Traveller

Traveller was one of the first major roleplaying games. Set in a far, far future world that seems to draw strongly from Asimov, Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars, and countless other science fiction literature, Traveller provides a game universe where player characters can travel from world to world, engage in battle on the ground or in the sky, and involve themselves in interstellar economics.

Traveller uses a different character generation and advancement mechanism, whereby the player goes through a design process to determine the character's history, career experience, and so forth. Unlike D&D and derivative games, in Traveller, character skill and ability advancement is downplayed in favor of positional-advancement - gaining of wealth, gadgets, titles, and power.

The original Traveller gamebooks were distinctive half-size black pamphlets produced by Game Developer's Workshop (GDW), and tons were printed. Later revisions of the game system introduced full sized booklets and new political twists, as the emperor was overthrown and many sectors of the galaxy thrown into strife.

Rumour has it Traveller (expecially the combat system) was inspired by the table top combat game Snapshot?. And, getting sketchier here, Trillion Credit Squadron was evolved from Billion Credit Squadron The spelling 'Traveller' is what was used on the books printed and distributed in the U.S., even though it is said this is the British spelling of the word.

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See also MegaTraveller? and [[Traveller: The New Generation]] for derivatives of the core system.

GURPS and d20? versions of the game are also available

[farfuture.net] is the home of Traveller