Saturday, July 22, 2017

Traveller Referee Emulator - an anniversary gift for you

Happy 40th Anniversary fellow Travellers!

Although I wouldn't get hip to this life changing game for another seven years, it is my understanding that Marc Miller first published the original Traveller game on this date in 1977. My heartfelt thanks to Marc, the multitude of Traveller creators and publishers, bloggers, and the Traveller community at large for so many years of thought provoking entertainment.

2017 has been a very busy year for me, and unfortunately real life has kept me from posting as much to this blog as I would like. I am woefully behind on a collaborative ship design that I had hoped to complete early on in the year, and I still have several illustrations and some writing to do before the Starship Geomorph book is complete. I'm hoping to do another 30 day blog challenge, but that will probably have to wait for the latter part of the year.

As busy as I've been, even an old grognard like me couldn't let this anniversary go without some kind of gift to the Traveller community. I've cleaned up my Traveller Referee Emulator and am posting it here for your use and abuse. Most of the information provided in the spreadsheet should be pretty self-explanatory, but feel free to post any questions you might have. I hope you get as much use out of it as I have. Enjoy!


Click here for Traveller Referee Emulator - Part 1
Click here for Traveller Referee Emulator - Part 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATED JUNE 13, 2020:
Click here to download the [Traveller Referee Emulator]. The ZIP file contains both the  Excel spreadsheet and the Starburst Pips font file, which will need to be added to the appropriate Windows directory.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8 comments:

  1. What version of Traveller is this setup for?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most of it is generic enough to apply to any version of Traveller. The task resolution parts are from MegaTraveller and combat is a mix of Classis Traveller and optional homebrew rules.

      Delete
  2. Cheers! Looks really useful, this

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very nice SGME, Robert! Could you please do a short blog piece on that collaborative starship design? That would be a good read. More details. More details. Thx

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've had a lot of fun -- not to mention learned a lot about more obscure functions of Excel -- tinkering and reverse engineering this to set it up for my own humble Traveller universe.

    One thing I was able to add was automatic distance calculation between any two systems in my traveller universe. All the little pieces that went into setting that up gave me a sense of how MUCH work you must have put into this thing over the years. So this is very highly appreciated and just wanted to pass that on. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you can get something out of it. About the time I started playing Traveller I also got into BASIC programming as a hobby, and the two seemed like a natural match. Since my programming skills died over the decades Excel seemed like the next best thing. I had a lot of fun making this over the years and like you reverse engineered a lot of it from other other Excel users. I just wish when I started I had created a better framework for growth. I never saw it as something to be shared, so internally it is pretty sloppy. I've kind of slowed down on adding to this to pursue more deck plans and such, but I still add a little bit here and there. There is still so much that can be added to make a GM's job easier.

      Delete
  5. Really well thought out, in a way which will promote creative and imaginative games. I like the generic approach, since there is far too much focus on ruleset I believe. The version is not what makes or breaks a game, it's the OTU and stories with it that make Traveller loveable. The only thing I really change is to swap furry animal heads for more humanoid appearances with visual traits. This generic and imaginative approach I think is a great choice and it seems really handy!

    ReplyDelete