Traveller Is the Sci-Fi RPG You Didn’t about..

...and didn't know you needed in your life.

I pulled out my old Traveller books today. Yeah, the ones from the 70s boy it made me remember spending a lot of time pouring over the books making characters. There’s something about this sci-fi RPG that keeps drawing me back, even with all the flashy new games out there. It’s not just the setting, though that’s cool—space travel, alien worlds, all the usual sci-fi goodness. No, what makes Traveller different is the way it forces you to think about the game world itself.

Unlike modern RPGs where you level up your character and gain new abilities, in Traveller, once your character is built, that’s it. Its a “front loading” character creation system. You’re not gaining experience points or leveling up; you’re living in the world and figuring things out as you go. It’s a little intimidating at first—your character can even die during creation—but that’s the beauty of it. The game pushes you to engage with the world itself, not just your stats. THOUGH there is some rules in a later book that do give a GM a little to work with for those “GoTtA lEvEl Up!” people.

It’s kind of refreshing in a way. There's no pressure to grind for experience points. Instead, it’s about the story you’re telling and the choices you make. And that’s what makes Traveller stand out, even decades after it first hit the scene. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re curious about what it’s like to build a campaign where the world matters more than leveling up, give Traveller a shot. You might just get hooked.