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<blockquote data-quote="Wofano Wotanto" data-source="post: 9265859" data-attributes="member: 7044704">Yeah, the original Traveller LBB trilogy wasn't as military focused as often claimed, that's an artifact of hindsight where the earliest career expansion books (ie Merc and High Guard) leaned into it rather than commerce, espionage/diplomacy or exploration - which were the four main campaign movers IME, not two.&nbsp; Presumably GDW was going with what they thought would sell best to a community that was still largely derived from wargamers (RPGs were still very young back then) or maybe it was purely personal interests behind pushing the merc playstyle, but it's colored perceptions of the game ever since then.There's some alternate universe where Scouts and Merchant Princes came out in 1978/1980 instead of 1983/1985 and GDW didn't leave politics and spy work to 3PP to focus on, and Traveller has a whole different reputation.&nbsp; Or maybe it doesn't exist, because not catering to wargamers early led to it flopping altogether.&nbsp; Without some TL25 timeline-hopping tech, who can say?&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Worth noting that of the six original careers, only two of them are really optimal for ground combat mercs.&nbsp; You can get personal combat skills from any of them in theory, but they're usually not what you're hoping for from Navy and Scouts and Merchant.&nbsp; You need the skills that let you operate and maintain the ship everyone's hoping for when they muster out, and they don't come from Army or Marine terms so much.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Wofano Wotanto, post: 9265859, member: 7044704"] Yeah, the original Traveller LBB trilogy wasn't as military focused as often claimed, that's an artifact of hindsight where the earliest career expansion books (ie Merc and High Guard) leaned into it rather than commerce, espionage/diplomacy or exploration - which were the four main campaign movers IME, not two. Presumably GDW was going with what they thought would sell best to a community that was still largely derived from wargamers (RPGs were still very young back then) or maybe it was purely personal interests behind pushing the merc playstyle, but it's colored perceptions of the game ever since then. There's some alternate universe where Scouts and Merchant Princes came out in 1978/1980 instead of 1983/1985 and GDW didn't leave politics and spy work to 3PP to focus on, and Traveller has a whole different reputation. Or maybe it doesn't exist, because not catering to wargamers early led to it flopping altogether. Without some TL25 timeline-hopping tech, who can say? :) Worth noting that of the six original careers, only two of them are really optimal for ground combat mercs. You can get personal combat skills from any of them in theory, but they're usually not what you're hoping for from Navy and Scouts and Merchant. You need the skills that let you operate and maintain the ship everyone's hoping for when they muster out, and they don't come from Army or Marine terms so much. [/QUOTE]

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