Traveller: the iconic science fiction roleplaying game

Not DnD is a weekly show discussing tabletop roleplaying games. In September we are looking at tabletop RPGs for a sci-fi setting!

Traveller is a long-beloved science fiction roleplaying game first published in 1977. The game has had several editions published over it's almost 50 year history, including GURPS and d20. It's difficult to discuss sci-fi ttrpgs without mentioning this iconic game.

The Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 by Mongoose publishing provided new careers, equipment, hazards, world creation, psionics and shipbuilding. Come learn more about Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition with Matt and Chris from Mongoose Publishing on this weeks (29th September) episode of Not DnD.


Not DnD is a weekly show discussing tabletop roleplaying games. Each week EN Publishing’s @tabletopjess interviews the creators behind different tabletop roleplaying games that aren’t D&D!

You can watch the live recording every Monday at 5pm ET / 10pm BST on YouTube or Twitch, or listen on the podcast platform of your choice.

We've had many other sci-fi TTRPGs on Not DnD over the last three years such as Salvage Union, Terminal, Orbital Blues, You're In Space and Everything is F***ed, Day Trippers, Alien, Paranoia, Blade Runner, Star Trek Adventures, and Dune.

You can watch any of these previous interviews on youtube here. Or listen to the podcast episodes here.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I'm a day late to the show, long time and usual lurker.

I'm a year and a half into a Pirates of Drinax home campaign, and I've completed two six-month campaigns for a local FLGS using the latest incarnation of Mongoose's rules. I don't have a long history with the genre or system and only started running Traveller in the past couple of years. I'm happy I've picked it up, and I enjoyed the interview!

If I had my own nit to pick about the latest incarnation of Traveller it would be around module, campaign, and adventure design. For October 2025 I'm running a four session mini campaign of Mothership -- and I'm blown away by how Mothership materials are a masterclass in information design compared to adventures and modules put out by... well... almost anyone, but Mongoose included.

That's a criticism that comes from a place of love and fondness for Mongoose Traveller. The OSR movement and their compact zines with easy to read bullet points and minimal exposition have won me over. What's more, some of the wildest moments in my home game for Pirates of Drinax come from randomly rolled or generated encounters that have sparked crazy moments of improv.

The interview talks about the modularity of all the systems and subsystems and that's definitely how I've run it, with only a very loose and vibes-based mastery of the rules that's a bit by the seat-of-my-pants and definitely erring on "rulings not rules" during the game, but out of the game I have a tracking Spreadsheet of Doom™ that I don't know if it actually adds any value to my game prep or not. None of the groups I've run games for ever cared to engage in speculative trade or freight or cargos. My Pirates of Drinax game -- which is more along the lines of Hobnobbing with Planetary Business Associations and Antiquities Dealers of Drinax -- barely engages in combat rules (space or otherwise) and I'd probably struggle to remember what the heck we were doing if we actually had a fight break out.

Thanks again for the interview!

I have to agree. I have Deepnight Revelation, and the entire time I was reading it (and I read it all!) I kept thinking - wow some bullet points, some bolding of the important information; as well as other more modern RPG adventure design principles would be nice. If I was to run it (I probably never will, because I don't have the time nor inclination) I'd have to re-write, or at least re-organize the information.

A good read though - and I'd say it's definitely written for the adventure reader, not the adventure runner. However, having recently read Hole in the Oak, a classic of OSR adventure design, an adventure with info-design focused on the adventure runner is ALSO a good read. Better in fact, because it's shorter, and the info is easy to find and track.

(Also, I hope hope hope that the huge page count was not created for the sake of huge page count...)

 

[Mongoose_Matt]

5-6 career terms (38-42 years old) seems to be the average for my games.

We generally find the limiting factor is the Aging roll - as soon as a player makes that roll, even if they get through with no issues, they begin to realise what they are risking and become reluctant to risk their precious precious characteristics

Very good reasons to have at least one older and more experienced character though. Not as if they will unbalance the party...

 

[aramis erak]

I spent many, many hours playing Traveller with friends in the late 80s and early 90s. It's hard to understand why Traveller's popularity hasn't persisted and grown the way that D&D's popularity did. I always suspected that it was more than the chance of character death during character creation and that younger characters by default were pretty green and nearly unplayable. When I was a 17-year-old running the game, a 40-something-year-old ex-scout character seemed so old. Now that I'm (mumble, mumble) years old myself, being 40-something doesn't sound half-bad, but the lifeblood of this hobby lies with new gamers, not grognards like me.

A lot more has to do with incompatible editions, with people conflating "Can be converted on the fly" with "is usable unmodified," vicious fan hate of other editions than their favorite.

I'm saying this as someone on staff at what was Marc Miller's boards between 2005 to present. If you think the D&D edition wars are vicious, Traveller's right on par.

Let's see...
Classic Traveller has 2 major editions... US 1977 copyright, and all UK GW licensed versions as V1, The US 1981 edition as V2. 2.1 would be The Traveller Book, and 2.2 is Starter Traveller. There are numerous minor chages. V1 to V2? Major change in the ship design and setting building rules.
MegaTraveller can be seen as CT 3e... and probably should... but since it has the task system, many CT fans rejected it. Makes a lot of changes, many not bad ideas...
Traveller: The New Era: T2K 2.2 rules tweaked to do Traveller, but in a blasted out version of the setting with an AI computer virus that does things that require psionics to accomplish... Uses the T2K2.2 version of the task system
T4: Rolls the clock back on the setting to the other end of the third imperium. Mechanics are a different task system, different skill scaling, and the core rules capped at TL 12, making it pretty weak sauce for continuing your old campaign in the new system.
Mongoose 1st Ed: built off CT 1e... several major changes to the way character gen works, including up-or-out by combining advancement and continuation in one roll. Single roll for aging, you pick which drops.
T5: so complex most simply walk away. Marc's great; his magnum opus ain't.
Mongoose 2E: Pretty much, what 1E should have looked like. And no, don't blame Gareth Hanrahan.

Then the ports:
GURPS Traveller: Porting the OTU to the GURPS Engine. Before the commercial version, a (for me, better) fan version preceding it by a couple years.
Traveller For Hero: Yeah, ported to HS 5; a conversion note was added to the CD, IIRC, for HSR6. Best setting overview

Unofficial ports include ports to The Fantasy Trip, WWG's Vampire 1e (cowritten by me), AD&D (yeah, someone did that about 2003),

 

[dragoner]

Now that I'm (mumble, mumble) years old myself, being 40-something doesn't sound half-bad, but the lifeblood of this hobby lies with new gamers, not grognards like me.

Conversion, getting groups to play a game, having ardent fans is first, as one cohort doesn't cross age lines. I find mixed age group games of random strangers to be rare to see.

 

[rgard]

A lot more has to do with incompatible editions, with people conflating "Can be converted on the fly" with "is usable unmodified," vicious fan hate of other editions than their favorite.

I'm saying this as someone on staff at what was Marc Miller's boards between 2005 to present. If you think the D&D edition wars are vicious, Traveller's right on par.

Let's see...
Classic Traveller has 2 major editions... US 1977 copyright, and all UK GW licensed versions as V1, The US 1981 edition as V2. 2.1 would be The Traveller Book, and 2.2 is Starter Traveller. There are numerous minor chages. V1 to V2? Major change in the ship design and setting building rules.
MegaTraveller can be seen as CT 3e... and probably should... but since it has the task system, many CT fans rejected it. Makes a lot of changes, many not bad ideas...
Traveller: The New Era: T2K 2.2 rules tweaked to do Traveller, but in a blasted out version of the setting with an AI computer virus that does things that require psionics to accomplish... Uses the T2K2.2 version of the task system
T4: Rolls the clock back on the setting to the other end of the third imperium. Mechanics are a different task system, different skill scaling, and the core rules capped at TL 12, making it pretty weak sauce for continuing your old campaign in the new system.
Mongoose 1st Ed: built off CT 1e... several major changes to the way character gen works, including up-or-out by combining advancement and continuation in one roll. Single roll for aging, you pick which drops.
T5: so complex most simply walk away. Marc's great; his magnum opus ain't.
Mongoose 2E: Pretty much, what 1E should have looked like. And no, don't blame Gareth Hanrahan.

Then the ports:
GURPS Traveller: Porting the OTU to the GURPS Engine. Before the commercial version, a (for me, better) fan version preceding it by a couple years.
Traveller For Hero: Yeah, ported to HS 5; a conversion note was added to the CD, IIRC, for HSR6. Best setting overview

Unofficial ports include ports to The Fantasy Trip, WWG's Vampire 1e (cowritten by me), AD&D (yeah, someone did that about 2003),

There was T20 as well.

 

[dragoner]

This last weekend was Travcon UK.

 

[aramis erak]

There was T20 as well.

Yeah. And you'll find me in the credits as a lead playtester.

It's decent. If I had a group insisting on d20 system, I'd use it. I do use the ship and vehicle design systems.

 

[rgard]

Yeah. And you'll find me in the credits as a lead playtester.

It's decent. If I had a group insisting on d20 system, I'd use it. I do use the ship and vehicle design systems.

Playtested too. Magnus Robot Fighter in the playtest credits.

We're pretty much only playing d20 right now. We just started a campaign using the D20 Sci-Fi rules (T20 with the Traveller stuff removed available at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/95100/scifi20-player-s-guidebook.

We're also using the Green Ronin's Psychic's Handbook in lieu of the T20 Psionics.

 

[Autumnal]

Any difficulties with the Psychic’s Handbook in a sci-fi context?

 

[rgard]

Any difficulties with the Psychic’s Handbook in a sci-fi context?

None so far. It's very different to 3.5 psionics. It's feat and skill based and I think the designers purposely built it not to be a third form of magic (arcane and divine being the other two). We're treating it as a very recent next step in human evolution.