GURPS Space campaign setting

[MrId]

I love Far Trader. If your campaign requires a detailed interstellar economy, get this book, learn the basics, and modify it for your setting. It's much more involved than the economics section of GURPS Space. I think it was the first Traveller book I bought and I have never regretted purchasing it.

First In is a bit more complicated. It describes the IISS, and has some ships, but much of the book is taken up by the Star System generation, uh, system. In fact, the chapters Stars, Worlds, and Cultures run to about 75 pages, and much of that is reproduced in the new GURPS space. Its a good book, but unless you're planning on running a Traveller IISS campaign, I'd think about what else you could get for the same money.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Open question:
Which GURPS Traveller supplements [other than the Aliens books] would be most useful to me as worldbuilding tools/generic material? I was thinking Far Trader or First In might be worth buying, since my campaign will be focused on merchants and explorers. Does anyone have an opinion of how useful these books would be in developing a non-Traveller Gurps Space campaign [as opposed to using them for running campaigns in the OTU]?

I agree with your first responder about First In. What isn't redundant with the new Space is pretty Traveller-specific.

Far Trader is trickier. It's definitely scientific and valid for settings with significant amounts of ship traffic (nearing modern Earth levels ofd ocean traffic). However, I ran a couple of Space camapigns where theassumption was that Frontier worlds saw a Free Trader about once every 6 weeks and the trade system didn't work under that assumption.

Nothing else leaps to mind. The "stellar geography" books are very Traveller specific of course.

Fred Brackin

[combatmedic]

Hmmmm... I think I'll hold off on First In. Sounds like I don't really need it. Far Trader might be useful. I'll wait for it to come out in PDF form, then I'll think about buying it.

Any thoughts on Starships or Starports?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Hmmmm... I think I'll hold off on First In. Sounds like I don't really need it. Far Trader might be useful. I'll wait for it to come out in PDF form, then I'll think about buying it.

Any thoughts on Starships or Starports?

Starships is pretty much no. That's the master book for building ships in the GT universe. Very gearhead-crunchy and GT-specific. Only a little about general Starship operations and some of that's GT-specific.

Starports is more general but still fairly Traveller-specific with a lot about Imperial regulations and such.

Almost any of this stuff (even the very GT-centric) is still a good bargain if it's available at the W23 discount prices that I've seen for 3e stuff but much of it won't be easily transportable to other Space settings.

Fred Brackin

[Bandii]

I would recommend Far Trader and Starports as the two books; as others have said, First in doesn't do much that Space doesn't cover.

[combatmedic]

Anybody have an opinion on the following books?

GURPS Space Bestiary
GURPS Space Adventures
Unnight
Stardemon

[Bandii]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Anybody have an opinion on the following books?

GURPS Space Bestiary
GURPS Space Adventures
Unnight
Stardemon

Space Bestiary has really limited utility; most of the stuff seems like it came right out of early 1970's Science Fiction. I'd recommend the series of articles from JTAS "Restricted Animals" I believe. I've converted a few to 4e on my web site; but most aren't worth it.

Space Adventures, Unnight and Stardemon haven't been any use to me at all.

I've gotten some minor use from the Space Atlases, but not much.

I'd recommend the Traveller Alien Races series; maybe even Planet of Adventure which at least had some interesting aliens.

Best.

-Mike

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Bandii

Space Bestiary has really limited utility; most of the stuff seems like it came right out of early 1970's Science Fiction.
I'd recommend the Traveller Alien Races series; maybe even Planet of Adventure which at least had some interesting aliens.

Of course, the aliens in PoA come straight out of _60s_ Scince Fiction. <big silly grin> Okay, so it was _good_ 60s sF.

Of the Traveller Alien Races series you might want to skip the first one. It concentrates on the Zhodani (psionic humans) and the Vargr (uplifted Terran wolves).

The Vargr might not _really_ count as "furries". There's a lot about a society based on potentially rapidly shifting pack dominance politics that's pretty seriously done and rather "alien" compared to bad Star Trek epsiodes. I believe there are also short sections on 2 minor races.

That's common for the series. Most of the books have big sections on 2 of the Traveller settings Major races filled out with 2 or more of the minor races from their sphere of influence.

Let's see, AR2 seems to be out of stock but that was the Aslan and K"Kree. Aslan socity is worked out in interesting detail but they might look like "lion-men" to some. It's just hard to use the K'Kree in a campaign unless you want to explore themes of "genocide as self-defense" ("They started it!").

AR3 is in stock and the Hivers are interesting. The Droyne not so much for non-Trav settings.

AR4 is a smorgasboard of nothing but Minor Races.

Humaniti is all about variant humans.

Fred Brackin

[combatmedic]

I have all four Space Atlases. I will be using them in a modular fashion, cherry picking indivdual worlds.

[combatmedic]

I just downloaded ISW. I'll only use part of the book, obviously. Still, it has a couple of species, several ships, basic trade rules, and some other stuff I can use.

Looking over the Vegans, I find I rather like them. They are humanoids, but definitely not very humanlike in physiology. I will probably include them.