An online friend described me as more of a “purist” in a Discord chat yesterday, with regard to how much I stick to the Classic Traveller rulebooks as opposed to homebrewing a lot of rules.

He’s not wrong.

Due to the brevity of the Classic Traveller rulesbooks there are a lot things that simply aren’t there. Vehicle combat being, to me, the most obvious. But when you think about it I don’t think there is much vehicle combat in classic SF literature, and the literature is really what Classic Traveller is based on. Much more than films. So that makes sense. Still, let’s face it, who doesn’t like a good speeder-bike chase?

So I tend to stick to the rulebooks unless something is omitted.

It’s not secret that the original ship combat rules are kind of dull. They don’t really engage people in roleplaying. So I have adopted the ship combat rules from Cepheus Light, by Omer Golan-Joel, which have meaningful actions for all crew members during fights. I still use CT vector movement when I think it is appropriate.

For vehicle chases and combat I use Omer Golan-Joel’s “Quick and Dirty Vehicle Combat for Classic Traveller.” It provides enough “meat” to make it fun without getting bogged down in a vehicle’s armor points and stuff like that.

Yes, I like Omer’s stuff a lot. He is a true fan of Classic Traveller and an excellent Cepheus Engine creator. His material for Classic Traveller really honors the feel and the sort of mechanics of the original game.

For character creation. I dont' alter the skill tables at all. I run my game with the understanding that the skills in CT are “big.” They are things a character learned over the course of four years of study. So a pilot not only knows how to fly a starship, but they know about ships. An engineer knows a lot about starship mechanism, and at level 3 they can fix just about anything. A steward doesn’t just know how to serve food and keep passengers happy, but understands what everyone on a ship does, what their needs are, and this extends to things like general operations and layout of ships. Vacc Suit does’t just allow you to put on the suit and not die - anyone can do that. It includes the ability to work effectively while in the suit, the ability to do hard things in zero gravity, the ability to use similar suit systems effectively. Computer skill is big. You can operated a computer. You can program a computer. You can operated ship’s sensor with expertise, etc.

So I suppose my starting point is this: Classic Traveller isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing. It is what it is. I agree with the ideas expressed in the Traveller: Out of the Box series.

Some people love working on systems, changing them, improving them. I love all that, and we wouldn’t have great things like the Cepheus Engine, Clement Sector, Faster than Light Nomad, or many other variations without that kind of activity. I’m just not that guy. I get my jollies from playing the old game for the most part the old way, and supplementing it where needed.