Forced to think in hex eh? Guess my brain must be wired that way since it never seemed to be an issue. Certainly I never found it forced, I just used it. I actually found it a wonder that I could make notations of single digit/letters to mean more. F is 15! Wow!
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
Yeah, but don't you think that's a darn weird way to show something in a roleplaying game?! I mean, what's an RPG doing displaying things in a way that usually is only used in computer programming??
</font>[/QUOTE]It was a darned unusual way of doing things,
BUT!!! it also let you condense incredible loads of material in a
VERY small space!
An entire subsector's worlds, INCLUDING the map!!! on one page!
An entire character, including equipment, on a single index card!
A whole ship's crew and their relevant skills, on a single page!
We take information storage for granted in the 21st Century. I have spreadsheets full of relevant information about the d20 PCs and NPCs, all at my fingertips. <alt><tab> and I'm on the DM-PC who's accompanying the party and acts as the DM voice when need be. <alt><tab> and I'm on my combat sheet. Plug in a second monitor and I might not even need to <alt><tab>!
In the day, however, the ability to put in a UPP or USP or UWP as a string of single-digit numbers was an INCREDIBLY powerful technique.
What do I hate about CT? Nothing at the time; I don't really hate it at all currently. However, it doesn't compare well to <most> later Traveller products, and I definately include T20 here. T20 is by far a better
GAME than CT was. Different, yes, but better. MT, with all its problems (and I agree that the task system turned the game more into roll playing than role-playing; I have another set of posts about that), was a better game than CT. More was defined, more background provided, more options at the players' and GM's fingertips.
But CT was the force that dominated forever our Traveller-o-phile destinies, yes.