This is the Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone…. Mayday. Mayday…. We are under attack…. Main drive is gone… Turret number one not responding…. Mayday…. Losing cabin pressure fast calling anyone…. Please help…. This is the Free Trader Beowulf…. Mayday…. Bold explorers and brave travellers journey between the stars in Traveller the science fiction roleplaying game by Mongoose Publishing.
Traveller is a 240 page full color hardcover (also available in PDF) set of rules built off of Traveller 1st Edition by Mongoose Publishing and classic Traveller by Marc Miller. The game provides rules for science fiction adventures from recent times to the far future. Fourteen chapters cover character creation, referee tools like encounter building, starships, trade, world and universe creation, and a sample subsector called Sindal.
Rules are included for combat, space operations and combat, and trade. PCs play travelers who may be small merchant traders, mercs, explorers, or a combination of them all. It is the combination of the subsector creation by the referee and the travelers moving from system to system looking for jobs that helps to build links that create campaigns.
Traveller uses 2d6 roll over a Difficulty number to determine success. Degrees of success called effect are also used. Finally, the referee can assign a boon or a bane die based on immediate circumstances to make the roll easier or more difficult.
Character creation is a life path system that starts characters at age 18 and walks them through life in four year intervals. Characters start out either trying to get into a university or military academy or go right into a career. Rolls are required to enter careers and more rolls determine skills learned and events that happen during that four year period.
Each four year period of work and learning can be dangerous. A character can be injured during character creation. And they may get kicked out of a career and not be able to continue. The player decides when to stop trying to enter new careers. At that point, the character wraps up with a few final rolls and enters play.
If two players agree, then any event rolled for one character can involve another. If an event is linked, then both PCs get one extra skill up to a maximum of two.
Rules are included for two alien races, the doglike Vargr and the expansionist predatory Aslan. A character may also end up with psionic abilities. Characters earn money and gear during character creation and may enter play with a partially owned starship.
Ground combat is dangerous with damage reducing a physical characteristic, thus making future rolls more difficult until wounds are healed. For starship combat there are seven roles that PCs can move between including captain, pilot, and engineer. Each PC can participate if they have the necessary skills.
Within the Traveller setting, faster than light travel is accomplished via jump drives. A jump carries the vessel a number of parsecs equal to the jump number. When a referee creates a star map each hex equals one parsec.
Referees have a variety of tools to create adventures. A referee can detail a subsystem, roll up worlds, and have the PCs enter the subsector to begin trading, exploring, or looking for mercenary work.
For players and referees who want more there are several adventures in print as well as three tech books with extra gear, vehicles, and starships along with rules to create your own vehicles and ships.
Traveller relies on sandbox play driven by PC choice and action. Worlds await exploration and possible exploitation at the hands of the travellers. All of the tools needed for play and to explore the universe are included in the Traveller Core Rulebook.
Addendum: The Traveller Core Rulebook was published in 2016. Per TrippyHippy in the comments:
It's the second edition of the first edition Mongoose Traveller rules (2008) that were, in turn based on the Classic Traveller rules (1977). The new edition represents an evolution of these rules rather than a revolution, so they are mostly backwards compatible, and are built with a sense of robust and easy use in play as much as anything else. The changes in this edition are mainly cosmetic - the full colour presentation and production quality is a significant step up - and polishing the functionality of the rules. Various subset rules have been expanded and/or clarified - like including a Prisoner career in character generation, tweaking the skill list, or tidying up the Initiative rules, or having starship combat work in conjunction with standard combat. They have also included a bonus/penalty dice system akin to advantage/disadvantage in other games, with an aim to reducing the emphasis on +/- modifiers from previous editions.
Per Dire Bare in the comments: "There are around 10 different versions of the Traveller rules and settings published by several companies over the years, this version is the second edition of the rules developed by Mongoose in 2008 and is one of two current versions of the game!" (with the other version being Traveller 5th Edition by Marc Miller).
This article was contributed by Charles Dunwoody as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. Please note that Charles is a participant in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to DriveThruRPG. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
Traveller is a 240 page full color hardcover (also available in PDF) set of rules built off of Traveller 1st Edition by Mongoose Publishing and classic Traveller by Marc Miller. The game provides rules for science fiction adventures from recent times to the far future. Fourteen chapters cover character creation, referee tools like encounter building, starships, trade, world and universe creation, and a sample subsector called Sindal.
Rules are included for combat, space operations and combat, and trade. PCs play travelers who may be small merchant traders, mercs, explorers, or a combination of them all. It is the combination of the subsector creation by the referee and the travelers moving from system to system looking for jobs that helps to build links that create campaigns.
Traveller uses 2d6 roll over a Difficulty number to determine success. Degrees of success called effect are also used. Finally, the referee can assign a boon or a bane die based on immediate circumstances to make the roll easier or more difficult.
Character creation is a life path system that starts characters at age 18 and walks them through life in four year intervals. Characters start out either trying to get into a university or military academy or go right into a career. Rolls are required to enter careers and more rolls determine skills learned and events that happen during that four year period.
Each four year period of work and learning can be dangerous. A character can be injured during character creation. And they may get kicked out of a career and not be able to continue. The player decides when to stop trying to enter new careers. At that point, the character wraps up with a few final rolls and enters play.
If two players agree, then any event rolled for one character can involve another. If an event is linked, then both PCs get one extra skill up to a maximum of two.
Rules are included for two alien races, the doglike Vargr and the expansionist predatory Aslan. A character may also end up with psionic abilities. Characters earn money and gear during character creation and may enter play with a partially owned starship.
Ground combat is dangerous with damage reducing a physical characteristic, thus making future rolls more difficult until wounds are healed. For starship combat there are seven roles that PCs can move between including captain, pilot, and engineer. Each PC can participate if they have the necessary skills.
Within the Traveller setting, faster than light travel is accomplished via jump drives. A jump carries the vessel a number of parsecs equal to the jump number. When a referee creates a star map each hex equals one parsec.
Referees have a variety of tools to create adventures. A referee can detail a subsystem, roll up worlds, and have the PCs enter the subsector to begin trading, exploring, or looking for mercenary work.
For players and referees who want more there are several adventures in print as well as three tech books with extra gear, vehicles, and starships along with rules to create your own vehicles and ships.
Traveller relies on sandbox play driven by PC choice and action. Worlds await exploration and possible exploitation at the hands of the travellers. All of the tools needed for play and to explore the universe are included in the Traveller Core Rulebook.
Addendum: The Traveller Core Rulebook was published in 2016. Per TrippyHippy in the comments:
It's the second edition of the first edition Mongoose Traveller rules (2008) that were, in turn based on the Classic Traveller rules (1977). The new edition represents an evolution of these rules rather than a revolution, so they are mostly backwards compatible, and are built with a sense of robust and easy use in play as much as anything else. The changes in this edition are mainly cosmetic - the full colour presentation and production quality is a significant step up - and polishing the functionality of the rules. Various subset rules have been expanded and/or clarified - like including a Prisoner career in character generation, tweaking the skill list, or tidying up the Initiative rules, or having starship combat work in conjunction with standard combat. They have also included a bonus/penalty dice system akin to advantage/disadvantage in other games, with an aim to reducing the emphasis on +/- modifiers from previous editions.
Per Dire Bare in the comments: "There are around 10 different versions of the Traveller rules and settings published by several companies over the years, this version is the second edition of the rules developed by Mongoose in 2008 and is one of two current versions of the game!" (with the other version being Traveller 5th Edition by Marc Miller).
This article was contributed by Charles Dunwoody as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. Please note that Charles is a participant in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to DriveThruRPG. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
