2300 AD

Game Designers Workshop (GDW) had created their popular Traveller with themes taken from Space Opera short stories and novels of the 1950s Golden Age of SF. Now GDW wanted to replace Traveller with a game that had a more contemporary hard science fiction edge. They had already published Twilight 2000, a realistic and hard-edged role-playing game set in the year 2000 in the aftermath of an apocalyptic World War III. In 1986, GDW published a new roleplaying game system called Traveller 2300 set 300 years after Twilight 2000.[1] However, the similarity of the names Traveller and Traveller 2300 caused confusion since the new game was entirely separate from Traveller, and used neither Traveller's rules system nor the setting.[2]

To lessen the confusion, in 1988 GDW released an expanded second edition of the game renamed 2300 AD.[2] However, 2300 AD never reached the same level of popularity as Traveller, and while GDW continued to publish new supplements and versions of Traveller, in contrast 2300 AD became only a secondary line, and eventually GDW dropped it.

The game was revived twice, first in 2007 by QuikLink Interactive as a supplement titled 2320 AD for the Traveller20 game (based on the d20 System), and then in 2012 by Mongoose Publishing as a 2300 AD setting sourcebook for their version of Traveller.

The game setting follows on from that of GDW's military role-playing game Twilight: 2000, in which a worldwide conventional war with limited nuclear exchanges at the end of the 20th century nearly brought about the end of civilization. In the intervening three centuries, mankind has rebuilt and returned to space. A Space Elevator orbital interface has been constructed, connecting the city of Libreville, Gabon to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. Also, practical means of faster-than-light (FTL) travel have been discovered, leading to the exploration and colonization of planets orbiting nearby stars. The post-Westphalian nation-state remains dominant, and most space colonies are considered the territories of various nations back on Earth, resembling the European colonial era of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The dominant power, both on Earth and in space, is France, recently reorganized (in 2298) as the Third French Empire, and incorporating much of Africa. France was able to survive the nuclear war relatively unscathed by abandoning its NATO allies and officially withdrawing from hostilities at the start of the Third World War, retaining enough assets and skilled people to develop a significant head-start in the race for postwar rebuilding, political leverage, and technological development. Competing powers include the United Kingdom, Manchuria, Germany, and an alliance between the weakened United States and Australia. All of these control certain extrasolar planets themselves. There are three major lanes of explored space, called Arms, named after the nations which dominate them (the French Arm, the American Arm, and the Chinese Arm). Lesser routes leading off the arms are called "Fingers".

It is still early in mankind's expansion into space, and exploration has reached little beyond 40 light years from Earth. As of the time period of the game, each of the three Arms is saddled with a particular difficulty. The French Arm is the route along which the alien Kafer are pushing an aggressive invasion into human space. The Chinese Arm is beset by an insurgent terrorist faction. The American Arm has reached a dead end, further expansion along it impossible under available technology.

Mankind has met with several intelligent alien civilizations, all of which are decidedly strange and non-human, from the genetically-engineered Pentapods to the reflexively bellicose Kafers.

A faster-than-light device called the Stutterwarp Drive allows mankind to achieve practical travel between planetary systems. Ships can usually reach a speed of 3.5 light years per day; the real limitation of the Stutterwarp drive is that it can only propel a ship up to a maximum of 7.7 light years before it needs to enter a gravity well into which it can discharge accumulated lethal radiation that would otherwise kill the crew. Because ships need to reach a world within this distance, the effect of this limitation is the creation of lanes along which travel and commerce are conducted and along which wars are fought, the Arms mentioned above.

Overall, the technological level of 2300 AD is not significantly more advanced than that of late 20th century industrial society. What is depicted refines or updates established technologies, boosted by a few scientifically reasonable breakthroughs anticipated at the time of the game's publication. The "wonder-tech" of space opera is deliberately absent, with the notable exception of faster-than-light travel. For example, most personal combat is still conducted with guns firing chemically projected rounds even though energy weapons do exist. Also, no sort of gravity manipulation exists, so spaceships must be built to account for micro-gravity conditions, and transferring from orbital space to a planetary surface (or vice versa) is still expensive. The properties and limitations of the Stutterwarp drive and all other technologies are defined in considerable detail, to prevent the use of technological deus-ex-machina to resolve intractable situations.

DNA Modifications (DNAMs) are what colonists would undergo to adapt to life on their respective planets. GDW 2300AD originally had DNAMs for one colony, the high-gravity world of King. Mongoose 2300AD has expanded this so that a DNAM would be configured for each colony. These would involve both internal and external physcial changes that could include DNAMS such as Dry World Adaption where a character would retain all their water and urinate crystals. Another more extreme DNAM is Merman, which enables a person to live underwater.

The following sentient species are known to humans in 2300 AD:

• The awesome and enigmatic AGRA Intelligence
• Ebers (Arbors): confined to one planet in 2300, they once had an interstellar civilization with a presence on at least three other planets, although all that is left of them on those planets are ruins from a destructive war. Mongoose 2300AD altered their name to "Arbors."
• Kafers (Kaefers): the primary adversary species in 2300 AD are humanoids with mandibles and integument similar to some Terran insects and a hard dorsal shell (thus the name derived from German Käfer, "beetle"). Their technological advancement is equivalent to humanity's, including interstellar travel capability. Kafer individuals normally have a low intelligence, approximate to a human IQ of 40. However, in stressful situations, their equivalent to an adrenaline reaction functions as a neural accelerant, pleasurably increasing situational awareness, speed of reasoning, and creativity. The Kafers feel most alive when in danger, and are, in effect, addicted to it. The more often an individual Kafer experiences stress-induced intelligence, the more intelligent they remain in a non-stressed state. While the Kafers are carrion-eating scavengers, and not intrinsically violent, their neurobiology creates a quandary for their civilization: civilization acts to reduce violence and stress and leads to a steady loss of a Kafer culture's intelligence and, finally, inevitable conquest by smarter, less-civilized cultures. The present Kafer civilization has resolved this quandary with systems of ritualized violence and a glorification of war. Ruled over by a small minority of "permanently bright" individuals, the Kafers are paradoxically both terrified and excited by humanity, since humans resemble the "smart barbarians" that periodically destroyed earlier civilizations on their home planet, and therefore represent the real competition needed to inspire their civilization to advance. In the year 2301, the Kafer start an invasion of human space that will be costly to both attackers and defenders and serves as one of the major dramatic events of the game line. Mongoose 2300AD altered their name to "Kaefers."
• The primitive Klaxun
• The nuclear war-devastated Little Guys
• The long-dead Medusae
• Pentapods: an amphibious species with a preference for aquatic environments, with a biotechnological technical infrastructure (including starships that are massive living beings). The fact that some Pentapods show signs of genetic engineering and are treated as tools by other Pentapods masks a deeper secret regarding their origins.
• Sung: a species of winged humanoids of smaller stature than humans, whose technological development is close to but not as great as humanity's; they are currently only capable of interplanetary travel.
• Xiang: a species inhabiting a gas giant's moon in the Sung home star system, formerly enslaved by the Sung but now free after a brief military action by a number of human nations. Relations among the Sung are governed by a principle that the strong dominate the weak but provide the weak with requested assistance to bring them up to their masters' level, and they took advantage of the fact that the Xiang never made such requests. The Sung now consider humanity to be their superiors in this system and are chafing at humanity's refusal to improve them by showing them how to perform FTL travel.
• The Ylii, a multi-species culture enslaved by the Kafers.

Every sentient species has certain mysteries that are unknown to humans in 2300 AD and which can be unlocked through adventure and research. One of the main parts of the drama in 2300 AD campaigns is the unfolding of these mysteries.

Some of these mysteries can help humanity in its "battle for the stars", while others are simply curiosities, and a few are dangerous and even potentially disastrous for humankind.

In many cases, human nation states would be willing to go to war with each other to get some of these secrets and some are a necessity for humankind to survive the future war with the Kafers.

The background history of 2300 AD is a continuation of the nuclear war depicted in the Twilight 2000 role-playing game by the same company. A custom strategy game called "The Great Game" was used by the authors to develop the background history for 2300 AD.

A Cyberpunk element was added to the game with the publication of the Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook[3] and two adventures for the same, "Deathwatch" and "Rotten to the Core". GDW catalogs began to present the game as "2300 AD - the Cyberpunk game of a Dark Gritty Future" although this genre was never expressed in the core materials. The Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook states that Cyberpunk can be a fringe element in any society, its members being cyberpunks by self-definition.

In the May 1987 edition of White Dwarf (Issue #89), Jim Bambra reviewed the original Traveller 2300 game, and found the rules "somewhat tedious reading". Having slogged through the rules, he found much to recommend the game, including the character generation system, the skill system, and combat — although he found combat slow compared to the skill system. Bambra felt the starship combat system was "not as good as it could have been... Space combat does not flow very well and is potentially very fiddly once the missiles are flying." Bambra also noted the lack of scenarios, saying, "There is very little information about adventures", pointing out that even in the provided adventure, "vast chunks are left for the GM to develop — a daunting task for most." Bambra concluded, "I would prefer simpler mecahnics and a more exciting background."[4]

Bambra also reviewed Traveller 2300 in the March 1988 edition of Dragon (Issue 131), and to the points he had made in White Dwarf, Bambra also criticized the lack of an experience point system — unlike AD&D, where characters advance in skills and powers through their experiences, "A character can survive for years in this game, but he does not improve with age or experience; he stays the same forever. Sure, the PC can get more hardware, more influence, and so on, but he never gets any better at solving tasks." Bambra again emphasized the lack of scenarios, and also the lack of examples in the rules to provide clarity, concluding, "Experienced GMs will have few problems with the game's less-than-satisfactory handling of adventure staging and description, but novices should look elsewhere for their first science-fiction RPG."[5]

A year later, in the May 1989 edition of Dragon (Issue 145), Jim Bambra had a chance to revisit the game with the publication of the updated 2300 AD, successor to Traveller 2300. Bambra found much to like in the new version of the game, including the upgrade from 96 pages of rules and background in the original setting to 208 pages in the revised setting. Bambra found the new rules for 2300 AD were better organized and had a much more professional layout than the previous version. He also found the sections demonstrating the game to new gamemasters to be very helpful. Bambra concluded with a positive recommendation: "The 2300 AD game is a greatly welcomed development. With its new and improved presentation, revised and expanded rules and background, more dynamic feel, and extensive range of support products, the 2300 AD game can truly be called a state-of-the-art science-fiction role-playing game. I recommend it highly to anyone looking for a game of hard science-fiction that pulls no punches and delivers the goods in a highly satisfying manner. In bringing out the 2300 AD game, GDW has come up trumps and made a good game into a great one."[2]

Rick Swan reviewed the original Traveller: 2300 in Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer No. 79.[6] Swan commented that "Traveller: 2300 is not as good as Twilight: 2000 and is a distant third behind the original Traveller, although admittedly those games are tough acts to follow."[6]

2300 AD was ranked 50th in the 1996 reader poll of Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time. Editor Paul Pettengale commented: "The realistic science and technology leads to a gritty, realistic feel. Perhaps one of the best alien species ever created for an RPG, the Kafers are truly alien, with a unique physiology, psychology and society."[7]

• Third Imperium #4
• White Wolf #13
• Shadis #28
• Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine #137
• Arcane #20
• Casus Belli #36 (Feb 1987)
• Adventurer (Issue 8 - Mar 1987)[8]

• QuikLink Interactive's page on the 2320 AD game setting
• Mongoose Publishing's edition