Freelance Traveller

Nov/Dec 2024	Department	Article Title	Author
	From the Editor		Jeff Zeitlin
	Featured Articles
	Raconteur’s Rest	After-Action Report:TravCon (UK) 2024	Timothy Collinson
		After-Action Report:TravellerCON/USA 2024	Jeff Zeitlin
	Critics’ Corner	Double Adventure 2: Across the Bright Face/Mission on Mithril	Paul Anuni
		Startown Liberty	Ewan Quibell
		Borderlands Adventure 1: Wreck in the Ring	“Pookie”
		Off the Table: The Raj Whitehall series	Jeff Zeitlin
	Raconteurs’ Rest	The Astoundingly True Tale of José Fabuloso [Chapter 12]	Jo Jaquinta
	Active Measures	Rescue in Chengdu	Antonio Guaras (Translated by Google Translate and Jeff Zeitlin)
		The Silver Panthers	Jo Jaquinta
	Multimedia Gallery	The Pirates of Drinax Graphic Stories #12A: Trouble Brewing	Joe Adams
	Columns	Confessions of a Newbie Referee: #73: Perhaps It’s Not Traveller After All	Timothy Collinson
	The Prep Room	Adding Cultural Flavor	Les Hendrix
	Other Roads	Travelling in the universe of Dumarest of Terra	Jeff Zeitlin
	Doing It My Way	Traveller: Child’s Play	Mark Graybill
	Up Close and Personal	Lyins Carlton	‘John Mitchell’

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

From the Editor

As the last issue of Freelance Traveller was “going to press”, we received word that Marc Miller had sold the rights to Traveller in all of its incarnations to Mongoose. I closed my last ‘half-page of blather’ with “(I have some thinking to do. Next issue, the blather in this space will be about the Mongoose acquisition of the Traveller IP.)”

First, I will say up front that it’s too early to arrive at a conclusive answer to the question “Is this good or bad?” – much too early. What’s been said officially by Marc and by Mongoose is mostly promising, but only time will tell whether promise will be reality. It’s also a complex question – what’s good for the game may or may not be good for the community may or may not be good for Mongoose as a corporation.

Looked at somewhat objectively… Traveller is racing toward 50, and Marc just turned 77. While it’s no longer astounding for someone to live a full century and have a mind that’s still in better shape than their body, it’s still not commonplace, and when part of the estate is Intellectual Property, there can be problems if one’s affairs are not properly wrapped up: adverse effects can turn out to spread far more widely than one might think – the death of Eric Flint led to problems for his family, for his publisher, and for some of the authors that wrote stories in a universe of his creation, all because of the uncertain state of the Intellectual Property involved. To have Traveller in limbo for years while similar problems were to be worked out would be a disservice to Mongoose and to the larger Traveller community. Thus, Marc’s agreement to transfer the Traveller IP to Mongoose is wise, as it leaves Traveller in a position where continuity of support can be assumed.

“Wise” does not necessarily mean “good”, however. A company may well be in a position to ensure that specific intellectual property would continue to be supported, but may not have an interest in actually doing so, beyond certain specific projects. This happened in Traveller’s history; one licensee was less interested in supporting Traveller as a game than they were in the potential they saw in it as a possible TV or movie property – and those of us who remember the T4 days know what the result of that was…

Currently, Mongoose is presenting as interested in continuing to support Traveller as a game, and keeping largely to Marc’s vision of it. Certainly, they have been supporting it extensively up to now, and (presumably) making a comfortable amount of revenue and profit from doing so. They have additionally offered routes by which fans and third-party companies can build on the Traveller rules, dating back even to the 1977 original GDW rules, and also on the Third Imperium setting. This speaks well to their assumed present intent, and there is no current reason not to take them at their word.

Ultimately, only time will tell. We are now only at the beginning of the next stage of Traveller’s journey, and while everyone has an idea of where it should be going, only Mongoose can decide on the direction, and even they can’t necessarily see the ultimate destination… yet. As the journey develops, some may like the direction, others not – and we are all free to choose whether or not to travel with Mongoose, or strike out on our own. For now, I, as editor of Freelance Traveller, have decided to stay on the path that Freelance Traveller has been on for thirty years, and continue to support Traveller in all of its forms.