On 29 Jan 2017 at 1:03, Evyn MacDude wrote:

> Don't get me wrong I really wanted to like the new Mongoose edition.
> But the Playtest then the final product was just sub-par. It is a
> pretty book, just not enough different from the 1st edition.

My irritations are mostly with things that were show-stoppers for me in 1e and are still
there (or are new variations on old problems). What I consider to me stupid skill
listings for chargen are the biggest ones. For example, a spy (corporate or
governmental) is guaranteed to get Gun Combat-1 if they get enough rank, but a cop
might not ever get it. Why in the heck is a Rank 4 spy guaranteed gun skill when no cop
is?

A Colonist ("You are building a new life on the a recelty settled world that still needs
taming") is extremely unlikely to know how to use a gun unless they're Rank-6, where
it's automatic (apparently colonial leadership is throughh the barrel of a gun). At least,
unlike 1e, corporate managers now don't have guns on their career tables.

Performers, which inlcudes all kinds of professional athletes have no way to learn to
fight.

Corporate managers can learn Jack-of-all-Trades, Free Traders cannot.

Most careers have fairly balanced survival vs promotion odds, where they total to 12.
Scouts total to 14, yet they are not correspondingly awesome unless the party really
needs a mortgage free ship. They also have 'advancement' wich is Not Traveller, IMO.

PCs do not, so far as I can tell, start with level-0 in combat skills, so if you didn't get one
in chargen, you're hosed in most campaigns.

On top of that the largish number of skills (about double, compared to Book 1), but
does not have larger skill tables to roll on (so any one career covers a smaller area of
competence, and there's less room to 'double up' a skill to make it very likely a
character gets it), and nor does it hand out double the skill rolls.

I think the game relies too much on the 'skill packages' idea to cover over these
deficiencies, and to make up for using essentially random chargen while trying to
promote "build a party of characters that completment each other" style play.

I'm sticking with my houseruled GURPS 4e for current games, and either LBB+Striker
combat or MT+High Guard for any (hypothetical) old-style games I run, thanks. Or
maybe the Cepheus Engine - at least it says Athletes and Colonists can learn to fight.