The tabletop game 2300 AD, originally titled Traveller: 2300, is a science fiction role-playing game created by Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) and first published in 1986. It was initially confused with the game Traveller, also published by GDW and released in 1977, however Traveller 2300 was considered its own distinct game as it used a completely different game system.
Publication history
GDW created the popular science fiction role-playing game Traveller in 1977 with themes taken from Space Opera short stories and novels of the Golden Age of SF.
In 1984, GDW published the unrelated and much grittier post-apocalyptic role-playing game Twilight: 2000, set in the year 2000 following a nuclear war. Two years later, wanting to follow up with a similar-themed "hard science" space-based role-playing game, GDW took the Twilight 2000 storyline, moved it forward three centuries, and created a new game where humanity has recovered enough from the war that they are able to travel to nearby star systems. Although this new game, published in 1986, had no ties to Traveller, and used a completely different game system, GDW titled it Traveller: 2300. The game was published as a boxed set that contained: Player Manual (48 pages) Referee's Manual (48 pages) Forms Book (8 pages) Near Star List (8 pages) "The Tricolour's Shadow", introductory adventure, (8 pages) Star map a 10-sided die
The similar titles caused confusion between Traveller and the new game, and in 1988, GDW released a second edition retitled 2300 AD. Perhaps because of the initial confusion, Traveller: 2300 / 2300 AD sold poorly compared to Traveller.
About the same time, several competitors released cyberpunk-themed role-playing games which proved to be popular, including R. Talsorian Games's Cyberpunk (1988) and FASA's Shadowrun (1989). In an attempt to ride this wave, GDW published Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook in 1989 to give 2300 AD a cyberpunk theme and also return the focus of the game to Earth rather than space.
A Cyberpunk element was added to the game with the publication of the Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook and two adventures for the same, "Deathwatch" and "Rotten to the Core", and GDW catalogs began to present the game as "2300 AD - the Cyberpunk game of a Dark Gritty Future". Games historian Shannon Appelcline noted in the 2014 book Designers & Dragons, "The last few 2300 books supported this darker cyberpunk future, but it wasn't enough to sustain the line, which came to an end in 1990."
The game was republished in 2007 by QuikLink Interactive as a supplement titled 2320 AD for the Traveller20 game (based on the d20 System). In 2012, Mongoose Publishing published 2300 AD as a sourcebook for their version of Traveller.
Setting 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. 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 (Mongoose 2300AD renames the Chinese Arm to the Manchurian Arm, as the nation of Manchuria, separate from then-backwater China, is the leading nation in that part of space)). 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.
Technology 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 primary limitation of the Stutterwarp Drive is that it can only propel a ship up to a maximum of 7.7 light years before it must enter a gravity well to 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, commerce, and wars are conducted.
Overall, the technological level of 2300 AD is not significantly more advanced than that of late 20th-century industrial society. The depicted technology 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 that fire chemically propelled rounds, even though energy weapons do exist. Also, no form of gravity manipulation exists, so spaceships must be designed to account for Micro-gravity conditions, and transferring from orbital space to a planetary surface (or vice versa) remains 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.
Colonist undergo DNA Modifications (DNAMs) 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 physical changes, such as Dry World Adaptation, where a character would retain all their water and urinate crystals. Another more extreme DNAM is Merman, which enables a person to live underwater.
Sentient species
The following sentient species are known to humans in 2300 AD:
The AGRA Intelligence Ebers: 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. 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 (Arbors): A species of sentient tree-like creatures native to a nearly-frozen world at the edge of the French Arm (Mongoose 2300AD altered their name to "Arbors") 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 in most areas; they are currently only capable of interplanetary travel. In some areas, like medical technology, interface spacecraft, lasers, and solar energy technology, they are superior to humanity. 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.
Sentient species mysteries 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.
Reception