Klaus Kipling
Mongoose
The thing I like about the way CT chargen is put together (and MT, MGT, etc) is that it is so flexible.
Play it as written, and yes, the results can be pretty random, to the good, oe the bad. It is quite easy to end up with characters that just couldn't do the job they're intended to do.
However, it is simple just to read the rules differently and get a nice hybrid between surprise and player choice. When rolling for skills I tend to roll the die and then choose the skill from eligible tables: sometimes there's a lot of choice, sometimes there's very little, but it gives me more control of my character. I'll also let players use their term skill to increase an already trained skill, as long as it does not go over 3 and it is on a table the character is eligible to.
For me, 'Basic' CT doesn't have quite enough meat on the bones and 'Advanced' is just too damn fussy and inefficient. MGT strikes a nice balance between the two, with plenty of player choice figured in. (I'd also pick background skills after career skill allocation, just to fill in any discrepancies).
Essentially, for me the chargen system is the most important part of any rpg, followed by weapon and equipment rules. The task system itself is a somewhat lesser consideration. The beauty of any 2D based mechanic is that there's only so many alternatives, so it is the easiest part to fix, if there's anything wrong.
CT never quite got any of this right, even though there was enough there on display to keep us talking about it for 30 years. CT chargen was inconsistent (not just between basic and advanced: the fact that they broke they're own rules and gave Scouts 2 skills per term in 1001 Characters says it all, really), and using weapons was a real mess (all that cross referencing of tables, ugh!); using equipment was barely mentioned.
MT might have fixed some of this: I did get some of the pdfs but I found chargen to be a little clunky, still obsessed with the military, and I did not like that task system (steps of 4! on a 2D mechanic? Ludicrous!
). The main thing that put me off, however, was the poor quality of the scans and the Rebellion setting.
Of all the versions out there right now, T20 is probably the most internally consistent, but it has all that D20 baggage, and it kinda proves D20 and Prior History aren't really compatible, despite the noble effort.
Given that I'm assuming Mongoose to be sensible enough to fix the power issue for spacecraft (funny how the power they require is identical to their displacement....), and that I hope worldgen ends up tasting like EDG worldgen, I pretty much like what I see.
So notwithstanding the above, and an unresolvable POV argument about the use of stats, it seems the main objections folk have is the T/E addendum to the core 8+ mechanic. Well, even if I did not think that either a) it will be fixed in the published version, or, b) easily fixable in itself, I'd still probably get MGT for everything else. Adapting it to any kind of 2D mechanic is easy as pie, with a caveat that it depends on how the final weapon damage system looks.
What I'm really interested in, after a properly integrated chargen system, is a fresh pair of eyes. I don't think I've spotted any familiar bits of text in the playtest documents. In most other versions of Traveller I've seen, it seems like 50% of the text is identical to the last version (I may be exaggerating here but that's what it feels like).
I've not pre-ordered it yet. I'd like to buy it from my local Forbidden Planet, as it's nice to see Traveller on the shelves.
Play it as written, and yes, the results can be pretty random, to the good, oe the bad. It is quite easy to end up with characters that just couldn't do the job they're intended to do.
However, it is simple just to read the rules differently and get a nice hybrid between surprise and player choice. When rolling for skills I tend to roll the die and then choose the skill from eligible tables: sometimes there's a lot of choice, sometimes there's very little, but it gives me more control of my character. I'll also let players use their term skill to increase an already trained skill, as long as it does not go over 3 and it is on a table the character is eligible to.
For me, 'Basic' CT doesn't have quite enough meat on the bones and 'Advanced' is just too damn fussy and inefficient. MGT strikes a nice balance between the two, with plenty of player choice figured in. (I'd also pick background skills after career skill allocation, just to fill in any discrepancies).
Essentially, for me the chargen system is the most important part of any rpg, followed by weapon and equipment rules. The task system itself is a somewhat lesser consideration. The beauty of any 2D based mechanic is that there's only so many alternatives, so it is the easiest part to fix, if there's anything wrong.
CT never quite got any of this right, even though there was enough there on display to keep us talking about it for 30 years. CT chargen was inconsistent (not just between basic and advanced: the fact that they broke they're own rules and gave Scouts 2 skills per term in 1001 Characters says it all, really), and using weapons was a real mess (all that cross referencing of tables, ugh!); using equipment was barely mentioned.
MT might have fixed some of this: I did get some of the pdfs but I found chargen to be a little clunky, still obsessed with the military, and I did not like that task system (steps of 4! on a 2D mechanic? Ludicrous!

Of all the versions out there right now, T20 is probably the most internally consistent, but it has all that D20 baggage, and it kinda proves D20 and Prior History aren't really compatible, despite the noble effort.
Given that I'm assuming Mongoose to be sensible enough to fix the power issue for spacecraft (funny how the power they require is identical to their displacement....), and that I hope worldgen ends up tasting like EDG worldgen, I pretty much like what I see.
So notwithstanding the above, and an unresolvable POV argument about the use of stats, it seems the main objections folk have is the T/E addendum to the core 8+ mechanic. Well, even if I did not think that either a) it will be fixed in the published version, or, b) easily fixable in itself, I'd still probably get MGT for everything else. Adapting it to any kind of 2D mechanic is easy as pie, with a caveat that it depends on how the final weapon damage system looks.
What I'm really interested in, after a properly integrated chargen system, is a fresh pair of eyes. I don't think I've spotted any familiar bits of text in the playtest documents. In most other versions of Traveller I've seen, it seems like 50% of the text is identical to the last version (I may be exaggerating here but that's what it feels like).
I've not pre-ordered it yet. I'd like to buy it from my local Forbidden Planet, as it's nice to see Traveller on the shelves.