Wanderer RPG from an RPGsite thread 3/25/2008

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

[Wanderer] Should this game exist?

Now that all of the Traveller play by posts are no longer active, I thought this might be of interest to those Traveller players.

Back on July 13, 2007 a German language blog posted the below pic without comment.

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

In reality no such game or company exists (and I tried my Google fu to see if there was such a company). The RPGsite thread asked the question "Should this game exist" and spawned a 202 post thread and the newest post in that thread was 2015. I wanted to explore that thread and I invite you to join me here in talking about it. Looking at the image above I would buy that game if it did exist.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

I'd buy it out of curiosity sake as it looks cool. Not sure I'd play it. Maybe the initial post on the German blog was the blogger floating an idea for a Traveller fantasy hack but nothing came of it.

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

Jul 19, 2018 13:01:17 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

I'd buy it out of curiosity sake as it looks cool. Not sure I'd play it. Maybe the initial post on the German blog was the blogger floating an idea for a Traveller fantasy hack but nothing came of it.

I'm not sure, but I think the German blogger just posted the image because it looked cool. I don't think the German blogger did it since it is in English and he posted no comments with the image, but I could be wrong about that.

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

A number of posters were excited by the image and excited about porting Traveller over to a gritty fantasy version. Starships and Sword & Sorcery and even some Sword & Sandal mashed up would be a lot of fun. Since a part of Traveller is the base 16 IIRC you could make it real easy by using the OD&D 3d6-2 would give you that 1-16 range.

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

Seems like a lot of work to go to to produce everything in that picture and it not be a real game. I wonder if someone homebrewed this and made their own personal copy and that is the only one that ever existed?

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

In post number 11 in the linked RPGSite thread a poster said in part

In an alternate universe, this is the best selling fantasy role-playing game of all time. Oh sure, there are newer and hotter games, but Wanderer has cachet that no one can beat. It has so completely dominated the industry that many people can't even imagine a role-playing game where you can't die during character creation. Even people who know nothing about gaming recognize references to Wanderer.
to people who still remember playing good old Tan Box Wanderer....

And in post number 12 a poster wrote

The mock-up was done by Dirk, who posts here occasionally. I think on the CotI boards there have been some conversion threads in the past.

I don't know of anyway to link to individual posts at the RPGSite. Edit Found it there is a way.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Jul 19, 2018 15:36:25 GMT -5 Maximum Forest Ranger said:

Seems like a lot of work to go to to produce everything in that picture and it not be a real game. I wonder if someone homebrewed this and made their own personal copy and that is the only one that ever existed?

Yes it does. I would be surprised if they did. It definitely makes you think what if it did get produced if it'd sell. I think it would. I'd love to see it that is for sure. I'd also love to see a B/X D&D & OD&D clone that emulates the old White or Brown Box for both types of game.  

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

In post number 22 there is this posted 

Some one sort of tried, a while back. Called it Aldreth. Direct pdf link is here.

In an edit they added

And this CotI thread might be of interest on the topic.

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

OK this is about all for me right now until I have time to fully read both the RPGsite thread and the CotI thread (32 pages).

[Maximum Forest Ranger]

The poster that created the pic in the OP is Dirk Remmecke who posts at RPGsite and other places like CotI. In post number 36 he says

Years ago I co-owned a game store. One day I started to wonder what effect shelf placement had on sales. I used to bundle thematically equivalent games together, ie, Nephilim and In Nomine next to WoD, Cyberpunk next to Shadowrun, etc. But I couldn't track whether the copy of Nephilim got sold because I had directed the interest of a WoD fan to it or if the buyer has been looking for it specifically.

I figured that I needed a product that made customers wonder and ask me, "hey, what's that?". So I built two dummy boxes, one for the English language shelf, one for the German shelf.

The result was that not one customer came to me with a remark like, "I never knew they did a fantasy version of Traveller," or a similar statement. Simply put, no one discovered it, and I had placed it next to: Traveller, D&D, smaller fantasy games like Palladium and C&C, and the bargain bin, for two weeks each.

(The German dummy triggered the same reactions--that is, none--leading me to the conclusion that gamers browse game store shelves very focused on game lines they know and expect.)

Years later, someone (Dr Rotwang!) explained the old Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign setting as "D&D's Spinward Marches", in this thread on the RPGsite. That was when I remembered my mock-up. I quickly added a fake back cataloque, answer card, and map, and shot the picture as a visual answer to Dr Rotwang!

[ripx187]

Neat thread, Maximum Forest Ranger. An Exalt from me. This is an interesting picture. Very mysterious. It kind of reminds me when I spent a whole evening trying to figure out if the Candle Cove was a real thing or not

[El Borak]

Jul 19, 2018 16:25:09 GMT -5 ripx187 said:

Neat thread, Maximum Forest Ranger . An Exalt from me. This is an interesting picture. Very mysterious. It kind of reminds me when I spent a whole evening trying to figure out if the Candle Cove was a real thing or not

Have an exalt from me to, this is really cool. I can picture it now Barbarians in Space!

[Jakob Grimm]

Jul 19, 2018 17:42:38 GMT -5 El Borak said:

Jul 19, 2018 16:25:09 GMT -5 ripx187 said:

Neat thread, Maximum Forest Ranger . An Exalt from me. This is an interesting picture. Very mysterious. It kind of reminds me when I spent a whole evening trying to figure out if the Candle Cove was a real thing or not

Have an exalt from me to, this is really cool. I can picture it now Barbarians in Space!

Yeah, this looks like fun to me. Back in the Lensmen series IIRC the Space Marines used axes since the space suits were proof against blasters (energy weapons).

[True Black Raven]

Oh man, someone should write that game up.

[Jakob Grimm]

That sure is a beautiful box and set of books. We may have to figure out a way to make this happen during 2019.