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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TrippyHippy" data-source="post: 9766279" data-attributes="member: 27252">Traveller is, basically, my favourite game.In terms of why it didn’t become as mainstream as D&D, I think you have to respect that D&D was the first RPG and the fantasy genre has always been bigger than the sci-fi genre (in general literature sales, in any case).The exceptions to this ‘rule’ were Star Wars and Warhammer 40,000 and both have a relationship with Traveller’s historical success. Star Wars came out in 1977 just about a month after Traveller was released and arguably drove a lot of its sales in as much as Traveller was the closest facsimile of Star Wars in rpg form at the time. Similarly, Games Workshop’s White Dwarf magazine took an active interest in the Traveller game with rules developments, reviews, scenarios and even an ongoing comic strip. However, in 1987, WEG made an official Star Wars RPG while GW also produced Warhammer 40K - Rogue Trader. These two games were hugely successful, arguably at the expense of Traveller sales. One could also site the increasing popularity of Cyberpunk and Shadowrun in the late 80s too - making the 'classic sci-fi’ of Traveller seem less fashionable.The new edition, Mega-Traveller also released in 1987 was never as successful and GDW (Traveller’s original publisher not to be confused with GW) started to decline from that point I feel. They released a few more titles but the company went totally belly up within a decade, leaving Steve Jackson Games to keep it going as a GURPS supplement from the late 1990s onward.All said, however, when Mongoose picked up the Traveller license in 2008 it was hugely successful for them, transforming them from a D20/OGL-based company into focussing more and more on the Traveller line. I think the key to their success with the game has been keeping the simple structure and innovations of the Classic Traveller rules, but also expanding their versatilty to adapt to different settings and sub-genres.Incidentally, I don’t really buy the argument that D&D has a more intuitive or archetypal default game play than Traveller. Traveller is adventures in a spacecraft - that is pretty archetypal and easy to get into.</blockquote>

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