Started playing back in '81 when I was stationed in Germany. Our group got the biright idea to take on rich, unsuspecting passengers, and about midway through a jump we would kill them, take all their stuff, and toss the remains out the airlock. The Ref tried to gently persuade us to find something else to amuse ourselves with, to no avail. Then, when we jumped into a system, we were met by two SDBs proclaiming themselves to be with the local government. Well, we not wanting to arouse any suspicion, pulled right over to be boarded for a "customs inspection". The airlock opens, and we are met by a bunch of guys in the meanest battledress you ever saw. Hilarity ensued, and we were soon all dead, our ship, and collected stuff taken by better pirates than we were. Oh, well...
first time u played!
- Thread starter shocker
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rich442
SOC-3
My first session was also in 1980, but we used a Traveller supplment published by FASA. After that, our gaming sessions were based in the Star Trek Universe and we simply created scout and troopships that we thought would fit well into the Federation setting. Actually, the generic Traveller rules made a Star Trek campaign very satisfying and ( I thought)rewarding.
Keklas Rekobah
SOC-14 1K
A friend had 'The Traveller Book' so we rolled up a few characters and played 'Shadows' with three other people. I ran a retired Navy Captain, and the rest were of lower rank, so I was appointed leader, even though the Scout had the ship. (We were leaving Yorbund on tickets marked 'Space Available' - meaning we would leave on the next available passenger transport, whatever it might be.)
Half of our team died before we had fully explored the facility, so our ref handed them the pre-gen characters, and they came back in on a second ship (which was damaged beyond repair). They caught up with us, and we completed the adventure.
Most of the people did not want to play Traveller again because of the "When you die, you're dead" rule. They were already too used to being raised, reincarnated and resurrected in other games to appreciate the more realistic aspects of a true Science-Fiction adventure.
I bought the book from my friend. A few years later, we tried again. But by that time, people wanted to equip their characters with either light sabres or phaser rifles, and I had grown more interested in Traveller canon. We tried to compromise, but they all wanted to play Kirk or Luke, and no one wanted to play a no-name character in a hard-SF game. It's been an uphill effort trying to attract players ever since.
Half of our team died before we had fully explored the facility, so our ref handed them the pre-gen characters, and they came back in on a second ship (which was damaged beyond repair). They caught up with us, and we completed the adventure.
Most of the people did not want to play Traveller again because of the "When you die, you're dead" rule. They were already too used to being raised, reincarnated and resurrected in other games to appreciate the more realistic aspects of a true Science-Fiction adventure.
I bought the book from my friend. A few years later, we tried again. But by that time, people wanted to equip their characters with either light sabres or phaser rifles, and I had grown more interested in Traveller canon. We tried to compromise, but they all wanted to play Kirk or Luke, and no one wanted to play a no-name character in a hard-SF game. It's been an uphill effort trying to attract players ever since.
WarriorKnight
SOC-12
The frist Traveller game I played was The Darthon Queen back in '81.The gm ran all the plots in the moduel.I was one of the surivors. Still have the character.
spinwardpirate
SOC-13
Wow, I have no idea. That had to be in late '77 I would guess, probably in the winter... which would explain why whenever winter rolls around I really get a hankerin' to play Traveller. However, I do have some of my original Traveller creations from those early days - planets, subsectors, and whatnot.
Unfortunately, I've never actually played. Not many gamers around here, though - but I first heard of Traveller when I found TNE and saw the patrol cruiser () and wanted to use one.
A month or two after I posted this, I played for the first time, rolling up a Marine and playing in a homebrew campaign.
Around 1983? as a player.
I don't recall my character's generation career, but he considered combat an artform. I do recall he had a small arms collection of any weapon he could find placed in a "portable armory" with grav assist so it could be pushed from the players' ship to the waiting air/raft if need be. Depending on what situation he was about to face, he selected a weapon from his armory very seriously. :smirk: I was 14ish.
I don't recall my character's generation career, but he considered combat an artform. I do recall he had a small arms collection of any weapon he could find placed in a "portable armory" with grav assist so it could be pushed from the players' ship to the waiting air/raft if need be. Depending on what situation he was about to face, he selected a weapon from his armory very seriously. :smirk: I was 14ish.
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Summer ’77, and I was 15. After I bought the rules I rolled up a scout and got a ship when I retired. I drew up some plans for it, but being that this was a bit before any examples were available my 100 ton ship was probably closer to 300 tons in the designs. Oh well, at least it was big enough for our miniatures to fit on. Since none of us was certain what to do with the game (it being so unlike D&D but kind of like the wargames we had been playing for years) we played it almost like a group random adventure to get used to the rules and mechanics. I do remember I carried a laser carbine and a 2-handed sword (you know, like in D&D!) believe it or not. :rofl:
My friends and I took off to become “Terrors of the Spaceways”, and after a brief, but thrilling career as pirates I rolled up the beginnings of the campaign I still run (though much expanded upon and more consistent) and the players took up the role of Space Vikings after we read that particular book. We played on the edge of a crumbling empire while the players looted the colonial worlds for profit and technology. All school year we’d talk about and expand on the campaign until we’d kick off a summer full of near constant role-playing in Traveller. So every spring, I too feel the urge to play Traveller even when there hasn’t been anyone to play it with.
My friends and I took off to become “Terrors of the Spaceways”, and after a brief, but thrilling career as pirates I rolled up the beginnings of the campaign I still run (though much expanded upon and more consistent) and the players took up the role of Space Vikings after we read that particular book. We played on the edge of a crumbling empire while the players looted the colonial worlds for profit and technology. All school year we’d talk about and expand on the campaign until we’d kick off a summer full of near constant role-playing in Traveller. So every spring, I too feel the urge to play Traveller even when there hasn’t been anyone to play it with.
Hmmm... over thirty years ago now, so it's hard to remember many of the details...
It was the winter of 1977/78. Either December or January, I can't remember which, but I do remember there was snow on the ground. We were a group of wargamers, maybe 4 or 5 regulars from the neighborhood with a changing cast of others. We were over Tom Connolly's house getting ready to play a round robin of SPI ACW folio games when Tom showed us his latest purchase;
"It's like Dungeons & Dragons except with guns...", he said.
We were familiar with D&D thanks to the Chainmail minis rules we'd been using and had often played it with an eye more towards small party skirmishing than dungeon crawling. Tom passed out the three books and the first one I got to look at was LBB:3 Worlds and Adventures. The first thing I rolled up was an animal!
Avalon Hill's "Jutland" was part of our wargame rotation, so LBB:2's ship combat wasn't too much of a stretch. That first day I remember a few guys running a battle while I played one of the SPI folios.
We used Traveller more like a wargame than anything else for the next year or so. I ran several scenarios with LBB:1's range band system set along the various fronts of WW2. The ziploc version of Mayday was another early purchase and we played a lot of that too. Mike McCreary and I did spend one Saturday pushing a free trader through a rolled-up subsector complete with a crew produced by chargen. That was pretty bare bones, I wouldn't call it roleplaying because all we did was use skills to influence die rolls on the various trade and ship tables.
Eventually, someone got hold of A:1 Kinunir and we began using Traveller as a roleplaying game. No campaigns as such, we even played the various A:1 scenarios as one-shots, but we were role-playing. Other published adventures followed and we slowly began making our own. The best RPG session I remember during this early period involved Across the Bright Face. I got to play instead of GM, something that was becoming a rarity even then, and we all had a spectacular time even though I died very close to the end. (We'd decided on passing through the city outside of the starport for some reason and, as we motored through a riot, my character took a round through his faceplate while manning the pulse cannon atop the ATV.)
The time and space required for wargaming was hard to come by during my years in the Navy between 1981 and 1987, so role-playing took up the slack.
Regards,
Bill
It was the winter of 1977/78. Either December or January, I can't remember which, but I do remember there was snow on the ground. We were a group of wargamers, maybe 4 or 5 regulars from the neighborhood with a changing cast of others. We were over Tom Connolly's house getting ready to play a round robin of SPI ACW folio games when Tom showed us his latest purchase;
"It's like Dungeons & Dragons except with guns...", he said.
We were familiar with D&D thanks to the Chainmail minis rules we'd been using and had often played it with an eye more towards small party skirmishing than dungeon crawling. Tom passed out the three books and the first one I got to look at was LBB:3 Worlds and Adventures. The first thing I rolled up was an animal!
Avalon Hill's "Jutland" was part of our wargame rotation, so LBB:2's ship combat wasn't too much of a stretch. That first day I remember a few guys running a battle while I played one of the SPI folios.
We used Traveller more like a wargame than anything else for the next year or so. I ran several scenarios with LBB:1's range band system set along the various fronts of WW2. The ziploc version of Mayday was another early purchase and we played a lot of that too. Mike McCreary and I did spend one Saturday pushing a free trader through a rolled-up subsector complete with a crew produced by chargen. That was pretty bare bones, I wouldn't call it roleplaying because all we did was use skills to influence die rolls on the various trade and ship tables.
Eventually, someone got hold of A:1 Kinunir and we began using Traveller as a roleplaying game. No campaigns as such, we even played the various A:1 scenarios as one-shots, but we were role-playing. Other published adventures followed and we slowly began making our own. The best RPG session I remember during this early period involved Across the Bright Face. I got to play instead of GM, something that was becoming a rarity even then, and we all had a spectacular time even though I died very close to the end. (We'd decided on passing through the city outside of the starport for some reason and, as we motored through a riot, my character took a round through his faceplate while manning the pulse cannon atop the ATV.)
The time and space required for wargaming was hard to come by during my years in the Navy between 1981 and 1987, so role-playing took up the slack.
Regards,
Bill
What happend the first time u played trav?
Snapshot. Enough said.
Solo,
That's quite a feat when you remember that the Aslan Alien Module came out in 1983.
Decades have passed and our minds play tricks on all of us. For instance, until Blue Ghost mentioned it, I completely forgot about Snapshot despite the fact that my neighborhood wargaming group played it often enough to "wear out" the deckplans.
Regards,
Bill
Commander Truestar
SOC-13
Nice catch!
Commander Truestar
SOC-13
My first play was Origins '78.
I was between sessions and had jsut enjoye a really fun tourney of (IIRC)"Cosmic Encounters". I remember the game(start with a colony, grow the conony and explore...) if I do not remember the name of the game...
Anyway, I was walking through the corridors not really sure what to do next and not really wanting to go back to the sales room and spend more cash until I had a chance to try some more stuff(I had dropped over $200 already >
)
Anyway, there was this tall dark haired bearded guy on the floor with a team of players arrayed around him in the obvious throes of starting some RPG. My friends and I had played T&T and Monsters! Monsters! as well as trying but not really liking D&D. We mostly liked Monsters! Monsters! because we could draw up nice medieval towns and then proceed to trash them until forced to flee...
anyway, I stopped very suddenly when I caught the map being used out of the corner of my eye....it was a space craft!!! I immediatly turned and started observing to find out they were just setting up and it was a space game. I do not recall the details of the stock character I was handed but joined in as the GM explained the basis of the scenario I would find out was called "Annic Nova". The way we played was slow and steady with rich descriptions and explanations. It was like taking part in writing a sci fi book or movie only you could stop and deal with the stupid "odd stuff" that always crops up. So eventually all us stock characters were loaded onto a fast space craft and blasted into an intercept course with the unknown and alien space craft with clocks ticking down everywhere to remind us fo the limited time. Being 16, unfamiliar with how Traveller ships worked and a hapazard group, we all chose to make our way to the bridge (No, "you take the bridge and we'll hit engineering" to maximize chances)
Anyway, my character turned out to be the single most important actor in the bunch. Why you ask? Because once we reached the bridge, and with very little time after gaining that deck, my character found a "T" handled control(much like a throttle...forward and back) and rammed it completely forward....
It was the gravity plate controls.
I had turned the entire party into jelly and the game was ended....
Not with a whimper or a bang...but with a splat....
I was between sessions and had jsut enjoye a really fun tourney of (IIRC)"Cosmic Encounters". I remember the game(start with a colony, grow the conony and explore...) if I do not remember the name of the game...
Anyway, I was walking through the corridors not really sure what to do next and not really wanting to go back to the sales room and spend more cash until I had a chance to try some more stuff(I had dropped over $200 already >
)Anyway, there was this tall dark haired bearded guy on the floor with a team of players arrayed around him in the obvious throes of starting some RPG. My friends and I had played T&T and Monsters! Monsters! as well as trying but not really liking D&D. We mostly liked Monsters! Monsters! because we could draw up nice medieval towns and then proceed to trash them until forced to flee...
anyway, I stopped very suddenly when I caught the map being used out of the corner of my eye....it was a space craft!!! I immediatly turned and started observing to find out they were just setting up and it was a space game. I do not recall the details of the stock character I was handed but joined in as the GM explained the basis of the scenario I would find out was called "Annic Nova". The way we played was slow and steady with rich descriptions and explanations. It was like taking part in writing a sci fi book or movie only you could stop and deal with the stupid "odd stuff" that always crops up. So eventually all us stock characters were loaded onto a fast space craft and blasted into an intercept course with the unknown and alien space craft with clocks ticking down everywhere to remind us fo the limited time. Being 16, unfamiliar with how Traveller ships worked and a hapazard group, we all chose to make our way to the bridge (No, "you take the bridge and we'll hit engineering" to maximize chances)
Anyway, my character turned out to be the single most important actor in the bunch. Why you ask? Because once we reached the bridge, and with very little time after gaining that deck, my character found a "T" handled control(much like a throttle...forward and back) and rammed it completely forward....
It was the gravity plate controls.
I had turned the entire party into jelly and the game was ended....
Not with a whimper or a bang...but with a splat....
It was one run by Capt. 'Mad Jack'. We were part of a group sent unofficially to investigate an Imperial noble due to a series of disappearances of 'Gazelle' close escorts in the backwaters of the Marches. I played ex-navy (can't remember the name) & my wife played 'Nikki Furioso', a ex-navy gunner (gunnery-4). We discovered the noble in question was imprisoned & freed her. Big mistake. If we had not made friends with the local wildlife (intelligent, telepathic wolfoids), we would probably not escaped & brought the lady with us. As it was, it was touch & go as the scout in the party & my navy character had to disarm (in jump) two bombships done up as the supply freighters for a naval base.
Gray Lensman
SOC-13
I have spent many wonderful hours playing RPGs over the decades (all the way back to Gary Gygax’s Chainmail Rules for Medevial Minitures circa 1972 at the tender age of 13) . Hmmmn... Traveller, My buddy dave brought over Books 1-3 and A1: Kinunur one saturday back in '79, :toast: 3 times that first day, been playing (mostly GM) off and on since. CT, MT, TNE, skipped T4, Some GT, have some MgT but not impressed by it. Working on a different milieu for CT lately since two of the 3 people I have been GMing for last couple of years are deployed right now.
Dan
Dan
My first Traveller game was in '83. Me and my friends played AD&D but were open to trying other games. We got to know some other RPG players in the area so a bunch of us gathered in the upstairs room of the Colombian pub in Great Yarmouth, England on Friday nights with the express idea of trying new game systems. One guy brought along CT and we spent a long while rolling characters (and not getting them killed in the process, natch). 
o:
My guy was an ex-Marine with a primary skill of Combat Rifle-3. Pretty good, or so I thought. Being a new, cash-poor gang, we got our first job - raiding a civilian data storage facility on our muster-out planet. My guy's role was to take up a sniper position where he could see the guards on the main gate. Early in the game and at the appropriate moment he fired - and missed by a country mile. The guards spotted him and returned fire, scored a wound - and my shiny new ex-Marine was laid low for the rest of the game!
Not the most auspicious beginning. Even so, I was hooked. :rofl:
o:My guy was an ex-Marine with a primary skill of Combat Rifle-3. Pretty good, or so I thought. Being a new, cash-poor gang, we got our first job - raiding a civilian data storage facility on our muster-out planet. My guy's role was to take up a sniper position where he could see the guards on the main gate. Early in the game and at the appropriate moment he fired - and missed by a country mile. The guards spotted him and returned fire, scored a wound - and my shiny new ex-Marine was laid low for the rest of the game!
Not the most auspicious beginning. Even so, I was hooked. :rofl:
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Solo,
That's quite a feat when you remember that the Aslan Alien Module came out in 1983.
Decades have passed and our minds play tricks on all of us. For instance, until Blue Ghost mentioned it, I completely forgot about Snapshot despite the fact that my neighborhood wargaming group played it often enough to "wear out" the deckplans.
Regards,
Bill
Not at all, Whipsnade.
Many of us, when confronted with a lack of rules for something specific, adapted existing rules for similar things to create what we wanted.
Like using the rules for Imperial careers (LBB 1) for non-Imperial races (like Aslan).
Since the Aslan first got a write-up in JTAS #7 (published 1st quarter 1981), then Aslan characters were certainly being created from the moment that issue was opened by the first adventurous player.
Now I don't know if the Aslan were mentioned in any earlier Traveller material, but Kzinti certainly were present in Larry Niven's writings long before then [1966] (and in the Star Trek cartoon series episode The Slaver Weapon aired on 15 December 1973 and written by Larry Niven.)
So it is quite possible that the character was either created in 1981... or was a Kzinti, and created in 1979 but later ret-conned (either in-game or in-mind) to an Aslan.
The first time that I played Traveller...must be circa 1983. Having picked up the Starter Rules, I set out Referee a series of adventures in which players became embroiled against an interstellar terrorist/criminal organization called: Hydra. Their first adventure was dealt with a threat to shipping between Mars & Earth (the Imperial capital). Next their journey took them to a desert world that orbited Proxima where Mutants were rising up against Earth imperialism.
