Freelance Traveller

Mongoose Traveller Adventure 1 - Beltstrike

reviewed by Jeff Zeitlin

Traveller Adventure 1 - Beltstrike. Lawrence Whittaker
Mongoose Publishing http://www.mongoosepublishing.com
96pp, softcover
UK£15.00/US$24.95

Mongoose Publishing's first adventure  for their Traveller line covers the Belter career, equipment, environment, and an entire campaign arc with several different adventures.

On the Shelf

Mongoose slipped up here; the Traveller logo in the center of the black cover is a dark blue, and easily gets "lost", reducing product visibility and identification. A lighter blue, perhaps verging on cyan, would have been better. The tag line for this book is "Face the Sonares Frontier".

Initial Impressions

The book is well-organized, providing a view of the asteroid belt environment and basic belt prospecting rules, followed by character generation for Belters, followed by a Belter-specific equipment list. After this basic information is presented, the remainder of the book (60 pages) is the campaign material, starting with an overview of the star system, and running through a series of adventures that is very Belter-centric, but still provides room for almost all styles of play.

On Closer Inspection

The Belter career as presented here is only as detailed as the careers from the core rules, not the expanded career generation of Mercenary or High Guard. This isn't to say that it's inadequate to the needs of the remainder of the material presented in this book, but if your expectations have been shaped by Mercenary and High Guard, it is something of a letdown. The remainder of the book presents a wealth of information on the structure of a belt and how to prospect in it, on Belter equipment and maintenance, and profiles and deckplans for two ships, a Seeker singleship and a bulk ore processor. The campaign starts with extensive background material on the Sonares star system, and proceeds through several scenarios offering risk, reward, and interest to the campaign party. Taken in sequence, the campaign party can end up seeing a project through from beginning to end, but each scenario can also stand alone, and does not depend on the campaign party having been the ones to complete prior scenaria.

It should be noted that beyond the name and general subject matter, there is very little similarity between this adventure and the Classic Traveller Adventure Module of the same name.

Summary

Overall, a good product, though if your expectations for the Belter career were shaped by the expanded careers of Mercenary and High Guard, you'll come away somewhat disappointed.