On Mon, 1 Jun 2020 at 09:09, James Catchpole - jlcatchpole at googlemail.com (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

Remember that the Third Imperium was nowhere to be seen in the LBBs, while the low berth rules were there to model part of the inspiration for the rule set - the Dumarest series by E.C. Tubb.

When they started publishing what would become the Third Imperium, GDW never changed the low berth rules, although they eventually tweaked or changed outright a number of others.

So, it was either a joint oversight, or they didn't feel it needed changing for the TI, or the assumption is that low berths are actually pretty safe in the TI but they didn't want to change a core rule.

^^^^^ - what he said on all counts.

Which you think it is will obviously colour your Third Imperium.

That's what's fun... for every Traveller referee (and possibly every player) there's a different Third Imperium. :-)

One thing I don’t know is why are low berths so much safer in Gurps Traveller? Was that inherited from the generic space rules, or was it a deliberate choice? That might give an insight into how LKW saw the Imperium...

oooh, that's a good question. It's a shame we can't ask.

Anyway, thank you for this two minute break from horrors of APA7 in detail (I'm writing a guide for students). (APA7 is ok in general, it's the detail that's a pain!) It's giving me a nasty little headache.