Why Traveller Can’t Be A Modern RPG.

   

I was reading the 2D6SF blog and he said that Traveller, what is known as the Classic Traveller rules published between 1977 and 1984. That Traveller was not a modern RPG. That definitely clicked. Not just because I agree with the idea prima facie, but also because I believe that Mongoose is trying to change that. I appreciate some of their efforts Mongoose has made, but others ring flat.

Traveller wasn’t the first SF RPG, that honor goes to Metamorphosis Alpha, but it has been arguably the most successful. If memory serves there have been almost twenty versions from the original “little black books” (LBBs) to the latest Mongoose Publishing Second Edition full color volumes. The entirety of the Traveller canon is nigh impossible to hold in one's head. I've never met anybody who claims to have done so. I do think there are some basic precepts that are easily grasped.

Every disparate version has had some sort of flaw. Interstellar Wars used too much of SJGs pathological fear of metric system, and was somewhat weighed down by the spectrum of GURPS material. MegaTraveller was a collision of rules "Frankensteined" together from different developers and viewpoints, plus the math didn’t work. I could go on about the differences and challenges but the upshot was and is that every version since the original has missed the mark. Classic Traveller still stands up above them all and I think it’s because the game doesn’t try too hard.

One of the things about older RPGs is they did not try to be everything. First generation role playing games generally are designed to provide a framework for improvisation. We didn’t have tons of setting information or special rules for every case. Most games didn’t even have a central mechanic or unified task resolution system— because those are ideas that came later in the 1990s.

So in many ways, Traveller became one of the reasons these ideas evolved. The development of the Third Imperium, or more recently Charted Space, literally began the concept of a setting arc in RPGs. When Traveller was first written in the 70s, the idea of a cohesive setting for an RPG hadn't been invented. The Third Imperium Was cobbled together after the release of Star Wars because everyone thought there should be a big "capital E" empire. Even the idea of different alien species was something that came up later on in the setting as it developed.

Traveller can't be a modern role-playing game because it is, in many ways, the template by accident. If all of these things are coherent and laid out, there is no space for improvisation, which is the very basis of roleplaying games.