D&D and Traveller

I think we tend to underestimate just how old Traveller is.  

Consider that original Dungeons & Dragons, the very first roleplaying game ever published, was released sometime in late January 1974. Traveller first appeared less than three and a half years later, in late May 1977 (before the wide release of Star Wars, which is a very important fact to bear in mind).  Less than a dozen other RPGs were published between these two dates and, of those that were, almost none of them are still published today. That alone sets Traveller apart from its contemporaries. 

I mention this because, as I was thumbing through my 1977 Traveller boxed set, I was struck by just how similar in format and content the game is to the 1974 OD&D boxed set. This is not an original thought and indeed it's one that I've had before. I nevertheless think it's worthy of further examination. We are, after all, closing out D&D's semicentennial year and, while I'm reducing the attention I'll devote to that game for the foreseeable future, there really is no escaping its gravitational pull. Like it or not, discussions of almost any roleplaying game will inevitably lead back to Dungeons & Dragons. 

In the case of Traveller, the most immediately obvious connection to D&D is its format. Like OD&D, Traveller was initially released in a boxed set containing three digest-sized booklets. Each of these booklets focuses on a different aspect of the overall game rules. OD&D's first volume is entitled "Men & Magic" and provides the rules for character generation, combat, and spells. Traveller's first volume is called "Characters and Combat" and covers very similar ground. The second volume of OD&D is "Monsters & Treasure," while that of Traveller is "Starships." The difference between these two volumes is stark, since there's not much commonality of subject matter here and not merely because OD&D has no need of rules for space travel. However, the obvious connections between the two games return with the third volume of each. OD&D has "Underworld & Wilderness Adventures" and Traveller has "Worlds and Adventures." 

As I said, there's nothing novel about these observations. They've been made for years on OSR blogs and forums and were probably noted at the dawn of the hobby, too. I would not be at all surprised if Marc Miller and/or other notables at Games Designers' Workshop made them as well. When I attended Gamehole Con in October, one of the many amusing stories Marc Miller told about the early days of GDW concerned the release of Dungeons & Dragons. He said that the company's staff was so taken with the game that they soon spent all their time playing it. So enamored were they with this weird new game that Frank Chadwick, GDW's president at the time, established a rule: "No playing D&D during office hours."

It's a very funny story in its own right, as well as a reminder – as if we needed one – that the appearance of Dungeons & Dragons on the wargaming scene in 1974 forever changed the face of that hobby and, in the process, created an entirely new one. Though primarily a historical wargames publisher, GDW was no stranger to science fiction. Prior to the release of Traveller, the company had already published two science fiction games: Triplanetary in 1973 and Imperium in 1977. The latter game initially had no connection to Traveller, which, upon its release, included no setting whatsoever. It was only later that the background of Imperium. with its series of Interstellar Wars between the Vilani and the Terrans, was folded into the much more successful Traveller. 

OD&D was thus a significant inspiration for Marc Miller in creating Traveller, since it showed him not just what was possible with a roleplaying game but also the form such a game might take. Admittedly, this is likely true of nearly every RPG published in the last half-century, but, in the case of Traveller, it's especially so, since, by his own admission, he and the other designers at GDW were playing a lot of D&D in those days. Miller even contributed some D&D comics to The Strategic Review, which testifies to his early devotion to the game. When I spoke to him in October, he repeatedly emphasized the debt we all owe Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson for having created a form of entertainment unlike any that came before. Miller even included Gygax in his deck of cards as a "king" of GDW, since the company published his Dangerous Journeys game in the '90s.

The connections between D&D and Traveller were not apparent to me in my youth, in large part because I didn't come across a copy of OD&D '74 until I was in high school, by which point Traveller was already well on its way toward becoming MegaTraveller – a much more mechanically complex game published, like AD&D, in a conventional 8½ × 11" format. Now that I am aware of the myriad connections, they're impossible to un-see. To be honest, I'm glad of that. As I have no doubt written here dozens of times, Dungeons & Dragons was my first love, but Traveller is my true love. They're both very special to me and, while there's no question which one is my favorite, I would prefer not to have to choose between them. For the moment, though, Traveller has my attention. I very much look forward to sharing my thoughts and memories of this great roleplaying game.