From the web:
Traveller: The New Era is the 3rd version of the
Traveller RPG and the last version done by Game Designers' Workshop. The
rules are significantly different from Classic Traveller and
MegaTraveller and are based on the GDW House System used by several
other GDW RPGs.
The universe of Traveller is known space several thousand years in
the future. Humankind has explored and settled over 11,000 worlds, and
inhabits a volume of space hundreds of parsecs across. On its journey to
the stars, it met dozens of alien races. It befriended some, warred on
others, and maintained an uneasy distance from others still. It turned
the worlds it owned into safe, pleasant technological wonderlands. Then,
in less than a dozen years, greed and stupidity destroyed everything.
Now, 70 years later, small groups of humans are returning to the
stars. The worlds they find, however, are much more dangerous places
than they were less than a century earlier. There are a dozen ways to
lose a ship, a hundred ways to die, and in lots of places only one way
to get out with your skin. Most people play it safe. Most people stay
dirtside, secure and comfortable. Most people are content to let history
unfold as it will, and simply experience whatever life dishes up for
them.
But not you. You’re different. You don’t much like the shape your
ancestors left things in. And if you don’t like things, you do something
about it. So what if doing something about it means changing the
history of the universe? That’s the sort of difference that makes people
leave solid rock behind to reach out and grab back the stars.
Inside Traveller: The New Era, you'll find everything you need to create an entire universe of limitless adventure:
- A character generation system with over 40 careers and 100 skills, from wilderness survival to starship astrogation.
- A fast, simple task and combat system compatible with GDW's Twilight: 2000 and Dark Conspiracy games.
- A colorful and innovative vector-based starship combat system which
provides rich tactical detail but which can be played without a map.
- World generation which lets you design entire universes from stars to planets, and the creatures that live on them.
- Detailed starships, high-technology weapons and vehicles.