[Jack Holcomb]

But "it's diverse" is a copout.

Obviously I disagree. More on that below.

Somehow they manage to generate lots of setting information in all the additional books. And the grognard community certainly doesn't treat any of that as optional suggested information as if this really were a "freeform" rpg.

I hope you'll correct me if I misconstrue what you're trying to say here. If I do understand you, I think that you're simply mistaken about this.

I'm no expert, and I'm not sure I even qualify as a member of the grognard community, but you don't have to hang around a Traveller forum (e.g. Citizens of the Imperium) for very long before you pick up on the "IMTU" meme--that is, "In My Traveller Universe." There's a LOT of latitude in the fan community for Traveller players to pick and choose the parts of the Imperium setting that work for them, or even to reject it altogether. There seems to be a strong "let a thousand flowers bloom" ethic among Traveller players--thus the multitude of rules adaptations and the panoply of milieux and alternate histories both in and out of the Imperium canon.

Yes, there are probably some Traveller fundies out there, and like all fundies they're probably hard to reason with. I've seen no indication that they're a majority or even a significant minority.

And by everyday, I don't mean some peasant somewhere, I mean the average Traveller.

Thanks for clarifying that. Obviously, that's not how I read it.

How does one normally travel from star to star, are there starliners? Or is it always booking passage on smaller ships? How much interstellar trade is there? Does every single ship get boarded and searched by customs or is it like seaports today where maybe .5% of stuff gets looked at? In a universe with different "tech levels" what exactly is the legality/implications of carting a ship full of iPods to the renaissance planet? Etc. All of these are fundamental assumptions that change the way a game would run for PCs.

Traveller is meant as a generic game system in the same way that D&D is a generic game system--it's meant to generate certain kinds of characters and stories within fairly broad constraints. The Mongoose version is trying to go back that direction. Surely the flavorful details you ask for are better left to the game master to decide upon. Your Lensman game will look very different from my Firefly game--and (in the Imperium milieu) your Spinward Marches game will look very different from my Crucis Margin game. Yes, there's that cop-out again.

Anyway, the setting comes out later in big chunks, and it's a design laziness ported from the earliest versions that there's info in the core book - or even a core setting book - to sum it up. You all have heard of other settings for other RPGs and how they work right? Here's the main FR book that gives you the general stuff and then here's the neverending line of splatbooks that goes into detail?

Can we please be friends? I'm feeling a little attacked here. I'm also a little confused about the jab at splatbooks--it sounds like you're knocking them at the same time you're arguing that that's how RPG settings have to work.

OK, so here's the bit where I explain how "it's diverse" is no cop-out: Traveller's setting is, and has always been, a generative, DIY setting--not freeform, but full of potential and arrived at via processes laid out in the core book and GM creativity.
There are a lot of setting assumptions hard-coded in the game's systems, and the Imperium is only one of many possible instantiations of those assumptions. Character creation tells you that the military is a big deal here; the starship and other technology rules tell you that space travel is the only thing holding this setting together; the commerce rules give you a sense of the mechanism for that. The world creation rules give you a sense of the breadth of the setting--it potentially includes an enormous diversity of worlds.

Traveller also intentionally leaves it to the GM to work out a lot of the details. This was part of Traveller's ethic from the beginning, and if you read some of the old adventures they were unapologetic about leaving some work to the GM. I certainly get it if you want something a little more determined for your game; I like this.

Here, you have no idea how e.g. the military works in the future until you buy whichever military book they put out first. And then, future military books have the poor grace to refer to that book for stuff unveiled there, so you have to get all or nothing. It's a bad decision that hasn't been replicated by other RPGs despite Traveller certainly not being the only large scale or sci-fi or whatever other descriptor you care to put on it out there.[/QUOTE]

Does the Fading Suns core book give you a good idea how the military works in that universe? There's a lot of implied feudal stuff and Brother Battle and the Muster, but how does it all fit together? If you're like me you made it up, and when the book came out you worked it in or ignored it or some combination.

Do you have a solid notion of the workings of the GEO marshalls from the core Blue Planet books? What are their official powers, what are the laws they enforce, etc? If you're like me you made it up, and ditto the above.

I know, I know--I keep copping out. I can't get around the fact that ultimately every RPG core book has to stop and say "We leave the rest of this setting as an exercise for the reader." Sounds to me like the Traveller core book stops too soon for you, but I'd argue that it stops where it does as a matter of design. It's not your cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's a bad cup of tea.