Worth it for nostalgia...?

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

I'll also note: for Traveller 1DP = 2d6 damage to attributes is a very literalist approach. I have merged them in the past; Traveller's skills actually tend to be a bit low... the average Basic Gen PC in Classic is 4 terms, with 5-9 skill levels total, some of which go to attributes, and the median is about 6 skill rolls, with 2-3 into atts, the rest in actual skills, plus 0-2 for rank and service.
Going the other way, an FGMP-15 with its 16d damage would only be 8 DP of area effect damage... Melts the tires off, but not much else.

That is a good point about porting from Cepheus, the skills descriptions and mechanics are good and easy to port. You could leave it there (and maybe take advantage of some of the equipment as well).

If you want to have a basic stat system and more variety of HP for characters you can add that in without any difficulty but it will change the game as Stat bonuses will often swamp skill level bonuses at lower levels.

If you use the full character generation system you will be playing a very different game. Cepheus and Traveller on which it is based assume post service (retiree) adventuring. CW assumes fresh out of school (if there is such a thing). The early versions at least did not really have any experience system, the skills you started with we all you would ever have. Given you maybe got a few skills every 4 years in careers that were supposed to be active, giving extra skills after a few game sessions seems inconsistent.

Different versions of Traveller had widely different character generation models, some more generous with skills than others. If you use the free Cepheus SRD version, you got background skills before you started the career process which gave on average 3 skills at level 0 (just like standard CW).

If you enlisted in a career you got all the Service skills for that career at level 0 also which still isn't game breaking but you then have a character who is 22 and you also have to rejig the careers to fit with CW or possibly reinvent them (though some variants are less "spacey" and more cyberpunk and need less tweaking and Cepheus Modern can be used straight out of the tin).

You can then spend 4 more years in a career and get the career progression described above. You could also die (or as an alternate rule suffer stat reduction) by pushing your luck. This would mean characters with higher stats, but it also gives them more background story. If you spent too long in pre-game careers then you would suffer aging effects further reducing stats.

It is a different model to CW, but it has value. Most stories I enjoyed had protagonists who had some skills and knowledge of the world. Teen fiction is probably the exception, but James Bond or Jack Reacher as a teenager probably wouldn't have been as interesting.

Rags to riches was only one suggested way of playing. If you are going for an adventure style game then having a few broken down ex-whatevers can add roleplaying context and spice.