How to make Traveller more popular with TTRPG players

[Evil Aardvark]

Sounds like you are arguing for your limitations. If Foundry works for Traveller, what is preventing anyone from running a quick Traveller demo, like character creation and maybe running Death Station?

Well, to run character creation you'd need to spend dozens to hundreds of hours typing in all the character creation tables, and a few hundred more hours typing in the equipment tables and spaceships and.. whatever else, then you'd need to extract map images from Death Station pdf, upload that, spend an hour or two adding walls and lighting, another hour or two creating tokens and images for NPCs/creatures you encounter and hand enter their statistic, and... then you'd be good to go. Until next week when you had to spend more hours for the next session. And any time the PCs went off on a tangent they invented you'd need to pause because you don't have the stats, or the maps, pre-built.

Or I could spend $100 on pre-built environment from Free League, Paizo, Cubicle 7, Chaosium, Cosmere, Pinnacle, or even the awful WoTC, have just as much fun with a few minutes prep rather than hundres of hours. Hundreds of hours. Hundreds of hours that I, and few other people, have... and that I wouldn't spend on this even if I did.

I would rather give my money to Mongoose - their staff ownership is exactly the sort of company I want to support. But they won't/don't/don't-yet sell me and the people like me the things I need to make that viable.

 

[Studio Cat]

OK, that is my mistake. I prefer in person gaming and have little experience with VTTs. I didn't know that they required that great of a time investment. Mea culpa.

 

[Endie]

OK, that is my mistake. I prefer in person gaming and have little experience with VTTs. I didn't know that they required that great of a time investment. Mea culpa.

They don't all. If the publisher does the work up front and sells it, it's pre-made and you just need to learn the interface. If you just use your VTT (as my groups do with Owlbear Rodeo) as a virtual tabletop and you play exactly as you normally do in person, but virtually, it's not necessary.

 

[Anstett]

OK, that is my mistake. I prefer in person gaming and have little experience with VTTs. I didn't know that they required that great of a time investment. Mea culpa.

With all VTTs the choice is Time versus Money.

Almost any of them can be used for Traveller. Fantasy Grounds gives you the option of doing it yourself or the GM just buying the work off the shelf. There is zero cost to players to join or play.

As Endie said there are many people who only use the VTT for mapping and display around a table. I use FG because of the automation and connecting players from around the planet to play together.

 

[KitFarTraveller]

This is my first post on this forum. I’ve mainly been using Discord for connection to people and Mongoose for support. This topic is important to me as I would love to see Traveller expand the user base. I have to say, how is that measured? Some on this thread have speculated that the user base is small. To do any marketing you need to have data to know what the demographics are. Matt stated that they have been trying to leverage marketing techniques over the past few years without major success. TTRPGs are a niche that might be very hard to grasp.

I first started playing TTRPGs in 1980 as a player and then 1981 as a GM specifically with Traveller. Today I have pulled my High School group together again to play traveller using FGU. Given that my players have not played TTRPGs for 40 years I decided to use the Fall of Tinath prepared starter set adventure campaign setting. The basics are there to get them back into the game and learn the MgT2e updates. They are loving this! I don’t see much mentioned about The Fall of Tinath as it was discontinued by Mongoose. You don’t have to use the Third Imperium setting!

For our setting, I simplified the polities of the sector such that the military is part of the Calida Federation and not the Third Imperium. Using the notion that the Ancients spread human DNA throughout the galaxy, I note that the Calida Federation is not aware of the Imperium at all. Then I combined the Military Academy into one multi-branch institution so that some of the players meet at the academy for backstory connections. I also decided that they do not have a Scout service since the material notes that the federation is not large. Then I created a potential future tie to charted space with my Scout character being from the Third Imperium and mysteriously sucked through an unstable worm hole to the Calida sector at Tinath coupling the campaign to the backstory of the players more and more.

This is what I am doing to make the experience for my players as rich as possible. We do not focus on the charted space details at the moment so that they can enjoy a game like we used to have back 45 years ago. What has been a game changer is Fantasy Grounds. I have been able to recreate all of the content from the Fall of Tinath, fix logic problems, and augment the story more and more with local details. I recently purchased the Traveller Adventure pack from FG and love the content created for this. To get more people into Traveller, creating great adventures that have VTT material is important. Given the younger generation’s habit of watching YouTube or TikTok while they do other things, I agree with one commenter that we need more produced live game play. I have been watching the Glass Cannon and any other sessions I can to learn more. I also think the Traveller video game mentioned in the State of the Mongoose can also help.

Note: I have played Elite Dangerous and purchased the Elite Dangerous RPG. I find the video game to be so much like Traveller that it would be nice to see some level of continuity between them. Elite has modeled the entire Milky Way galaxy and it is up to the players to explore systems exactly like Traveller.

 

[Keikan300]

Sorry for the thread Necromancy...

Another thing that hurt Traveller specifically (and, IMO, still does to some extent) is that there isn't a well-promoted tie-in setting for any of the major SF properties - no Star Trek: The Traveller Edition, no Traveller: Star Wars, no Traveller: Serenity, not even Traveller: 1999 or Traveller: The Time Lords or a continuation of the short-lived Babylon 5 for Traveller. Sure, fans can do homebrews of any or all of them -

I am new here, but I have to say that I agree with this. I am just starting out with Traveller but I am really interested in crafting a 'Killjoys' sub-setting. I was also a huge fan of Babylon 5 back in the day. (ran for 5 seasons with several movies, not really short-lived) Producing a "Setting book" covering one of the aforementioned/quoted settings would be really good. I realize that there are costs involved in licensing these different properties and I can only imagine how costly Doctor Who and Star Wars might be.

 

[AndrewW]

Sorry for the thread Necromancy...


I am new here, but I have to say that I agree with this. I am just starting out with Traveller but I am really interested in crafting a 'Killjoys' sub-setting. I was also a huge fan of Babylon 5 back in the day. (ran for 5 seasons with several movies, not really short-lived) Producing a "Setting book" covering one of the aforementioned/quoted settings would be really good. I realize that there are costs involved in licensing these different properties and I can only imagine how costly Doctor Who and Star Wars might be.

I believe short lived was meant to refer to the Traveller Babylon 5, not the series itself.

You left out the spin-off series.

 

[Keikan300]

I believe short lived was meant to refer to the Traveller Babylon 5, not the series itself.

You left out the spin-off series.

Ah yes, Crusade.

 

[JupiterIndustries]

Just wanted to share a sad photo I took earlier at my nearby hobby shop that reminded me of this thread. Spot the traveller book.



What's wild is that Shield Maidens and Paranoia are there but the Explorers Edition is next to invisible. Maybe just unlucky, but there needs to be a proper box starter kit or something to be a bit more visible.

 

[RogerN]

Well at least they had one but its lost in amongst that lot. They do seem to have a real mix of games though including some i would have thought were not as popular as Traveller.

 

[Micky]

I should have taken a picture of the brick and mortar I went to when seeing the wife's family in Rome. Had like 6 large shelves of RPG's. It was like being in the 80's again! Walk into a store and shop away! Everything from everyone, big producers and even some of the boutique ones. Both Italian and English language versions. We were there to find a specific game, found it, but after that I was like .. let me see what they have from Traveller.

Nothing...

Paranoia?

Nothing...

Mongoose?

nothing...

 

[actionman]

Just wanted to share a sad photo I took earlier at my nearby hobby shop that reminded me of this thread. Spot the traveller book.

View attachment 7199

What's wild is that Shield Maidens and Paranoia are there but the Explorers Edition is next to invisible. Maybe just unlucky, but there needs to be a proper box starter kit or something to be a bit more visible.

They even have Torg. I can't imagine that's a hot seller. When I went to my FLGS, they couldn't even order the Traveller books I wanted. Something's going wrong.

 

[MarcusIII]

When I went to my FLGS, they couldn't even order the Traveller books I wanted. Something's going wrong.

Yes, no channel manager at Mongoose!

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

They even have Torg. I can't imagine that's a hot seller. When I went to my FLGS, they couldn't even order the Traveller books I wanted. Something's going wrong.

I've been buying my Traveller books in Toronto (Canada) they get only 1 or two books at a time and say they have a lot of difficulty getting anything from Mongoose.

 

[rinku]

Yeah. As I recall, I bought this up weeks ago.

Having said that, I am sure Mongoose are well aware of the issue and have looked at what would need to be done to address it.

My hunch is that the cost to boost Traveller's profile in those stores is far more than the expected revenue it would generate, and that those resources would be much better directed at online promotion and sales (i.e. Mongoose and Traveller are fairly prominent on DriveThruRPG).

 

[Sigtrygg]

I bought a book in a game store on Wednesday, the first time I have set foot in one for two years. Buying direct from publisher, from drivethru, from Amazon is how I have bought the vast majority of gaming stuff for the past few years now. Neither the Travelling Mann nor Fofbidden Planet I visited had a single Mongoose product on the shelves, the third shop I visited was mostly warhammer and boardgames but there were a couple of out of place rpgs there too.

 

[RogerN]

I'm really lucky. Here where I live in the UK there is a local game store that is also a distributor that has an extensive range of Traveller and other games.

Dungeonland UK RPG Store Putting Tabletop Roleplaying Games First

Dungeonland is a UK RPG store retailing fantasy tabletop roleplaying games, miniatures, and fantasy books. Discover your greatest adventure with us.

www.dungeonland.co.uk

 

[actionman]

the first time I have set foot in one for two years

Not much reason to go anymore.

 

[rinku]

Mostly the miniatures scene, generally.

Maybe Mongoose should get back to the UK's real Traveller roots and organise a crossover with GW...

 

[FreeTrav]

Mostly the miniatures scene, generally.

Maybe Mongoose should get back to the UK's real Traveller roots and organise a crossover with GW...

I'm sure you (and everyone else) already knows this, but GW was, 'way back at the dawn of time, an authorized distributor in the UK for Traveller. They chose to go their own way with Warhammer, and no longer work with outside agencies on anything else.