State of the Mongoose 2025

[wintertraveller]

How do we advance order the "Pirates of Drinax Anniversary Edition" product? Is this a Kickstarter thing? Thank you

 

[wintertraveller]

With your remarks about marketing in mind, I wonder if producing or licensing the production of ‘Traveller-adjacent’ content dilutes the Traveller brand. I suspect that this phenomenon may have been present through Traveller history and may have constrained past success.

 

[MongooseMatt]

How do we advance order the "Pirates of Drinax Anniversary Edition" product? Is this a Kickstarter thing? Thank you

That will be quite some time yet!

 

[Micky]

Love the thoughts Matt on the State of the Mongoose. Kudos and big respect for taking such good care of your employees. An employee who takes care of their company should be rewarded and sounds like you know and live that. Not many bosses do obviously

I was also really interested in your thoughts, and plans in terms of exposure and marketing. We all love Traveller and would love to see it get the attention in the RPG community it deserves. You can't go three steps on the internet without tripping over some young cat leaving Hasbro and D&D and asking advice for first getting into Cthulhu. Why not Traveller? Makes you wonder what 'it' factor it is missing.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who saw that.... interesting.... Traveller Core rulebook review put up on Youtube several weeks ago. Not exactly a positive video though before I shut it off about half way through I had a monitor beer spray kind of belly laugh

I shut it off when the one guy who spent the whole video seemingly reaching for new and innovative ways to say he thought the game sucked, often straining to try to refute the positive points made by the others, started riffing hard on the lack of sex appeal in character creation gives players who want to play Han Solo type players.

Really man?? really???

Perhaps more sex is needed to market Traveller to the kiddies...

,

 

[actionman]

Perhaps more sex is needed to market Traveller to the kiddies...

I know you're joking but no, no, a thousand times no. The degenerates and their "magical realms" can stay in D&D. No gratuitous 18+ or overly suggestive content in Traveller. If that's the tool used for marketing, that's the people who it will attract. Han Solo was in a platonic life partner relationship with Chewbacca until Princess Leia had to go break up their bromance, after she went and kissed her brother, the little minx. Why yes, I am telling you how I really feel, thanks for asking!

But seriously, the art doesn't have to be bland or deliberately un-sexy, the artists don't have to Brie Larson anyone's butt or anything, but deliberately racy art isn't a part of Traveller's aesthetic, the way it's a part of Cyberpunk's, for example. It's best if it's understated.

You can't go three steps on the internet without tripping over some young cat leaving Hasbro and D&D

Why not Traveller? Makes you wonder what 'it' factor it is missing.

@Micky @MongooseMatt For a long time it was cover art. Classic Traveller didn't have have any, and when Traveller did have cover art, a lot of it was meh. Another thing is that Traveller is so broad that it's difficult to tell people who are completely new to it "you are this, doing this, in this place". I have had a lot of trouble with this when called upon to give people a succinct description of what Traveller is about. Remember that the question one is really answering is "why should I as a new player invest time, money, and effort into this new unfamiliar game?"

Example answers:
Star Wars: "...because you get to play plucky rebels fighting an evil galactic empire, just like in Star Wars."
D&D: "...because you get to play bold adventurers battling for fortune and glory in a magical fantastic medieval world, like Lord of the Rings."
Call of Cthulhu: "...because you get to play bold investigators battling eldritch gods threatening our world in the 1920's, and they go insane!"
Dune: "...because you get to play swashbuckling noble warriors going on adventures to gain wealth and power and bring their noble houses to greatness in a vast science fantasy empire."
Alien: "...because you get to go on dark dangerous gritty sci-fi adventures where people get et by aliens, just like Alien."
Firefly: "...because you get to play a gritty crew of space rogues going on adventures and fighting for survival against an evil government."

But then there's Traveller: "...because get to play pretty much anyone you want, doing whatever you want, in a vast science fiction setting of thousands of different worlds."

There's no exciting hook. There's no emotional grip, no exciting defined concept that gives someone with no understanding of Traveller a good interesting attractive idea of what they'll be doing that makes them think "yes, I want to play that game!"

That's what's missing.

Now, we Travelleros know that we can do all of the above in Traveller. Our characters can fight evil empires, make alien first contact, go on Conan-style sword and sandal adventures on a low tech world, fight bizarre alien entities, investigate mysteries, or go on dangerous adventures to bring our noble houses more power and glory. But new players simply don't know that, and they don't know enough about Traveller to figure it out. And, explaining it to them will only turn them off, because it makes Traveller sound boring and complicated. It's like an elevator pitch; you hook them in the first few sentences or they're done. I got around this by explaining Traveller as something like "...a vast galactic empire of thousands of different worlds, where the H-bombs of the Emperor's war fleets are the only law." Note that I used words like empire instead of "Imperium" (no one knows what that means), H-bombs instead of "nuclear warheads" and "war fleets" instead of "Navy" and the juxtaposition of H-bombs/Emperor/war fleets and "law". All dramatic, loaded words. It immediately engages the reader with an emotional response either for or against such a dangerous unjust state of affairs. It packs a different punch than "...a remote monarchy that rules the space between that stars, while autonomous worlds rule themselves, blah blah blah, complicated boring." You're the professionals, I'm not, but I'm sharing my experiences and reactions to hopefully contribute to Mongoose's understanding of the customer. GDW had a similar issue. The original Twilight 2000, a game absolutely full of dangerous adventure, featured a bunch of troops standing around in front of a Humvee. They could've been on a training exercise instead of fighting for survival in WW3.

So if it were up to me...

I'd pick the three most exciting aspects of the Charted Space setting and emphasize them in the cover art, the back cover blurbs, and supporting adventures (new players don't know enough to make their own adventures). Make sure that supporting Traveller resources like travellermap.com and the travellerwiki are clearly identified in the core rulebook, with an illustration or sidebar that talks them up and describes how useful they are. Put some kind of "how to create your own adventures" section in the core rulebook to support new players.

War, space and ground.
Gritty Space Rogues.
Aliens and strange new worlds and adventures.

Go all out on the cover art for the core books, like Frank Frazetta etc. level cover art.

https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/traveller-core-rulebook-update-2022
This cover art tells me with a single glance there are spaceships, scifi planets, adventurers, conflict, swordfights, and alien beings. The adventurer in the center looks upward into the distance, strongly suggesting bold action and adventure. But, the aliens are meh. New players aren't going to know what a Hiver is and they won't relate, but they will recognize a Vargr as a "dog-guy", and a lot of people like dogs, so they'll relate. Instead of the robot, a beautiful action-oriented woman in a decently formfitting spacesuit would've been more relatable (no passive passenger princesses, but what about a mercenary noblewoman?). Guys will relate because she's a beautiful woman, and girls will relate because she's a beautiful high status action-oriented woman. The color scheme is a bit washed out, needs more contrast. Catch the viewer's eye. Get @MongooseBella to weigh in on which representations of women are most eye-catching and interesting for potential female players. Let illustrations speak to potential players, instead of to those who already know.

https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/traveller-referees-screen-update-2024
Great quality art, better than other two examples here. The woman is beautiful, with a positive yet mysterious expression on her face that challenges and engages the viewer. The detail of her face and the Vargr character's face are great, really great. At a glance, this illustration shows me alien planets, spacesuits, spaceships, aliens, and a guy in a dramatic dynamic pose that suggests action and going on dynamic adventures.

https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/mercenary-box-set
At a glance this cover art tells me there's battle action, aliens, jetpack armor, girls, cybernetics, and cybernetic girls. See what I mean?

People perceive visual information extremely quickly in a kind of gestalt way and have an immediate emotional reaction. Use this to Traveller's advantage. Inspire people to pick up Traveller books in the shop because the artwork catches their eye and engages them. I'd even do some research into propaganda images and the techniques they use to inspire emotion and motivation in the viewer. Don't shy away from the dramatic.











Something else is have people visit local shops to make sure Traveller is placed as prominently as possible. Trusted volunteers hand-picked by Mongoose could go in and send a phone pics of Traveller items in shops, and then maybe Mongoose could talk to marketers or whoever does this kind of thing to see what can be arranged with shop managers to place Traveller core books with beautiful cover art prominently in the shop. I went to my FLGS and there were hardly any Traveller books, no core rulebooks, and the art was half hidden by the shelf. It was sad. This tells potential players that Traveller isn't popular, and inspires a general feeling of blah. Shops could be provided with posters and promotional materials for Traveller's 50th Anniversary release.

Have SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURE in the FAR FUTURE! more prominent on the covers in addition to Traveller, because Traveller, while it truly encapsulates the nature of the game in a single word, it's a very neutral word which doesn't give the viewer a clear idea of its context.

Compare the neutral word Traveller to more meaning-heavy symbolic action words like:
Stormbringer
Alien (not action oriented, but creepy and inspires curiosity, what kind of alien?)
Champions (conflict and victory)
Superworld
Pathfinder (weak, but whatever)
Dungeons & Dragons (tells you exactly what it is, dungeons, spooky and dangerous, and dragons, fantastic and dangerous)
Runequest (there are magic runes and quests/adventures)

Anyway, just thoughts.

EDIT: And for goodness sake, when new players show up on this forum, we need to welcome them, be good to them, answer their questions with courtesy and camaraderie, make them feel welcome, and let them know they joined a great community, unlike certain other Traveller forums and/or mailing lists which clearly and repeatedly demonstrated the opposite. This concludes my TED talk.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I said it last year, but the major marketing issue for Traveller is that it is not found regularly in many retail outlets in the same way D&D, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer, Cyberpunk, Alien or Star Trek Adventures are. Why not?

I don’t mind ordering directly from Mongoose (the customer service is outstanding) but if I walk into a local game store there won’t be any Traveller products on display. Maybe it is just where I live (NZ which is a small market, I guess) but I also know there are is a significant proportion of gamers that play Traveller by preference that say the same thing. It means that we aren’t tapping into new players as much as other games are - or promoting the brand through organised play.

 

[Condottiere]

The mistake was that twenty years ago, no one packaged Traveller as a television series, so that by the time the usual kinks were worked out, it could be presented as Firefly adjacent, Galactica successor, Star Wars alternative, just as the Golden Age of television dawned, when money flowed like honey, and studios were desperate for existing intellectual property.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Ask on rpgnet and others, here are the typical answers:

Traveller - the game you die in character generation?

Traveller - the game set in the Imperium something, just a W40K rip off?

Traveller - the game with an encycopedia needed to understand the setting?

very rarely

Traveller - a game for making up your own setting and and have any sci fi adventure you can imagine.

When I started all those years ago no one minded number 1 and the Imperium had not been mentioned until you picked up LBB:4...

even then it bought to mind the empires of Dune, Foundation, The Mote in God's Eye - the latter especially considering the ship tech that came with HG in '79...

Marketing Traveller as anything other than The Third Imperium role playing game is an up hill task. The flaws and inconsistencies in the setting don't help either.

There needs to be a faster way for travel between the major races so you can mix it up a bit - personally I would add wormhole or psionic based teleportation that can't be used for military means... the details would need work.

Imagine Star Trek taking two years to travel to Klingon space, and a further three years to travel to Romulan space, then a decade to get back to the Cardassians...

 

[lategamer]

Traveller - a game for making up your own setting and and have any sci fi adventure you can imagine.

I think PIONEER will go a long way to establishing those credentials. I'm still on the fence about porting Whole New World to Traveller. It's not just about the system; it's about the ecosystem. I think it would be an obvious setting (though we will be ditching Survival rolls).

 

[Bifford]

@Micky @MongooseMatt For a long time it was cover art. Classic Traveller didn't have have any, and when Traveller did have cover art, a lot of it was meh. Another thing is that Traveller is so broad that it's difficult to tell people who are completely new to it "you are this, doing this, in this place". I have had a lot of trouble with this when called upon to give people a succinct description of what Traveller is about. Remember that the question one is really answering is "why should I as a new player invest time, money, and effort into this new unfamiliar game?"

.....

There's no exciting hook. There's no emotional grip, no exciting defined concept that gives someone with no understanding of Traveller a good interesting attractive idea of what they'll be doing that makes them think "yes, I want to play that game!"

That's what's missing.

Give this one the marketing job.

 

[shirgall]

Not "Traveller -- the game that encourages better roleplay by having a straightforward resolution mechanic with a degree of success or failure?" One that uses that degree of success to swing task chains for teamwork?

Maybe the if the play samples included that instead of celebrations of dice rolls people could pick up on that. It's d20 games that emphasize natural 1s and 20s on the luck die.

 

[MarcusIII]

I said it last year, but the major marketing issue for Traveller is that it is not found regularly in many retail outlets in the same way D&D, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer, Cyberpunk, Alien or Star Trek Adventures are. Why not?

Because that channel works by pull and not push. That's the simple but true reason.

 

[MarcusIII]

Give this one the marketing job.

But it didn't need all that to attract players earlier. But, people have changed. Literacy of young people has gone from 95% (measuring 6th grade reading level) to about 15%. Maybe getting new people to play then surveying them?

 

[Anstett]

One thing that helps is to do the actual play in a store (or Library ) to show how easy the system is to play right at the start.

I used the Explorers Edition with very good success back in 2024 with the library Adventures in Space programs that I ran.

Post in thread 'Travellers Needed! Traveller's 50th'

Aug 12, 2024

My final wrap up report for the games I ran over the summer.

We had one group of mixed teenagers and an adult with two young kids. When they got through the first part and we talked about impressions and how things were I mentioned they were the first group to not try to steal a car instead of just renting. The teens were like "we can do that?!?"

The same group fought off the hijackers, got to the system to deliver the respirators. The teens were ambivalent about how much they should sell them for, the adult was "wait is this a moral question now?"

One of the groups decided that during...

• Anstett

• 
• 

 

[sda5691]

A 2300AD TAS? Yes, please.

When will it be ready for submissions?

 

[actionman]

Traveller - the game you die in character generation?

Even though Mongoose changed this to getting injured or booted out or something, the negative perception lingers on. This even changed in the 80's with Paranoia Press' Scouts & Assassins and its optional chart, but still, the negative perception has lingered on for 40 years. And of course the mockers and scoffers will harp on it even if they know it's been fixed, because they get a kick out of mocking and scoffing. But, if you criticize a problem with D&D they'll leap to defend it with the all rage and squealing of a pack of wild boars.

Traveller - the game set in the Imperium something, just a W40K rip off?

They don't even get it that Traveller did it first 10 years prior, and Dune did it 10 years prior to Traveller, because Traveller has quietly done its thing in the background while Warhammer 40K blasted itself relentlessly into gaming's collective consciousness. Warhammer 40K wasn't even a roleplaying game. The 40K rip-off idea is thoughtless, as if a game with an Empire in the setting is a rip-off of Star Wars because Star Wars has an Empire too.

But it didn't need all that to attract players earlier.

I think it did, and that's why Traveller has always been less popular than D&D and Chaosium's games. Other games had 8.5x11" hardbound books or boxed sets with colorful intriguing cover art, Traveller had small books and small boxed sets with no cover art, except for the boxed games like Mayday and Snapshot (D&D had small boxes in the beginning, but that changed with Advanced D&D). Given that most people gaming back in the day were kids with limited money to spend, it's no surprise that they gravitated toward exciting illustrations showing what characters do in the game, rather than Traveller's nonexistent or minimalist cover art. D&D didn't have better systems, not at all. But it did have large books about things kids understood, like knights, wizards, and dragons and so on. And what came out in 1977? Ralph Bakshi's animated movie The Hobbit (The grea-a-a-at-est adventure...). I wonder what would've happened if Traveller put dramatic scifi space battle art on full size covers after Star Wars came out. This started changing in the 80's with The Traveller Book and other books, and then with MegaTraveller, but by then most people were already into D&D. Another issue is that gaming is social, and it requires someone to convince other people to play a particular game. Once D&D was already popular, and people had the books and were familiar with it, it became more difficult for a kid to convince other kids to try Traveller. MWM and the other people who created Traveller were a very intelligent group of people, but I'm not sure they understood how most people feel first and think second. Think about picking out a book in the bookshop. People definitely look at the cover art and the back cover description, and those influence people's decision to buy or not.

But, people have changed. Literacy of young people has gone from 95% (measuring 6th grade reading level) to about 15%.

Tragically true, due to the destruction of the school system.

https://www.hilarylayne.com/p/very-carefully-educated-to-be-idiots

Maybe getting new people to play then surveying them?

Maybe going to a convention and showing non-Traveller players different cover art and surveying them about which book covers inspire their curiosity and interest. Don't tell them it's Traveller to prevent preconceived notions from influencing them, just show them and ask them to rate their interest.


Anyway, enjoy:

And the theme song of the army of a large Eurasian country:

 

[actionman]

Compare this:



To this:




Which one is more descriptive, more dramatic, and more exciting? If a potential player were unfamiliar with both of them, and could only buy one, which one would he choose?

 

[actionman]

Here's another example, two different editions of the same game:





Art makes a difference.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Here's another example, two different editions of the same game:

View attachment 6658

View attachment 6659

Art makes a difference.

Marketing makes a difference. Art is part of marketing. Makes sense to me. The artists should work closely with whatever firm they hire to do their marketing. Marketing should also be in the meeting that determines the cover art and back covers of new books.

 

[IanBruntlett]

Well, you could get existing Traveller gamers and their Referees to demo Traveller in local games clubs and games shops etc. Some kind of support for that activity would be helpful and I'm not sure what. Probably something to hand out to new players - a PDF of the Traveller Explorer's Edition would be good, as would a mini booklet explaining how to get into the game, progressing beyond the Explorer's Edition. The Mongoose website, whilst functional, doesn't do much to guide new customers to appropriate books.

Laptop / phone stickers or bookmarks might be popular. Pointing newbie referees towards free scenarios would be a good idea. I've run games in a drop-in charity for people who have never played a TTRPG before. Being able to give them some kind of freebie would be popular - maybe some Traveller fiction to give away?

EDIT: Lots of games these days provide two key books: a Dungeon Master/GM's guide and a Player's Handbook. The Core Rulebook would easily cater for the Player's Handbook crowd and I suspect that newbie GMs would look at the books listed as "start here" on Mongoose's website and simply walk away. Some kind of definite "you're a newbie Referee, you've got the CRB, here is what you can do with these particular core books and here is where the books of adventures to run are".