How did you get started in Traveller?

[Shonner]

I was programming adventure games for the TRS-80 Model I, and for the HP-2000F. I was at a library, looking for some books on game design/theory/history, and found a book that had a chapter in it on pencil/paper role-playing games. That is how I learned about SPI, Avalon Hill, TSR, GDW, and others.

I then rode my bike over to Mini-City, after saving my money and deciding which RPG genre to go with, and bought the $12 Traveller little black books boxed set.

 

[Timerover51]

I started wargaming in 1970 while in college, with the Sea Power II naval miniatures game (using ships from the AH Midway and Jutland games), Panzerblitz by AH, and Don Featherstone's Tank Battles in Miniature. I kept acquiring games as I could. While in the Army in Alaska, Fort Richardson outside of Anchorage, we started up a small gaming group among the officers in my supply battalion, using AH games and also SPI games from Strategy and Tactics magazine. In 1977, I discovered D&D while sitting in a hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D. C. waiting to see if I would walk again. I figured out a way of playing the Blue Book version solitaire, as I could not exactly join a group. Then a nurse on the ward noticed this, and it turned out that her husband was a miniature gamer, and on the weekends when I could get out, I visited her home and had fun gaming with her husband.

After being medically retired, I returned to the Chicago area, and discovered a copy of the JofTAS at the Base Exchange at Great Lakes Naval Training Station. It looked interesting so I picked it up. From there I got the box of basic CT rules and kept buying. I also stayed active with D&D, Blue Book/1st Edition/2nd Edition, along with all of the modules. I started going to GenCon when it was at UofW-Parkside, helping run the miniature gaming area. I would normally run a naval game based on the Jane's Naval War Game rules from 1898 and following, (I have a complete set of the various editions of the Jane's Naval Rules, that I need to do something with eventually) but I got to know a fair number of guys in the gaming industry.

I play a wide range of games, plus I have worked since 2003 with a Center for gifted students in the Chicago area teaching history using historical board games. Presently, I am finishing up the design for a large-scale WW2 game similar to Axis and Allies, where we are also using it for a WW2 history class. The students are assigned as leaders of the various countries, we have a total of 14 countries in the game, and during the history part, they move the miniature units about the 4 foot by 8 foot map in accordance to what is going on at the time. Then in the last week of the session, they play the game using my rules. So far, testing has gone extremely well. and I am hoping to use the wargaming club at the Milwaukee School of Engineering for additional playtesting of that and some other ideas, including some for CT.

I did have the chance to meet Don Featherstone, and get to be friends with him. I presently am selling a reprint of his Skirmish Wargaming book, which has a combat system that I like a lot, and use for individual combat results. It is flexible enough to be used for anything from Ancient Greek and Roman hand to hand combat to current combat, so works well for Traveller. For vehicle combat, I tend to use the rules for miniature WW2 tank actions.

My favorite sci-fi and fantasy authors are: Andre Norton, Tolkein, C.S. Lewis (Narnia series and Christian essays, not his science fiction attempts), H. Beam Piper, Jack Vance, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Heinlein, Asimov, A.C. Clarke, and Christopher Stasheff. I am a military historian, and have a fairly large personal library. I was a supply officer and find logistics fascinating, but I also serve on the Marine Forensic Panel as the weapons effects, weapons, explosions, and explosives expert, and give talks on how and what it takes to sink a ship. If you wish to see what I look like or hear how I sound, take a look at the National Geographic TV special, The Search for PT-109. I am the on-board historian that talks about the Tokyo Express and also am the one that identifies the wreck. I found working with Bob Ballard to be an incredible experience, aside from spending 15 days in the Solomon Islands exploring the battles of one of the major campaigns of World War 2.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

My Uncle ( God rest his soul)

I started in the summer of 1982 when my uncle came down from San Jose to visit. My uncle Paul introduced me to traveller among many things science fiction. It was a great summer of swashbuckling across the spinward marches for a 11 year old at that time.

Sadly my uncle passed away in 2008 at the age of 50.

 

[jp42]

I think it was '82 or '83 when we got into the game. We'd been playing the heck out of D&D for years, and other games were starting to crop up.

I have a distinct memory of playing Trav in a spare classroom in middle school, grade 7, when one of my friends bought it. He got into the three little black books, and we played from those. I eventually bought the Traveller Book, the hardback. It wasn't until years later that we learned that there were several versions of those LBBs and whatnot. We always just played with what we had and made due in those days.

The guy who brought it in to our circle was a total min-maxer, well before I knew of the term - he abused those poor rules, putting together a ship large enough (he did the math) to contain Jupiter in it's cargo hold. He intended to drain the entire atmospheres of whole gas giants into his fuel processors, and hope against hope that there really are enormous diamonds at the center of them.

 

[Shonner]

I was specifically looking for a sci-fi RPG around the time that Star Trek the Motion Picture had come out. I didn't own any RPG at all yet, and had played some AD&D 1st edition. The reviews in magazines pointed me to Traveller. My other choice was going to be Space Opera, which my AD&D friends liked playing. They compared it to Star Wars. But I was not a Star Wars fan. I was a '50 -'70s (but mostly '70s) sci-fi fan. See 2001, Silent Running, Solaris.

 

[Maitrejeanthierry]

I started playing D&D in sept 1979 - I was 15 - and it was bliss !! I was also very interested in SF, but it was only during the Easter vacation of 1980 that the LBBs arrived at my games shop in Brussels, Belgium. The day after, I had refered my 1st game with two friends (well, I had refered what actually was D&D with guns in a modern setting, but things improved afterwards, and I started my 1st proper campaign during the summer vacation (Kinunir and so on).

Christ !! There wasn't even a character sheet in that boxed set ! I had to borrow my dad's Rotring set and improvise one on the spot.... good times.

 

[rich4421972]

I had been playing the original version with family member since it was first published. Later, I fell in love with Marc Miller's T4 and its vast field of supplements, art and new rules. Currently, I play (and write for) GURPS Traveller but I keep my T4 books very close

 

[HG_B]

Me. My neighbor owned a thriving local gaming store. (still exists today). He said come on down and play games on Friday night. this was '78

 

[LiamKerrington]

Was it because nobody else knew what to do with the original LBBs in '77 so they just gave them to you to make something out of them (like happened with me..."Hey, you like Space 1999 and stuff - you take these and figure out how to play it."), or was it because you bought them?

My RPG-experience started with the incredible game-books by Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson in the mid nineteen-eighties. Although I don't remember the specific book-title anymore, I remember having played SF-titles of it as well. But even back then I realized: SF is not as widely spread as fantasy-stuff.
A similar experience I had with board-games in the late eighties: HeroQuest was owned by several of my friends, thus plenty of opprtunity to play it, but only own owned Space Crusade (which was released in 1990), therefore less opportunities to play it and a lot less interested friends to get to join the game.
This repeats itself when I have started playing roleplaying games in 1990. My introductions were AD&D 2nd Ed and Shadowrun with plenty of experiments on games as well; while we played many different things (fantasy, horror, private investigation, sucking vampires and fleabagged werewolves, superheroes, dystopian cyberpunk, fun-games) sf-based rpgs (s/f-based in the sense of space-travelling, Hard SF and stuff) did not occur for quite a long time.
One time in the early to mid nineties I accidentally found the new "Traveller: The New Era". I still have a lively memory how the shop-owner was angry about it; and he gave me a very long discourse on Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller and why TNE was bad. But this did not hinder me to buy TNE at all - because it put a spell on me: spaceships, universe, real science fiction as an rpg- game - how awesome is that???.
And then I put disgrace onto me, because I tried to establish the game in my rpg-community. That sucked, 'cause people did not even like the idea of getting into space-travelling - unless it was Star Wars D6 or Star Trek, which - funny as it is - were being played after I introduced TNE to my friends, but both only for a short period of time, 'cause people did not get passed playing scenes doubling the famous scenes from the movies of Star Wars IV-VI ...
Anyway - TNE started setting dust on its cover, until I decided to sell it again.

About 10 years later a former colleague of mine told me about his personal SF project; and he also told me that it was based on and largely inspired by CT. This is how I came to own the CT core-rulebook - just for the sake of owning it and looking forward to getting to play it as well. I know a couple of guys who'd be interested; but all of us live as far away as one could be here in Germany. Play by Mail, by Blog, or by Forum were considered by me, but neglected by my friends.

In my region SF-rpgs are really, really underdeveloped - as long as you try and don't stick with the average "Wookey-Laser-Sword-" or "Hit-the-Klingon-in-the-face-with-torpedoes-"game; and even those are thinly spread after all and just happen 'accidentally' every now and then on local cons and not such on regular game-groups.

And how did you figure out how to play the game...I mean really play, not just solo it and use the OTU as it was developed, but what did you do with the game when you first got it to make it into what you do with it now?

I wished I had; I already answered it in the above. And I am kind of mad about it. A few days ago I have read the CT core-rulebook again; and I really like what I see here. Most things are covered in simple rules and really simple tables. To me it seems to be a sweet sandbox-game with plenty of sweet opportunities and with the mighty chance to get away from sword-swinging mucles, spell-hurling bones, chicks in chain-mail bikinis, dragons and necromants, which is all sweet, and nice, but starts growing a beard of indefinite length with starting at the indefinitie length ... *shrugs*

All the best!
Liam

 

[Shonner]

People equate sci-fi with brainiacs and chemistry/physics/math nerds. The same people equate fantasy with books and art. To them, one is easier to do that the other. So they choose easy everytime.

 

[Merxiless]

I had discovered Gamma World in Pittsburgh at a local hobby store that sold Model Trains.
So I was fascinated with post-holocaust, and gaming. The rules were pretty fiddly. I wanted more space opera, more gritty.

So at age 11, I finally got the 3 books of Classic, this was around 1977. I LOVED THE IDEA THAT THERE WERE SMALL BOOKS.

Other guys bought AD&D. I had the most GMing talent, so I ran it. Nobody wanted to play Traveller. I set up ship battles using the vector movement system on my bedroom floor using these wierd sort of lead ship minis from UK, that looked like magnetic field core loops with long hulls attached. ships of all kinds of shapes. I made up Traveller stats for all of them. I memorized the UPP process, and took 2d6 and paper to school and rolled subsectors, and planned trade routes.

Nobody wanted to play Traveller. We got into D&D, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers.

I quit High school in 1983, at 17. Joined the Navy at 18.
Nobody wanted to play Traveller. Played a lot of D&D. Played a lot of Axis & Allies on tex paper with cardboard counters.

Finally got to a cruiser in 1988. We deployed to West Pacific. We ended up playing Traveller nightly, when we were not on watch.

At night, i'd take all the ladders topside before the game and look up, no lights, not skyshine, no clouds, only stars. I imagined myself aboard a star cruiser, going to a new port.

I thought about all the potential life up there, 100 million potential planets, yet on this forsaken Tech 7-8 rock, people were ignorant for the most part about sci fi and space travel, and all the religions that were against such concepts didn't help.

Returning to port post cruise, I ran Star Wars d6. I learned thereby about cinematic movie style plots. Story arcs, and such. I left the navy, sadder, wiser, grizzled, divorced, and flat broke in 1993.

1994, I ran Traveller in college in Ohio, but most people wanted Star Wars d6, or Battletech /Mechwarrior 2nd edition.

Post 2003, I played some Traveller with friends, but they wanted D&D 2nd edition.

I lived some 70 miles or so North of Traveller Chronicle's home HQ. I called up to order some copies. his lady said oh, he doesn't do that stuff any more, but thanks for calling.

Very nice people I thought.

Ha, this remind me, along the way, Marc Miller sold a books on Ebay about Fine wines, and so i bought it. I also bought a hardback of the Traveller book direct from him on his ebay store.

I missed out on a ebay Marc Miller Traveller world buying auction some years ago at Xmas. I was stuck in a snowbank, when the bid was coming up and got outbid, and didn't have a smartphone or PC access.

So I got into the T5 gig. I'm eagerly awaiting it.

This month, I am starting two differnet mongoose Traveller games. I ordered a 2300 AD book by mongoose from Amazon. It should be here in a week.

My Traveller collection spans I think 7 milk crates of books, all versions in print, most of the books in print. Some of the software like quest for the ancients, and such.

William H. Keith is going to be at a local s-f con in Pittsburgh this July, as the Guest of honor. I'm going to that con to meet him, I love his artwork, and writing. I recently picked up a copy of Behind Enemy Lines. My wife said, "Maybe he'll sign it for you."

I'm not a published Traveller rules Guru. I do a little digital space art with photoshop. I do not have a doctorate in Physics, or work in a laser research lab, I am just a retired USN weapon technician, with no other real qualifications, other than DMing and Refereeing for 36 years, but I have been a fan of Traveller since the beginning.

When game groups here form, I always pitch Traveller. Usually they want D&D 3.5, sometimes 2nd ed. Once Conan by Mongoose.

Two years ago, I was sneaky, and ran Alternity, using a setting ported over from Traveller. People could not believe it was Traveller.

So we played some conspiracy X last year. Now that group is going to play ha ha! TRAVELLER, Dammit.

If there is a Traveller Superfan, if I am not that guy, I am sure I am on the list of applicants.

 

[LiamKerrington]

At night, i'd take all the ladders topside before the game and look up, no lights, not skyshine, no clouds, only stars. I imagined myself aboard a star cruiser, going to a new port.

I feel it. Awesome. Shivers of delight down my spine.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Bought the Black Box in a game store in 1978 or '79, followed by new rule books (Merc, HG, etc) as they were released, plus quite a few adventure books. Subscribed to JTAS from #7 until it ended and turned into Challenge, plus bought a lot of White Dwarf mags at game stores for Andy Slack's Traveller articles. Bought MT, didn't like it much, also didn't have much time for gaming after college graduation. Didn't like what I read about TNE so never bought any of it. Was thrilled when GURPS Traveller came out, bought most of those books as they came out (big disappointment they never published Imperial Navy!) even though I didn't have time to actually play. Finally getting back into Traveller again recently as my sons were playing D&D and I now have them excited about a Firefly-inspired game using some variety of Traveller. Currently working on the setting and crunch, trying to choose between Mongoose 2300AD and GT: Interstellar Wars, either way I'll have to do a lot of customizing, and either way we'll be using FUDGE for actual gameplay.

(Also wondering how long exactly I will be stuck in New User status and not be able to start new threads?)

** Edit: Wheee! I just posted this and noticed it went straight to the board instead of being delayed, glanced down at the status thingy w Posting Rules and it appears that I am off the New User probation! Yay! I feel like the new phonebooks are here, I'm somebody now! ***

*** Edit #2: What the fnord? Now I am completely confused by this whole "New User" thing. In this subforum right here, I may post new threads, may post replies, and may edit my posts. But if I go into any other subforum (such as GURPS Traveller or 2300AD, the places that I would most like to ask some questions) then I am still on New User status and MAY NOT post new threads, MAY NOT edit my posts; all I can do is reply to existing threads. Very confusing and frustrating! Would some Mod please PM me to explain how this works, and when I will be able to actually make new threads in the subforums where I have questions? ***

 

[nats]

I received a copy of the little black box for xmas from my Dad around 1980, I hadnt heard of Traveller nor even knew what rpg games were before then. It actually took me quite a while to figure out what the game was all about. I have spent practically my whole Traveller game playing life doing characters, ship design, mock combat etc on my own as there has never been anyone around that I knew of that played the game.

Now that I have my own family and kids I am looking forward to GMing a few games for them. But I have always wanted to play it rather than GM it....one of these days maybe! I still love it far more than D&D and any other type of game. So glad T5 is coming out and hoping we will see a further resurgence in Traveller that was started with MgT.

 

[Cryton]

*** Edit #2: What the fnord? Now I am completely confused by this whole "New User" thing. In this subforum right here, I may post new threads, may post replies, and may edit my posts. But if I go into any other subforum (such as GURPS Traveller or 2300AD, the places that I would most like to ask some questions) then I am still on New User status and MAY NOT post new threads, MAY NOT edit my posts; all I can do is reply to existing threads. Very confusing and frustrating! Would some Mod please PM me to explain how this works, and when I will be able to actually make new threads in the subforums where I have questions? ***

Checking into that now. Will let you know whats up.

 

[aramis]

SpaceBadger - you SHOULD be able to - they don't have special permission sets. The board is sometimes quite flaky.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Cryton and aramis - Sorry, guys, I guess I should have gone back to re-edit that later, but didn't think of it. I have been on regular user status for about a week now, able to make threads and all. I hope you haven't wasted too much time looking into it!

 

[whartung]

I discovered Traveller in, oh, 1979 I guess. My friend and I found the game, the 3 LBBooks in the LBBox, effectively abandoned, on a shelf in the Chemistry/Physics lab/classroom at my school. Nobody claimed it, so we just took it.

We were already playing D&D (someone had the basic set, rather than "real" D&D that the "older kids" had), but we went with it.

So, we ran off and we would just roll characters. We had stacks of index cards (I think I still have those stacks somewhere).

Later, I would play the trader game with another friend. I wrote a program on my calculator to automate a bunch of it.

I also carried it with us on a school field trip and taught it to a teacher who was interested in it.

The Starship building, and world generation were always interesting to me, but what "hooked" me was Book 4, specifically the "Ironmongery" chapter. All of those weapons seemed so real. It wasn't made up laser blasters, this was the real stuff. I loved the Keith drawing of the trooper scout just inside. Rifle, pack, headset. Hi tech, but "real". High Guard helped cement it. Truth be told, I know there's a whole section on Navy careers in that book, but I can safely say I've probably never read it in detail. All about the hardware.

I've never played in a campaign. We "played around" with it, but never really played it. Never serious. I seem to recall an incident in an "old west" town (being as it was on a map we got from Boot Hill). We had the Grav APC, and a fellow came through the swinging saloon doors and said "Draw!", so we hit him with the VRF Gauss gun in the turret. I wrote a small program on the PET (we were in the computer lab, after all) to calculate the damage that turned him in to a red mist and the saloon doorway in to more of a round shape.

In all seriousness, I've probably played the game, as a game, running an adventure, 3 times total.

Once, with a friend, I think we ran Chamax Plague. I recall rewiring missile warheads and blowing them up, something like that.

Second time, at a game club, it was an adventure out of JTAS I think. We had to assault an "unassailable" asteroid to get some plans or something. Instead we ended up taking our mustering out money, buying several tons of cheap calculators, and selling them all to the population of the TL 5 world with the Religious Theocracy Government that the asteroid happen to be in the same system. We were "instant" zillionaires and the Ref was upset that we didn't want to risk our life attacking the asteroid for 10,000Cr reward. And, yes, I blame the Ref.

Third was at a convention, and it was a great adventure. Non-stop, lots of action. Save for the underwater city, it probably could have happened today -- but no matter it was a hoot.

I like the rule systems, the gearmongery, the crunchy bits trying to model the world of Man on a galactic scale without the hand waves, but, rather, a couple of tweaks. People like us, but with fusion power and starships.

I like the Imperium. I like the setting. I was STUNNED (literally) when JTAS #9 came out and the FFW started. That was Important information. I was saddened by the Rebellion. By the war. By the Virus. The billions upon billions dead.

So, I didn't really need to play Traveller, I sort of just lived it instead .

I'm waiting for T5, I've passed on T20 and MgT. I didn't want the 3LBB again in T20, and I just haven't liked what I've seen in MgT.

 

[Baltech Budapest]

My introduction to Traveller is somewhat vague.
As a teenager living in the UK during the mid-eighties it was impossible not to be swept into the RPG craze that was happening at the time.
Many of my high school friends were playing D&D so I would join in during lunch break at school.
On Saturdays some of us would venture into the city centre to browse the shelves of Games Workshop.
I could never afford to buy any books as my weekly pocket money allowance was too low for such extravagances.
The most I could afford was a couple of Citadel Miniatures. I bought mainly sci fi miniatures such as Dr Who or Star Trek.
One product always caught my eye whenever I visited the store: Traveller.
The Deluxe Box with the famous Beowulf text on the front. But it was the many different coloured LBBs that really intrigued me.
Of course I never bought any because of my lack of finances.
Then in 1988 I left school and got a job. Between my brother and I we visited GW on a regular basis and bought the various D&D boxes, AD&D, T&T, Golden Heroes, Boot Hill, Call Of Cthulhu, Star Wars, James Bond and of course Traveller Starter Box.
Most of these products began disappearing from the GW store as they started only stocking Warhammer.
So by the end of the 80s the only 2 Traveller products I owned were the Starter Edition and Book 0.
During the 90s I turned away from RPGs altogether.
In 95 my family moved from the UK to Ireland and all those RPG books we owned got lost, or left behind.
Fast forward to 2010, I have 3 kids, 2 of them are teenagers and internet-savvy.
One of them stumbles across the Mongoose website and that famous Traveller logo which I had long forgotten about.
By the summer of 2010 we had purchased 3 copies of the Mongoose edition of the pocket core rules and an old copy of Double Adventure 2.
I refereed Across The Bright Face for my kids, my brother and one of my kids friends.
It was a huge success.
That night's game started (or re-started) my obsession with Traveller and since then I have tracked down and purchased every LBB: Books 0-8, Double Adventures 1-6, all the adventures and all the supplements.
In addition I have purchased the 1977 box, the Deluxe box, The hard backed Traveller Book and now I am hunting down the Journals (1-24).
Since that great game night in 2010 we (as a family) have bought and played D&D 4e, Call Of Cthulhu, Corporation, L5R and Aces & Eights.
Most of our game nights have been good but my kids (and my brother) always say "Hey, remember when we played Traveller? How we tried to escape Dinom?".
So after being swept up by the initial RPG craze of the 80s, then forgetting about it all and finally returning to RPGs in 2010 with kids of my own, it feels like I have 'come home' by finally looking on my shelf and seeing all those different coloured Traveller booklets. It's taken many years from those early days browsing the shelves of Games Workshop to now but Traveller is here to stay.

 

[Vargas]

Short version:

In high school did chargen of a belter, got a seeker worth millions, having played almost exclusively D&D up to that point, didn't know what to do since I had millions of credits worth of ship.

Christmas 1981 got the LBB boxed set; never looked back.