When I was younger, say mid-twenties or thereabouts, I became frustrated with Traveller. For many years it was on of my favorite roleplaying games, but after awhile it started to feel klunky - the two-dee universe, the computer tapes, the dated feel of the technology and conceits. I bought MegaTraveller when it came out, and my interest in the TU dropped sharply - in the end, I got rid of all my Traveller books.
About six months ago I came across a reference to 1001 Characters, cited as an example of a great gaming supplement. I had to agree - that, Animal Encounters, 76 Patrons - you just don't see those kinds of book written very often anymore. I started thinking about Traveller again - of the different roleplaying games I've played over the years, I have more fond memories of Traveller games than any other.
But in thinking about the game, and the reasons that I stopped playing it, I discovered something else: that I had a new appreciation for the Traveller universe and how it was presented in the game. With the passage of years, my own education and experience taught me that the cutting edge of technology and science-fiction, where as a younger man I expected Traveller to be, isn't necessarily a reliable window on the real future, that 'progress' is neither linear nor inexorable. As I travelled around the country and around the world, I developed a first-hand appreciation of tech levels, and how a TL 5 'planet' could exist alongside a TL 9, or C, or F world. As a social scientist, I understood how society clings to outmoded, even archaic concepts and systems long after their utility is lost.
With age and experience, the Traveller universe seemed real to me in ways that it didn't when as a younger man I thought the game had become "too unsophisticated." I also realzed that I'd shed some preconceptions that prevented me from seeing some really elegant features of the game. That two-dee map, for instance, doesn't represent normal space - it represents jump space, the relationship between worlds through this fantastickal connection rather than distances listed in a star catalogue.
What I LOVE about Traveller is the TU. That includes the way its physics are abstracted in the rules. This is really unusual for me - in every other RPG I've played over the years, I've created my own setting, but not for Traveller.
Those inconsistencies that some people cite as their reasons for dislking the game? To me, that's an inevitable byproduct of a game that's developed over decades by dozens of different writers and a half-dozen different publishers. It's easy enough to tweak it here or there to fit the game that I'm playing - in the end, no matter how loosely or slavishly one is devoted to canon, the moment those dice hit the table we are all playing in our own TUs.
It's simple to play - when it doubt, throw 8+ on 2D - but infinitely customizable. The referee is encouraged to make things up, to expand on the rules or to throw them out, to make the game and the TU her or his own.
It took me a few years and a bit of 'ripening' to see what a great game, and a great setting, CT is.
