Traveller Kickstarters

I finally got the Traveller 5.10 books, and it is even signed. The cards may have some use if I ever get to an actual T5 game which really seems unlikely. I still have to read over the books at some point. They do come in a really nice slipcase. I did read over part of the combat, and it does seem significantly improved in explaining it than the original and T5.09 versions. I am still a bit confused over character generation and that has always been one of my favorite parts of Traveller. The knowledges and skills I think I can get with a bit more playing around. Just seems a little too much detail perhaps. But skills and knowledges play a more critical part in some of the dice rolls. And like Shadowrun, this is a dice pool game. Not sure I really like that as much fun as it is rolling a handful of dice on the table. But then I have to count things....

It also came in with ship cards that can be used for a ships crew. So now I have the No Refunds crew sort of there, or at least the captain. They are pretty nice as well, but I can actually do better if I need to - last game the players really seemed to like the player cards I made for them.

So in the end: was it worth $150? As a completionist, I would say yes. As a gamer with an low chance of actually playing T5, probably not. I will still mine the game for various things: the combat has some interesting ideas about range and size of the target. A lot less abstract than Classic, so I may yet come to some sort of combat system I actually like in Traveller by combining bits and pieces. I may have to come up with that by early next year as we've another game I'll be refereeing. Still need to find a good starting place.

There is another Mongoose Kickstarter, a large campaign that would take at least a decade of game time. It combines elements of the Great Rift and the Elemental Cruisers. I've decided to actually forgo this one, as much as I would like it. Again - my gaming group would never finish it, I probably will not be able to find another group of people to play face to face and that's where the physical stuff comes in handy (if I back something, I back pretty high to get as much as possible! Give me PDFs and game books!)  While parts of it do look interesting, it is still a campaign which requires a certain amount of railroading despite Mongoose saying it does not (I've got a few of their adventures, and they all require some sort of railroading to get to the end. Guess I am much more a sandbox player). Looking at it from a resource viewpoint, I can see, as with Traveller 5.10, parts would be useful. But the whole of it I just won't use. Plus they want close to $60 just for some pads of paper, pencils and dice. And a patch....seems a bit high for me as much as I would like the patch (to go with the 20+ other patches from various Kickstarters that have rarely seen the outside of the envelope they are in!)

So perhaps I am learning some moderation. Or perhaps it is due to the $350 I just spent on Reaper Bones, which I won't even see until April 2021! And my guess is that I'll be adding more throughout the pledge manager. While I won't collect ALL the dragons, I will get at least 2. I mean, really nicely sculpted dragons of a good size to tower over the adventurers!