History TabletopGame / Traveller

* ''Classic Traveller'' (1977-86): The original. Then just called ''Traveller'' but since acquired the "Classic" qualifier to distinguish it from the later editions. It has also been called [[FanNickname "the Little Black Books"]] because of the printing format and minimalist covers used.
* ''[=MegaTraveller=]'' (1987-92): An update to the original rule system, complete with a controversial {{metaplot}} shift involving the collapse of the [[TheFederation Imperium]].
* ''Traveller: The New Era'' (1993-95): A [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] take on the original setting, with options for almost-original flavour and an entirely new system. Some {{retcon}}s as well, mostly dealing with how tech worked in the Third Imperium.

* ''Marc Miller's Traveller'' aka ''Traveller 4'' (1996-98): The first edition of the game after GDW folded. Set in "Mileau 0" - the beginning of the Third Imperium. Mr. Miller has said it was something of a "rushed" product. "Pocket Empires", however, is still quite highly regarded by players interested in the economics of the setting, which as trading is often a major part of the game isn't as esoteric a concern as it may seem.

* AnimalWrongsGroup: The K'kree are a PlanetOfHats of these, prepared to [[DisproportionateRetribution wage wars of extermination on people for eating meat.]]

* ApocalypseHow:
** Both the Long Night and the Rebellion resulted in light Class X-3s, with the fall of interstellar civilization in each case.

* ArtificialGravity: Ubiquitous throughout the setting.

* BackStory: Most sourcebooks are for developing this. They can make very good reading on their own without actually playing for those who actually like devouring data, fictional or otherwise. The BackStory provides very "realistic" detail.

* {{BFG}}:

* DeadMansHand: ''Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society'' magazine #14 adventure "Aces & Eights". A set of playing cards (two aces, two eights and the joker), will, when put in an X-ray machine, create a map to the location of a 20 million credit treasure. The money was the payroll of the 1188th "Aces and Eights" Lift Infantry Brigade. The man with the cards is killed by the bad guys and the cards stolen, and the PCs must retrieve them.
* DeathByOriginStory: Early versions of the character generation system frequently killed player characters before play began.

* DuelToTheDeath: There are a number of ways to do this. Aslan prefer dueling with ''claws''. When a human duels Aslan-fashion, he wears an artificial claw (called an ''Ayloi'') on his hand.

* EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Averted. Earth is in fact on the extreme rimward edge of the Imperium. It is the center of the Solomani sphere, however.

* EldritchAbomination : Grandfather. Some alien races come close to this as well.

* TheEpic : The sample campaign ''100 parsecs'' which is about TheMigration of a band of Sword Worlders to the far reaches of space. Also the original journey of exiled soldiers through Aslan territory to found the Sword Worlds.

* FantasticCasteSystem:

** As for the aliens, [[BeePeople Droyne]] have several physically different castes and the K'kree divide themselves into servants, merchants, and nobles.
* FantasticRacism:

** Heck, sometimes natives within different planets too.

* TheFederation:

** The Terran Confederation from the volume ''Interstellar Wars'' would probably be TheFederation too, despite it's expansionist tendencies.

* FireOfComfort: The Hearthfire is a sacred symbol to Sword Worlders. Soldiers and police "guard the hearthfires" and [[YamatoNadeshiko goodwifes]] "tend the hearthfires".

* GenericanEmpire: The Third Imperium.

* HegemonicEmpire: The Third Imperium is more a straightforward Empire(albeit a semi-benevolent one), but still has elements of this including taking time to flatter substates for ideological and policy reasons.
** The Sylean Federation went from that into the Third Imperium under Emperor Cleon I, by utilizing the methods of a HegemonicEmpire.

* HumansAreCthulhu: Vargr view humans this way especially Zhodani(which are regarded that way by ''other humans''). Humans can build large abstract societies which attract UndyingLoyalty from their members, whereas Vargr have trouble giving loyalty to anything but a MagneticHero. As a result humans sometimes appear to Vargr the way a HiveMind appears to humans.

* HumansAreWarriors:

* HumanPopsicle: Low berths: a low-cost way to see the galaxy, but not without danger. The crews and passengers of passenger ships sometimes play "the low lottery" - a Cr 10 bet on how many low berth passengers will survive the trip. If the winner doesn't survive the Captain of the ship gets the money.

* LostColony: The Island subsectors in the great Rift were these before a misjump by an Imperial cruiser brought them jump technology.

* LuredIntoATrap: In the supplement ''The Traveller Adventure'', adventure "Kidnapped on Aramanx". The villains who kidnapped Lisa Fireaux demand that Gvoudzon deliver the ransom so they can kidnap him as well.

* MadeASlave: Forbidden in the Imperium but sometimes done underground. It is not said what slaves can do that machines can't(other than [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty the obvious inference]] of course). In the Sword Worlds capital crimes are sometimes punished with enslavement.

* MetaPlot: The Fifth Frontier War for Classic Traveller, the ongoing Rebellion for ''[=MegaTraveller=]'', and the "Empress Wave" for ''The New Era'' (though it never got very far). Later editions don't have much of a metaplot, really.

* NeuralImplanting : A possibility with the Wafer Jack augmentation though not much is made of it.

* NotWorthKilling: In ''Interstellar Wars'' the Vilani don't bother making a real effort to subjugate the Terrans because they are "just another barbarian tribe". By the time they learn differently, it is the Vilani who are being subjugated.

* OneGenderRace: The Hivers are all the same gender.

* OrderVersusChaos:

* PlanetOfHats: Played with. The Aslan are warriors, the Vargr are Space pirates, the Hivers are Manipulators and so on. However there is usually enough complexity available for it not to be to hatty.

** The name of some emperors (''Cleon'') is also a shout out to IsaacAsimov's Foundation.
* ShownTheirWork: In such a manner as to practically undermine the whole point. There are books explaining the underpinnings of design that occasionally break into the underlying physics of, say, a gun, and the math to translate that into game terms. This is a game that even researches its AppliedPhlebotinum, or at least treats it as if it can be. Alas... it constantly goes too far. In the gun example, vast calculations produce virtually the same results for any handgun. Pages detain the minutiae of planet climate, except to prove only Earth-like worlds around Sun-like stars are good for anything. Combat is very harsh...but only if you take into account all of the rules, of which there are many, and many are strange.

** On the planet of Prometheus there are some literal Amish.
** The Imperium itself and several other intersteller states have a prejudice against psionics, robotics, and cybernetics and limit them to specific circumstances. This makes the Imperium itself a mild form of SpaceAmish in the future. It also justifies a few aspects such as WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture, and having BadassArmy s, instead of clouds of nanites or hordes of robots and in general gives it a more [[RuleOfCool heroic and personal feel]]. Taboo technology, can of course still be found in a lost city, or a secret Imperial research station, or whatever.

* SpaceCossacks: Several variations of these.

* StagedPopulistUprising:

*** Adventure 7 Broadsword. On the planet Garda-Vilis the Tanoose Freedom League was originally a home-grown rebellion against off-world control by the planet Vilis, but eventually came under the control of the Ine Givar rebels and switched to an anti-Imperial stance.

* StarfishAliens: Although some of the races are RubberForeheadAliens or PeopleInRubberSuits, or even HumanAliens, several others, especially some of the more obscure minor races, are rather strange. The Hivers even look like starfish.

* StayInTheKitchen: K'ree are the most extreme and simplistic example. Some ProudWarriorRace s have a more complex and ambiguous take on this.

* SubspaceAnsible: Averted. One of the fundamental features of the ''Traveller'' verse is the lack of these.

** For that matter, one can still find some grubby old ''Siigiizuni'' class(predecessor to the ubiquitous ''Beowulf'' s) hanging around some places. These ships were from about the beginning of the Vilani Imperium, but the specs remain on record.

** Played with. Toward the end of the Intersteller Wars, the constitution of the Terran Confederation became obsolete because PlanetTerra had conquered and [[YouWillBeAssimilated assimilated]] so many worlds that PlanetTerra could no longer be considered [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse the center of the confederation]]. When no one could solve the problem, a naval coup took place instituting the Second Imperium.

* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture
* WeWillWearArmorInTheFuture: Due to the general lethality of combat armour is all but required to survive more than a couple shots. Besides [[PoweredArmor Battle Dress]] available armours range from practically useless leather (jack) to full combat armour that requires a laser or gauss rifle to really penetrate, there's also reflec that only defends against lasers and can be added to other types of armour. However most armour tend to be a higher tech level and much more expensive than the weapons that can pierce it.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Empress Arbellatra

* YouWillBeAssimilated: the ''Marc Miller's Traveller'' volume ''Milieu 0'' gives traces of the IISS's BigBookOfWar that tells how to do this to hapless planets during the founding of the Imperium. It gives an idea what a MagnificentBastard Cleon was.

* ShownTheirWork: Taken BeyondTheImpossible in such a manner as to practically undermine the whole point. There are books explaining the underpinnings of design that occasionally break into the underlying physics of, say, a gun, and the math to translate that into game terms. This is a game that even researches its AppliedPhlebotinum, or at least treats it as if it can be. Alas... it constantly goes too far. In the gun example, vast calculations produce virtually the same results for any handgun. Pages detain the minutiae of planet climate, except to prove only Earth-like worlds around Sun-like stars are good for anything. Combat is very harsh...but only if you take into account all of the rules, of which there are many, and many are strange.

** The Imperium acts as CombatReferee between its substates. There are a number of guidelines to when an imperial intervention will be launched. War crimes, or the use of WMDs on the ground(in space it is different), being to obviously the aggressor, trying to grab to much power or to disturb to great an area and so on are likely to attract an Imperial intervention. The general rule though is "be unnoticeable and you won't be noticed".

* AparentlyHumanMerfolk: The Nexines, an offshoot of humaniti that were genetically engineered for underwater mining.

** Less casual then many; it takes two years or more to get from one end of the Imperium to another with a fast ship.

** The Imperial Nobility acts as a glue to keep the Imperium together. In effect rather then being an ethnic empire (I.E. the ''Roman'' empire, etc), it is a caste-based empire and the nobility is the central cadre.

* GalacticConqueror : Cleon is a combination of this and WellIntentionedExtremist. He is the closest example of the classic model. Albadawi is this in the sense that he is in fact conquering. He is however doing that as a servant of the Terran Confederation rather then on his own, and it is just a function of his being a FourStarBadass.

* HiddenDepths: {{Traveller}} itself. This is easily underestimated because [=RPGs=] are a pop-art. However the detail of this setting is even more then that of {{Dune}} and the flexibility is greater.

** The Solomani have long had a far greater martial reputation then the other two major human races and the Third Imperium's military traditions are largely Solomani. To the extent that 57th-century Imperial Marines aren't that different in culture and ethos from the 20th-century US Marine Corps and Royal Marines, especially in TNE.

** This is speaking of Solomani ''military tradition'' rather then the Solomani as a race. The Solomani and Vilani are by the time of the Third Imperium so interbred that the difference is more of identity rather then race. Neither of these marry Zhodani very often as the Psi thing leaves them out on their own, effectively alien and more alien to other humans then Aslan or Vargr.

* MadeASlave: Forbidden in the Imperium but sometimes done underground. It is not said what slaves can do that machines can't(other then [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty the obvious inference]] of course). In the Sword Worlds capital crimes are sometimes punished with enslavement.

* MilitaryScienceFiction: One option, though often held to be difficult to arrange for an RPG, given the strict hierarchies of a military system. PrivateMilitaryContractor s campaigns are more popular then campaigns centered on regular armed forces, though these remain an option.

** Zhos are used to it, and think being read by a mind reader is no more embarrassing then being examined by a doctor. But non-Zhos think it to be a FateWorseThanDeath.

* OurOrcsAreDifferent: The Ikhlur, a ProudWarriorRace that serves in a "gurkha-like" role for the Hivers. They are reptilian and are formidable soldiers. They fit the later adaptation more then the Tolkienite AlwaysChaoticEvil {{Mooks}}. They [[PlanetOfHats are all]] BoisterousBruiser s and think WarIsGlorious, but are also often good natured. Though they delight in violence it is in the BloodKnight sense rather then the ForTheEvulz sense. In fact not only do they delight in violence they think it hones their inteligence so that school classrooms are marked by roughhousing as a natural part of a lesson.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Averted. Religion is still a part of Traveller life and there is room enough for anything the GM and Players desire; even their own RealLife religion if it pleases them. The {{Backstory}} does not go to much effort designing religions(deliberately so, apparently, to avoid causing tension between the players) for the game but one or two plausible ones are made such as the K'kree beliefs or the Aslan ''Fteir'' code of honor or the Shugalii chef-priests(they actually seem more like Rabbis then priests) of the Vilani. Actually the best comparison to Shugalii might be Kosher-butchers.

** The Maar Zon faith of Sylea seems to be a form of Deism but is less abstract then the Terran Deism of the eighteenth century. It has customs that seem similar to some Terran religions. The Vilani seem to be Agnostics but have a code of honor that vaguely resembles Confucianism . Bwaps are nature worshipers of a sort that emphasize nature as representing order. Many Sword Worlders are Aesirists which is a form of Nordic-style Neopaganism.

* {{Planetville}} : Zig-zagged. Travellers tend to visit only the Starport but there is often a whole civilization on that planet. Many systems remain unsettled because with jump drive it can often take no longer to get to the neighboring star system then to the outer planets, leaving the outer worlds barren(and a good place for adventures). Then too, some planets just have one small settlement on them and are therefore literally a planetville.

* {{Planetville}}: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig Zagged]]. While many planets have [[JustifiedTrope only one city of interest to starfarers]] they often have a highly developed civilizations and complex local politics that has only tangential relation with interstellar goings-on. Except at those times when it's a PlanetOfHats. All more or less peacefully coexist, as based upon the needs of the tabletop game. Some planets are so sparsely settled that they actually do have no more then a single settlement or outpost on them. In this case the trope would be justified as the rest of the planet is wilderness.

* SweetPollyOliver : Both Aslan and Sword Worlders have elaborate rules for this. On such occasions when a Sword Worlder desires a masculine vocation she is expected to dress and act like a male(in the cultural sense, not the biological presumably) while engaged in it. This is allowed when home obligations do not interfere, notably in a wealthy female who can hire servants. Such females are called "nontraditional" in canon, which is a misnomer as it actually is a tradition, just rarely enacted one. In the case of Aslan females sometimes become this when there are no male heirs; if they do they are obligated to vow celibacy and perform male duties and are addressed as males rather then females. In both of these cases it is a traditional arrangement to allow for a rare circumstance rather then a disguise.

** If you consider roughly 150 years from now to be only a few generations that is. But the justification does work well enough for the purpose and is somewhat more believable then 3000 years from now having the same culture as the players.

* ''[=MegaTraveller=]'' (1987-92): An update to the original rule system, complete with a {{metaplot}} shift involving the collapse of the [[TheFederation Imperium]].
* ''Traveller: The New Era'' (1993-95): A [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] take on the original setting, with options for almost-original flavour and an entirely new system.
* The timeline has been continued with ''Traveller 1248'', a series of systemless sourcebooks by Comstar Games, now [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes out of print]] since Comstar lost the licence.

* ''Marc Miller's Traveller'' aka ''Traveller 4'' (1996-98): "Pocket Empires" is quite highly regarded by players interested in the economics of the setting, which as trading is often a major part of the game isn't as esoteric a concern as it may seem.

** The Imperial Nobility acts as a glue to keep the Imperium together. In effect rather then being an ethnic empire(I.E. the ''Roman'' empire, etc), it is a caste-based empire and the nobility is the central cadre.
*** Not only that, a state the size of the Imperium could not possibly find high command by merit alone as everyone would die before getting to high enough position. If there is to be an Imperium, there has to be a caste system.

* HeGotBetter: It was Emperor Strephon's double that Dulinor killed, but Strephon had no real way to prove this and he eventually dropped his claim to the throne to try to protect those who did believe him. It didn't work.

* TechnologyLevels: TropeMaker, at least for [[TabletopRPG the medium.]] [=TLs=] may look implausible if taken literally. The Sourcebooks imply that exactly the same technology evolves in planets that sometimes have different conditions and no connection. However, using [=TLs=] as a base a clever GM can construct something more believable. [=MegaTraveller=]'s "World Builder's Handbook" introduced the idea that a world may have different [=TLs=] for different areas of science and engineering, and a similar system was adopted by ''{{GURPS}} Traveller'''s "First In" sourcebook.

* FramingDevice: the {{Backstory}} to Traveller acts as this. Traveller can easily be used as Fan-fic as well as RPGs and manages remarkable development while retaining flexibility.

* RoyalDecree: An Imperial Warrant. Issued in important circumstances to a holder who has the power to override precedent according to the framework written out by the Emperor. Archduke Norris used one to reorganize the Imperial forces and retake the initiative during the Fifth Frontier War.

* TeleportInterdictipn: In the classic adventure ''Broadsword'', a unit of Zhodani Commandos tries to teleport aboard the title ship in order to capture it. The crew must prevent this by filling unoccupied parts of the ship with solid material so the Zhodani can't use them as a teleport location.

* [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression The Coup of Earthly Aggression]]: Played with. Toward the end of the Intersteller Wars, the constitution of the Terran Confederation became obsolete because PlanetTerra had conquered and [[YouWillBeAssimilated assimilated]] so many worlds that PlanetTerra could no longer be considered [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse the center of the confederation]]. When no one could solve the problem, a naval coup took place instituting the Second Imperium.
** The Long Night could be an aversion. There is no mention of a mass rebellion per se; the Second Imperium just disintegrated.

* CulturalPosturing : A large part of the cause of the Interstellar Wars seems to have been a disagreement over whether [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Earth was the center of the universe]] or just an InsignificantLittleBluePlanet.