I believe SJ Games is upping all the 32-page minibooks to 48 pages (at least no Transhuman Space minibook will be 32-pages).

I don't own any of the Traveller minibooks (Planetary Surveys, Heroes) but I do have the Deadlands ones and I was pretty impressed with the amount of information crammed into them - but the price is a bit on the steep side for their size.

The mini-modules produced for d20 by Fantasy Flight are small, cheaply made, mediocre in quality with badly drawn art (when they have art) but they are cheap! I don't but books like that for the pretty art or wordy exposition - I'm hoping they have at least one or two decent ideas I can steal for a game - the actual adventure is hardly important.

The LUGTrek Neutral Zone adventure (never completed) had some horrid art (egads couldn't they have used stills from the show?) and was pretty railroaded - but it had a a decently described ships crew and some info on a planet that could be used again. It also had notes here and there for sidequest type stuff. Not a great adventure book by any stretch but I didn't feel totally ripped off.


As for the other stuff proposed:

-revised PD stuff: 2 I wouldn't mind seeing at least one made freely available (Graduation Exercise maybe?) as an introductory adventure. The others are pretty mediocre and rewriting them extensively would seem to be counterproductive (why not use new adventures in that case?).

-adventures: 3. But I would like to see an adventure with a main plot thread and lots of "plug in" hooks and sidequest stuff. There should be a definite endstate but it shouldn't matter how they get there or why (in my experience players seldom fall for the "but it's the good guy thing to do!" hook usually used).

-play onces: 0. No interest in these unless they have lots of alternate hooks and ideas for other adventures based on the main plot. I don't find the Deadlands Dime Novels particularly fulfilling because they really don't have anything like that.

-LTGG campaign: Dunno...

-Jurassic world: 2. Would be interesting I guess. But I would rather see a "The Treks Not Taken.." book devoted to crossovers and alternate game styles. As Trek (all versions) has abused the "time travel" and "alternate universe" paradigms beyond all sanity it makes sense. OGRE cybertanks armed with phasers? Well it certainly makes sense if you maybe want a game taking off from the TNG episode "Arsenal of Freedom." Cowboys a big part of your game with their force whips and cyberlassos? Not a problem, seen wierder stuff in TOS. The evil aliens from beyond the galaxy with their bioweapons and bioships poking around (to steal a contrived plot device now used in the Star Wars novels)? Hey waittasec, that was a Voyager plot arc as well. Oy ;) Well you see what I mean - the Trek genre has "assimilated" virtually every other sort of genre, plot cliche, and idea at one time or another.

A lot of this is pretty common-sense GM stuff but ideas on how to combine these elements into something still recognizable as Trek is where the value lies. SFB has all SORTS of cool stuff that is practically begging for more description - if its kept rules light it could even have value for those using FASATrek, LUGTrek, DecipherTrek, or even PD1. By this I mean the Andromedans (I'd love to see a nice description of their motives and technology so they can be used in other games), the General War, the Space Monsters, and even stuff like Maulers and fleet tactics.

By Marc Gillham (Marcgillham) on Monday, April 08, 2002 - 07:19 am: Edit

>> Aside; I know Marc and others mentioned APs & such too

No worries mate! Best to say something twice than risk it not being said at all!

Cheers,
Marc.

By Robert Herneson (Herneson) on Monday, April 08, 2002 - 10:06 am: Edit

You can say that again.

Robert

By Robert Gilson (Bobcat) on Monday, April 08, 2002 - 01:28 pm: Edit

...but I would prefer something like FASA's old Triangle modules, detailing an area of space that regular Federation military can patrol.

I really liked the Triangle area in the old FASA Trek game. Is there an area simular to it in the SFB universe? An area of space not controled by any side but each side wants to have some sort say in what goes on. Spys, pirates, merchants and military all interacting. Its a lot of fun some of my favorite games were in the Triangle.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, April 08, 2002 - 02:31 pm: Edit

Robert: yes, in the Neutral Zones.

If you look at the F&E map, you'll see there is a neutral zone between all of the major powers; Fed/Klingon, Fed/Kzinti, Rom/Gorn, etc.

Dino World would be in the Fed/Gorn Neutral Zone, one or two hexes north of the hex where the three-way Fed/Gorn/Romulan Neutral Zone is (subject to change, of course).

LTGG is in Fed Space adjacent to the Fed/Kzinti NZ, a few hexes up from the Fed/Kzin/Klingon NZ hex; as the Feds and Klingons are allies during the time LTGG is set in, this allows Klingons to intereact with LTGG, and their ships show up occasionally.

By Robert Gilson (Bobcat) on Monday, April 08, 2002 - 10:33 pm: Edit

That sounds very interesting. LTGG is starting to sound better and better. Maybe a several modules called "The Zones" with lots of background information and maybe a large adventure and lots of adventure seeds.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, April 09, 2002 - 12:47 pm: Edit

Here are my current ratings:

Rewritten PD1 adventures: 2
Adventure setting books: 3 or 4
Play once books in general: 3
LTGG: 3, maybe 4
JURASSIC WORLD: 4

As a counterpoint, here are probably what I would have answered a decade ago (when I was more into RPGing--and first learning how to GM).

Rewritten PD1 adventures: 2
Adventure setting books: 3
Play once books in general: 4
LTGG: 2
JURASSIC WORLD: 4

Now if the adventure setting books had contained a significant complete adventure (play once) that would do a good job of introducing charaters to the setting, I would have been more interested then.

By Davyd Atwood (Blackelf) on Tuesday, April 09, 2002 - 12:48 pm: Edit

That's a good point - play-once books are more useful for less experienced GMs.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, April 09, 2002 - 12:57 pm: Edit

I know that when I was first learning how to GM I found them very useful. Both for actually gaming and as an inspiration/example (eg how to prepare for a session how to set up an encounter). I also stole shamelessly from those I'd bought for my own adventures (a room, an NPC, a plot...)

I suspect that D&D play once books work better in that in a dungeon romp, there isn't much the players can do to surprise the GM (although I'm still infamous in my old group for the "roll your dex or less...on percentile dice" line).

One setting that might work well as a play once book for G:PD would be the exploration of a derilict space ship/asteroid/planetoid. Simple plot (so not much the players can do to go wrong), and yet potentially exciting. Furthermore since its essentially a collection of rooms, by giving the GM 3 or 4 alternatives for why the ship crashed (with slightly different actions/reactions at various points), the players can be kept on their feet even if they've read it before hand.

By Robert Herneson (Herneson) on Tuesday, April 09, 2002 - 10:10 pm: Edit

The real trick here is to produce an adventure that nearly any style of group can run.

Consider, it has to be a situation that a Starship command crew, a prime team, a merchant crew, a pirate crew or team, a group of traveling entertainers & amature adventurers, or planet based civilians of any race would be able to be engage.

If I understand the GPD focus, any of those are now possible.

Robert

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Wednesday, April 10, 2002 - 03:39 am: Edit

Robert: you understand correctly; PCs can be anything you can dream up.

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 02:28 pm: Edit

After reviewing the previous post in this topic, it seems that the discussion has crept into Adventure Sourcebooks in addition to Adventures.

Yes, it's a question of symantics, but Adventure Sourcebooks simply present areas where a GM might create a series of adventures. Often they're co-located with published Adventures so GMs can use pre-made material of make their own.

As for areas that might be good locations for Adv. Sourcebooks, one need only take a look at the F&E map and see where 2-3 polities come together. For the Federation, Fed/Rom/Tho & Fed/Kli/Tho are possibilities that take into account the first few releases.

As for Adventures, you can pack a surprising amount of information into a small amount of space if you're using an established area and it's written in such a way that the GM is responsible for adding a bit of fluff.

I would actually prefer Adventure Sourcebooks over straight adventures for G:PD. The reason being is that since the range of potential characters is so diverse, you're bound to alienate some of them (unless adventures are VERY artfully written) by catering to a specific type of character.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 08:20 pm: Edit

Sean> You also have the possibility of source books done on a certain time peroid/event. I've been kicking around the idea of one covering the Andro invasion.

By Randy Buttram (Peregrine) on Thursday, May 02, 2002 - 11:41 pm: Edit

Actually, the area of Fed/Thol/Kling/Rom space, while largish, would make an excellent adventure area. Factor in the proximity to the Orion worlds, and it gets even better...

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 12:14 am: Edit

Alex: I could also see the ISC invasion, or the days preceding the General War as faily lively times.

Randy: I agree that area is prime adventure real estate, and would make an excellent sourcebook, but it's really big.

The bigger an area covered, the less detailed the sourcebook, due to page count limitations.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 12:27 am: Edit

I would think that the ISC and Andromedan invasions would be a part of their sourcebooks. Not that we can't print it somewhere else.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 01:52 am: Edit

I should point out that the entire Traveller Universe would fit within a single F&E hex. A single province (if it includes all the races you wish to play with) should be able to easily contain every supplement ADB could publish for the next decade. Keep the scale as small as possible for the adventure to prevent Digest Group style hasty scatter shot canon revamping.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 05:16 am: Edit

Our canon is the SFU canon, and our map is the F&E map which is shared with F&E and SFB.

I'm not sure what you mean by DG canon revamping, but I am sure that if I try to revamp the SFU canon, this guy in Amarillo named Steve is going to wack me over the head. Repeatedly.

There are going to be some points that we will not share with the Traveller Universe, map scale and the size of the "galaxy" is only one such item. As long as OUR universe is internally consistant within itself, that will be enough.

By Randy Buttram (Peregrine) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 10:10 am: Edit

Well, the entirety of what Traveller refers to as "Charted Space' would fit into a single F&E hex, but that is because of the rate of transportation in Traveller. In the SFU, travel is at a much faster rate, even on non-military vessels. So there's easily room for supplements covering various parts of the F&E map while still allowing characters in a given campaign to interact with all of them, if a gaming group so desires.

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 03:41 pm: Edit

It's been a while since I've looked at F&E; what exactly is the approximate size of one F&E hex?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 04:03 pm: Edit

500 parsecs.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 07:24 pm: Edit

One parsec = 3.26 light years, so 1630 ly.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 07:36 pm: Edit

QUESTION FOR EVERYBODY:

How interested would you be in buying a SFU mapset; same as the F&E mapset, minus the F&E-specific stuff, which is replaced by the list of world names vs hex#. Color, same 2-piece heavy paper as the existing F&E mapset. Yes, no, or maybe?

And if the Orion Cartel map was overlaid on this? More likely, less likely, or no change.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 08:49 pm: Edit

Maps = Gamer pr0n. So that a yes.

The thing with the ISC and Andros is they aren't just races, but sector/galaxy sweeping events.

As for the Andros, I don't any secrets revealed...but there's still an awful lot of "observed" info on their operations to be explored.

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Friday, May 03, 2002 - 09:38 pm: Edit

Maps: Yes.

Since they won't be game-maps per se, I'd expect more systems to be represented.

Could be very cool, and shouldn't take too much additional work oto convert from the existing F&E files...