Nowhere in the Spinward Marches (which was billed as the ‘frontier’) had anything remotely like a ‘wild west’ vibe to it.
I'm going to address this separately because it really is a separate subject that I've thought about quite a bit recently. I've arrived at a rather radical (if I do say so myself) conclusion from the perspective of a game referee:
This lack of a 'wild west' feeling is an inherent feature of Traveller's universe generation system as written. This system inevitably results in the game universe being
too small.
Also, the same system
almost inevitably results in the game universe being
too big.
How is it too small?
Long answer: Every inhabited system is precisely located and statted. There may be worlds with a frontier type feeling (in Regina subsector alone there are several candidates) but they are also 'locked in' in this fashion. If you have an idea for a scenario set on a remote desert planet ruled by a religious dictatorship, you are out of luck unless a pre-existing world with those characteristics is in your PCs' path. You can have some wiggle room by placing additional worlds in a system, but this can quickly stretch the limits of plausibility and also does not work for many scenarios.
For example: The Chamax Plague/Horde scenario mentioned above can only be set on two neighbouring (on the interstellar scale) worlds of very specific characteristics.
If you want to use the scenario in a running campaign, you need to somehow maneuver your PCs towards those two worlds. Apart from the fact that this could very well take months of in-game time, it more importantly runs counter to what players typically love about Traveller: That their characters can freely travel through an open universe.
I have encountered the same problem when trying to adapt other classic (in both senses) Traveller adventures to running campaigns. For Nomads of the World Ocean, you can of course change the evil corporation, you can ditch the Vegan connection etc.; but you need a water world, relatively high tech, with at least a moderate population and a government type which would allow for corporate meddling.
Short answer: The universe (the OTU specifically, but the same applies to other universes created in CT) is too small in the sense that there is not enough conceptual space left open for specific scenario backgrounds. It is too fully described.
How is it too big?
Long answer: If you do want a scenario in which specific fixed points, regions or persons are relevant, those can only be reached by years of travel. For example, it is practically impossible to have your typical Jump-2 based PC ship crew to have scenarios involving both the Zhodani and the Solomani in the same campaign; it would take years (about seven by my estimate) to simply get from one frontier to the other.
This is a problem I am more willing to accept; I wouldn't want the other extreme of a JJ Abrams type universe which is theoretically galaxy-spanning, but where practically every point is within half an hour's travel from every other point. But it still could use some trimming without losing the OTU's vast feudal empire approach. I have experienced it irks players when they hear about distant parts of the Imperium and know full well they will never, ever go there.
You can see where the problem is by looking at two published examples of campaigns which actually
were designed to take PCs across large swathes of the Imperium (and its surroundings even): DGP's Grand Tour and GDW's Arrival Vengeance.
In both cases, the solution was to impose on the players a strict itinerary their characters would follow, no matter what. No pretense of PC freedom of movement was maintained; the usual activities associated with such freedom (such as trading) where ignored.
This is likely the only feasible solution, but while it maintains the image of the vast OTU in the background, for practical purposes it reduces the game universe to a railroad track with fixed stops.
Short answer: The universe (more specifically the OTU in this case) is too big in the sense that it is impossible to experience most of its distinct parts even in a long-term campaign.
So in conclusion: There is too little undescribed space to flesh out in the immediate surroundings of the PCs. At the same time, the described space in its entirety is far too large too experience more than a tiny fraction of it in even a very long campaign.
