ISO A4 format - Freelance Traveller

Critics’ CornerMongoose Traveller: Supplement 1: 760Patrons, Second Editionreviewed by “kafka”Mongoose Traveller Supplement 1: 760 Patrons, Second Edition.August HahnMongoose Publishing http://www.mongoosepublishing.com408pp, hardboundUS$49.99/UK£34.99This is the book that many Traveller refereeshave been waiting for, as the previous editionmissed the mark by not understanding what a patronfundamentally is in Traveller. In the first editionof 760 Patrons, Mongoose appeared to thinkthat a patron was akin to an encounter, whereas ithas been long established in Traveller that a patronis a job offer. So, while the first edition is highlyuseful for generating colourful and interestingNPCs in a flash – they contained no seeds for adventure.Therefore, bravo to Mongoose to revisingtheir initial offering to conform to the pre-existingand established criteria.Now, this book is also a monster of a book.Fully detailing 760 individuals each with 1-6 differentideas/seeds for adventure is a monumentaltask and they made it a hardcover to boot. Therefore,this book is a valuable tool for those refereethat either need something in a pinch while playersare in-between the main adventures to facilitate asandbox play or simply need to generate ideas inwhich to construct an adventure of their own design.Either way, this is a good book for them.One regrettable omission is art detailing the patrons.Whereas, the first book had all sorts of art –some good, some bad and some just in-between.This book is almost without any art save a fewsketches done or inspired by the same Careers artthose who appear in the main rulebook. Fortunately,the jokey aspect has been for the most partpurged. It would be nice but wholly unrealistic toexpect 760 portraits without upping the price tageven more. However, it still would have been niceto have a little more art and one could wish thatMongoose had employed an artist who had a bettereye for the Traveller milieu (grim, dirty realism),like a Blair Reynolds or Richard Sparke or at thevery least the interior artist who did much of theirDarrians book. What Traveller art is missing isdiversity. Hardly any African, east Asian or Amerindianrepresentations grace the interiors – to saynothing of the non-Terrestrial humans, or recognizedTraveller aliens. Too much of the Travellerartwork omits what Star Trek has done for decadesnow. Anyway, enough ranting about the art…Although, I could not digest all 760 Patrons –many of the seeds are credible and fit well with thedescription. The most important thing to rememberis that Traveller in this book is a generic ScienceFiction universe. Although some of these employmentopportunities would be very odd in theOriginal/Official Traveller Universe (OTU) – yes, Iam looking at you, Star Deity and Demon – theyare not entirely without precedent or enjoymentfactor in the Science Fiction literature. So, if youare a player/referee who plays a specific game eitherset in the OTU or another setting – you willhave to be highly selective in these encounters/(Continued on page 3)2