Traveller

トラベラー “Traveller” (1984) is the first of the many Japanese TRPGs to be translated from English. The translator in this case is Hitoshi Yasuda who used the 1983 Starter Edition as the source. The interior illustrations of the English version are preserved in the JV, but for box lid art Hobby Japan turned to Naoyuki Kato, who puts the GDW illustrators to shame I think.

My introduction to Traveller was via the 1977 box set, and frankly, after reading the rules I had no idea how to run an adventure. The Starter Edition seemingly acknowledges the problem by including two introductory adventures: “Mission to Mithril” and “Shadows”, both of which had been published previously as halves of digest-sized double adventures.

In Mission to Mithril, the need for ship repairs compels the players to do reconnaissance for a government functionary who is the lone inhabitant on the ice planet Mithril. The adventure is a hex crawl with a 7 phase procedure for exploring the planet. The map is drawn on an icosahedral net, allowing the players to travel over the poles if they desire.

In Shadows the players are stuck on a planet again. This time they must infiltrate a pyramid and disable an energy cannon so they can take off without getting shot down. Which makes the adventure a dungeon crawl this time.

Box contents:
• Rules booklet, letter sized perfect bound softcover 98 pp.
• Charts and Tables, letter sized saddled stitched softcover 24 pp.
• The Spinward Marches, 17″ x 22″ map
• Mission to Mithril / Shadows, letter sized saddle stitched booklet 24 pp.
• Mission to Mithril player handout, letter sized sheet
• Shadows player handout, letter sized sheet
• Mithril / Pyramids map, letter sized sheet