On Blogs

Just a short note about blogging in general, and who I've linked to over in that side bar.

Web logging, or blogs, are a public facing diary of sorts, at least in my case. While there are all sorts of inspirational, educational and other sorts of blogs, I feel they are more of a shout out to the world that I am doing something that I think others may find interesting. Way back when Google+ was a thing I'd occasionally post my blog there and generally got a favorable and honestly a feel good from the community at large - it was almost addictive.

Anyway, I don't read many blogs honestly, and this one, which started out to track any software I was writing for Traveller, has ended up to include game recaps and game resources for the games I am running. While I could have another blog, I think I', okay with things like this though I may want to change the sub-title of the blog :)

Anyways, over on the right is the list of sites I do go to on occasion. In the alphabetical order they are:

Another Traveller Blog a really fantastic source from an architect that loves Traveller. The geomorphs book PDF I use all the time to craft buildings mostly but also ships and stations. Plu she has really nice ship plans with clean lines that just yell Traveller to me.

Behind The Claw is actually a podcast of a Traveller game. I'll admit I've only listened to part of one so far, but I would like to hear how other people run games. While my players indicate they do enjoy my games, I feel I could do a lot better.

Far Future Enterprises is Marc Miller's home for FFE stuff. We'll just say it is as retro as the original Classic Traveller. He does have a more modern site as well but this one seems to be easier to get around in. Though it does open a new tab on every link. And it is where to get Traveller 5. While I still don't think there is an actual game in there, there are some amazing toolkits that I use to bolt on some extra-crunch. Not that my players really care about crunch sadly.

Mongoose Publishing of course goes to Mongoose's home page. While I do like parts of their take on Traveller, I do not like what they've done to deck plans as they are unusable and nor do I like what I think is the more British way-out-there-hey-this-could-be-like-Warhammer approach. As a personal opinion, they are more miss than hit to me.

My Traveller Universe is a seldom updated blog of a real Traveler - that guys has been all over. He has some really interesting ideas about Traveller, and apparently is into props at least as much as I am. He has not posted in a while there or on COTI, and I hope all is well.

Shawn Driscoll's Traveller Blog is of course by Shawn Driscoll. He does a lot of podcasts that I have not listened to much, and does some amazing 3D works. He has different ideas about some things than I do, and often comes off as very curt or even rude, but that may just be how he is. And the world needs different views.

Sprigg's Scibblings I've just added. He is doing a page by page read & review of classic Traveller '77. I've got the '81 version I think from the Deluxe Boxed Edition (the box is barely there now). It is cool to hear his view of things, not yet being a Traveller player.  Makes me want to run a Classic game again.

The Frank GM is not a Traveller-specific blog. It is more a GM reference and aid to help GMs play better. I just need to read and apply more of the stuff I read.

Trannstar News Network is another Traveller blog with some interesting house rules and musings. I believe I found this originally via the COTI starport, a listing of web sites for Traveller. Huh - wonder if I should ask the mods to add me? though my blog is not 100% Traveller.

Traveller Advetnures seems like it is a guy like me: gets to play sporadically and likes to play with Traveller. He is also doing a solo adventure, which reminds me that I need to restart that sometime. Plus apparently I am linked on his blog - whenever I find that, I add their link as well to my blog. Back to the web rings!

Traveller Jim seemes to have a lot of Traveller equipment and stuff, though now that I am looking at it, my link is actually broken and he has a post from a few years in the future! But he seems to be a crunchy player. I'd really like to know how well that translates into game play.

TravellerRPG is COTI, Citizens of the Imperium. I actually pay a bit each year for this amazing resource. Though the software behind the site is creaking badly, and it is not always as vibrant and active as it was, there are still so many great conversations there.

Zhodani Base is another great resource as well as a link to other great resources. THey are a lot more active than I am with Traveller. Lots of free stuff, rules, ideas and images. I am a sucker for good deck plans.

One site I've not added but will is the Traveller Map. That is such an amazing site I could spend way too much time in there! Plus he has easy to use APIs - all my stellar maps come from there as I can import my own sector data to generate the classic looking maps. I will probably add it as it is such a cool thing - Imperial Maps. I've even done the jump route between systems to generate handouts for players indicating the shortest J2 route between systems. So much coolenss!