Starfield owes its existence to Traveller, one of the first tabletop RPGs
After more than two decades making fantasy role-playing games and reimagining the Fallout universe, Bethesda Softworks is finally branching out. Starfield is an ambitious space opera that promises over 1,000 worlds to explore. It’s a tale full of adventure, discovery, wonder, and maybe — just maybe — a touch of the divine. But, to hear director and executive producer Todd Howard tell it, the new science fiction epic wouldn’t be the same without the influence of Traveller, the seminal pen-and-paper tabletop role-playing game.
First published by Game Designers’ Workshop in 1977 — just three years after the birth of Dungeons & Dragons — Traveller is still played today. Polygon spoke with several historians about the nature of the game, its origins in tabletop wargaming, and the long shadow it casts in the worlds of video game and tabletop design.
“A lot of people wonder what would happen if Dungeons & Dragons didn’t exist,” said Stu Horvath, founder and publisher of Unwinnable, in an interview with Polygon. His book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground: A Guide to Tabletop Roleplaying Games from D&D to Mothership is due out in October from MIT Press. “Would role-playing games still happen?
“I think that role-playing games were sort of inevitable,” Horvath continued. “I think that there were a lot of moving parts in the field at the time that were driving toward this sort of game, and I think that if TSR didn’t do it [then] Game Designers’ Workshop would have probably [made] the first role-playing game with Traveller.”
Traveller takes place in humanity’s distant future, where ambitious entrepreneurs and adventurers make their way among the stars. The game itself is open-ended, with players free to roam a galaxy of
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