Why You Should Play... Traveller 2E

#Traveller #Mongoose #TTRPGs

[KabukiKid]

One of the features of Traveller that was always amusing to me is that you would sort of "press your luck" as to how far you wanted to develop your character, and at the end of the day, you had a 62 year old character all seasoned and ready for adventure. lol Very different than in D&D when you started out with a 19 year old kid or something. ;-)

[wylde_hunter]

Still one of best roleplaying games ever. Easy to learn, easy to play and can be adapted to ANY sci-fi setting (and also, with a bit of work, any other setting)

[theprincipledtransformatio]

Thanks for covering this game I am passionate about.

To explain the confusing editions thing: Traveller has been licensed to and published under a few different forms over the decades of its existence. GDW published the original Traveller. Their "2nd Edition" was called Mega-Traveller and was an update of the first version. Mega-Traveller was replaced by Traveller: The New Era. Finally, GDW published T20 which was a D20 version. For a time Traveller was licensed to Steve Jackson Games and appeared as add-on material for the GURPS base game. Marc Miller, the game's creator founded Far Future Enterprises and put out Traveller 4 and now Traveller 5. It was also licensed to Mongoose Publishing which put out their Traveller which is now known as Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition. Mongoose's Traveller 2nd Edition is their second edition.

The Third Imperium setting is vast covering over 1100 star systems. Over the years it has developed a large cannon of lore. Describing the Third Imperium as dry is, I think, not looking at it closely enough. The Imperium does not rule the worlds, but the space between them. Each world is a member state of the Third Imperium but has its own culture, government, laws, and technology. This is a fertile field from which the "Referee" (as Traveller calls its GM) to create all sorts of cool and interesting things.

There are tons of cool online tools on the internet which are free to use, including a vast interactive map of the Third Imperium, a Wiki for the lore, various generators, language generators, and tons of other things.

[HectorStratford]

Thanks for covering one of my favorite tabletop RPGs! I wish every game had Traveller's character creation system. It is very good at grounding your character in the setting.

[blazingangel]

Just got a Traveller bundle on Humble Bundle, so excited to dive in!

[shawnsears]

⭐ Firefly is actually based on Joss Whedon's Traveller campaign from college.

[GymbalLock]

I have seen a character die in 2e Traveller creation. A player made a space pirate. He was about to retire and muster out, but rolled a 12 for his survival roll and was compelled to serve one more term. On that term, he failed the survival roll and was thrown into prison. He failed his release roll term after term, and always ended up on the wrong side of a prison riot. sixteen years later, his character was missing a limb, had lost several attribute points due to injury, and then had aging effects hit him hard. A crippled, elderly convict would be unfit for any kind of space adventure so we decided he died in prison of health complications.

[fightingfortruth]

In my last game my character spent 19 years in prison during character creation. By the time he got out he had 0 Social and could kill anything with his bare hands.

[RedDiceDiaries]

Very much enjoyed the video, I picked up a copy of the Traveller facsimile edition from Drivethru a while back (in addition to having the Mongoose 2E version) and this has made me want to revisit it 🙂👍

[JamesEck]

Been looking forward to this one, Traveller has a place at my table.

[joenapalm]

Not sure why you'd stress Traveller -- which is an iconic SF game unto itself -- for kludging together to play other settings that have their own very capable systems already but cheers for anything that brings attention to Traveller

[ScipioAfricanusI]

Traveller GDW is my all-time favorite RPG. That was the 2nd RPG (after ADD) I played. Great review. Your enthusiasm really shines through. What I missed from this review is how would you rate this version of Traveller next to all the other versions (and the original one).

[lockedlake]

Currently, Humble Bundle has a good bundle for traveller rpg, ending 23th of august 2023

[MrElliptific]

Thanks for the review. I have just rediscovered West End Games' Star Wars, and its retro-clone D6 Space (much cheaper than used copy of WEG's SW!).
I"d play happily traveller, but D6 Space or Stars without Numbers seem more appropriate for my to go system (T2 being an excellent system on its own right). SWN for hard sci-fi (Expanse, Star Trek) while D6 Space will definitely be my SW fix! Thanks again for your reviews and taking the time to share your thoughts!

[BanjoSick]

Love the album Traveller by Slough Feg, based on the singers Traveller campaign.

[InnerProp]

You were in HS in Chicago in 81, so was I! What HS? We went to the game store at Harlem Irving Plaza.

I never played Traveller back then. I was scared away because I didn't want my character to die in creation. We played Space Opera back then. Ever play that? How would it compare?

[paulnolin]

Traveller!! Thanks Jeff for a great video.

[tehaus]

If you're reading this at the start of 2025, Bundle of Holding has a good deal for the Traveler core rulebook PDFs.

[TheJDough]

What is the reason that Traveller isn't the D&D of Sci-Fi?

I've never played this but scifi is my genre of choice so I need help determining if I dive in.

Is it a heavy system?
Can it easily run settings like Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, Babylon 5, Farscape?
Is it mechanics or Setting, or storytelling focused?

I'm grateful for any help, thank you.

[zxk]

Warhammer stuff is cheaper in the UK. I wonder if the same is true with Mongoose stuff. I assume that there's some trade fees and shipping fees.