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Sunday, September 7, 2014

An Indiegogo That Won't Liftoff - Traveller LIFTOFF RPG



I really enjoyed the heck out of Traveller back in it's early days. I started with the black box Starter Set and was soon anding booklets for all of the professions, adventures and more. My experience with Mongoose Traveller is limited, but it seems that for the most part, it stays true to the eraliest edition of Traveller.

When I stumbled across the Traveller LIFTOFF RPG site a few months ago, I was pretty excited that the German licensee of Traveller wanted to put out an accessible Starter Box for Mongoose Traveller. I figured if it ever came out, I'd be on it like a pig in mud.

Color me surprised when I saw there was an Traveller LIFTOFF Indiegogo project for said Starter Box. Fixed funding too, so if they don't reach their goal, they don't get your money. The way it should be.

Color me extremely disappointed when the mentioned goal was 100,000 euros (today that converts to $130,000 US). For Traveller. Seriously, it's a fine game but the following just isn't there. After a week they've raised less than 2,400 euros. With just over 3 weeks left to go, they'll be lucky to hit 10,000 euros. So yes, this project is not going to happen - at least not at this point in the game.

If this were to succeed, the boxed set would start at $65 US. Which seems like a lot for a game where you can get the digest sized rules for $20. There really doesn't seem to be enough added value in the box and certainly not enough to raise $130,000 to get this off the ground.
What happens if LIFTOFF doesn’t get funded? 
We do want to share our dream of introducing new and young players to Traveller, but at the same time we have to be realistic. So what happens, if we don’t reach our funding goal? Indiegogo will automatically return your investment. Of course it also means there won’t be a LIFTOFF box. 
However, we will keep the Players’ Handbook and the Referee’s Handbook as plain text documents available for download at 13Mann’s website. No further changes will be made to the documents though and there won’t be any illustrations or deckplans available.
If nothing else, the rules are free. Here's the link to the rules of the Traveller Boxed Set that will not happen.

7 comments:

  1. I told these guys that what Traveller really needs ist a ton of adventures. Easy rules? Traveller has them already.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Color me extremely disappointed when the mentioned goal was 100,000 euros (today that converts to $130,000 US). For Traveller. Seriously, it's a fine game but the following just isn't there."

    The following was there two years ago for T5, it raised over a quarter of a million dollars, which was in theory only going to be needed to print the game, as it have been 10 years in development and 2 or 3 years in playtest. And it was balls. I paid about 140 bucks,including postage to the UK for a fucking paperweight. Eighteen months after it's 'publication' Traveller's main forum is still propped up by a dozen die hard nutterbutters arguing over what they think major sections of the rules mean as written vs. what they think Mark was really trying to say. It's the most compellingly horrific thing in contemporary RPG design.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now, now, don't sell T5 short. You got an EXTREMELY heavy paperweight.

      Delete
    2. If you were sitting here right now I'd slap you upside the head with it, and that would be vehicular manslaughter.

      Delete
  3. why do they need $130,000.00? why not less, or more?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I own all the original Traveller books and they all work fine with eratta. For 65 bucks I could ebay the missing adventures and be complete.

    Traveller needs campaign and adventure support, as stated above, not new rulebooks.

    Also, aren't all the books available as pdfs for dirt cheap?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I saw this one too and I agree with the above that T5 is a mess. Mongoose Traveller though is solid and the core book is not terribly expensive. I just don't see a huge need out there for a starter box. Maybe a less ambitious "campaign set" focused on a region with some deckplans or maps but not a new player box.

    ReplyDelete

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