Happy 37th birthday, *Traveller*!

[Proteus]

According to my calendar, it was on this day in 1977 that a certain pivotal SF RPG began....

[Drifter]

Well, then Happy Birthday Traveller!

What is a good way to celebrate? Aside from playing that is? Tuesday isn't a good gaming day.

[stefanj]

I attended the ORIGINS where it was released!

I confess to passing on it that day. I did buy a copy of TRIPLANETARY, which I still have.

[Toltrin]

Is Travelers older than D&D?

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Toltrin

Is Travelers older than D&D?

The first D&D set came out in 1974. It was boxed with 3 booklets, setting the standard for Traveller. AD&D came out in 1977, with the oversized hard cover books.

I'd like to know how much D&D influenced Traveller. Obviously the physical layout was an inspiration, even if the Traveller books just looked a lot cooler with that minimal, black design. But I wonder if the concept was sort of an "answer" to fantasy role playing, or if it had been stewing in Marc Miller's brain for a while.

I've read where D&D came out of historic miniatures tabletop combat, itself derived from actual Prussian war games used to teach military concepts. Its not a big leap from historic miniatures of German troops to fantasy miniatures of orc troops, then wondering about how to combat orcs on a level like in popular novels. I wonder if that was the same for Traveller, or if it had the intermediate step of looking at D&D and saying instead of fantasy, why can't we do this with science fiction?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Drifter

I've read where D&D came out of historic miniatures tabletop combat

If you're interested in the origins of wargames and D&D, I'd recommend Jon Peterson's "Playing At The World". Packed away at the moment, or I'd pull it down to see what it has to say about Traveller.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Toltrin

Is Travelers older than D&D?

D&D was early 1974. It was in the 3 little books format. (half-letter sized - 5.5x8.5.)
1975 sees Tunnels & Trolls and Empire of the Petal Throne
1976 sees Metamorphosis Alpha and then Starfaring.
Traveller and RuneQuest are GenCon 1977.

A half dozen other titles of little publicity also date to this same era.
Some consider the 1975 tabletop narrative game, En Garde (GDW) to be a Role Playing Game.

Other games as well didn't gain even the traction that T&T did (and half of gamers still have never heard of it, despite being continuously available new in print since 1975 from distributors with the exception of about 1 year - summer 2004 to summer 2005)

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by Drifter

. . .
I've read where D&D came out of historic miniatures tabletop combat, . . .

Although D&D developed from fantasy miniatures combat (which was inspired by historical miniatures combat), a contributing inspiration was informal role-playing: childhood games such as cops and robbers, cowboys and indigenous people,* and other kinds of "playing pretend". Just as miniatures war-gaming formalizes games such as playing war with green plastic army men with printed rules, role-playing games formalize role-playing with printed rules.

* As kids we had less polite terms for indigenous people.