Traveller 2022 Update and Limited Edition Release

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Cepheus Lite would be my personal favourite variant of Cepheus due to keeping the skill list small, simple task resolution and some combat stuff from Classic Traveller.
 
I am a reluctant Mongoose Buyer. I feel their product are nearly always $10 too high for what you get. The most recent release of 2300AD is a good example. Although I felt better with the $30 I spent on the 2022 Core Rule Update. Still I would not have had to think about it if it was $20 for the PDF.

When I first went shopping on Mongoose's web site I got a sticker shock after browsing a bit and winding up with a basket worth over £400. I have some Mongoose 1e in electronic form but I decided not to get comprehensive with it for much the same reasons I didn't buy a lot of post-CT material. I had a load of CT material and not much compelling reason to get more than a smattering of later stuff.

OTOH I don't begrudge Mongoose their prices. To give Matt Sprange his due, he's managed to take a fairly niche product that was famously showing its age, and build a business out of revitalising it that actually pays employees. On top of that, he's paying some amount of money to Marc Miller for rights to the IP. He's gotten some good authors in and the best of the MgT products are regarded as world class (although some of the artwork in 1e was less-than-stellar).

There are a lot of well known role playing IPs that don't bring in a decent living for their creators or publishers, including people working with Traveller. Digest Group, for instance (the outfit that did Megatraveller) was done in their spare time while holding down full time jobs and almost cost the CEO his family.
 
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When I first went shopping on Mongoose's web site I got a sticker shock after browsing a bit and winding up with a basket worth over £400. I have some Mongoose 1e in electronic form but I decided not to get comprehensive with it for much the same reasons I didn't buy a lot of post-CT material. I had a load of CT material and not much compelling reason to get more than a smattering of later stuff.

OTOH I don't begrudge Mongoose their prices. To give Matt Sprange his due, he's managed to take a fairly niche product that was famously showing its age, and build a business out of revitalising it that actually pays employees. On top of that, he's paying some amount of money to Marc Miller for rights to the IP. He's gotten some good authors in and the best of the MgT products are regarded as world class (although some of the artwork in 1e was less-than-stellar).

There are a lot of well known role playing IPs that don't bring in a decent living for their creators or publishers, including people working with Traveller. Digest Group, for instance (the outfit that did Megatraveller) was done in their spare time while holding down full time jobs and almost cost the CEO his family.
Yes, this exactly.

Mongoose is a relatively small company, but with actual employees who are getting properly paid for their work on an IP with licence overheads to pay. That is where the costs come from. I do think people forget this, including those who compare it to Cepheus Engine, which has hardly any costs by comparison.
 
Yes, this exactly.

Mongoose is a relatively small company, but with actual employees who are getting properly paid for their work on an IP with licence overheads to pay. That is where the costs come from. I do think people forget this, including those who compare it to Cepheus Engine, which has hardly any costs by comparison.
The problem is not them charging accordingly to do the above. The problem is that quality and content isn't quite there on a consistent. It better but still can be hit and miss. The 2022 update looks good, the 2300 AD 2e efforts fall short and so on. Deepnight Revelation is solid along with the Rift exploration sourcebook. The two Aliens book are decent.

In contrast, Columbia prices their Harn material at a premium level but I always know I am going to get the best material. And they managed to make it better in the last decade.

So I don't object when a product line is priced at a premium but the quality best there for what you are paying.
 
robertsconley robertsconley Oh, right Striker and Azhanti High Lightning, I'm so rusty on Traveller. Thanks for the reminder, I did recall multiple subsystems back when a friend of mine was running it and I was playing in it. It's just been too damn long. I've snagged some of the Cepheus Engine stuff, it feels lighter and better written than say the Mongoose 1st edition Traveller book.

On the 2300AD stuff, I thought the 2nd edition wasn't out yet? That the current books are still the 1st edition material?
 
robertsconley robertsconley Oh, right Striker and Azhanti High Lightning, I'm so rusty on Traveller. Thanks for the reminder, I did recall multiple subsystems back when a friend of mine was running it and I was playing in it. It's just been too damn long. I've snagged some of the Cepheus Engine stuff, it feels lighter and better written than say the Mongoose 1st edition Traveller book.

On the 2300AD stuff, I thought the 2nd edition wasn't out yet? That the current books are still the 1st edition material?

Originally it was called Traveller:2300. I think 2300AD was the second edition.

I used to use Striker as a combat system for Traveller. Out of the box it's a bit lethal - I saw someone do 36D damage with a gauss rifle on more than one occasion - so I ended up nerfing it a bit. Having said that, gauss rifles are a bit OP in vanilla CT as well.
 
Originally it was called Traveller:2300. I think 2300AD was the second edition.

I used to use Striker as a combat system for Traveller. Out of the box it's a bit lethal - I saw someone do 36D damage with a gauss rifle on more than one occasion - so I ended up nerfing it a bit. Having said that, gauss rifles are a bit OP in vanilla CT as well.

Right, they changed the mechanics when they moved it to being just 2300AD, basing it on the mechanics used in Twilight 2000 at the time. I ran both of those back in the day. I was asking about the current Mongoose version. I know they're working or were working on a 2nd edition and I'm really tempted if they release it with the improvements to the physical book that they did for this new Traveller 2020 Update book. Indexes, color panels etc really look to be a seriously nice improvment.
 
Yes, this exactly.

Mongoose is a relatively small company, but with actual employees who are getting properly paid for their work on an IP with licence overheads to pay. That is where the costs come from.

Thank you for saying so.

Over the years I became a little disenchanted with the way things were going in general in the hobby gaming business, so tried to make some changes with the way we did things here at Mongoose. Over the past few years, that has borne fruit - no little amount of my time is spent figuring out how to make life better for the people working here. The effect of that, and giving them freer reign on things like art budgets, has (I hope) properly elevated Traveller and Sea of Thieves. Paranoia is the next to get that treatment.

Anyway, just a long winded way of me saying thank you for noticing!
 
robertsconley robertsconley Oh, right Striker and Azhanti High Lightning, I'm so rusty on Traveller. Thanks for the reminder, I did recall multiple subsystems back when a friend of mine was running it and I was playing in it. It's just been too damn long. I've snagged some of the Cepheus Engine stuff, it feels lighter and better written than say the Mongoose 1st edition Traveller book.

On the 2300AD stuff, I thought the 2nd edition wasn't out yet? That the current books are still the 1st edition material?
2300AD 2nd Edition for Mongoose Traveller 2nd is out in PDF, although they are correcting errata and such before they release the physical product next year.

I’d say, overall, it is my preferred Traveller setting because it has more real world cultural links (and politics) and is more inclusive of transhumanist concepts, biotech and the like, rather than furry aliens.

It is most certainly incorrect to suggest that Traveller: 2300 (as it was called in the 1st edition) was the first transhumanist science fiction RPG, but transhuman concepts still fit like a glove within the game’s general premise. Anyway, I like it.
 
2300AD 2nd Edition for Mongoose Traveller 2nd is out in PDF, although they are correcting errata and such before they release the physical product next year.

I’d say, overall, it is my preferred Traveller setting because it has more real world cultural links (and politics) and is more inclusive of transhumanist concepts, biotech and the like, rather than furry aliens.

It is most certainly incorrect to suggest that Traveller: 2300 (as it was called in the 1st edition) was the first transhumanist science fiction RPG, but transhuman concepts still fit like a glove within the game’s general premise. Anyway, I like it.
Sums up my draw and liking of 2300AD as well. After reading the Mongoose 1st ed Traveller book, I didn't hold out much hope though for a good 2300AD book. With the revamps they've done for the 2nd ed Traveller update core book though, I was hoping that the 2nd ed 2300AD book would be similar in quality upgrade/updates.
 
Thank you for saying so.

Over the years I became a little disenchanted with the way things were going in general in the hobby gaming business, so tried to make some changes with the way we did things here at Mongoose. Over the past few years, that has borne fruit - no little amount of my time is spent figuring out how to make life better for the people working here. The effect of that, and giving them freer reign on things like art budgets, has (I hope) properly elevated Traveller and Sea of Thieves. Paranoia is the next to get that treatment.

Anyway, just a long winded way of me saying thank you for noticing!
I've always had respect for what Mongoose does even at the base levels.

Though these days I own MG Traveller rulebook in print and Legend in PDF which is not substantial their still pretty useful games. I'd like to pick up the print update (non-special edition) when I can. I generally realize as a game writer myself how a bunch of stuff slips past even multiple editors.
 
Sums up my draw and liking of 2300AD as well. After reading the Mongoose 1st ed Traveller book, I didn't hold out much hope though for a good 2300AD book. With the revamps they've done for the 2nd ed Traveller update core book though, I was hoping that the 2nd ed 2300AD book would be similar in quality upgrade/updates.
They have lifted the visual presentation significantly in line with the other updated Traveller books recently but, as I say, they are still working through the errata on the PDF before a physical release (about May next year?). Personally, I think the cost is an all-or-nothing thing - as I don’t think the presentation can be fully appreciated outside of the full physical box set with full size maps, etc. For me, I wouldn’t probably get the PDF on their own when the release is meant to be a box set, but that could just be me. I felt the same with Twilight: 2000 too.
 
On the 2300AD stuff, I thought the 2nd edition wasn't out yet? That the current books are still the 1st edition material?
They released the PDF for 2300AD 2e for Mongoose Traveller 2e. and like T Trippy said Mongoose wisely has a long lead between the release of the PDF (which you get when you pre-order the book) and the release of the print copy.

This version of 2300 has three books 97 pages, 121 pages, and 115 pages. Divided into Characters, Worlds, and Vehicles and Spacecraft. It is dependent on you owning Mongoose Traveller 2e.
 
I skipped the original Mongoose Traveller 2E core because they didn't include the ship design system in the core book, just some example ships, and I feel like a version of Traveller which doesn't have that in the core rules is badly missing the point. (Yes, yes, I know, they put a ship design system in a supplement. A supplement is not a core rulebook!)

I took a look at this new release, because I heard they folded ship design back in - but now I'm hearing there's errata already, like an entire chunk of the armour table missing and so on. Not impressive.
 
I skipped the original Mongoose Traveller 2E core because they didn't include the ship design system in the core book, just some example ships, and I feel like a version of Traveller which doesn't have that in the core rules is badly missing the point. (Yes, yes, I know, they put a ship design system in a supplement. A supplement is not a core rulebook!)

I took a look at this new release, because I heard they folded ship design back in - but now I'm hearing there's errata already, like an entire chunk of the armour table missing and so on. Not impressive.
The armour table issue has been fixed, along with other errata in an update.

If you highlight errors up on the Mongoose site, they tend to make quick updates on the PDF, and then have enough space to adjust it before the print release.

I’m not necessarily going to advocate for the previous version keeping the shipbuilding rules out, but the reasoning was that they wanted all the rules cohesive in High Guard rather than basic/advanced rules in separate places, and some groups don’t actually like spending time designing their ships (they merely pick one from the dozen or so craft catalogued in the core).

There were enough people disagreeing with this, and also preferring 2D ship deck plans to 3D, to make the switch in the update. Along with improving the art and layout, and putting an index in, this is really the point of the update - responding to customer feedback.
 
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I took a look at this new release, because I heard they folded ship design back in - but now I'm hearing there's errata already, like an entire chunk of the armour table missing and so on. Not impressive.
In Mongoose defense, their pattern for recent years is to release the PDF first, collect errata, and then print the books. M MongooseMatt can explain this better but I can attest that I received updated PDFs prior to a pre-order printing. And the printed book was of the last updated PDF.

And to be honest this is probably the best solution because a decade or so ago it didn't matter who the publisher was for a Traveller product, there was always loads of errata.
 
I thought the print run had already happened and the books were on the boat - which would seem to preclude errata being included in at least this first printing.
 
In Mongoose defense, their pattern for recent years is to release the PDF first, collect errata, and then print the books. M MongooseMatt can explain this better but I can attest that I received updated PDFs prior to a pre-order printing. And the printed book was of the last updated PDF.

And to be honest this is probably the best solution because a decade or so ago it didn't matter who the publisher was for a Traveller product, there was always loads of errata.

Errors and errata happen. I personally don't mind them as long as the publisher puts them up on their website when they've gathered them. So that way I can update my physical books. Updating the pdf itself is truly nice as well, though I still want that separate erra list/sheet. It's one of the things I do actually appreciate about WotC and DnD, the errata sheets are damn nice. I tend to print them up, cut them down a bit so they'll fit at the back of the book. I'll also update the individual corrections and use a highlighter.

There are some publishers who aren't this organized and it's annoying. One of them actually post here on the forums occasionally as an aside and I've gotten push back from them when in the past I pointed this lack out to them in email exchanges. It's not a hard thing do and I find it unacceptable when a developer doesn't keep such a list and put it up on their site.
 
Another reason I like PDFs over physical copies.
Yup, it's my prefered reading method now a days. Though I do like to use the physical book for actual gaming. I also tend to keep the physical book next to me as I read the pdf. I find it easier to flip to a reference page in the book while reading the pdf, if that makes any sense.
 
Cool to see Grandfather in art for the first time in the new Secrets of the Ancients.
 
So I was looking at this- T5 vs Traveller 2022 - which would you recommend?
 
So I was looking at this- T5 vs Traveller 2022 - which would you recommend?
T5 is pure Marc Miller. It is very much in the vein of original Traveller and very complete.

Traveller 2022 looks like Mongoose Traveller, which has a different vibe.

On reliability Marc on T5 fulfilled the goals he set out in the Kickstarter and was on time IIRC.

If you want way more views on all versions of Traveller try the Citizens of the Imperium forums at: https://www.travellerrpg.com/
 
So I was looking at this- T5 vs Traveller 2022 - which would you recommend?
I would say Traveller 2022 is better. T5 has a lot of content generation rules for the GM, but is a very heavy system in general. Traveller 2022 is a much simpler system, especially on the player side. Although it's cool generating your own alien species and continents for worlds in explicit detail using the T5 system*, not many players would enjoy using T5 rules in my experience.

T5's rules are also very different from most previous versions and so it can be harder to use older modules and material online etc with it.
 
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T5 is enormous and uses an inverted, dice-pool mechanism for tasks (it is XD6 roll under, rather than 2D6 roll over). While there is a number of building chapters for various things that may be useful for any Traveller game, it is not, and I stress this, really aimed at a casual gamer in any shape or form. It is complex, has had to go through several revisions just to make it eligible - and the word is that even Marc Miller isn’t really championing it any more.

Mongoose Traveller, in the 1st, 2nd and now Updated rulebooks are the most accessible and colorful presentations of the game that there has been. Its rules were originally developed directly from the Classic Traveller, but they have incrementally developed in their own way over the years. It is still based on 2D6, roll high, add mods and beat a target number - which is very easy to pick up. You could still probably use a Classic module with them, but the game is so well supported with multiple campaigns, scenarios and other supplements that it opens up all possibilities of play. For new time gamers, it is a no brainer, in all honesty - although it is always worth looking out for the original game too.

Also, the upcoming Pioneer - a very near future, Solar System based spinoff of Mongoose Traveller (written by Sandy Antunes who is now a Ph.D working for NASA), and is modeled on things such as The Martian, Gravity, Solaris or Sunshine is looking very intriguing, and there are apparently more new settings on their way.
 
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So I was looking at this- T5 vs Traveller 2022 - which would you recommend?
Both. Traveller 2022 is far more approachable. Although I would look at Cepheus first to see if you like the system overall. Both systems along with Mongoose Traveller 1e are a interrelated family of 2d6 based systems.

My recommendation is to use Traveller 2022, or Mongoose Traveller 1e, or Cepheus with T5 as a resource for more details.

As for the Traveller 1977 system, it has it's merits but also quirky compared to how Mongoose Traveller handle. I had to port some stuff in from Mongoose to fill in some of the gaps it had. For example other stuff one can do during a combat round. I could have used Snapshot but the action point system it used landed with a thud and was even more fussy in practice.

Here is a link to the cheat sheet I created.
 
1977 Traveller :-)
Maybe it would help with the recommendations if I was to say I wasn't going to use either. I just wanted the material to use in other systems. I already have the 1977, but wanted something a bit more recent.

I would say Traveller 2022 is better.
I was leaning towards Mongoose Traveller because of 2300, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

I get the both argument too after reading posts elsewhere, as they say the options and generators are useful even if you use Mongoose Traveller.

Thanks for the feedback!
 
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I just wanted the material to use in other systems
What exact material are you looking for? Depending on what it is it might be better to get Cepheus products or stuff like Stars without Number.
 
What exact material are you looking for? Depending on what it is it might be better to get Cepheus products or stuff like Stars without Number.
I just borrow a lot from different places. I actually have many of the Cepheus Products (the Clement Sector in particular is well written) and Stars Without Number... I just borrow a lot from different sources.

I think the 2300 angle puts Mongoose Traveller over for me.
 
I missed this and may well buy once the errata is in the hard copy book as I do like me a rulebook to browse.

I came to MgT1 rather late, id been running lots of D100 BRP based home-brews of various hues and decided to write a traveller campaign for my group. I have CT from the 80s and also MT, TNE and T4. Discovered MgT1 and was hooked, it quickly became my favourite version, I tried T5, wow too much.

I think MgT has the best balance between the simplicity of CT but a more complete and streamlined system. When MgT2 came out I was torn as I had invested heavily in the supplements for 1. However after reading a few reviews I was sold and bought in, don't regret it. I too disliked the lack of ship design but actually now prefer the Highguard book and even like the simplicity of the vehicles book as well (in the day I loved Fire Fusion and Streel but its more than required).

So Ill echo some of the previous comments and say thanks to Mongoose for keeping one of my fave systems alive. Ill defo be buying later as once I complete my current Zweihander and the following Twilight 2000 campaigns I'm returning to a MgT2 campaign set in the TNE time line.
 
I just borrow a lot from different places. I actually have many of the Cepheus Products (the Clement Sector in particular is well written) and Stars Without Number... I just borrow a lot from different sources.

I think the 2300 angle puts Mongoose Traveller over for me.
If you are looking for a variety of adventures and settings to rip off, Cepheus is a good answer. As it is open license, people have taken it all kinds of directions. It's basically the same as the Mongoose stuff too, so once you know Cepheus, you won't have trouble stealing from Mongoose Traveller books.
 
Maybe it would help with the recommendations if I was to say I wasn't going to use either. I just wanted the material to use in other systems. I already have the 1977, but wanted something a bit more recent.


I was leaning towards Mongoose Traveller because of 2300, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

I get the both argument too after reading posts elsewhere, as they say the options and generators are useful even if you use Mongoose Traveller.

Thanks for the feedback!
It is possible to be overloaded with resources to draw from bug that’s never stopped me…’
 
I just borrow a lot from different places. I actually have many of the Cepheus Products (the Clement Sector in particular is well written) and Stars Without Number... I just borrow a lot from different sources.

I think the 2300 angle puts Mongoose Traveller over for me.
I'd say if using it for ideas that T5 will have that. They really are more a design engine, and yes not casual gamer friendly. They can read more like a technical manual, dense but a lot there. The design systems are really not all that tied to the game mechanics so are adaptable to other systems.
 
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