Since 2007, TravellerCon/USA has delivered a wonderful platform for fans of the Traveller Universe to play their favorite sci-fi role-playing game, plus a ton of great discussions and panels. GiN started covering the show in 2022 and plans to head back for many more.
I personally attended both the 2023 and 2024 conventions. I got to meet show organizer Megan Frye plus the team of Ken Patterson, Patrick Dwyer and Casey O’Donovan. They have really put together a great experience that concentrates on the oldest continuously produced and played sci-fi tabletop RPG. Unlike most tabletop RPGs that concentrate on a magical past that never was, Traveller gives players a rolled up lifepath into a future that could be, one filled with world-hopping adventures.
The 2023 convention really delivered with two amazing panels that included a first ever Referee Forum on the first day and an in-depth look at the fan site used by Traveller players everywhere. The website, which Joshua Bell started working on in 2005, uses the data of the Official Traveller Universe and makes quickly rendered maps for thousands of worlds. It is arguably the most used resource for Traveller both by players and the publishers of the game.
I learned a lot about the Traveller community in that panel and many others since. For example, Joshua Bell, while initially working with Marc Miller and the makers of Traveller 5 to create a common database for the game’s default setting came across a missing world. Bell requested to name a planet after his beloved dog. This became the “near utopian” world of Karnika. Later on, it became part of Mongoose Publishing’s book “The Third Imperium.” This story and more are on his YouTube channel. Bell couldn’t make it this year for TravellerCon/USA, but he provided a coffee station, once again giving selflessly to the players of the game.
Unfortunately, 2023 was also a tough year for show organizer Megan Frye as her husband Keith Frye (the co-founder of TravellerCon/USA) had passed away the previous year. He had developed this convention as a way for her to play Traveller with him. Her friends and many volunteers came together and made this convention happen. In the 2023 convention book, Megan states that “Keith’s biggest desire was that TravellerCon/USA continues on even if he wasn’t at the helm, and I will do my best to fulfill that desire.”
At the most recent 2024 convention, there was another great turnout for the fan run event. This convention is not like many other tabletop RPG gatherings, where multiple games take the stage at a large hub city like New York, London, Philadelphia or Melbourne. There is also no huge corporate staff behind this show. Instead, TravellerCon/USA takes place in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, right in the heart of Amish Country. It only features games and products associated with the sci-fi roleplaying game Traveller and offers great face-to-face adventures with enthusiastic players.
Traveller was designed by Vietnam veteran Marc Miller along with Frank Chadwick, John Harshman and Loren Wiseman at Game Designers’ Workshop. It was first published in 1977, a few years after Dungeons and Dragons and during the same year as the release of Star Wars.
Traveller will be approaching its fiftieth anniversary in 2027, which will be the 20th anniversary of TravellerCon/USA. There are also new Travellercon/USA themes each year. In 2023 the theme was the Far Trader, a popular ship used by adventurers. In 2024 it was the Ancients, the mysterious precursor species who settled the galaxy with humanity.
This was also a big year for Traveller the game as Marc Miller announced he was passing the ownership of Traveller, in its entirety, to Mongoose Publishing. Mongoose, which publishes Paranoia, Shield Maidens, Sea of Thieves and Legend, is known for taking the small little black books (called LBB and 5.5 inches by 8.75) of Traveller and making larger, colorful textbook size offerings with updated rules and themes. Mongoose, hailing from Swindon, England was founded in 2001 and has seen steady growth since then, recently buying the building they had previously leased.
The 2024 convention’s Referees Panel featured two speakers, John Zeigler and Chuck Gannon, who have written for Traveller. Ziegler has written for Steve Jackson Games and their version of GURPS:Traveller. Chuck Gannon has written the Hard Times supplement for MegaTraveller. Gannon is also a novelist best known for his “Tales of the Terran Republic,” two of the books being nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel. They along with Patrick Dwyer really gave some great advice about world creation for the game. They came back for a second panel the next day called “Keeping Your Game Fresh and Interesting for Your Players.”
Megan Frye, when closing the convention this year, thanked those who made adventures for those attending and called for even more to do so as the demand keeps increasing. I noticed that there have been more and more female run games over the three years I’ve been attending and also an increase in the use of miniatures. Next year’s theme will be the Bwap, an alien species who are administrators, bookkeepers and organizers. Frye joked that she felt a kinship with the Bwap as she has played all of those roles for TravellerCon/USA.
If you are looking to try out Traveller with your role-playing group, Mongoose Publishing is offering a free download of the basic game. Try it out so that you will be ready for its 50th anniversary in 2027. Maybe I will see you all there!