This project is a collection of resources for the Traveller tabletop RPG. Many of the resources included can be used with the game as-is. This project also includes a significant number of alternate rules to correct various issues with the game. Many of these rules may be used individually, or piecemeal, as preferred, but some are a significant re-work of entire systems (such as character creation, missiles, and Psionics). In those cases, the entire system needs to be used, and may be dependent on other systems or rules. In some cases, there are also rules to serve as stop-gaps for complete overhauls.
I am sure there are those that would argue that the changes, particularly in the overhauls, do too much to change the "look and feel" of the game as it is. Those people always have the option to play the game using previously published systems.
The works and changes included in this project are based on Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition (MgT2E), and the 2022 Update. These books can be purchased from numerous online retailers, or directly from Mongoose Publishing at https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/collections/traveller-rpgs.
The specific books referenced include:
| Title | Version | ISBN |
|---|---|---|
| Core Rulebook | 2022 Update | 978-1-913076-47-4 |
| High Guard | 2nd Edition | 978-1-908460-54-7 |
| Central Supply Catalog | 2nd Edition | 978-1-908460-55-4 |
| Traveller Companion | 2nd Edition | 978-1-908460-59-2 |
The following tables indicate what is included in this project. Tools are resources used to make playing the game easier. These are primarily oriented towards reducing the effort required for various book-keeping tasks. The primary exception to this is the Errata, which is simply used to track errors or issues found in the various books referenced. Additional Stuff is new content (characters, adventures, rules or mechanics, items, weapons, vehicles, ships, etc.), in some cases providing additional background for existing systems or items. Rule Changes are changes, possibly including additions and / or removals, to the rules of the system. Rule Changes tend to be narrower in scope than System Overhauls. System Overhauls are complete reimplementations of an entire system. These are done whenever the number of rule changes is too significant or involves too many internal references to be handled by a Rule Change.
| Tool |
|---|
| Errata |
| Character Creation Flow Chart |
| Player Finance Tracker |
| Reading World Codes Reference |
| Ship Designer - Core Rulebook |
| Ship Designer - High Guard |
| Ship Record |
| Stock Tracker |
| Trade Tool |
| Addition |
|---|
| Ship Leasing |
| Ship Shares |
| Entrepeneur Career |
| Natural Anagathics |
| Gecko Variants |
| Mobile Air Defence |
| Custom Free Trader |
| Custom Pinnace |
| 400 Ton Adventurer |
| 600 Ton Adventurer |
| 800 Ton Adventurer |
| Rules |
|---|
| House Rules |
| House Rules Tables |
| Character Creation |
| Skills |
| System |
|---|
| Character Creation |
| Weapon Damage |
| Computers |
| Missiles |
| Psionics |
Throughout the materials contained in this project, any reference to a Game Master or GM are equivalent to Referee.
No faster than light communication is brilliant. It is a very simple thing that imparts a significant number of constraints that make the setting interesting. It introduces a significant possibility for delayed consequences to actions, and allows for a significant diversity of society / civilization within the larger setting.
The character relationship mechanism within character generation is also very clever. The pre-generated relationships between characters adds a bit of depth. It makes the GM's job a bit easier in that the players are already more of a cohesive unit, and it gives them background information on the characters to work with.
Grav plating is also quite clever. Whether intentional or not, it preempts a significant number of problems (mostly of the physics variety).
I like that the acceleration, speed, and travel time calculations are rather close approximations of the proper calculations for those things.
I like the setting, for the most part. I like the expansiveness of the setting, and the fact that there is still a tremendous amount of room for expansion. I like the considerable amount of pre-existing content, and I like the Foreven sector. I think the GM's preserve is a really good idea.
With a couple relatively minor exceptions, The Vehicle Handbook seems to work quite well.
Having played a couple other systems, and having varying degrees of familiarity with a few more, it became pretty obvious pretty quickly (before the first game) that the Traveller system has issues. Some are minor, and easily ignored, others are game breaking, or are overly-restrictive if adhered to. In some cases the system is not self-consistent. In many cases, the system ignores fairly important principles.
As a GM, I have never had any hesitation about creating house rules to change something about a system to make it more to my liking or that of my group. It is normal for the groups I have played with to have house rules, and my philosophy has always been that as long as they are agreed to before being put into use there is no reason to avoid them. With the other systems I have used, this has been a handful of rules (half a page or so). With Traveller, the number of rules required to reconcile various issues quickly became too large to manage through the usual means (a word document).
This project was created in order to better track and maintain these corrections, as well as to share various resources created in support of Traveller.
Numerous issues will be addressed in their own sections, or in a general section. See the Rule Changes and System Overhauls tables above for the various resources that address issues with the mechanics of Traveller.
There are certain principles that I think all systems should universally adhere to. Those principles are:
- It should go without stating, but in case anybody forgets, we are playing a game to have fun.
- Nobody wants a reality simulator. Even if somebody thinks they do, they don't. Reality is illness, debt, boredom, and taxes. If we wanted reality, we would have no need of playing a game. At best, trying to simulate reality slows down the things we are actually interested in. At worst, we end up spending an entire session where characters are dealing with virtual paperwork in order to submit an application to blah blah blah. Any reasonable system should generally abstract the boring stuff to an appropriate extent, or leave it in the hands of the GM.
- With very few exceptions, in RPGs the GM is the absolute authority about what is and is what is not permissible. There must be a final arbiter about the rules of the world in which the story takes place, and that is the GM. Any given system is merely a starting point to work from.
- Suspension of belief should be maintained and maintainable. This does not require that all systems adhere to the real world as we understand it, or that all settings should be mundane. It does mean that any deviation from what is reasonably intuitive should be explained, and it should be handled consistently.
- Self-consistency should be maintained in all circumstances. If it is not, then the rules governing the universe have broken down and the universe ceases to exist. This violates the principle of suspension of belief, because regardless of whether or not players recognize it as such, they recognize an inconsistency that would not be tolerated by a natural world.
- All fundamental forces should exist in balanced opposition. This is not merely a good idea for games, but a fundamental law of the universe. If there is a possibility for a negative, there must be a corresponding and equal possibility for a positive.
- There is a maxim that states that arms and armor progress in such a way so as to maintain a rough equilibrium. This is simply a specific case of principle six. Weapons that are too powerful ultimately make a game boring, and also break suspension of belief because a society would only be able to tolerate a certain degree of lethality in combat before it collapsed. Armor that is too effective also ultimately makes a game boring, and makes combat pointless (if an end cannot be accomplished through violence, then the violence has no use).
- Players should have the ability to make their own choices. This has many implications:
- Player choice should be respected. Anything that undoes a decision made by a player removes the consequences of that decision, and therefore the power of the player to effect the world through the actions of their characters.
- Players should never be subject to negative consequences that they do not have the ability to change or influence. If so, the players choices have been demonstrated to have insufficient impact on the world, and have little or no meaning. This does not mean players should not be subject to negative outcomes, but that they should not be subject to those outcomes without some ability or opportunity to change them (unless the players have annoyed the GM to the point of "Rocks fall and you all die.").
- A character's will should never be taken over without some action by the player precipitating that outcome. At the very least, any such attempt should be contestable. This means effects like Mind Control and Possession should only be possible if the player's character does something to make it possible, or looses a contest that they had an even chance of winning.
- Time travel, aside from being narratively lazy, is almost always a mistake. The ability to retroactively change events that have already occurred removes the consequences of the choices associated with those events. This means that ALL of the choices made previously are subject to retroactive change, which means they have no actual significance.
- Consequences should be commensurate with the action that caused them. Failing a role to open a refrigerator should not have the same consequences as failing a role to defuse a bomb.
- Emergent effects should not break the world. For example, if there is too much piracy or theft in a specific area, the local economy would fail. The pirates and thieves would self regulate, or distribute their nefarious deeds over a larger area in order to avoid collapsing the economy, because then they would no longer have anything available to pirate or steal. This type of thing need not be stated in any rules, but if there are rules that create emergent situations that would cause a sufficient disturbance in the equilibrium of the setting, then the rules or the setting need to be corrected (otherwise the setting literally self-destructs).
- Common sense should prevail. If it does not, there should be a good reason.
When Traveller was first published in 1977, the only other RPG that would have been available would have been Dungeons and Dragons. At that time there was not a sufficient body of work for conventions to have been established. That is not the case today. Whether through adherence to the original rules, or for other reasons, Traveller ignores many conventions common among many systems.
In addition to the principles listed above, there are a number of conventions that I think it is a good idea for game systems to follow.
- Higher numbers are better. Everybody knows good graphs move up and to the right. A natural 20 is a critical success, a natural 1 a critical failure. The highest value on a die explodes, the highest initiative acts first, more gold is better, etc. Regardless of whatever mechanisms are used, they should be used consistently (ie, if low rolls are better, that should always be the case).
- Critical successes are better than regular successes, and critical failures are worse than regular failures. Regardless of how a critical success or failure is defined, it should carry additional weight. Note that if there are critical successes (or failures), there must be critical failures (or successes) in keeping with principle number six.
When making changes to the game system, there are certain aspects about the game that should be preserved in order to maintain the "look and feel" of Traveller. In some cases, this means retaining mechanisms for which better options exist. This does impose significant constraints in some cases, but constraint contributes to creativity. In general, the changes documented in this project try to adhere to the following existing characteristics of Traveller:
- Traveller is a D6 system. There are uses of D3 in existing rules, and D2 may be introduced if needed, but introducing die types that cannot be rolled on a six sided die should be avoided.
- Avoid introducing new Traveller characteristics. Characteristics are, and by nature should be, fundamental to the characters. Avoid creating unnecessary complications by introducing new characteristics.
- Maintain compatibility with the rest of the setting. The existing materials for the Traveller universe are a significant portion of the value of the game. Avoid changes that make the new rules incompatible with existing materials documenting the setting of the game.
- We want to avoid creating extra work for GMs
- In some cases, this may not be possible, or the target of the change may be the setting itself. This is perfectly acceptable, but should avoid breaking the rest of the universe. If in doubt, let the ## Principles to Game By guide you.
If you are interested in contributing to this project, please submit a pull request for any fixes you would like to see incorporated. Alternatively, please feel free to reach out through GitHub.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.