New Traveller PDF Beta

So over at DriveThru RPG, Mongoose is putting up a new Traveller beta-test buy in ($20 witha $20 voucher off POD or PDF). The most-famous misspelling of pen-and-paper sci-fi returns yet again to grace our gaming tables, and I have a couple thoughts on this.

Now, this is an interesting development. This is supposedly like the current black-book editions of Traveller Mongoose prints, but a cleaned-up, streamlined, and bug-fixed edition of the rules. I like this approach, printing the game as PDF-only during the beta while continuing to improve the rules, and also supporting the game via an early buy-in. It admits the faults of the RPG development model while minimizing the 'dead book' syndrome most all v1.0 pen-and-paper games have.

It feel so easy to put out a pen-and-paper game today that a lot of what we get are untested and beta versions of the game, and the next edition is really the one you want to play. I am not really a fan of fixing rules in later expansion books (Pathfinder's Unchained and D&D 5's Unearthed Arcana), as this just forces me to buy another book and support that at my table as well. It has gotten to the point where the pedigree of the company has to be really stellar or I will just buy the PDF and skip the printed book. Or we will play older games or community-supported retro-clones that just work.

So, new Traveller? I have so many editions of this game that we don't play I am hesitant to jump in, honestly. This feels like a Shadowrun situation for me where I bought into an older version (4.0) and don't play it enough to warrant going out and getting a whole new edition to learn and play.

There is also Fantasy Flight's Star Wars looming over my group's play time like a small moon. And that's no small moon.

Still, I feel Traveller is worthy of our support. Mongoose supports open gaming (I don't know on the OGL status of this game, but it would surprise me if they pulled back), and open gaming with build-your own licensing is pro-community and  pro-indie, and that is a good thing worthy of praise and buying in. Perhaps this version will be built with a more mod-able and open rules structure that more games can be built from. I will probably eventually pick this up, but I don't want to buy-in just yet, let my group blast through Star Wars first, then this game looks like a fun change-of-pace to run next year when things shake out and settle down.

So I am cautiously positive about this one and looking forward to seeing how this comes out.