RPG Spotlight #5: MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy
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Despite taking its inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons and going for a sci-fi theme rather than a fantasy one, the Traveller system never really enjoyed the amount of success that D&D did during the early tabletop years. The same could be said for the MegaTraveller CRPG series when it went up against SSI's "Gold Box" series in the early 90's, so if you were one of the many who overlooked the two games in favor of the many fantasy adventures available at the time, then I'm here to tell you that you owe it to yourself to go back and see for yourself why these are deep, rewarding, and entertaining titles that you shouldn't miss out on.
The Zhodani Conspiracy is the first of two titles that MicroProse and Paragon Software developed for the Game Designers' Workshop-created rules system. In it, you control a party of up to five characters whose goal is to put together all of the pieces of a grand conspiracy that will put you in a position to stop a brewing interstellar war between the Imperium and the Zhodani Consulate. These characters can either be created by hand or chosen from a pool of pre-generated characters, though the former route is highly recommended as it gives you a chance to see the mechanics behind the robust and highly detailed character progression system early on.
During character creation, you'll roll a character's six attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Social Standing) and then choose from (or be drafted into) one of five military classes: Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts, or Merchants. From there, a character is granted a handful of random skills from a pool of 70+, though you are allowed to pick from four separate tables (Personal Development, Special Skills, Education, Advanced Education) so that you at least have an idea of what type of skill the character will end up with. The exact number of skills the character is granted and which tables they're able to be allocated from depend on his or her attributes, as well as a small amount of randomness.
Combat plays out in real-time, with over 30 weapon types available to your characters - Daggers, Swords, Demolitions, Energy Weapons, Neural Weapons, and Submachineguns to name a few. There are also a handful of social skills that your characters can become proficient in, including Bribery, Forgery, Gambling, and Intrusion, as well as non-combat skills for Communications, Computers, Electronics, Robots, and Sensors. Vehicle and trading skills are also important, as your party travels to a total of 28 different planets in search of information, adventure, and prized cargo to be bartered.
Interested in more RPG spotlights? Check out our previous entry for Hillsfar, or our next entry for MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients.
