A: The link, above, will take you to a document entirely devoted to that question, which gives a (fairly) brief general overview. Even more briefly, _2300 AD_ is an SF-RPG put out in 1988 by GDW.
Q: What are the differences between the original _Traveller:2300_ and _2300 AD_?
A: For a more official answer, see Lester W. Smith's article "The 2300AD Revision" from _Challenge_ #34, pages 56-8. For more differences that I noted, you can see my descriptions of both Traveller:2300 and 2300 AD in the Products Section.
Q: Why haven't I heard about 2300?
A: If you're here, you probably have! If not, it's probably because the company that made it (Game Designers' Workshop, or GDW, for short) went out of business in 1996, and even before that, a decision was made to stop supporting it, and nothing has been published on it, since 1991.
A: Tantalus, Inc. bought the rights to several RPGs (Role-Playing Games) from GDW, including _2300 AD_, _Star Cruiser_ (its space combat board game), _Dark Conspiracy_, and _Twilight 2000_. Tantalus, Inc.'s money-making arm, MPGN (the Multi-Player Game Network), actually worked on turning _Star Cruiser_ into an online game, prior to the conversion to 32-bit for Windows 95, but it was considered too hard to convert it from 16 to 32-bit, so the project was dropped. Marc Miller (one of 2300's original authors) later bought the rights to 2300 and SC. His company, FFE (Far Future Enterprises) now holds the copyrights, and was planning to reprint them in a format similar to the Traveller reprints.
FFE is now selling a single 600 MB CD-ROM with ALL the Games, Modules, and Sourcebooks on it, as well as all of the _2300 Resource_ and _Challenge_ magazine articles! This is available here.
Also, if you only need a few Modules or Sourcebooks, it may be cheaper to just buy a few .PDFs, instead. DriveThruRPG has the complete set of Games, Modules, and Sourcebooks, with the exception of _Rotten to the Core_.
For quick access, the list of titles (and current prices, as of June 2006) includes:
Remember, these are .PDF files, so you'll need the Adobe
Acrobat
(Also, in the interest of full disclosure, you should note that if you follow one of the links, above, and purchase any of the DriveThruRPG files, 5% of the price will be credited to my account.)
Q: What is being done with the games?
A: Not much, but see below.
A: I doubt there will ever be a third edition. Tantalus (and Marc) have said that the RPG market is shrinking, and that in order for a game to survive, it must take advantage of some societal trend (such as the spate of Cyberpunk games in the late 1980s). Many folks seem to agree. Also, 2300's future-history is badly broken, by now (the Twilight War should already have begun!), and many areas of its so-called "hard science" are, as well (computer technology, especially)! Releasing it as a "harder" SF-RPG, today, would be a joke.
Doing a third edition would mean scrapping a lot, and investing a lot of time, money, and effort into creating a new game... and in the end, that's exactly what you would have, too: a new game! It would no longer be 2300! And then there are those new developments in science, such as the star which is circled by the colony world Doris being a lot farther away than it was thought to be, back in the days when 2300 was published... So what do you do? Rework the star maps and future history completely, or just create a whole new game?
There may still be hope, however, since in 1998 Tantalus sold development rights for the _Dark Conspiracy_ game for the next five years to Archangel Entertainment, who released a new version. Marc Miller has reacquired the rights to _2300 AD_ and _Star Cruiser_, as well as all of the 2300 modules and sourcebooks, and (as of September, 2001) says that he is planning to issue reprints of them in a five volume set. If things go according to plan, these reprints (probably in paperback, like the current ones for _Traveller_) will become available about October of 2002 (obviously, that never happened, but the .PDFs are now available. See above).
Q: How can I get (X) Game/Module/Sourcebook?
A: Fear not, gentle reader! Even before the reprints come out, you can still get pretty much any product that you want, in print or .PDF! In sources.htm, I list many places to buy these long-out-of-print treasures, and detail my experiences in dealing with each. At the very bottom is also an essay on the availability of products, as well as mention of the places that I know will ship overseas.
Q: How do I know what information each product includes?
A: Easy! Just go to products.htm and click on the link naming the product that you're interested in, and/or simply scroll down through the list and look through the titles. You can also use your browser's "Search" feature to look for keywords. Each description lists the Game's/Module's/Sourcebook's Title, Sub-title, Author(s), Copyright date, International Standard Book Number, GDW's Product Number, the Price GDW originally sold it for (so you can compare it to the price it's currently selling for), the number of Pages, and a brief description of each product. For even more detailed content, you can click on the "Contents:" link, although if there is an asterisk () after it, that Game/Module/Sourcebook hasn't been outlined, yet.
A: No. That would be a violation of US Copyright law, and the International Berne Convention. I'd need permission from the Copyright owner(s) to do that, and they aren't willing to give up their Copyrights! Several of the companies listed in sources.htm will ship anywhere, if you pay the freight. Why settle for illegal photocopies when you can have the real thing?
FFE is now selling a single 600 MB CD-ROM with ALL the Games, Modules, and Sourcebooks on it, as well as all of the _2300 Resource_ and _Challenge_ magazine articles! This is available here.
Also, if you only need a few Modules or Sourcebooks, it may be cheaper to just buy a few .PDFs, instead. DriveThruRPG has the complete set of Games, Modules, and Sourcebooks, with the exception of _Rotten to the Core_.
For quick access, the list of titles (and current prices, as of June 2006) includes:
Remember, these are .PDF files, so you'll need the Adobe
Acrobat
(Also, in the interest of full disclosure, you should note that if you follow one of the links, above, and purchase any of the DriveThruRPG files, 5% of the price will be credited to my account.)
Q: I don't have the (X) article from (Y) Magazine. Will you make copies for me, if I pay you?
A: Again, No! If Y = _Challenge_, I do have permission to copy individual articles, for the cost of copies plus mailing (at cost; no profit). However, since GDW returned the rights on these articles to the Authors, I would also need their permission (which I don't have). Thus, I cannot. For the articles whose authors I have been able to locate (or who have found me), and who have been willing to grant permission, their articles are now online (see the List of All Known 2300 AD Magazine Articles page). Please make use of these, and don't ask for copies of them (why pay for them when you can read them for free?)
FFE is now selling a single 600 MB CD-ROM with ALL the Games, Modules, and Sourcebooks on it, as well as all of the _2300 Resource_ and _Challenge_ magazine articles! This is available here.
Q: When will (X) be up on your site?
A: Work takes time. Good work takes longer. It (whatever it is) will be up when I have time to devote to it. Remember: Patience is a Virtue!
A: For the longer version, look here. For the shorter version, because I asked you to, really nicely? Okay, how about "Because that's about the only way you have to communicate with the Web-Master, let him know what you'd like to see added/removed, correct errors, make comments, and give his site a Rating from 0 (F-) to 10 (A)".
A: Because I enjoyed 2300 enough to put a lot of work into it, a friend did too, and when I found a 2300 community on the internet, I joined it, and thought some other folks might enjoy seeing some of that work. While I've moved on, now, I still have many 2300-related irons in the fire, and occassionally finish a piece for this site.
A: Unlike some sites, I don't try to make out like my views are the only correct ones. Nothing here is canonical doctrine, it is all the opinion of one man (usually me), and can be taken or left, at the reader's discretion. Also, as I said in the About this site document, "One Man's Views" is a bit of a misnomer, as there are now many documents, here, by other people.