How to make Traveller more popular with TTRPG players

[IanBruntlett]

In an effort to provide tools to Referees who want to demo Traveller, I've made a quick flyer about the game. Give me some feedback on it.

I like it. I'd put a bit more space between paragraphs. If I was to be running a game beyond my existing gaming circle, I'd probably want to tailor the third paragraph to reflect the adventures I intended to run.

When it comes to FLGS. They are quite a fair distance from where we normally play. To run a demo session, you're looking at a round trip journey in 2 cars, plus parking, plus beverages and nibbles for everyone involved. There would have to be some kind of incentive for the players to make up for the disruption to their already busy lives.

 

[actionman]

they thought that for space opera it was very believable.

People don't actually want dumbed down pap, that's simply what the entertainment industry pushes on us to scrape every last fraction of market share out of the public, like mechanically separated chicken. People have great interest in intelligent complicated movies and shows, as demonstrated by the phenomenal success of HBO's Rome and Game of Thrones (until the studio destroyed it), and to a lesser extent, House of the Dragon, Dune, and The Expanse. Those names live on, while Rebel Moon, the first original scifi IP in however-many years was merely noticed and forgotten. It's why anime and manga grow more popular with Western audiences while American comics deteriorate in quality and popularity.

The promise of ttrpgs is that they let people make their own stories, as simple or as complicated as they like. A game provides a setting (a place the players would like to imagine themselves in, like a fantastic medieval world or a vast galaxy), a premise (the this-is-who-you-are, this-is-what-you're-doing that I've mentioned before), and game mechanics to impartially figure out what happens. It's the impartial game mechanics which create the excitement of the story revealing its twists and turns and surprises, a function which is performed by a book or a show as it reveals itself and builds to its ultimate conclusion. This is why people constantly develop fan theories and speculate about what they think is going to happen. They are engaging this desire. This is why people get so upset when there's sloppy writing or a stupid conclusion. It offends this desire, often an unknown or subconscious desire, for intelligent thoughtful complicated stories. It robs them of the excitement and that feeling of joy when an amazing story reveals itself. It's the same feeling one gets when the ref/GM/DM is running a good campaign and gets tired or has something better to do so he sloppily wraps it all up, when he says, ok, here's a big battle, the challenging villain you were fighting all this time does something dumb, you all win, and now I have to study for finals. What are you mad about, you won.

So, how to make Traveller more popular.

• Develop the Charted Space setting with an eye toward creating the conditions from which complex stories that are both intellectually stimulating and emotionally gripping can arise. Yes, this is hard. It's hard, like writing The Expanse with all its plots and conflicts, but if people don't take on that difficult challenge, then by default they settle for something easier, which is not intellectually stimulating or emotionally gripping. Consider HBO's Rome, the pride, the ambition, the rage, and the grief. Traveller seems so sterile, sometimes. Consider the passion and the honor of the Imperial armed forces and the conflicts between duty to one's noble house and duty to the Iridium Throne, conflicts that can tear men apart, both figuratively and literally. Consider the mad rage and venomous hate of the Solomani over the mauling of Terra and the injury to their terrible pride. Think about that, instead of well, nobody wants to interrupt the flow of trade, blah blah blah. Sometimes people in Charted Space seem so feckless.

• Clearly communicate Traveller's premise in the context of Charted Space, its flagship setting, and not the vague mushy be whoever you want doing whatever you want in some setting you made up. You know what that's like? It's like asking one's significant other where she wants to eat, and she says "I don't care." In a Traveller context, it's the potential players asking Traveller, so what are we doing in the game, and Traveller says, "I don't care." That's what it's like. And for players who want to, Traveller has all the tools in its mighty toolbox for them to create their own settings and premises.

• Write adventures that are at least a bit intellectually stimulating and/or emotionally gripping. Consider developing staff writers as though they were aspiring novelists (courses, training, developmental editors, etc.). Reach out to scifi writers that the Mongoose Staff enjoys, and just ask them, we're trying to write intellectually stimulating and gripping adventures for Traveller, but the challenge is they're ttrpg adventures and we can't script everything like we could in a book series or railroad the players, do you have any insight on how to create conflicts and so on that would be fertile ground for engaging adventures?

• Clean up the game mechanics. Go hard on resolving inconsistencies and contradictions, and getting rid of things that don't make sense within the context of the rules, like magical mystery ion guns that knock out a ship's maneuver drives without frying all electronics and people on the ship. Go hard on this, because every time players run into something that doesn't make sense, it knocks them out of the that sense of being intellectually engaged. When this happens enough, people get disappointed and feel like they have to rework the books they paid money for just to make them make sense. Don't be afraid to rework major rules systems while still keeping to the spirit of Traveller.

• Improve the art and the marketing copy, as I mentioned in other posts.

• Lastly, increase marketing efforts, including down in the trenches marketing, like talking to potential players at game conventions and FLGS's, and having Traveller gaming teams hosting games that anyone can join.

 

[actionman]

cider chasers.

Excellent choice.

 

[actionman]

Honor Harrington

Please no. If I run across some sarcastic telepathic tree cat in a Traveller adventure, my character will not be responsible for his actions.

 

[Vormaerin]

I know I'm probably an outlier, but I don't actually like when the game company thinks they are telling the stories, not me. GDW had that problem during its Traveller run. Catalyst does this to the extreme with Shadowrun.

Publish a variety of campaign arc adventures if that's what people want. But the more that is baked into the very fabric of the setting the less useful the setting is for anything else.

All that complexity should be coming from the individuals who are important to play, not archetypes of the setting. It should be that this imperial navy guy is a fop, that one is a careerist, this guy is putting his house before the Empire, that guy isn't. And that's the stuff that gets done at the table or in adventures, imho.

But that's probably just me being an old fogie who played D&D and Traveller before they had more than notional settings and has never thought "I want to play in the same world as those big stories about someone else" that drives a lot of IP based games.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[actionman]

And something else.

To make Traveller more interesting to people who don't know anything about it, consider, just consider, giving the wandering space losers trope a rest. Try elevating the honorable nobleman, the valorous warrior, and the bold space merchant archetypes to at least be equal to the wandering space loser. Enough of this just a bunch of retirees with a broken down space motorhome trying to make ends meet trope. Maybe add a table to the mustering out tables called Connections or something, that is career-related. For every mustering out roll, the character gets an additional Connections roll. Military characters would get connections to mercenary outfits, noble houses, megacorps, etc., people who would have need of hardened soldiers. Merchant characters would get connections to Mclellan Factors, merchant houses, megacorps, brokerage houses, and free trader associations. Agent characters would get connections to Imperial ministries and agencies, the Imperial armed forces, etc. I'm sure you see what I mean. The purpose of this would be to connect the group to people and organizations existing in the setting which give them a foundation to start adventuring. Instead of you're some 40 year old Imperial Marine veteran who has mustered out and now you're homeless on Regina and there's not even the space VA to tell you to get lost, you're some 40 year old Imperial Marine veteran who's connected to a noble house as a hardened man-at-arms who gets sent on missions with an elite team to solve problems where diplomacy has failed. Instead of some guy who retired from some nameless generic merchant line, you're some guy who retired from some nameless generic merchant line who signs on with Oberlindes Lines and gets command of his own 1000 dt Big Fatty Fat Far Trader. With a little imagination, the players could be using their individual specialties working for the same noble house or merchant line or megacorp, or these different factions in the setting could each have their own goals and motivations for supporting the players, their ship, and their missions, the same way the crew of the Rocinante in The Expanse had their different connections, patrons, and motivations.

 

[Vormaerin]

Contacts, Rivals, Allies, and Enemies exist, though they don't have much meat on the bone as far as support for integrating them into any kind of high travel game. But then, very few games do in my experience.

And, again, all that stuff you talked about? Those are the adventures. They exist. Leviathan, Last Flight of the Amuar, Skandersvik, The Traveller Adventure, and several others are all exactly that. There's Naval Campaigns to do your fav Honor Harrington. Or Lt. Leary or whatever. Pirates of Drinax isn't space losers. Deepnight definitely isn't. Singularity isn't really, either.

Space losers isn't the default for anything Mongoose has published. Chargen doesn't tell you anything about what you do next, just what you did up until now. I don't think "space losers" has been the default since Book 2 of CT.

T:NE and T4 expected you to be part of the exploration services. Mongoose's adventures don't have any default assumptions like the old CT era adventures did. Just that you are in a particular place for some reason. And a bunch of them do assume you are part of some kind of organization (imperial navy, a mercenary unit, and now zho irregulars.

 

[rinku]

As a point, have any of you actually read Starfinder? I'd only breifly browsed it before, but got hold of a copy and read through a bit (first edition).

If you assume it's all D&D in space... you're wrong. Yes, it has the same basic stucture as Pathfinder, which is basically D&D 3e, but the character options are not a simple port from fanatasy. All the racial options are original aliens, plus humans and androids. An insectoid one, a reptile one, a psionic one (which has two sub-types that are fully interfertile), a four armed species that arrived in the system from far away that's bound up in ancient tradition, and ratfolk (in the furry animal mode, not the chaos born Skaven mode). Straight away, this feels more like Star Wars without the baggage, or Guardians of the Galaxy, or Farscape. The fantasy races are provided in a "Pathfinder Legacy" appendix; while Elves and Halflings exist in the galaxy, they're not presented front and centre. The Pathfinder world itself, Golarion, mysteriously disappeared milennia ago. So while there's a direct link to the FRPG in the lore, it's not really a distraction either. Lots more aliens in supplements.

Classes are sort of split across Themes and Classes. Dunno if that's a 3e or Pathfinder idea, or something Starfinder invented, but it's a good one. You pick one of each; there's 10 themes and 7 classes, so 70 combinations of "who you are and what you do". Themes are never changed and seems to be "who you are". Class can be changed every level, so is more "what you do". Comes out as broadly similar to Traveller career assignments (of which there are 36 plus the Prisoner and Psionic ones). Neither game is shorting its players for backgound options. The themes are all solid science fiction ones (Ace Pilot, Scholar, Spacefarer etc); the classes aren't direct maps from Fantasy either. Envoy, Mechanic, Mystic, Operative, Solarian, Soldier, Technomancer. Solarian in particular is odd - it's sort of a fighting class which draws from a connection with stars to grant a special weapon or armour. Envoy could be considered Bard, but is far broader than that. An actual performer is probably an Icon Envoy, but that could describe a working Royal or Spacebook influencer. A traditional roguish Bard might be an Icon Operative. There's a lot of flexibility.

So, to me it seems like an acessable, fun game with lots of robot and alien options. And starships. Plus magic... but that's probably not a downside to the players coming in. It ends up being about the same as in Shadowrun, or Marvel. Tech, Magic and Technomagic.

Mechanics are familiar, and really aren't terribly different to Traveller - d20 vs target with mods vs 2D6 vs target with mods, roll damage. The big difference is Starfinder armour makes you harder to hit, Mongoose Traveller armour reduces damage. I really doubt either mechanic is confusing anyone or discouraging people from playing Traveller.

I actually found all the various options, skills and feats a bit overwhelming to be honest. Traveller is a bit more straightforward there, and ONCE EXPERIENCED probably better for absolute beginners. But new Starfinder players with any 3e onwards experience (i.e. most of them) are used to how all that works, so for them that's a feature, not a bug.

So that's what the market leader is. The magic and mystical stuff looks easy enough to ignore if you want a pure tech game. Technology based characters can fill the support roles that wizards and priests do in Fantasy. I'm sure someone's done a product or article with guidelines for that, or a Psionics only approach.

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

As a point, have any of you actually read Starfinder? I'd only breifly browsed it before, but got hold of a copy and read through a bit (first edition).

If you assume it's all D&D in space... you're wrong. Yes, it has the same basic stucture as Pathfinder, which is basically D&D 3e, but the character options are not a simple port from fanatasy. All the racial options are original aliens, plus humans and androids. An insectoid one, a reptile one, a psionic one (which has two sub-types that are fully interfertile), a four armed species that arrived in the system from far away that's bound up in ancient tradition, and ratfolk (in the furry animal mode, not the chaos born Skaven mode). Straight away, this feels more like Star Wars without the baggage, or Guardians of the Galaxy, or Farscape. The fantasy races are provided in a "Pathfinder Legacy" appendix; while Elves and Halflings exist in the galaxy, they're not presented front and centre. The Pathfinder world itself, Golarion, mysteriously disappeared milennia ago. So while there's a direct link to the FRPG in the lore, it's not really a distraction either. Lots more aliens in supplements.

Classes are sort of split across Themes and Classes. Dunno if that's a 3e or Pathfinder idea, or something Starfinder invented, but it's a good one. You pick one of each; there's 10 themes and 7 classes, so 70 combinations of "who you are and what you do". Themes are never changed and seems to be "who you are". Class can be changed every level, so is more "what you do". Comes out as broadly similar to Traveller career assignments (of which there are 36 plus the Prisoner and Psionic ones). Neither game is shorting its players for backgound options. The themes are all solid science fiction ones (Ace Pilot, Scholar, Spacefarer etc); the classes aren't direct maps from Fantasy either. Envoy, Mechanic, Mystic, Operative, Solarian, Soldier, Technomancer. Solarian in particular is odd - it's sort of a fighting class which draws from a connection with stars to grant a special weapon or armour. Envoy could be considered Bard, but is far broader than that. An actual performer is probably an Icon Envoy, but that could describe a working Royal or Spacebook influencer. A traditional roguish Bard might be an Icon Operative. There's a lot of flexibility.

So, to me it seems like an acessable, fun game with lots of robot and alien options. And starships. Plus magic... but that's probably not a downside to the players coming in. It ends up being about the same as in Shadowrun, or Marvel. Tech, Magic and Technomagic.

Mechanics are familiar, and really aren't terribly different to Traveller - d20 vs target with mods vs 2D6 vs target with mods, roll damage. The big difference is Starfinder armour makes you harder to hit, Mongoose Traveller armour reduces damage. I really doubt either mechanic is confusing anyone or discouraging people from playing Traveller.

I actually found all the various options, skills and feats a bit overwhelming to be honest. Traveller is a bit more straightforward there, and ONCE EXPERIENCED probably better for absolute beginners. But new Starfinder players with any 3e onwards experience (i.e. most of them) are used to how all that works, so for them that's a feature, not a bug.

So that's what the market leader is. The magic and mystical stuff looks easy enough to ignore if you want a pure tech game. Technology based characters can fill the support roles that wizards and priests do in Fantasy. I'm sure someone's done a product or article with guidelines for that, or a Psionics only approach.

This is how I envision Traveller 5e to be. And that's not a bad thing ... just different.

 

[rinku]

Thing is... I don't really see anything from the publishing side of things that Mongoose is doing wrong, and a lot that they're doing right. It's probably what my son suggested - lack of exposure. Get people watching people playing it and having FUN playing it.

A more freewheeling setting might help. There is no real reason to rigidly stick with 1 week in jump, Psionic rarity, or total lack of FTL communication. Or Tech Levels. Those are setting dependent in any case. But because they are presented as "this is the way we do things here (change it if you like, but all our products assume this stuff)" there is a degree of pushing away players that expect something different in their space science fiction. Meanwhile, the hard science nerds aren't really getting much joy either, because of all the physics breaking convenience tech. Mind you, TNE tried to address that and largely failed. Pioneer will show how much thirst there is for realistic space stuff. I think.

So... I think Mongoose could do worse than embrace the space opera side of things. At least for a Traveller adjacent product akin to Pioneer being the near future hard science space one. And get Space or Star into the title (Star Traveller is probably free). But absolutely get it seen online.

Here's my pitch:

* Galaxy spanning adventures with any number of alien worlds, many of whom are at war, in a cold war, in alliances or independent. Do NOT make it months to years to get from one region to another.
* Humans are not the default. Just one option of many aliens. Humanoid aliens (as per Star Trek) may be a feature, synthetics definitely should be.
* Travel time is a function of distance. We can retain the hex grid, even the subsector/sector idea, but it may be a bit past its use by date. Maybe go with world clusters that are far enough away from other clusters that the travel time between any world in cluster A to any world in cluster B is the same? I doubt anyone really wants to navigate a 3D map without computer assistance, but a rough 2D starmap can be laid out.
* Go nuts on weapon types and defenses
* Mental powers are something PCs can choose to get, but maybe not without career choice tradeoffs. To be honest, even just making the rulebook Psionic Career a free option is doing that. But the point would be to move it from "referee's permission only" to the available careers list. Possibly make it harder to enter. By all means have cultures where it's an evil sin (and just watch as the players flock to having a Psion from those cultures for the drama...)
* Pimp up space combat a bit.

Oh... and do not overlook the science fiction miniature gaming scene. Warhammer 40K absolutely dominates and informs what most people think. But there's plenty of less grimdark space opera out there, like Stargrave. As it is, Stargrave 28mm plastics are probably populating a lot of Traveller tables. You could do worse than collaborating with Osprey/North Star.

 

[actionman]

Space losers isn't the default for anything Mongoose has published

Except the Drifter career. Except the idea that characters are rootless people not connected to anyone or anything and roaming the spacelanes doing odd jobs and trying to make ends meet. Space losers.

 

[Condottiere]

The opposite must be parental home basement dwellers.

 

[actionman]

And, again, all that stuff you talked about? Those are the adventures.

No way. Not by a long shot.

 

[Vormaerin]

Except the Drifter career. Except the idea that characters are rootless people not connected to anyone or anything and roaming the spacelanes doing odd jobs and trying to make ends meet. Space losers.

So the fact that is it possible to have a career as a belter, scavenger, or barbarian is a bad thing?

And, again, the "What the players do once they are out of chargen" is entirely up to the GM. Where does anything in the Traveller rules suggest that they are rootless wanderers? Traveller has an assortment of adventures that are "you are here for an unspecified reason" and a bunch of longer stories where the characters very definitely are part of an organization, and then some full length campaigns where they are definitely guys focused on a storyline, not wandering space randos.

Besides which, planet of the week wanderers is an extremely common trope: Firefly, Darkstar, Farscape, Expanse, everyone in Stars except Princess Leia. All those characters were randos until the campaign started and they decided to do something. And about half of them stayed randos the whole time.

Sure, Star Trek and Babylon 5 have everyone be part of some kind of organization. But you just do that when you set up the campaign. "Hey, you are all gonna be part of the Bayern expedition" or "We're doing a Naval campaign, so make naval characters."

The "space losers" thing is about as hoary and expired as "dying in chargen".

 

[TrippyHippy]

Not really going to add much to this (that may have already been said, anyway).

If you want to market Traveller more, the main thing is increase it’s visibility in retail outlets and, by extension, clubs by encouraging an 'Adventurer’s League’ type of deal as demo plays (as D&D, Pathfinder and CoC do).

I agree that having more alternative settings is a good idea, but we already do this and the whole ‘Is Traveller a system or setting?’ argument is quite irrelevant to casual gamers anyway. I like having a default setting for Traveller that is both massively supported (how many other games boast in interactive, online map like Traveller does?) and is generic enough to do most sci-fi stories in any case. I don’t think it is a barrier to entree any more than Forgotten Realms is to D&D. The 3rd party mechanism has been there, but 3rd parties seem to still prefer the Cepheus label, apparently (I’ve no idea why).

There is only so many IPs that would genuinely increase the profile of Traveller - Star Wars is the main one but, I’ve no doubt, it would involve some real ‘cost and rewards’ analysis before the licence was ever bought up. I would say the only other ones are either not going to make a difference (how many kids actually know what Firefly/Serenity is these days?) or are already bought (Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc).

The talk of a Traveller: Prime Directive has subsided, sadly, but I could see it being reasonably popular and I’d still like to see a steampunk sci-fi like Space: 1889 being adapted. What else? Starship Troopers (which has problematic politics)? Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…….well, I’d buy that one, at least….but I don’t think Mongoose has bottomless pockets. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with Pioneer, Dark Conspiracy and a new core rulebook for 2300AD.

 

[rinku]

The only very popular licensed TTRPG is Cthulhu, and that's effectively been a role playing game first and a series of stories second since the 80's.
D&D, Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Starfinder, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun. Star Trek Adventures was a distant 20th on that Gencon count.

IMHO far better to author a setting they have IP control over and push it (which is what they ARE doing with Pioneer).

And then get it played, and streamed.

 

[actionman]

So the fact that is it possible to have a career as a belter, scavenger, or barbarian is a bad thing?

That's you making a strawman argument.

Where does anything in the Traveller rules suggest that they are rootless wanderers?

The total failure of the Traveller chargen rules to connect player characters to the society they live in.

The "space losers" thing is about as hoary and expired as "dying in chargen".

No it isn't, it's a very real issue.

We're not going to persuade each other, so I'm not going to discuss this further with you. I've contributed my thoughts, and Mongoose can do what it likes with them.

 

[rinku]

I'm with Actionman that focussed campaign is better.

But the current CRB does indeed spend some effort to connect the characters during creation and tells you to do so, and does discuss different campaign ideas. Page 4 mentions a Trader Campaign, a Military Campaign, an Explorer Campaign and finally the Traveller Campaign, which is the themeless campaign. It also directs readers to Mercenary and Element Class Cruisers for military and exploration campaign products. Trader campaigns are pretty well catered for in the CRB, of course, and I'd argue that THOSE are the default, not Space Losers.

Thing is though, the wandering adventurer thing is the easiest to support with the random tables in the CRB, which are a traditional Traveller strength. Look for a patron, do the job, move on. So I don't see it disappearing, and there's probably not enough pages in the CRB for too much discussion about how to run different campaigns.

 

[Vormaerin]

I'm with Actionman that focussed campaign is better.

Okay, but what does that have to do with the rules set? Sure, you can do Aliens: The RPG and be like "you are making characters who are gonna go somewhere and try not to die". Focused games like that are okay if that's what you want to play. And you put them back on the shelf and play something else if you don't.

I guess I don't get what you want the core rules to do that isn't there? The more specific the outcomes are, the less flexible the game is. Ancients requires different stuff than Pirates of Drinax, which requires different stuff than Deepnight. Or the Traveller Adventure. Or a Naval Campaign.

Traveller can run Firefly or Babylon 5 or Lt. Leary. The table is deciding what they want to do, whether that's a sandbox or adventure path. Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never felt like Traveller was telling me I couldn't do something I wanted to do. Or forced me to do something I didn't want to do.