Shamelessly stolen from another board...

[kafka47]

Cue Rod Serling:

"Imagine if you will a world where Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson didn't create Dungeons and Dragons in 1974, instead a few years later a young man named Marc W. Miller decide to turn his war game company in a new direction. A new genre was born called roleplaying games and that first game was called Traveller."

What would the world of roleplaying games look like if Traveller was the first roleplaying game?

 

[Zob10701]

Well, at the very least, we would've had a cheesy Traveller Saturday morning animated series in the early eighties and a craptacular movie version about twenty years later...

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Craptacular supplements consisting mostly of filler and retreads of existing material published monthly in glossy hardbacks.

Yeah, I'll pass on that one, thanks.

 

[mike wightman]

GDW would have eventually invented a house system based on the d20, which they could have then licenced to other game publishers...

 

[Border Reiver]

Traveller turned out to be a minor experiment but roleplaying really took off with En Garde, capturing worldwide fascination with the 3 Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask.

Imitations were many, a chap called Ken promoted solo intrigues in Cavaliers & Roundheads, a revolutionary percentile system was created featuring Barbary Pirates and Desert Brigands called Dunequest.

[sorry]

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Border Reiver:
...a chap called Ken promoted solo intrigues in Cavaliers & Roundheads...

Ah, the Roundheads (right but repulsive) and the Cavaliers (wrong but wromantic).

That would be a Good Thing.

 

[siefertma2]

Sci Fi gaming just might be more popular than fantasy and some of us might actually be able to FIND Traveller players where they live.

 

[Uncle Bob]

No-one would have heard of that unnecessary yet perniscous carbuncle on role-playing. The third-rate excuse for keeping score known to us as Experience Points.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Don't get me started on the "experience" system from Gygax.

 

[Pickles]

"Imagine if you will a world where Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson didn't create Dungeons and Dragons in 1974, instead a few years later a young man named Marc W. Miller decide to turn his war game company in a new direction. A new genre was born called roleplaying games and that first game was called Traveller."

"But what Traveller lacked was a truly universal roleplaying system, easily applied to any genre. A little booklet called 'Basic Roleplaying' soon led the way, culminating in the one system to rule them all - Worlds of Wonder."

"New this month: Experience the OTU as never before - d100 style!"

 

[mike wightman]

Future World has an awful lot of Traveller influences, but also several unique features.

I'd never really considered it for a setting until thinking about Transhuman Space, the Meridian chapter of GURPS All Star Jam, and reading novels like Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, and Newton's Wake by Ken MacLeod.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

"Hiver" magazine would feature mostly science-fiction oriented articles, such as "The Ecology of The Geonee" and "The Cashier Class - Bureaucrat/Steward Hybrid", while entertaining the occassional fantasy-based article.

Phil Foglio would have gained fame as the author and artist of "Phil & Dixie" as he attempted to explore the various nuances of sex in Traveller.

Polyhedral dice would be a curiosity, instead of taking up six feet of shelf space at the local hobby store.

"Saving throws? We don't need no stinking saving throws!"

"Level" would mean only (1) which deck or floor the character is standing on; (2) how evenly he's distributed the ballast and cargo; (3) he's taking aim with a sighted weapon, as in "He levelled his PGMP-11 at the crate and carressed the firing stud."