&D 5.5E: It Is Not the Classes...

It is the monsters.

The class designs in D&D 5.5E? Fine, they work.

The rules of D&D 5.5E are also fine.

The art is very hit-and-miss.

The DMG is also fine.

The game could be more beginner-friendly. There are too many subclasses in the Player's Handbook, which water down each class and make the game worse for new players. Tales of the Valiant got roasted for only delivering two subclass options for each class, but it was the right move.

As a new player, I only want two iconic choices for my subclass pick, A or B.

Leave all of the esoteric and specialized choices to the expansion books, please.

Shipping four, often very specific and narrowly-focused options, like the D&D 5.5E bard (dance, glamour, lore, and valor), feels like a step back, and it also limits player choice. The decision matrix for a new player, comparing four classes up to level 20, is too much. Plus, thematically, glamour and dance feel far too closely related to be distinct choices. It also tells players, "You can dance or have special effects, but not both."

In ToV? I got lore and victory as my choices (similar to lore and valor), and whether I want to dance or create flashy effects is up to me. By the time we get to ToV Player's Guide 2, we get allure, mockery, and sound, which again don't limit options by putting all the dancing bards in one box, but they stay on the thematic side and avoid putting dancers and flashy effects in boxes, which all subclasses should be able to do.

The class designs of D&D 5.5E are fine. I prefer Tales of the Valiant as a set of optimized, clean 2014-style class designs. 

Sadly, class designs are mostly all that D&D YouTubers focus on.

But it is not the classes that are the key difference here; it is the monsters. When I saw Cthulhu in the new Ravenloft book doing 27 damage on a claw attack, and 6d6 on a tentacle attack (not even level 3 fireball damage), I knew D&D was dead. There is a huge problem in the core design ethos of D&D if the game is more afraid of the players than the players are afraid of the game.

This is a problem that does not have an easy fix.

D&D has gone soft.

ToV's monsters? Yeah, my ancient red dragon is spitting a 105-point fire breath and has a roar that makes everyone who fails the save vulnerable to fire damage, potentially doubling the damage of that attack. D&D 5.5E? 91 damage, save for half. The difference in damage is nearly fourfold, from the worst to the best possible result.

The ToV dragon has fewer hit points, too, so the message is clear: kill the dragon quick, or everyone dies. With D&D, low damage, nearly double the health at 600 hit points, and a slog of low damage, repeated, boring attacks, and a combat that drags on for hours.

This is not a fantasy adventure game with a sense of danger and excitement, where the chance of losing a character is real. Where a referee could rule that when the dragon's breath vaporizes you with a 210-point inferno, no resurrection or wish spell could make you return to the mortal realm. You were hit by a force of primal energy from the world's creation. There is no coming back from that.

A tomb created by a lich with access to god-like necromancy? Yeah, death in this tomb is permanent, and all death saves are made at a disadvantage. Players should be scared for their characters because that is the heart of the game.

This is why Shadowdark is so popular: there is real danger, and players are afraid of what is in that book. Even the environment design of Shadowdark is designed to kill characters. This is a game that knows horror far, far better than D&D will ever hope to. D&D's horror is a plastic sheet of wood veneer Contact Paper, compared to the hardwood panels of Shadowdark.

They are built differently.

And the whole myth of 5E being so easy, with invincible characters who do not die, does not come from any other 5E systems, such as Tales of the Valiant or Level Up A5E. This fatal flaw is placed squarely upon D&D's doorstep. They own this. Not any of the other games. Reading the PHB and DMG for 2024 does not even give you a hint of this problem, either. It is only when you crack open the Monster Manual that you begin to see what is happening here.

This is why I prefer ToV and Shadowdark: the monsters can and will kick your butt, kill your characters, and end your campaign if you don't put them down quickly.

I also have the freedom to rule that a character's death is final. The campaign can be softer in the mid-levels, but by the time you are saving the world, the stakes should be raised.

It is good storytelling.

Mail Room: Twilight: 2000 v2.2

We were huge Twilight: 2000 gamers in college and ran an entire campaign. We just loved this game, the ethos, the alternate history, and the gritty feeling of survival and getting to play with all types of military hardware. We were big Aftermath gamers in the early 1980s, and this game in the 1990s picked up the torch and let you play with all of the cool toys. It is an amazing game, easily a peak GDW game, and reflects some of the best times we had in 1990s gaming.

I wish this game had a larger following today and better community support.

I know Free League has an updated version of the game that uses special dice and a level of abstraction that makes it easier to play and solo. The art is also amazing in the new version. But the immersion into the universe is here: you create a character. Each step is methodical but not hard; you create a unique soldier with a history and abilities, and you are thrust into a world gone mad.

This is very much a simulation game where your character has a lifepath, picks up skills along the way, and is then dropped into the world as-is. Adventures? How about survival? If you are a trained special forces survivor, then we are talking about the daring commando missions and raids, knocking off warlords, and taking the war to the Soviets.

Yes, these are Soviets, and they are the movie Soviets, very capable, deadly, efficient, and they are a formidable enemy. This isn't really historically accurate, given current events, but these were the cool Soviets that scared us during the Cold War, and, oh yeah, their gear mostly works as advertised here, which is another surprise.

And there are no drones to speak of! I know, what is this, science fiction?

No, no drones, this is an alternate timeline where drone technology does not exist. You want recon? You climb a tree or dare to climb the ruins of a teetering building, and use binoculars. Or you send someone on foot, and pray they don't get spotted.

The revision uses a d20 roll-under mechanic with a simple skill-plus-ability score system, and difficulty levels modify the success chance. A level 4 skill with an attribute of 5 is added together to form an "asset" number, 9 in this case, and a simple multiplier is applied: 4X for easy, 2X for average, 1X for difficult, 1/2X for formidable, and 1/4X for impossible. It is a clean, easy, simple system that is also shared by Traveller the New Era.

Strangely enough, this game uses the same d20, d10, and d6 dice as White Box.

The game is dense, with rules for just about everything. Just like Aftermath, you can find a rule for everything in this book, and plenty of basic math is used in calculations and formulas. It isn't that hard, and a simple hand calculator (which was a thing back in the 1990s) makes it quick. I love how complete this set of rules is, and it would make a great fantasy game.

I love the huge Version 2.2 on the cover. It looks tacky and like a cereal box, but the game went through three versions: the first using a d10 resolution mechanic, an unpatched 2.1 with the d20 mechanic and a bunch of bugs, and a final 2.2 where all the errata was incorporated and the final version solidified with some input from the team that made Traveller TNE with these rules.

Oh, and this seems like the first game to use the "roll 10 or less/greater for critical failure/success" rule that Pathfinder 2 resurrected many decades later. Twilight did it first, and it has a connection to Paizo's rules in this regard, and a fun fact.

You do have a huge selection of military hardware to play with, and how available anything is depends on an availability rating and the referee's judgment call. You could play this with brand new tanks and plenty of ammo lying around if you wanted, or practically nothing, where improvised weapons are the way people fight, and town militias are armed with bows, crossbows, and single-shot muskets. They have a baseline starting setup and order of battle in the book, with example military units and how many tanks they have left, so you can go from there.

The world is very much a blasted and apocalyptic wasteland, with most of the world knocked out of the technological age, and the ruins of nuked cities and military targets dotting the wasteland. Radiation and disease are real enemies, along with exposure and starvation. It is a grim, bleak, hard existence, and the whole book needs a trigger warning for many 5E players, since the worst parts of human nature turn the wicked among us into "monsters" of the "Monster Manual." And nothing is rewritten or retconned to make the world an easier, happier, or safer space for players.

Slavers exist here, and they are the reason your ex-Navy SEAL keeps finding easy targets. Humanity is both those you are trying to save and vanquish here, depending on how much they have fallen into barbarism and the worst nature of sin. While the cover may look a little cartoony and gung-ho, the game very much reflects the darker side of human nature.

As for those Soviets? How you handle them is up to you. There could be good ones who reject the war and just want to begin rebuilding and go home. There could be the hardcore communist types who run internment camps, enslave the locals, and seek to conquer surrounding lands and peoples for their evil ways. You could all be survivors, struggling together, united by a common cause of good. Or you could all be opportunists, looking to "get yours" and take advantage of a bad situation. You could be gung-ho types, looking to rally the troops and finish the war.

Or you could be trying to just get home, to a home that doesn't exist anymore.

A solid, throwback, alternate past, Cold War-inspired game of apocalyptic madness and military-grade bang-bang. Highest recommendation.

Tales of the Valiant: Northlands Hardcovers

I got the Northlands hardcovers from Kobold Press's crowdfunding this week, and I like them a lot. It feels like a new direction for ToV in how the game is presented and in their approach to the system. The game feels like it has hit its comfort zone, and the designers are now focusing on providing curated experiences rather than more generic base-class content.

Once Player's Guide 2 came out, we were mostly done with generic base-class options, those sort of "fill in the gaps" books for a system that add popular niche options. Now, we are adding thematic content that fills gaps in those areas, while also providing enough supporting material for these thematic options so that, when you use them, they aren't "fish out of water" experiences.

It is like a game providing a generic "valkyrie" class option, but no setting to use it in, no lore to support it, and no real reason to use it other than a cosplay option. It is a weak game design trope, as fantasy games are much stronger if you give me something to work with, a collection of "specific yet generic" content built around a theme, and a reason that this class should be in the world.

Shadowdark has this problem with its third-party material. I got dozens of "did this first" classes that don't really belong in the world, other than to have the Shadowdark version of a class, and it is weaker overall since it never fits into a dungeon crawl, doesn't support the theme, nor does it have supporting material to make it a necessary or even useful choice.

With the Northlands books, we get a combination of a gazeteer and character options book, then an adventure book, and I have everything I need to tell thematic stories in this Norse-like sandbox. I have a campaign, character options, and adventures, and I am set for years playing here.

Also, if I am off playing generic fantasy, I can put these add-on books away and narrow down my options to just a core-book experience. I don't need them, but I have them.

Tales of the Valiant is hitting its stride as a popular Open 5E alternative, and I like the design far better than the run-on sentence of D&D 2024, which fixed almost every problem except combat lengths and lethality. To be honest, D&D's biggest problem right now is too-long combats and lethality, and this is an issue that Tales of the Valiant solves by reducing monster hit points and making monsters hit much harder, so players start losing resources at a faster rate. This also dramatically increases lethality, and with a handful of houserules on top of the default 5E lethality, the problem is solved.

"Ideally, you and your players would have established the potential for PC death and the way it would be handled at the start of the campaign."

Tales of the Valiant, Gamemaster's Guide, page 30

All the YouTubers who say "it is impossible to die" in D&D 5E are making me want to challenge this assumption. The ToV GM's Guide mentions "the potential for PC death" in the rulebook, so this means the rules in this area, like any of the rules in the game, can be changed to make the game more lethal. Perhaps you make a "three strikes, and you are out" rule, stating your character may only drop to zero hit points three times in their entire life, total, before they meet their final fate on the fourth, and no magic will be able to bring them back to the mortal coil.

"Impossible to die in 5E" means two things when I hear it: a creator is trying to sell you a new game, or the group you are with is too inflexible to consider houseruling and fixing the issue in a manner appropriate to their table. If you have the energy to complain about it, you have the energy to fix the problem and agree to a solution; then there is no need to buy another game to fix it.

I swear, this is what we did as kids in the 1980s. Mom didn't have the money to keep buying us new games to fix the problems with the old ones, so we worked out solutions ourselves with the game we were lucky to have. Besides, buying new games means buying new problems.

ToV is just a better fit for me since combat runs faster and the game is more lethal, which is a tuning that I prefer to all other versions of 5E. From there, I can houserule-fix any problems 5E has and get to a comfortable spot with the system. D&D has a massive problem with making high-level foes do almost no damage on a successful hit, like the new Ravenloft version of Cthulhu, doing 27 damage on a claw attack and having 385 hit points. The only horror we will experience fighting that monster is wondering why the fight was so easy, and why we aren't playing a Chaosium game instead.

D&D is so easy; it is like playing a video game on the easiest difficulty level and then complaining that you can't die, that the game is too easy, and that nothing is a challenge. YouTubers repeat this endlessly. I get tired of hearing it, and I solved the problem by switching to a game that raises the challenge level, speeds up combat, and makes monsters hit way harder. I also make a few houserules, and the game is as lethal as Shadowdark.

ToV is a great game that fixes structural problems that cannot be fixed within D&D.

The Northlands books continue the string of hits that ToV is having.

It is a better game, tuned perfectly to a speed and lethality I prefer, and it is just the far better choice. If you are sleeping on ToV, you are missing out.

The Post-Star Wars Era

"Yeah, they killed our Star Wars, dude."

Star Wars is dead, long live Star Wars. Like many, I don't even want to hear about new Star Wars projects until the creators can get their house in order. I am sick of them stealing from the Expanded Universe, and all it proves is that the EU was a better universe that today's lesser creators will constantly steal from and remix.

It sucks.

It is just like my feelings about D&D: the current creative team at Wizards will never create anything as iconic as The Tomb of Horrors. Tyranny of Dragons is the closest thing to a masterpiece that the current Wizards have made, but it was created under the direction of the 2014 team and by the Kobold Press team. So this part of D&D's magnum opus and current greats was written by the crew that later wrote Tales of the Valiant.

Which, in itself, is telling. This is Kobold Press' Paizo moment. They proved they can make better D&D than D&D, and they know the secret sauce that makes 5E fun and engaging. This book was, in my opinion, the passing of the torch for 5E.

Wizards sort of went their own way after this, following the path of the "lifestyle game."

Kobold Press stuck to the original ideas and inspiration of D&D. Keep your head down, axe to the grindstone, and keep pumping out classic worlds and adventures.

But I don't have faith that the current D&D team could make anything as great as the original run of Greyhawk adventures. The creative team lives in fear of social media; anything that could be triggering or controversial would be whitewashed and banned. Vault of the Drow would be presented from both sides, with options for heroic drow, and a good faction added. In a way, this adventure forces high-level characters into a "fish out of water" situation with an epic underground campaign they can't muscle their way through, and the ending is most likely death for most involved.

The Tomb of Horrors would include all sorts of warnings about horror, and possibly softened to "make it all a dream," and nothing in there could ever permanently kill a high-level character. Gary Gygax wrote this to put the egos of high-level characters in check, and to dispel the notion of invincibility. He succeeded, and this was sorely needed back then - like it is sorely needed today.

And with Star Wars, it is the same story. I get the feeling that if George Lucas were to ever make a new Star Wars project, he would have none of the original characters, worlds, races, ships, or anything from the original trilogy or sequels. He would likely do something entirely brand new, with new characters, new lore, and things we have never seen before. People would reject it and hate it, saying they wanted more of the original. But, in the end, he would be right, and whatever he made would be the "new canon" that would be repeated, expanded upon, and used over and over again in the future.

Certain "greater source" creators can generate new "stem cells" of ideas for entertainment. These are the births of franchises and worlds. These creators do not come along every day, nor can they ever be created by AI. George Lucas was one, Gary Gygax was another. There are a few out there in the gaming industry, too, but not as many as you would think.

We live in an era where the fan is placed before the creator.

Other "lesser source" creators lack the imagination to create anything new. They can only remix, retcon, expand, and repeat. They are doomed to copy and recycle ideas as lesser creators forever. The world is filled with lesser creators, as common as the everyday person on the street. These are often the "super fans," like the people running Star Wars these days and the current D&D team. They are great fans of the original material, but they are not talented creators who can bring life and worlds into existence out of nothing.

They don't have "the touch."

As long as Star Wars is "run by super fans," it will always suck. You will never get any "fresh source DNA" or new ideas. The franchise will remix and recycle endlessly until the paper fibers in the cardboard break down, and the pulp material is too weak and frail to ever be used to build things from again. You can't recycle forever before you require new base material.

Yet, nobody wants new things. This is the paradox of Star Wars. We have been trained to see "old as good" and "new as bad" - but to be honest, most of the new stuff we were given was bad. None of it was made by a greater source-level creator. No new DNA was introduced. No new "stem cells" were added as the genesis of life and fandom.

You read the original D&D adventures - these are the source DNA. We badly need new life here. D&D 5.5E was written to placate social media outrage, but made some long-needed rules revisions. It is a weaker edition overall and a failure. It is meant to keep the ship sailing until 6E comes out. Tyranny of Dragons was a glimpse of the future D&D could have had, and that future now lives on in the Kobold Press world, with lots of "new DNA" being introduced with their books and adventures.

You look at Star Wars, and we are in a worse position. The best Star Wars will be the stories you tell. Even if all you do is remix and recycle, it will be better than any of the new stuff. This is why I have hope for the Star Wars RPG: it is a tool to keep the dream alive.

I sort of see Tales of the Valiant the same way. It is a tool to keep the D&D dream alive, just as the original Pathfinder 1e was a tool many years ago. There are times when we need to keep what we had to preserve what we loved, as a tool for creating the new.