book 4-7 or not ?

[weasel fierce]

Pardon if this is an old topic, but Im gearing up to run Traveller for my current group, and Im wondering whether to use the full thing, or just the basic book character creation.

The way I see it:

advantages of the full books 4-7:
More skilled characters. (this can be an advantage anyways)
Much more detail in your characters background and history.
More flavour in whether you were a marine or scout or whatnot.

Drawbacks:
More rules to remember (and small, subtle differences).
Not scaled well with "citizens of the imperium".
Using the alien books with this makes the complexity increase pretty rapidly.
Speed of character creation much lower.


views and what do you guys do ?

 

[weasel fierce]

Pardon if this is an old topic, but Im gearing up to run Traveller for my current group, and Im wondering whether to use the full thing, or just the basic book character creation.

The way I see it:

advantages of the full books 4-7:
More skilled characters. (this can be an advantage anyways)
Much more detail in your characters background and history.
More flavour in whether you were a marine or scout or whatnot.

Drawbacks:
More rules to remember (and small, subtle differences).
Not scaled well with "citizens of the imperium".
Using the alien books with this makes the complexity increase pretty rapidly.
Speed of character creation much lower.


views and what do you guys do ?

 

[Jame]

I take the per-year portion and apply it to basic CG.

 

[sid6.7]

well i do like the the old way of just book 1-3
but it can be fun to add in others...

depends really on what you want to do

whats gonna be the "theme"?

 

[sid6.7]

well i do like the the old way of just book 1-3
but it can be fun to add in others...

depends really on what you want to do

whats gonna be the "theme"?

 

[weasel fierce]

My players will likely be keen on a "firefly" kind of feel. Freebooting rogues and adventurers doing their own thing.

But ultimately, we'll make characters and see where we end up. For simplicity though, Im heavily wondering about just keeping to hte cores, with the alien books added as appropriate.

 

[weasel fierce]

My players will likely be keen on a "firefly" kind of feel. Freebooting rogues and adventurers doing their own thing.

But ultimately, we'll make characters and see where we end up. For simplicity though, Im heavily wondering about just keeping to hte cores, with the alien books added as appropriate.

 

[Ganidirsii O'Flynn]

Well, it depends on the scale of your campaign. If you want a strong military bent in you game, then LBBs 4-7 are VERY useful.

If it's just the standard vanilla "Free Traders Against the Universe" type game, they aren't really that necessary, IMHO.

What one referee that I know did was have us generate in LBB 1 and the occaisional encounters with the Imperial Marines were generated via LBB 4.

 

[Ganidirsii O'Flynn]

Well, it depends on the scale of your campaign. If you want a strong military bent in you game, then LBBs 4-7 are VERY useful.

If it's just the standard vanilla "Free Traders Against the Universe" type game, they aren't really that necessary, IMHO.

What one referee that I know did was have us generate in LBB 1 and the occaisional encounters with the Imperial Marines were generated via LBB 4.

 

[weasel fierce]

That makes a bunch of sense

 

[weasel fierce]

That makes a bunch of sense

 

[Supplement Four]

I like both. I like the detail you get with Books 4-7, but...

In my current campaign, I used only the 4-Year method of chargen from Book 1 and Supplement 4 because it gave the players the most choice. I didn't want to spend a lot of time converting 4-Year and 1-Year method careers, especially since I had no idea what type of character my players would roll up (I gave them all free choice of any career, based on their homeworld).

BTW, Weasel, you might want to check out the CharGen doc in my sig. There's a lot of custom chargen ideas in there that you can choose to use or ignore. What I did was customize chargen to fit my campaign. Not all careers were available to each character. Their career choices were based on which homeworld they grew up on.

Check out the doc to see what I'm talking about.

-S4

 

[Supplement Four]

I like both. I like the detail you get with Books 4-7, but...

In my current campaign, I used only the 4-Year method of chargen from Book 1 and Supplement 4 because it gave the players the most choice. I didn't want to spend a lot of time converting 4-Year and 1-Year method careers, especially since I had no idea what type of character my players would roll up (I gave them all free choice of any career, based on their homeworld).

BTW, Weasel, you might want to check out the CharGen doc in my sig. There's a lot of custom chargen ideas in there that you can choose to use or ignore. What I did was customize chargen to fit my campaign. Not all careers were available to each character. Their career choices were based on which homeworld they grew up on.

Check out the doc to see what I'm talking about.

-S4

 

[Finarvyn]

It sounds like Traveller is better in many ways with more and more rulebooks, but I think if I ever get a campaign launched I'll probably stick to the original 3 black books (at least to start).

It seems like the other books provide a lot of depth but the original set can give me all of the basics I need.

 

[Finarvyn]

It sounds like Traveller is better in many ways with more and more rulebooks, but I think if I ever get a campaign launched I'll probably stick to the original 3 black books (at least to start).

It seems like the other books provide a lot of depth but the original set can give me all of the basics I need.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

You might consider going the Bk1/Sup4 route, but allowing your players to choose their career, choose their skills, and maybe fudge a survival or reenlist roll if necessary. You'll have characters in a few minutes, and allow your players the opportunity to craft their character a bit.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

You might consider going the Bk1/Sup4 route, but allowing your players to choose their career, choose their skills, and maybe fudge a survival or reenlist roll if necessary. You'll have characters in a few minutes, and allow your players the opportunity to craft their character a bit.

 

[weasel fierce]

yeah, as long as people are happy, thats what counts

Im thinking of giving scouts and others that dont gain rank, a D6 roll to acquire an extra skill per term. 5+ sounds fair ?


Also, what do you guys suggest for introducing some of the extra skills if you are using just the simple creation system ?

 

[weasel fierce]

yeah, as long as people are happy, thats what counts

Im thinking of giving scouts and others that dont gain rank, a D6 roll to acquire an extra skill per term. 5+ sounds fair ?


Also, what do you guys suggest for introducing some of the extra skills if you are using just the simple creation system ?

 

[flykiller]

Also, what do you guys suggest for introducing some of the extra skills if you are using just the simple creation system ?

you can go with 2d6 for a bell curve, and place more likely skills in the middle and less likely skills at the margins.

or you can go with (d6)(d6) for a 6x6 table, and populate it with skills as you like - any one location will be just as likely as any other, so you can fine-tune the likelihood of obtaining any skill in relation to any other.

personally I don't do any of that, I just set the characters on career paths and mostly let them choose what they want.

first term scout: "ok, they start you doing gofer work in a shipyard. pick three: vacc suit, 0G, medic, comms, mechanics, ship's boat."

second term: "ok, some schools open up. you can go to flight school or to tech school. or, a recon ship is leaving for a four year tour and is willing to put you through first contact school if you'll go. which do you pick?"

if you let the player walk through the character's development they identify with him much more.