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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5310493" data-attributes="member: 82106">Hmmmm. I was basing this off of the 4th edition Traveler hardcover that  is out currently. I didn't buy the book but skimming through it in the  store I was struck by the fact that the rules appear to be lifted  verbatim from the original 3 book 1st edition. Admittedly there may be a very few minor differences in the career tables, but nothing that jumped out at me. Maybe you can't die in CG anymore I suppose but the system is VERY VERY close to the original and all the core rules appear to be literally word-for-word identical. Comparing it to D&D it would be as if the original 3 book set had been re-typeset into a single hardcover book with only very slight cosmetic changes.Eh, I don't really agree. It is VERY simulationist in many fundamental respects. Getting shot or stabbed is a very bad thing and if not immediately fatal is certainly a serious problem. Chances are most healthy characters will survive a pistol shot or two and there is no critical hit/instant death type mechanic, but the damage output of all but the least powerful weapons is usually enough to produce at least instantly disabling wounds. Beyond that the combat system doesn't get into a huge amount of gritty detail as far as hand-to-hand fighting goes since it generally envisages most combat employing projectile or even energy weapons. There are rules for parrying, thrown weapons, grenades, and even heavy artillery-type weapons. All of them seem to produce pretty realistic results and unlike most combat systems a gun isn't especially doing more damage than a sword, it is just better because you can kill someone from 100 meters.The skill system is very simple but actually works really well. It is mostly a 'flat' open-ended list of skills but there is a little bit of stacking when it comes to weapons, allowing for instance a good knowledge of firearms to apply broadly to most weapons of that sort with more specific expertise being available as well.I agree though that the system is an odd one by today's standards in that it simply doesn't bother to address some things that are major aspects of most games. For instance there are NO rules for acquiring new skills or any other form of mechanical character advancement. There are some guidelines the referee can use to allow a character to study a new skill but they have no actual mechanics attached to them. There is a psionics system that allows for advancement in mental disciplines but it is kind of hard to apply any kind of 'realism' to that and it was always intended to be an optional system that the ref might throw in if desired. Very few characters would actually have access to psionics in a standard campaign.It is an interesting game in that it is pretty well balanced, you don't end up with useless or overpowered characters yet it makes pretty much zero concessions to gamist considerations. Admittedly it was designed for playing 50's style space opera sort of games. Still, I think it would handle a wide variety of genre that usually employ GURPS, d20 modern, or BRP (CoC mainly). Not surprising that both GURPS and d20 modern have fairly popular Traveler ports. I don't think you could build a heroic fantasy game based on the system but I think you COULD do Star Wars or a lot of other stuff with it. Anyway, the original point stands, it is quite possible to build a simple and yet highly simulationist system. You just have to accept that with such a system the rules of the real world are going to be paramount. You would DEFINITELY not be grabbing a swarm in Traveler, but neither do you have one-trick-pony characters nor would anyone playing the game have any expectations that it would be otherwise.</blockquote>

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