# The Fantasy: D&D vs Traveller tags: #thoughts #game/rpg/dnd #game/rpg/traveller Man, I've been writing a lot lately about **[[Traveller]]**. I'm not sure what it is, but it's definitely on my mind. Like always, serendipity is looking out for me, and yesterday, a tweet crossed my path, and I thought it really needed to be responded to. But I've been thinking about it all night. I realized it also needs to be rescued from the ephemeral tides of Twitter and put someplace with a little more permanency. So, without further ado:  I think this whole thing starts with an invalid assertion. The fantasy of **[[Dungeons and Dragons|D&D]]** is not being a mighty warrior who vanquishes his enemies with physical force. There are cunning thieves who sneak around and put knives to throats. There are holy men who beseech the gods for their favor. There are mighty wizards who hurl spheres of pure flame and burn cities to the ground. There are a lot of power fantasies in **D&D**. Of all the things I can criticize about **D&D**, the multitude of ways to approach the power fantasy is *not* one of them. **Traveller** provides an entirely different power fantasy. And yes, it *is* still a power fantasy. There is the fantasy of being able to travel freely, unfettered, from world to world. The fantasy of being able to interact with aliens, people who are entirely unlike you—not necessarily to dominate them through raw force, but to use cunning, wit, persuasion, and the leverage of trade to get what you want. There's a big authority out there—the Third Imperium (most of the time). But you aren't it, and it's not there for you. You are the last line of defense for yourself. Maybe sometimes you work for them. Most of the time, you don't. You're out there in places where help is not readily available. In fact, you are the help when people have problems. You're there with your ship, your smarts, probably a gun, and maybe, if you've been successful, some power armor. But it's you and the rest of the cosmos. Kingdoms are beneath you. Worlds spin beneath your feet in a very literal way. **Traveller** is not about being a bottom-level scrub, scrabbling for your next payday any more than **D&D** is about being the kind of loser that has to go in and clean up sewers of rats so that you can buy a few nights at the inn and maybe a pint of swill before you head back down to a cave where you'll probably die. It's not about that. It's never about that. It's about the dream of the character. The dream of the **D&D** character is to be powerful in and of himself, to swing his sword, to beseech his god, to throw lightning from his fingertips, to move beyond being a dirty little scrub that cleans out sewers from rats. The dream of the **Traveller** character is to be a mighty trader, perhaps even leading or commanding or just ordering his own fleet, to dwell in luxury in a flying castle that can go from world to world on a whim, with people that come to him asking for his help, whether it be direct intervention or just because he can get them what they need all the time. *That's* the power fantasy. That's the dream. That's the character. Frankly, it's a little reflective of the lack of imagination not to see all of that and appreciate all of that. But this is the internet. It's not my first rodeo. ## Addenda Thinking about this further and enjoying my thoughts. I would say that the dream of the **Traveller** character is all of that and more. The far fantasy of the character is to be a **[[Warhammer 40k]]** *Rogue Trader*, commanding fleets, governing their own planets, and free from the dictates of other powers—going where they want, doing what they want, enjoying what they want. And that's okay. That's great. That is a worthy fantasy. And it definitely strikes me as people trying to overcompensate for their lack of grand imagination to denigrate it. But that's just me.