Overview

History: 2019-2023

Robert Eaglestone came to Traveller late. He'd seen the Little Black Books in a local hobby store many years earlier, but his eyes glazed over when he was looking at the starship rules, so he picked up Gamma World (1978) instead. That, D&D (1974), and Top Secret (1980) were the games of his youth.

But many years later, after Rob had already begun his career as a computer programmer, a friend of his found the Traveller Book (1982) and other Traveller materials at a Half-Price Book. He loaned them to Rob, who was quickly hooked: Rob ended up swapping his friend some Magic: The Gathering (1993) cards for the books!

Eaglestone came into Marc Miller's orbit around 2002 or 2003 when they started corresponding abou the Vilani language. Soon, he also began offering comments on the T5 ruleset, which had grown out of Miller's work on T4.1 for Imperium Games and was available for closed playtesting in the early '00s. Continued exchanges of mails resulted in Eaglestone becoming one of the three members of the T5 Development Team. Though Miller did all the original writing for T5, the Dev Team (which also came to include Don McKinney) looked over everything, offering their thoughts, proofreading, and copy editing.

Between 2006 and 2008, Eaglestone also worked with Jim Fetters and other Citizens of the Imperium in the Second Survey, merging DGP's Sunbane data for the Imperium with that from GDW's Atlas of the Imperium (GDW, 1984), and to make sure it was all rational.

Marc Miller Kickstarted T5 (2013) through Far Future Enterprises (FFE) in 2012, then released the game in a handsome hardcover the next year. Because Eaglestone enjoyed editing, it wasn't a shock that he was soon editing Imperiallines for FFE. Or that he followed up several years later with a project of his own. His Kickstarter for "Xboat" would run from February 21, 2019 to March 23, 2019 and raised $11,109 from 498 backers.

Surprisingly, this was just a few months in advance of Marc Miller's own Kickstarter for a second edition of T5, called T5.1 (2019). But, there was a method to the madness. In November 2018, Kickstarter's Luke Crane announced the "'Zine Quest" initiative, to run in February 2019. It gave creators the opportunity to produce one-color, saddle-stitched, digest-sized books: the 'zines that had brought so much innovation to the RPG industry in its early days. The products didn't technically have to be fanzines, but that's what Eaglestone decided to produce.

Beyond the impetus of Crane's 'Zine Quest, Eaglestone was enthusiastic to produce a 'zine because he had existing material piled up that he could use as feature articles and because the T5 rules had plenty of tools that could be used to fill in additional content. This would allow Eaglestone to give some "practical use" to the T5 rules, by demonstrating how he used the ruleset in his own games. (Providing examples of T5 usage had also been a principle goal of Imperiallines.)

Eaglestone's original plan was to produce a "cheap fanzine" with "hand-drawn" sketches, printed on "manilla paper" with "purple ink". He figured it was a low entry point, but then the Kickstarter succeeded beyond those expectations. That allowed him to fill in the issues with artwork by Robert Pierce, Ian Stead, and Tim Osbourne, all of whom had professional experience illustrating Traveller. (The writing would mostly be by Eaglestone, with occasional pieces by others.)

The zine was Kickstarted as four issues, intended to be delivered quarterly, with a Special Supplement offered as a stretch goal when the Kickstarter hit 300 backers. All the issues were to be printed for backers (the only such printed periodical for Traveller since the '00s), then made available as digital files. The first issue shipped August 2019, the second November 2019, and the Supplement in January 2020. Then COVID-19 hit, which not only changed Eaglestone's work process, but the logistics of the magazine as well. As a result, #3 was delayed until October 2020 and #4 until October 2021, which closed out the requirements of the Kickstarter.

However, as Eaglestone was working on #4, he realized that he still had a little content and a little art, as he'd regularly been shuffling material between issues. He also wanted to produce an index that he hadn't been able to fit in the previous issues. As a result, in January 2021, he announced that he'd be releasing a fifth and final issue, in digital form only. He released issue #5 on August 26, 2022, closing the Xboat saga (though that issue has been updated two more times since, with the last to date in March 2023).

Theme Issues

• Special Supplement #1. Contact.

About the Categories

Xboat uses many of the same article categories as JTAS (1979-1985), such as "Amber Zones", "Contact!", and "Ship's Locker".

About the Contents

Eaglestone has revised the contents of some of his 'zines. This index is based on the contents as of July 2023. This includes the expanded "ex-1" version of Special Supplement #1 and the revised "v3" of issue #5.

About the System

When given, mechanics are focused on the "Traveller5" system, but this choice was made largely because Traveller5 was the latest system at the time (and of course because Eaglestone was involved in their development); Eaglestone notes that the mechanics should be largely compatible with any 2D6-based Traveller (or Cepheus) system.

Obtaining the Magazines

Hardcopies of Xboat #1-4 and Special Supplement #1 were produced as part of the Kickstarter. There were 285 print backers, and Eaglestone printed about 325 copies of each issue, leaving it a rarity despite its modern publication. However, PDF copies of all issues are available through DTRPG, including #5 which has never been available in print.

This index is © Copyright 2023 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution.

Main Index

🧰 Accessories

🗣️ Adventures: Patrons

⚠️️ Adventures: Seeds, Amber Zones, Misc

⚠️️ Adventures: Seeds, Amber Zones, Geographic

💡 Advice

🛸 Aliens: Major Races

🛸 Aliens: Minor Races

🐾 Animals & Plants

📚 Background: Misc

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

⌛ Background: Historic

🛠️ Equipment: Misc

🤖 Equipment: Artificial Life

⚔️ Equipment: Combat

🛰️ Equipment: Infrastructure

🚀 Equipment: Transport

1. A teaser for HERALD CLASS STARSHIPS (Thornwood-Daarnulud, 2015)

⬆️ Meta

🗣️ NPCs

1. Translating an NPC from THE TRAVELLER BOOK (GDW, 1982) to Traveller5.

📜 Rules

1. Based on the charts in JTAS #3 (GDW, 1979)

Covers