You know, for anyone who had trouble using A-G in Traveller stats, you could always use the radical process of using the numbers 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. That's what we did.
Eventually,
I got used to it.
However, it continued to be a problem for some, so I tried that as well.
For the most part, things worked out OK, but for some, you'd hand them a rulebook or a photocopied bit of info and it resulted in continued confusion.
(I didn't feel like permanently marking up a rulebook for them, so...)
The point, though, is not that one can modify something to make it work- I bet its next to impossible to find someone running an RPG 100% RAW- its that the design decision to use hex was a quirk that turned into a speedbump. As it did for a few gamers of my acquaintance, it may have even contributed to a more widespread dissatisfaction with the game.
Instead of using hex, the designer could have used normal base 10, and used a symbol to keep the stats distinct.
The example given in the rulebook was a PC with a UPP of 777B77. In base 10, it could have been 7*7*7*11*7*7, and
no confusion would have resulted.
(Yes, I realize this introduces more characters into the printing process, resulting in higher costs, which might have been a real concern. OTOH, the book itself occasionally uses phrases like "Any character with a social standing of B (11) or greater..." which adds even more characters to the process. Is it a wash? I can't say, and I'm certainly not going to track this character by character from Book 0 to Book 9.
Plus, they wouldn't have needed the "Intro to hexadecimal" portion of the book at all...)
