Once again I’ve been following a thread on a Classic Traveller Discord server, this time about skill use. A few things have come up.

1. One guy was talking about the modifiers to skill rolls based on characteristics, like give a +1 to Intelligence-based skills if the character has certain level of INT. This is not from any version of Classic Traveller. Classic Traveller has no overall mods from attributes, and does not define skills as being based on any particular attribute. Another guy was talking about adding the skill level in a particular skill to an associated attribute, like Education, and getting a “roll-under on 2d6” number. Again - this is not in Classic Traveller in any version.

2. Which is all fine. You can pull in rules or make your own mods as you see fit. It does make it hard to compare different opinions on the rules when people use significantly different rules.

3. Another topic had to do with redundant skills in a party. Example: If one person has Navigation 1, and another has Navigation 2, why would the first character ever get to make a Nav roll? (please keep in mind I’m not meaning to be snotty here). Well, maybe they end up with two ships to deal with. Maybe the regular navigator is unconscious? Maybe the party is on-planet and separated and in the wilderness and the Nav-1 guy gets to keep them walking the right direction. Also, should there be NO backups skills in a party? Would suck to get out there in space, lose your Engineer-3, and have the drive go out without at least an Eng-1 to back them up.

4. If Nav-1 allows you to get a job and plot a course, why would you even need Nav-2? Well, maybe for some reason there is some sort of navigational challenge. Maybe with some rolls a Nav-2 can beat out a Nav-1 in some way. Maybe the Nav-2 is able to plot a more efficient or faster course across a solar system? The possibilities are endless.

I have found over the last 8 years of running my Classic Traveller campaign that it is necessary for me, as the Ref, to create situations in which the PCs get to use all their skills in inventive ways. And since my players were all new to the game I had to help them see all the possibilities at first.

Here’s the thing. Classic Traveller is an old system. It was the first really legit SF RPG. The books had to be small and short, and Marc was inventing all this stuff, not improving on someone else’s work. So all these things add up to a system that is really good and really flexible but also has some unclear language, some confusing stuff, and a lot of stuff that a modern gamer might wish was their but it isn’t. So the Referee has to use their brain and handle some things, make up some rules of their own here and there, and accept the game for what it is. Sure, change a rule if you want. Make up your own version. That doesn’t mean the system is broken. The system just is - what - it - is.