The game also expanded the concept of sandbox gaming. Rather than young, inexperienced heroes hoping to become legends and gods, Traveller protagonists are middle-aged, well versed in the skills they needed to survive, and working class heroes just trying to keep the lights on. The process also makes characters that stand as a huge contrast to their D&D contemporaries. reward behavior, as every term runs the risk of the character dying during character creation. A character might have served some time in the military then signed up to joint the scout service before trying their hand at being a space merchant. The most distinct element is the character creation process, where players roll up characters by setting them on four year career terms to gain resources while also defining elements of their back stories.

While Dungeons & Dragons stayed in house at TSR and then later at Wizards of the Coast, Traveller found its harder sci-fi setting and focus converted to several other systems over the years. The game originally came in a boxed set with three distinctive little black books.

Players built characters as the crew of a spaceship exploring, trading and taking on odd jobs to pay off, repair and improve their ship. Miller and released by Game Designer’s Workshop in 1977. A situation similar to earth in the eighteenth century is created, where communication is limited to the speed of travel, and the stage is set for adventure in a grand fashion, with all the trappings of the classic space opera: giant, star-spanning empires (good, evil, or both), huge starfleets, wily interstellar merchants (or pirates, depending upon your point of view), complex diplomatic maneuvers, larger than life heroes, heroines, and villains the mind boggles.Traveller was primarily designed by Marc W. The tremendous distances involved, however, dictate that interstellar voyages can take weeks, months, and sometimes even years. In Traveller, mankind has conquered the stars, and travels from one stellar system to another as easily as present day Terrans can travel from one continent to another. Almost any situation which occurs in any SF novel, movie, or short story can be recreated in Traveller with a little work on the part of the referee. In Traveller there is an entire universe to be explored. Players are no longer limited to wandering inside a single underground labyrinth, to exploring a single continent, or even a single world. This means that Traveller is set against a background drawn from adventure-oriented science fiction literature, and the scope and breadth of the game are limited only by the imagination and skill of the players and their referee.

Traveller is a science-fiction role-playing game set in the distant future, when humanity has made the leap to the stars and interstellar travel is as common as international travel is today.

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