Originally posted by alanb:
Originally posted by Malenfant:
[qb]The main advantage of Book 3 is that it doesn't have all the superfluous detail of Book 6.
Stellar types? Who cares?
If you don't like the "superfluous detail" (I guess your Traveller universes must be like Elite, huh? One habitable world with one star and that's it?
![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
) then fair enough. But that doesn't change the fact that Book 3 is still flat out wrong about the hydrographics. Hell, it had rules for generating size 8-A worlds but neglected to mention what happens when you roll high enough to get a atmosphere result of D-F - what are you supposed to do then if you don't have Book 6? Assume that every such world has an Insidious atmosphere?
I don't think that Book 6 is at all "superfluous" (but then, I wouldn't would I
![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
). The star types are important - they tell you pretty much everything about what the world is like, for starters. A world orbiting an M5 V primary is going to be vastly different to a world orbiting an F5 V primary, or a red giant for that matter. Plus it also tells you about the other worlds in the system that Traveller usually conveniently ignores but that could be good adventure sources.
Thing is, with Book 6 Traveller made the attempt to be realistic. Since I first saw that, I've decided that means that Traveller was basically intented to be a realistic universe (this doesn't change anything about how people run games though. They can be gritty or cinematic, the realism of the physical universe doesn't change that at all). Of course, Book 6 fails in several regard (star types being the most noticeable) but at least it tried. The way I see it, if it hadn't tried to do that then maybe you'd be right in saying that stellar types don't matter - if the game didn't make a big deal out of it then it's fair to say that the implication is that GMs don't need to either... but it
did make them an issue.