Greg Caires <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

So say we all
[snip]

Congratulations and well done.
[snip]

This issue's feature is a 58-page Special Supplement by Greg Caires,
_Traveller: 1700_, a sourcebook/rulebook based on Classic Traveller for
adventuring in Colonial America.

This is a fascinating piece of work! I haven't made sense of it all but I've read enough so far to recognize what a remarkable amount of effort went into crafting this supplement. And the very concept itself --an historical setting simulated using sci-fi RPG rules--is quite intriguing.

The map reference on page 25 to the Virginia Colony's claim to Kent Island, Maryland, caught my attention. There was a time in the late '90s when I spent the better part of a year driving back and forth a couple of times a week between Washington, D.C. and my home on the Delaware shore. Not long after the Chesapeake Bay Bridge comes ashore on Kent Island, just past the Cracker Barrel heading eastbound, there is a sign which reads: "Kent Island: First English Settlement within Maryland, August 1631." You can see a photo of the sign near the bottom of the page here:

https://www.miltec.com/en/news/kent-island-third-oldest-settlement-english/

I often mused as I drove past that sign heading home that perhaps it ought to have read "First Alien Beachhead in Matapeake Lands." Seeing the Kent Island reference in ~Traveller: 1700~ got me thinking that it would also be interesting to see a ~Traveller~ supplement that was written from the perspective of the Algonquin peoples. Such a perspective would fit well with the traditional "alien invaders" science-fiction trope, which is what's actually going on in ~Traveller: 1700~.

Cheers,

David
--
"The lesson of MegaTraveller and the Rebellion is that if you want a watershed event to change the campaign, the game is about the new world after the change, not about the change itself." - Dave Nilsen, "Whither Traveller?", ~Challenge~ #77