Having read lots about the new version of Traveller on the TML, I shall
make a few comments as well.
Scrap the MT task system. As someone pointed out, the only difference
between someone with INT 2 and someone with INT 15 is a DM of +3. In
reality, the INT 2 person is going to have trouble figuring out how to
use a chair, never mind how to use a computer, while the INT 15 person
will not only write a program but probably redesign the computer. Or,
using DEX instead of INT, a DEX 2 person will either have the gun the
wrong way round, or drop it before getting a finger near the trigger;
a DEX 15 person will draw the gun, fire a few shots, twirl it a few
times round the finger, and put it back in the holster. This is what
a DM of +3 means?
Bring back the old tables of weapons, in which each type of weapon had
its own DEX modifiers associated with it. "He's too clumsy to use a
rifle. Give him a shotgun." For melee weapons, substitute STR for DEX.
Space combat: I would favour a variant of the old Book 2 system, with
expanded damage tables. Something like the High Guard damage tables,
but adjusted so that small ships can do more than shoot pieces off each
other's manoeuvre drives and fuel tanks. In fact, the way I handled it
was to replace the standard DM of +6 for all non-spinal mount weapons
with a DM of +target USP size code, -weapon USP code, maximum of +6.
Background: forget the virus idea. I support the suggestion that
someone else made, to the effect that if you want lower technology
and an anarchic galaxy, set the game in the time of the Long Night.
The concept of a computer virus wiping out the whole Imperium just
doesn't work for me. For a start, as has been said, it would also
wipe out all interstellar travel. At least, it would until the
Zhodani realised that this was the chance they had been waiting for,
and took over the whole Imperium, probably meeting the Solomani
somewhere in the middle. Unless someone is going to try to convince
me that the virus also affects their computers, all that happens is
that all Imperial computers are scrapped, and replaced with Zhodani
or Solomani machines. And that assumes that someone with INT > 7 has
not hit on the idea of buying computers from any other race that can
supply them, and selling them in large quantities to the Imperium.
- --
"Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott
Adrian Hurt | JANET: [email removed]
UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: [email removed]