Friday Faction: This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller

“This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone … Mayday, Mayday.” are the most famous lines in Science Fiction roleplaying and quite some of the most lines in roleplaying, first appearing as the strapline on the black and white and red box that contained the what become the famous ‘Little Black Books’ for the roleplaying game, Traveller, when it went on sale on July 22, 1977, at the Origins III Game Fair. Not the hobby’s first Science Fiction roleplaying game, that would be TSR, Inc.’s Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship, or indeed the second, which would be Starfaring, published by Flying Buffalo, Inc., both published the previous year. However, Traveller would be the first Science Fiction roleplaying game to have an impact upon the hobby, the first roleplaying to explore the concept of a metaplot upon a whole game line, and as we approach 2027, the oldest Science Fiction roleplaying game to be in print and to have remained in print in one edition or another for nearly all of those fifty years. It is these past four decades—and a bit—of Traveller history that are explored in This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller.

This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller is written by the author of Designers & Dragons and is a described as ‘A Designers & Dragons System History’. Published by Mongoose Publishing—the current publisher of Traveller—it takes the reader from the late fifties to the twenty-twenties in recounting the story of the many editions and designers of Traveller, from the 1977 ‘Little Black Books’ of Classic Traveller to the 2013 Traveller⁵ from Far Future Enterprises to the 2016 Traveller, Second Edition from Mongoose Publishing. The origins lie—as much of early roleplaying does—in the wargaming hobby, first in designs from Avalon Hill, but then in GDW’s own wargames and its Science Fiction board games such as Imperium and Dark Nebula. Elements of these Science Fiction board games would eventually be incorporated into the Charted Space setting that would eventually become the setting for Traveller.

The first five years of Traveller’s history very much involves its original creators and developers, but after that, thanks to the largesse of the its creator, Mark Miller, the roleplaying game and its setting begins to be developed by other publishers and creators—FASA, Paranoia Press, Gamelords, and others—most notably brothers, J. Andrew Keith and William H. Keith Jr. This is where the book is at its most interesting examining the influence of others upon Traveller and its development, most notably by the staff of Digest Group Publications, first through their fanzine, The Traveller Digest, followed by supplements that they would publish themselves and those they would write and develop for GDW. If it was not quite as obvious at the time, it is made clear that the relationship between GDW and Digest Group Publications was very strong, the latter effectively serving as a design house for the latter. Equally as interesting is the exploration of the response to Traveller and its development by its fandom, especially to the major changes wrought in the latter editions of Traveller published by GDW. First with MegaTraveller and the assassination of Emperor Strephon and its repercussions, and second, with its most far-reaching repercussion, Traveller: The New Era. This takes the reader deep into the development and complexities of the History of the Imperium Working Group, out of which would grow the next writers and developers to Traveller.

Part of the conceit of This is Free Trader Beowulf is that as much as it explores the history of Traveller and its setting of Charted Space, it maps that history onto the structure of the book. In the timeline of Charted Space, the period of economic collapse between the Rule of Man and the foundation of the Third Imperium is known as the Long Night, inspired by the collapse and subsequent interregnum detailed in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, but in This is Free Trader Beowulf, the Long Night is the decade between 1998 and 2007 following the collapse of Marc Miller’s Traveller or T4. Much like the collapse of the Third Imperium and Asimov’s Galactic Empire, support for Traveller in the early twenty-first century collapsed into Pocket Empires, each specialising in different treatments of the intellectual property. Thus, it collapses from one history into several—GURPS Traveller from Steve Jackson Games which kept Emperor Strephon and the Third Imperium alive, QuikLink Interactive which developed Traveler T20 based on the d20 System, Comstar Games and Avenger Enterprises which pushed the history of Charted Space even further into the future the 1248 Sourcebook 1: Out of the Darkness, and even another ruleset with Traveller Hero. Yet like the Long Night and the Pocket Empires that hung on, their history is swept away with the coming of Mongoose Publishing, which 2007 has been the publisher of Traveller, bringing about as This is Free Trader Beowulf alludes, a new golden era of content and support for both the roleplaying game and Charted Space. It ends the history on a hopeful tone, noting that Mark Miller is still creating his own content with Traveller⁵ in parallel with the extensive support from Mongoose Publishing.

Throughout, with every era, ‘A View From The Industry’ gives context into which each new version of Traveller is published, paying particular attention to the state of Science Fiction roleplaying, whilst ‘What Could Have Been’ details different roleplaying games, supplements, scenarios, rulesets, and board games which might have been, had things been different. Then, as a reference, every chapter in This is Free Trader Beowulf concludes with its own list of main references—the latter consisting of URLs, original sources, maps that mark the locations of various scenarios, and more. There is a checklist too of titles released, useful, no doubt, for the collector.

However, it does feel odd that This is Free Trader Beowulf, as a history of Traveller, was published in 2024 rather in 2023, which would have been the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of GDW, or in 2027, which would have marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Traveller. Further, the lack of interviews—although many interviews are referenced throughout the book—lends This is Free Trader Beowulf an impersonal air, even a feeling of austerity that dare I say it, echoes that of the original ‘Little Black Books’. That said, if This is Free Trader Beowulf lacks the personal touch, it is never less than clear on what the designers of and contributors to Traveller intended and what they achieved. Perhaps that personal touch might be celebrated for the roleplaying game’s fiftieth anniversary with a book of interviews and retrospectives that could be a welcome companion to This is Free Trader Beowulf?

Nevertheless, This is Free Trader Beowulf is a physically attractive book. The layout is clean and tidy, and it is illustrated with a wide range good art, including individual pieces that date back to the early years of Traveller and all the way to the present, as well as lots and lots of covers from the roleplaying game’s numerous editions and eras. That said, it does need an edit in places, including—amusingly—on the spine.

Of course, the author of This is Free Trader Beowulf has already presented a history of GDW in the pages of the first volume of Designers & Dragons: A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry. Some of that history is repeated here, which is understandable and unavoidable, but This is Free Trader Beowulf is in part, also the history of other publishers and their specific role in keeping Traveller in print, if not always successfully. The combination of the old and the new is a fascinating read, an exploration of the hows and the whys of not just the original contributors, but also the fans and the fans who became contributors. This is Free Trader Beowulf is not book for the casual fan of roleplaying necessarily, and it is possibly too specialised for many players and Game Masters. Whereas, for anyone with an interest in roleplaying history it is a volume that they should have their shelf and for the Traveller fan, it is a volume that they will appreciate above all, exploring as it does both their past and that of the hobby. This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller is the definitive guide to the history of the roleplaying hobby’s most popular and longest running Science Fiction game and certainly lays down a template for other roleplaying games of a similar vintage and varied story.