Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW). Marc Miller designed Traveller with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman. Editions were published for GURPS, d20, and other role-playing game systems. From its origin and in the currently published systems, the game relied upon six-sided dice for random elements. Traveller has been featured in a few novels and at least two video games.

Traveller is a tabletop game where characters journey through star systems, engaging in exploration, ground and space battles, and interstellar trading. The game is influenced by various literary works and emphasizes commerce, sociological stratification, and a mix of low and high technology. The setting is centered around the human-dominated Third Imperium, a feudalistic interstellar empire. Despite the focus on humans, the Traveller universe is cosmopolitan and features various other sophont peoples. The game's history also features the Ancients, a highly advanced race that left behind ruins and artifacts scattered throughout the universe.

Traveller has been published in various editions since 1977. The original version, known as Classic Traveller, was published by GDW. Throughout the years, the game has evolved, with notable editions including MegaTraveller, Traveller: The New Era, Marc Miller's Traveller, GURPS Traveller, Traveller20, Traveller Hero, Mongoose Traveller, and Traveller5. The current rulesets are Traveller5 and Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed., both of which draw from the original Traveller rules and rely on six-sided dice. Each edition presents different settings, timelines, and mechanics, showcasing the game's adaptability and enduring popularity.

Traveller has received consistently positive reviews across various editions, won multiple Origins Awards, and was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in 1996. While the game has faced some criticism, such as slow character growth and anachronistic weapons, it remains a classic in the role-playing hobby. Some video games and software have been based on the Traveller universe, including The Imperial Data Recovery System, MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy, and MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients.

Design Characters typically journey between star systems, engaging in exploration, ground and space battles, and interstellar trading. Characters are defined not by the need to increase native skill and ability but by achievements, discoveries, wealth, and so on.

Influences and inspiration Marc Miller has listed works that influenced Traveller and provided its key features:

Dorsai - Gordon R. Dickson, 1960 Dumarest of Terra series - E.C. Tubb, 1967–2008 Envoy to New Worlds - Keith Laumer, 1963 Hammer's Slammers - David Drake, 1979 Retief's Peace - William H. Keith (based on the titular character created by Keith Laumer), 2005 Space Viking - H. Beam Piper, 1963 The Cosmic Computer - H. Beam Piper, 1963

Key features Commerce: This the major driving force of civilization. Human-centric but cosmopolitan: Core rules focus on human player characters and NPCs. There is support for using and playing aliens. Limited communication: There is no such things as Faster-than-light communication (ansible, subspace radio, etc.) Communication is limited to the speed of travel. Decisions are made on the local level rather than by a remote authority. Morals and mortality: People remain people and continue to exhibit human virtues and flaws. Sociological: Interstellar society is socially stratified. SOC (Social Status) is a attribute. Affairs are often managed by independent nobility, who make use of established titles such as Baron, Duke and Archduke.

Characters Traveller uses a lifepath-style system for character generation. Characters get skills and experience in a mini-game where the player makes career choices determining the character's life up to the point before adventuring begins.

A character can be human, robot, alien, or of a genetically engineered species. A character can be civilian, military, or noble, a young cadet, or a tried-and-true veteran, each with strengths and weaknesses. Death during character generation is possible in some editions, a mechanic that became infamous.

Characters have six primary characteristics, generated by a roll of two six-sided dice. Other characteristics also exist to add nuance to alien characters. PCs may have telepathy, telekinesis and other psychic abilities. These are organized and standardized into "psionics".

Equipment Equipment emphasizes wilderness exploration, hazardous environments, and combat. As a result, equipment lists are heavy on vehicles, sensor equipment, communicators, rations, personal armor, and weapons.

Low-technology Since primitive worlds exist near technological worlds, primitive weapons such as swords, shields, pikes, and bows are included. Characters often have some sort of blade skill for close combat. High-technology Cybernetics and non-sentient robots also show up in equipment lists, as do artifacts from ancient civilizations. Hard Sci-fi Flavor Along with energy weapons, there is also a strong presence of slug-throwing weapons such as rifles and pistols. The prevailing theory is that (usually) the most efficient way to stop someone is with kinetic energy (e.g. bullets).

Starships Starships range from small one-person scouts, to giant planetoid colony ships. Design rules balance power, life support, and defenses for consistent ships. GDW published several board games allowing Traveller space battles to be played out as games in their own right - Mayday, Brilliant Lances and Battle Rider for example.

Worlds Worlds range from barren planetoid moons to large gas giant worlds, from uncolonized territories to planets with billions of people. The world generation rules produce a random mix of worlds.

Setting Early in the adventures and supplements, a default setting emerged, based on in-house play tests done for the game. In this setting, the human-dominated Third Imperium is the largest interstellar empire in charted space, a feudalistic union of worlds, where local nobility operate largely free from oversight and restricted by convention and feudal obligations.

Sophonts The setting features descendants of humanity who are collectively called Humaniti. These include the Solomani, humans emigrated from Earth within the last few thousand years, the Vilani, humans transplanted from Earth tens of thousands of years ago by the Ancients (see below) who founded the First Imperium, and the Zhodani, psychic humans ruled by psionically gifted nobles.

Despite the thematic dominance of the human race, with most adventures taking place in human space, the Traveller universe is cosmopolitan and contains many technologically advanced sophonts, a term borrowed from earlier science fiction material. The setting principally concerns itself with six major races that developed faster-than-light travel independently. In addition to Humaniti, the standard list of major races includes the honor-bound catlike Aslan, the winged lizard-like Droyne, the sixfold-symmetric and manipulative Hivers, the centaur-like militant vegetarian K'kree, and the wolf-hybrid Vargr.

Additional minor races are numerous. An early publication from GDW notes that "The minor races, of which there are hundreds within the area of known space, will be largely left up to individual referees." GDW's quarterly publication, the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society designed by Loren K. Wiseman, sketched out about one race per quarter, starting with the Aslan in Issue 7. Taken together with aliens casually mentioned or introduced in separate scenarios or adventures—often arbitrarily—there is therefore no indication that the number of minor races is limited in any sense.

Ancients The Ancients were a major race in the distant past; their ruins dot planets throughout charted space and their artifacts are more technically advanced than those of any existing civilization. For unknown reasons, they transplanted humans from Earth to dozens of worlds, uplifted Terran wolves to create the Vargr and transplanted them to another world,Alien Module 3: Vargr and undertook many megascale engineering projects before destroying their civilization in a catastrophic civil war.Adventure 12: Secrets of the Ancients

Publishing history

Editions Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed. and Traveller5 are the current rulesets. Both rely on six-sided dice and both draw from the original Traveller rules. Nearly all older versions of Traveller are available in PDF format.

+ Traveller game editions and publishers Pub. date Game Abbrev. Primary publisher 1977 (Classic) Traveller Game Designers' Workshop 1987 MegaTraveller Game Designers' Workshop 1993 Traveller: The New Era Game Designers' Workshop 1996 Marc Miller's Traveller Imperium Games 1998 GURPS Traveller Steve Jackson Games 2002 Traveller20 QuikLink Interactive 2006 Traveller Hero ComStar Games 2006 GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars Steve Jackson Games 2008 Mongoose Traveller 1st Ed. Mongoose Publishing 2013 Traveller5 Far Future Enterprises 2016 Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed. Mongoose Publishing 2019 Traveller5.10 Far Future Enterprises 2022 Mongoose Traveller 2nd Ed. Update Mongoose Publishing

Traveller The original version was designed and published by GDW in 1977. The core rules originally came as a box set of three black digest-sized books, and were later compiled into a single volume rulebook. This edition is also commonly known by the retronym Classic Traveller.

MegaTraveller The game was set during a rebellion which shattered the Imperium. Supplements and magazines produced during this era detailed the progression of the rebellion from the initial assassination of the Emperor in 1116 to the collapse of large-scale interstellar trade in roughly 1124 (the beginning of the supplement Hard Times).

Traveller: The New Era Traveller: The New Era is set in the former territory of the Third Imperium after interstellar government and society had largely collapsed. TNE introduced Virus, a silicon-chip life form that infected and took over computers. The game mechanics used GDW's house system, derived from Twilight: 2000, 2nd Ed.

Marc Miller's Traveller Commonly called 'T4', this edition is set in the early days of the Third Imperium (Milieu 0), with the small, newly formed empire surrounded by regressed or barbaric worlds.

GURPS Traveller

Designed by Loren K. Wiseman and published in 1998, GURPS Traveller uses the third edition of the GURPS system. This takes place in an alternative timeline in which no Rebellion occurred and Virus was never released.

Traveller20 Published by QuickLink Interactive (QLI) in 2002, this version uses the d20 System as its base and is set at the time of the Solomani Rim War around Imperial year 990, about a century before the era depicted in the original game. The preferred setting is the Gateway Domain region of the Imperium. After the company's license to the Traveller brand and setting lapsed, the purely mechanical elements of this game were republished as the generic SciFi20 system.

GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars In 2006, Steve Jackson Games released GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars (GTIW) for the 4th edition of GURPS from 2004. The timeline was rolled back to 2170, which is several millennia earlier than the usual Traveller setting, to the early days of Earth's presence in space at the time when Earth first started to send out interstellar ships to include the period just after the Third Interstellar War between the Terran Confederation (Earth) and the gigantic Ziru Sirka Empire (Vland).

Traveller Hero A port of the Traveller setting to the Hero System, produced under license by Comstar Games in 2006.

Mongoose Traveller