Overview

History: 1979-1985

Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, or JTAS as it's popularly known, was an experiment initiated by Marc Miller in 1979: a quarterly magazine intended to support GDW's Traveller (1979) RPG. GDW co-founder Loren Wiseman was chosen as its editor. He would lead the magazine through 24 roughly quarterly issues from 1979-1985.

From the start, JTAS focused on a number of popular features that each supplemented the game, among them the animals of "The Bestiary", the equipment of "The Ship's Locker", and especially the adventure seeds of "Amber Zone". The "Traveller News Service" appeared in JTAS #2 (1979) and marked a turning point for the entire Traveller line thanks to its introduction of an explicit setting, initially focused on the Regina subsector of the Spinward Marches. (It was also likely the first instances of metaplot in roleplaying.)

JTAS slowly, issue by issue, revealed more about the Third Imperium. That began with the "Annic Nova" adventure in the first issue, which mentioned "Regina subsector in the spinward marches". The setting was expanded from there first through feature articles and Amber Zones and later through new columns such as the alien-focused "Contact!", which debuted in JTAS #7 (1981) with its introduction of the Aslan. However, no issue was as important to the future of the Traveller universe as JTAS #9 (1981), the "war issue", which introduced the industry's first expansion of metaplot into an event: the Fifth Frontier War, which would appear in future roleplaying adventures and board games alike.

Over the course of its seven-year run, JTAS slowly grew in length. Its two-color covers also transformed to full-color pictures starting first with the special JTAS #9 and then more regularly with JTAS #13 (1982), to lead off 1982. All of the JTASes were printed in single print runs, without reprints, but a series of four "Best of" volumes (1980-1983) collected the top articles from the digest's first four years.

JTAS v1 was printed between May 31, 1979 and October 31, 1985. The first issue had a print run of 2,180 copies, which jumped to 5,242 with the second issue. From there, the magazine climbed up to a height of 12,370 with issue #11 and then slowly dropped back down to 7,484 at the end of the magazine's run.

That ending came following the publication of Twilight: 2000 (1984). GDW started talking about transforming JTAS into a magazine to cover all of their games, including Traveller, Twilight: 2000, and the never-published "Liege Lord". JTAS #24 ran to issue #24, completing its sixth and final set of four issues, with the intent of collecting it in two final "Best of" volumes (which were never produced). JTAS then became Challenge (1986-1995), a full-sized magazine. JTAS continued as a section of Challenge through Challenge #36 (1988).

There have been three revivals of JTAS.

• Imperium Games ran a short-lived v2 of JTAS, with just two issues, numbered #25 (1997) and #26 (1998). It covered the T4 (1997) edition of the game.
• Steve Jackson Games ran a v3 of JTAS (2000-2016) which consisted of regularly online files. It supported GURPS Traveller (1998).
• Mongoose Publishing occasionally releases 3-6 new volumes of JTAS paperbacks (2019-Present), which support Mongoose's Traveller 2e (2016). Many of them reprint classic articles.

Theme Issues

• #9: War!
• #11: Striker Miniatures Issue
• #12: Special Supplement #1 — Merchant Prince
• #17: Special Supplement #2 — Exotic Atmospheres
• #20: Aslan Special
• #21: Special Supplement #3 — Missiles

Obtaining the Magazines

Today the entire run is available on a CD-ROM from Far Future Enterprises, which also includes the Traveller content from the first 12 issues of Challenge. Alternatively, individual issues are available from DTRPG.

About the Contributors

JTAS often used middle initials for its contributors. Except when it didn't. For consistency's sake, all names appear the same, which by default is without that middle initial; if any contributor would like their name listed in a different way, just let me know.

Names have been further consolidated in the case of J. Andrew Keith, who wrote under three pen names: John Marshall, Keith Douglas, and Keith Douglass. These names are all listed under Andrew's own name, with a bracketed reference to the name that was printed in JTAS, mainly to verify that there isn't a mistake in the entry.

This index is © Copyright 2022-2024 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution.

Main Index

🧰 Accessories

🎞️ Adventures: Misc

1. Reprinted in DOUBLE ADVENTURE 1: ANNIC NOVA (GDW, 1980).

🎞️ Adventures: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

1. The Domain of Deneb is the most Spinward of the Domains. It includes the Deneb Sector, the Reft Sector, the Spinward Marches, and the Trojan Reach. It's the most traditional location for adventure in the Imperium. It is also known as the region "Behind the Claw".
2. Reprinted in DOUBLE ADVENTURE 1: ANNIC NOVA (GDW, 1980).

🎞️️ Adventures: Geographic, Imperium Outskirts¹

1. The Imperium Outskirts are places lying near the Third Imperium and not claimed by another entity.
2. Conversion notes for DOUBLE ADVENTURE 5: HORDE (GDW, 1981).

🗣️ Adventures: Patrons

1. Continuing the counting from TRAVELLER SUPPLEMENT 6: 76 PATRONS (GDW, 1980).

⚠️️ Adventures: Seeds, Amber Zones, Misc

1. See the "Casual Encounter" in JTAS #11 (GDW, 1981) for stats for Glorinna Firella.
2. Background was derived from DOUBLE ADVENTURE 2: ACROSS THE BRIGHT FACE (GDW, 1980).

⚠️️ Adventures: Seeds, Amber Zones, Geographic

1. Background was derived from DOUBLE ADVENTURE 2: ACROSS THE BRIGHT FACE (GDW, 1980).
2. Many early Amber Zones have been "orphaned": they refer to star systems that don't exist on Traveller maps. These "Foreven" Amber Zones aren't technically orphaned, but the planets were added to that sector retroactively, which means they likely weren't ever intended to be out in the middle of nowhere.

⚠️ Adventures: Seeds, Amber Zones, Historic

💡 Advice

🛸 Aliens: Misc

🛸 Aliens: Humaniti

🛸 Aliens: Major Races

🛸 Aliens: Minor Races

🐾 Animals & Plants

1. The alien from ALIEN (1979)

📚 Background: Misc

1. Part of a series that also includes construction & programming rules in JTAS #3-4 (GDW, 1980)

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Deneb¹

1. The Domain of Deneb is the most Spinward of the Domains. It includes the Deneb Sector, the Reft Sector, the Spinward Marches, and the Trojan Reach. It's the most traditional location for adventure in the Imperium. It is also known as the region "Behind the Claw".

🌌 Background: Geographic, Imperium, Domain of Sol¹

1. The Domain of Sol, formerly the Domain of Diaspora, contains the Solomani Sphere. It includes the Alpha Crucis Sector, the Diaspora Sector, the Old Expanses, and the Solomani Rim, and also administers the Hinterworlds and the Magyar Sector.
2. A preview of TRAVELLER SUPPLEMENT 10: THE SOLOMANI RIM (GDW, 1982).

⌛ Background: Historic

1. A Reprint of TNS from JTAS #10-18.

🖊️ Campaign Design

🛠️ Equipment: Misc

🤖 Equipment: Artificial Life

⚔️ Equipment: Combat

🛰️ Equipment: Infrastructure

🚀 Equipment: Transport

1. Material that originally appeared in the second edition of HIGH GUARD (GDW, 1980), representing changes from the first edition (GDW, 1979).

⬆️ Meta

🗣️ NPCs

1. From the "Coup D'etat" Amber Zone in JTAS #10 (GDW, 1981).

📜 Rules

1. BOOK 5: HIGH GUARD (GDW, 1979) covers naval careers.
2. BOOK 4: MERCENARY (GDW, 1978) covers the Army and Marines careers.
3. An outline of character creation rules in BOOK 4: MERCENARY (GDW, 1978).
4. This was the first incarnation of an advanced merchant career, prior to the publication of BOOK 7: MERCHANT PRINCE (GDW, 1984).
5. Material that originally appeared in the second edition of HIGH GUARD (GDW, 1980), representing changes from the first edition (GDW, 1979).
6. Supplementing the rules in BOOK 5: HIGH GUARD (GDW, 1979).

Appendix I: Traveller Wargames

⚡ Azhanti High Lightning

🎖️ Fifth Frontier War

☀️ Imperium

🪖 Striker

1. Conversion notes for DOUBLE ADVENTURE 5: HORDE (GDW, 1981)

Appendix II: Other GDW Wargames

⛏️ Belter

🪐🪐 Double Star

Covers