Freelance Traveller

March 2012	Department	Article Title	Author
	From the Editor		Jeff Zeitlin
	Featured Article
	Active Measures	Festival	Richard Morey
	Critics’ Corner	Starfarer’s Gazette #1	“kafka”
		Mongoose Traveller: The Third Imperium: Reft Sector	Harry Bryan
		Off the Table: Voyage of the Planetslayer	Shannon Appelcline
		Off the Table: The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, Volume 1	Shannon Appelcline
	Raconteurs’ Rest	Drop Out (Part 14)	Ken Murphy
	Up Close and Personal	Bam Ashish	Sam Swindell
	In A Store Near You	The Showroom: Wayfarer-class Double-Deck Bus	Timothy Collinson
		The Showroom: Penny-Farthing Bicycle	Ewan Quibell
	Kurishdam	At Home, We Do It Like This: Slice of Life: Living Space in the 30th Century	Mike Cross

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The articles listed and linked above are also linked in their appropriate sections of our website.

From the Editor

Last month, we asked people to look at the list of Traveller vendors that we’d found mentioned, and provide us with pointers to product lists or contact information. In reviewing the list—not even considering any information that we may have collected—your editor was struck by the number of companies that have put out at least one product for Traveller in this current era of Mongoose Publishing as the primary licensee. Even if some of these companies turn out to be “one hit wonders”, it still speaks volumes to the perception of Traveller as a viable property, even after thirty-plus years.

At the same time, we’re seeing very high levels of activity in the fan community—fanzines, fans writing for JTAS and Signs and Portents, posts of adventures, characters, house rules, and so on to the forums at Mongoose, SJGames, and Citizens of the Imperium—which tends to reinforce the perception of Traveller as not only a viable property, but an actively-supported one.

Traveller has undergone many changes characterized as ‘fundamental’ over the years, through at least six official versions, but it is (in the opinion of the Editor) only with GURPS Traveller and Mongoose Traveller that we have seen changes that actually realized the potential that the Traveller community has said they’ve seen for most of the thirty-plus years that there has been a Traveller: Bringing Traveller to GURPS made it truly possible and easy to move out of the “crunchy space opera” genre that previously defined Traveller, into mixed-genre SF gaming, and Mongoose Traveller has taken the next step, and converted several well-known SF properties to their version of the Traveller system, with others to come.

All that, as well, speaks to the viability of Traveller. But that’s just the fact of the viability. None of that explains the reason for Traveller’s enduring popularity. Your editor has his own theories. Perhaps next month, or the month after, he’ll use this little pulpit to expound on them. But for now… no. Instead, we’ll pose a question: Why do you, the Freelance Traveller reader, think that Traveller has remained popular? We’d like you to write to us (use the main editorial address or the feedback address) and tell us your thoughts. We’ll print those that we feel are the clearest at expressing the thoughts behind them.