If you’re looking into tabletop roleplaying games and want to move beyond the obvious recommendation of Dungeons & Dragons, and maybe laser cannons are more your jam than wizards casting fireball, there is at least one other very long-running candidate out there to consider: Traveller. The roleplaying game of space adventure in the distant future. But where are you travelling to? We’re here to fill you in on the franchise.
The Basics
Traveller is a science fiction, space opera franchise
co-created by Marc Miller. The primary medium of the franchise is the tabletop
roleplaying game, which was first published in 1977 by Game Designers’ Workshop
(GDW) out of Illinois, of which Miller was the co-founder and owner along with
fellow designers Frank Chadwick, Rich Banner and Loren Wiseman. Traveller
was primarily developed by Miller, Chadwick, Wiseman and John Harshman.
Traveller was a smash hit on release in July 1977,
perhaps helped by the release of a certain movie just seven weeks earlier that
saw an explosion in demand for anything with spaceships, lasers and robots. Traveller
also tapped into the nascent roleplaying market, where D&D was by
far the most dominant game but was already being criticised for somewhat clunky
rules. Traveller was revolutionary in its approach which eschewed
multiple dice types for just using six-sided dies (d6s) and not using levels
for character development, instead creating a robust skill system. Traveller
also pioneered what would later be called the “Lifepath” system, where players
generate their characters’ backstories, skills, aptitudes and relationships
before the campaign itself begins. This was usually done in a pre-campaign
special session, what we would now call “Session 0.” Though prep sessions for D&D
were not unknown, Traveller arguably codified them as an integral part
of the campaign. Famously (though somewhat exaggerated), the career system in Traveller
could theoretically kill characters during character creation, leading to the
game being dubbed the most hardcore and deadly roleplaying game around, though
subsequent editions rolled back on this approach.
Traveller quickly became a mainstay of the TTRPG
industry and one of its best-known games and constant sellers, and possibly the
first TTRPG after D&D to crack a million sales. Its initial rules
were extremely well-received, with a simple core concept which allowed for a
huge amount of complexity in the form of rolling 2 six-sided dice, adding
positive modifiers from skills, and trying to beat a target number depending on
difficulty. This simple core had a very large number of modules built onto it
through expansions, allowing for starship and robot construction, military
operations and exploration (a nod at creating scenarios similar to Star Wars
and Star Trek), planet and sector creation and so on. This system
inspired the rules of various other games, including the official Star Wars
roleplaying game from West End Games that came out in 1987, which was similarly
d6-based.
The original version of the game is known as Classic
Traveller and is identifiable from its minimalist plain black books with
striking red text in the Optima font. The first three books were released in a
boxed set to form the core rules system. The main books have no other artwork
on the covers, and it was only later in the early 1980s that adventures started
adding artwork to their covers. Classic Traveller ran for ten years,
with a large number of sourcebooks and adventures published. GDW also
encouraged third-party contributions, with numerous other companies and fans
(individually or in groups) writing adventures and sourcebooks, some accepted
as official canon. Famed TTRPG company FASA started life publishing Traveller
adventures, for example, before they developed their own BattleTech aka MechWarrior
universe, partially inspired by Traveller (especially the starmaps).
Games Workshop also reprinted Traveller rulebooks for the UK market and
created a range of miniatures for it, some of which were later repurposed for
their Warhammer 40,000 game.
Sales of Traveller began to fall off in the late
1980s and the game was replaced by a new edition called MegaTraveller
(1987), in which the Emperor of the Third Imperium is assassinated, triggering
a rebellion and civil war. This era saw the publication of the first (and, to
date, only) Traveller video roleplaying games, MegaTraveller 1: The
Zhodani Conspiracy (1990) and MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients
(1991), for the PC, Amiga and Atari ST.
MegaTraveller was supplanted by Traveller: The New
Era in 1993, which adopted a full-on post-apocalyptic setting with a
powerful computer virus ravaging human technology. It was controversial amongst
fans and the fanbase fractured after its release, with many small groups
developing third-party material ending their development of the franchise.
Game Designers’ Workshop collapsed during The New Era
and the rights reverted to Marc Miller. Marc Miller developed Marc Miller’s
Traveller, better known as Traveller 4th Edition or T4,
for release in 1996. The game’s setting is “Milieu 0,” set during the founding
of the Third Imperium and avoiding awkward questions about canon.
Steve Jackson Games licensed the setting to release GURPS
Traveller in 1998, using their GURPS (General Universal Role-Playing System) rules, which is set in a
parallel timeline where the fall of the Third Imperium never happened. This was
followed by Traveller 20 or T20 in 2002, an adaptation of the
setting and rules to the Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition (or
D20) rules system. In 2006 GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars was
released, which chronicled the first contact between the Terran Confederation
and the First Imperium. Comstar Games also released Traveller Hero,
using their own Hero rules system, in 2006.
Marc Miller developed his own newer version of the game,
called Traveller 5, for release in 2013, with a revised edition in 2019.
This version of the game is incredibly deep, complex and simulationist, with
less of a focus on the established setting in favour of allowing the Referee to
create their own setting. The rules are broadly compatible with Traveller,
T4 and Mongoose Traveller and can be used to enhance a campaign
using those rules.
The current mainline development of Traveller was
taken over by Britain’s Mongoose Publishing in 2008. Mongoose Traveller
(an informal name, the official name is just Traveller) became the most
successful line since the original edition. In 2016 Mongoose Traveller 2nd
Edition was released with hugely updated production values. In 2022 this
was superseded by Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition Update, a
minor revision of 2nd Edition with new rulebooks. This has become one
of the most prolific and best-selling modern tabletop roleplaying games, with many
dozens of supplements, adventures and rulebooks released.
In 2025 Marc Miller sold all remaining IP rights to the Traveller
game to Mongoose, confirming their status as the official producers of all Traveller
materials. Mongoose continue to develop Traveller, including the Fifth
Frontier War sub-line.
For a more detailed look at the publication history of Traveller, please check out This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller by Shannon Appelcline.
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