Starship Traveller
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks | |
|---|---|
 The original cover of Starship Traveller illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones |
|
 The Wizard cover of Starship Traveller illustrated by Chris Moore |
|
| Outline | |
| Location: | Space |
| References: | 343 |
| Publication details | |
| Author(s): | Steve Jackson |
| Illustrator: | Peter Andrew Jones |
| Puffin | |
| Cover illustrator: | Peter Andrew Jones |
| First published: | 1983 |
| Number | 4 |
| ISBN: | ISBN 0-14-031637-X |
| Wizard | |
| Cover illustrator: | Chris Moore |
| First published: | 2005 |
| Number | 22 |
| ISBN: | ISBN 1-84046-552-2 |
| List of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks | |
Starship Traveller is a single-player roleplaying gamebook written by Steve Jackson, illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones and originally published in 1983 by Puffin Books. It was later republished by Wizard Books in 2005. 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 0-14-031637-X) and 22nd in the modern Wizard series (ISBN 1-84046-552-2).
The main body of the adventure is made up of only 340 references rather than the usual 400. Three additional references provide the rules for the various types of combat available in the book. Reference 341 deals with for ship-to-ship combat, 342 deals with hand-to-hand comabt and 343 deals with phaser combat. Once combat is successfully concluded the player returns to the referring section.
[edit] Story
Sucked through the nightmare of the Seltsian Void, the starship Traveller emerges at the other side of the black hole into an unknown universe.
YOU are the captain of the Traveller and her fate depends on YOU! Will you be able to discover the way back to Earth from the alien peoples and planets you encounter, or will the starship be doomed to roam uncharted space forever?
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 was 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 their own character, the captain. As the book featured extensive travel by starship, it also employed the first vehicle combat system in the series. However 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.
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 (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.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks on gamebooks.org.
- Starship Traveller on gamebooks.org.
- Starship Traveller on the Internet Archive record of the old fightingfantasy.com site.
Official sites:
- Starship Traveller on the official Fighting Fantasy website.
- Starship Traveller on the Wizard Books website.
Magazines:
- "Open Box" (January 1984). White Dwarf (49): 14–15.
