[ExI] Traveller: A Classic Science Fiction Simulator

[John Grigg]

 *Todd:* *Traveller* was the first major science fiction RPG, and it’s
certainly the most influential. It was released in 1977, just three years
after *Dungeons & Dragons*, by the tiny Illinois game company Game
Designers Workshop (GDW). The success of that first boxed set, which we
call *Classic Traveller* these days, helped propel GDW to the forefront of
adventure gaming in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The first edition was designed by
Marc Miller, with help from his fellow GDW co-founders Frank Chadwick and
Loren Wiseman, and Dr. John Harshman.

*Howard:* Character generation basically simulated your military career,
where you picked up all kinds of interesting things like engineering,
gambling, bribery, computers, administration, piloting, and gunnery. If you
were dissatisfied with your skill set you could do another tour of duty
before mustering out. Of course, another tour made your character older.

*Todd:* And possibly dead.

*Howard:* Yeah, there was a chance every tour of duty would kill you, which
was a bitter twist when you were finally rounding out that hot shot space
pilot. *Traveller* never sold quite as well as *D&D*—

*Todd:* Probably because that game didn’t *kill you* *during character
creation*.
My personal favorite, among the early science fiction tabletop roleplaying
games, was "Space Opera." But Traveler, was quite popular, and never really
died out... I remember working on creating a character for the game, and
twice in row, they died on me! Lol

https://www.tor.com/2020/01/10/traveller-a-classic-science-fiction-simulator/
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