Is Traveller Dead?

[Don7x]

Just a thought. It's a been a few years now since I've even had the opportunity to join a Traveller game; and much, much longer since I've witnessed broad interest for Traveller in general.

Even living in a large city with a compelling RPG community, and despite the rise of internet "virtual tabletops" over the past several years, Traveller's representation is nearly non-existent.

Has Traveller come and gone?

Opinions?

 

[rancke]

Just a thought. It's a been a few years now since I've even had the opportunity to join a Traveller game; and much, much longer since I've witnessed broad interest for Traveller in general.

Even living in a large city with a compelling RPG community, and despite the rise of internet "virtual tabletops" over the past several years, Traveller's representation is nearly non-existent.

Has Traveller come and gone?

Opinions?

I came within an ace of reporting this as spam. However, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I'll just suggest, oh so gently, that you might want to participate a bit in the forums before posting questions like that.

My opinion? No, Traveller is not dead. Next question?


Hans

 

[far-trader]

No worries Hans, not a spammer, just another lost Traveller

Traveller seems to labour under several mistaken assumptions that have held it back from wider play. And it's always been a bit of a niche product and seems unlikely to break that barrier. I had some hopes Mongoose might do it, and similar hopes earlier for T20 before that. The latter didn't, and Mongoose doesn't seem to be doing it either. It's a bit of a headscratcher. Other diversions I suppose. I'm not even sure RPGs in total are doing that much business compared to other entertainments. Certainly they (RPGs) aren't being wrongly blamed for all the woes of the world like they were briefly in the heyday of the hobby. I guess that's a good thing

Is Traveller dead? No. But neither is it very widely active. There's a core of aging gamers who probably don't play Traveller as much as they used to due to time and other issues. And precious few younger gamers who have any interest in pen-and-paper RPGs (they'd rather be virtually gaming on a console with another type of RPG entirely).

 

[Agemegos]

I came within an ace of reporting this as spam. However, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I'll just suggest, oh so gently, that you might want to participate a bit in the forums before posting questions like that.

I will suggest, also gently, that if you wanted to make this discussion board thrive you would be more welcoming to new members, and extend even more benefit to your doubt.

 

[soloprobe]

Is Traveller dead?
Hell NO!
You posting this question on a board dedicated to TRAVELLER is proof enough!

 

[aramis]

Mongoose has spread traveller wider than any but QLI... I've seen both QLI's T20 and MGT in B&N and Borders...

And they did move. (I saw the last T20 Core Rules at my local B&N go out the door with a patron about 3 months ago.)

 

[Thoth-Amon]

Don7x asked a fair question, and I felt far-trader answered it nicely. That beind said, I don't believe Traveller will ever be dead, just sadly, it will never be as prevelent in the gaming world as we all would wish. Reason being - and let me quote far-trader for he sums it up well: "it's always been a bit of a niche product and seems unlikely to break that barrier."

 

[far-trader]

By contrast my not-so-local game store, anytime I've been in there the last several years, has had a dusty Traveller book or two collecting cobwebs, if they had any Traveller books at all. That's T20 through MGT. In stark contrast to the shelves full of various Warhammer and D&D stuff that I must assume sells well from the stock on hand.

Before Magic The Gathering infected the stores they had a decent shelf presence for Traveller (MT and GURPS, as well as many older used Traveller titles). Maybe it was a coincidence and CCGs really didn't kill RPGs, but they darn well did serious harm. And I'm ashamed to admit I got hooked and spent far too much of my gaming budget on the cursed cards and probably contributed to the problem

It's been a while since I've been in a book store, but the ones I've been in have only ever had the odd D&D book if anything in the RPG genre, stuck back in a corner as if they had no clue what it was or where it should be. And usually just around Christmas for some reason.

I guess it probably varies by location and manager/owner.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

By contrast my not-so-local game store, anytime I've been in there the last several years, has had a dusty Traveller book or two collecting cobwebs, if they had any Traveller books at all. That's T20 through MGT. In stark contrast to the shelves full of various Warhammer and D&D stuff that I must assume sells well from the stock on hand.

Sadly, B&N out here carries neither Traveller nor WFRP gaming products. Just seems incredibly wrong, somehow.

 

[aramis]

Sadly, B&N out here carries neither Traveller nor WFRP gaming products. Just seems incredibly wrong, somehow.

You want your local store to get them? Buy on-line and have them delivered to your local store (saves you on shipping AND gets a discount). This forces them to see that it's available, desired, and likely to move other books in the line. And B&N DOES have them available systemwide.

 

[PDXWiz]

Gaming is not dead; at my local B&N or Borders, there's some books--mainly for D&D, whatever Star Wars and superhero games are current, and probably for the horror-related flavor game (Vampire the Masquerade, and such). Hobbytown USA has a generous supply of gaming materials, down the middle aisle at the stores I've been to, and they tend to follow the B&N and Borders model. Mainly I shop at used bookstores.

I do believe that collectible card games did swallow a big chunk of the RPG market. That was why Wizards was able to sweep in and gobble up D&D and release 3.0. PC games and videogames also took a big chunk out of the market.

There are a few game shops in town but I haven't been to them in a long time. The last one I visited was a shop with both CCGs and miniature games like HeroClix. I had wondered if that might mean the market might go back to miniature-based wargames and then back to RPGs in a cyclical fashion.

Traveller does have a lot of issues, unfortunately. The one biggest I think is the constant turnover of game systems, from CT to MegaT to TNE, and then other companies taking over from GDW with T4 and MongT GurpsT and Hero. In comparison to D&D; every new version of D&D had a whole lot of products to help bring the game to its new version. It doesn't seem like that happened with Traveller for any new version. And when GDW was doing its (in)famous releasing a new product every 22 days for 22 years, that was good for the company but far too spread out over many product lines and fields. Their main support was JTAS, and then they did the opposite of what the makers of D&D, Warhammer, and even Star Fleet Battles did: they turned their house magazines into house products only (not so much general gaming helps) -- and in the case of SFB, began a product that was SFB-specific in their Captain's Logs supplements; meanwhile, JTAS turned into a general gaming mag for their products--Challenge--and they expanded their other lines (witness the mushrooming of Twilight 2000 and Dark Conspiracy Traveller 2300 and Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and them going through different editions, too!) Too much development was done by 3rd party publishers, and while there was lots of good stuff, they were doing the lion's share of creativity for Traveller.

For better or worse, this swung much of the SF RPG market towards the various Star Trek and Star Wars games. I just wish Traveller was as strong as D20 gaming in general is...

Gordon Long

 

[beowulf2044]

There are times when Traveller is "dead to me". But it's not the broken systems or contrary 'histories' as much as it's the Traveller enthisiasts themselves. Traveller is a game I have loved since 1979. But over the years there have been times where the conduct of my fellow Traveller's has made me walk away from it all. I've done my part over the years to keep Traveller a living presence by running Traveller games at large conventions, but once again I'm feeling disgusted by the acts of people who also share my hobby.

And when a game is no fun anymore, then it's time to do someting else.

 

[Icosahedron]

I think Far Trader sums the situation up:

Is Traveller dead? No. But neither is it very widely active. There's a core of aging gamers who probably don't play Traveller as much as they used to due to time and other issues. And precious few younger gamers who have any interest in pen-and-paper RPGs (they'd rather be virtually gaming on a console with another type of RPG entirely).

Traveller has never been in the league of D&D, but it was fairly popular in my neck of the woods when it first came out. However, as others have mentioned, perpetual redesign led to a fragmenting of its market. The difficulty of finding players to play 'your version' of Traveller led many to play different games altogether. In addition to this, Traveller has never had an aggressive marketing policy, unlike some product manufacturers we could all name.

Having said that, over the past couple of years (since MgT came out), I have found significantly more people who have heard of Traveller, and maybe, just maybe, Traveller is actually on a small rise. Unfortunately, The RPG market is much bigger now than it was in 77, and Traveller has a smaller share. I can't see it overtaking Warhammer!

Maybe, in about ten years time, there will be a golden decade when us oldies finally get time to play, but I suspect Traveller ultimately will die with its generation.

 

[by_the_sword]

I have been into Traveller since 1982 and even though I don't play the game, because of lack of interest among my gamer friends and because my gaming time is very limited, I still buy and support Traveller products because I love the game. I am always on the lookout to play Traveller and to bring new players into the fold. I think that if today's gamers gave it a chance they would really enjoy it as a different kind of role playing game.

I believe that the Traveller milieu is one of the finest role-playing settings ever conceived and the sheer weight of source material that has been created over the years make it a rich background for any referee to come up with thrilling adventure ideas. Compare it to other "hokey" sci-fi settings. [*cough*starwars*cough*]

Think of all the ships, vehicles, worlds, equipment, races, NPCs and just general articles written not only by designers, but by fans that have contributed to this well thought out and fleshed-out universe. Combine that with any of the versatile rule systems that have been the various incarnations of Traveller and I'd say that if anyone were looking for a science fiction RPG to play, Traveller would certainly be worth at least buying for source material.

I think Traveller's biggest problems lie in lack of advertisement among the younger gaming crowd and the ever-changing rulesets that make previous material obsolete. If more people knew about Traveller and there was a rule system that didn't go out of print every 5 years or so, new players might want to invest in getting the game. This is why I loved it first, when the Classic books were re printed and re released and second, when Mongoose published a streamlined rule system that was compatible with Classic Traveller. This allows Three eras of Traveller to be played under one rules system (Classic, Mega-Traveller-which uses the same 2d6 mechanic, and the newer Mongoose stuff) with little integration by the Ref. I can't speak for T4 which I never played, and I can only hope that T5 doesn't make too much of the old stuff obsolete, even though I will probably buy at least a few books just because it is Traveller.

P.S.

I don't meant to favor one version of the rules over another. That wasn't really the point of my last paragraph. What I loved about almost all of Traveller's incarnations was the versatility of the game. Traveller seems to have transcended whatever rule set is being used.

 

[saundby]

Not Even Close to Dead

Some time back I started this thread about how well Traveller was selling versus claims about its popularity. Sales don't mean life but they strongly imply it.

I haven't got official numbers but informally received info from within the distro community has it that Traveller still sells quite well. New books definitely move, with good sell-through in the first few weeks. The Mongoose LBBs are very popular, particularly since they give the material at a relative discount, and they have a stronger lifetime than most of the full size books, though the core book is still a good seller.

It's not in the same realm as PFRPG or D&D4, by a long shot, but it's a very popular second tier game.

You might also look at forum activity for Traveller, here and elsewhere. Yeah, it ain't ENWorld but it's not dead, either.

 

[Rraurgrimm]

Traveller dead? Heck, no! Like it has been said already, most game systems/RPG worlds do have some problems selling - a bit due to the steep increase of MMORPG-lures taking up time in the core group, a bit due to the trading card games. But still groups do game and they choose the game system and game world they like.

I for one happily enjoy our Traveller campaign set in the Islands Cluster. Due to Real Life [TM] reasons, we do not get to play as often as we would like to: family matters are far more important than the game group, damn those silly priorities! Yet at least once every two months, we still get together to continue playing. We decided to use GURPS 4th edition and the GURPS Traveller universe (without the Rebellion taking place - so far...) - but it does not matter much to our characters what happens outside that Cluster at the moment, anyways.

So no, Traveller is not dead - people have a larger variety of commercially sold games and easier to reach fan products to choose from, that is all IMHO. They still RP what they like.

 

[nats]

Mongoose Traveller is available in my local Travelling Man shop and takes up quite a bit of the shelf - they also dedicate full face shelving to any new books that come out. So its obviously pretty popular and has raked in a fair few new faces. Ive seen a few books go quite quickly but there are also those that are probably still in there 2 years or so later after publishing. Mongoose has revived Traveller quite a bit IMO, I havent played Traveller for years and started again this year. I am looking forward to playing a few games with my family and trying to get my kids into it as well at some point.

Classic Traveller is a little bit dead mind. It has never completely died (last movement was the release of the books in compliations and more recently as pdfs on Drivethough) and has seen some revival because of Mongoose Traveller (the classic books go pretty well on Ebay at the moment) but becuase nothing new is being released for it its slowly dying away I think. Its only us old fogies who played it in the 80s that still play it.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Hasn't MGT sold over 10k copies? Sounds lively to me.

Mongoose Traveller is available in my local Travelling Man shop

Say hi to Nabil

 

[dmccoy1693]

Don7X, welcome to the boards. I'm Dale McCoy, President of a Traveller Compatible publisher (Jon Brazer Enterprises). I hope I can shead some light on how well Traveller is doing these days.

Is Traveller dead? No. Is it doing as well as Pathfinder or FATE at the moment? No. But the game is holding its own. It is doing better than a number of other game systems like Hero, GURPS and (in many places) the World of Darkness. There is enough of a market for me to go from a PDF company to a Print and in game stores company and make a profit. Role playing games vary considerably by region. For example, one store can sell D&D 4E extremely well while another store a few miles away can't give 4E away. The smaller the product, the greater the swing can be.

 

[kafka47]

As a seasoned grognard, I think, that I could say a few words...yes, Traveller as we know it has been dead since T4 although, it was brought back in a coma state with GURPS. The mantle of what GDW built went down when the company went under (or went to create MT). Everything that was Traveller from 1977-(1987)-1996/97 died in flames.

However, we know that Traveller is a phoenix. It is kept alive by those who keep the base fire alive. Those are people like Jon, MJD, Daryen, Hans and countless others who publish and self-publish...an ever greater array of materials - some good - some terrible but all keep that flame alive.

Till we get to Mongoose, which is the only company, that has gone back to the roots of GDW and expanded upon it. Therefore, yes, there are flaws (just as there were flaws in GDW products) but the phoenix is born anew to a new generation.

Traveller only ever rivaled D&D in the imagination of fans who knew a RPG could be fundamentally different than D&D. But, if you would do things like sales figures or even quality of product - D&D killed us every time but if you measure things like grace, agility, beauty - Traveller. then, I think even now sets the gold standard for what a SFRPG ought to be all others are imitators.

So FATE, WoD, may offer interesting ideas - they are still no substitute for a formula that has been repeated countless times - well before we knew what an OGL stood for.