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Perhaps the original sci-fi role plaing game. Traveller is a series of related science fiction role-playing games, the first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop and subsequent editions by various companies remaining in print to this day. The current edition is produced by Mongoose Publishing.
Originally Traveller was intended to be a system for playing generic space opera themed science fiction adventures, in the same sense that Dungeons & Dragons is a system for generic fantasy adventures. However, a suggested setting called the Third Imperium was detailed with the publication of following supplements and since then this setting has become strongly identified with the game, such that to fans the name Traveller and the Third Imperium are synonymous.
The Traveller rules help construct a far future society that draws inspiration from the Dumarest saga series by E.C. Tubb, the Foundation stories of Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper's Space Viking, Larry Niven's Known Space, Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium, Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League and several other works of science fiction literature. Characters are expected to travel between star systems, engage in battle on the ground and in space, and involve themselves in interstellar economics. Traveller characters are defined less by the need to increase native skill and ability and more by achieving positional advancement in the form of wealth, gadgets, titles and political power. While any version of the game system could be used in many science fiction settings, most published supplements have dealt in some way with the Third Imperium, also sometimes referred to as the Official Traveller Universe, or "OTU".
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