Traveller 5e coming from World's Largest RPG in cooperation with Mongoose Publishing

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also I feel like Traveller is one of those big original D&D competitors dating back to the 1970s. Isn’t it the first sci-fi RPG? Getting absorbed into 5E makes it feel a bit like D&D has won that 50 year contest.

Mongoose Traveller isn't going anywhere. Nothing is getting absorbed. This is a third party producing a new 5E game that incorporates Traveller elements.

 

[zarionofarabel]

All I can say is eww...gross...

Why would you want to ruin a system as awesome and eloquent as Traveller by making it D&D 5e?

Why does everything have to have a 5e D&D version? It reminds me of the days when everything had a (generally really terrible) version of their game that used the 3e d20 system. D&D doesn't work well for most genres or themes. It's good at the weird superhero fantasy D&D thing. That's it.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

To be clearer then, it implies to me that with respect to this product they're completely uninterested in existing Traveller fans and are only interested in the D&D market.

The existing success with and support of various existing Traveller products only makes this particular decision regarding the name seem even stranger to me.

I don't see this as undermining the existing products in any way. I just don't understand why they would call this Traveller 5e when there is an existing 5th edition of Traveller.

Or they are trying to sell it to existing Traveller fans who, probably correctly, assume that they will have a mush easier time getting players if they use the system from the most popular RPG in the world. RPG's, like computer software, have network effects - the more people play your game/use your OS, then the more other people will play your game/use your OS.

 

[The Soloist]

I've often seen D&D translated to other systems, like d100 Classic Fantasy by Design Mechanism, or to a 2d6 Traveller style version, not a big deal to me. Pathfinder for Savage Worlds was a success. No reason to bleed from the nose.

RPG players are often like baby ducks, first RPG system they play, is what they want to play all their life. It becomes their mama duck imprinted into their deep memory. They want all other RPGs translated to their mama-duck system.

 

[Youshang]

Interested. Too lazy to get into the rules but I always was "Traveller-curious". So this is a good product for me. The people working on it also make me hope that this won't be an half-assed attempt to get some money from the 5e crowd but an honest attempt to bring the setting to the 5e framework. It could also potentially become a good mining ground for a Spelljammer campaign if ship construction and combat is properly in-depth. Just rename the technological components with fancy fantasy names. Done?

 

[Loconius]

I would say my two top games are dnd and traveller, so I'm curious to see what this becomes! I ran a campaign in the older T20 which was th only way I could get my table to play traveller [they had a traumatic experience with a previous Ref], so they may like this. I have Exodus handbook which satisfied that sci-fi 5e itch [and a few others] so it will be interesting how they approach using 5e!

 

[Koloth]

GURPS Traveller kept the setting alive in the 90s and early oughts, so I think it can work with other systems. But... Traveller 5E is a tough sell in a world where Starfinder, Esper Genesis, the Voidrunner Codex, and probably a bunch of stuff I don't know about exists... let alone Mothership running hog wild with the OSR/NSR scene.

SJG probably had an easier job using a class-less/level-less system to implement a different class-less / level-less system. I also consider the GURPS Traveller background write ups to be the best of all the Traveller versions.

As D&D is a classed/level based system, likely this conversion will be more interesting.

 

[Willie the Duck]

For me, I have no reason to need a new version of Traveller (especially one that exists to catch a certain market, rather than fix a perceived problem with the existing game), but have no reason to have a problem with it existing. How good it ends up being is going to depend entirely on the implementation. GURPS, Hero System, and D&D 3e/d20 have all made Traveller games and they've ranged from 'fine' to 'not the same, but good in their own right.'

For me, the main attraction of Traveller is the system, so I guess that this won't be for me, but best of luck to this product line!

For me, the core of Traveller was the existence of rules that covered stuff that D&D (particularly WotC D&D) doesn't or doesn't do much of. Trade rules, mortgage rules, building vehicles, vehicle combat, star system generation, tech levels, and of course the oft-loved character previous career rules. The parts of the game that the base D&D 5e game engine covers -- generating attributes, interpersonal combat, overall task resolution, etc. -- I don't think Traveller is particularly notable and I don't think 5e will do too poorly at.

 

[Gradine]

I'll say that I'm at least intrigued. Will it be a masterful, chocolate-and-peanut-butter blend of two great but seemingly incompatible things, like Dungeon World? Or will it be a confused, half-measured mess of a thing that somehow fails to capture the magic of either property, like Dungeon World?