book 4-7 or not ?
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far-trader
SOC-14 10K
what would you say to a composite method? the player chooses some skills, the referee imposes some skills, and some skills are rolled for? </font>[/QUOTE]For what my little old opinion is worth...
I'd say whatever works for a group of friends looking for some shared fun is "A Good Thing"
Some picked and some random sounds like a good compromise. The ref imposed bit is a bit tricky but I can see the reasoning clearly enough.
I like pure random and levels of choice ranging all the way to custom crafted, I just felt the pure random was getting short shrift in the post above and wanted to offer an alternate take on the implications
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
what would you say to a composite method? the player chooses some skills, the referee imposes some skills, and some skills are rolled for? </font>[/QUOTE]For what my little old opinion is worth...
I'd say whatever works for a group of friends looking for some shared fun is "A Good Thing"
Some picked and some random sounds like a good compromise. The ref imposed bit is a bit tricky but I can see the reasoning clearly enough.
I like pure random and levels of choice ranging all the way to custom crafted, I just felt the pure random was getting short shrift in the post above and wanted to offer an alternate take on the implications
Completely agree that random CG is more interesting than point buy. Just like to be able to nudge the outcomes occasionally. You'd always have to roll to get skills of 4 or more. I just think that one or two 3 level skills should come out a bit more often.Originally posted by far-trader:
In my opinion the "experts" (skill 3+) would not be out there risking life and limb for a few credits when they could have a nice safe job paying well with health benefits.
I think random char gen is a perfect reflection of the typical adventurer player character in Traveller. It's not flawed, it's well designed feature. Of course all the munchkins will disagree in the strongest possible terms
Another way of moderating the CG process is to roll then pick which table you take the skill from. In my experience you can't rely on randomness to produce useful outcomes all the time.
The main issue is the imbalance in the various CG processes, and that certain skills are unavailable for some careers merely because they hadn't been invented yet.
The Book 1 careers, at least those with ranks, have just the right amount of skills. The rankless have too little, and the extended CG, and MT and the rest, seem to have too many.
If we could come up with a set of balanced basic CG tables for the main careers (including some COTI ones), but that would still work with all the published and generated stuff, that would be nice. Something I've been musing over...
I know Avenger CT was an attempt in this direction, but the stuff I saw seemed a bit too complex, at least compared to basic CG. Guess we'll never know now...
Another point, though maybe more on topic (
): military and paramilitary careers are very well represented, but civilian careers not so well. What other paths do you think would be good to add.Colonist, for one, methinks...
Completely agree that random CG is more interesting than point buy. Just like to be able to nudge the outcomes occasionally. You'd always have to roll to get skills of 4 or more. I just think that one or two 3 level skills should come out a bit more often.Originally posted by far-trader:
In my opinion the "experts" (skill 3+) would not be out there risking life and limb for a few credits when they could have a nice safe job paying well with health benefits.
I think random char gen is a perfect reflection of the typical adventurer player character in Traveller. It's not flawed, it's well designed feature. Of course all the munchkins will disagree in the strongest possible terms
Another way of moderating the CG process is to roll then pick which table you take the skill from. In my experience you can't rely on randomness to produce useful outcomes all the time.
The main issue is the imbalance in the various CG processes, and that certain skills are unavailable for some careers merely because they hadn't been invented yet.
The Book 1 careers, at least those with ranks, have just the right amount of skills. The rankless have too little, and the extended CG, and MT and the rest, seem to have too many.
If we could come up with a set of balanced basic CG tables for the main careers (including some COTI ones), but that would still work with all the published and generated stuff, that would be nice. Something I've been musing over...
I know Avenger CT was an attempt in this direction, but the stuff I saw seemed a bit too complex, at least compared to basic CG. Guess we'll never know now...
Another point, though maybe more on topic (
): military and paramilitary careers are very well represented, but civilian careers not so well. What other paths do you think would be good to add.Colonist, for one, methinks...
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I think our own little CT+ here in the forums might have done some of this already, or I imagined it, or started on it myself before things went quiet, or intended to...
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I think our own little CT+ here in the forums might have done some of this already, or I imagined it, or started on it myself before things went quiet, or intended to...
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
In my sig you'll see a pdf that is really a huge example of how to modify chargen for a Traveller campaign.
I'm very partial to the idea that the careers listed in Book 1 and Supp 4 are "generic" and can be used in a pinch. But, a GM should be enouraged to alter the tables as he sees fit.
Just slap a few different skills on the tables, based on the character's homeworld. If a character is from a world with no atmosphere, then Vacc Suit should be somewhere on the table--just trade it out for something else (maybe something that was counted twice).
Another thing I do in the pdf doc is limit which careers and chargen options are available on specific worlds. For example, characters from Pysadi (one of the five homeworlds I developed for my campaign) are assumed to be citizens of the starport and not from the planet proper (kinda like a US compound on the edge of a third-world middle-eastern country). Characters from Pysadi cannot choose college as a pre-enlistment choice because the colleges on Pysadi are all state-run by the Pysadian Church. Characters from Aramis can go to college before enlistment.
Neither can a character from Pysadi join the Scouts. There's no scout base there on that world. Well, they can join the scouts, but they have to do it via enlistment.
Merchants, though? Heck yeah. Most of the people born on Pysadi, in the starport compound, try to get off world as soon as they can. Choosing "merchants" as a career is a popular choice on that world.
You'll have to see the details in the pdf in my sig if interested.
-S4
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
In my sig you'll see a pdf that is really a huge example of how to modify chargen for a Traveller campaign.
I'm very partial to the idea that the careers listed in Book 1 and Supp 4 are "generic" and can be used in a pinch. But, a GM should be enouraged to alter the tables as he sees fit.
Just slap a few different skills on the tables, based on the character's homeworld. If a character is from a world with no atmosphere, then Vacc Suit should be somewhere on the table--just trade it out for something else (maybe something that was counted twice).
Another thing I do in the pdf doc is limit which careers and chargen options are available on specific worlds. For example, characters from Pysadi (one of the five homeworlds I developed for my campaign) are assumed to be citizens of the starport and not from the planet proper (kinda like a US compound on the edge of a third-world middle-eastern country). Characters from Pysadi cannot choose college as a pre-enlistment choice because the colleges on Pysadi are all state-run by the Pysadian Church. Characters from Aramis can go to college before enlistment.
Neither can a character from Pysadi join the Scouts. There's no scout base there on that world. Well, they can join the scouts, but they have to do it via enlistment.
Merchants, though? Heck yeah. Most of the people born on Pysadi, in the starport compound, try to get off world as soon as they can. Choosing "merchants" as a career is a popular choice on that world.
You'll have to see the details in the pdf in my sig if interested.
-S4
I, too, am generally more partial to book 1, supplement 4 method of character generation.
But I can see the dilemma. The problem is that High Guard and Mercenary so quickly become part of the "Core" Traveller rules that you can't just eliminate their chargen systems. Once High Guard comes out, every single ship published for Traveller is built using High Guard, not Book 2, and are far superior as a result. And the High Guard combat system really encourages the use of High Guard-only skills. And Mercenary introduces a ton of weapons that immediately became "core". Even more importantly, Mercenary introduces a recruitment "mini-game" that explicitly includes Mercenary character gen by dividing potential recruits into recruits, veterans, veteran officers, and "mercenaries" (the latter being created using the advanced chargen).
I kind of disagree that you can only play Traveller with only the first three books. It's technically possible, of course, but the richness of the Universe is slightly compromised and there are a lot of really fun and interesting rules you're missing out on. But then once you include the advanced books, you pretty much have to include the advanced character generation. Big connundrum.
If I were to run a Traveller campaign, I'd probably allow all characters to use Advanced Character Generation, but I'd use regular Character Generation for most NPC's. That would make the PC's automatically "better" than most NPC's. Taking my cue from Mercenary, certain important or elite NPC's I'd build using the advanced character generation system.
That would make Supplement 4 a less attractive option for PC Generation, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Most of Supplement 4's careers feel more like NPC careers than PC ones, anyway. And others are almost automatically "too" powerful. Pirates, compared to other "basic" characters, are custom-made for adventuring...all the combat skills stacked on them and the chance to get a G-3 4-turret ship.
The question is, would advanced generation PC's "walk over" the various published adventures, which are all designed for basic character generation? I don't think so. It's been pointed out how nasty Traveller combat is. Even if you've got a lot of extra skills, you're still gonna be taken down when shot in the back with no armor by an autopistol. And as someone else mentioned, the character generation process creates a wide variance of skills rather than a concentration of expertise. If you look at the pre-gen characters in the various published adventures, there are often a set of required skills that they happen to have. If your campaign characters don't have those skills, they'll be unable to complete the adventure. So having a wider variety of skills for PC's will actually make them more capable of simply playing the published adventures. Otherwise you have to constantly come up with reasons to send NPC's along on their missions to cover the missing skills.
None of the above is actually tested...I haven't played any but solitaire Traveller in years and years and years...just random ramblings suggesting maybe you should just try the system as written and see how it works out before tinkering too much.
For solitare, btw, I just go with straight up book 1 chargen.
But I can see the dilemma. The problem is that High Guard and Mercenary so quickly become part of the "Core" Traveller rules that you can't just eliminate their chargen systems. Once High Guard comes out, every single ship published for Traveller is built using High Guard, not Book 2, and are far superior as a result. And the High Guard combat system really encourages the use of High Guard-only skills. And Mercenary introduces a ton of weapons that immediately became "core". Even more importantly, Mercenary introduces a recruitment "mini-game" that explicitly includes Mercenary character gen by dividing potential recruits into recruits, veterans, veteran officers, and "mercenaries" (the latter being created using the advanced chargen).
I kind of disagree that you can only play Traveller with only the first three books. It's technically possible, of course, but the richness of the Universe is slightly compromised and there are a lot of really fun and interesting rules you're missing out on. But then once you include the advanced books, you pretty much have to include the advanced character generation. Big connundrum.
If I were to run a Traveller campaign, I'd probably allow all characters to use Advanced Character Generation, but I'd use regular Character Generation for most NPC's. That would make the PC's automatically "better" than most NPC's. Taking my cue from Mercenary, certain important or elite NPC's I'd build using the advanced character generation system.
That would make Supplement 4 a less attractive option for PC Generation, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Most of Supplement 4's careers feel more like NPC careers than PC ones, anyway. And others are almost automatically "too" powerful. Pirates, compared to other "basic" characters, are custom-made for adventuring...all the combat skills stacked on them and the chance to get a G-3 4-turret ship.
The question is, would advanced generation PC's "walk over" the various published adventures, which are all designed for basic character generation? I don't think so. It's been pointed out how nasty Traveller combat is. Even if you've got a lot of extra skills, you're still gonna be taken down when shot in the back with no armor by an autopistol. And as someone else mentioned, the character generation process creates a wide variance of skills rather than a concentration of expertise. If you look at the pre-gen characters in the various published adventures, there are often a set of required skills that they happen to have. If your campaign characters don't have those skills, they'll be unable to complete the adventure. So having a wider variety of skills for PC's will actually make them more capable of simply playing the published adventures. Otherwise you have to constantly come up with reasons to send NPC's along on their missions to cover the missing skills.
None of the above is actually tested...I haven't played any but solitaire Traveller in years and years and years...just random ramblings suggesting maybe you should just try the system as written and see how it works out before tinkering too much.
For solitare, btw, I just go with straight up book 1 chargen.
I, too, am generally more partial to book 1, supplement 4 method of character generation.
But I can see the dilemma. The problem is that High Guard and Mercenary so quickly become part of the "Core" Traveller rules that you can't just eliminate their chargen systems. Once High Guard comes out, every single ship published for Traveller is built using High Guard, not Book 2, and are far superior as a result. And the High Guard combat system really encourages the use of High Guard-only skills. And Mercenary introduces a ton of weapons that immediately became "core". Even more importantly, Mercenary introduces a recruitment "mini-game" that explicitly includes Mercenary character gen by dividing potential recruits into recruits, veterans, veteran officers, and "mercenaries" (the latter being created using the advanced chargen).
I kind of disagree that you can only play Traveller with only the first three books. It's technically possible, of course, but the richness of the Universe is slightly compromised and there are a lot of really fun and interesting rules you're missing out on. But then once you include the advanced books, you pretty much have to include the advanced character generation. Big connundrum.
If I were to run a Traveller campaign, I'd probably allow all characters to use Advanced Character Generation, but I'd use regular Character Generation for most NPC's. That would make the PC's automatically "better" than most NPC's. Taking my cue from Mercenary, certain important or elite NPC's I'd build using the advanced character generation system.
That would make Supplement 4 a less attractive option for PC Generation, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Most of Supplement 4's careers feel more like NPC careers than PC ones, anyway. And others are almost automatically "too" powerful. Pirates, compared to other "basic" characters, are custom-made for adventuring...all the combat skills stacked on them and the chance to get a G-3 4-turret ship.
The question is, would advanced generation PC's "walk over" the various published adventures, which are all designed for basic character generation? I don't think so. It's been pointed out how nasty Traveller combat is. Even if you've got a lot of extra skills, you're still gonna be taken down when shot in the back with no armor by an autopistol. And as someone else mentioned, the character generation process creates a wide variance of skills rather than a concentration of expertise. If you look at the pre-gen characters in the various published adventures, there are often a set of required skills that they happen to have. If your campaign characters don't have those skills, they'll be unable to complete the adventure. So having a wider variety of skills for PC's will actually make them more capable of simply playing the published adventures. Otherwise you have to constantly come up with reasons to send NPC's along on their missions to cover the missing skills.
None of the above is actually tested...I haven't played any but solitaire Traveller in years and years and years...just random ramblings suggesting maybe you should just try the system as written and see how it works out before tinkering too much.
For solitare, btw, I just go with straight up book 1 chargen.
But I can see the dilemma. The problem is that High Guard and Mercenary so quickly become part of the "Core" Traveller rules that you can't just eliminate their chargen systems. Once High Guard comes out, every single ship published for Traveller is built using High Guard, not Book 2, and are far superior as a result. And the High Guard combat system really encourages the use of High Guard-only skills. And Mercenary introduces a ton of weapons that immediately became "core". Even more importantly, Mercenary introduces a recruitment "mini-game" that explicitly includes Mercenary character gen by dividing potential recruits into recruits, veterans, veteran officers, and "mercenaries" (the latter being created using the advanced chargen).
I kind of disagree that you can only play Traveller with only the first three books. It's technically possible, of course, but the richness of the Universe is slightly compromised and there are a lot of really fun and interesting rules you're missing out on. But then once you include the advanced books, you pretty much have to include the advanced character generation. Big connundrum.
If I were to run a Traveller campaign, I'd probably allow all characters to use Advanced Character Generation, but I'd use regular Character Generation for most NPC's. That would make the PC's automatically "better" than most NPC's. Taking my cue from Mercenary, certain important or elite NPC's I'd build using the advanced character generation system.
That would make Supplement 4 a less attractive option for PC Generation, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Most of Supplement 4's careers feel more like NPC careers than PC ones, anyway. And others are almost automatically "too" powerful. Pirates, compared to other "basic" characters, are custom-made for adventuring...all the combat skills stacked on them and the chance to get a G-3 4-turret ship.
The question is, would advanced generation PC's "walk over" the various published adventures, which are all designed for basic character generation? I don't think so. It's been pointed out how nasty Traveller combat is. Even if you've got a lot of extra skills, you're still gonna be taken down when shot in the back with no armor by an autopistol. And as someone else mentioned, the character generation process creates a wide variance of skills rather than a concentration of expertise. If you look at the pre-gen characters in the various published adventures, there are often a set of required skills that they happen to have. If your campaign characters don't have those skills, they'll be unable to complete the adventure. So having a wider variety of skills for PC's will actually make them more capable of simply playing the published adventures. Otherwise you have to constantly come up with reasons to send NPC's along on their missions to cover the missing skills.
None of the above is actually tested...I haven't played any but solitaire Traveller in years and years and years...just random ramblings suggesting maybe you should just try the system as written and see how it works out before tinkering too much.
For solitare, btw, I just go with straight up book 1 chargen.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I went with the Book 1/Sup 4 careers in my campain...but not withot a lot of deliberation.
Why?
The advanced character generation rules are so damn cool.
I wish GDW had converted all the careers to that system.
Heck, why didn't GDW do that?
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I went with the Book 1/Sup 4 careers in my campain...but not withot a lot of deliberation.
Why?
The advanced character generation rules are so damn cool.
I wish GDW had converted all the careers to that system.
Heck, why didn't GDW do that?
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
It's true that the reason it's hard to use characters from Advanced Chargen and Basic Chargen is that the Advanced Chargen characters will have more skills. The two systems do not spit out "like" characters.
But, there is a fix for this. It was first written in MT.
The MT basic characters have two ways to make additional skills (than CT basic characters). They have a Special Duty roll, that can net them an extra skill. And, also, there's a Roll High mechanic in those rules that allows for additional skills when the roll is high.
If you use these two rules, then basic chargen characters and advanced chargen characters are compatible because both system will spit out "like" characters--characters with about the same number of skills.
Using these two rules, it allows the guy who picks Belter from Supp 4 to turn out a character that will not necessarily be disadvanted against another player's character created using the advanced scout chargen rules.
Those two rules are equalizers.
If you don't have access to MT, I've adopted both rules in my house system for my campaign. You'll find the Special Duty numbers for all of Traveller's major careers (Book 1 and Supp 4) in the pdf in my sig.
-S4
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
It's true that the reason it's hard to use characters from Advanced Chargen and Basic Chargen is that the Advanced Chargen characters will have more skills. The two systems do not spit out "like" characters.
But, there is a fix for this. It was first written in MT.
The MT basic characters have two ways to make additional skills (than CT basic characters). They have a Special Duty roll, that can net them an extra skill. And, also, there's a Roll High mechanic in those rules that allows for additional skills when the roll is high.
If you use these two rules, then basic chargen characters and advanced chargen characters are compatible because both system will spit out "like" characters--characters with about the same number of skills.
Using these two rules, it allows the guy who picks Belter from Supp 4 to turn out a character that will not necessarily be disadvanted against another player's character created using the advanced scout chargen rules.
Those two rules are equalizers.
If you don't have access to MT, I've adopted both rules in my house system for my campaign. You'll find the Special Duty numbers for all of Traveller's major careers (Book 1 and Supp 4) in the pdf in my sig.
-S4
