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Traveller has prior history (Scout, Merchant etc.) and Runequest has occupations (Hunter, Rune Priest etc.). Even though both are technically classless, they both provide mechanisms which govern the kind of skills available to a character, and paint a picture which describes them in broad terms.

Best gatefold ever.

I still enjoy this one, but find the many different POV confusing.

Oooh.... *Shannara series. Read the first few pages of Sword of Shannara when I was 13. That was enough. Utter dreck. *Belgariad. Read it when I was 14. Enjoyed it at the time, but nonetheless felt soiled afterwards. Rapidly came to hate it. *First heard Hitch Hiker's Guide in the original...

I had an Anglican clergyman named Victor in a 1920s British Cthulhu campaign. His prayers and Thompson smg proved equally ineffective against a lloigor.

I enjoyed the show when it was current, but Buffy hasn't aged well. Joss Whedon's naiive fetishism is kind of painful. /dissenting opinion

I think you'll find that Epiphanius - and Irenaeus - had a certain axe to grind, and their judgment of rival sects was a little partisan. Unfortunately, we don't have any sources from the groups which actually venerated this (Aeon? God? Archon?) as they were mysteriously burnified in the 3rd...

Every superhero movie since X-men in 2000. Every franchise sequel ever made (honorable exceptions: ESB & Godfather II); even Terminator 2 & Aliens are annoying to me now. Edit: Every sitcom ever, except Fawlty Towers. Just hate the format.

The Saga of the Exiles by Julian May, for god-tier mental powers.

I can't really get behind the work/fun binary choice. How about enjoyable work? Industrious fun?

I only game with close friends of many years, so... 1) Don't get so drunk or high that you are incapable of playing 2) Bring an exciting new cheese and your character gets a bonus action point

Either completely grounded or out-of-the-park gonzo. It's the stuff in the middle I have problems with.

First, you have to canaanize them; then yahwify them; then mazdafy them; then hellenize them; and finally diasporize them.

Regardless of their actual cultural and temporal distance from ancient Rome, a neo-Roman space empire might well emphasize the trappings of tradition, and self-consciously emulate certain aspects of an idealized Roman past. This tendency is pretty common in all cultures; conservatism coupled...

Mercator sets the game in the first century CE in the eastern Roman Empire. It works rather well if you’re interested in this period (I am). Link is straight to pdf. https://www.freelancetraveller.com/magazine/2010-04/mercator.pdf

I’ve always assumed that when characters have a noble rank, it’s a local title from some backwoods world, rather than an imperial rank. It’s kind of absurd otherwise - imperial dukes govern subsectors.

I remember being annoyed in 1981 when I discovered that D&D elves were only 5ft tall and lived for less than a thousand years. First thing I did when I ran a campaign was make them taller than humans and immortal. Dwarves were a bit short for Tolkien dwarves, so I gave them another 6 inches...

I've always thought that with the various supplements (and JTAS articles, and White Dwarf articles; come on, it was the 70s) Traveller can do most sci-fi just fine, if you regard it as a toolkit; I think that sometimes the Third Imperium can bog it down, as various ideas from that campaign...

Because it's awesome. I'd like to say that I really enjoy your Traveller threads, @pemerton, and hope you continue with them. For me, Classic Traveller is as close to perfect as a game can be; as I get older I'm more-and-more awed by the power of its mechanics and how they force/demand a kind...

Some years ago I read a piece by Ursula LeGuin - I can't remember the exact context - where she wrote of Tolkien (whom she loved), but how glad she was that she didn't read the Lord of the Rings until she was in her twenties, when she had already found a style and voice of her own. Her point...