Dice. Paper. Pen. Imagination.

While rooting around inside some boxes in my garage a few days ago, I found my Traveller books. I've owned them for nearly 30 years. Somehow, from high school to the Air Force to the private sector, from England to Mississippi, Turkey, Las Vegas, Portland, and about a dozen different houses and apartments around the Puget Sound, I've managed to keep these books. It was one of my favorite games when I was in high school. To be perfectly honest, I haven't played a game since then, yet I just can't let the books get away from me. I had a lot of fun playing this game, and it's still fun even without the game play. That's why I've kept them around all these years.

My well-worn books

Traveller is a paper-and-pencil role playing game very similar to Dungeons & Dragons except that it takes place in space in the distant future. Marc Miller created it for Game Designers Workshop, and it was first released in 1977. Players create characters, a referee provides a milieu for the players to adventure in, and all that's necessary is some paper, two six-sided dice, a pen and everyone's imagination. Traveller does have some interesting differences from D&D, however. In D&D, characters begin with no experience, earning it as they adventure. In Traveller, the character is generated, then undergoes an entire career, usually within some branch of the military, before the game even begins. This means that most characters are middle-aged before they even begin adventuring.

The game originally came in a box with three books: character generation, ship creation and game play. Character generation is so in-depth and sophisticated, it really feels like a real person is taking shape. In fact, I delayed writing this article for a couple of days because I was having so much fun generating new characters. Will he get in the service I want? Will he survive his enlistment? Will he get a commission or a promotion? Does he reenlist? What skills will he learn? And then what will the character do after mustering out? Does he have a spaceship? Does he go into business? Which side of the law does he come down on? If he doesn't have a spaceship, does he sign on as crew on a shady cargo ship? The possibilities are only limited by my imagination. And that's why I've never let go of these books.