Traveller. What do you think?

[Morrus]

What's the legal/licensing situation with Traveller? Why so many versions? Who owns the IP?

 

[aramis erak]

What's the legal/licensing situation with Traveller? Why so many versions? Who owns the IP?

Marc W. Miller owns the Traveller IP, lock, stock and Barrel, with some caveats. Mongoose is a licensee. QLI was a licensee. 13Mann is a licensee. DGP was a licensee.

FFE is working on a conversion doc for HT to HSR 6 (well, actually, Don McKinney is).
The GT license ended 31 Dec 2014, and was handshake-extended to 31 Dec 2015. A deal to make a CD of it for continued but unsupported availability is in the works.

Mongoose holds a license from Marc that is slated to expire in 2018 last I heard. At that point, all rights revert to Marc, as I understand things. It's possible it may be renewed.

Mongoose released its core for 1E as closed content, but has an SRD - but the SRD's sample careers are NOT open content, and the SRD includes no damage ratings!
There is a Traveller Logo License that Marc authorized, it expires with the MGT license, it's free. There is the Foreven Free License that allows OTU elements. It also expires with Mongoose's license.
Commercial licensing for T5 supplements is "Call Marc" territory.

The "FFE Fair Use Policy" (FFE FUP) is essentially an open non-commercial supplement license to non-mongoose non-GURPS material. You can write whatever you want in the way of expansions for CT, MT, TNE, T4, T5, T20, T2300, or 2300AD, provided you acknowledge Marc's ownership of the IP, don't charge for it, and don't claim officialness - further, Marc has a longstanding "no sexploitation in Art" policy - he considers indecent or demeaning artwork to violate the FUP.

As for why so many editions? Largely, edition churn...
CT 1E was 1977
CT 2E was 1981
MT was 1987
TNE was 1992
T4 was 1996
GT was 1998 - due to much dislike of T4.
CT 2E reprints began around 2000 - first with QLI's GRIP: Traveller edition including a reprint of the 3 books of CT core in a single digest volume, included in the "General Roleplaying Internet Protocol" VTT.
T20 was released in 2002 - but spent just shy of 2 years in development. Done by QLI under license. Sold to Marc by Hunter Gordon, along with the COTI BBS (http://www.travellerrpg.com) the Electronic version was 2006. Hunter's license was supposed to run to 2010...
MGT was 2008. Mongoose snuck in an exclusivity clause...
HT was licensed in about 2004 from FFE and from Hero Games, didn't release until 2007, and the Hero 6E came out shortly after...
T5 started around 1998, went beta about 2006, was released in 2013, and updated in 2015.
MGT 2E was started about january... hit beta this month.

Traveller 2300 was 1987 as well.
2300AD was 1988 or 1989. Just a new logo, new print run, and some minor upgrades and a rewrite.
2320 was 2005.

QLI had secured licenses to the Honor Harrington and Aldenata series, but apparently they didn't meet David Webber's approval, or weren't done in time. QLI purchased the Judges Guild Traveller offerings. Marc since bought those IP's.

Marc has secured rights to several 3rd party CT publishers' Traveller materials: Gamelords, FASA, Paranoia Press, Games Workshop, and some fanzines.

Mongoose has a license for Judge Dredd, Slaine, and Strontium Dog, from the Rebellion Group. When MGT sunsets, those go the way of the dodo.
Mongoose has a license for 2300 from FFE/Marc.

What Marc doesn't own: the mechanics for TNE, but he has a royalty free license to them as part of the breakup of GDW. He likewise lacks rights to GURPS rules and Hero System rules, but is licensing both from their owners. Marc has an agreement in place to sell CDRoms of Challenge Magazine (which was jointly owned by the GDW partners).

FFE also is electronic publisher for Dark Conspiracy 1E/2E, and Twilight 2000 (1E, 2E, and 2013). DC is under license from Loren Wiseman, and T2K from Frank Chadwick. T2013 I'm not certain about, either Marc licensed it from them, or it reverted to Frank and Frank has Marc keeping it available on CD.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Traveller is generic sci-fi in the same way that D&D is generic fantasy. They both have their conventions, but still draw from any available genre source. People who claim that it only serves a particular brand of scifi from the 60s/70s probably haven't played the game themselves for decades.

Firefly makes for a good facsimile to a typical Traveller game, but you can just as easily play something a bit more cyberpunk (Judge Dredd?) or transhumanist (2300AD?) without much adjustment at all. Star Wars is doable, while the default Third Imperium setting is really just vanilla space opera that is a broad setting in the same manner that Forgotten Realms is for D&D. There are lots of 3rd party settings released for it too, and ought to be more to come, including Prime Directive (Star Trek).

The 'current' editions are Mongoose's Traveller, which is currently playtesting it's new edition which should be ready for about March next year, and Marc Millar's own T5 book. The latter is a complex game, the former is very accessible. You can also get the original Classic Traveller as a POD from drivethru, and it's still playable within the remit of being slightly dated since the 80s when it was created.

The highlights of the Traveller game lies in it's character generation, it's simple task resolution system and the various tabular design systems for ships, worlds and other stuff. It's a completely immersive game that has some great long term campaign potential.

 

[Ranes]

People who have come across Traveller in the last couple of decades in particular tend to make assumptions about it being most suitable for a certain kind of SF game, because it has a well-developed setting, The Imperium, that looks like something out of the Asimov era. However, the original game is a bare bones rule system that's amazingly versatile and, I think, one of the finest game designs ever. Sadly, not all the subsequent editions have been as good and the latest (T5) is a train wreck, as far as I'm concerned. I would recommend The Traveller Book, Deluxe Traveller or MegaTraveller but if all you can get is a reprint of the little black books, you're golden. It's really easy to get it to do what you want. Just watch out for those computer rules. Marc Miller and company basically predicted that 8-bit processors would be king of the hill for at least another twenty years.

Apart from that, it's magnificent.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Sadly, not all the subsequent editions have been as good and the latest (T5) is a train wreck, as far as I'm concerned.

T5 was a trainwreck, although it has been better organised in a reprint recently. It's still overwhelming for casual players, but at least it now has an index! T5 isn't the latest edition, however. That would be Mongoose's 2nd Edition of their Traveller game which is a lot more accessible to modern gamers, and is undergoing public playtesting now. There is also due to be a beginners box set mooted for next year too.

 

[aramis erak]

T5 was a trainwreck, although it has been better organised in a reprint recently. It's still overwhelming for casual players, but at least it now has an index! T5 isn't the latest edition, however. That would be Mongoose's 2nd Edition of their Traveller game which is a lot more accessible to modern gamers, and is undergoing public playtesting now. There is also due to be a beginners box set mooted for next year too.

It is far more correct to say that they are parallel. T5 is the definitive version of Traveller technology for use with the OTU.

 

[TrippyHippy]

It is far more correct to say that they are parallel. T5 is the definitive version of Traveller technology for use with the OTU.

I mean "latest' as in most recent release. In terms of them both being ongoing supported lines, one does not supersede another. They are related, but separate lines, with different core systems and likely target audiences.

 

[qstor]

I
And there are multiple setting eras:

There's also the T20 setting using the 3rd Imperium but around IIRC the year 990.

I'd highly recommend Traveller. I'd check out the Mongoose books. I've played GURPS Traveller, T4, T20, CT and Mongoose Traveller. I like the Mongoose rules. I also have a lot of the Traveller material even for Mega Traveller. I heard that T5 has a lot of errata. Plus the book is super expensive like $100 US.

Mike

 

[qstor]

I Steve Jackson games still has a license from Mark Miller even though they haven't produced a new product in a long time.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've seen some hard sci-fi shows and enjoyed them quite a bit. I want to know what you guys think of Traveller. It has been around a while but I've never played it. Are there others that might do a better job? If so, give me some names.

I haven't had as much opportunity to play it as I would like, but I have played different versions and always had a blast. I have also played some cool games that seemed inspired by Traveller. Even character creation is a fun process. I like games where you roll your character's development like that randomly (if memory serves you can even die during character creation). I thin if you like hard science fiction, it is a pretty good fit. I was always more of an Asimov, Niven and Clarke fan so for me it worked. I can't speak to the entirety of the system as my experience was limited to being a player in just a handful of games (no telling how much my impression was shaped by the GMs rather than the game).

Actually this kind of makes me want to pick up traveller. Any folks have suggestions on the different versions and what they each bring to the table?