When it comes to Traveller rules, some versions "follow the rules" better than others.
Classic Traveller was the largest rule-breaker. It was special in that the rules were largely unknown, and there were no boundaries. GDW could pour its creative brain into it at all angles -- and they did. Frank went gear-headed with AHL and Striker. Marc made stuff up as he went. Loren crafted the sweep of Imperial history.
Of all systems, fans fight the most over CT, because it has all sorts of undefined and incompatible things in there, willy-nilly.
Except for classic Traveller, each ruleset is self-consistent, or at least tries to minimize inconsistencies. This is why you have people who play TNE, and others who play MT, and others who play MgT... and they don't tend to fight over the meaning of the rules.
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Of all the systems, GURPS seems like the one system that never broke rules. It had a self-consistent game mechanic; it had the OTU history; it bought in a consistent sampling of Traveller-specific rules and stuck with it. As far as I can tell.
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Mongoose gets flak. First, it bends Traveller rules -- and though I don't have specifics, I'm sure there's something in there to offend everyone. Second, it bends the OTU, in effect creating an ATU that currently greatly resembles the OTU.
But neither of those is a problem. They're not doing anything that classic Traveller hasn't already done. It's for each of us Traveller players to play along with it as best we can, rebel where we want to, change what we want to the degree that we can.
But at the end of the day, all Traveller is good for Traveller.
Classic Traveller was the largest rule-breaker. It was special in that the rules were largely unknown, and there were no boundaries. GDW could pour its creative brain into it at all angles -- and they did. Frank went gear-headed with AHL and Striker. Marc made stuff up as he went. Loren crafted the sweep of Imperial history.
Of all systems, fans fight the most over CT, because it has all sorts of undefined and incompatible things in there, willy-nilly.
Except for classic Traveller, each ruleset is self-consistent, or at least tries to minimize inconsistencies. This is why you have people who play TNE, and others who play MT, and others who play MgT... and they don't tend to fight over the meaning of the rules.
***
Of all the systems, GURPS seems like the one system that never broke rules. It had a self-consistent game mechanic; it had the OTU history; it bought in a consistent sampling of Traveller-specific rules and stuck with it. As far as I can tell.
***
Mongoose gets flak. First, it bends Traveller rules -- and though I don't have specifics, I'm sure there's something in there to offend everyone. Second, it bends the OTU, in effect creating an ATU that currently greatly resembles the OTU.
But neither of those is a problem. They're not doing anything that classic Traveller hasn't already done. It's for each of us Traveller players to play along with it as best we can, rebel where we want to, change what we want to the degree that we can.
But at the end of the day, all Traveller is good for Traveller.