Starship Traveller
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Fighting Fantasy series |
|
 The original cover of Starship Traveller illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones |
|
 The Wizard cover of Starship Traveller illustrated by Chris Moore |
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| Outline | |
| Location: | Space |
| References: | 343 |
| Publication details | |
| Author(s): | Steve Jackson |
| Illustrator: | Peter Andrew Jones |
| Puffin | |
| Cover illustrator: | Peter Andrew Jones |
| Year of release: | 1983 |
| Number | 4 |
| ISBN: | ISBN 014031637X |
| Wizard | |
| Cover illustrator: | Chris Moore |
| Year of release: | 2005 |
| Number | 22 |
| ISBN: | ISBN 1-84046-552-2 |
| List of FF books | |
Starship Traveller is a single-player roleplaying gamebook written by Steve Jackson, illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones and originally published in 1983. It forms part of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy series. It is the 4th in the series in the original Puffin series (ISBN 014031637X) and 22nd in the modern Wizard series (ISBN 1-84046-552-2).
Unusually for the series it is divided into only 340 sections. There are three additional sections relating to different types of combat. Section 341 is for ship-to-ship combat, 342 for hand-to-hand comabt and 343 for phaser combat. Once combat is successfully concluded the player returns to the referring section.
[edit] Story
Starship Traveller is set in the distant future, with the player taking the role of a starship commander whose ship and crew are sucked through a black hole and into an unknown quadrant of space. The player's mission from this point is to find a means to return home, collecting clues from several different planets in pursuit of this goal.
Starship Traveller deviates from the Fighting Fantasy norm in a number of ways. It is the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook to feature a science fiction setting, as opposed to the more traditional fantasy, and it was also the first to provide the player with multiple characters - the player is required to keep track of the relevant statistics for several crew members as well as the protagonist. As is appropriate for a game which features extensive travel by starship, it also employs the first vehicle combat system in the series. However, the novelty of these features is softened some by the fact that a reader can successfully complete the book without ever having to roll dice.
The book contains many similarities to Star Trek: The Original Series. The crew uses transporter-like devices to visit planets and both they and the starship have weapons like those seen on Star Trek. The organization of the crew is also reminiscent of that used on the television series.
Most Fighting Fantasy titles are set on the world of Titan, but Starship Traveller is not. However, several references throughout the book are made to the Starship Titan.
At the time of publication, a mild controversy arose when it was alleged that the book was intended as a 'cash in' on the successful RPG system Traveller (role-playing game) (a US-based system that nonetheless used the British spelling rather than the American English variant). Steve Jackson has stated in interviews that Traveller was one of his favorite roleplaying games.
