Traveller (role-playing game)

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Traveller

Cover of the original Traveller boxed set
Designer(s)	Marc W. Miller Frank Chadwick John Harshman Loren K. Wiseman
Publisher(s)	Game Designers' Workshop (Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller: The New Era) Imperium Games (T4: Marc Miller's Traveller) Steve Jackson Games (GURPS Traveller, GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars) QLI/RPGRealms Publishing (Traveller20) ComStar Games (Traveller Hero) Mongoose Publishing (Mongoose Traveller 1st & 2nd Ed.) Far Future Enterprises (Traveller5)
Publication date	1977 (Traveller) 1987 (MegaTraveller) 1993 (Traveller: The New Era) 1996 (T4: Marc Miller's Traveller) 1998 (GURPS Traveller) 2002 (Traveller20) 2006 (GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars) 2006 (Traveller Hero) 2008 (Mongoose Traveller) 2013 (Traveller5) 2016 (Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed.)
Genre(s)	Science fiction space opera
System(s)	Custom, GURPS, Hero, d20 System

Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game, first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc W. Miller designed Traveller with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren K. Wiseman.^[1]

Game overview[edit]

Characters typically journey between various star systems and engage in activities such as exploration, ground and space battles, and interstellar trading. Characters are defined not by the need to increase native skill and ability but by achievements, discoveries, wealth, titles, and political power.

Key features[edit]

Key features derived from literary sources are incorporated into Traveller in all its forms^{[citation needed]}:

• Human-centric but cosmopolitan: The core rules focus on human characters, but there is ample support for using and playing aliens.
• Space travel: Interstellar travel is through the use of the faster-than-light (FTL) jump drive, which moves a ship through "jump space" a few light-years at a time. Each jump always takes about one week. Normal-space travel is accomplished through relatively efficient and powerful gravitic drives. Newtonian physics tends to be followed.
• Limited communication: There is no faster-than-light information transfer – meaning no ansible, subspace radio or hyper-wave. Communication is limited to the speed of travel. Decisions are made on the local level, rather than by a remote authority.
• Conflict resolution: Planets fight out internal wars, and commerce is a major driving force of civilization.^{[citation needed]}
• Sociological: Interstellar society is socially stratified (high, mid, and low passage; SOC (Social Status) is a primary character attribute). Affairs are often managed by independent nobility, who make use of classic titles such as Baron, Duke and Archduke.
• Diversity within Limits: Career options, ship design, subsector design, and decisions made during character generation limit and frame reality. The definitions create a diverse space (hence library data and anachronistic/ atavistic worlds), within limits.
• Morals and mortality: People remain people and continue to show courage, wisdom, honesty and justice, along with cowardice, deceit, and criminal behavior.

Characters[edit]

Traveller uses a lifepath-style system for character generation. Characters get their skills and experience in a mini-game, where the player makes career choices that determine the character's life right up to the point before adventuring begins.

A character can be human, robot, alien, or of a genetically engineered species. A character can be civilian, military, or noble, a young cadet or a tried-and-true veteran, each with strengths and weaknesses. Death during character generation is even a possibility in some editions, a mechanic that became infamous.

Characters are described by six primary characteristics: strength, dexterity, endurance, intelligence, education, and social standing; these characteristics are typically generated with a roll of two six-sided dice. Other general characteristics also exist, such as psionics and sanity. There are also variant characteristics, such as charisma and caste, which replace a primary characteristic, to add nuance to alien characters.

Psionics[edit]

Extra-sensory perception, telekinesis, telepathy, and other psychic abilities are organized and standardized into "psionics". Depending on their choice, characters can be psionic.

Task systems[edit]

Each rule system has its own task mechanic for resolving character actions; some systems use two or three six-sided dice, while others use multiple six-sided dice or a twenty-sided die. Target numbers are typically determined by the referee, who takes into account task difficulty, skill level, and a characteristic. Situation and equipment used can provide a bonus or penalty to a roll. Depending on the task, a success may require rolling above or below the target number.

Equipment[edit]

Equipment typically emphasizes wilderness exploration, hazardous environments, and combat; as a result, equipment lists are heavy on vehicles, sensor equipment, communicators, rations, personal armor, and weapons.

Low-technology: Since primitive worlds exist near technological worlds, primitive weapons are also typically included, such as swords, shields, pikes, and bows.

High-technology: And since high technology is available, cybernetic implants and non-sentient robots typically also show up in equipment lists, as well as artifacts from ancient, vanished technological civilizations.

Hard Sci-fi Flavor: While there are energy weapons, there is also a strong presence of slug-throwing weapons such as rifles and pistols. The prevailing theory is that (usually) the most efficient way to stop someone is with kinetic energy (e.g. bullets).

Starships[edit]

Rules for starship design and combat are like games unto themselves with a complex balance of ship components fitting within certain hull volumes, technology levels, and modifiers based upon characters' skills, it is complex enough to be able to generically represent most starships used in role-playing games, and flexible enough to support custom add-ons to the system. (GDW published several board games allowing Traveller space battles to be played out as games in their own right - Mayday using the Traveller rules, Brilliant Lances and Battle Rider using the Traveller: The New Era rules.)

Computer programs have been created to model and predict starship combat using Traveller rules; the most famous case involved Douglas Lenat applying his Eurisko heuristic learning program to the scenario in the Traveller adventure Trillion Credit Squadron, which contained rules for resolving very large space battles statistically. Eurisko discovered exploitable features of the starship design system that allowed it to build unusual fleets that won the 1981 and 1982 championships; the sponsor stated that if Lenat entered and won the next year they would stop the sponsorship, so Lenat stopped attending.^[2]

Worlds[edit]

Worlds represent a wide spectrum of conditions, from barren planetoid moons to large gas giant worlds, from uncolonized territory to planets with tens of billions of people. Most worlds tend to be only modestly colonized, though some worlds may be dangerously overcrowded.

The world generation system is geared to produce a highly random mix of worlds. Extensions take star system generation into account, and modify the process depending on the fecundity and history of the targeted area of space. Similar to the use of the UPP for characters, worlds are represented by an alphanumeric Universal World Profile that encodes key physical, social, and economic properties of the world.

Setting[edit]

The original booklets were promoted as generic rules for running general science fiction role-playing games with no official setting. However, in the adventures and supplements that soon followed a suggested setting began to emerge, in which the human-dominated Third Imperium was the largest interstellar empire in charted space, a feudalistic union of worlds, where local nobility operate largely free from oversight, restricted by convention and feudal obligations.

Races[edit]

The setting features various descendants of humanity, who are collectively called Humaniti; these include the Solomani, humans emigrated from Earth within the last few thousand years, the Vilani, humans transplanted from Earth tens of thousands of years ago by the Ancients (see below) who founded the First Imperium, and the Zhodani, psychic humans ruled by psionically-gifted nobles.

Despite the thematic dominance of the human race, with most adventures taking place in human space, the Traveller universe is cosmopolitan, containing many technologically advanced species known as sophonts, a term borrowed from earlier science fiction material;^[3] the setting principally concerns itself with six major races that developed faster-than-light travel independently. In addition to Humaniti, the standard list of major races includes the honor-bound felinoid Aslan, the winged reptilioid Droyne, the sixfold-symmetric and manipulative Hivers, the centaur-like militant vegetarian K'kree, and the uplifted wolf-hybrid Vargr.

Additional minor races are numerous. An early publication from GDW noted that "The minor races, of which there are hundreds within the area of known space, will be largely left up to individual referees." GDW's quarterly publication, the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society designed by Loren K. Wiseman, sketched out about one race per quarter, starting with the Aslan in Issue 7. Taken together with aliens casually mentioned or introduced in separate scenarios or adventures—often arbitrarily—there is therefore no indication that the number of minor races is limited in any sense.

Ancients[edit]

The Ancients were a major race in the distant past; their ruins dot planets throughout charted space and their artifacts are more technically advanced than those of any existing civilization. For unknown reasons, they transplanted humans from Earth to dozens of worlds, uplifted Terran wolves to create the Vargr, and undertook many megascale engineering projects before destroying their civilization in a catastrophic war.

Publishing history[edit]

Format[edit]

The original gamebooks were distinctive digest-sized black pamphlets (the so-called "little black books") produced by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW); the main rules were detailed in three such booklets, sold as a boxed set while the same format was used for early support material, such as the adventures, supplements and further books. Later supplements and updated versions of the main game system introduced full sized booklets, complete re-writes of the game system and significant changes to the Third Imperium.

Editions[edit]

Traveller game editions and publishers

Pub. date	Game	Abbrev.	Primary publisher
1977	(Classic) Traveller	CT	Game Designers' Workshop
1987	MegaTraveller	MT	Game Designers' Workshop
1993	Traveller: The New Era	TNE	Game Designers' Workshop
1996	T4: Marc Miller's Traveller	T4	Imperium Games
1998	GURPS Traveller	GT	Steve Jackson Games
2002	Traveller20	T20	QuikLink Interactive
2006	GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars	GTIW	Steve Jackson Games
2006	Traveller Hero	TH	ComStar Games
2008	Mongoose Traveller	MGT	Mongoose Publishing
2013	Traveller5	T5	Far Future Enterprises
2016	Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed.	MGT2	Mongoose Publishing

Though nearly all older versions of Traveller are available in PDF format, Traveller5 and Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed. are the two current rulesets. Both rely on six-sided dice exclusively, and both draw from the original Traveller rules.

Traveller[edit]

The original version was designed and published by GDW in 1977; this edition is also sometimes called, retroactively, Classic Traveller. The core rules originally came as a box set of three little black books, and were later compiled into a single volume rulebook. Supplemental booklets included advanced character generation, capital ship design, robots, and more. Eight boxed wargames were released as tie-in products.

MegaTraveller[edit]

A major overhaul published by GDW in 1987, but designed by Digest Group Publications; the game system used revised rules developed in DGP's Traveller's Digest periodical.^[4] The game was set during the rebellion which shattered the Imperium. Supplements and magazines produced during this era detailed the progression of the rebellion from the initial assassination of the Emperor in 1116 to the collapse of large-scale interstellar trade in roughly 1124 (the beginning of the supplement Hard Times).

A Japanese edition of MegaTraveler was published by Hobby Japan.

Traveller: The New Era[edit]

Published in 1993,^[5] this was the final edition published by GDW. Set in the former territory of the Third Imperium after interstellar government and society had largely collapsed. TNE introduced Virus, a silicon chip-life form that infected and took over computers; the game mechanics used GDW's house system, derived from Twilight: 2000, 2nd Ed. The game used a more realism-centered approach to science fiction, doing away with reactionless thrusters, shortening laser ranges to a reasonable distance, etc.

T4: Marc Miller's Traveller[edit]

Published by Imperium Games in 1996, T4 is set in the early days of the Third Imperium (Milieu 0), with the small, newly formed empire surrounded by regressed or barbaric worlds; the mechanics and text resemble a mix of Classic Traveller and The New Era.

GURPS Traveller[edit]

Designed by Loren K. Wiseman and published in 1998, GURPS Traveller uses the third edition of the GURPS system and takes place in an alternate timeline in which no Rebellion occurred and Virus was never released. Steve Jackson Games produced numerous supplements for the line, including details for all of the major races, many of the minor races, interstellar trade, expanded world generation, the military forces of the Third Imperium, and starships.

Traveller20[edit]

Published by Quick Link Interactive in 2002, this version uses the d20 System as its base and is set at the time of the Solomani Rim War around Imperial year 990, about a century before the era depicted in the original game; the preferred setting is the Gateway Domain region of the Imperium. After the company's license to the Traveller brand and setting lapsed, the purely mechanical elements of this game were republished as the generic SciFi20 system.

GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars[edit]

In 2006, Steve Jackson Games released GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars (GTISW, sometimes GTIW) for the 4th edition of GURPS from 2004; the timeline was rolled back to 2170, which is several millennia earlier than the usual Traveller setting, to the early days of Earth's presence in space at the time when Earth first started to send out interstellar ships to include the period just after the Third Interstellar War between the Terran Confederation (Earth) and the gigantic Ziru Sirka Empire (Vland).

Traveller Hero[edit]

A port of the Traveller setting to the Hero System, produced under license by Comstar Games in 2006.

Mongoose Traveller[edit]

Mongoose Publishing published this version both in a traditional format and as an open gaming SRD around which other games may be built, it is adapted from Traveller, with updated careers and technology. It is referred to as "MgT" or "MGT" to differentiate it from "MT", or MegaTraveller; the core rule book was released in April 2008, with a regular series of supplements following. The SRD has since served as the basis for Cepheus Engine, an independent retroclone of original Traveller.

Traveller5[edit]

In 2013, Far Future Enterprises published a new set of rules by re-working and integrating concepts from earlier rulesets; the Traveller5 Core Rules book is a rules mechanics reference, pulled from Traveller adventures and toolbox material from supplements. It has a "retro" black-and-white production style.

Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed.[edit]

A second edition of Mongoose's Traveller was published in 2016, it uses a full color production style while resembling the original Traveller rules in scope. This edition is not licensed under the Open Game License; the second edition core rules include pre-career university and military academy education options. Skills specialization have been reorganized to reduce skill bloat; some equipment descriptions have been altered and spacecraft operations and combat now have a different approach. Additional supplements flesh out rules further, including a revision to High Guard to handle all starship design.

Reception[edit]

Forrest Johnson reviewed Traveller in The Space Gamer No. 28.^[6] Johnson commented that "Traveller is the best game of its type, recommended for the sophisticated science fiction gamer."^[6]

David Ritchie reviewed Traveller in Ares Magazine #1, rating it an 8 out of 9.^[7] Ritchie commented that "This game starts off where Dungeons and Dragons left off, but, if there is any justice, will end up being more popular than that venerable relic. For one thing, the Traveller rules are fairly consistent (moreso than is usual for such games). For another, unlike the first generation of role-playing games, this one requires no referee or gamesmaster. Somewhat complex. Variable playing time."^[7]

Traveller was added to the Origins Hall of Fame.^[8]

Traveller (as either Traveller, Mega Traveller, or Traveller: The New Era) was ranked 3rd in the 1996 reader poll of Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time; the UK magazine's editor Paul Pettengale commented: "Although originally intended as a generic science fiction system, Traveller quickly became linked with the Imperium campaign background developed by GDW." Pettengale said: "This background offers a great degree of freedom for individual referees to run campaigns of their own devising, while providing enough basic groundwork to build from, and has proved to be immensely successful. Everything from political intrigue to action-packed mercenary actions, trading or scientific exploration is possible, and a lot more besides." Pettengale suggested Traveller was "one of the true classics of the roleplaying hobby".^[9]

In other media[edit]

Software[edit]

The Imperial Data Recovery System is a computer program published by FASA in 1981 as a play aid to speed up bookkeeping for Traveller, and assist with sector maps, character and ship records, accounting, and encounters. John M. Morrison reviewed The Imperial Data Recovery System in The Space Gamer No. 50.^[10] Morrison commented that "I would seriously recommend that FASA take this off the market and re-write it form the ground up. There's definitely room for a Traveller aid program on the market, but not this one."^[10]

GDW licensee Paragon produced two video games based on the Traveller universe:

• MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy (1990) for Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS operating environments
• MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients (1991) for Amiga and MS-DOS

Novels[edit]

Several novels have been specifically set in the various Traveller universes:

Traveller game novels

#	Year	Title	Series	Author	Reference and ISBN	Notes
1.	1993	"Again, Oytritsyu'aby"	n/a	Charles Gannon	n/a	Novelette (short story)
2.	1993	"Count or Country"	n/a	Charles Gannon	n/a	Novelette (short story)
3.	1993	"The Trap of Triton"	n/a	Gary A. Kalin	n/a	Novelette (short story)
5.	1995	Death of Wisdom	Book 1 of 3	Paul Brunette	ISBN 1-55878-181-1
6.	1995	To Dream of Chaos	Book 2 of 3	Paul Brunette	ISBN 1-55878-184-6
7.	1998	Gateway to the Stars	n/a	Pierce Askegren	ISBN 0-671-01188-X
8.	2005	The Force of Destiny	n/a	Dale Kemper	[11]
9.	2004	Diaspora Phoenix	n/a	Martin J. Dougherty	n/a
10.	2006	Tales of the New Era 1: Yesterday's Hero	n/a	Martin J. Dougherty	n/a
11.	2010	The Backwards Mask	Book 3 of 3	Paul Brunette	[12]
12.	2011	The Backwards Mask (Alternative)	Book 3 of 3	Matthew Carson	[12][13]
13.	2012	A Long Way Home: Tales of Congressional Space	n/a	Terrance McInnes	n/a
14.	2014	Shadow of the Storm	n/a	Martin J. Dougherty	ISBN 1558780343
15.	2014	Fate of the Kinunir	n/a	Robert E. Vardeman	ISBN 978-1-55878-029-3
16.	2015	Agent of the Imperium	n/a	Marc W. Miller	ISBN 978-1-55878-037-8

• In addition, Jefferson Swycaffer has written several novels set in the "Concordat" fictional universe he originally developed for his Traveller campaign.
• Gregory P. Lee's The Laughing Lip^[14] series acknowledges the influence of Traveller in the development of the three novels published to date. Lee also wrote the Gamelords supplement Lee's Guide to Interstellar Adventure in the early 1980s.
• There are two different Backwards Mask books in the Death of Wisdom trilogy. The manuscript by the original author (Brunette) was lost until shortly after the replacement manuscript (by Carson) was published; the original was then published for those who wanted it, and Carson's serves as an alternate end to the trilogy.

Periodicals[edit]

Gaming magazine White Dwarf ran a comic strip called The Travellers by Mark Harrison from 1983 to 1986; the strip spoofed Traveller and other space opera settings.^[15]

Music[edit]

The concept album Traveller by heavy metal band The Lord Weird Slough Feg is based on the game.

Related role-playing games[edit]

Traveller: 2300 or 2300 AD[edit]

Originally published by GDW as an updated replacement for Traveller, eschewing classic space opera to take inspiration from the grittier contemporary hard science fiction media of the 1980s; the first edition was named Traveller: 2300, which incited both confusion and criticism since the game carried over neither the rules nor setting of its namesake. The second edition was renamed 2300 AD, and added some cyberpunk rules and adventures, it is presented as a future extrapolation of the speculative World War III of GDW's popular military role-playing game Twilight: 2000. In the 2300 AD setting, interstellar travel is relatively new, Earth is still divided into nation-states, and the most powerful nations are competitively exploring and colonizing the fifty light year sphere of surrounding space. Mongoose Publishing released a sourcebook for the setting in 2012 that adapted it to their version of the Traveller rules.

See also[edit]

• SORAG, a 1981 supplement for Traveller

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Chadwick, Frank (1978). Traveller Book 4: Mercenary. Game Designers' Workshop.
• Collinson, Timothy (2000). The Traveller Periodical Bibliography. British Isles Traveller Support.
• Collinson, Timothy (2017). The Traveller Bibliography, 3rd edition. British Isles Traveller Support.
• Fugate, Joe D. Sr; Brown, Timothy B. (1986). Traveller Book 8: Robots. Game Designers' Workshop. ISBN 0-943580-10-2.
• Masters, Phil (February 1983). "Open Box: The Traveller Book". White Dwarf. Games Workshop (38): 12. ISSN 0265-8712.
• Miller, Marc William (1980) [1979]. Traveller Book 5: High Guard. revised by Marc William Miller, Frank Chadwick and John Harshman. Game Designers' Workshop.
• Miller, Marc W (1983). Traveller Book 6: Scouts. Game Designers' Workshop.
• Miller, Marc W; Loren Wiseman (1984). Traveller Adventure 12: Secret of the Ancients. Game Designers' Workshop.
• Miller, Marc W; J. Andrew Keith (1985). Traveller Book 7: Merchant Prince. Game Designers' Workshop.
• Miller, Marc W (1988). Rebellion Sourcebook. Game Designers' Workshop. ISBN 0-943580-63-3.
• Slack, Andy (February 1983). "An Introduction to Traveller Part III: Scenarios". White Dwarf. Games Workshop (38): 10–11. ISSN 0265-8712.
• Slack, Andy (March 1983). "An Introduction to Traveller Part IV: Scenarios". White Dwarf. Games Workshop (39): 18–19. ISSN 0265-8712.
• Slack, Andy (December 1983). "Open Box: Traveller Starter Edition". White Dwarf. Games Workshop (48): 10. ISSN 0265-8712.
• Smith, Lester (1996). Milieu 0. Imperium Games. ISBN 1578281245.
• Wiseman, Loren K. (1981). Traveller Book 0: An Introduction To. Game Designers' Workshop.
• Traveller Book 1: Characters and Combat. Game Designers' Workshop. 1977a.
• Traveller Book 2: Starships. Game Designers' Workshop. 1977b.
• Traveller Book 3: Worlds and Adventures. Game Designers' Workshop. 1977c.

External links[edit]

• Far Future Enterprises
• Mongoose Traveller
• GURPS Traveller
• Traveller wiki