this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Stars Without Number is a fun system. Traveller can be a bit complex but the character generation is the best.
Questions since you seem to have experience :)
Stars Without Number looks interesting -- been poking the free basic ruleset PDF. I don't like the focus on psionics and teleportation and other sci fi tropes that are not as hard. If one were to run a zero-psi game, would the system still work?
Which "edition" of traveller have you used, and how do you even pick an edition? Are there inter-edition and inter-publisher compatibility?
From my limited investigations, I think the modern version from Mongoose is the one to go with
The character generation system is amazing but from my POV its a bit Star Trek instead of Star Wars or the expanse, if that makes sense?
My only experience of it is listening to bits of it on the Glass Cannon so I may have a skewed perspective
Psionics is the reason there is FTL in the default setting, and also why it's a post-apocalyptic setting. You don't need psionics to travel, like in 40k, but I reckon removing psionics from the setting is taking away some of its flavor.
But from a gameplay point of view, I really don't think it's a problem. You could probably search the Reddit sub for Kevin's word on it, but from what I recall, it's a non issue, because it's OSR and the game isn't "calibrated" for a particular party, like say DnD3.5. You could always leave psionics in the background, something dreadful and not known to the public, like in Babylon 5 or Firefly. Even in SWN itself, like I said, psionics is the reason for the whole mess the universe is in, so they're definitely not omnipresent, and more likely to be a trouble magnet, if present in the party.
The easiest Traveller version is definitely the one from Mongoose.
Also, you should check out Seth Skorkowsky’s overview videos:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL25p5gPY6qKVUg6ys5N1oRlsBI7DTByyI