How to make Traveller more popular with TTRPG players

[actionman]

I dunno, I think Traveller is much more Gamist and Simulationist, like most games of the 70's and 80's. I don't think it's Narrativist at all. There aren't any methods in Traveller for changing how the adventure is progressing to create a better story. There aren't any mechanics like that. Maybe there are a few in Mongoose 2e, but I didn't notice.

 

[rinku]

Yeah, I don't think that's what is meant here by Narrativist. Unless the game is TOTALLY in the N corner.

Traveller is more an S game with more N than G, as I understand what they're getting at.

Although particular campaigns might skew around a bit - a hardcore military one where the rewards for success are the resources to become better at that heads towards G. "Get Rich" as a campaign goal might become a bit G. Although it's as often just a moving target or starting point that the actual plot prevents happening in the same way that XP keeps the players growing.

Totally G is something like a skirmish wargame with experience progression. Even D&D has some N and some S.

Totally N is probably theatre of the mind or Improv.

Totally S is a classic wargame.

So as soon as you have someone telling someone else what is happening, and other people describe what they do, that's Narrative.

Rules to regulate how things can happen is the Simulation side of things.

As I understand where they're coming from, Gaming is the aspect where playing directly rewards and empowers, often leading to an arms race. Possibly Progression might be a better label?

Edit: Pure G with no narrative and no simulation is actually a bit hard to work out. A skirmish wargame may have no narrative, but it still has simulation aspects.

Maybe a generic competitive card game like UNO?

 

[FreeTrav]

I dunno, I think Traveller is much more Gamist and Simulationist, like most games of the 70's and 80's. I don't think it's Narrativist at all. There aren't any methods in Traveller for changing how the adventure is progressing to create a better story. There aren't any mechanics like that. Maybe there are a few in Mongoose 2e, but I didn't notice.

I don't see the Game-ism in Traveller; there's no "win/lose", there's no progression after character creation, none of the characteristics that are associated with "games". There aren't any means to change the adventure to improve the story because you're telling the story as it happens - the story is as 'baked into' Traveller as the game-ness is into D&D. Certainly, if you consider just the NS side of the GNS triangle, Traveller is closer to the S end than to the N end, and I think you could argue that the S-ness is strongly dominant over the N-ness - but the N-ness is there.

 

[Condottiere]

In a narrative, balance has less to do with a character's talents, and more with whether the story he gets to to participate in, and possibly influence, is interesting.

Simulation, does require the character to be able to physically impact play.

Advancement, is recognized achievement.

 

[rinku]

Also, further thinking about it, pure S wouldn't really be a wargame. It would have to be just a simulation without narrative or winners.

Pure G: UNO, Go
Pure N: Improv Theatre
Pure S: Microsoft Flight Sim

Also, the triangle is still being used to classify RPGs, so I don't think there's any that are pure anything. All RPGs have at least some of each.

 

[Condottiere]

Starting them off young.

 

[rinku]

Worked for me.

But after this:

 

[Dr. Kalt]

Now, I have not read all 22 pages of this thread. I'm not sure if this has been brought up before. But one observation that I have made is that Traveller is pretty much ENTIRELY absent from any and all game stores across most of the Midwest. I'm not sure what that looks like in other parts of the country. In five years of going anywhere from Columbus, OH to Chicago, Detroit, and the greater Grand Rapids region, I've seen ONE store that had a single MgT2 book (which I promptly bought). I talked to a few people running the stores, and few even knew what Traveller was. Did I talk to the wrong people in the wrong stores? Is anything MgT2 just constantly sold out here and I'm getting a wholly wrong picture?

I had no problem at all getting a group together in West Michigan. So the INTEREST is there. And granted, this is just one (populous) corner of the U.S. I am just oddly amazed that on the one hand, Traveller seems to be doing pretty well with Mongoose, there is a pretty steady output of new stuff - but I'm just not seeing any of it on the store shelves here. And I wonder why that is.

And hey, I am very much a part of the bigger problem since I bought all but one book of my at this point sizeable MgT2E collection directly through the publisher and not from local stores. Those free PDFs are hella enticing. But I think if Traveller is supposed to get more popular with TTRPG players, it needs to show up where the players are. Granted, these days a lot of people are like me and just buy stuff online. And stores are less and less the community hubs for the local TTRPG scene(s) they once were. But the absence is kinda striking. Or maybe I'm just not seeing things right...?


That being said, as someone who came to Traveller rather late in his TTRPG career, I do agree that a huge omission from the MgT2E line is a setting primer. It took me quite some work to familiarize myself with Charted Space enough to be comfortable running a game. Because what's now left of setting description in the core book is just a few allusions here and there, and a half-ish page each for Aslan and Vargr. The next highest density bit of information is basically one of the 300~ page sector books, or one of the alien volumes. And that is then also not helped by the sector books having rather nondescript titles. I get that this is "tradition" and Behind the Claw has always been called that, etc. But I had to ask around the Traveller reddit for where to even start. Charted Space is a really cool setting with an overwhelming amount of depth, but it really needs a primer.