What is Traveller?

[Mithras]

I've just been listening to an actual play podcast, rpgmp3, and they played through Chamax plague, very interesting! One thing the DM said caught my ear, I wonder what you all thought. He said that he considered Traveller to be not just the Traveller setting, but the original Traveller rules, a traditional grognard stance that I'm sure a few of us around here also feel

But in essence, what the hell is Traveller?

If I play my own setting in my own subsector with MT rules, or 3i Spinward Marches using Savage Worlds, or near future NASA adventures in the Alpha Centauri system using MGT, which of them is Traveller, are all of them Traveller?

I ask because I've never been terribly wedded to the setting, but like the fast play simplicity of CT (with tweaks).

Is that Traveller??

 

[mike wightman]

All of them.

To me Traveller is a type of sci fi game.

I can have a homebrew setting that I use the Traveller rules to run, but the same setting can also be played using a host of other rule systems and still feel like Traveller.

Couple of examples:

I used the Space Opera rules to run a Dumarest/Traveller like setting. Character generation was simplified, the characters were all drifters, travel was by working passage/ regular passege (if they could afford it)/ stowaways/ captured by slavers.

It played just like CT campaigns I had run, but the Space Opera rules brought a bit more crunch.

Next example - I used the Aftermath rules to run The Traveller Adventure.

Definitely Traveller but again very different rules.


I very rarely use the OTU as is - can't resist changing things to suit my tastes - and these days use a CT+ homebrew system to run the game.

 

[Whipsnade]

Paul,

Gotta link to that podcast?


Regards,
Bill

 

[Hemdian]

I tend to agree with the podcast GM. I'm not basing this on logic, and I'm sure many would disagree, but for me it's rules + setting. You can use the rules to play an non-OTU setting, you can use non-Traveller rules to play an OTU-based campaign ... but only when you use Traveller rules to play an OTU setting is it truely Traveller.

Actually, I'll go further and say for rules I'm limiting it to CT and it's derivatives (MT, T4, T5, and MgT). The others (TNE, GT, T20, HT, etc) are emulations.

Of course Mongoose are insisting that it's rules only, regardless of setting. Their Strontium Dog and Hammers Slammers products (et al) are 'officially' Traveller in their eyes. I have nothing against those games, but if (for example) I played a game of Judge Dredd then I'll feel I've played Judge Dredd ... not Traveller. YMMV.

 

[spinwardpirate]

For the longest time I believe the answer many would give would be "Traveller is the setting." Let me take you back to the late 80s, when Traveller:2300 was announced. Everyone assumed that, based on the name, the game was "Traveller" set in the year 2300. Enough confusion existed that the name was changed to 2300AD. Now, here we are on the threshold of the 'teens, and I believe people are finally accepting that Traveller is both a setting and a system.

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

Like the podcast GM, Hemdian, and Spinward Pirate, I believe Traveller to be both the setting and the rules. For all the talk about CT being "setting free", it never truly was.

Look at this: "Traveller deals with a common theme of science-fiction: the concept that an expanding technology will enable us to reach the stars and to populate the worlds which orbit them. The major problem, however, will be that communication, be it political, diplomatic, commercial, or private, will be reduced to the level of the 18th century, reduced to the speed of transportation.

Those are the first two sentences of the first paragraph of the first page of the first book for Classic Traveller. Before we even see a single rule we're being explicitly told that Traveller is science fiction and that communications will reduced to the speed of transportation.

While those two statements encompass a great number of settings, they most certainly do not encompass all settings, regardless of Mongoose's cynical marketing claims.

When I used the Traveller rules in my Pulp Chaco game, my group was not playing Traveller. When someone uses d20 or GURPS derived rules in the Traveller setting, they are not playing Traveller either.

Rather than stating that Traveller is a mixture of rules and setting, it may be more accurate to say that Traveller is a mixture of rule and setting concepts.


Regards,
Bill

 

[sabredog]

(Strapping on armor, here)....

First, I think that Traveller is the rules, and whatever sci-fi setting (hard, soft, space opera, etc..) you want to apply them to because the original Traveller rules allowed for use in nearly any sci-fi setting so long as it fit within the structure of those rules. Star Trek wouldn't fit unless you used some houserules to alter the game dramatically enough that it won't be Traveller anymore.

So, I think that so long as the Traveller rules are used as a generic framework to hang your game on - as defined by the limits of that framework (jump drives, speed of communications, etc.) then the setting the game is placed in doesn't matter - it's Traveller.

Now I know this will cause a lot of indigestion among those who don't distinguish so much anymore between playing Traveller versus doing Traveller...but then I've gone through that stage, too once. The OTU was hinted at in Book 4, more so in Book 5...but even so, it was entirely possible to use the rules without having to play the OTU. What other game than the original D&D rules would allow that? Later iterations were bogged down heavily in investing in the OTU - not that there's anything wrong with that - but we referees and players didn't have to unless we wanted to, particularly when playing CT.

Now you could try to argue that Naval chargen ala' HG is locking you into a setting, same with Scouts and Mercenary. I argue it is not - the nuts and bolts of the rules (how the ships are designed, how to generate a naval character who lives in a non-starship society, etc.) can be used without having to buy into the OTU. In fact, the OTU is itself defined by the rules more than the other way around because it has to exist within the framework of the same rules I use to run my non-OTU, and the OTU came after anyone's non-OTU.

That was the real beauty of the original rules: that you could use them to create anything you wanted for a sci-fi universe. The limitations in the rules are just that: limits so as to allow for consistent play, but even the last chapter of LBB3 points out that the rules are just a starting point and the limits of the game are really only defined by those of your imagination.

 

[Whipsnade]

First, I think that Traveller is the rules, and whatever sci-fi setting (hard, soft, space opera, etc..) you want to apply them to because the original Traveller rules allowed for use in nearly any sci-fi setting so long as it fit within the structure of those rules.

Sabredog,

In other words, there are basic concepts behind the rules which constrain which settings can be created from those rules.

Star Trek wouldn't fit unless you used some houserules to alter the game dramatically enough that it won't be Traveller anymore.

Exactly. Star Trek cannot be Traveller despite using Traveller rules because Star Trek has something that Traveller is explicitly said not to have in the first two sentences of it's first rules book: communications that exceed the speed of transport.

So, I think that so long as the Traveller rules are used as a generic framework to hang your game on - as defined by the limits of that framework (jump drives, speed of communications, etc.) then the setting the game is placed in doesn't matter - it's Traveller.

You just contradicted yourself inside the same sentence.

You claim that, because settings are constrained by the rules' concepts, that the setting thus doesn't matter. Of course the setting matters. If the setting goes beyond the framework expressed by the rules, the game is no longer Traveller.

The OTU was hinted at in Book 4, more so in Book 5...but even so, it was entirely possible to use the rules without having to play the OTU.

Snarling the OTU setting around the rules was one of GDW's largest mistakes.

I've used the Traveller rules to play many non-OTU settings. Some of those settings haven't even been sci-fi. The concepts behind the rules, however, do constrain any possible setting; i.e. Trek or [Pulp/Chaco with Traveller rules are not Traveller.


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

I tend to agree with the podcast GM. I'm not basing this on logic, and I'm sure many would disagree, but for me it's rules + setting. You can use the rules to play an non-OTU setting, you can use non-Traveller rules to play an OTU-based campaign ... but only when you use Traveller rules to play an OTU setting is it truely Traveller.

Actually, I'll go further and say for rules I'm limiting it to CT and it's derivatives (MT, T4, T5, and MgT). The others (TNE, GT, T20, HT, etc) are emulations.

Of course Mongoose are insisting that it's rules only, regardless of setting. Their Strontium Dog and Hammers Slammers products (et al) are 'officially' Traveller in their eyes. I have nothing against those games, but if (for example) I played a game of Judge Dredd then I'll feel I've played Judge Dredd ... not Traveller. YMMV.

Well said. And I agree on Rules+Setting=Traveller. And that GT, T20, HT, etc are not close enough, and T4 straddles the border... it's different enough to Not be traveller to me, since I can't make use of CT characters, ship designs (I can use HG ratings as is in MT, even if the tonnages are wrong). T5, from what I've seen (not much, and nothing current) is almost as far as T4 from CT, and incompatible in the character department.

 

[BlackBat242]

Whatever game I am playing is absolutely defined by the rules I am using.

I can try to simulate some setting with a different set of rules (a Top Secret-like Traveller game, or a low-tech Twilight 2000-like Traveller game), but if I am using the Traveller rules, then it is Traveller!

If I am not, then it is not!

Setting is secondary, but if I were to try to play in the Star Wars universe with Traveller rules, it would not be Star Wars because of the lack of FTL communications & 100dton minimum FTL travel limit in the rules I'm using, but it would be Traveller in an alternate universe/different part of the universe.

I regularly play Traveller games set in an alternate form of the OTU, with both a different history & a different alignment of political groups/worlds, but it is recognizable as to the origins of the "alternate universe".

 

[Icosahedron]

Traveller explicitly subscribes to Rule#1.
Therefore, Traveller is whatever the Referee says it is.

It's a continuum. Any lines you draw are artificial and open to dispute. There is no absolute definition of Traveller.

If I were to play in the OTU using Star Wars D6 rules, am I playing Traveller or SWD6? You could say either or neither or both, depending on your personal definition. Equally, If I play in the Star Wars universe using Traveller rules...

If I define my game as Traveller and my players agree, nobody else's opinion matters.

Having said that, the type of game I would personally define as Traveller would be one that used Traveller rules (of any edition that officially bears the name), houseruled to any degree acceptable to me and my players, and played in the OTU or any non-commercial universe. (ie a homebrew ATU is Traveller, but using Traveller rules in a Star Wars universe would not be 'Traveller' but a 'Traveller-Star Wars hybrid'.

On houseruling, I would say that if Traveller core (of any edition) plus your own derivatives together form the majority of the rules you use, then it's Traveller. If Traveller publications and your derivatives are overshadowed by rules drawn from other sources, then maybe you've created something that isn't recognisably Traveller any more.
My rules draw heavily from many sources, but I think the stuff that is Traveller copyright and the stuff that is my copyright together exceed the remainder of the rules I've imported. I'm still playing Traveller, IMO.

 

[aramis]

Traveller explicitly subscribes to Rule#1.
Therefore, Traveller is whatever the Referee says it is.

Actually, I couldn't find any such rule in MegaTraveller nor TNE...

So, really, CT and MGT do, but then many don't consider MGT "real traveller"... because it lacks setting.

I need to clarify my rules+setting... Really, it's not the 3I setting per se, but the tropes of the setting:

• Nobles
• Jump Drives and their attendant paradigms
  • 168hrs for any distance,
  • fuel burned at initiation,
  • no contact/commo while in jump,
  • misjumps,
  • jump-6 controlled jump limit
• Firearms in High Tech armies
• No FTL comm except ships
• Gravitics
• Psionics are real
• Habitable planets-
  • Common
  • compatible DNA, and often biochemistry
  • Humans everywhere*
• Decentralized multi-sector government

* for whatever reason.

 

[Mithras]

I couldn't get the actual session to link, but if you bring this up in iTunes yiou will see TRaveller session 1,2 and 3.

itpc://www.rpgmp3.com/downloads/data/bw/bwpodcast.xml

Paul,

Gotta link to that podcast?


Regards,
Bill

 

[Mithras]

However, if you used the Star Wars rules then it includes the Force, it includes stormtroopers and AT-ATs and blasters and a very heroic slant. So your setting would have Star Wars contamination. By the rules. What most GMs tend to do is rewrite rules like Star Wars D6 to fit the Traveller universe and genre, essentially 'Travellerising' the rules.

If I were to play in the OTU using Star Wars D6 rules, am I playing Traveller or SWD6? You could say either or neither or both, depending on your personal definition. Equally, If I play in the Star Wars universe using Traveller rules...

 

[rancke]

Well said. And I agree on Rules+Setting=Traveller. And that GT, T20, HT, etc are not close enough, and T4 straddles the border... it's different enough to Not be traveller to me, since I can't make use of CT characters, ship designs (I can use HG ratings as is in MT, even if the tonnages are wrong). T5, from what I've seen (not much, and nothing current) is almost as far as T4 from CT, and incompatible in the character department.

I think that any definition that excludes several official versions carrying the word 'Traveller' on it is... iffy, to put it politely. OTOH, we do have an example of a game that was marketed as Traveller and which, owing to fan protests, was acknowledged by TPTB not to be Traveller (2300 AD).

I think Traveller is a certain kind of setting. not just the OTU setting, but any setting that conforms to a certain set of tropes. Rules are a tool set, nothing more. To run games in the Traveller kind of setting, some rules are more suitable than others, but none of them are Traveller in themselves. That is, you can run non-Traveller games using CT and MT and TNE and T4 and GT and T20, etc. And you can run Traveller games using some entirely different rules sets too (albeit not ALL other rules sets -- as I said, some are simply unsuitable for the use of Traveller).

Traveller is a particular set of tropes.


Hans

 

[spinwardpirate]

I wonder what would have happened if it had been Traveller:1889 instead of Space:1889?

And seriously, I'm think my next adventure with MGT is going to be an 1889 adventure.

 

[Vargas]

OTOH, we do have an example of a game that was marketed as Traveller and which, owing to fan protests, was acknowledged by TPTB not to be Traveller (2300 AD).

I've never really understood this on a personal level because I never perceived GDW as trying to market 2300 as Traveller per se. I understand the confusion and have always suspected that GDW might have wanted to ultimately replace Traveller with 2300, but I certainly didn't see it at the time.

And as far as the original question goes, I've always thought of Traveller as rules + setting, probably because I wasn't there in the earliest days of the game. The Third Imperium background was just getting started, but it was always a facet of the game to me. (I credit JTAS with doing that).

 

[PathfinderAP]

Traveller is a particular set of tropes.

Hmmmmm?, googlegooglegoogle

Bing!


http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Traveller

 

[mbrinkhues]

Traveller is an elderly, not always self-consistend SciFi universe that has expanded over the last 30+ years from a small, semi-defined "blob in space" to a universe rivaling StarWars or StarTrek in size and complexity. And just like these universes there are inconsistencies and retcons and things that make no sense. Add in it's 1970s view on technology in many areas and a "useful for players" outlook on other technologies and you get a rather complex mess.

The end result is something that needs time to get into and understand both for the GM and the players and has some "accept of don't play" elements (1) If the participants are willing to do that investment they access one of the most beautiful universes ever created and can play in a rich and rewarding background spanning more than 2000 years from the Interstellar Wars (Terranians conquer the stars) through the Reawakening (Founding of the 3rd Imperium), the sunset years (Solomanie Rim War to 1115) and into the horrors and heroics of the Civil War (1116-1130) and onward to collaps and rebirth (1200-1248).

You have regions as diverse as the "cold war german border" in SolRim and Spinward Marches or as complex as early 20th century Balkans/Near East with the Gateway Domain. And scenarios ranging from combat oriented (TNE line of 1200+) to pure exploration in the 1105s Marches to Intrigue at the High Courts and then some. Dig out all the "Colonial Age" novels and you have Traveller scenarios in your hands.

There are some stuff that distinguishes Traveller from StarTrek, Babylon5 or StarWars:

• The slow and cumbersom stardrive.
  • Once engaged you can't stop it. A jump will take 168h and deliver you at the plotted point (Unless a technical catasthrophie happens)
  • J-Drive needs a lot of fuel and only works well away from planets forcing normal space travel
  • It's slow. A maximum of around 20 Lj per week (6 Parsek) for the fastest ships
• No Faster than light Radio. News traveles at the speed of ship
• No Transporters, no Replicators, no Holodecks, no field-deployed nanotech(4)
• No technological solutions. Traveller is about human heros(2) solving problems while risking their health and life. Two fisted heros and .38 wielding heroines instead of bot-commanding button-pushers(3)
• Slow drives where 6g represents a quick acceleration
• Techlevels and disharmonic tech. One world can be in the late renaissance and the other at the hight of Imperial knowledge. And those two are just a few parsek appart.
• No hard definitions on most tech. There is a "Universal Antidote" but how it works is left open. Same with tons of other tech. If you prefer to count rivets, Traveller isn't for you
• The nations/empires. They belong to Traveller like the Federation to StarTrek
• Nobles and the Right of Assasination and dead Strephons
• Intrigue and Espionage
• An Empire where only a dead Psionic is a good Psionic

The one thing that's mostly unimportant is the actual rules set. It should allow for certain elements in combat/space combat, ship operations and be somewhat realistic and deadly but once those points are marked of, GURPS, MegaTraveller, TNE(minus HePLar) or T20 all work (T4 might too, don't have the set) just fine. So would Renegade Legion/Centurion or (dropping supertech) the LuG Trek rules set.


(1) Just like say "StarTrek"

(2) Traveller Aliens if played right are not playable at all. If played wrong they are rubber suits. Use one of the human sub-races if you need a "role playing challenge"

(3) In a book about "Reforger" the page about "Reforger 93" read: "Instead of showing pictures of soldiers clicking computer mice we step back to 1969 and give you a vehicle commander sitting in a real tank using binos to spot for real planes."

(4) There may be nanocrap somewhere. Or not. But no magical fabbers in the ships maschine shop. Use a lathe instead

 

[PathfinderAP]

The meaning of "What is Traveller?" is not the same now as it was then,

At the start, at the origins of this game it was more system than setting, people developed their own settings, but used the Traveller system,

Is this Traveller?, yes it is,

But now you have more systems, including Gurps and d20,

Is this Traveller?, yes it is,

So is it the system or the setting that makes it Traveller?

Icosahedron is right, its more than a system, more than a setting, it can be both, a system and setting, or just system or setting, yet remain Traveller,

They are but both different sides of the same coin, it is a whole, but depending on your point of view, you see things differently based on the different things you value,

Its all valid as long as it has a connection to Traveller, be it system or setting,