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Classic Traveller RPG – An Introduction
There are scores of tabletop RPGs on the market. Like board games, there’s a little something for everyone. When it comes to science- fiction, the grandaddy of them all is the Classic Traveller RPG. It was the first and maybe the best to have ever been created, similar to Gamma World with its post-apocalyptic offering. That’s up for debate, of course. However, what you can’t deny is that this game has captured the hearts of gamers for decades and it’s still going strong.
Let’s look at a brief history. I do mean quick, not exhaustive. Consider this a cliff notes version of the game.
The Beginning
In 1977, a legacy was born. One that included traversing the stars and exploring the galaxy. Where humanity had conquered space travel and could now visit places they formerly could not set foot upon in a lifetime. This was the beginning of a time of planetary adventure and exploration. This was the genesis of the Traveller tabletop RPG.
Though not “hard science fiction”, it’s safe to say Traveller is a more serious science fiction game. It has a tone in the vein of television shows and movies like The Expanse, Gravity, and Event Horizon. Of course, you can set whatever mood you like, but that’s the sense you get from the style of writing in the core books.
The Players
The lead designer on the Classic Traveller RPG was Marc Miller. Miller is an army veteran, and when he finished his service to his country, he attended Illinois State University. While attending, he joined the ISU Game Club, where he met others who would later help him create what would people would come to know as the Classic Traveller RPG — Loren Wiseman, Frank Chadwick, Paul R. Banner, and John Harshman. These men would make up the core of what would be the game publishing company called Game Designer’s Workshop in 1973.
The Reputation
By far, the Classic Traveller RPG was the most popular — and arguably still is — science fiction tabletop RPG to hit the scene. Even though there were games like TSR’s Star Frontiers, released in 1982, they came and went while Traveller has sustained a loyal following from the time of its inception until today, due mainly to licensing deals with publishing companies who wanted to keep Traveller going like Miller’s far Future Enterprises, Steve Jackson Games, and the current publisher Mongoose Publishing.
The Editions
The Classic Traveller RPG has seen many editions. As mentioned, its first edition dropped in 1977. In 1983, they released a Starter Edition, which was the classic system to get people up to speed to play Classic Traveller. This is the edition I have and the edition we will be covering in this classic tabletop RPG series.
It wasn’t until ten years later when they released a truly new version of the game, naming it MegaTraveller. That version used rules found in the Digest Group Publications.
The next version of the game was five years later with Traveller: The New Era. This would become the last edition published by Game Designer’s Workshop. It used GDW’s house system taken from their post-apocalyptic game Twilight 2000. This one took an even more serious focus to science fiction and added realism to several aspects of the game.
In 1996, Miller published his own version called (wouldn’t you know it) Marc Miller’s Traveller. It had a mix of the Classic Traveller mechanics with the New Era. A “best of”, so to speak.
A mere two years later, GURPS came out with their version of Traveller. They followed this up in 2006 with GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars. This would hold until 2008 when Mongoose Publishing released the 1st edition of the new Traveller. 2016 saw a 2nd edition. Forbes wrote an article on Traveller during the pandemic in 2021, and Mongoose released a 2nd edition update in 2022.
There were other editions in between there, but I gave you the highlights here, which is where we are today at the writing of this article in 2023.
The Series
Traveller is a multi-layered, many faceted tabletop RPG with a rich history of lore with the Imperium. The game has stayed human-centric for the most part, though there are options in different versions of the game to play different alien races. However, since we are playing the classic version, it’s 100% homo sapiens.
This series will take us through character creation, spaceship design, building, and economics; computers, interstellar travel, and combat, to name a few. During all of this in the background, we’ll be preparing to bring it all together to cap it off in a Classic Traveller RPG mini-adventure.
Join me as we embark on a new classic tabletop RPG series with the Classic Traveller RPG, The Starter Edition set.
[…] example, if you have a sci-fi campaign in Classic Traveller, and the players will be at a starport. The first time you introduce the player characters to that […]