This one was a surprise. I had this game sitting in my garage for a while. After getting my Brother label machine and organizing my storage boxes, I realized how much I missed this one. I still love the Cepheus community and all the fantastic work done there, and those are still some of my best games. But the Mongoose 2022-today version of Traveller is another thing entirely.
Mongoose Traveller is gaming's best implementation of a "space MMO" ever written. There is so much history here, so much written, tens of thousands of planets developed, dozens of adventures, hardcover after hardcover, and such a complete and functional universe to explore that you are missing out if you haven't got in a starship and explored it.
This universe is a lifetime of exploration and fun.
The rules are not that hard to learn, and the game is very straightforward and easy. This is far easier than D&D 5E, even with ship combat tossed in there. All you need are a few six-sided dice, and a decade of content is there for you to roam around in and explore.
Where Cepheus Engine falls short is in its generic and setting-free nature. If you want to build your own setting and universe, go with Cepheus Engine all the way. There are so many fun variants and mini-games built on the 2d6 engine, and a lot of these could also be considered Traveller expansions in their own right, especially the fantasy-themed ones.
I still love Sword of Cepheus, Westlands, and the later games in this series. The 2d6 community is a strong and vibrant place, with room for many ideas and games.
If you play Traveller, you are playing in the Imperium setting. There is simply too much "great stuff" here to explore, use, fly around in, visit, meet the aliens of, adventure on the worlds of, battle with, and interact with. There is even an entire sector reserved for your settings and expansion, so they left room for your creativity directly in the center of the universe map. Want to drop Star Frontiers directly into the center of the Imperium map? You have the space to do that. Grow the universe up and say they later discovered the Imperium, but keep apart from it in their own enclave. It's fine. It works. You have the room to do it.
The game scales well, too. You can play this as a macro wargame with battling fleets and surface armies, just as well as you can play a small, 4-person expedition to a hostile alien world. You can play a shipwrecked scenario like the classic Star Frontiers module series, which is sort of like a "fish out of water" game, like a John Carter of Mars style experience, and port in the great monsters and magic from the Westlands game. Severely limit ammunition, and force the players to craft bows and use melee weapons to fight the savage aliens of this new world.
Part of my love for this genre was rekindled by reading classic Wally Wood comics from the 1950s. I originally got these for Star Crawl Classics, a DCC-compatible science fiction game that is relatively simple but fun. After I started reading them, my love for Traveller came back. I wanted a game of two-fisted, laser-flinging, gritty survival, starship battling, classic, bubble-helmeted, hard science fiction again. I wanted strange space aliens and monsters wandering every habitable world. I wanted the buzz of galactic commerce and the patrols of star fleets. I envisioned struggling corporations forming exploration ventures on shoestring budgets, utilizing refurbished shipwrecks and other salvaged materials, and navigating challenges. I wanted players interested in exploration and science, problem-solving, and theorizing alien life.
Instead of inwardly-focused characters, I wanted a universe that gives characters a reason to care about what is outside themselves.
D&D's fatal flaw is its inward, get-me-mine, my-build, my-power, self-centered focus.
It sucks as a story, and it sucks as motivation.
Seriously, these classic science-fiction comic collections are wonderful. If you find yourself lost in the fantasy-gaming haze, too beaten down by the constant noise and fighting over the hobby, over what should be in and what should be out, there is an escape for you. All you need to do is grab that first rung of the ladder leading up into the rocket ship, close the airlock door behind you, strap yourself in the pilot's seat, and blast off into adventure.
While yes, modern Traveller does not do the bubble-helmeted look or style, that is just a minor flavor change and reskin to the spacesuits. The starships are not sleek rockets, but that is another reskin, or you could just hand-wave it off and say the ships look good enough.
You can also get over the "land the ship on the dungeon" problem that science fiction has by enforcing strict limits on what size and type of ships can land on planets, where they can land, and forcing difficult skill rolls for landing on unprepared surfaces, and inflicting severe ship damage if the roll fails. Avoid making landing too easy, where characters have a "personal RV and hotel" they can park on a space dungeon. Make the ship begin to sink into the soil after sitting there for five minutes, slide on an uneven surface, or have weather prevent it from taking off.
Introduce threats that make a parked starship a sitting duck for attack. Make targeting engines and other systems very easy, and roll some critical hits on a ship by passing pirate aircraft or starfighters shooting up a parked ship like it was Pearl Harbor.
Ensure the ship must use atmospheric craft to visit the surface, and make any landings "touch and go" to prevent losing either the vessel or the interface craft. Establish this as a standard operating procedure that all pilots must follow, and there are always space critters who can crawl in parked ships, chew on exposed wires, contaminate the vessel, or otherwise easily ambush those exiting the craft.
Put hostile bandits, thieves, hijackers, or other locals who would love to steal, loot, strip parts from, or take over a parked ship worth tens of millions of credits. Give them a few armored vehicles, and have the local forces of the corrupt governor impound the ship or declare it is theirs.
If you are lost, go back to the original sources of inspiration.
This world makes it so easy to forget, which is why we must look backward to move forward. the feelings these comic artists had about an infinite universe of limitless potential will light a fire in you. Let their enthusiasm cross the decades and find you.
What is essential is that the stories and tales of adventure are the same. We are fighting two-headed hydra monsters on barren worlds, meeting strange aliens and overcoming the language barrier, or engaging in space battles with star pirates. We are surviving against all odds after being shipwrecked on an alien world, where we are learning its secrets. We are taking a boat ride down a river as we deliver supplies to a remote outpost. We are mapping star systems to discover what lies beyond.
It is too easy to get lost in the introverted worlds of fantasy, where every waking moment is about "me and my identity" or "how will I be the leading character in this story?" Today's fantasy is pandering crud and consumerist garbage. It is a toxic, self-important, high-school clique of ins and outs.
I want to be lost in something bigger than myself.
There is a whole universe out there waiting.
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