Rules Only: Canonical GURPS books

[robject]

GURPS produced somewhere around three dozen Traveller books, under the expert handling of Loren Wiseman, and using well-respected Traveller fans as writers, such as Andy Slack, Hans Rancke-Madsen, and others.

As a result, many of these books are canon-level writings.

Which have canon status in your mind, and why?

 

[whartung]

Why wouldn't all of them be canon?

And by "canon" we mean "GURPS canon" because GT is an ATU, right?

 

[MThompson016]

Generally acceptable for any version of the OTU:
-Rim of Fire
-Culture items in the Alien Modules for those mentioned in other editions of Traveller
-Interstellar Wars

 

[tjoneslo]

There is some general consensus that GT: Behind the Claw is not good canon. The problem was publishing glitch where the book as published was a first draft rather than the post-playtest draft. For reference SJGames has (or had for many years) an absolutely brutal playtest process. So the first draft and the final draft were miles apart.

The other questionable book would be Star Merc's. There are some questionable non-traveller material in there.

There is also the entire vision of the Imperium which may be different from your's.

 

[Condottiere]

I like Star Mercs.

And Ground Forces.

Was disappointed they never got around to the Navy.

 

[Garnfellow]

There is some general consensus that GT: Behind the Claw is not good canon. The problem was publishing glitch where the book as published was a first draft rather than the post-playtest draft. For reference SJGames has (or had for many years) an absolutely brutal playtest process. So the first draft and the final draft were miles apart.

I never, ever, ever, understood the story with GT:BtC. I've seen all kinds of crazy post-production screw-ups but to send a first draft to the printers and not have serious problems flagged? And if the story was accurate, why wouldn't SJG have reissued a corrected book? They are one of the most conscientious publishers about issuing errata.

 

[tjoneslo]

Was disappointed they never got around to the Navy.

I know from discussions there were two attempts to produce this book. The first made it to playtest, and died shortly thereafter for undisclosed reasons. The second was written by Martin Dougherty, and never saw playtest. To the best of my knowledge that manuscript was published (minus game rules) as the T20 Grand Fleet book and again as the MgT1 Sector Fleet .

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

For me it is the Starports and Starships books, they had some really good chrome and fluff in them. Plus some cool forms for hand outs. I liked Nobles too since it gave some depth to them and what they do. Interstellar Wars because hell yeah, pre-Long Night history, back when Terra were the good guys. I can use a lot of for a Third Imperium campaign so pretty much all of it, but yeah not so much the Marches because I still have the LBBs for that.

 

[Condottiere]

i got the impression that Interstellar Wars was an afterthought, though it did give some food for thought.

Couldn't figure out how to effectively leverage the sub parsec jump drive; you might as well just install a mono.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

i got the impression that Interstellar Wars was an afterthought, though it did give some food for thought.

Couldn't figure out how to effectively leverage the sub parsec jump drive; you might as well just install a mono.

When I got T5, I equated them with the experimental/prototype drives. IMTU, I allow partial drive distances (Jump 0.9 for example) for those drives, as the efficiencies <1.0 relating to Jump are likely only to be seen by a Major Race during pre-stellar times (as T5 defines a Major Race) anyways. Later drives seen by Minor Races are the fully fleshed out deal. Finally the granularity of partial drives are not so important once your efficiency is good enough to get to another star system unless one starts defining distances on the map as fractions of a parsec as well (like 2300) or some handwavium (Jump is handwavium AFAIK anyways so why not)?

Also IMTU, I used the sub-parsec jump drive as is for in-system travel where going in normal space would take more than 168 hours OR as a sort of stealth manuever. STEALTH? HOW IS THAT?
If you are in-system in a battle and need to escape or generally don't want to be tracked for 168 hours, jump. Sure, you get detected when you reenter n-space and guesses can be made where you are going based on direction when jump is initiated. But you are safe for 168 hours.

 

[whulorigan]

Sure, you get detected when you reenter n-space and guesses can be made where you are going based on direction when jump is initiated. But you are safe for 168 hours.

And since distances induce light-lag in terms of detection, they will not be aware of your presence and/or where you jumped in for a number of minutes/hours/days depending on the distance between emergence point and observer.

 

[whulorigan]

GURPS produced somewhere around three dozen Traveller books, under the expert handling of Loren Wiseman, and using well-respected Traveller fans as writers, such as Andy Slack, Hans Rancke-Madsen, and others.

As a result, many of these books are canon-level writings.

Which have canon status in your mind, and why?

In my mind just about all of them (taking into account the timeline divergence point of course - but then I prefer a non-Rebellion scenario anyway - don't mess with my campaign sandbox ).

REASON: You already stated it above - The writers were people long associated with Traveller and had both a respect and feel for the canon OTU material. They were thus careful about what they introduced to make it mesh well with what had gone before.

The mix-up with Behind the Claw is a real shame - even more so since SJG didn't correct it with a published errata document or an updated re-release.

Hans Rancke-Madsen's Sword Worlds sourcebook will ALWAYS be the canon reference-standard .

 

[MThompson016]

Hans Rancke-Madsen's Sword Worlds sourcebook will ALWAYS be the canon reference-standard .

Ooo! That is the one I should have included as well.

 

[Condottiere]

I want to clarify that my interpretation, of what I assume was a prototype jump drive, is that it's double the volume of a monojump drive (technological level nine), and only has the range of a quarter of a parsec.

If you have the time, and under the right circumstances, quarter of a parsec is doable; but technological level nine is relatively easy to get and comparatively cheap, and both have the same fuel consumption, it's not as if you can save on either volume, capital or operating costs.

 

[tjoneslo]

i got the impression that Interstellar Wars was an afterthought, though it did give some food for thought.

Interstellar Wars was one of the first books produced for the new GURPS 4th edition rules. Which meant the nitpicking accuracy for adherence to the rules was new and therefore difficult. And Loren was in failing health at this point. I'm very sure if Loren was in better health and Munchkin wasn't eating all of the designer time at SJGames, there would have been many more supplements.

 

[whartung]

Interstellar Wars was one of the first books produced for the new GURPS 4th edition rules. Which meant the nitpicking accuracy for adherence to the rules was new and therefore difficult. And Loren was in failing health at this point. I'm very sure if Loren was in better health and Munchkin wasn't eating all of the designer time at SJGames, there would have been many more supplements.

Honestly, I like that ISW is kind of a standalone "thing". It's like TTB, but with some really nice background material bringing light on a dim past. Enough background to set the stage, but not enough to box you in. Writers being writers, the more that's written for the era, the more land is taken away from the players and referees.

As a package, it's one of my favorite Traveller books.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Writers being writers, the more that's written for the era, the more land is taken away from the players and referees.

This. The problem with detailed epic-scale background-plotting is that either it's immutable, which removes player and referee agency, or it's not -- in which case it's less useful for establishing a consensus setting.

 

[Silverhawk]

I was looking at my copy of Behind the Claw and found a page at the very end with a small amount of errata can't think of any other SJ Games product that had that.

 

[tjoneslo]

There usually was a page on the web site fir each book that accumulated the errata for the books. It would not surprise me they added a copy of the errata page as part of the PDF.

 

[Blue Ghost]

GURPS produced somewhere around three dozen Traveller books, under the expert handling of Loren Wiseman, and using well-respected Traveller fans as writers, such as Andy Slack, Hans Rancke-Madsen, and others.

As a result, many of these books are canon-level writings.

Which have canon status in your mind, and why?

As per some of my other posts to me the OTU was always optional. However, I do like the Alien Modules that SJ Games published. They're more vetted and detailed than the old GDW modules, and add good detail to make you really get a handle on the races. That, and they published a 4th book which covered a lot of minor races, including the Virushi.

As for the OTU itself ... I'm not a big fan of Rebellion, but our group was more adventure oriented and not really so much into Imperial geo-politics. Things like Virus and the rediscovery of lost worlds in the "new era" was beyond my interest and play. I'm sorry the OTU changed, and that GURPS kept the torch alive for grognards like us who preferred the LBB era of the game.