Not Every Star Needs a D20: Traveller, 5E, and the Cost of Conformity

Mongoose Publishing has announced plans to bring Traveller into the orbit of D&D 5E, with a Kickstarter slated for 2026. On paper, it’s a smart move: 5E is the most widely played RPG system in the world, and adapting Traveller to it will almost certainly guarantee funding, visibility, and new players. For a publisher I genuinely admire, that’s good news. More money means more room for them to keep producing the bold, inventive projects that have kept Traveller alive for decades, and will help to fund the other cool game lines that Mongoose is known for.

But here’s the rub: not every game needs to be 5E.

5E has become the lingua franca of tabletop gaming. It’s familiar, accessible, and easy to sell. Publishers know that slapping “5E-compatible” on a cover is like opening the floodgates to a massive audience. But this gravitational pull comes at a cost. When every RPG bends toward the same system, the diversity of mechanics – which is the very thing that makes our hobby vibrant – starts to collapse.

Traveller isn’t just another RPG to many of us; It’s a very unique thing in and of itself. It’s a game defined by its lifepath character creation, where your hero might die before play even begins. It’s about ship combat and trade routes, world-building through dice tables, and the thrill of exploring a universe that feels vast and indifferent. The 2d6 system is lean, elegant, and perfectly tuned to its setting. Translating all that into 5E risks flattening Traveller into something generic, stripping away the quirks that make it special.

That said, I do expect they’d find some way to incorporate the lifepath system, because how could you not? You couldn’t cut that and still call it Traveller.

Here’s the paradox in the whole thing: the 5E version might actually help fund the continued development of “real” Traveller. If the Kickstarter succeeds, Mongoose will have the resources to keep producing the 2d6 books that long-time fans cherish. But it also reinforces the idea that only 5E sells, and that’s a dangerous precedent.

Tabletop RPGs thrive on variety. Blades in the Dark teaches us about narrative control. Call of Cthulhu thrives on fragility and dread. Traveller thrives on logistics, exploration, and the cold math of survival. Each system offers a different lens on play. If everything becomes a reskin of D&D, we lose those lenses, and the hobby becomes narrower, less daring, less weird.

I love Mongoose. I want them to succeed, even in this venture. But I also want a world where publishers trust their own systems, where players are invited to learn something new instead of being handed the same mechanics in a different skin. Traveller deserves to remain Traveller; not just another star swallowed by the 5E sun.

Wait, stars are suns, aren’t they? I’m not sure that the metaphor works…