Some time ago Bill mentioned an old space science fiction tabletop game. In the story setting America and China were in some kind of conflict in space, I think Bill talked about it on one of his stratosphere lounges, can anyone remember what the name of this game was called?
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4 replies on “Space sci fi tabletop game”
I was going to say the same thing that Grayson said earlier. Post the ? in the TSL forum. Even if Bill doesn’t answer on the show, someone else who routinely posts questions will.
Though I have a feeling Logan hit on the correct answer.
Bill has mentioned a game that came out originally just a couple of years after the original Dungeons and Dragons called Traveller.
Traveller’s main canon setting (though you could use the rules to create your own universe if you saw fit) was the Third Imperium – which was about 5-6000 years in the future and America and China were no longer independent countries on Terra (Earth) at the time. So that kind of conflict didn’t exist in that setting.
However there was another game that the same company (GDW) put out in the late 80s called “Traveller 2300” – later just called “2300”. That did have colonization in many dozens of star systems along different “Jump paths” or “arms” that were dominated by various countries. America had one. France had another. The Republic of Texas(!) had a couple of star systems it had exclusive colonization control over. And yes I believe China had its own colonization pathway through the local galactic arm.
However, I’m not sure if direct conflict existed in that setting, since each country was going in different directions in space and it was more an indirect competition for resources than any kind of war setting. Though a sort of “cold war” mentality was part of it. Also – there was a lot of direct Corporate competition going on alongside that of nation states. Think of Weyland Yutani Corp from the Alien and Aliens movies. Or certain “corporation states” from Cyberpunk and you’ll be close to the right feel.
I’m far more familiar with the Third Imperium setting from Classic Traveller and it’s line of books and supplements (I have a pretty comprehensive collection that takes up several boxes!) than the 2300 Setting. But I did peruse some of that material and found it interesting. But I wouldn’t swear on my memory being 100% accurate in my thumbnail sketch of what I recall of Traveller 2300.
BTW – if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Traveller in one form or another is still in publication. But I highly recommend finding as much of the old 70s, 80s and 90s publications as you can when Games Designers Workshop was still the company publishing it. Some of the material is dated – but then so are the Star Trek and Star Wars movies of those times. Always respect the classics! 😀
You should put a question into the next stratosphere lounge, he usually has time to get to all those questions so he should be able to tell you himself.
They put a blog post up on Thursdays with a link to the place in the forum where you can put your question.