Starship Traveller

Infobox Fighting Fantasy book 2covers


caption1=The original cover of "Starship Traveller" illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones


caption2=The Wizard cover of "Starship Traveller" illustrated by Chris Moore
location=Space
references=343
authors=Steve Jackson
illustrator=Peter Andrew Jones
coverillustrator=Peter Andrew Jones
year=1983
number=4
ISBN=ISBN 0-14-031637-X
wcoverillustrator=Chris Moore
wyear=2005
wnumber=22
wISBN=ISBN 1-84046-552-2

"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.

tory

"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 "". 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.

ee also

*Fighting Fantasy
*List of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks

References

* cite web
title=Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks on gamebooks.org
url=http://www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=11
* cite web
title=Starship Traveller on gamebooks.org
url=http://www.gamebooks.org/show_item.php?id=40
* cite web
title=Starship Traveller on the Internet Archive record of the old fightingfantasy.com site
url=http://web.archive.org/web/20051127132124/www.fightingfantasy.com/ffb4.htmOfficial sites:
* cite web
title=Starship Traveller on the official Fighting Fantasy website
url=http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com/ff22.htm
* cite web
title=Starship Traveller on the Wizard Books website
url=http://www.iconbooks.co.uk/wizard/wbook.cfm?isbn=1-84046-552-2Magazines:
* cite journal
year = 1984
month = January
title = Open Box
journal = White Dwarf
issue = 49
pages = 14–15