[Fanzine Focus XLIII] The Travellers’ Digest Number 10

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure, in the case of this issue, The Travellers’ Digest Number 9, that would only be Book 8, Robots. For ‘Reference Point’, the tenth part of ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will also want access to The Travellers’ Digest Number 8 and The Travellers’ Digest Number 9 for the subsector maps that appear in those issues. CHALLENGE Magazine No. 27 will also be useful. Of course, that was in 1987, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created using the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 was published in 1987. One major change announced in the editorial is the magazine will no longer print the Universal Task Profile. In past issues, this has explained the mechanical format used in The Travellers’ Digest, but with the publication of and its application in MegaTraveller, it seems redundant. This gives the magazine two extra pages to play with! In previous issue, The Travellers’ Digest Number 9, and ninth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ brought the Travellers to Capital, the heart of the Third Imperium, and the Emperor’s court at ‘Before the Iridium Throne’. When ‘Reference Point’, the tenth part by Gary L. Thomas, opens, the Travellers found themselves with a problem. To get to Capital, the four Travellers were granted Imperial space-required travel vouchers. However, the Emperor’s largesse does not run in the opposite direction. Thus, they find themselves on Capital, the core of the Third Imperium, with nowhere to go and now way of paying for it! Fortunately, three of the four have transferable skills aboard ship and the other is a member of the Traveller’s Aid Society and so can begin make their way. They decide to see more of the Third Imperium and head Rimward towards Sol in the Solomani Sphere.

This is fun set-up, shifting the adventurers of the Travellers into something that is more peripatetic and more like a classic Traveller campaign. In ‘Reference Point’, the Travellers find themselves husbanding a difficult species from one zoo to another, pulling a few strings based on their various reputations, and so on, until they receive a message from Eneri Balan, who had been the protocol assigned to them on Capital. He has a task for them that he can pass on from the Moot, the primary deliberative assembly of the Third Imperium, composed of all nobles holding the rank of Baron or higher. The Baron of Wolton holds his patent on Kigaru in the Ilelish subsector, but it was destroyed along with other records in a fire. Fortunately, copies of all such records are held in the computers on the Scout Base underground on the world of Reference. Here, the records of the Third Imperium go all the way back to the First Imperial Grand Survey and the Second Imperial Grand Survey. Unfortunately, when copies of the records about Kigaru were returned, there was no mention of his barony and it was in fact, public property. This effectively strips him of his title, so he sought help from the Moot. The Travellers are to travel to Reference and investigate this discrepancy, as two of their number are computer specialists. Besides investigating this problem, the Travellers’ arrival on Reference will trigger another couple of plots, which though small, are quite interesting. The Referee will develop some of the NPCs and scenes in the mini-adventures that the Travellers will encounter and so bring them to life, ‘Reference Point’ serves up a thoroughly enjoyable slice of life with small stories that push the Travellers onwards on ‘The Grand Tour’.

‘Reference Point’ is followed by a second adventure, ‘Plague of Perruques’. This is by Gary L. Thomas and Marc W. Miller and is set in the Regina Subsector following the end of the Fifth Frontier War. The party, led by Baron Ganidiirsi hault-Reitan, are touring his holdings, surveying them for damage, when he has arranged a hunting trip for the Rebacked Slonth on Uakye in Regina Subsector. The scenario is divided into two parts. In the first half, the Player Characters go hunting, but in the second, they return to the capital to discover that a strange and unfortunately deadly plague has broken out. Its symptoms include grey fibres appearing at the roots of suffers’ hair and covering the skull in a few days, followed by a film growing over the eyes, leading to blindness and fever. It kills half of its sufferers. This is an investigative scenario in which the Player Characters need to travel to various locations, sifting rumour from fact. It is challenging and needs some set-up by the Referee to ensure that the players have some pointers to get started, but this is a solid scenario, and like ‘Reference Point’ before it, has its world data presented in same format as for The Grand Survey. Task details are provided for the hunting half of the scenario, and whilst the scenario was originally written as a tournament scenario, it does not come with any pre-generated Player Characters.

The ‘Library Data of the Core Sector’ is surprisingly extensive, paying particular attention to Cadlion and Chant Subsectors which are also detailed, compete with maps. There is a lot of detail here, and some of the entries are marked with Referee suggestions for their use. The ‘Playing the Characters’ series comes to close with an examination of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist whose Travellers’ Digest Touring Award at the start of ‘The Grand Tour’ sets the campaign off. This is useful, more so if the Referee is starting the campaign from the start. The ‘Traveller Q & A’ provides answers to the readers’ questions. These include a very detailed explanation of what MegaTraveller and Traveller: 2300 are and what the differences are between (and the original Traveller); why nobles are actually banned from taking anagathic treatments (useful in conjunction with the later article in the magazine); the stats for the Princes Lucan and Varian, and Margaret, Grand Duchess of Delphi; and much more. Some of the information here is quite technical, entirely in keeping with Traveller as a roleplaying game.

This is followed by a series of departments, old and new. For the ‘Tech Briefs’ department, any player of Akidda Laagiir will be pleased to see that the device detailed is ‘Holorecorders’. This is a recording and playback device as well as an editing suite using holocrystals. It is a highly detailed description and also suggests other applications too, such as holographic recording robots for hazardous environments, medical imaging, police crime scene recording, and more. The next department is ‘The Gaming Digest—Referee’s Tips—Part 1’ for which Gary L. Thomas explores ‘More Effective Roleplaying’. He observes that the quality of roleplaying varies wildly, especially in Traveller, but points out that actually roleplaying is a skill and can be made better with practice. This is a surprisingly deep examination of roleplaying, exploring the differences between character and player, the limitations of player knowledge in what they know and do not know, tailoring content to players’ interests, and more. The article is aimed at both the player and the Referee and is actually informative and useful, possibly more so when the issue of the magazine was published.

‘Anagathics, the Drug of the Ages’ by Joe D. Fugate Sr. examines the development of the anti-ageing drugs and how they are obtained, what their possible side effects are, and more. Anti-ageing treatment becomes available at Tech Level 12 and rules are provided for this, and then again at subsequent Tech Levels up to 15. There are fewer side-effects as the science advances, but the article also examines what happens if a Player Character takes a break between treatments or runs out and suffers withdrawal symptoms. However, the article is more technical than social, so the social consequences are not explored, which is a pity. Otherwise, this comprehensive guide and useful should players have their character seek out anagathics. ‘Statistics From the Second Imperial Grand Survey’ brings the support for Traveller in the issue to a close. It consists mostly of numbers so is not that interesting.

The last few pages of The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 are devoted to Traveller: 2300. First, William Connors describes ‘Pentapod Constructs for 2300’, a number of biological devices available on the open market from the alien species. They include a ‘Breather’, a lifeform that when worn enables the user to breathe freely underwater (the lifeform does look like a Facehugger though…); the ‘Hibernation Inducer’, a black blob that when placed on the back of an injured person induces unconsciousness and a greatly lowered metabolism to enable the person to be transported to medical safety; and ‘Atmospheric Filter Symbiots’, tiny creatures that can be injected into the lungs to filter out trace elements that would normally harm the host. The ‘Briefcase Library for 2300’ by Robert Parker describes a briefcase-sized device that uses optical storage drives to store vast amounts of information suitable for personal use and transportation to the frontier. Of course, it looks vastly outdated by modern standards, being the equivalent of the modern laptop. Nancy Parker gives a very detailed breakdown of the ‘Medical Kit for 2300’, detailing what medical kit contains and must be carried by vehicles with a passenger capacity of thirty or more and also by emergency workers. Lastly, Robert Parker also describes ‘The Life Foundation “Squid” for 2300’, a relatively cheap and easily customisable submersible for frontier use. Unfortunately, there are no technical details or deck plans, but otherwise, this is a nice description.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 continues the physical improvement begun in the previous issue. The artwork is improved too and overall, this is a much more professional looking issue.

After the tumultuous events explored in The Travellers’ Digest Number 9 with the assassination of Emperor Strephon, The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 settles down and concerns itself with providing solidly gameable support for both MegaTraveller and Traveller: 2300. The scenarios in the issue are good, ‘Reference Point’, the tenth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ is really quite enjoyable. The Travellers’ Digest Number 10 is simply a good issue with good support for both roleplaying games from Game Designers’ Workshop.