On 5/14/2016 8:25 AM, Abdul Rahman Reijerink wrote:
>
> Without having read the book, I believe a lot of the criticism is
> valid. Although I still plan to buy and raid it.
>
> Ideally a game should be easy to run out of the box with very little
> intervention from mechanics during play. A single, double sided
> reference sheet and no more. But I'd probably settle for a (small)
> comprehensive and well laid out book of tables for use during play, so
> long as it doesn't need updating with supplementary material.
>
> With the history behind a setting like the Traveller universe and the
> development of its mechanics over decades, supplements that focus on
> regions, aliens or professions, for example, shouldn't bring extra
> rules needed during play that aren't handled in the core rules or the
> heavy duty book of tables that comes with it. We already know what
> rules expansions the supplements should contain. What should be
> different and new in them is the kind of thing Dave did with Aliens of
> the Rim.
>
> I'd still want optional complex mechanics (FF&S/World Builders
> Handbook/Pocket Empires/alien language development) in the background
> to muck around with at home between sessions as both player and
> referee. So long as what they produce slots in seamlessly and adds
> colour rather than mechanical complexity at the table. That dimension
> of additional, *optional* complexity is one of the things I love most
> about the game.
>

I've begun to think that the future of Traveller lies not in producing
yet another rules edition but as a setting with setting specific rules
limited to the technology.  Make the setting rules neutral so that
people can focus on the creative aspect rather than the rules aspect
when products are written, but also limit them within the framework that
the technology allows.  In other words, no Death Stars, no warp drive, etc.

And since I'm working on a wish list, ;-) , I'd like to see a the Jump
Drive and computers thoroughly overhauled and maybe not explained in a
technical sense, but brought into the current age and then DARPA'd all
to hell.

--
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not
living enough." - Me