Most Useful GURPS Traveller Books from a GURPS Point of View

[Centisteed]

Originally Posted by Valadrim

Looks like I have some shopping to do as well. So the consensus is that Far Traders is a great book for merchant games, even if you have ISW and Spaceships 2? And that First in has more detailed and better rules for exploration and first contact type scenarios than ISW and Spaceships 5?

Do you have GURPS Space? I understand that they took part of the system from "First In" & updated it from there. Although it could be useful to have for collector value.

I'm just glad I have some of the hard backs. I got most of the PDFs over the past few years but sad to hear of this news. At least I can look at my hardback of ISW with smug satisfaction. :-) It's right next to my other set of GURPS hardbacks, some Mongoose Traveller Hardbacks (Core, Vargr, Spinward Marches & that massive 2300AD book), & a set of Numenara books (only missing the latest two). :-) Perhaps I should look at getting Star Trader & First-In physical copies before the prices go nuts on ebay...

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Centisteed

Perhaps I should look at getting Star Trader & First-In physical copies before the prices go nuts on ebay...

First in is currently listed on Amazon starting at about $21. I believe that's what I payed for my dead tree copy about two years ago.
High end seems to be about $60.

Far Trader starts at about $15 and goes to about $110.

[Centisteed]

Originally Posted by sjard

First in is currently listed on Amazon starting at about $21. I believe that's what I payed for my dead tree copy about two years ago.
High end seems to be about $60.

Far Trader starts at about $15 and goes to about $110.

Steep stuff! Meanwhile the price of digital copies just keeps going up & up. Makes me wonder if they should've just stuck with paper, save more cash in the long run.

[Blind Mapmaker]

Only just managed to get my hands on the core book, ISW, Psionic Institutes (hey it's the only other 4th Edition book), Far Trader, Starports, First In and to get a bit of a background Beyond the Claw, Rim of Fire and Sword Worlds. I didn't have much time to read yet, but I wanted to give a heads-up to anybody who's also thinking about buying what they can before the license lapses:

The quality of the books is great. Optical character recognition through and through for easy copying of sections you need in your personal files. Art is great by GURPS standards and mostly non-generic, though you might get sick of rendered spacecraft pictures. File size is mostly on the low side with old Core Book hitting the high mark just under 30 MB. Layout is crisp, clean and looks good to print in case you'll never track down that elusive dead-tree version. The whole set also came in just shy of $100, which is quite decent.

All-in-all, I'll probably get another book or three, with Ground Forces and the Alien books the most likely ones. Heck, maybe I'll buy the whole set. They're really nice.

[Refplace]

I picked up the Alien Books (only had time to read #4 so far) and Far Trader as I remember it fondly

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Drifter

Nobles is also a great, great book. Its assumption have been retconned by T5, but from my limited knowledge of T5 it looks like Nobles is a better take on the subject.

That one struck me as containing nothing useful at all. My recollection is it's a thorough documentation of a large number of extremely boring and un-distinctive people. Nor did it, as I recall it, contain any useful new rules, or new applications of old rules, or new character creation options. 128 pages of pure yawn.

I'd really like to hear why you and others find it at all worthwhile.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I picked up the Alien Books (only had time to read #4 so far) and Far Trader as I remember it fondly

The alien books and the Humaniti one are quite fun.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That one struck me as containing nothing useful at all. My recollection is it's a thorough documentation of a large number of extremely boring and un-distinctive people. Nor did it, as I recall it, contain any useful new rules, or new applications of old rules, or new character creation options. 128 pages of pure yawn.

I'd really like to hear why you and others find it at all worthwhile.

I have most of the physical books published for Gurps Traveller and that is one of the few books I made a conscious decision to not buy(along with the deck plans and Bounty Hunters), I leafed though it at the game store and though "why bother". Later I heard that a friend had bought it and I borrowed it for couple of days and did a read through and thought even more "really why bother". I cannot recall finding anything useful in that book.

(A lot later I bought bounty hunters, as the game store had it at -65% sale at some point.. still really not worth the price, but could not resist...)

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by weby

(A lot later I bought bounty hunters, as the game store had it at -65% sale at some point.. still really not worth the price, but could not resist...)

I bought a lot of GURPS Traveller books (and non-Traveller GURPS books) 6-7 years ago or so, when WH23 started giving a huge discount on 3rd Edition GURPS books, selling them for $10 each. I had already bought most of the ones I truly wanted, but went for a bunch more that sounded interesting at that newer lower price, including a lot of GURPS Traveller, and GURPS Atomic Horror and WWII: Weird War and Iron Cross.

All fun and worthwhile, more or less, at that price, except GT: Nobles and that "sector" book I purchased. Solomanni Rim or something. Reminded me of playing the Frontier computer game. A vast world full of boring ordinariness. Nothing that stands out (and very, very little information about the Solomanni themselves).

I can see why people who GM campaigns set in the Traveller universe finds the sector books useful, but I'd really like to hear an explanation from people who find GT: Nobles worthwhile. As I recall, it doesn't even spend 1/8 of a page talking about the customary attitude of the Imperial Nobility towards anagathics.

[Drifter]

Re: G:T Nobles

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That one struck me as containing nothing useful at all. My recollection is it's a thorough documentation of a large number of extremely boring and un-distinctive people. Nor did it, as I recall it, contain any useful new rules, or new applications of old rules, or new character creation options. 128 pages of pure yawn.

I'd really like to hear why you and others find it at all worthwhile.

One man's meat is another man's poison apparently.

Its not a rules book but a setting book, defining, for the first time, what nobles actually do in the Official Traveller setting. Who can boss around who, what sort of resources they might be expected to have, what a seneschal does. Sure, it does leave a lot of room for the GM, but its makes nobility into something more than the rich guy that you either get a job from or the rich guy that is making your life miserable.

The personalities, IMO, aren't award winning but not dull. And they give insights into how the 3I is run, as well as a megacorp (Tukera). Now a lot of this won't come into play if your characters are all tramp freighter hooligans, or a merc squad in some brushfire war. But the rules detail how to create noble characters and having some personalities described is essential, since its the noble's court you'll be doing your adventuring in.

All this said Marc Miller completely overwrote this book with the noble rules in T5. All the reviews I've read about the book, and the analysis of how those nobles rules work (*thinking of you up there Hans) makes me want to keep G:T Nobles as my default.

So you have today to buy the thing if you're sitting on the fence. I say buy it.