Traveller Generations

[kafka]

It would be interesting to get a snapshot of who is actually playing Traveller and when they got interested in Traveller. For as Mongoose Traveller now the newest incarnation on the block - is it attracting predominantly newbies or has resonance with the grognards.

So in short, How Old Are You? & When Did You Start Playing Traveller?

Some definitions...

Prehistory (pre 1977): Mucking about with the LBBs and never looking at anything else. Or just playing D&D in Space sans monsters and treasure looting.

Golden Age (CT): Roughly 1977-1987, taking in all the supplements of CT as integrated whole

Electrium Age (Starter Traveller): Building and selectively appropiating CT or as suggested Starter Traveller.

Silver Age (MT): Taking in the era of DGP & GDW, when Challenge was at its height

Copper Age (TNE): Decline of the Imperial Campaign but venturing and trying all the new things like Children of Earth, Sword of the Knight Productions, etc.

Bronze Age (T4): Imperium Games venture into the RPG market.

Steel Age (T20 & GURPS): Those platforms that were powered by a game mechanic that no longer resembled what went on before.

Atomic Age/The Default Present (Mongoose Traveller): You have just picked up Traveller because it look ... (cool, exciting, something that you could play with your Dad/Mum, fill in the blank)

Neo Fill in the Blank: There were many false starts with rules free or truncated rules or settings like 1248. Perhaps you got your in a Neo-Copper Age ie 1248 or just found things on the Internet interesting but never owned rules.

My story

I started playing Traveller perhaps in the Electrium Age of its existance. I picked up a Starter Traveller set circa 1983/84...although, I date my total immersion into Traveller circa 1987 with the release of MegaTraveller. Next year, I will be 40 and been gaming since I was a Teen. Like many people who pick up Traveller. I am a collector. I find merit in each edition and something that I can steal. My favorite edition...well, it is like the question between your first love and your spouse. Currently, I run a modified Mongoose Traveller game.

 

[Woas]

Default Modern Age.

I'll be 25 in a few months, and picked up Traveller last.. October-ish because around last year, I realized my group needed an RPG change (got real burned out with D&D) so was going through (and still am to an extent) many different/indie/alternate RPG systems. Traveller happened to be one of them, and one of the better ones so we're giving it a whirl.

 

[Gentleman John]

Traveller was the first RPG I picked up way back in the Golden Age (circa 1979). It was the first RPG I ever played/reffed. three of us clubbed together to buy a special offer from GW that had Basic D&D, RQ2 and Traveller LBB for £20. I picked Traveller. Since then, I have tried to purchase something of every version of Traveller when it came out.

This summer, I'll turn 40. Ouch.

 

[zanwot]

Golden Age Traveller, but I was in primary school (big brother made me play, now my age is such that I am at approx 4 terms) and I did not play any RPG in a big gap during my secondary school. Been doing diverse games these last years, and could not miss a new incarnation of Traveller when it came out.

 

[walkir]

Steel Age (GURPS). I'm pretty sure my parents knew each other when CT came out, though (turning 27 late april).

Edit: Well, i started buying traveller two years ago or so. Never played it as I have no group.

 

[EDG]

Your "ages" seem rather arbitrarily defined. And while I may have started in one "age", that doesn't necessarily mean that it was the "age" that I feel defines my use of Traveller.

I first encountered Traveller around 1987 (I was 14 then, you do the maths ) , when a friend of mine at school offloaded a bunch of LBBs on me. Not long after that I found Megatraveller and used that instead. Then I got into TNE bigtime as a setting, dropped T4 like a hot brick, got back into GURPS Traveller, didn't really care much for T20, and think Mongoose Traveller is pretty decent.

I've actually played Traveller only a couple of times. First was the Antiquity adventure from DGP's Early Adventures book in the late 80s, which was just plain awful. Second time was at the Nationals in the UK in the late 90s when someone ran a cyberpunky thing set on Efate, I think using GURPS rules. That was considerably better, but was felt so different to what the OTU usually is that it almost doesn't count.

But really I've used Traveller for worldbuilding and tech design in my own setting (and now my world design has moved way beyond Traveller's), and don't like the OTU setting at all.

So technically I guess you could call me "neo-Silver/Steel Age" because of the love for GURPS Traveller and TNE/1248. Or maybe "Blancmange Age" because I don't really fit into any of your definitions.

 

[Infojunky]

Gee I guess I am a golden ager...... Funny I don't feel that old.

Or by the time MT rolled out in 87ish I had been running a game for nearly decade.

Adapting stuff from Novels and comics all the while.

 

[Anonymous]

By this scale Im a Golden Age grog then

 

[Jame Rowe]

A combo between Copper Age and Steel Age - I discovered it in '93 with TNE, but never played until '03 when I discovered the CotI Recruiting Office.

 

[Last_Starfighter]

... That puts me in Pre-History

 

[lastbesthope]

Just picked up Mongoose Traveller, never played any other versions.

LBH

 

[Leo Knight]

Prehistoric and Proud!

I had the first edition I bought in 1977. (begin geezer mode) "When I was a teenager, we didn't have any supplements or adventures. We had three little black books and two dice, six-siders, no d20, thank you sir, old fashioned bones. We just ripped off "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" and we liked it! (end geezer mode).

 

[alex_greene]

I'm old enough to know Grandfather, and call him by his first name - Steve.

Traveller was my first roleplaying game. It was weird; I'd no idea what I'd been buying into when I took a look at that box with those three LBBs.

I was, at that time, such a sf addict, jonesing for it hard. Traveller gave me a taste for roleplaying that fitted my predilections for hard SF. It was like giving a junkie the keys to the pharmacy.

Nowadays ... let's just say I've never been to rehab for my habit.

 

[lucasdigital]

September 1984. I'd recently got into Fantasy gaming because a Games Workshop store has opened in Sheffield. On a daytrip to Alton Towers (UK theme park), Dad let my sister and I pick up magazines to read on the car journey. I found White Dwarf for the first time, issue 57 which contained a Traveller scenario called Sky Rig. It blew my thirteen year old mind! Weeks later, I'd scrimped the money together for the Traveller Starter Edition - Large Black Books in a box. I played the game in all it's forms, mostly as Referee, until the demise of GDW. I bought pre-ordered T4, but never actually played it - it just didn't feel like Traveller.

It's weird that I haven't actually played a Role Playing Game for more than 10 years, but recently decided to take a look at writing material as a way to exercise my latent grognard nature...

 

[Ishmael]

prehistoric and evolved

 

[AKAmra]

15 in the summer of 1979. While hanging out at a friend's house, he pulls out the D&D Blue Box and the Traveller LBBs. Being a fan of Conan and DC's The Warlord, I opt for D&D and begin a long journey with RPGs.

Nearly thirty years later, the online excitement generated by Mongoose Traveller grabs my interest and here I am - a "default modern age" Traveller.

Makes me wonder what the trip would have been like if we'd gone with the LBBs.

 

[Colin]

I started with starter Traveller, sometime around 1983/1984 picked up all the LBBs, moved on o MegaTraveller, then TNE, which I really liked. Stepped sideways into 2300AD and largely stayed there. Picked up some of T4, and was underwhelmed. Started up again with T20, and got into Mongoose. We only really ever played TNE and 2300AD. The others were just out of curiousity.

 

[GypsyComet]

Golden Age, around 1979 (I started with JTAS #3).

 

[Golan2072]

Neo-Golden Age: I picked up the Books-0-8-in-One CT reprint in 1999 or 2000, had a lot of fun with it, then bought MGT when it came out.

 

[The Chef]

2300 AD, only moved to Traveller with Mongoose