| Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society | |
| Founder: | Loren K. Wiseman |
| Founded: | 1979 |
| Finalnumber: | 25 |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society is a role-playing game magazine devoted to Traveller, commonly abbreviated JTAS.
Loren K. Wiseman created a magazine in 1979 to support Traveller, with Game Designers' Workshop publishing The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society (JTAS), which Wiseman would continue to develop as its editor.[1] J. Andrew Keith wrote so much material for JTAS that he used the pseudonyms John Marshal and Keith Douglass (although a reader performed a word-use analysis of these articles and realized that the same person wrote them all). Marc Miller decided that, rather than using modern dates for the magazine, each issue would instead be based on the in-game calendar of the Imperium, which advanced roughly 90 days for each quarterly issue. JTAS #2 (1979) began to include in-universe excerpts from the fictional 'Traveller News Service', which talked about 'current' events going on in the Imperium; that issue was dated 274–1105, and included two news excerpts from Regina sector, which were dated 097-1105 and 101–1105 on the Imperium calendar. JTAS #9 (1981) contributed to the development of the Traveller metaplot by detailing the beginning of a war with the alien Zhodani species. The original run of the magazine ended with The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #24 (1984), but GDW replaced it with the magazine Challenge, continuing the numbering from JTAS with issue #25 (1986) but included material for all games published by GDW rather than just Traveller.
Imperium Games published Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #25 in 1996, and published their second and final issue of the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society in 1997.
Steve Jackson Games obtained a license for the Traveller setting, so they brought back Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society as an online magazine in 2000.
Mongoose Publishing produced six volumes of Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society in 2020 as part of their Traveller licence.[2] Journal of the Traveller’s Aid Society, Volume I is 128 pages long and contains two adventures.[3]
The Journal of the Travellers Aid Society takes its name from the fictional Travellers' Aid Society (TAS) that was first mentioned in the original incarnation of the Traveller game published by Game Designers Workshop [GDW]. In the original Traveller game, it was not too uncommon for characters to obtain membership in the TAS during character creation. The idea of the TAS is that it is an organization that exists to support what are basically 'transients,' or 'wanderers' ['Travellers' in the game's terminology] around the galaxy. It does so by maintaining low-cost hostels at many of the large starports, and, most importantly, by maintaining its 'rating system,' which warns of the dangers inherent in visiting certain worlds. Under this system, a world which should be approached with caution is denoted an 'Amber Zone,' and a world that should not be approached at all is denoted a 'Red Zone.'x§
These are collections of the earlier GDW publications.
The Journal of the Travellers Aid Society won the H.G. Wells award for Best Magazine Covering Roleplaying of 1979.[4]
William A. Barton reviewed the "Merchant Prince" supplement from Journal of the Travellers Aid Society #12 in The Space Gamer No. 53.[5] Barton commented that "Although it probably won't totally supplant Merchants & Merchandise as the book for generating merchant characters, Merchant Prince is a well-conceived and viable alternative to M&M. Its inclusion in the Journal makes it a special bargain. I recommend it to every Traveller player, especially those who find the merchant life the most appealing."