Character development

[far-trader]

One idea I've played with is this: Since the UPP includes skill lists and ratings, and presumably is part of the standard documentation that the Imperium keeps, the listed skill level represents an actual certification that a character has. So a "Pilot-2" can produce documentation that proves her Pilot-2-ness to a prospective employer, etc.

Yep, some skills will work this way. A friend did a detailed (very neat) procedure to outline certifications a while back for a game. It allowed the skill level as DM for the tests iirc. So a Skill-4 would have to take 4 tests to be fully certified to that level but getting level 1 cert was easy. So you'd have (potentially) two numbers on your character sheet. Your actual skill (which you use for doing the job) and your certification level (which you use to be hired and for pay rates).

Not all skills have certification tests or requirements of course. And not all skilled individuals will have certification. I've known people in real life who were wizards with cars (Mechanic-5 ) but had zero certification and would have had a hard time getting hired by a shop. For example.

(I also consider getting a weapon at muster-out time to include a license to carry that sort of weapon, which I'm pretty sure is part of the standard rules?)

Depends on the rules system. I haven't come across that in Mongoose yet. I would consider the career path that led to the weapon acquisition. And the choice of the player. A criminal mustering out with a hand gun is not likely to have a permit for it. And a washout ex-Army mustering out with a heavy weapon may have just arranged for it to fall off the truck.

Also mustering out with a weapon, with no skill in it, would lead me to think it was a no permit case.

Although someone (mike wightman?) said something about muster weapons being special presentation versions (or was that me? :smirk. Or was his game the one with muster out weapons being one of special history/significance in the character's past? "This rifle saw me through the worst fighting in the war and never once misfired or jammed."

 

[Ranana_occutt]

I have to say it depends by what kind of action you mean - if you mean action like car chases, fight sequences etc. then character comes first always otherwise you end up like Quantum Of Solace which is just chases and fight scenes put together with very little story or character development.

If youre not talking about that kind of action then action and character development are the same thing because the character develops by the action that he or she does or doesnt do.

 

[rust]

I picked up this habit from Pendragon where it is the recommended approach. PCs generally aren't expected to have more than one adventure every year or two of a character's life. It allows for development of character associations and relationships as well, even making multi-generational play possible (characters having children that players take over when the original PC dies or is otherwise unfit to play).

We use a very similar approach for almost all of our settings. The player cha-
racters play an important role in two or three "axis events" of the setting in
each year of game time, but otherwise fade back into the background to live
rather normal lives, working in their professions, caring for their families, and
so on. Depending on the length of a campaign, multi-generational play is ra-
ther common.

I've been thinking of working on a system for Traveller similar to Pendragon's "winter phase" algo that generates events and development for PC downtime. Any interest? I was thinking of doing it as a web app. Maybe something that GMs could customize for their own campaigns.... hmmmm

If you are still thinking of this, I would be very interested in the results.

 

[sergeant_x]

If you are still thinking of this, I would be very interested in the results.

Hmmm.. would you be interested in helping produce those results?

Actually, I can handle all the coding and such, but feedback and/or playtesting would be a big help - not to mention keep me motivated. I'm still pretty wide open on what form it should take. I was thinking of something that rolled characteristics and track attributes and the whole nine yards, but I'm having second thoughts. Now I'm thinking that the most "bang for the buck" could be had by providing an event generation system (something between the Pendgragon fief management stuff and the MGTs expanded chargen (Life Events). The cool thing, is that with a webapp, we could make all the actual event descriptions and particulars customizable to a GMs campaign.

Anyway, there are so many directions this could take. I think I need to pare down the idea to something concise to get started. Any ideas on what would be most useful to start with?

 

[rust]

Hmmm.. would you be interested in helping produce those results?

As far as spare time and other projects permit, of course.

Anyway, there are so many directions this could take. I think I need to pare down the idea to something concise to get started. Any ideas on what would be most useful to start with?

The method we used in our last campaign (and intend to use in the upcoming
one, too) was to continue the character generation process during the actual
campaign.
The referee would secretly roll for the events of the character's next career
term, and would then introduce these events somewhen during the next four
years of game time.

In a previous camapign we used a modified table from Call of Cthulhu, which
also gave a random choice of life events that either improved or worsened
the character's situation (e.g. career advancement or job lost).

So an idea to start with could perhaps be a modified event table, designed
to be used for the events of one year at a time instead of the four years of
the character generation events.
And it should perhaps be generic and general enough to be useful for all of the
careers and to be easily adapted to any campaign, OTU as well as non-OTU.

Just some thoughts ...