Bottom Line Up Front: Good game, but only for a certain kind of gamer. Needs an experienced GM. Has some usability issues from a production standpoint, but nothing deal-breaking.

I noticed that most of the reviews here were comparing this book to the previous edition of Traveller, and I wanted to give a review more aimed at gamers who are looking at getting into a new system, and how Traveller stacks up to comparable RPGs by other companies.

1. Characters: First off, the character creation is very complicated, but, since it is very specifically stated that it is meant to be carried out with the group, as part of the game itself, and not as pre-game prep work, I am not docking points for that. It seems like character creation would actually be quite fun to play through, rather than just an excercise in mutual homework. On the flip side, however, the career path system is very dice dependent. Access to professions, injuries, and what skills you learn are all dependant on dice rolls. This is great if you are trying to grow a character organically, but it means that it is very hard to build to a concept, as your aspiring doctor may flunk out of school, get arrested, and end up as a streetwise fence. This can also result in some characters being much more capable than others, with one player ending up as an ex-conscript with the shirt on his back and a bad leg, and the other could be a renaissance woman, with multiple successful careers behind her, a network of contacts accross the sector, and equipped with the finest of gear. Characters also don't advance with experience or levels, learning new skills is purely a function of time (and dice rolls).

2. Game Rules: Gameplay seems smooth, with the primary mechanic being roll 2d6. This is somewhat less random than the d20 system, but more than the White Wolf/Shadowrun roll for success on X many dice. Checks are very skill dependent, with your stats rarely providing more than +/- 1. This means that your character will tend to be good at fairly specific things, rather than having general areas of competence, but it also means you can have left-field skills, as your dumb thug can pick up enough ranks to become quite good at working on his car. On the fly modifiers are handled with a boon/bane system (roll 3d6, pick the best/worst 2), which cuts down on a lot of the mid-conflict math, but loses granularity for saying some circumstance is very/just a little (un)helpful. The skill system also includes some very handy rules, like linked skill checks for non-combat challenges and time bands for rushing/taking your time with a job. On the other hand, the equipment tables have a lot of redundant entries (ie, something with a better version that is just a little more expensive/higher tech). The computer equipment has an interesting rule about buying lower/higher tech versions, and similar rules should be created for other equipment.

3. Gamesmaster: For the GM, Traveller is quite a challenge. No exp or levels means no Challenge or Threat Ratings, meaning you have to eyeball everything you throw at your players without guidelines. For non-combat encounters, the static task difficulties help, but the highly random charecter creation means that what may be easy for one character is very hard for another. The relative lack of charatcer growth does mean, however, that once your have got a sense of what your players can handle it will only change slowly, if at all. Stats for NPCs and Worlds are presented as just strings of characters. If your players ever catch you flatfooted, you will not be able to just give them a monster or world straight out of the book, you will have to sit down and break down the numbers into a useful form. On the upside, Traveller does include a very nice ruleset for creating an entire space sector, complete with trade routes and politics in just a couple of hours (less as you get better with it), and its animal behavior tags are a really nice touch for adding some realism to wildlife encounters. It also includes a very interesting system for modelling supply and demand throughout a sector for (complete with instructions to kick back and let the players drive the pace as they use these rules to scour the sector for profits!) The book is pretty light on setting information, but inference and deduction from comments scattered throughout the book will give you enough to play within their world (if not to be a major part of it). The book also includes a sample sector which, while not ready to play out of the box, does give you a pretty good headstart for building your own adventures.

4. The Product: From a production standpoint, the game has numerous small issues. Typos are scattered throughout the book. Never common enough that it looks amateurish, they are noticeable. There is no index, and the table of contents is very sparse, although the PDF does include a more comprehensive set of bookmarks. On the other hand, there are no links in the document itself, and there are numerous layout choices that only make sense in the physical product (charts being on the opposite page from their rules, larger charts printed sideways). Finally, the order of the the different sections is very poor. Weapon qualities are not near the weapons table, they are buried in the combat section. Rules for space encounters, space missions, and asteroid mining aren't in the encounters or missions section, they are in between the stats for vehicles and the stats for spacecraft. Numerous similar placement choices make this book very hard to use a reference guide (although it does read quite smoothly just going from cover to cover). Reference would be especially difficult in the physcial form due to the aforementioned spartan table of contents/non existent index (The PDF bookmarks and Ctrl-F help a lot). The purchase here (DriveThruRPG.com, Apr 2016) also includes a number of peripherals, including a fillable PDF charcter sheet, but the sheet is buggy, with certain boxes being linked together (ie Filling in Weapon #1's weight will also put that value for Armour #1's weight, and vice versa). A Google search can find you fixed versions, but still it is a little disappointing.

5. Conclusion: In conclusion, Traveller is a system with a very specific appeal. If you are an experienced group of gamers, looking for a hands-off, "let's see where this goes," episodic experience you could do a lot worse than Traveller. You will have a great ride as you watch your character evolve through creation, and then take that character to explore and trade in a space that is filled with colourful, varied worlds, trying to keep up with the mortgage payments on your ship (or stay one hop ahead of the space repo-men!). If, however, you are new to RPGs, like to play specific characters, or looking for a sense of growth from your character, I suggest you look elsewhere. If you are a GM, you might want to pick this up on sale, just to plunder some of the rules/concepts like the sector generation system, and use those in other games. The product here could also use another sweep through Quality Control, just to clear out some of the bugs.