GURPS Aliens for GURPS Traveller?

[BeRKA]

What Aliens from GURPS Aliens would fit a in traveller setting? I haven't tried using any of them for traveller, since my games use the "canon" TU.

But if I would create an alternative universe, my guess is that the "An Phar" and the "Sparrials" would be the races that would fit best in a traveller like setting. What is Your opinion?

[toecutter169]

I don't have G:Aliens at the moment but I plan to use the Fantasy Beastiary for various creatures and stuff. Change the color and the basic look of the monster and suddenly a griffon becomes a pteradactyl-type hunter :)

Anyway, sorry I couldn't help but IMO if you're not going to stick with the TU canon (I don't plan to, since I'm new to the setting) I don't see why you can't introduce new minor races without upsetting anything very much.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by BeRKA

What Aliens from GURPS Aliens would fit a in traveller setting? I haven't tried using any of them for traveller, since my games use the "canon" TU.

But if I would create an alternative universe, my guess is that the "An Phar" and the "Sparrials" would be the races that would fit best in a traveller like setting. What is Your opinion?

I think most of the races in Aliens could be used in a GT campaign without too much trouble. The biggest problems would come from the telepathic races (Banduch, Kronin), which would either have to be NEW races of have some handwave why they haven't been amber zoned. The Verm and Riders would certainly make intersting campaign villian races for the PCs to discover. Some of the others would be far more interesting, and fit far better, if you roll back their appearance to being at the early stages or even first contact.

The biggest problem you'll likely have is that the errata for them runs about 10 foot deep, and I believe is not all listed anyway. Somewhere I have an HTML file which contains all the packages updated properly. The other option is to check out GCA, which has the corrected packages.

[Mark Caliber]

Good Gravy, it's been a while since I've parused my GURPS: Aliens.

But from what I know, there's little to discriminate from GURPS: Aliens. GURPS: Traveller is indeed supposed to have thousands of sub races which are intermixed with the Imperium. The Kronin would actually work well as a servant race of the Hivers, for instance. But some of the psi's could actually be embeded no deeper than even the Droyne. And on the other side of the Imperium, psi based aliens could be useful servants of the Zhodani, especially the "Chrystal Computers." Indeed, if you take a look at the Traveller Alien's races, there are some really bizarre and wierd concepts out there that make anything in the GURPS: Aliens book look tame.

[Paul Drye]

Any of the aliens in G:A are useable, but you're risking breaking the feel of the setting with most of them.

Space opera has a range of realism across which it lies, with Flash Gordon on one end and Larry Niven's Known Space towards the other. I usually run it out like this:

Flash! AAAAaaaa! - Star Wars - Star Trek - Traveller - Known Space

Traveller is more space and less opera, if you know what I mean, while G:A slots in somewhere around Star Wars and even towards Flash Gordon. Basically, most of the G:A races are fairly silly if you aim much science at them; the Memer and Saret are really the only ones that would fit Traveller's world view.

A lot of the new races introduced in the GT:AR series have the same problem.

[Bandii]

The only ones that definitely wouldn't work would be:

The Auroras (powerful enigmatic energy beings aren't a big part of Traveller)
The Engai (powerful enigmatic space eleves are even less so)
The Mmm (the 3I would Red Zone this planet so fast it wouldn't be funny)
The Verm (possible, but a messy fit)
The Glowworms (just silly)
The Xenomorphs (if you really need shapeshifters, use the Hiders from Shapeshifters)

Ones that would need changing:

The Banduch and the Kronin (telepathic races aren't that common, apparently)

Ones I'd personally hesitate to use:

The Kaa (Too Ming the Merciless for my taste)
The Cidi (Too small and annoying)
The Purulu (Traveller has WAY too many squid races already, and they all suck, one more won't help)
The Jaril (Too stupid looking)

Ones I'd use, but change:

The Riders (possibly as the Dark Riders from Creatures of the Night)
Liook Sujan (suddenly zen style rock gardens become REALLY popular at Zhodani embassies)
Crystal Computers (Can you say Virus? Sure you can.)
The Markann (A great alternative enemy to unite everybody)

The Rest:
The An Phar
The Memer & Saret
The Irari
The Gerodians (a possibly alternative human sub-species)
The Pachekki
The Fasanni
The Tamile

-Mike

[Paul Drye]

Originally Posted by Bandii

The Purulu (Traveller has WAY too many squid races already, and they all suck, one more won't help)

They also exist anyway, right down to the personality, in the Solomani Rim. Compare and contrast the Purulu with the, um, the wassernames, the squiddy things in Rim of Fire.

The Markann (A great alternative enemy to unite everybody)

These guys are OK, but their racial insanity is a bit over the top. Tone it down a bit and they'd be good.

The Tamile

I forgot about these ones. They'd work alright, but "innocent race of artists" is a bit of a cliché. I'm almost instantly leery when an entire race's personality can be described in less than one sentence.

[Galifestus]

Originally Posted by Bandii

The only ones that definitely wouldn't work would be:

The Verm (possible, but a messy fit)
-Mike

That's the whole point of the Verm. Of course the Verm are there as a stand in and retake of the critters in the Alien movies, I think. A little cooler, too, since they don't need as many hosts to breed.

And Cidi are NOT "small and annoying." -coutesy of the Cidi Defense Legue