If you click on the image it might expand.

I think it says

QuoteKnow, O prince,
that between the years
when the oceans drank Atlantis
and the gleaming cities,
and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas,
there was an Age undreamed of,
when shining kingdoms lay spread
across the world
like blue mantles beneath the stars...

Quote from: kregmosier;219663s'right...Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns.
D&D 4th Edition is an MMO with miniatures...
BRP is D&D with percentiles...
Traveller is D&D in space...

aand finally, forums are electronic bathroom walls.

Thanks you, tip your waitresses.

Call 555-therpgsite for a good time.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;219633Isn't this just basically D&D? I don't get it.

It mimics the look of the first edition of Traveller (which in reality didn't have a fantasy version).

Quote from: dar;219963If you click on the image it might expand.

Thanks.  I see that now.  I was looking at the other picture where it wasn't so clear.

It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

I'm sure that says something about the evolution of old-school gaming as an after-the-fact construct which has emerged only recently, though I'm not sure exactly what.

Quote from: The_Shadow;220024It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

That there were Traveller stats in the old Thieves' World supplement in 1981 suggests that it wasn't entirely unthinkable or unthought of at that time.

Quote from: The_Shadow;220024It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

I'm sure that says something about the evolution of old-school gaming as an after-the-fact construct which has emerged only recently, though I'm not sure exactly what.

Dude, kitbashing was freakin' everything in those days.  I would be surprised if there weren't tons of groups at the time using the rules to run fantasy games, just as there were countless groups using D&D to run everything from sci-fi to westerns to god knows what.  

Just because there was never a commercial product doesn't mean it was somehow "unthinkable".  There were few commercial products in general outside D&D in the Traveller days.  You're ascribing a modern outlook to a different time period.

In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

(unless it was something less conventional, like floating cities or a world of molten lava with a few outcrops of rock)

Quote from: Age of Fable;220032In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

(unless it was something less conventional, like floating cities or a world of molten lava with a few outcrops of rock)

Or a group of demiplanes floating in an Astral Sea...

Waitaminute...

I thought it would be islands or scattered cities.  Islands would maybe work better because then you have an analogue for starships.  The bits I worked up contained a Buccaneer/Privateer profession, and they would slot into the economic/trade system.

This makes me want to dig out my CT Fantasy notes again.

Quote from: Age of Fable;220032In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

Jason, Odysseus, Sindabad...

!i!

Quote from: The_Shadow;220024It's funny that a lot of us are drooling about fantasy Traveller now, but in 1981 when it might have been produced, no-one did so. It probably would have seemed a lame idea.

In the post where I showed the picture originally it was preceded by the line "I never understood why there wasn't something like this".
Wasn't, not isn't or will be in the future.

GDW had carved themselves a niche in which they blossomed. In a time where everyone and their brother was publishing their stab at D&D they stuck with SF and military themes. They could have done a fantasy Traveller, but the fantasy genre wasn't "their thing".

I do think a fantasy version of the little black books would have sold back then. I don't think it would work today, and I am a bit surprised about the fuss this mock-up generated. In today's gaming market a thing like Wanderer would at best generate sales comparable to those of a typical IPR game (but aimed at a different clientele, though).

Quote from: Age of Fable;220032In a fantasy analogue of Traveller wouldn't the campaign world have to be widely-seperated islands?

It depends. Over at CotI they settled on a Mediterranean setting in the thread Traveller Fantasy RPG (though I don't know if you can get past the thread starter without being registered at the forum), with ships and ports and wares being the focus of the design.

Fantasy Traveller Careers suggests a more D&D-ish type of game.

And this is almost proof to my theory that Wanderer wouldn't work today, as a product. (As a meme it does work very well.)
There are as many conflicting visions of how a Fantasy Traveller would have to look as there are gamers grognards.

I looked at Traveller though a fantasy lens on and off through the years. But when I compare notes I made as early as 1985 (the year Traveller was published in German) to the ones I made after posting the picture last year (as working on the photo rekindled my interest) I see two different games. Neither of which paying attention to the commerce angle that seems so popular among "real" Traveller fans.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220136And this is almost proof to my theory that Wanderer wouldn't work today, as a product. (As a meme it does work very well.)
There are as many conflicting visions of how a Fantasy Traveller would have to look as there are gamers grognards.

Heck, sometimes it seems that there are as many conflicting visions of how Traveller should look as there are Traveller fans, never mind off-beat adaptations of the system.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;220136But when I compare notes I made as early as 1985 (the year Traveller was published in German) to the ones I made after posting the picture last year (as working on the photo rekindled my interest) I see two different games. Neither of which paying attention to the commerce angle that seems so popular among "real" Traveller fans.

The commerce angle, along with the gearhead angle, is very popular among internet fans who rarely or never play the game.

When you speak to people who play it or who are running campaigns, the commerce and gearhead stuff is very unimportant.

It doesn't come up in Koltar's GURPS Traveller game, nor is it very important in my Just Speculatin' campaign, though neither of those are Classic Traveller, but with eight or so editions virtually no Traveller games are.

When I was on the Traveller Mailing List, the most gearheaded of all were those who had never played the game, followed by those who hadn't played it or anything else for years. Checking with a player in my group who's been on the TML for the better part of a decade - in fact, I met him there years ago - it is no different now. The one posting most concerned about a "realistic trade system" has not played anything for twenty years.

What is popular about a game in online discussions and what is popular in campaigns in play, are not always the same thing. The older the game, the greater the divergence between the two, I think.

Warthur and Kyle, you may be right. I have to ponder.

Though I have known Traveller gamers IRL who played the game as a solo trading simulation (rolled up a character, built a ship, rolled up a sector, planets, patrons and went from world to world, trading stuff) or as Shadowrun-like commando missions.
But I have also seen players who did nothing but creating subsector after subsector, with hardly any gaming going on.

BTW, Kyle, your Six-Letter-System looks nice, simple and elegant. Now I feel quite stupid for abandoning my notes and struggling with hanging too close to original Traveller vs. being not true enough to the rules/spirit of Traveller.