• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

Best use for a "retired" Trav PC.

L

Liam Devlin

SOC-14 5K
ANd now, another take on an old theme. What is the best use you've seen/ encountered/ heard of for a former Player character in Traveller. How does one "retire him/her out of play. (Besides a "glorious death"...thats another thread folks!).

I shall await what arrives. Those of you lurking out there, wannabe GM's, take notes. Ya may learn something from these posts you can take back to your TU!
 
Not clear enough??? Okay, time to prime the pump of the grey cells, lads, lady...
from my memory I recall seeing
old Trav PC's:

A) wadded up into balls, and set afire in the College dorm hall during blackouts in T-storms.
B) Re-written as new PC (Player was too lazy to roll another, and so created an "analogue" of his former one.). Gm nailed this munchkin in 30 seconds, btw...
C)Safely left the adventuring band of intrepid Travellers, to become their bestus buddy at the Scout Bar on Hefry (Shaney Llawe, retired Scout (twice) 1112. Runs the Scout Bar on Hefry-Look him up sometime willya?).
D) Became an NPC of the GM when player left school and never returned next semester.

ANyone else?
 
You forgot killing off a PC the GM because thinks thier knowledge could ruin the setting.

In one universe jumping campaign, the group ended up in the CP2020 universe after a misjump from within the atmosphere of a Gas Giant :eek: :eek:
(Hey the alternative was being crush to death from the gravity and atmosphere). My Traveller Free Trader was killed in a AV crash because his advance technical knowledge could ruin the setting and/or make him too powerful.
file_28.gif
:mad: :eek:

Couple monthes later I left the group because I was just not having fun and the adventures started to feel pointless and no-win situations.
file_28.gif
:(
 
Sounds to me the GM handled that in petty fashion. Good riddance to him! I'd have given you amnesia or something special...memory blockage. Ding on the head. :eek:
Kill you outright cuz of what you knew?? Petty, I say. Pretty extreme. Case of GM hiting panic button waaaaaaay too early and a clear lack of imagination.
file_28.gif
 
Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Sounds to me the GM handled that in petty fashion. Good riddance to him! I'd have given you amnesia or something special...memory blockage. Ding on the head. :eek:
Kill you outright cuz of what you knew?? Petty, I say. Pretty extreme. Case of GM hiting panic button waaaaaaay too early and a clear lack of imagination.
file_28.gif
Click to expand...
It was possibly a case of preventing munchkinism with the character as I personnally knew the all the tricks regarding Traveller tech. I never really use the knowledge to advance the character. It was mainly used to doing things like fixing or jury-rigging equipment (Like rerouting some manuver and sensors from the destroyed bridge to the engineering section).

I never even consider the idea of selling the stuff for profit. Mostly use some for survival and occasionally to get a job done. Besides letting others know that I had very advance tech could make me a target for extraction or assassination.
 
It was poorly handled, if you ask me. But I wasn' there, and I feel you got the shaft (between the eyes, out the back of yer head.
 
Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
It was poorly handled, if you ask me. But I wasn' there, and I feel you got the shaft (between the eyes, out the back of yer head.
Click to expand...
Possibly :rolleyes:

Just two weeks before I made a memorable move that had the group laughing and saved the PCs.

We encountered a computer that was using the vid cam of the ships boat to convert objects to data for research. We had the lens cover with a piece of duct tape to prevent it from acquiring people. After it zapped a NPC marine, it wanted more samples. While the remaining NPC was trying to fight his way from the PCs I asked a simple question:

Is the marine consider in the field of view of the camera?

That stopped the game for several minutes as no one could stop laughing.

I uncovered the lens and said:
Yo Marine! Say cheese!

Everyone paniced and try to get out of the way. Almost got the NPC/PC the GM was running, but I did get the marine. :D
 
After one long universe/time hopping campaign the enitre party retired (In different time periods of various universes). Later, I ran another game in the same original setting (where they were before the timehopping etc.). The old characters served as rumour and myth. What parents told their kids to scare them before they went to bed.
 
Tarn! Good to see you again. How's things thus far? ANybody chewed you out yet? No? Good!
Thats another good use for PC's, serve as background characters/ backdrop folk...
"Yeah, heard of him. Came from these parts. Bit of a hellion, in his day..."
Good example lad!

Next!
 
Okay, time I see for an example from me (been a few posts between, so ya'll take a breather, and I'll make em short and sweet:

#1) had a PC, he got scragged in a jump-accident in char. generation! His daughters grew up. One became a pilot (played by my friend, I played the younger twin (by two minutes).
Well the GM moved, and we gottogether, and I got elected to lead off as GM.'kay? Then, I decided we take it "a few years since", retired off the younger twin to head up a starship firm at the B-class port the players frequented for fuel, and repair facilities. Some of them knew the original members of the group. My (now NPC) knew "every inch of their ship", but the new Players took a while to find that out (her married name threw off their early perception rolls.)

#2)A married couple of my gamers moved to Trenton NJ, early 95. What to do? they were central PCs in my plotlines... SO I got hold of em by phone, wrote down the pertinent stuff, and "retired them" out of RCES. She went "corporate running the "Salvage business", he entered politics on Aubaine, as a junior assemblyman, when his father's seat "came open due to health reasons."
For those who've scanned the BARD site, these were Winona "Bee-Witched" Yukowa, & Sean Lucky-Dice" Egan. Oh yeah, married them "offstage too for good measure.
file_22.gif


These of course are examples of using PC- to-patron & PC to NPC background-contacts. Enjoyed it.
Next!
 
One of my group's campaign's retired together. One character was a noble exiled who had been trying to regain his lands and title. He finally regained his position and property and went off to rule his countryside in splendor. My character, a sort of 'Australian Jesse Ventura' ex-marine became his Captain of the Guard while our other player became the noble's Major Domo.
 
N.I.C.E. Labs posted-"One of my group's campaign's retired together. One character was a noble exiled who had been trying to regain his lands and title. He finally regained his position and property and went off to rule his countryside in splendor. My character, a sort of 'Australian Jesse Ventura' ex-marine became his Captain of the Guard while our other player became the noble's Major Domo.'
_____________________________

A classic example of "retirement" into the background of the campign world. Good example, NL!
Next!
 
A CT example for those who still "hold the flame" for that version...
In 1982, one of our CT gamers (early gearhead?) left school, and when he cleared out (never to return again) he left all of his rolled up PCs, ships and stuff (Striker had just come out I think about then, had a bunch of ground craft & Space FTrs rolled up as well.).
Greg, our newly elected GM, took all of em up and used them for NPCs for the next two years at college. :D
 
My very first CT campaign, we had four players, and they had a far trader. They were chartered by a rock band to transport them from a concert date to a water world resort planet, where the band would record its next album, then take them to where the band's next tour would start. En route to the resort planet, the band set up in the empty cargo hold to rehearse some songs. They liked the sound they were getting in the cargo hold, so when they arrived at the resort, they set up to record in the ship.

While waiting around on planet, the players stumbled upon a mystery and were investigating. Two of the characters were ex-Marines with scuba-diving skills, and they were checking out a secret cave accessible from underwater. Then the campaign came to a sudden stop . . . for six months.

We then started up again with two of the original players and two new players. The original players wanted to keep their characters, and the ship. So we started up where we had left off on the resort planet. The two characters who were checking out the cave happened to be the two who were no longer playing. So their characters ended up dead. When the bodies were found, the ship's captain (one of the PCs) needed new crew members. So he hired the two new players' characters, who were stuck on the resort planet. Then they finished investigating the mystery (involved drugs, Zhodani spies and the Imperial Marines), and got payback for their dead mates, then took the band where it needed to go.
 
Paraquat Johnson-"...We then started up again with two of the original players and two new players. The original players wanted to keep their characters, and the ship. So we started up where we had left off on the resort planet. The two characters who were checking out the cave happened to be the two who were no longer playing. So their characters ended up dead. When the bodies were found, the ship's captain (one of the PCs) needed new crew members. So he hired the two new players' characters, who were stuck on the resort planet. Then they finished investigating the mystery (involved drugs, Zhodani spies and the Imperial Marines), and got payback for their dead mates, then took the band where it needed to go.'
___________________________________
Good thinking on your part-storyline continuation, fit like a glove didn't it? Excellent example! sounds great. :cool:
 
Is this it??? Huh! :confused:
I take it we either ran out of people who retired their Pcs, and the rest are all on anagathics living forever, or there's a level of depression so deep you "just don't want to talk about it".

C'mon folks. There's more out there. This is easier than discussing rules, ship layouts, whos art sucks (or who sucks period), firearms, etc.

This is about those pieces of paper you called characters and played in this RPG (any version) called Traveller!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Commander Truestar
Player wanted for Traveller PbEM
Replies
4
Views
2K
Jame
J
Commander Truestar
replacement PbEM player wanted
Replies
0
Views
841
Commander Truestar
Commander Truestar
kafka47
Megatraveller Tidbits from HIWG CD Rom
Replies
19
Views
7K
Vargr Breath
V
Back
Top