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This is Free Trader Beowulf: a System History of Traveller
296 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 12, 2024
How can someone know this much about one game? In fact, how can there be this much stuff to know about one game? The history of Traveller is as sprawling and complex as the universe(s) that forms its setting. I had the original black books as a kid and I had no idea how much had happened in the intervening decades. This is an amazing work of scholarship.
September 5, 2025
Game historian Shannon Appelcline delivers a complete history of Traveller, the science fiction role playing game that started in 1977 and has survived, in one form or another, nearly 50 years so far. Yes, that is the correct spelling, and it's not a game about Robert E. Lee's famous horse.
This is a history of the game and the companies that published it. It touches on other products from those companies and sidebars go further into games of that era, from those designers, and also products planned but not released. In addition to the game, the history of the universe is touched on from multiple angles - the Imperium, assassinations, and the like. Especially welcome are maps of each era showing where various adventures took place, and checklists of the many publications over the years.
This work does not dive into the nitty gritty of the evolving game system, and that's fine. For most readers, it would be a little too much information. For the rest of us, there are plenty of other resources to read further. I own many little black books (and the box set) and have been a fan of Traveller since the beginning. Was really glad when the authors released nearly all the materials on CD ROM and later as PDFs.
Not sure this is a book that one could read through in one sitting, but I didn't - it was on my tablet for most of the last month, and it was fun to read for the entire time. In the future I'll compare my collection to the checklists, and maybe run a game in this new Mongoose system, which looks pretty fun. This history is well worth reading and referring back to!
This is a history of the game and the companies that published it. It touches on other products from those companies and sidebars go further into games of that era, from those designers, and also products planned but not released. In addition to the game, the history of the universe is touched on from multiple angles - the Imperium, assassinations, and the like. Especially welcome are maps of each era showing where various adventures took place, and checklists of the many publications over the years.
This work does not dive into the nitty gritty of the evolving game system, and that's fine. For most readers, it would be a little too much information. For the rest of us, there are plenty of other resources to read further. I own many little black books (and the box set) and have been a fan of Traveller since the beginning. Was really glad when the authors released nearly all the materials on CD ROM and later as PDFs.
Not sure this is a book that one could read through in one sitting, but I didn't - it was on my tablet for most of the last month, and it was fun to read for the entire time. In the future I'll compare my collection to the checklists, and maybe run a game in this new Mongoose system, which looks pretty fun. This history is well worth reading and referring back to!
July 14, 2025
Back in 1977, Game Designers' Workshop released a curious black box emblazed with a line of dialogue: "This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone...Mayday, mayday, we are under attack...main drive is gone...turret number one not responding...mayday...losing cabin pressure fast...calling anyone...please help...this is Free Trader Beowulf...mayday." Underneath, in striking red on a black background, was the name TRAVELLER, which we were told means, "Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future."
Traveller is to science fiction what Dungeons & Dragons is to fantasy: an in-depth, rich roleplaying game which allows players to take on one of a myriad of roles, from soldier to explorer to engineer to medic to socialite, and explore the galaxy of a distant future. Players and Referees can create their own worlds, star systems and areas of space, or use an incredibly-detailed setting with almost fifty years of worldbuilding and detailing behind it, the Charted Space of the Third Imperium in (roughly) the year 5626 CE. Thanks to the stewardship of Mongoose Publishing and the popularity of YouTubers like Seth Skorkowsky, Traveller is enjoying possibly the greatest level of popularity in its history, with high sales and successful Kickstarters resulting in one of the most prolific release schedules for a contemporary roleplaying game, ally of an unusually high and consistent quality.
But it wasn't always this way. Traveller has enjoyed periods of popularity before but also long hiatuses due to publishing problems, companies going bust and licences being moved around. For the first time, someone has attempted to tell the full history of the Traveller roleplaying game from its inception to the present. Shannon Appelcline is best-known for his magisterial four-volume Designers & Dragons series, which tells the story of roleplaying games from the 1970s to the 2000s (a forthcoming fifth volume will cover the 2010s). Here he takes that wide-ranging focus and here narrows in on one game and tells its full history over a generous page count of 300 A4 pages. It's entirely possible that no roleplaying game, except maybe Dungeons & Dragons, has had its story told in such detail before.
The book is divided into 14 chapters, exploring each edition and sub-edition of Traveller in a lot of detail, with additional chapters on various licensed producers of material and the history of the fandom. The early chapters cover the founding of Game Designers' Workshop and the early development of the game, created by Marc Miller, with sterling support from the likes of Loren Wiseman, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman and many more. There's discussion of the differences between Traveller and other SF games, in particular its strong focus on a hard science fictional approach (hyperjumps aside) rather than the science fantasy of the likes of Gamma World, Starfinder and Star Wars. There's also some interesting discussion on the early tension between those who wanted Traveller to remain a setting-less rules system and those who wanted to develop a detailed setting; the latter won the argument, very quickly. Appelcline's enviable industry-ranging knowledge means he can also contrast Traveller's position in the industry at any given time versus contemporaries, so we get frequent check-ins with what D&D was doing, what other games were coming out and what the trends were in gaming.
This is all accomplished in impressive depth. A lot of these kind of books can feel superficial, but This is Free Trader Beowulf certainly does not. Appelcline goes above and beyond the call of duty in referencing third-party sourcebooks and licences, and getting art from the most obscure corners of the fandom and the franchise, and setting it all in the context of the wider industry. He notes how Traveller's history impacted not only itself, but also other games, such as Warhammer 40,000, BattleTech (FASA started as a licensed Traveller production company), Stars Without Number and Alternity, and how its lifepath system inspired Cyberpunk, the darker tone of which inspired (for good or ill) Traveller's "darker and grittier" period as MegaTraveller and Traveller: The New Era. This era is when GDW learned that building up a beloved, detailed setting and annihilating it will not win you goodwill from the fans, something both Wizards of Coast and Games Workshop failed to learn from later on.
Appelcline's attention to detail extends to providing regular maps of various sectors in Charted Space showing where the various adventures released in one era take place relative to one another, as well as possibly the most exhaustive checklists of Traveller products ever put together, covering not just official releases but also licensed sourcebooks and even individual issues of fanzines.
The book has less art than I was expecting. It still has a lot of imagery, including iconic images from the various game editions, but rarely full-page spreads. This is not an art book in the same way that Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana is, for example. The focus here is on the text and incomparable detail.
Appelcline's writing is engaging and detailed, with occasional bursts of wry humour as he considers the sometimes preposterous swings of fortune that accompany the history of the game and its various editions. I was a bit surprised to see that Courtney Solomon, who directed the risible D&D movie released in 2000, at one point owned a stake in Traveller's main licensee. At other points, a Traveller TV show was under development, and multiple video games (though only three ever saw the light of day). Fortunately, the story of Traveller never gets really dark as Marc Miller was very careful in maintaining ownership of the franchise and, whenever a business decision looked like getting totally out of hand, he'd pull the licence. Several times, this stopped Traveller from going under or getting stuck in development hell. If the book has a weakness, it's an unavoidable one in that it was published just a few months before Marc Miller sold the Traveller IP in its totality to Mongoose, finally satisfied (after a mere sixteen years of proven hard work!) that he had found a company who would do his vision and legacy justice. This would have provided a stronger ending to the book.
If the book has a weakness it might be that it's too detailed, though given that's the point of the book, that's like going to a Chinese restaurant and complaining the menu is a bit heavy on noodles and rice. But the richness and completeness makes the book as successful as it is. Another weakness is a couple of glaring typos that slipped through the net, but this is not a major problem.
This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller (****½) is simply the last word on the history of the world's oldest hard(ish) science fiction roleplaying game, and one of its most consistently popular TTRPGs. The wealth of detail may make this a bit more appreciable for hardened Traveller veterans rather than newcomers, but this is still an impressive, richly interesting work. The book is available now from Mongoose Publishing as PDF and print editions.
Traveller is to science fiction what Dungeons & Dragons is to fantasy: an in-depth, rich roleplaying game which allows players to take on one of a myriad of roles, from soldier to explorer to engineer to medic to socialite, and explore the galaxy of a distant future. Players and Referees can create their own worlds, star systems and areas of space, or use an incredibly-detailed setting with almost fifty years of worldbuilding and detailing behind it, the Charted Space of the Third Imperium in (roughly) the year 5626 CE. Thanks to the stewardship of Mongoose Publishing and the popularity of YouTubers like Seth Skorkowsky, Traveller is enjoying possibly the greatest level of popularity in its history, with high sales and successful Kickstarters resulting in one of the most prolific release schedules for a contemporary roleplaying game, ally of an unusually high and consistent quality.
But it wasn't always this way. Traveller has enjoyed periods of popularity before but also long hiatuses due to publishing problems, companies going bust and licences being moved around. For the first time, someone has attempted to tell the full history of the Traveller roleplaying game from its inception to the present. Shannon Appelcline is best-known for his magisterial four-volume Designers & Dragons series, which tells the story of roleplaying games from the 1970s to the 2000s (a forthcoming fifth volume will cover the 2010s). Here he takes that wide-ranging focus and here narrows in on one game and tells its full history over a generous page count of 300 A4 pages. It's entirely possible that no roleplaying game, except maybe Dungeons & Dragons, has had its story told in such detail before.
The book is divided into 14 chapters, exploring each edition and sub-edition of Traveller in a lot of detail, with additional chapters on various licensed producers of material and the history of the fandom. The early chapters cover the founding of Game Designers' Workshop and the early development of the game, created by Marc Miller, with sterling support from the likes of Loren Wiseman, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman and many more. There's discussion of the differences between Traveller and other SF games, in particular its strong focus on a hard science fictional approach (hyperjumps aside) rather than the science fantasy of the likes of Gamma World, Starfinder and Star Wars. There's also some interesting discussion on the early tension between those who wanted Traveller to remain a setting-less rules system and those who wanted to develop a detailed setting; the latter won the argument, very quickly. Appelcline's enviable industry-ranging knowledge means he can also contrast Traveller's position in the industry at any given time versus contemporaries, so we get frequent check-ins with what D&D was doing, what other games were coming out and what the trends were in gaming.
This is all accomplished in impressive depth. A lot of these kind of books can feel superficial, but This is Free Trader Beowulf certainly does not. Appelcline goes above and beyond the call of duty in referencing third-party sourcebooks and licences, and getting art from the most obscure corners of the fandom and the franchise, and setting it all in the context of the wider industry. He notes how Traveller's history impacted not only itself, but also other games, such as Warhammer 40,000, BattleTech (FASA started as a licensed Traveller production company), Stars Without Number and Alternity, and how its lifepath system inspired Cyberpunk, the darker tone of which inspired (for good or ill) Traveller's "darker and grittier" period as MegaTraveller and Traveller: The New Era. This era is when GDW learned that building up a beloved, detailed setting and annihilating it will not win you goodwill from the fans, something both Wizards of Coast and Games Workshop failed to learn from later on.
Appelcline's attention to detail extends to providing regular maps of various sectors in Charted Space showing where the various adventures released in one era take place relative to one another, as well as possibly the most exhaustive checklists of Traveller products ever put together, covering not just official releases but also licensed sourcebooks and even individual issues of fanzines.
The book has less art than I was expecting. It still has a lot of imagery, including iconic images from the various game editions, but rarely full-page spreads. This is not an art book in the same way that Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana is, for example. The focus here is on the text and incomparable detail.
Appelcline's writing is engaging and detailed, with occasional bursts of wry humour as he considers the sometimes preposterous swings of fortune that accompany the history of the game and its various editions. I was a bit surprised to see that Courtney Solomon, who directed the risible D&D movie released in 2000, at one point owned a stake in Traveller's main licensee. At other points, a Traveller TV show was under development, and multiple video games (though only three ever saw the light of day). Fortunately, the story of Traveller never gets really dark as Marc Miller was very careful in maintaining ownership of the franchise and, whenever a business decision looked like getting totally out of hand, he'd pull the licence. Several times, this stopped Traveller from going under or getting stuck in development hell. If the book has a weakness, it's an unavoidable one in that it was published just a few months before Marc Miller sold the Traveller IP in its totality to Mongoose, finally satisfied (after a mere sixteen years of proven hard work!) that he had found a company who would do his vision and legacy justice. This would have provided a stronger ending to the book.
If the book has a weakness it might be that it's too detailed, though given that's the point of the book, that's like going to a Chinese restaurant and complaining the menu is a bit heavy on noodles and rice. But the richness and completeness makes the book as successful as it is. Another weakness is a couple of glaring typos that slipped through the net, but this is not a major problem.
This is Free Trader Beowulf: A System History of Traveller (****½) is simply the last word on the history of the world's oldest hard(ish) science fiction roleplaying game, and one of its most consistently popular TTRPGs. The wealth of detail may make this a bit more appreciable for hardened Traveller veterans rather than newcomers, but this is still an impressive, richly interesting work. The book is available now from Mongoose Publishing as PDF and print editions.
August 22, 2025
The venerable Traveller roleplaying game has been a fixture of the sci-fi roleplaying field for nearly five decades. My father played Traveller's original edition growing up in the 1980s; decades later, the manuals he passed down to me inspired me to begin a long-running Traveller campaign with my friends in the 2010s. Appelcline writes a comprehensive history of this rpg centering on its often stormy development across numerous publishers and roughly 7 editions. At times, the Traveller brand suffers due to fluctuations affecting the rpg market as a whole, such as the general downturn of the 1990s due to competition from Magic: The Gathering; at others, editions come to a premature end due to publishers' or designers' missteps or disregard for the fan community.
This book will be of interest only to those with a particular interest in Traveller, but it's a solid work of historical scholarship, albeit focusing solely on the development, commercial success, and fan communities of this particular roleplaying game. At times, I was frustrated by the author's decision not to elaborate further on particular in-universe terms or plot decisions, and the prose at times can read like a catalog of designers' names and products' publication dates. Nonetheless, This is Free Trader Beowulf is a quite respectable achievement that sheds light on the evolution of a long-running player in the rpg world and a remarkably dedicated fan community which remains vibrant to this day.
This book will be of interest only to those with a particular interest in Traveller, but it's a solid work of historical scholarship, albeit focusing solely on the development, commercial success, and fan communities of this particular roleplaying game. At times, I was frustrated by the author's decision not to elaborate further on particular in-universe terms or plot decisions, and the prose at times can read like a catalog of designers' names and products' publication dates. Nonetheless, This is Free Trader Beowulf is a quite respectable achievement that sheds light on the evolution of a long-running player in the rpg world and a remarkably dedicated fan community which remains vibrant to this day.
November 4, 2024
An excellent history of Traveller. From its origins, through its various incarnations, to its current run under Mongoose Publishing. This is one of the histories that I already knew a great deal of, but it still filled in a lot of details, context, and clarified timelines. If you are familiar with the author's Designers & Dragons series, then you have a good idea of what to expect here, just with a deeper dive into a single game line rather than a focus on the publisher.
In addition to the histories are checklists of published products for those who collect, sidebars on "what could have been" listing unpublished products, and brief looks at the larger roleplaying industry to put the different eras of the game into context.
An addition that I truly appreciated is that, while the author still seems to be allergic to footnotes, they do have an extensive listing of references at the end of each chapter! I can't really express how happy this made me.
A solid recommendation for any fan of the game, or student of the history of tabletop RPGs.
In addition to the histories are checklists of published products for those who collect, sidebars on "what could have been" listing unpublished products, and brief looks at the larger roleplaying industry to put the different eras of the game into context.
An addition that I truly appreciated is that, while the author still seems to be allergic to footnotes, they do have an extensive listing of references at the end of each chapter! I can't really express how happy this made me.
A solid recommendation for any fan of the game, or student of the history of tabletop RPGs.
June 3, 2025
Un libro fascinante con la historia de uno de los juegos de rol más emblemáticos que existen. Aún cuando nunca he jugado Traveller, está tan presente en la mente de cualquier jugador por la cantidad de iteraciones y lo rico de su historia. Traveller fue el primer juego en muchas cosas, y aunque ha tenido una vida llena de altibajos, leyendo este libro se entiende que tiene mucha vida por delante y siempre la tendrá porque ha creado un universo infinito que es alimentado y cultivado por sus fans. Gran libro, Shannon Appelcline nunca defrauda.
June 14, 2025
Exhaustive.
Bad for your financial health. Delete your noble knight, drivethru, and mongoose, for a start.
Bad for your financial health. Delete your noble knight, drivethru, and mongoose, for a start.
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