Journal of the Travellers Aid Society
Journal of the Travellers Aid Society is a role-playing game magazine devoted to Traveller, commonly abbreviated JTAS.
Description
Articles in the magazine were grouped in various categories, some of which only started in later issues:
- From the Management: Editorial, sometimes including comments, ideas, and short news items;
- Cover Article: The headline article for the issue;
- Amber Zone: ready-to-play scenarios, complete with patrons, rumors and nasty surprises;
- Contact!: intelligent beings of the Universe.
- Modules: official additions to the Traveller rules;
- Ship's Locker: expansions to the equipment lists in the basic game;
- Bestiary: expansions to the original Animal Encounters in the basic game;
- Variant: a modification to an existing game;
- Ref's Notes: discussions on some aspect of Traveller from the referee's viewpoint;
- Review: an in-depth look at items of interest to SF gamers;
- New Products Seen: short reviews of new releases;
- Q&A: answering questions on all facets of Traveller.
Meta-history & Background
The first issue was published by Game Designers' Workshop in 1979 and the last of the first run was #24 in 1985. It was superseded by the magazine Challenge, which took up its numbering scheme and ran from issue 25 onwards with a broader role-playing game focus. All 24 issues in the first run, and the first nine issues of Challenge magazine were collected into three publications by Far Future Enterprises in 2002-3:
- The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society 1-12.
- The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society 13-24.
- The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society 25-33.
The Journal was resurrected for two additional issues in 1996 under Imperium Games, where the numbering was taken from where it was left off (JTAS #25 and #26).
Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society was resurrected as an e-zine edited by Loren Wiseman under Steve Jackson Games and GURPS Traveller. It is currently out-of-print, but is pending “re-print” by Far Future Enterprises in 2018.
Credits
- Editor
- Loren Wiseman
Issue Listing
- JTAS (Issues 1-24)
- No. 1: Annic Nova
- No. 2: Victoria
- No. 3: Asteroid Mining
- No. 4: Gazelle Class Close Escort Vessels
- No. 5: Imperium
- No. 6: The Imperial Interstellar Scout Service
- No. 7: Champa Interstellar Starport
- No. 8: Broadsword class Mercenary Cruisers
- No. 9: War!
- No. 10: Planet-building, a Referee's Guide
- No. 11: Striker Miniatures Issue
- No. 12: Merchant Prince
- No. 13: Hivers
- No. 14: Laws & Lawbreakers
- No. 15: Azun: A High-Population World in the Solomani Rim
- No. 16: SuSAG
- No. 17: Atmospheres
- No. 18: Traveling Without Jumping
- No. 19: Skyport Authority
- No. 20: Prologue
- No. 21: Vargr
- No. 22: Port to Jump-point
- No. 23: Zhodani Philosophies
- No. 24: Religion in the Two Thousand Worlds
- Challenge (Issues 25-33)
- No. 25: Lisiani
- No. 26: Cargo
- No. 27: Grandfather's Worlds
- No. 28: Sector to Sector
- No. 29: A Decade of Traveller
- No. 30: The Warehouse
- No. 31: Hazardous Cargos
- No. 32: Swift Water
- No. 33: Project Farstar
- JTAS (Issues 25-26)