Quote from: ffilz;1116056Did you actually play back in the day? I did, I don't remember ever rolling under character attributes, nor do I remember that from the games I played in. But then back in the day we also all used Book 4 and Book 5 (and Book 6 and Book 7 later when they finally came out) so we also had more skills and more detailed skills.

These days, based on reading Christopher Kubasik's blog, I do use just Book 1 (well plus Supplement 4 but with the skill lists changed to reflect mostly Book 1 skills), and I consider things other than roll under character attributes (like give a modifier for good attribute using Advantageous Dexterity or Strength as an example.

There was nothing past Book 3 yet.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1116089There was nothing past Book 3 yet.

Ok, by the time I really started playing Traveller, I had Book 4 and Book 5. I'm not really aware of any Traveller playing prior to (or without) Book 4 and Book 5 from my experiences other than one session of trying Traveller out.

The game shops that sold Traveller usually had game sessions refereed by the store owners. Then home computers started taking hold on RPGs, and that took up our time.

Back in the day, a buddy of mine picked up The Traveller Book and ran us through a couple adventures and I was hooked. I got the Starter Set and started running some published adventures and then some stuff of my own. I found the 3LBBs a bit later and added them to my collection and greatly used Citizens of the Imperium and as many Alien modules as I could find at the FLGS; but I never owned the advanced character generation books until recently - as in within the last year or two altogether.

They have a lot of good information, especially the Scouts book on Star System generation; but I don't think I care too much for the characters they produce. The inclusion of so many skills per character creates a sense that other than what's on a players character sheet is all they can do and players tend to ignore the original character careers, finding them boring or inferior.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1116089There was nothing past Book 3 yet.

This... This is what I learned to play Traveller. By the Winter of 77' I was a GM and quietly spent Christmas Break that year making my own subsectors, sitting at the Bar in the Bombadier Tavern having Coke while my Dad and grandfather watched NFL games on the telly.  Because they served food and had a restaurant license, teens were allowed in.