The Wayfarer's Inn

The Shaman · Rat Fodder Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 10

Our original, "classic" Traveller game is set in the Gateway Quadrant, the four sector maps and associated adventures and supplements published by Judges Guild and "approved for Traveller" by MWM and GDW back in the day.

The JG for Traveller books were subsequently removed from canon with the publication of Atlas of the Imperium, and much later the rights were picked up by QLI, the publishers of Traveller^20 - QLI went on to publish a new book, Gateway to Destiny, which effectively overwrote all of the JG books.

I stumbled onto the JG Traveller material quite by accident: I bought the "classic" Traveller reprints and happened to see a bundle of the JG sector maps on eBay for a ridiculously good price (something like nineteen maps and adventures for twenty bucks!) and picked them up.

JG's Traveller offerings have a much more "space opera" feel, more like Vanguard Reaches or Beyond from Paranoia Press than GDW's The Spinward Marches or The Solomani Rim. The JG books include "space Arabs" and "space Sikhs" and "space Chinese," pirates with mind-control devices and a lost planet of hawkmen, and an alien monster called the Dyson with characteristics and abilities determined by the referee from rolling on various tables.

It's pretty campy compared to the Traveller books published by the likes of GDW, DGP, FASA, and Gamelords, but for the freewheeling sort of campaign I wanted to run, JG's "space opera" meme proved to be a feature, not a bug. In fact, I consider the Traveller material analagous to the "swords-and-sorcery" feel of their fantasy publications - both are throwbacks in a good way.

A guy named Jeff Rients has a wiki devoted to the JG Traveller material, along with some of his own more campaign-specific idea: Gateway Quadrant.

Anyone else familiar with the JG Traveller material?

Plaag · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:54 pm Post subject:

Familiar with the material (have not read it I don't believe). Did not know about the site though, so will have to check that out and add a link to it from my site.

ShaneG.
_________________
I reject your reality and substitute my own

Sir Clarence · Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:47 am Post subject: Re: Judges Guild for Traveller

Rafael · Fear me, I am Admin! Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 978

Very interesting? Do you have any idea if the planet named in the WL d20 box is a reference to this older material?

The Shaman · Rat Fodder Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 10

Rafael · Fear me, I am Admin! Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 978

Will look ASAP as soon as I can access my gaming books. *Currently working.* :smt001

The Shaman · Rat Fodder Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 10

Found it - the Wilderlands are on Ghenek IV, and there is no Ghenek in any of the Gateway Quadrant sector guidebook indices.

My thought has been to use the Wilderlands somewhere out beyond the Charted Space of Traveller, like sending the adventurers through a pocket universe created by the Ancients to another part of the galaxy, and having Ghenek be a planet on the other side. Perhaps the travellers need to find some lost technology somewhere in the Wilderlands to repair their ship in order to get home . . .

Magic could be represented with Traveller psionics, or I could port in another system like TFT perhaps and keep both psionics and magic as discrete from one another.

Rafael · Fear me, I am Admin! Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 978

:smt001 You were faster than I was!

I got Gamma World a while ago, and indeed tried to do something about the SF aspects with WL, but it just didn't fit. That Traveller scenario seems very promising, though. :smt001

The Shaman · Rat Fodder Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 10

The Shaman · Rat Fodder Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 10

Last week I took possession of Pegasus 9, which includes another complete Traveller sector, Tagret Sector. Interesting note: Tagret occupies the same area of Charted Space as JG's own Maranatha-Alkahest sector. (And both sectors would be overwritten by Bill Keith's Gateway Sector soon after, in Megatraveller Journal 4 from Digest Group Publications.)

I'm toying with the idea of replacing M-A with Tagret for our game.

In addition to the JG material mentioned in my original post, the Bledsaws created a spin-off imprint, Group One, which published Theta Borealis sector and a double-handful of planet guidebooks and starship catalogs. I'm not sure if Group One also published fantasy titles as well, or if it was strictly a Traveller effort.