What a joy. All the greatness of Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition with fantastic artwork and layout for $1.00? WOW! I bought this for a friend as a gift, and I plan to use it as prize support for 2d6 (not all of them Traveller erhm...) games I run at conventions. It's a no-brainer.

Mongoose is often criticized for the prices of its books. Given that they are made in England, and shipped to U.S. and furthermore the production values and art are so high, well, sorry folks ... it's what it costs.

But entries like this give new players a helluva a lot to see and a chance to sink their teeth into the system.

Comparied to the horrid production values and art of earlier Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition materials, each of these books is simply marvelous. (This is NOT a slam on the Cephues Engine System books that followed, many of which are amazingly fun ... see Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs and Attack Squadron Roswell).

If I were Mongoose trying to build my player base, I would do what the 1E/Cepheus Engine fans are doing and take the core system and use it for other genres. "Splat Books" if you will for post-apoc, gangsters, Old West, horror, and more. Keep the page could super low (say 23- or 64-pages) by ditching all the blah-blah wording and give the core nuggets for those settings. Heck, I still have my old Chaosium copy of Thieves' World which had Classic Traveller stats for all the characters.

More competition is good, and I'm glad to see CE and other systems are causing Mongoose to fight like hell with great production value books and good storytelling and settings. More slim easy-entry books for a few dollars, please! (Heck, $10 as a price point would be ideal).

Well, to be honest I am a sucker for all things post-apoc ever since I played Gamma World way back in 1985. (It is still my fav). I was looking for a 2d6-based post-apoc game so I could run at conventions as the mechanics are super-easy. Hence when I came across Afterday I had questions. To be fair, Mr. Brown said stright-up it was not a science-fantasy high flux setting.

In fact, it is much more a Twilight 2000-type book. There are no high tech items (everything is TL6 or 7) and mutants are given only a cursory page and a reference to Metamorphica.

I checked Metamorphica and the problem is it is systemless (and HUGE) so as to be more an idea book than any great help. So now I am converting the mutations list from 4th Edition Gamma World to 2d6/Cepheus Engine terms.

THAT said, Afterday has some well thought out professions, a nod to starting characters much younger due the hardships of the post-apoc world, and a robust settlement generator which makes use of good old Traveller's hexidecimal one-line of digits coding for a location. (Should be ridiculously easy to code a random generator in an Excel sheet and pop out a dozen locations).

So, is it perfect for me? No, I like mutants, and sentient animals, and robots, and plants, and lasers and crazed AI and the whole kitchen sink. But this book is a great start and for thos running a more serious game, it should world well. Keep in mind Traveller/2d6 is inherently lethal, so a more serious game would work very well. Indeed, the Pirates of Drinax series' main homework is a radioactive biohazard hellhole and I could easily see this book of use for generating adventures there. (Hopefully as that campaign progresses, the PCs will help the poor unfortunates gain the medicines, pollution processing, and survival equipment to slowly rebuild something resembling a decent life).

I also love the old TSR standbys Boot Hill and Gangbusters, and it looks like Brown made 2d6 books for those settings as well. Time to have some cowboys and G-Men time travel to a fantasy world and then onto a post-apoc one. (eyes twinkle with the possibilities).

This book is a dream, and I am waiting for volume 2. I have played Traveller since the 1980s, and I always saw it more for its use as a toolkit than a setting. I love, for example, Star Frontiers but want a clean and coherent system. Same thing with Star Ace, Other Suns, etc. etc.

Frankly, I'm sick to death of the Third Imperium. Been there for 30 years. I wanted Traveller to hearken back to the LBB when they were seen as a toolkit. This book unpacks loads of goodies. Top marks.

Personally, I am using it to tweak my homebrew conversion of Gamma World using the Traveller rules. This book has helped immensely. And they could certainly do more "toolkit" books. Add in the optional rules in High Guard and Central Supply Catalog for unusual or alien or alternate techs, you are good to go for onverting a wealth of old-school 1980s sci-fi adventures all while using the clean and crisp Traveller mechanics.

More please! Here's some ideas:

• personal shields and fields
• more type of power armor
• lower-tech career paths
• growing up in high or low grav (see Traveller 5)
• more race creation ideas
• mutations because, why not
• tweaking the genres - going from everyday joes in space to laser sword star heroes!
• MORE FTL drive options
• getting into detail of survival - see the old Classic Traveller books for Mountain Environment or Desert Environment

And since we are doing wishlists, any chance to resurrect the Skyraiders series?

So bloody handy. This has been missing for decardes, and now is available. Let's all toss the author $1 or so for their hard work, and perhaps they'll update it once a year?! Only one complaint — I would have merged the Ares, Dragon, Polyhedron articles listins under the main categories — would have been easier to help collate articles on a particular subject.

A very nicely done product, obviously a labor of love for the original author and his supporters. The mechanics are very similar to Savage Worlds, and thus is useful if you are a fan of that system (as I am). The only downside in this rather nice work is it has zero connection to either the classic Top Secret nor Top Secret/S.I.

And that is precisely where it falls apart. I love simple percentile-based games (see Covert Ops by DWD Studios which is an homage to Top Secret) and while the original Top Secret had a rather horrifically convoltued combat system (which we ignore when we played as kids), it otherwise was fairly easy to use. More importantly, I wanted to be able to use Top Secret New World Order to run all those classic Top Secret modules. At the very least, the authors should have included some notes on conversions for both 1st Edition and S.I. modules. Without that, this product tries to capitalize on nostalgia without delivering it.

What is really missing is the deep, thoughtful writing in some parts and the gee fun attitude on others of the original games. The appendix of 1E Top Secret was a masterpiece - which tons of detailed explanations of spy terms and various spy agencies around in the 1980s. Add in the cool mission generator and reward charts for random fun, and well ... wow. The old Top Secret Companion with its alignment system based on political belief, in-game eductional oppotrunities for PCs, and tons of info on travel times, border security, and more ... just wow. That's the kind of meat and potatoes needed. Older-school games set in the real world tried to do this to help players and GMs really get into those worlds. For example, TSR's Gangbusters did a helluva good job explaining how the various law enforces worked, what thier powers were, or how reporters files stores, or how crooks made money. Genius stuff.

What I miss in this also are short snippet examples of play, with a fun lively tone. See old Star Frontiers and Gangbusters for examples of this. Help new players really get into the tone, theme, and mood of silly spy action heroics. And no, there will never be a "realistic" spy game because in the real world, espionage is deadly-dull, bureaucratic, paper-shuffling, bribery and (rarely) seduction work that takes years to pull off a mission. Not the stuff of your average spy movie.

Is this new system good? For sure, it has a lot to be said for it. There was a lot of exellent work put into this. I just think Merle and friends need to reach out to Wizards and at least get a gentlemen's agreement to have some conversion notes placed in a future NWO product. That way, the new TSR wins and WOTC wins and most importantly, the player base wins.

Go back, hash it out, and bring all those great modules back to life. In the meantime, I will use my conversion of Top Secret to Savage Worlds to run 1E, S.I., and NWO adventures - many of which are excellent.

Post-thought: As of writing this (June 2021), I am sick to death of new systems. Sick of it. There are tens of thousands of new systems, with many heartbreakers. Why in God's name cannot authors simply stick with a percentile roll-under or a 2d6 roll over mechanic. Super-simple, tried-and-true for 30 years. Keep the damn mechanics simple, and then layer on levels of (optional) detail, fun twists, and more. But keep 90% of your book about the narrative world of the genre - how people live, work, eat, play. How the factions and good guys and bad guys work. A random adventure generator. A basic campaign for beginning GMs to riff off. This could apply to ANY genre. Stop re-inventing the wheel. Stop with weird dice with odd symbols. Pay to licenses into an existing system and go with that. Or as I said a generic percentile simple die-roll - which are not IP. FFS, give us worlds not new systems to learn!

Sorry to say, but I'm very disapppointed in this product. Coming in at 21 pages should have been my first clue. What I was expecting (and I fault the authors for not posting a decent full-page preview) was a full toolkit. Now, don't get me wrong - what was presented was an excellent series of charts (pretty much the entire book) of the useful base characteristics of vehicles by type and size. Thus, as a bare-bones start, thie product is useful.

What it is not, sadly, is comprehensive.

I'd hoped to see a product with pages devoted to various vehicle add-ons and components, a la Science Fiction Compantion. The fact that this book cites the Companion as a useful book is only indicative of what is truly missing. Also, there are ZERO sample vehicles of any era or type.

Insted, the author advises builders to cite real-world stats where possible, and extrapolate game stats from there. I get not trying to hard-code math conversions - Savage Worlds is not that kind of game, thank God. But some ideas of developing relevant stats would help. Also, advice on when to list nitty gritty aspects. For example, vehicles in 1930s tomb-robbing campaigns set in the jungles of Africa or world-exploring vehicles in science-fication setting need an "endurance" stat related to food and fuel. Such a stat was very useful back in the day of WEG Star Wars d6 system.

For example, I would love to see an author really dig into 1920s cars - which had an amazing breadth of beautiful design - but for which it is damned hard to get even basic stats such as acceleration, top speed, durability, passenger, etc. My 1920s-era players are sick of the Model T, and prefer to drive a Grey Ghost or Dusenberg.

I digress. This guide has the start of an excellent product, but feels less than half-finished. Even the section on non-mechanical vehicles is a simple page of suggestions, with no idea how to mechanically stat such vehicles nor a list of cool ideas. (I'd say see GURPS for some inspiration on biotech vehicles).

All-in-all, a decent product worth $3.00, not $7.00.

EDIT: I'm revising my review a bit. The book does state on it is a "conversion guide, and not a set of rules for building a vehicle from the ground up." Again, that's fine and the confusion could have been solved with a more detailed description and a full-size preview of that page and one of the chart pages. Just to be fair. I hope the author does another vehicles product with all sorts of build items, add-ons, and examples. THAT would be a great idea.

Decent list. Not terribly great but hading a few descriptions always helps.

Nicely done, but now outdated by the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE).

This is an excellent product for ANY Savage Worlds GM. As I don't use minis with Savage Worlds, the Condition Cards (showing Shaken, Wounded, etc.) are a godsend. The Character Creation Checklist is perfect for building a PC quickly and easily and clearly. A big win. The other items are great for those War of the Dead folks. Can't say enough good things. Certainly makes me want to see this company's other products and pay attention to them, considering the good work.

Thank you Marc Miller and GDW for this free gift. Wonderful to see as a Traveller fan. We keep the flame!

No review - just a hearty THANK YOU to GDW for producing this look at history. May GameLords never be forgotten!

I have been a Gamma World fan since the 1980s, and have seen every edition come and go. Within my heart burns the desire to run a Gamma World campaign, but like many others have never settled on a system (actually I have - Savage Worlds - but that is another review).

This book in the somewhat marred 6th edition D20 lineup, provides an excellence of depth and storycrafting for various secret societies (Cryptic Alliances) and oddball communities that may populate the post-Apoc wastelands. I highly recommend it as background source material - you won't be disappointed with the great ideas contained therein (much as the Game Masters book was also chock full of good ideas. Simply ignore/convert the D20 rules into your fav system, and enjoy!).