🚀 Sci-Fi Special Issue 2023

Interview with Traveller creator Marc Miller, 8 GM-less sci-fi RPGs, and a galaxy of links

1. Interview: Marc Miller, creator of Traveller

Traveller Day on May 1 celebrates the sci-fi tabletop RPG created by Marc Miller and published by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) in 1977. It’s a reference to the original box cover which incorporated a "Mayday" distress call.

• Why it matters: Traveller was one of the first sci-fi RPGs and pioneered skill-based character attributes, lifepath character creation, and sandbox-style gameplay.

I recently caught up with Marc to talk about Traveller.

One of Traveller’s innovations are its worldbuilding tools. They’re solo games for GMs who take random prompts—like a planet’s environment, population, technology level, and law level—and build connections between them to create unexpected settings.

• “My original thought was that Traveller should be able to support any science-fiction story… there was no way that I could write up even a hundred planets satisfactorily. I could, however, imagine a process that allowed anyone to come up with a new planet.”

• “When I first showed the world generator to the other designers at GDW, they just dropped everything to create a subsector of their own. At that point, I knew we had something that worked.”

There are generators for all sorts of things: starships, beasts, equipment, and aliens. It’s one of the reasons why Traveller is a popular choice for solo gaming.

• “Solo play has always been a part of Traveller. The character and world generators help, and the idea of designing a custom starship is compelling. We can’t all have a group to play with every day, and much of Traveller is adapted to doing things by yourself.”

📚 On the state of the Traveller: "There are people still playing the original Classic Traveller or MegaTraveller. There are people who like the Traveller universe, but use the GURPS, HERO, or D20 systems. Currently in print is Traveller5, my vision on what Traveller should do. The three-book slipcase set is an extensive toolkit for making Traveller adventures and situations. And Mongoose Traveller, which has a much larger set of materials."

🌌 Hopes for the future of Traveller: "Traveller is 46 years old this year. It has gone through several incarnations and editions, and I suppose we can expect several more. It’s a certainty that Traveller will celebrate its Golden 50th in 2027, and it will keep attracting new players as time goes on. The purpose of a TTRPG is to promote players having fun. Traveller has been achieving that and I want it to keep on doing that."

Traveller Trivia

1. Spelling: "Traveller" is spelled with double-L for easier copyright protection

2. Format: Classic Traveller adopted the 3-book design from original D&D

3. Launch: Traveller's release serendipitously aligned with Star Wars’ debut

4. Skills: Traveller was the RPG to popularize a skill-based attribute system

5. Lifepath inspiration: Marc's Vietnam service and unmet military career hopes influenced Traveller's character creation system

6. Death in character creation: In Traveller's lifepath system, characters can die before the game starts due to risky career options - try it yourself.

A Type S Scout Ship at dock from Pierce Design Studio’s Starship Geomorphs.

Go Deeper:

• Speaker and event schedule for Traveller Day

• Dieku Games has a fun interview with Marc on Traveller’s history

• The Traveller Wiki is a great place to explore the game

• Zozer Games has a huge library of Traveller-compatible solo content

• Traveller Map is an interactive official source of planets and systems

• Starship Geomorphs has hundreds of free modular maps

• Links to Traveller generators provided by Zhodani Base

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2. 8 sci-fi GM-less RPGs

An illustration by Emiel Boven for Glide

🏜️ GLIDE

The once beautiful world of Eridoor has become a barren wasteland due to exploitation by the Great Houses. As a Seeker, you navigate the desert wastes on your glider, collecting scrap, and helping to restore the planet’s splendor. Complete quests for the five guilds, visit settlements, explore ruins, and earn fame. The 72-page manual is beautifully illustrated by Emiel Boven and includes rules for solo and co-op play. GLIDE was created by Sleepy Sasquatch Games. Be sure to check out the new Space Expansion with rules for off-world exploring.

✊ Going Rogue 2e

In this GM-less game, players join the Liberation (very much not the Rebellion) against the Mandate (totally not the Empire), taking on ethically questionable clandestine missions inspired by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Will you pay the ultimate price to accomplish a vital mission against seemingly impossible odds? The 34-page game can be played as a one-shot or as a limited-run campaign. Going Rogue 2e was created by Jess Levine and is based on Galactic 2e by Riley Rethal. Listen to Jess play an intense session of Going Rogue 2e with Jeff Stormer on the Party of One podcast.

An illustration by Torben Boekemeyer for Notorious

🔫 Notorious

Join the ranks of Boba Fett, Dengar, and IG-88 as a notorious bounty hunter who follows the Nomad's Guild code in a war-torn galaxy. Complete lucrative contracts from six factions, capturing or eliminating your target. As your reputation grows, you’ll encounter hostiles, rival Nomads, and faction agents, ultimately facing your elusive target in a dramatic showdown. Notorious was created by Jason Price.

😱 The Wretched

You are the last surviving crew member of an intergalactic salvage ship attacked by an alien that still lurks outside. Utilizing a deck of cards and a Jenga tower (to simulate the integrity of your ship), the game focuses on themes of human resilience, fear, and perseverance in the face of almost certain death. The Wretched was created by Chris Bissette and is accompanied by a soundtrack crafted explicitly for the game.

An illustration by Daniel Locke for ECO MOFOS!!

♻️ ECO-MOFOS!!

Two centuries after society’s collapse, you and other Punks are trying to survive and create a better future. Features include rules-lite sandbox gameplay, randomized maps and tables to create dynamic scenarios, and a potentially deadly lifepath character creation system (ala Traveller). Be a solo mofo with new dedicated rules for journaling play, including an oracle and a delivery/gathering job creator, so you can play Nausicaa’s Delivery Service in a weird and hopeful future. ECO-MOFOS!! was created by David Blandy.

🚀 Ironsworn: Starforged

In the new game based on the popular GM-less fantasy RPG Ironsworn you are a spaceborne hero sworn to undertake perilous quests. You will explore uncharted space, unravel the secrets of a mysterious galaxy, and build bonds with those you meet on your travels. The game's extensive oracle tables and quest tracking system make it ideal for deep solo or co-op campaigns - if you don’t mind some bookkeeping. Ironsworn: Starforged was created by Shawn Tomkin who is currently working on Sundered Isles, a supplement for Starforged which adopts it to an age of sail setting.

Demon hunting dwarves in Stoneburner

🧔 Stoneburner

Dwarves Arise!!! Take on the role of a group of space dwarves who inherit a dilapidated settlement along with its demon-haunted asteroid mine. The game focuses on the dwarves' journey as they rebuild a community and clear the mine of its fire-spitting monsters. Stoneburner, developed by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas and Galen Pejeau, has a week remaining in its Kickstarter campaign. Back it now to lock in a physical copy. Also check out the free preview.

🪐 Alone Among the Stars

You are a solitary explorer hopping from planet to planet. Each world has unique features for you to discover and record in your log. It’s an accessible 3-page journaling game requiring a deck of cards and one 6-sided die. Alone Among the Stars was created by Takuma Okada. You can also play an online version for free.

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3. Last roll 🎲

• 5 Parsecs from Home is a solo miniatures wargame where you assemble a crew to explore the stars, pick up jobs, and engage in action-packed combat. Battles are procedurally generated with huge combinations of enemies, weapons, battlefield circumstances, and objectives. This is a great game if you have random sci-fi minis waiting to be used.

• Under Alien Skies is a new book from Phil Plait, an astronomer who consults with video game and movie makers about creating realistic outer space settings. In this book he describes what it would really look like to be at 10 spectacular cosmic objects we know from astronomical photographs.

• Sci-fi is the Best Bundle on itchio is a collection of 55 sci-fi games for $25. It’s hosted by Seamus Conneely and includes Lost Among the Starlit Wreckage, his solo/duo journaling RPG about a stranded mecha pilot.

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