Rules

Why Traveller Rules?

Traveller has been a gold standard for decades, giving players freedom, unpredictability, and enough complexity to make planning your next interstellar heist both terrifying and exhilarating.

We loved the core ideas and wanted to blend them into our FPS/RPG hybrid:

  • Skills that actually matter in gameplay
  • Careers and life paths that shape your backstory
  • Risk, reward, and yes… the occasional life-or-death dice roll

Character Creation – More Than Just Stats

Players will start by creating a character through careers and life events:

  1. Choose Your Career Path
    Examples in AD Galaxy Traveler include:
    • Military Officer
    • Asteroid Miner
    • Scout/Courier
    • Agent/Spy
    • Merchant or Trader

Each path gives skills, bonuses, and potential mishaps that shape your journey. 

  1. Roll for Attributes
    Traveller-inspired attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Social, and Education) are assigned via dice rolls.

These will affect combat, crafting, and even dialogue outcomes.

  1. Events & Mishaps
    Each career path comes with a 2D6 event table.

You might:

  • Get stranded on a frozen asteroid
  • Make a dangerous enemy
  • Discover a rare alien artifact

Some are hilarious, some deadly — all of them make your story unique.

 Skills & Combat Integration

Skills now matter in both RPG and FPS contexts. For example:

  • Gun Combat: Increases accuracy and unlocks special weapon techniques
  • Piloting: Helps navigate spacecraft and avoid catastrophic crashes
  • Engineering: Repair ships, hack doors, or jury-rig alien tech
  • Bribery: Persuade NPCs, lower prices, or manipulate factions

Combat rolls will be influenced by dice-based skill checks, blending FPS reflexes with RPG strategy.

Life Paths: More Than a Backstory

One of the coolest Traveller mechanics is the “Life Path” system:

  • Characters gain unique background stories, contacts, and benefits depending on career history
  • Example: A former Scout/Courier might have hidden smuggling routes, while a Merchant has secret trade connections
  • Random events during character creation can drastically change stats or relationships

It ensures every player starts with a story, not just a gun.

Next Steps

This week, the team will:

  • Finish balancing skill check mechanics with FPS gameplay
  • Roll up the first sample characters and run playtest scenarios
  • Integrate the mishap/event tables into the tutorial missions
  • Begin designing UI elements for career choices and skill rolls

Basically, the galaxy is about to get more interactive, dangerous, and hilarious.

Final Thoughts on the Rules

This week marks the point where AD Galaxy Traveler stops being just a shooter and starts feeling like a living, breathing RPG universe.

Traveller-inspired rules will add unpredictability, player choice, and moments that will make you laugh, cry, or rage-quit your first spaceship flight.

So, roll your dice wisely, space adventurers. The universe isn’t waiting… and neither should you.