TrippyHippy said:
or stating that EDG is basically wrong to assert that Traveller makes for an inferior set of generic sci-fi rules.
But it's you that are wrong to claim that CT was a generic SF ruleset - objectively, demonstrably wrong - for the reasons I stated above and that I will reassert below.
It was certainly possible to create new aliens, following the encounters template (and still is);
Nope. The rules are there to create animals, not intelligent (if not playable) aliens and their cultures.
it barely gave advise on any settings - so it was just as viable to create one that wasn't a space empire.
Think about what you're saying for a second. Are you seriously suggesting that the absence of any advice on the subject means that it helps you to create other settings? I can't even begin to fathom your logic here. Look, it's really simple:
CT: No advice on alternate settings, therefore not useful for such purposes.
GURPS: Plenty of advice on alternate settings, therefore very useful for such purposes.
Whether you personally agree or disagree with that advice is irrelevant - the fact is that it's there in things like GURPS (along with all the other alternate technologies, methodologies for making alien races and worlds etc), and by being there that automatically makes things like GURPS and HERO more generic than CT because they are explicitly giving you more options. CT is inferior in every regard as a tool for making your own SF setting compared to something like GURPS and HERO because it doesn't give you any of those options - all CT does is let you make settings that are like CT. Sorry, but you are just flat-out wrong to claim otherwise - I get that you don't like the approach that things like GURPS and HERO take, but don't let that blind you to the facts.
New careers were built on at a later point, which pretty much gave imputus the idea that it was possible to expand the game as players saw fit.
Adding more careers is in no way, shape, or form equivalent to "telling you how to make different careers of your own".
Again, you seem to be claiming that CT is "generic" because it fails to even mention the things that are clearly missing from it. And again, I say that you may as well claim that every RPG is generic because anyone can make up what they want for it - but while anyone can make up stuff, if they did then they wouldn't need to buy anything at all. People buy RPG and supplements written by other people so they don't HAVE to make up those rules themselves.
If someone was to buy an encyclopedia or a monograph on a subject, they'd expect it to be complete, not full of gaps that they had to research themselves. Someone was to buy a toolkit, they'd expect it to have all the tools they need for the job, not half of them and a scrap of paper telling them to work out the rest for themselves. If someone buys a generic RPG they expect it to have rules for as many things as they'd want because the whole point is to allow the GM to make their own settings.
The game was generic because it didn't have a set background, when it was originally released.
You appear to be confusing "system-less" with "generic" - they're two very different things.
CT had so many built-in assumptions in the rules that you pretty much could only make a very narrow range of settings with it out of the box - and that was a feudal space empire with a strong military bent with no aliens (right at the start anyway), fixed tech assumptions, computers the size of rooms, communications as fast as the speed of travel, and FTL that was a jump drive where you spent one week in jumpspace no matter how far you hopped.
Compare that to a truly generic system like GURPS, which just says "here's a really wide range of possible options for society, technology, FTL travel, alien, and worlds so you can make anything you like yourself".
I could use all the tools in GURPS to make a setting where FTL and communications are instant (and be fully informed of the consequences of doing so), with a loose alliance of multiple species, based heavily on organic technology, with plenty of bioengineering, AI, and characters from any and all races and backgrounds. All the support I need to do that is right there in the rules.
I could try to do the same in CT, but I'd have to come up with
absolutely everything on my own - to the point that I may as well just use another game, because all I'd be keeping from it would be the basic dice engine. So why should I use CT in that case when it gives me no help at all and GURPS gives me everything?
This is why CT isn't remotely "generic", in any way shape or form.
It was released, with the same design brief for generic sci-fi that D&D had for generic fantasy. You could make just as many criticisms of D&D as a generic fantasy game in 1977.
Sure, and I would never claim that D&D was generic either. Like CT it had a setting inherently built into the rules (fixed classes, people being able to fight til they dropped, Vancian magic systems, etc). The only time D&D got generic was when 3e came out, and then it was only because WotC took the core system and expanded it for other settings.
