Quote from: Independence Games;1114747Character generation is still, IMHO, the best thing about the game.  As much as I enjoyed previous versions of the character generation method, I think the improvements that Mongoose made to it is their primary contribution to the game as a whole.  Thankfully that method was included in what Marc and Mongoose made OGL.

The Events and Mishaps just take what was great and made it even better.  While the other Cepheus Engine publishers decided to go back to something closer to Classic, I kept the expanded character generation in Clement Sector.  By far, my favorite part of the game.

I agree with you, the Events and Mishaps section really made character creation a three dimensional process and has been Mongoose's greatest contribution.

Quote from: Ashakyre;1114633I would love to play this game sometime. I only have the 2008 edition, whatever version that is, but this game seems like it would be a lot of fun.

Going from 2nd-gen to 1st-gen? Make some characters first with Mongoose Traveller. Then make some with Classic Traveller. I'm curious to know what you think after.

I run things just with Books 1-3. In our group, another guy is going to run a game - and he's using all the books. High Guard et al are so fucking munchkiny compared to 1-3, it's nuts. Today I've rolled up a couple

Fralphy Rogarc   
Age    22
A83B74   
Gnr-1, GnC-1, Brwl-1
Fralphy the asthmatic brawler


Aryn Wardav
3A96B8
Imerial Navy, 2 terms
ZG Cbt-1, GnC-3, Bld-1, Vac-1, Lia-1, Frg-1, Int-1
she was crew branch, but her last year of her second term she got sent to cross-training, intelligence, they get up to 5 skills on a 4+ on a d6; lucky she's got poor strength or she'd be a real mary sue

Quote from: estar;1114554I adapted a javascript classic Traveller character generator to include the Citizens of the Imperium professions. You can try it here.
http://www.batintheattic.com/traveller/

Cool app. For a PC, I still prefer to roll them up by hand. That way I feel a story emerging from the dice throws.

I feel sorry for people who get turned off by "you can die in chargen". The way I see it, once you start the career process, you are already playing the game. Anyway on a practical level, it takes about 2 minutes to roll up a character in Books1-3 Classic Trav (or a fraction of a second with that app) so it's not like it's a big waste of your time if the guy does croak.

Quote from: Independence Games;1114747Character generation is still, IMHO, the best thing about the game.  As much as I enjoyed previous versions of the character generation method, I think the improvements that Mongoose made to it is their primary contribution to the game as a whole.  Thankfully that method was included in what Marc and Mongoose made OGL.

The Events and Mishaps just take what was great and made it even better.  While the other Cepheus Engine publishers decided to go back to something closer to Classic, I kept the expanded character generation in Clement Sector.  By far, my favorite part of the game.

Each to their own, but I find Mongoose-style pre-scripted events and mishaps a bit flat and flavourless. When it comes to thinking up the story that ties together the raw numbers of the character, the tables feel to me as I use them like they are shutting options down rather than firing up the imagination. I find the same thing with Stars Without Number's tag-based planetary creation as well.

Quote from: Marchand;1114786Each to their own, but I find Mongoose-style pre-scripted events and mishaps a bit flat and flavourless. When it comes to thinking up the story that ties together the raw numbers of the character, the tables feel to me as I use them like they are shutting options down rather than firing up the imagination. I find the same thing with Stars Without Number's tag-based planetary creation as well.

Everyone has their own favorite ways of doing things.  I'd encourage you to check out what we've done with it as I think we've improved greatly on the Mongoose system, particularly with our Diverse Roles book.  

Then again, if you're already happy with what you have, you might not be interested.

I do agree with you that it's best to do it by hand.  Doing it with an app might be good for making NPCs but I'd never go that way with a Player Character.  It just takes something away from the "emerging story" that you get with character generation.

Quote from: Marchand;1114786I feel sorry for people who get turned off by "you can die in chargen". The way I see it, once you start the career process, you are already playing the game.

Personally I find it a bug as I don't like wasting my time to die during chargen. That being said it is a very fun and interesting bug and I would never tell someone to nut play Classic Traveller nor would it keep me from playing. It's like 1E D&D with the Assassin class and poison use in general. Gary Gygax absolutely hated including both and made sure to bend over backwards to screw over those who used both in 1E. I would still promote 1E as a choice if anyone wants OSR gaming.

Quote from: Marchand;1114786Cool app. For a PC, I still prefer to roll them up by hand. That way I feel a story emerging from the dice throws.

On this, we agree.

Quote from: Marchand;1114786I feel sorry for people who get turned off by "you can die in chargen". The way I see it, once you start the career process, you are already playing the game. Anyway on a practical level, it takes about 2 minutes to roll up a character in Books1-3 Classic Trav (or a fraction of a second with that app) so it's not like it's a big waste of your time if the guy does croak.

On this, we disagree.

Anecdote time! I once tried to roll up a Belter character using Sup 4 and had a string of over a dozen character deaths before getting one who made his survival roll, so I can understand where people are coming from.

Death during chargen never bothered me. It was 1977. Not effeminate 2019.

I've always used the characters who died in chargen as backstory for the ones that didn't... "Sam's brother died under suspicious circumstances during his first term with the Scout Service, and someday I'm going to find out what really happened!"

The downside of Traveller, IME, are the crusty critters who come out of the woodwork when someone announces they're running the game. Like real world military guys and gun fondlers who want to tell us all how we're doing it wrong.
I've yet to play a game of Traveller that didn't descend into nitpicking AND/OR was run by a GM who really wasn't comfortable with scifi and would drop us into some vaguely disguised dungeon crawl on a backwater planet first chance they got.

Not the fault of the game at all, of course.

Quote from: Simlasa;1114815The downside of Traveller, IME, are the crusty critters who come out of the woodwork when someone announces they're running the game. Like real world military guys and gun fondlers who want to tell us all how we're doing it wrong.

As with so many game session issues, this comes down to leadership from the GM. I am the GM, I wear the Viking Hat! The GM must take control and keep things moving. It is the Game Master's job to make the game session fun against all the objections of the players.

When I run the game, I'm the ex-military guy in the group, so nobody argues much. I explain: "Mate, nobody cares except you. So your character spends the combat round contemplating how really his weapon should be doing more damage. Next round what will you do?"

In my last game though I had two guys who'd studied orbital mechanics and wanted to bring it up. Once we'd reduced that to just one player who'd studied orbital mechanics, the game moved more smoothly.

Quote from: jeff37923;1114799Anecdote time! I once tried to roll up a Belter character using Sup 4 and had a string of over a dozen character deaths before getting one who made his survival roll, so I can understand where people are coming from.

Fair enough, that sucks. IIRC the belter survival throw is way harsh, but then you get a bonus per term survived? Anyway if I was the GM and you really wanted to play a belter, I would let you cheat at least the first survival throw, because it is supposed to be fun.

My point is I suppose RAW death is an option / see where the dice fall can be fun too in unexpected ways, not it is the Only True Way to Have Fun.

Quote from: Simlasa;1114815I've always used the characters who died in chargen as backstory for the ones that didn't... "Sam's brother died under suspicious circumstances during his first term with the Scout Service, and someday I'm going to find out what really happened!"

That is brilliant; I am nicking this, thanks

Quote from: Simlasa;1114815The downside of Traveller, IME, are the crusty critters who come out of the woodwork when someone announces they're running the game. Like real world military guys and gun fondlers who want to tell us all how we're doing it wrong.
I've yet to play a game of Traveller that didn't descend into nitpicking AND/OR was run by a GM who really wasn't comfortable with scifi and would drop us into some vaguely disguised dungeon crawl on a backwater planet first chance they got.

Not the fault of the game at all, of course.

Both of those sound annoying. Trav fandom online has a reputation for being quite grognardy. Personally I have no interest in how many pips an Imperial Admiral is supposed to have on his collar, and if anyone tries to argue Traveller is hard SF at me then "reactionless drives and psionics". Anyway, the few times I have found a game it wasn't an issue. Red Dwarf seemed to be the main cultural reference point for one group...

The "D&D in space, or not even in space" thing brings to mind another vague and half-formed thought I have about Classic Trav gameplay, and what the writers seem to have assumed a game would actually be like. D&D clearly exerts a massive influence over what people expect any RPG to be like and I agree there is a tendency to fall back on "go into a complex, kick in doors and murder/solve whatever is on the other side, rinse and repeat". BTW I am not saying D&D can only do this, just that it is well supported as a play style by the rules as provided, and that a lot of games fall into that groove.

If I look at Classic Trav, some of the early adventures fall squarely into that category (Research Station Gamma, Annic Nova). But then you have got an Administration skill that can be used to achieve professional advancement in a bureaucracy. Or another adventure Exit Visa where the dungeon rooms are bureaucrats' offices and the puzzle is figuring out the right mix of bribery, flattery and argument to get them to issue you with the paperwork you need. And one of the few detailed and spelled-out play subsystems is for gaming through a character's career over years or decades.

It seems to me Marc Miller maybe thought people would not necessarily spend a game going through a building kicking in doors. Going out on a limb - and I'm not aware he ever said anything like this - I wonder if the idea was people would use e.g. the character career system as a model for subsystems of their own. I can imagine subsystems for trading or exploration that would work in a similar way, i.e. pick options, make saves influenced by characteristics and/or skills, balancing risk against possible reward. I think Beltstrike already did that for asteroid prospecting.

Whatever his expectations were or weren't, the career system is a lot of people's favourite part of Classic Trav, so why not have more stuff like that?

As I recall, death in chargen was only the default in the 1977 edition. In the 1981 edition, it was changed to end of service, with death as an option. Otherwise, on into adventuring.

I never have trouble recruiting players for Classic Traveller, most especially after Firefly.  

I had to explain that Traveller characters don't have plot immunity like TV show characters and shotguns make big holes in meat people, but after that it was smooth sailing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1114839I had to explain that Traveller characters don't have plot immunity like TV show characters and shotguns make big holes in meat people, but after that it was smooth sailing.

One of the things I keep telling prospective GMs of Traveller is have them and their Players sit down and run a couple of mock combats to get used to the comparative lethality of the Traveller combat mechanics. A whole lot of people who have only ever played D&D get really surprised by how easy Traveller PCs can die in comparison.

That's good advice!