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overgeeked

B/X Known World
As opposed to newer editions?
To me, yes. Nothing wrong with the new stuff per se, but I'm a fan of old-school gaming, rules light systems, and toolkits so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I've been circling around Traveller for a while, but I got some contradicting advices left and right about what edition to get.

The newest Mongoose edition was on my radar.
New Traveller is better than no Traveller. If you're interested in a deep dive, Seth Skorkowsky has a lengthy Traveller series.

 

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aramis erak

Legend
The original 1977 version is a lot more open and freeform toolkit.
Not really true - most of the changes are pretty trivial.
There are 4 very important ones:
77: personal combat damages nD+x format.
81: all personal combat damages in nD format
77: Scouts & Others get 1 skill per term
81: Scouts get 2 skills per term; Others get 1
77: Power Plant must equal or exceed Maneuver Drive
81: Power Plant must equal or exceed the higher of Maneuver Drive or Jump Drive
77 to 81: minor differences in mid to large sized drive performance table.

The addition of the option to make failed survival a short term & discharge isn't major... and every later edition makes short & out the standard...
 


overgeeked

B/X Known World
Not really true - most of the changes are pretty trivial.
Not really true. Here's a series of blog posts detailing the differences. There's also this long RPG.net thread where the same author goes over various related topics. There's also a Google doc or similar floating around with a thorough breakdown of all differences...and it's substantially more than you indicate. When I find the doc again I'll post the link.

The one that stands out the most for me is how skills and referee authority are handled.

Compare this text from Traveller 1977 (Bk1, p20):
Skills and the Referee: It is impossible for any table of information to cover all aspects of every potential situation, and the above listing is by no means complete in its coverage of the effects of skills. This is where the referee becomes an important part of the game process. The above listing of skills and game effects must necessarily be taken as a guide, and followed, altered, or ignored as the actual situation dictates.

In some game situations, actual die roll results must be concealed from the players, at times allowing them to misconstrue the reasons for their success or failure. In other situations, the referee may feel it necessary to create his own throws and DMs to govern action, and may or may not make such information generally available to the players.

In order to be consistent (and a consistent universe makes the game both fun and interesting), the referee has a responsibility to record the throws and DMs he creates, and to note (perhaps by penciling in) any throws he alters from those given in these books.
With this text from Traveller 1981 (Bk1, p23):
OTHER SKILLS
The above list of skills is certainly not exhaustive. Additional skills may be encountered.
The "Skills and the Referee" text was removed and replaced with the "Other Skills" text. That one change alone creates a huge change to the game. Like with D&D, Traveller became increasingly locked down, rules-centric, and Imperium-focused as time went on.
 

aramis erak

Legend
Not really true. Here's a series of blog posts detailing the differences. There's also this long RPG.net thread where the same author goes over various related topics. There's also a Google doc or similar floating around with a thorough breakdown of all differences...and it's substantially more than you indicate. When I find the doc again I'll post the link.

The one that stands out the most for me is how skills and referee authority are handled.

Compare this text from Traveller 1977 (Bk1, p20):

With this text from Traveller 1981 (Bk1, p23):

The "Skills and the Referee" text was removed and replaced with the "Other Skills" text. That one change alone creates a huge change to the game. Like with D&D, Traveller became increasingly locked down, rules-centric, and Imperium-focused as time went on.
Nice to meet you, Chicken Little...

The imperium isn't mentioned in CT 81 any more than in 77.
The official setting was demanded by customers.
 

dragoner

KosmicRPG.com
I think for me, the memory of playing the 77 vs 81 rules were why are there no rules for cover (which were fixed later on) and why is there no axe on the combat matrices? Plus one only really gets to understand how armor works by reading the rules for animals. Otherwise I think it is my favorite iteration of spacecraft in the game.
 

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