Traveller is a classic science fiction system first released in 1976. In its original release it was a general purpose SF system, but a setting was soon developed called The Third Imperium, based on classic space opera tropes of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, with a slight noir tint. Though it can support a wide range of game types, the classic campaign involves a group of retired veterans tooling around in a spaceship, taking whatever jobs they can find in a desperate bid to stay in business, a la Firefly or Cowboy Bebop.
So I've been reading Agent of the Imperium, and I'm getting near the end. So far it's damn good -- I'm actually worried this is going to be one of those books where when it's over, I really just want more. (That's basically how I felt after reading Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, and then he never wrote any more Sprawl books.) So here's hoping Marc Miller continues writing.
Aaron Davis
Yeah I started reading it too it pretty good. For some reason I never realised there were so many aliens in the third imperium.
Daniel Edwards
Yeah, there's a metric crapload of minor races.
I think my favorite minor race are the Llellewyloly. They're just so damn weird, and yet somehow plausible.
Samuel Collins
Oh I totally forgot to link it. Previous Thread:
Tyler Flores
What books do people generally play from the most? IE, which books are best to start reading for a new person?
Brayden Scott
Man, how do you do it? How do you run Traveller?
It seemed like a pretty neat game, so I tried running the Mongoose edition for my group. I'd like to think I'm a decently experienced GM, but I still felt like it just had too many fiddly rules and required way too much prep work for me to enjoy running it as much as I wanted to. I was even using Pirates of Drinax, so it's not like I had to create everything from scratch, but I still find kind of overwhelmed.
Anyone successfully run a Traveller campaign? How'd you manage it?
Thomas Torres
If you want to get started quickly, Mongoose Traveller 1e's core rulebook is pretty much grab-and-go. The stuff outside core is poor, but you don't need any of those.
Traveller does ask a lot of a GM. My advice is to take it slow, maybe start your players without a ship, so you only have to deal with the skill rules and personal combat, then when you've got that down, have them do some ship combat, and maybe move on to trading, so you can take it in stages, rather than trying to cram all the rules modules in your brain all at once. I guess Pirates of Drinax doesn't take it slow, though.
Ryan Brooks
Well I want to read up on the rules in depth too. I don't plan on playing anytime soon but just want to read on how the game is played. Is Classic Traveller still the most popular? The Wiki page linked in the OP says the newest one is unplayable for anyone but people who have been playing it forever.
Carter Price
T5 is pretty crazy, yeah. The latest revision of T5 is supposed to be better, but the first release was ridiculously complex and pretty much nobody was happy with it at that point.
Mongoose is very popular, but Classic has a lot of devotees as well. (Probably the most popular edition is a mixed one made up of the referee's favorite bits, though. Most Traveller referees end up there sooner or later - Traveller has a lot of editions, and most of them have a few neat things wrapped in a lot of not so neat things)
If you want to give Classic a go, grab Starter Traveller, Citizens of the Imperium (for the extra careers) and DGP's Universal Task Profile (UTP).
The last PDF gives you a unified skill mechanic, as Classic originally only handled certain specific tasks, and it was left up to the ref to decide on the others, if any. (Which actually isn't that hard -- you can roll on just about anything due to everything using the same scale. Like the Bribe skill is rolled under the law level of the planet. The more repressive and bureacratic the world is, the more likely your random clerk is to be corrupt) The UTP was popular enough that it went from thirdy-party add on to core in Megatraveller.
