The Spinward Main

Our Traveller games have been on hiatus now since early June. I really miss them but I realize now it was time for a break. I had been Refereeing Traveller as much as 4 times a month for some time now and as much as I love the game I realize I was getting burned out quickly. The down side to all of this is that when the burnout hit home it came just as I was getting this site up and rolling.

So I am sure it hasn’t went without notice that there is much left uncompleted. Most recent and likely most noticeable are the rest of the “Tales of the Astral Veil” entries that were promised. I again apologize for not posting the rest of the stories. I would go into horrid detail of all that is happening here as of late but I won’t bore you with detail. Besides most of what one needs to know can be found in the NEWS-UPDATES Section All I can say for sure is that I have no idea when I will finish the stories and get them posted nor do I know when I will start uploading more files. But I have finally tracked down ALL the versions of Heaven & Earth as well as its predecessor World Builder Deluxe. So if anyone is looking for a specific version or update you can’t find, email me and I can set you up.

Another serious distraction from Traveller has been my reentry into fantasy role playing games. I stepped away from the frpg scene a number of years ago due to severe burnout. My current burnout is mild compared to the frpg and fantasy genre (in general) burnout I suffered.

I began playing RPGs in 1976. Technically it was really 1979 since I only played a few games a year prior to that. I was still a die hard cardboard chit pusher and sandbox nerd and spent most of my time playing with my toy soldiers and model building. But three games caught my attention and changed my gaming life forever - not to mention my reading hobby. The first was a little game book called Chainmail. We had played all sorts of historical miniature battles and aside from WWII and the American Civil War my most favorite era was bronze age to middle ages. So Chainmail caught my eye right out of the box, then finding that you could add fantasy beasties to your game - well being an early fan of Howard, this was just too cool.

Of course Chainmail lead me to my first little brown book set of Original Dungeons and Dragons, which we played more like a medieval miniatures battle game than a role playing game. That of course lead me to the Strategic Review magazine and then to The Dragon when the title changed. Within those pages I truly learned the difference between miniature play and role playing. Of course there was much (more really) learned at the game table when I met my first real Dungeon Master. But another neat game that caught my eye from within the pages of SR or TD (can’t recall which now) came in a little black box with the name Traveller in a bold cool as heck font across the front. Soon we were travelling the byways of the Spinward Main or trying to fit into the long set in its ways Solomani RIm. Soon pushing cardboard chits around a map or playing with toy soldiers became something that I only did on occasion. Playing D&D and Traveller took up all of my reserve free time. The rest of it was spent delving into new unexplored science fiction worlds. I increased my study (read time) of the Fantastical and fantasy worlds as well. Soon I was reading Leiber, Zelazny, Wells, and Verne - as many of the great Sci-Fi writers as I could find as well. It was a long way from Ryan’s the Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far or the great treatises on the Civil War. Of course most of the Mid-East conflicts had just happened and were still happening. Simulations of those actions and the great books of that history was still to come.

What I found though, that as much as I loved this science fiction, the harder the better - I never was one for much space opera, that fantasy completely grabbed me. Sure I loved Howard but this Leiber guy was excellent, then more and more writers and titles were devoured. I then heard about these F&SF Conventions. I attended my first in 1979 I soon found myself in the hallowed halls of GenCon and meeting this former shoe repairman turned game designer named Gygax. There I also met the man who would later become my college advisor, Martin Campion - a war game developer, doctor of history, and one of the most ruthless game players I have ever known. My interaction with Campion was only brief back then but not so with Gygax. I played in one of his D&D games. I even got to play in a game with him as a player. He was so much younger then - as was I - but he did not hold it against me. It is my regret that I never made the effort to game with him and chat with him more over the years. But the times I did, the experience and what I learned made my head swim at times. It has taken me years to fully understand it all.

Of course Gygax was not a god but he had a type of vision that I have only ever seen in a handful of people. One of those that has a vision that is close to the level of the greats that I have met, even though he would fully deny it - as would they all- is Matt Finch. I blame Matt for the bulk of my distraction as of late as well as nudging along my short term Sci-Fi and Traveller burn out. Matt, by his own admission and doctors diagnosis gets in very manic states from his bi-polar problems. The last time Matt went manic in a good way he developed OSRIC. OSRIC is the Open Game License restatement of first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Recently he is working on Swords & Wizardry, the OGL restatement of Original (little white box) Dungeons & Dragons. He his releasing two versions. The first version will be the “White Box” rules plus the supplements. This will open the doors for writers and publishers as well as DMs to develop, publish, and sell modules, supplements, and whatever that will be 100% compatible with every D&D game from the original edition to 3.5 D&D. What makes it so versatile, or as he calls it, “the Rosetta Stone of Fantasy Role Playing”, is that the system is so rules lite that anything written for Swords & Wizardry will work for any edition of D&D in or out of print.

So how does this play into my distraction from this site? Well, Matt is also putting out a version that is solely based on the first three little brown books, Men and Magic, Monsters and Treasure, Underworld and Wilderness Adventures. This is the OD&D I grew up with. This Swords & Wizardry - White Box Edition is what Matt calls, “the imagine the hell out of it” version. This is the OD&D version that spawned Empire of the Petal Thrown, and The Arduin Grimoire. Matt graciously included me on the ground floor of development of S&W and has asked me to do even more work on the “White Box” edition. So much of my time, as my health permits, has been spent working on S&W. So that is where I have been and what I have been doing instead of what I had said I would be doing here in my website.

Unfortunately all my activities will be put on hold in the near future. At some point in the next few weeks I will likely go back into the hospital for a major surgery. I have no idea how long I will be out of action. The current plan is to start the new Traveller campaign within a couple weeks of returning home from the hospital. By that time I should have had enough R&R away from Traveller and should be ready to at least finish the stories and start getting the website more updated. But It will take time. As my health deteriates, something the surgery won’t fix, I find myself getting tired much more easy than I used to - even more than I did just a few short months ago. So I have to really manage my time well to get things done.

So when I do come back, I will be juggling my Swords & Wizardry work, as well as any work on the new magazine we will start publishing soon called, KnockSpell; along with my home Traveller game and my home D&D game. Then of course there will be the spending of time with the LOML Tina and of course Doug (my Brother). It sure sounds like a lot at this time and I may net be able to do it all. But I am going to try.

Worse comes to worse, something will have to give. If that does happen then I will have to be this website. After that? Who knows. But as long as I can afford to have server space I will make sure there is a Spinward Main, or at least it will scaled down and part of another site.

Jerry

In a move that looks very promising, Judges Guild has began releasing their old Traveller material on DriveThruRPG.Com.

So far, they have released Darkling Ship and the Traveller Referee Screen.

Here is to the hope that more of their old Traveller Adventures and Settings see the light of day via cheap PDFs.

———-

Side note.

Sorry for not getting more of the Tales of the Astral Veil written and posted. I really have dropped the ball on this, as well as the file uploads that I expected to get done. Sorry.

At this point I can’t say when it will all get done. I thought that I could do it but recovering from my surgery is taking a lot more out of me than was expected. The daily IV antibiotics are not helping much either by sapping my strength. But the main reason I think is because of the new pain meds they have me on. They are working very well. I have chronic pain in my back. I have had it for 22 years. This new medication, Lyrica, in conjunction with my daily doses of Morphine pills, and Zaniflex muscles relaxers has eliminated about 95% or more of my day to day pain. However, until my body becomes accustomed to the Lyrica, it will continue to make me very drowsy and lethargic. In the late evening such as this is about the only time I get my full wits about me and that is just about long enough to answer email and make two or three posts online.

I will try to get more done, I promise. But I just don’t know when It will be finished and posted. I know it is asking a lot since I hyped this so much, but please be patient a bit longer.

Jerry

The News - Updates page has been updated in case anyone follows my News Page.

This is where I post my “personal” updates along with website updates. So i guess it’s part blog part site news.

These are the new campaign logs I am writing for the current home game that I am running.

Part one, starts out at the beginning of the 1st adventure of the new campaign we started this past February. Part Two and the rest are to follow over the next few days as I work thru my notes.

The campaign is based on The adventures from the Marischal Folio Adventure Series written by the Keith brothers and modified to fit our campaign.

It contains HEAVY SPOILERS. So read at your own risk.

Had to edit the 8th paragraph, sorry. There was a huge mistake in it.

Just click on the Page Listing on the right called, Tales of the Astral Veil

or click on the linkbelow
http://www.spinwardmain.net/tales-of-the-astral-veil/

Try out the Major Race Profiler.

Presented By BeRKA @ The Zhodani Base

My Results (answering 100% honestly… I know - BORING!)

Of course I had to do one completely 100% honest. The first time I took it I entered things in, in my Traveller “mindset” which is as a Traveller Referee. Let’s just say the results were a bit unsettling. You can…

Read the rest of this entry »

We pretty much wrapped up our latest campaign tonight. It was a short campaign but much fun. Most all the players had never played Traveller of any flavor before so now that they have their feet and more wet in the system, I told them they can draw up new characters if they wish so they will be ready and raring to go when I have the new campaign ready to start in a few weeks.

I just ran them through the Marischal mini campaign by Andrew and William Keith, consisting of the folio adventures ‘Flare Star’, ‘Storm’, ‘Periastron’, and ‘The Newcomers.’

Next up is something really wild and totally original that I have been working on - and am still working on. I just hope it is ready to run when after we do the wrap up next game. If it isn’t then I may have to put together another, even shorter, mini campaign until the new campaign is finished. I could easily start them into The Traveller Adventure and run that for a long while to come but I was hoping to get my original campaign into the cue and played prior to TTA.

I would love to talk more about my new campaign but a number of my players are finally starting to show up here and I don’t want to give anything away. Even if I said what sources I was drawing from, it would give it away. So I guess mum’s the word for the time being.

-JR

This is an original post I made on another web forum. I would like to add that my current and foreseeable future feelings about Mongoose Traveller has no affect whatsoever on my plans to invest in the supplements for this game that are and will be written my Martin Dougherty of Comstar Games/Avenger Games. He is an excellent game writer and an all around good guy. It aggravates me to think I will be putting money into Mongoose’s coffers but I know from past experience that Martin’s books are some of the best Traveller books you can have on your shelf next to the original books. That being said, my original post…

I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer visit the Rikki Tikki Traveller (Mongoose) forums.

Every time I read the posts, especially from a certain Haight-Ashbury/Woodstock wannbe, it is all I can do to keep from screaming at my computer.

It really wouldn’t be so bad and I honestly believe that the old Traveller guys wouldn’t come off sounding like a handful of grumps in bathrobes if the Rikki Tikki Fanboys wouldn’t jump on them like rabid dogs every time some one points out an error or points something out that they aren’t to keen with in the new incarnation.

This is especially true when those fanboys proceed to rip you up one side and down the other then come back with some bogus rodney king line like how they can’t understand all the fuss, when they have have been sitting back pushing buttons and keeping the pot stirred.

It just isn’t worth it.

Further, if this is what Mongoose wants to promote as genteel forum society - since they love to delete threads when one of the old guard finally has had enough a blows his stack - but nary a word to or about the fanboy regulars that needle them to death.

Feh!
They can keep it - game and all.

This is as bad as the WOTC OOP boards where the new edition fanboys barrage the OOP board for weeks on end and whoever from the OOP board that gets annoyed enough to respond or complain - they not the trolls are the ones banned.

Gaming is fun - it’s supposed to be. A company opens itself up for suggestions and input - that’s fine. But when they get negative responses, instead of answering and to it themselves they just let their fanboys shout it down — that does nothing but promote bad blood and hard feelings.

What I don’t get is why when an error or problem is found, why doesn’t MG just own up right away and say - yup we are gonna fix it or nope we did that on purpose, it’s supposed to be that way? Why do they wait for days and weeks before they do or say anything? Surely they know that their most rabid fans, they are easy to spot since they post in every thread, are going to jump on the posts and start hammering the original poster and others that have found the same problem or that agree that there is a problem. Why wait till THEIR FANBOYS stir it up into a firestorm when you know all they are going to do is delete the thread and never give an answer after that?

It has to be the most stupid (potential) customer interaction I have ever witnessed in my life.

*Shrug*

The server problems now seem to be past. Our host has given the -all clear- signal and all things should be back to normal.  But if you experience any major slowdowns or problems, please contact me ASAP. Also if you find any website issues (deadlinks, etc.) please notify me as well.

I have started adding new Links to various Traveller websites and forums. If you have a site you want linked that I have missed, then let me know and I will get it added. As soon as I finish adding the planned links I will starting adding more content pages.

This front page I would like to keep for all of you that join this site. If you sign up and wish to be a contributor then you can post your Traveller tidbits here. If you have an extensive project or a large amount of Traveller goodies you would like to share than I can set you up with a page of your own that will be linked under the “Pages” in the right hand sidebar.

My intention is to create this website in the image of the online Traveller Community with you, members of that community being able to publish your ideas. I know some can’t afford websites and many of us are programmers that have new and neat Traveller utilities to share - so here you can make them available to the rest of the community without having to pay a bunch of money just to host a couple utilities, projects, or (PDF) publications.

Just follow the page link on the right to get to my Sector files. I have explained in detail how I came to view the UWPs in these sector files as THE BEST AVAILABLE UWPs on the web. I want to thank Daryen from The Traveller’s Aid Society forums and the Citizens of the Imperium forums for sending me the raw 1117 UWP Sec data and for his insight on the origins and accuracy of the UWPs.

For those who use Universe or Heaven and Earth and play using the Classic or Mega Traveller setting, I think you will be most pleased with these UWPs and their (finally) correct Trade Codes and Stellar Data.

Note that the Allegiance Codes are not yet fully fixed. The H&E compatible Sec File (I think) still as some of the 1117 allegiance codes embedded. The Universe compatible Sec files allegiance codes match the Spinward Marches Campaign book at this point. I am in the process of editing it to match the original allegiances found in LBB Sup 3. When complete I will keep a copy of the Universe compatible Sec file with the SMC Allegiance codes online and ready for download as well as the completed Sec file with the LBB Sup 3 Allegiance codes. I will also make sure to have updated H&E compatible Sec files as well.

This way you have a choice to what you would most prefer to use.

Jerry

We are just underway and construction will be ongoing for some time.

Hopefully we will start having real content here in the next few days.

NOTE: One of the goals to this site is to become a file repository for Traveller Programs and Utilities. If you have some obscure spreadsheets, programs, and sundry utilities, please keep us in mind and I hope you will be willing to share. This of course applies to any and all NON-Commercial software. We will not pirate here. Abandonware is ok.