How to let players generate the characters they want without letting them min/max?

[Condottiere]

Role playing games allow great latitude to interpret RAW, to the point of mutating them mid session.

Wargaming tends to a stricter adherence, and keeping them as universal as possible, and because of time pressure, disputes can be resolved by chance.

 

[locarno24]

Role playing games allow great latitude to interpret RAW, to the point of mutating them mid session.

Wargaming tends to a stricter adherence, and keeping them as universal as possible, and because of time pressure, disputes can be resolved by chance.

Very much so. A wargame, after all, is essentially a competitive experience. It's also supposed to be fun, but generally speaking it's designed to produce a 'winner' and 'loser'.
There are more competive RPGs - where the GM has strictly limited resources and abilities; stuff like Heroquest and Imperial Assault, or very strict balanced-encounter-level driven D&D dungeon crawls.

Traveller isn't one of those - the GM's job is to produce a 'positive gaming experience', whatever the table collectively agrees that is, and if the story is best served by introducing TL27 body armour, weapons and augments, then I believe the Secrets of the Ancients campaign included all three.

 

[Condottiere]

To my mind, that's the difference between story telling, and designing vehicles and weapon systems.