Think way back - how did you discover Traveller?

[Timerover51]

Shortly after I moved to the northern Chicago suburbs in 1978, following my medical retirement from the Army, I spotted a copy of the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society at a little game shop run by the Great Lakes Navy Exchange and bought it as it looked interesting. After reading it, and I still have it around, I decided that this looked like an interesting game. Shortly thereafter, I was visiting my former college roommate in the western Chicago suburbs, and we visited a game shop and I bought the Traveller LBB set. From then on, I kept picking the game, although The New Era definitely turned me off for a while.

I should note that I started playing D&D while in a hospital at Walter Reed Army Medical Center waiting to find out if I would walk again, so an RGP like Blue Book D&D (which I still have), the original tan books for D&D, and Traveller were something that I was quite open too. I have been board and miniature gaming since 1970.

 

[Jame]

My first Traveller exposure was finding a copy of The New Era in a game store which died out in the mid-90s. I was 12-13.

Now, I was very introverted at the time, so I never once thought I could ask to play it with anyone until I found T20, looked in the back and saw that it had a website. I posted, found a few players and we're still going sporadically today. With a few changes to roster, admittedly.

We play a modified CT at the moment though.

 

[Vargas]

Then I found the supplements and the very first Traveller item I bought was Traders and Gunboats due to my fascination with spaceships. High Guard was my second.

My initial purchase was the '77 boxed set, High Guard and Annic Nova/Shadows. I got Traders and Gunboats in Spring '81 and thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Introduced to RPGs (D&D) and wargaming (historicals) by a grammar school friend around late 1979.

Somehow stumbled into CT only about 7-8 years ago.

 

[Spartan159]

I was a teen visiting a local hobby shop in the late 70's and there was a RPG area set aside, they invited me to play and I was hooked.

 

[The Pakkrat]

A College Vargr picks up MegaTraveller

I was fresh out of ED5 and taking courses in some forgotten Major in the 1990s when I spotted MegaTraveller. Now my pack, they were all for fantasy RPGs and being the avid reader of game manuals, I was the omega bookworm that got told to read the rules, teach them the game and then run as the Referee. A pack member who was slightly older than I remembered playing Classic Traveller and was interested in what I could cook up story-wise.

As Gvegh are wont, the game never took off though I then owned many of the books. Still young, there was much of the gear-head, technical stuff that kept my brain swimming in details of the physics and other details. The pack went back to its fantasy gaming. I had not learned the Details Only As Necessary exception rule at that time. I went back to my college studies and fantasy gaming.

Then in 2015, after long years of continuous running of RPGs, I imagined joining a Free Trader crew on Roll20.net; them a bunch of Spinward Marches adventurers and their cycling Referee format. I joined the Homebrew game online and when I cycled in as the Referee, I immediately moved everybody to Mongoose Traveller that was made available to me. It was a rag-tag bunch of Impy Humans who had to do a double-take at my Gvurrdon Vargr character like they'd taken some wrong turn somewhere in Regina or Lanth subsector. Was I trying to turn their game furry or something? Nay. Just a Scout from Roger Malmstein's Dzen Aeng Kho is all. Rest of the story is boring.

Today, viewers, you have your Anchor-rat from Net-7 News to bring you the lastest from the Spinward corner of the Vargr Extents - Knoellighz Sector.

Reminiscing from Roethoeegaeaegz (Knoellighz 1724) and for Net-7 News, this is the Pakkrat.

 

[Spenser TR]

Net-7! Now that's a reference I've not heard in a long time... a long time.

I know this is a revelation to no one here, but it's truly something to have so many people here whose gaming experience and history with Traveller go back such a ways.

 

[flykiller]

it's truly something to have so many people here whose gaming experience and history with Traveller go back such a ways.

heh. some of the arguments go back almost as long ....

 

[aramis]

I played D&D in 81; we moved just prior to freshman year in HS. I found a group playing at lunch - star frontiers. Played a dralasite, didn't like the group. A buddy invited me to the group he was playing with.

And this is where things get historically interesting....

The GM had essentially pirated the CT rules in 1983.

He hand copied the tables. He later (Januaryish) bought the book.

It was Traveller. Specifically, he copied the tables from TTB.

I got copies for Christmas from my parents.

But yeah, people pirated game rules in the early 80's.

 

[ffilz]

I played D&D in 81; we moved just prior to freshman
But yeah, people pirated game rules in the early 80's.

Nah, I didn't spend early 1978 at the library photocopying my friend's copy of Chivalry and Sorcery at 10 cents a page...

I now own the original copy that I was photocopying...

Frank

 

[aramis]

Nah, I didn't spend early 1978 at the library photocopying my friend's copy of Chivalry and Sorcery at 10 cents a page...

I now own the original copy that I was photocopying...

Frank

Piracy was less valuable back in the day because the cost was almost the same as the printed version; in some cases, more than the legit copy at the store... but when there was no legit copy available...

 

[whartung]

Piracy was less valuable back in the day because the cost was almost the same as the printed version; in some cases, more than the legit copy at the store... but when there was no legit copy available...

That's why you copied it on the office copiers…

I found Traveller on a book case in the Chem/Physics lab at school. Nobody else was using it, so I got to take it home. Spent most of the time rolling characters and doing trade. I created some simple programs on my programmable calculator to handle the trade transactions.

I also recall a moment where we were on a map from Boot Hill, had a small Grav APC with the VRF Gauss Gun in the turret. Someone kicked the swinging doors open on us and said "Draw". We responded with the Gun. I wrote a quick program on the handy Pet computer (we were doing this in the computer lab) to calculate the damage. It was…a lot.

 

[pendragonman]

My gateway drug(s) were Avalon Hill WWII simulations, and I was hooked in 6th grade, so 1977.

Later that year I walked in on an AD&D campaign that needed someone to take over the thief, whose player had graduated and moved on to college.

After that adventure ended (6 months of once a weeks), I went searching for more RPGs, and found the Box Set of Traveller Doom at Star Realm (FLGS that started out as a Sci Fi/Fantasy book store)

Imagine my joy finding the extra adventures and books 4 and up.

 

[Sstefan]

A friend of mine brought EnGarde to school and we started rolling dice and making stories during lunch and afternoon break. Eventually he introduced us to “modern” weapons using one of those LBBs during a high school history class.

Eventually I found enough to buy my own set of books (late 78 or early 79).

 

[aramis]

My gateway drug(s) were Avalon Hill WWII simulations, and I was hooked in 6th grade, so 1977.

If you're going back that far in life... in 1978, my Psychologist started me on Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival. Then on to 1776.

I first encountered D&D in '79 - holmes basic - and saw AD&D in the PX (the games rack was next to Gardening at the Ft. Richardson PX, and we were buying lawn care supplies...) ... but didn't get to play until summer of '81.

 

[ffilz]

If you're going back that far in life... in 1978, my Psychologist started me on Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival. Then on to 1776.

I first encountered D&D in '79 - holmes basic - and saw AD&D in the PX (the games rack was next to Gardening at the Ft. Richardson PX, and we were buying lawn care supplies...) ... but didn't get to play until summer of '81.

I was probably 8 (1971) or so when I bought Tactics II at a yard sale. I know for sure I was still in elementary school when the local community center hosted an Avalon Hill board games club (during which time I expanded my collection to include Afrika Korps), and as I mentioned above, I first saw D&D in 1976 or 1977 but didn't get into it until fall of 1977.

Frank

 

[ffilz]

Piracy was less valuable back in the day because the cost was almost the same as the printed version; in some cases, more than the legit copy at the store... but when there was no legit copy available...

Yea, I'm almost sure I spent more than the cover price copying C&S. As a high school student, I didn't have access to an office copier...

Frank

 

[RockyMountainNavy]

Mayday....Beowolf

First wargame was Christmas '79 bought at Fascination Corner in Arapahoe Mall in south Denver. Was in 7th grade. Very quickly found a little black box with red lettering and three little black books inside. Friends and I played the heck out of it thru high school.

Still have the box and books on my shelf.

 

[Timerover51]

My first war game purchases in 1970 were Don Featherstone's Skirmish Wargaming, Don Featherstone's Tank Battles in Miniature: The Western Desert, Sea Power II by Alnavco, and Panzerblitz by Avalon Hill. I still have all of them.

 

[Burocrate]

gaming arc

At age ten or eleven I bought a set of gold and silver painted knights with matching castles at a rummage sale. Two forces to battle with became a fun version of three dimensional chess for my friends and I. We all collected different eras: Roman, Greeks, American Indians standing in for Barbarians and basic European style knights. Dice were introduced to simulate the odds of hit or miss. Then we moved on to WW 2 soldiers made mostly by Airfix, soon tanks, jeeps, towed artillery and aircraft became vital to playing.
Then one day I noticed a pack of lead figures from the Fellowship of the Ring, that was summer of '79. D&D took over that summer and all my time and money through Fall of '80. If GDW made it we played it! Gamma World, Boot Hill and Top Secret games slipped in between D&D campaigns.
Then one of my friends brought the little black box with three little books to the first week of our Sophmore year of HS. We played Traveller on and off for a few years and I never stopped buying books as new editions came. Then in '92 I got the CT bug and just had to buy everything I didn't already own.

"Hello, my name is Dave and I am powerless over CT."