Forty years ago, I got acquainted with the famous three little black books. Looking back, Traveller was my second RPG. I could’ve sworn Star Frontiers and Bushido preceded it but as I remembered my time at Strake Jesuit, nope. A classmate and friend named Brent loaned me his copy yet it was Joe (a fellow Yankee) who clarified how this was different. I asked him, who’s better Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk (I was 14)? His answer was Kirk, he has more experience (he’s older which means he has more skills). Forty years later, my stupid question is pointless as I now understand Star Wars is Space Opera and Star Trek is Science Fiction, not quite apples to apples.
Anyway, I was excited to see the Science Fiction version of D&D! Games magazine loved it and claimed you could recreate whatever book, show or movie you wanted. They forgot to add a blurb stating “…if you’re only well-versed in the old, dull, neckbeard libertarian writings of Asimov, Niven, Pournelle and Heinlein (three are pedophiles too); constantly love to point out how popular Sci-Fi violates Physics; and never served in the military yet are armchair generals.
So what do these insults mean? It means Traveller was disappointing to the 14-yeard-old me. Your character didn’t start from a “beginning” level, you had to roll up a previous career in which you could die doing and half were in the military; oh when you turn 34, your stats drop. Laser weapons? No. Machine guns and swords are the norm. FTL travel? If covering six parsecs (~20 light years) in a week is your pace, sure; sadly such a fast starship is stuck at one-week intervals so you can’t cut the time by 1/6th. Starship combat? Don’t bother unless you understand vectors.
The list goes on with how much the gear, lack of aliens and character/world generation sucked ass.
How was it as a roleplaying game? Much worse! The rules were often vague (rolling eight or higher was a success with skills…maybe), too abstract (armed combat was worked out as 20 lines on a piece of notebook paper) or too dull (most planets suck, Earth’s siblings are rare). In short, it was more of a glorified board game since characters were disposable. Traveller‘s success was due to no serious competition until the Eighties. FASA published Star Trek in 1983 and West End with Star Wars in 1987. Pacesetter’s Star Ace in 1984 was far superior for what young gamers wanted with a solid core rule on skill resolutions.
It wasn’t all negative. GDW’s strength was the setting the company built around the game for its initial audience, The Third Imperium. It’s a knockoff of Asimov’s Foundation and Niven/Pournelle’s Empire of Man. On its frontiers was the Spinward Marches. Here the Imperium was vying over planets coveted by multiple alien powers in this area, namely the telepathic Zhondani, the unpredictable Vargr or the martial Aslan. Speaking of those three races, Traveller also had the enigmatic Droyne, the intolerant K’Kree, the racist Solomani (Earth’s descendants, we haven’t changed) and the mind-boggling Hivers. Again, GDW shined. The sourcebooks on these seven races were filled up with solid foundations to make them more than just humans in rubber suits (GDW’s ad campaign for them). It was funny how there were paragraphs telling the readers not equate Aslan and K’Kree to Larry Niven’s Kzinti and Puppeteers respectively.
But what most gamers did with Traveller‘s setting and aliens was utilize them with other, far superior and more flexible systems. After GDW closed in 1996, Marc Miller acquired the rights only due to his name being on the core rulebook; he barely wrote much for the game I quickly learned when I was hired in 1991. He knew what people had been doing for years so he immediately and wisely licensed Traveller to GURPS, HERO and d20 during the first OGL gold rush. Today a UK outfit called Mongoose continues to make newer stuff since people like me remain curious about how “the story” will end or progress in the 57th Century. One day I hope we’ll find out who are the galaxy’s other residents. Much like Star Trek, the Imperium can’t be the only civilization surrounded by rivals. It’s probable there are others keeping the Hivers, Vargr, K’Kree, etc. from just colonizing like crazy which is easier than waging destructive wars.
Happy Birthday Traveller. You’re not perfect but you are a part of me and millions.