Freelance Traveller

May 2013	Department	Article Title	Author
	From the Editor		Jeff Zeitlin
	Featured Article
	Active Measures	Vlezhdiets	Michael Brown
	Critics' Corner	Mongoose Traveller Adventure 1: Beltstrike	Jeff Zeitlin
		Ancient Trails: Witness to History	“kafka”
		Nemesis-class Pursuit Ship	Jeff Zeitlin
		Other People's Toys: Stars Without Number	“kafka”
	In A Store Near You	NHR 2000 Sensor Drone Robot	Ewan Quibell
	Less Dangerous Game	Marsh Animals	Scott Diamond
	Raconteurs' Rest	Funny Fish: For Luck (Part 2)	Andrea Vallance
	Doing It My Way	Extending the UWP: Starports	Jeff Zeitlin
	The Shipyard	MegaTraveller Designs: Schwartz-class Modular Spaceship and Modules	Ewan Quibell
	Active Measures	Getting Off the Ground: Amber Tours, Ltd.	Colin Michael
	Kurishdam	At Home, We Do It Like This: Slice of Life: Technology's Effects on the 30th Century Family	Mike Cross

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From the Editor

Why do Traveller and similar games (e.g., Stars Without Number or Diaspora) hold our interest? What keeps us coming back for more, even after a generation? Recently, I (re)read a novel—science fiction, specifically the Star Trek novel, Prime Directive—and I think the authors, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, hit on the answer: Le rêve d’étoiles, the dream of stars.

The general perception of the role-playing game is that it’s a hobby for “kids”—usually implying people of … limited … maturity. Certainly, the Traveller community has such people in it. But, somehow, it seems like a major part of the community’s membership is drawn from older people, people whose children are at the age when they’re starting to think about college, and perhaps themselves getting into gaming. People who grew up in a period when hope was starting to turn into cynicism, but the hope was still there. A period when manned space exploration was still a dream that looked like it would continue to happen. And we wanted to be part of it. Some of us—perhaps most of us—still do, though we’re mostly resigned to it not being in our lifetimes.

In a way, that’s what Traveller is all about. Yes, we fight wars, deal in political intrigue, make our fortunes as merchants, and so on, but we could do that here on Terra, and we could play our games set on Terra, past, present, future, or parallel-world. But we don’t; we play Traveller instead. Because underneath it all, it’s the dream of stars, of being out there or going there, regardless of what we’re doing.

And perhaps it’s also about keeping le rêve d’étoiles alive, refusing to give up that hope.

Do you think I’m right? Do you think there’s another reason? Please write and share your thoughts.