Had a spare half hour tonight, sat down with my 1977 Traveller rulebooks and a couple of dice and rolled up a few characters with the lifepath generation system.
In case anyone doesn't know the system, stats are rolled on 2d6. For one character, I got Strength 8, Dexterity 8, Endurance 4 (pretty bad), Intelligence 7, Education 5 and Social Standing 2 (worst possible).
I randomly decided to try him for the Navy where you get a higher chance of joining if you have high Int and Edu. Failed, unsurprisingly, and got drafted into the Marines.
He just makes Survival (despite lack of bonus for the relatively tough save, given his low Endurance), no commission or promotion throw because drafted. He gets Cutlass by default because he's a Marine. 2 skills thrown: Blade Combat, which I'm sinking into Cutlass, and Gun Combat, which I take as Shotgun, because Marines would be trained in boarding shotguns and because they are badass weapons in Classic Trav.
Failed his re-enlistment throw, so he's turfed out of the service at age 22. 1 benefit throw, which gives me +1 Education.
Marine (1 term) 884752 Cutlass-2 Shotgun-1
While I'm throwing dice I'm getting a picture of this guy from a tough background, maybe a low-tech world where he got exposed to some disease as a kid accounting for the low Endurance, but still fairly brawny and athletic. Maybe he was born into more-or-less serfdom and had to escape the plantation; he smuggled himself to the world's spaceport to try and sign on to some offworld service to get the hell out of there. The Navy would get you offworld right? They had no need for a farm kid, but a desperate Marine recruiting sergeant signed him right up. Urgent need for warm bodies for whatever police action was going down a few systems over. He's an ambitious kid and he hits the books during the downtime between missions, but he's seeing plenty of action as well (a skill level of 2 in Classic Trav is a pretty high level of expertise). But his poor health eventually gets noticed and he's discharged with an education credit. He's standing outside the demobilisation office on whatever world where play starts, duffel bag over shoulder, with a lot to prove.
I really want to play this guy now. In game terms this is an underpowered character; his stats are in aggregate well below average and 1 term is about the worst you can do without actually dying during chargen, but I don't care.
My point is, I wouldn't come up with any of that background if I was designing a new character in a point-buy system. Even if I did think of something like this, and gave him [pissed off about getting punted from the marines -5] in return for [education enhancement +5], I don't think I would be excited about this character in the same way.
I also love the way the system just gives me plain results for things like getting recruited, promotion, re-enlistment, skills acquired etc. It's up to me to build the story around that. I don't find more detailed narrative systems that give you scripted "life events" to be as engaging.
Probably comes down to the way your brain's wired; for me, the Classic Trav system gives me just enough detail to work with to get interested.
I 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/
One result
Noble B Knight Sir Mohamed Shin 6C337B Age 46
7 terms Cr250,000
Skills: Auto Pistol-1, Brawling-1, Engineering-1, Grav Vehicle-1, Leader-1, Navigation-1, Pilot-1
Benefits: 8,000/yr Retirement Pay, Auto Pistol, High Passage, Travellers' Aid Society, Travellers' Aid Society, Yacht
Service History:
Rolled attributes: 8B637A
--------------------------------------------
Term 1 age 22
Commission roll 5 + 0 vs 10
Commissioned during first term of service as B Knight.
Promotion roll 8 + 0 vs 8
Increased dexterity by 1 to C
Learned Grav Vehicle-1
Learned Leader-1
Survival roll 7 + 0 vs 5
Reenlistment roll 6 vs 5
Voluntarily reenlisted for second term.
--------------------------------------------
Term 2 age 26
Promotion roll 5 + 0 vs 8
Learned Pilot-1
Survival roll 7 + 0 vs 5
Reenlistment roll 8 vs 5
Voluntarily reenlisted for third term.
--------------------------------------------
Term 3 age 30
Promotion roll 9 + 0 vs 8
Increased dexterity by 1 to D
Survival roll 7 + 0 vs 5
Reenlistment roll 7 vs 5
Voluntarily reenlisted for fourth term.
--------------------------------------------
Term 4 age 34
Promotion roll 4 + 0 vs 8
Increased dexterity by 1 to E
Survival roll 3 + 0 vs 5
Aging strength throw 8 vs 8
Aging dexterity throw 7 vs 7
Aging endurance throw 3 vs 8
Decreased endurance by -1 to 5
Reenlistment roll 5 vs 5
Voluntarily reenlisted for fifth term.
--------------------------------------------
Term 5 age 38
Promotion roll 5 + 0 vs 8
Learned Navigation-1
Survival roll 8 + 0 vs 5
Aging strength throw 4 vs 8
Decreased strength by -1 to 7
Aging dexterity throw 6 vs 7
Decreased dexterity by -1 to D
Aging endurance throw 3 vs 8
Decreased endurance by -1 to 4
Reenlistment roll 10 vs 5
Voluntarily reenlisted for sixth term.
--------------------------------------------
Term 6 age 42
Promotion roll 6 + 0 vs 8
Learned Brawling-1
Survival roll 6 + 0 vs 5
Aging strength throw 5 vs 8
Decreased strength by -1 to 6
Aging dexterity throw 5 vs 7
Decreased dexterity by -1 to C
Aging endurance throw 8 vs 8
Reenlistment roll 9 vs 5
Voluntarily reenlisted for seventh term.
--------------------------------------------
Term 7 age 46
Promotion roll 5 + 0 vs 8
Learned Engineering-1
Survival roll 3 + 0 vs 5
Aging strength throw 9 vs 8
Aging dexterity throw 8 vs 7
Aging endurance throw 6 vs 8
Decreased endurance by -1 to 3
Reenlistment roll 4 vs 5
Mandatory retirement after seventh term.
--------------------------------------------
Mustered Out
100,000 credits
100,000 credits
50,000 credits
Yacht
High Passage
Travellers' Aid Society
Auto Pistol
Learned Auto Pistol-1
Travellers' Aid Society
One thing I love about Classic Travellers is the disconnect between the RAW and the popular expectations.
To whit:
Popular expectation - "Traveller is all about paying the starship mortgage."
RAW - A mortgaged starship is the least likely outcome of character generation.
Popular expectation - "Traveller is HardSF."
RAW - Psionics. Gravitics. FTL travel.
Popular expectation - "Traveller is about nonviolent solutions, always."
RAW - most of the chargen careers offer not only weapon skills, but the opportunity to receive a weapon as a mustering out benefit.
There are likely others.
Granted, a Referee and their gaming group can house rule to get the game experience they want. Same as with any other game. Making claims about the game that are contradicted by the RAW, however, is simply lying.
I agree. I find LBB Traveler chargen incredibly evocative. It's like one of those minimalist Japanese paintings: there's just enough detail that your brain fills in the rest of the picture, and the result is beautiful and something neither you nor the artist could come up with alone. Now I want to see if I can come up with something similar for the game I'm writing now.
Nicked from the owner of Independence Games....
Quote from: John WattsI tend to run a lot of games at conventions. Over the years, when I tell people that I am running "Traveller", I've gotten a lot of different responses from people. I've posted this in the past and the list is a little dated as I rarely say that I am running "Traveller" these days and instead say I am running "Clement Sector" or "Cepheus Engine".
However, in order of frequency, these are the responses that I have heard from people when I say I am running Traveller.
1> What's that?
2> Isn't that the game where you die in character generation?
3> I remember that. Do people still play that?
4> Oh yeah. My Dad/Grandfather used to play that game. I've never played it though. What's it like?
5> Isn't that the game where they had a kickstarter and it came back with this giant book full of charts and everyone was pissed?
6> I played that once! It was boring! The GM and the guy playing the captain of the ship sat there and filled out forms while the rest of stared at the wall.
7> Isn't that the science fiction game that's supposed to be in the future and the computers are less powerful than my phone?
8> I know that game. I bought a copy of it a few years ago, got online, found a forum/Facebook group and asked some questions. A bunch of old guys just shouted at me/told me I was doing it wrong/was stupid/didn't understand and I decided I'd rather play D&D/Pathfinder/Star Wars
9> Traveller? Why the F&*^ would I want to play UPS in Space?
10> Isn't that game where, instead of just going somewhere and having an adventure, you have to figure up your vector movement and do a bunch of math?
11> OMG! You're running Traveller. I've not played that in forever. I just use it to make characters/make spaceships/create planets on my own. When does it start?
12> Isn't that the game where all of the ships are flying gas cans?
13> Isn't that where Firefly came from?
14> I played that with some guys once. It was awful because your character never gets better at anything. You just get more stuff.
CharGen is still one of the best ways to do a Session Zero with that game, because you do get a person out of it in the process.
Quote from: jeff37923;11146022> Isn't that the game where you die in character generation?
Thats the one that I remember.
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/
Sweet! I ran about a hundred characters up real quick to use as NPCs. Did not get any characters with a Naval background?
I 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.
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/
Merchant 4th Officer Martha Cohen 464A75 Age 22
1 term
Service History:
Automatic Enlistment accepted.
Commissioned during first term of service as 4th Officer.
Death in service.
Alas, poor Martha, we barely knew you.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1114630Sweet! I ran about a hundred characters up real quick to use as NPCs. Did not get any characters with a Naval background?
Pick navy from the drop down. The main issue is that the enlistment requirement are pretty stiff so most time the random pick winds up failing and getting drafted into another service.
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/
Oh, sweet! How did I not know about this!
Quote from: Aglondir;1114635Merchant 4th Officer Martha Cohen 464A75 Age 22
1 term
Service History:
Automatic Enlistment accepted.
Commissioned during first term of service as 4th Officer.
Death in service.
Alas, poor Martha, we barely knew you.
:(:(:(
Quote from: jeff37923;1114602Nicked from the owner of Independence Games....
I still get similar questions. Hasn't changed much in the two years or so since I updated that list.
Character 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.
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!
Unless they played 1e, or RQ - all three published within a year or two of each-other, all quite deadly.
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!"
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.
I have done this as well. At GaryCon, in one a my Traveller games the year before last one of the players rolled up a marine that died in service. The casket of the dead marine was located on the loading docks of a space station where a firefight erupted, over the coffin, because it contained a Mcguffin (contraband, that the players were attempting to locate, to complete an investigation). Once the players read the name on the casket, they all laughed because they all already knew the entire backstory of the dead marine, and this really drew them into the investigation, as they had to determine the real cause of death!
Had a Rogue character that died in chargen during their 4th term. Probably in an aircraft accident as that was what was training at the time... Bemusing part is they also failed THREE aging checks during that. Strength, Dexterity and Endurance all went down by 1. Was never sure if that was before or after they died though... :o
I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
"When all you have is a hammer..."
Quote from: Theros;1115550I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
Yeah, that's like when you're a fighter, what if you need to open a lock quietly, or detect if something's magical? What if you're a wizard and you need to do some melee fighting? What do you actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
You know what might work? If there were more than one player, and each of them had a character with a different set of skills. Alone each would be fairly useless, but
together they would be really effective.
If they're on a spaceship, we could call this group a
crew. Or perhaps among soldiers, a
squad or
section. If they're just general adventurers, we could call it an
adventuring party. And then in any given situation, each would try to make use of their particular skills to advance things, and if they couldn't, well just sit back for a bit while the others did things. And that accomplished, move on to the next challenge.
I wonder if anyone has ever tried such a thing in real life or games?
Quote from: Theros;1115550I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
What do you DO with a character with lots of skills and nothing to apply them to at the moment, or for a chunk of the adventure or campaign?
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115568I wonder if anyone has ever tried such a thing in real life or games?
Look. You are supposed to only spout crazy talk. Stop making sense! ;)
Quote from: Theros;1115550I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
Back then (Books 1-3), the skills were much wider than afterwards -so Gunnery 1 in book1 is the equivalent of gunnery-7 (1 in each discipline) in book 5. Also, a lot of GMs allowed "extra" skills at 0 (so no bonus but no negatives) for things that characters really needed to do (so Vacc suit-0 was quite common). And Jack-of-all-trades is a thing!
But to answer that question.
What do you do?
Apply what you have as best you can.
Learn new skills.
Use basic skills or just try something unskilled if possible. Some games allow that, some do not.
Shoot stuff! Bash stuff with stuff! Punch stuff with fists!
My diplomat had alot of skills. But were pretty much useless for a fair chunk of the adventure. We were for the most part ground bound on a pretty mountainous planet so my skills at submersibles and vac suit didnt really come into play at all. Other skills like liason and recruiting came up maybee all of once. I mostly just hung back with a pistol and did fire support for the more combat savvy characters.
Oh and this one also at the end of chargen failed 2of 3 aging checks. :o
Quote from: Theros;1115550I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
Classic Trav characters are not defined by the skill numbers. It took me a while to get my head around this. For a start, your character has Level-0 in every weapon. Plus, if you look at the skill descriptions, a lot of them - maybe most, I haven't checked - don't specify any penalty for unskilled attempts. Some do, a lot don't. E.g. vehicles - there's a bonus for skill when attempting challenging tasks like evasive driving in a gunfight, but no penalty for unskilled.
Say your guy spent eight years in the Marines and came out with Cutlass-2, Electronics-1, Vacsuit-1. OK, doesn't look like much. But it's up to you to play him like he's a bad-ass ex-Marine. He can pick up any weapon and be passably efficient with it; with a cutlass, he is absolutely lethal. He can hotwire security systems. He's got a better than even chance of surviving a really dangerous EVA incident when most people would more likely than not end up in trouble.
He can pick up any weapon and operate any vehicle. He can get a crew slot on a starship as a cargo hand or steward. And, he can forge documents that stand a near-even chance of passing inspection by officials. Etc. etc.
Most of us are schooled on RPGs of the 80s, 90s and early 00s that defined more and more precisely what characters are allowed to do based on numbers on their sheets. Classic Traveller, like OD&D, works differently. The numbers are just a beginning. This guy (https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/2017/11/02/traveller-out-of-the-box-you-are-not-your-numbers/) blogs a lot about it, which was an eye-opener for me.
I read a piece somewhere where Marc Miller said when he plays Traveller these days, he just has the players roll up the six stats and they test them on 2D roll under, the only rule being you have to use all the stats before you can circle back to the first one. That's it.
If you know Barbarians of Lemuria it might help to think about it like that - you and your Ref should consider your guy able to do pretty much anything you'd expect someone from his career to be able to do, whether there's a skill written down for it on the character sheet or not.
Quote from: Marchand;1115611Classic Trav characters are not defined by the skill numbers. It took me a while to get my head around this. For a start, your character has Level-0 in every weapon. Plus, if you look at the skill descriptions, a lot of them - maybe most, I haven't checked - don't specify any penalty for unskilled attempts. Some do, a lot don't. E.g. vehicles - there's a bonus for skill when attempting challenging tasks like evasive driving in a gunfight, but no penalty for unskilled.
Say your guy spent eight years in the Marines and came out with Cutlass-2, Electronics-1, Vacsuit-1. OK, doesn't look like much. But it's up to you to play him like he's a bad-ass ex-Marine. He can pick up any weapon and be passably efficient with it; with a cutlass, he is absolutely lethal. He can hotwire security systems. He's got a better than even chance of surviving a really dangerous EVA incident when most people would more likely than not end up in trouble.
He can pick up any weapon and operate any vehicle. He can get a crew slot on a starship as a cargo hand or steward. And, he can forge documents that stand a near-even chance of passing inspection by officials. Etc. etc.
Most of us are schooled on RPGs of the 80s, 90s and early 00s that defined more and more precisely what characters are allowed to do based on numbers on their sheets. Classic Traveller, like OD&D, works differently. The numbers are just a beginning. This guy (https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/2017/11/02/traveller-out-of-the-box-you-are-not-your-numbers/) blogs a lot about it, which was an eye-opener for me.
I read a piece somewhere where Marc Miller said when he plays Traveller these days, he just has the players roll up the six stats and they test them on 2D roll under, the only rule being you have to use all the stats before you can circle back to the first one. That's it.
If you know Barbarians of Lemuria it might help to think about it like that - you and your Ref should consider your guy able to do pretty much anything you'd expect someone from his career to be able to do, whether there's a skill written down for it on the character sheet or not.
Yea, back in the 80s and 90s I fell into the trap of trying to define characters by their skills. The problem is you really can't represent a modern character's knowledge with a set of skills. In this, I think Classic Traveller is actually better than the "skill" systems. I look at the Traveller skills as the things a character is exceptionally good at. I'd posit that there are things a character shouldn't have to roll for if they have the appropriate skill. Now Traveller does confuse the situation a bit by requiring certain skills for certain positions on a star ship, on the other hand, it doesn't say you can't actually pilot a star ship without Pilot skill, it just says a character hired as a pilot must have Pilot-1. One thing that supports not having to have the skills to operate a ship is that Type-S Scout Ships are designed to be operated by one person, yet it is unlikely that a Scout character has Engineering-1 and Medic-1, etc. (they DO all have Pilot-1 though).
Now the one exception is combat skills, which of course games of the era focused a lot on. But then PCs are all granted level-0 in all weapons. I would suggest that by reading the skill list in 1977 that Gunnery is also included in the automatic skill-0 (and I also add Brawling)... An automatic Gunnery-0 for all PCs is actually great, ships with smaller computers aren't likely running programs to allow adding Gunnery skill so all you really need is a body qualified to sit in the turret.
When we clear our minds of the need to define characters by their skills, it leaves the way for focusing on adventure. The skills are then used to get the PCs out of (and sometimes into) jams and not to limit what actions can be taken.
Frank
Quote from: Marchand;1115611Classic Trav characters are not defined by the skill numbers. It took me a while to get my head around this. For a start, your character has Level-0 in every weapon. Plus, if you look at the skill descriptions, a lot of them - maybe most, I haven't checked - don't specify any penalty for unskilled attempts. Some do, a lot don't. E.g. vehicles - there's a bonus for skill when attempting challenging tasks like evasive driving in a gunfight, but no penalty for unskilled.
That was the impression I got with my only Traveller session so far. My character mostly used a gun and a sort of flail thing as they had a fairly decent strength for a diplomat apparently.
Fear the Boot recently did a podcast covering the character generation in Traveler.
Episode 532 – reasoning out the random (https://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/6130)
Quote from: ffilz;1115619I look at the Traveller skills as the things a character is exceptionally good at. [...] Now Traveller does confuse the situation a bit by requiring certain skills for certain positions on a star ship
As others have noted, skill-1 in something is enough skill to do it professionally, and skill-3 is a very solid career. Not many people have twelve different professions, nor do many people pick new ones up past their 20s. This is of course the cue for someone to pop up telling us how he's an expert in forty-eight different careers, and picked up half of them after 40 years old, also speaks 6 languages fluently and is a black belt in 14 different martial arts. I don't mean
you, Mr Special, I mean the rest of us plebs.
It's not unreasonable that if you're flying in a craft which has you all two inches from death by hard vacuum that you have professionals running the thing.
It helps to consider that a small skill list is effectively a character class system, and a character class is a profession, and a very broad skill. With 200+ skills listed, GMs will tend to make exclusive definitions, thus "yes I know you have Longsword-4, but Shortsword is an entirely different skill." With 20 or less skills listed, GMs will tend to make inclusive definitions, "you're a fighter? well, fighters use all kinds of swords." Many players approach game sessions defensively, expecting GMs to rule against them every time - and coming from having played games with lengthy skill lists, plus feats and spells and all that, and try to protect against exclusive rulings by having Mary Sue characters.
But when playing Classic Traveller, you should begin by assuming the GM is not out to get you.
Aside from Character Creation... or as a result of it... one of my favorite aspects of Traveller is its lack of an experience system. You're not playing the standard Bildungsroman plot... farmboy becomes a hulking demi-god. So the mindset is different... less the meta-concern of a constant flow of XP you can fully focus on in-game notions like reputation and resources.
Not that leveling up a character isn't fun... but it's fun to have other options too, and I can't think of many games other than Traveller that don't push that experience/improvement angle.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115662As others have noted, skill-1 in something is enough skill to do it professionally, and skill-3 is a very solid career. Not many people have twelve different professions, nor do many people pick new ones up past their 20s. This is of course the cue for someone to pop up telling us how he's an expert in forty-eight different careers, and picked up half of them after 40 years old, also speaks 6 languages fluently and is a black belt in 14 different martial arts. I don't mean you, Mr Special, I mean the rest of us plebs.
Mr. Special is an example of Jack of all Trades - 3.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115662Not many people have twelve different professions, nor do many people pick new ones up past their 20s.
I'm not going for Mr. Special, but I think you're overestimating how many people develop a profession in their 20s. IME, I've seen a lot of people that don't develop even their first career until their 30s (unless "student" is a career).
Quote from: HappyDaze;1115683I'm not going for Mr. Special, but I think you're overestimating how many people develop a profession in their 20s. IME, I've seen a lot of people that don't develop even their first career until their 30s (unless "student" is a career).
Welfare is a career for half of US citizens. Worse than proles.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1115683I'm not going for Mr. Special, but I think you're overestimating how many people develop a profession in their 20s. IME, I've seen a lot of people that don't develop even their first career until their 30s (unless "student" is a career).
In CT after the first 3 books, a "college education" didn't give you any skills, but 1d-2 (minimum 1) added to your Education stat. In this worldview, university doesn't give you a profession, it just broadens your education - your Education. So if you had your character do a term at university in the game they wouldn't gain any CT skills. Military colleges can be an exception to this.
Of course, the way to understand this is that the CT skill lists mostly focus on adventuring kinds of skills, and everything else is assumed under Education.
In the experience rules, if you got skill after character generation, the first 4 years would make it temporary, the second permanent. So... 8 years to develop skill-1. Military training pre-game was more rapid, of course, and there is an argument that's reasonable. After all, one of the things you have to do if you want to develop your own skills is a "dedication throw" of 8+ on 2d6 (no modifiers), but in the military your dedication is enhanced somewhat by the assistance of your friendly NCO instructors who make everyone dedicated whether they like it or not.
In real world skill assessments one of the things they note is that at the lowest levels, the person can perform the task while supervised. It takes time for them to be able to do it unsupervised. And of course, most people reach a level of competence in their job and don't push themselves further, instead spending time to "network" and/or build up their wealth - the Social rating. So we might argue that in CT terms, a person's career might look like,
Term 1: university, add 1d-2 Edu
Term 2: start career, working supervised, develop level 0 in 1-3 related skills
Term 3: cement career, working independently, develop level 1 in 1-3 related skills
Terms 4+: use the income and contacts made from use of the skill/s to build Soc.
and that's why we're not adventurers.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1115690Welfare is a career for half of US citizens. Worse than proles.
Admin-0, possibly Liasion-0.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115693In CT after the first 3 books, a "college education" didn't give you any skills, but 1d-2 (minimum 1) added to your Education stat. In this worldview, university doesn't give you a profession, it just broadens your education - your Education. So if you had your character do a term at university in the game they wouldn't gain any CT skills. Military colleges can be an exception to this.
Of course, the way to understand this is that the CT skill lists mostly focus on adventuring kinds of skills, and everything else is assumed under Education.
In the experience rules, if you got skill after character generation, the first 4 years would make it temporary, the second permanent. So... 8 years to develop skill-1. Military training pre-game was more rapid, of course, and there is an argument that's reasonable. After all, one of the things you have to do if you want to develop your own skills is a "dedication throw" of 8+ on 2d6 (no modifiers), but in the military your dedication is enhanced somewhat by the assistance of your friendly NCO instructors who make everyone dedicated whether they like it or not.
In real world skill assessments one of the things they note is that at the lowest levels, the person can perform the task while supervised. It takes time for them to be able to do it unsupervised. And of course, most people reach a level of competence in their job and don't push themselves further, instead spending time to "network" and/or build up their wealth - the Social rating. So we might argue that in CT terms, a person's career might look like,
Term 1: university, add 1d-2 Edu
Term 2: start career, working supervised, develop level 0 in 1-3 related skills
Term 3: cement career, working independently, develop level 1 in 1-3 related skills
Terms 4+: use the income and contacts made from use of the skill/s to build Soc.
and that's why we're not adventurers.
In my mind this is an example of the rabbit hole of trying to use any sort of RPG skill system to model the real world.
Once I let go of that idea, it was much easier for me to go back to Traveller Book 1 character generation and NOT get sucked into adding new skills for everything.
It is a bit of a disconnect to me that the crew positions have defined skill requirements and it is defined that a Doctor has Medical-3 (and a Surgeon Medical-3 and DEX 8+), but since those definitions all work reasonably with what players are going to want their PCs to have I can play along.
So that's what I like about Classic Traveller, it has enough skills to make characters different without creating an expectation that the skills a character has actually defines what the character is knowledgeable about. In that way, we don't invent so many new skills that the PCs never have the right skill, or that players are frustrated by random skill assignment. That combined with the mechanisms to gain a new skill or improve the ones you have (granted taking some time, and no where near a sure bet) give a path to rescuing a "lost cause" PC.
Quote from: Theros;1115550I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
You can roll for anything. I once got stuck with a one-term Scout in the same party as a literal geriatric admiral with all the skills. (One of only two times I've seen those in actual play, and I'm quite certain he was cheating on dice rolls to get there.) I ended up being the most active character because I was thinking of what I could do while two of the other players were always looking at their sheets to find the highest skill to roll, and see who should roll it.
Although - the game still wasn't that fun for me with that level of power disparity. The GM had house-ruled that "death" in char-gen meant you mustered out and entered play. So in RAW Classic I'd have gotten to re-roll, and the rest of the party would have had an incentive to bank their gains and muster out before they got to old age. I still don't ask for perfect balance, but having characters in the same ballpark is a lesson I've learned both as a player and a GM. In Mongoose Trav I set a limit on the number of terms, usually four.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1115693In CT after the first 3 books, a "college education" didn't give you any skills, but 1d-2 (minimum 1) added to your Education stat. In this worldview, university doesn't give you a profession, it just broadens your education - your Education. So if you had your character do a term at university in the game they wouldn't gain any CT skills. Military colleges can be an exception to this.
Do you have the exact source? I like that, but all I have at present for Classic is The Traveller Book, which has two entirely different options, but not that. But I'm aware a lot of stuff came out for Classic in other forms.
Quote from: Shasarak;1115660Fear the Boot recently did a podcast covering the character generation in Traveler.
I listened. Reminds me of why I both once binged on Fear the Boot, then dropped it entirely. They're trying to be helpful, and there's certainly worse podcasts out there. But would it have killed the main host to go through character creation just once before the show? Yes, that would be homework for a free podcast, but on the other hand listening to a guy who's proud to know nothing about Traveller try to educate us about it is wasted time for every single listener out there.
Quote from: Marchand;1115611...If you know Barbarians of Lemuria it might help to think about it like that - you and your Ref should consider your guy able to do pretty much anything you'd expect someone from his career to be able to do, whether there's a skill written down for it on the character sheet or not.
I really like this. If you are a Marine you know how to do all of the things a Marine knows how to do. Your weapon skills, squad tactics, your shipboard duties, etc. Your level 1 and up skills are those things that you shine at.
Quote from: Dave R;1115885Do you have the exact source? I like that, but all I have at present for Classic is The Traveller Book, which has two entirely different options, but not that. But I'm aware a lot of stuff came out for Classic in other forms.
It's in the old little black books from 1977 and 1981, a couple of times. High Guard, for example, page 15. General university gives you no skills, but there's also naval college which
may give you some skills, and flight and medical skill which
will give you some skills.
Books 1-3 don't mention college. I stick to them while running it.
Quote from: Theros;1115550I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
Back in Classic, players did a lot of rolling under their character attributes to accomplish stuff.
Quote from: Theros;1115550I'm a MegaTraveller player, so it's a bit different, but I always wondered what those Classic Traveller characters with only two or three skills actually DO in any given adventure or campaign?
There was also the BITS task resolution system, created by the British Isles Traveller Support (BITS) group on usenet.
https://www.bitsuk.net/Archive/GameAids/files/BITSTaskSystem.pdf
Quote from: GameDaddy;1116021There was also the BITS task resolution system, created by the British Isles Traveller Support (BITS) group on usenet.
https://www.bitsuk.net/Archive/GameAids/files/BITSTaskSystem.pdf
Nice chaps, the guys from BITS. Won a competition playing at GenCon UK with those guys - tactical combat imperials v zhodani, managed to make the zhodani missile lose tracking due to distance then managed to make him take all his shots through my sand, while my lasers blew his ships up one by one. Happy days!
The BITS guys had a nice Traveller combat system based on Full Thrust. FT had a couple of movement options but one of them used vectors ala Traveller/Mayday.
I already liked both games separately, so joining them was great for me. FT's ground pounder sister game Stargrunt had a similar Traveller-ish feel, based on what I've seen of Striker... though vehicle design is much simpler.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1115959Back in Classic, players did a lot of rolling under their character attributes to accomplish stuff.
Did you actually play back in the day? I did, I don't remember ever rolling under character attributes, nor do I remember that from the games I played in. But then back in the day we also all used Book 4 and Book 5 (and Book 6 and Book 7 later when they finally came out) so we also had more skills and more detailed skills.
These days, based on reading Christopher Kubasik's blog, I do use just Book 1 (well plus Supplement 4 but with the skill lists changed to reflect mostly Book 1 skills), and I consider things other than roll under character attributes (like give a modifier for good attribute using Advantageous Dexterity or Strength as an example.
Quote from: ffilz;1116056Did you actually play back in the day? I did, I don't remember ever rolling under character attributes, nor do I remember that from the games I played in. But then back in the day we also all used Book 4 and Book 5 (and Book 6 and Book 7 later when they finally came out) so we also had more skills and more detailed skills.
These days, based on reading Christopher Kubasik's blog, I do use just Book 1 (well plus Supplement 4 but with the skill lists changed to reflect mostly Book 1 skills), and I consider things other than roll under character attributes (like give a modifier for good attribute using Advantageous Dexterity or Strength as an example.
I never used roll attribute under in the early days, I always used a target number based on a 7+ success and just naturally glommed onto the BiTS task/difficulty technique when I first saw it on usenet in the 90's. Interesting enough, when I sat in on a
Traveller game with
Marc Miller in 2017 one of the young guys at our table had never played Traveller and he taught him simpler is better when GMing, and to pick an attribute that he beleived would most affect the skill in question, and roll under stat for success to keep the game moving fast. He said to use modifiers too, if the task was extremely difficult, or extremely easy.
Quote from: ffilz;1116056Did you actually play back in the day? I did, I don't remember ever rolling under character attributes, nor do I remember that from the games I played in. But then back in the day we also all used Book 4 and Book 5 (and Book 6 and Book 7 later when they finally came out) so we also had more skills and more detailed skills.
These days, based on reading Christopher Kubasik's blog, I do use just Book 1 (well plus Supplement 4 but with the skill lists changed to reflect mostly Book 1 skills), and I consider things other than roll under character attributes (like give a modifier for good attribute using Advantageous Dexterity or Strength as an example.
There was nothing past Book 3 yet.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1116089There was nothing past Book 3 yet.
Ok, by the time I really started playing Traveller, I had Book 4 and Book 5. I'm not really aware of any Traveller playing prior to (or without) Book 4 and Book 5 from my experiences other than one session of trying Traveller out.
The game shops that sold Traveller usually had game sessions refereed by the store owners. Then home computers started taking hold on RPGs, and that took up our time.
Back in the day, a buddy of mine picked up The Traveller Book and ran us through a couple adventures and I was hooked. I got the Starter Set and started running some published adventures and then some stuff of my own. I found the 3LBBs a bit later and added them to my collection and greatly used Citizens of the Imperium and as many Alien modules as I could find at the FLGS; but I never owned the advanced character generation books until recently - as in within the last year or two altogether.
They have a lot of good information, especially the Scouts book on Star System generation; but I don't think I care too much for the characters they produce. The inclusion of so many skills per character creates a sense that other than what's on a players character sheet is all they can do and players tend to ignore the original character careers, finding them boring or inferior.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1116089There was nothing past Book 3 yet.
This... This is what I learned to play
Traveller. By the Winter of 77' I was a GM and quietly spent Christmas Break that year making my own subsectors, sitting at the Bar in the Bombadier Tavern having Coke while my Dad and grandfather watched NFL games on the telly. Because they served food and had a restaurant license, teens were allowed in.