For inspiration, Zozer Games setting “Hostile” has a Technical Manual (as pay-what-you-want on Drive-thru) detailing the technology, how it is different, and what the effects of that are.
Most notable is the decision to not pursue semiconductors and in computing and micro transistors, made even more of a dead end in research funding by the prototypes being shredded by the EM burst from a brief nuclear weapons exchange. The differences this makes in computing and even industrial infrastructure are detailed, along with the decision to not use wireless networks (and what that means for hacking into systems).
Another idea that Jeff might accept is “retro-tech”, or reverse engineering from known principles: if a culture has knowledge of the principles behind a technology, but does not have the industrial capability to reproduce that item as originally designed, what would it look like? What would be the limitations? To counter-point Jeff’s first example, what would an internal combustion engine cast from bronze be like?
The best example of both ideas that I know of is David Weber’s Safehold series (or as some call it, Heirs To Empire: Naval Warfare Edition, after the first novel he introduced the base societal principles in) - a culture descended from a high TL society, but limited in energy sources to muscle, water, and wind. These limitations force a mindset of “do better with what you have”, and even drives the implementation of how to reintroduce higher TL devices.
Energy sources are the most likely hard limits - the creation of fossil fuels requires a perfect storm of conditions and at least several million years (I would have to look up the average carbon dating age of various oil and coal deposits). A world that has not seen these conditions will not have these energy-dense fuel sources, effectively limiting their available on-demand sources to charcoal (which requires growing wood and/or bamboo) and biodiesel (which takes up valuable crop space and farmers).
"Weird" here simply means unusual or unexpected; I'm interested in Stuff
That Could Really Work (at least within the Traveller context).
The idea here is to assume that there is some cultural imperative that
rules out using a technology that might normally be perceived as a
'blocking' technology - one that if you disallow using it, you'll be unable
to develop your tech base further.
Then, see how far you actually _can_ develop your tech base, without using
it - for example, if you disallow internal combustion engines, how far can
you get? Most vehicles use internal combustion; what happens if your
vehicles don't? What does travel look like? What does power generation look
like? What does your society look like? Or if you disallow wireless
communication (no radio or TV broadcasts, no wifi or bluetooth, no
cellphones or wireless handsets, etc), what does your communication
infrastructure look like? Can you have mobile communications? If so, how?
Pick your tech for deletion, work out the implications, and then write an
article for Freelance Traveller discussing/illustrating it in a Traveller
context - for example, a story where the PCs have to interact on a world
where they don't use the tech in question. Or a Jump Destination
(Kurishdam/Lecture Hall and Library). Or an item for In A Store Near You
that would be salable in such a context, and accomplish something that you
might think would ordinarily be "blocked" because of the disallowed
technology. Or whatever - I can't claim to be able to think of _all_ the
angles...
Note: Saying that "they used this in the past, and decided later on not to"
after they've gotten past the maybe-blocking point is a CHEAT! Don't cheat!
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