Diehard fan of 46-year-old RPG explains why it's so important to Starfield, and I'm sold
According to Todd Howard, Starfield was in part inspired by a '70s tabletop RPG called Traveller, and fans of both Bethesda and classic pen-and-paper games have finally started breaking down what that means for the upcoming game.
Back in October last year, a brief official Q&A with creative director Todd Howard broke down some of Starfield's biggest influences. Howard went very old school, citing a 1984 Apple II game called SunDog: Frozen Legacy, as well as Traveller, a tabletop sci-fi RPG originally published in 1977 in the wake of the rising popularity of early Dungeons & Dragons. There've been many editions of Traveller since then, but Howard said he was inspired by the original to start programming an adaptation that was sadly never finished.
As an occasional tabletop fan with basically no familiarity with anything that landed prior to D&D 3.5, I've been immensely curious what Traveller's influence really means for Starfield, but digging into a new TTRPG is a time investment I haven't been able to make. Luckily, an experienced game master who goes by pheanox and has "been running non-stop Traveller games for over three years now" has given the rest of the community a lesson in its potential influence.
The full Reddit post (opens in new tab) is well worth your time, but to start summarizing the highlights, Traveller is built on skills rather than classes, and you power up those skills by using them. It certainly seems likely that's been an influence on Bethesda for years, since it's exactly how skills have worked through much of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. Starfield skills appear to be using a combination of this leveling system and challenges to guide your improvement.
Traveller also has you choose a career
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