My Life As A Gamer: Of Course Traveller Meets The Standard

I've mentioned in a recent post how other tabletop RPGs also conform to this standard. Let's talk about one of them: Traveller.

• The rules are ridiculously easy to grasp, especially in its Classic iteration, even if some subsystems use advanced math beyond most Normie expertise so there is neither a need nor an excuse for not using them as-written.
• Mandatory travel time and downtime for production and recovery forces the use of multiple characters per player when used with strict 1:1 timekeeping.
• It is impossible to not have (and experience) consequences for one's actions, or those of others.
• Having multiple players playing multiple characters at both personal and Patron levels of play instantly make a campaign come alive.

It is long said that Traveller has only two models: Merchant and Mercenary. This becomes false as soon as you conform to the standard and play appropriately. All of the things said of playing Dungeons & Dragons applies here in their entirety.

As there is no One True Party, there is no need to guarantee access to any item that permits interplanetary or interstellar travel. Players are encouraged to establish and maintain retinues of Henchmen and Hirelings, even if they are not called such, because those friendly NPCs are useful to have around. Players are encouraged from the start to have multiple characters per player due to mandatory downtime taking characters out of the action for days, weeks, even months at a time. This also means that players are free to get directly into Patron level play to make good use of that downtime.

Traveller really is a fantastic not-D&D example of a proper RPG that shows its wargame roots with no shame whatsover, and thanks to the passing of time it's even easier to get Normies to grok its spaceship combat rules due to excellent TV properties that showed it: Babylon 5 (more with the Earth Alliance than the aliens), the Battlestar Galactica remake series, and The Expanse. Add on the supplements that dig deeper into specific subsets of the rules and setting, and you get a true Space Opera game with none of the D&D baggage.

A lot of the more playable later games, like BattleTech, build on the ludological foundation of Traveller as what makes those games playable is not different from what makes Traveller playable. The specific rulesets are different, but the methodology of play remains the same, albeit with often a narrowing of likely player interest in terms of what types of characters to play.

N.B.: Rick Stump has his version of the language defining the Standard here. You may want to keep up with his blog too.