Character generation questions/suggestions

[rogermccarthy]

Don't agree with including Craftsman - these are definitely Citizens with a Life Pursuit.

Ditto with Technician.

Think there should be Barbarians though - although in Classic Traveller I don't believe that people on Tech Level 2 worlds actually live in castles and ride around in plate armour, in a Milieu 0 or New Era campaign there clearly will be planets that have devolved back to swords, spears and flintlocks and none of the other careers will produce reasonable inhabitants for them.

And if you have Barbarians you should also have Belters.

Commando might also be a separate career open to veterans who meet tough pre-requisites.

Diplomat is also a good PC and NPC career (and is included in Pocket Empires so can easily be ported over from T4).

The Draft was a silly idea in CT and should be dropped as more careers and waivers make it much less likely that you'll have a character who is otherwise unemployable.

Some Alien templates would also be nice - you could easily have half or one page for each race, giving a library data-style capsule description and notes identifying variations from the standard generation process.

 

[Theo D Lite]

Robject,

Interesting. I'm not up on T5 char gen yet (I downloaded the PDF a few days ago but haven't printed it yet). Your thoughts on certification could make sense from both perspectives.

Looking at RL here in the UK, I am a Chartered Civil Engineer. This is a recognised qualification within my own industry supported and regulated by the various professonal institutions. This probably equates to your certified - it took me 4 years at univiersity and 6 years in the industry (as a result of a couple of career decisions) to achieve. I've been Chartered since 1992.

When working my team includes people at a variety of levels including other Chatered Engineers, Incorporated Engineers, Technician Engineers and trainees. Not all of these have a graduate background.

Therefore as Chartered I might be expected to solve difficult tasks in principle, but often leave the detail to an Incorporated Engineer. In other words my input has reduced the problem from difficult to average. The Incorporated Engineer might in turn calculate an answer but leave the physical result (layout of rebar in a reinforced concrete beam or column) to be determined by a Technician Engineer. The Incorporated Engineer therefore reduces the complexity of the task again.

Does this make any sense or am I completely off my trolley?

 

[daltoncalford]

Hi guys,

Sorry, been away from the topic for awhile, but, from what I have seen from this discussion is that 'raw talent' is more important than 'training and experience'in the new rules.

I do not agree. I view natural talent as a limiting factor of what an individual can do or learn.

For example, a person with a higher level of inteligence may learn a subject faster than someone of lesser ability, but, it does not let that untrained genious who has lived in a TL0 backwater perform fusion engineering better than a average joe who has had years of practical experience combined with the best education money can buy...

Char should be a limiting value.
No skill should be higher than the controlling char. But, skill should be valued twice or better than natural talent.
Natural talents should make learning a skill easier, but as the skill level gets closer to the char level, it should get harder.
As char is lost due to aging/injury, skill levels should also be dropped if they exceed the char level - making aging a double whammy.

Certificates are just that, a test by a third party group to certify that the individual in question has passed the criteria of the test. It should have no bearing on skill or char levels.
It should have alot of bearing on resumes, pay grades, social situations and other areas more related to the social (and roleplaying) aspects of the game. For example, only certified jump engineers of rating 3 or better are allowed to work on Starlanes jump ships.

To get a certificate, a character should have to fulfill any prerequisets and pass a task roll as specified. (educational degrees are just another certificate)

From these basic premises, skill levels should be much higher than in CT. Certificates should be rare and low level just as skills where in CT.
A CT -->T5 conversion would take the skill level and give a certificate of equal level for the skill, then using a chart, assign the appropriate level of skill.

As for how the tasks are resolved, I also despise the bucket of dice rules.

best regards

Dalton

 

[robject]

Alte -

I agree with your assessment of Craftsman and Technician -- if they're not Civilian roles, then they're just skill specializations. They don't seem to rise to the level of Career. Although in that sense, are Performer, Belter, or Diplomat any different?

Theo -

That sounds pretty much like what I was thinking of, and it might be what T5 is aiming for. I'm a certified Java Programmer, which means I passed SUN's official test, which doesn't amount to a whole lot, except proving that I can take their test. Though it's nowhere near as useful as 5 years of real experience, it does look good on a resume.

Dalton -

Send Marc an email, telling him why you prefer MT's 2d6 task system (or whatever). His playtest stuff is material as he 'would like', but he's also receptive to what people will tolerate.

As for skills, I believe the idea is that at the same level of skill, the person with the better characteristic should perform better.

I like your CT->T5 conversion idea.

 

[aramis]

robject: MWM has not been (in the past) open to criticism of the task system.

Performer, Belter: both of these are clearly careers, not life-pursuits. They completely change the nature of your lifestyle, income sources and risk levels. Performer could also be a life pursuit, but that would represent the amateur.

Diplomat: both a career and a life-pursuit. The career is for those in the diplomatic agencies; the life pursuit is for those other persons with diplomatic tasks. Both for chief negotiators....

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by robject:
Dalton -

Send Marc an email, telling him why you prefer MT's 2d6 task system (or whatever). His playtest stuff is material as he 'would like', but he's also receptive to what people will tolerate.

As for skills, I believe the idea is that at the same level of skill, the person with the better characteristic should perform better.

I like your CT->T5 conversion idea.

I will send Marc an email, I have all the T4 books and have played it a few times, but, we generally went back to using either MT or BITS as our core mechanics.

As for the CHAR/SKILL issue, who should perform better

CHAR 10 SKILL 0
CHAR 7 SKILL 3
?

If you say they should be the same, when the skill 3 represents at least 2 or more years of practical training/experience, I would say your mechanics are silly.

If you say the CHAR 10 pc would achieve the skill levels easier than the CHAR 7 pc, I would say that is correct.

If you say the CHAR 10 pc should be able to learn/achieve higher skill levels than the CHAR 7 pc, I would agree.

If you say a untrained or basic trained individual is better than an experienced individual because of natural talent, I would strongly disagree.

If we based the mechanics upon a difficulty level rating (say from 0 to 15) and we say that a skill rating higher than the difficulty rating is an automatic success but that lower skill ratings need a dice roll modified by CHAR....

Quick Mental Dump

2D6 >= Target Number

Target Number =(Task Difficulty - Skill Level)

Result = Difference between Roll and Target Number

If Roll is below TN, level below is level of failure

If Roll is above TN, level above is level of Success.

If Level of Success can be no higher than Char value, regardless of modifiers.

Level of failure effects are multiplied if failure level higher than Char value.

Char acts as a modifier for learning a skill, it acts as a limiting factor for how good a result you can get, it acts as a real barrier to pc's who push the limits cause the failure can be REAL bad as well as acting as pre-requisets for certain actions/skills.

This means that two characters with equal skill would have the same chance of success, but the higher CHAR one would have the possibility of better results.

(OK, I cheated a bit, this is what our current gaming group uses for a task system. It allows us to use a single die roll to specify both success, level of success, damage, damage resistance, and of course how badly you flubbed the action)

Since we use CT/MT character generation, we don't use high Task Difficulty numbers, since the skill levels are low, but the principal is the same.

Equipment either gives a skill bonus, a char bonus or both.

best regards

Dalton

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Dalton:
I will send Marc an email, I have all the T4 books and have played it a few times, but, we generally went back to using either MT or BITS as our core mechanics.

So did we.

As for the CHAR/SKILL issue, who should perform better

CHAR 10 SKILL 0
CHAR 7 SKILL 3
?

T5 states that the Skill 3 character would perform better. I think all rules systems make that clear, and I think they're right. T5 goes on to say that the Skill 0 character would actually be penalized for not having a requisite skill level.

Level of success seems to be a good way to calculate effects (such as damage). MT has this, right?

By the way: I assume that the Bucket of Dice effect doesn't come into play most of the time, since most tasks are Average (2D) or Difficult (3D). Anyhow, most of the complaints I've heard with nD6 comes from people who don't like having so many probability curves, or people who prefer a straight d100 roll (because they prefer that the curve be written down in tables rather than in the dice).

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Aramis:
robject: MWM has not been (in the past) open to criticism of the task system.

Certainly for his draft stuff, he seems to only put in what he wants, and he apparently has a lot he wants to put in. Although he did away with the half die. Thank goodness!

Performer, Belter: both of these are clearly careers, not life-pursuits. They completely change the nature of your lifestyle, income sources and risk levels. Performer could also be a life pursuit, but that would represent the amateur.

Diplomat: both a career and a life-pursuit. The career is for those in the diplomatic agencies; the life pursuit is for those other persons with diplomatic tasks. Both for chief negotiators....

Good point about the Belter. I'm sure there are branches of the military that also change one's chance for personal damage. Although, Scouts might be a reasonably close match to the Belter/Explorer/Seeker style of career as to be a specialization.

Diplomat might could fit under the "Agent" and "Noble" careers.

 

[aramis]

I'd argue the reverse for scouts: belter is a specialty of scout, not scout as a specialty of belter.

I really prefer the approach taken in AM:K'Kree and AMroyne; specifically, 2-3 sub-careers per career; each sub-career gets one table of its own, and then there are 2-3 shared tables.

So, under that model, Scout, Belter, and Frontier Merchant might be one career, with separate skill tables. Scouts get commo, computers, special combat*, Space*, Space Tech* medical. Belters instead get prospecting (x2), science*, Vacc Suit, Zero-G (x2). Frontier Merchant gets Trader, Broker, Economic*, Space*, Space Tech*, Steward.

Likewise, Navy could have 4 specialty tables, say Line, Gunnery, Engineering, Support. Army could have Infantry, Armor, Support, Engineer. Flyer could include Flight, Ground Crew, Support.

Just a thought. BTW, the above, coupled with life pursuits, could make a wide range of MOS's with slightly different skill-sets. Especially if one roll per term must be on a specific sub-skill table. It kind of hybridizes the Bk4-7 skill tables with a T4-ish skill rate, and CT-ishh CG process.

 

[robject]

Sorry, yes, I agree with Belter being a specialization of Scouts. I wasn't thinking while typing.

And I think the sub-career tables sound like a good solution, too.

 

[rogermccarthy]

Re sub-careers.

Problem with this is that it is just recreating the Advanced Chargen of CT and MT.

While not a bad idea I suspect Marc really wants a simpler CT Book 1/T4 approach.

My own solution to the annoyingly random selection of skills given by T4 and T5 is to turn the Life Pursuit Idea into a career specialism.

Effectively each character should be allowed to select one career specialism each term which defines their main focus of activity for those 4 years.

e.g. the Army might have Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, NCO, Officer.

Each specialism will have two skills associated with it (e.g, Infantry might have Rifle and Heavy Weapons, Officer might have Tactics and Bureaucracy).

Instead of the plethora of extra career, commission, promotion and rank skills in T4/5, all characters will receive one of their two specialism skills per term as a free skill at the start of the term

They may also optionally take the other specialism skill instead of their 4th annual skill if it has not been rolled randomly in the 3 previous years.

This will produce far more focused and usable characters than the present T5 rules (which is quite capable of producing merchant captains who can act and ride a horse but cannot plot a course for his starship).

If you want more detail you can also have pre-requisites for certain specialities (e.g. nobody is going to want to employ a hypersonic jet pilot with Dex 2) and make some more dangerous than others (yes you can be a Merchant smuggler and get Clandestine and Camouflage as your specialist skills but you have to take a +1 DM on Injury roll and -1 on Commission and promotion).

 

[robject]

Alte,

I took a similar tack, turning Life Pursuits into a term specialization. The player could assign any number of term skills to the specialization instead. Though that specialization was only one skill, it could be changed at the start of the next term. It worked well enough -- if you wanted your character to have certain skills, you had a legal way to do it. It's basically a logical extension of Life Pursuits mapped back into chargen. Marc liked it.

The Old Playtest material had some ramblings about certifications, whereby the solo player could guarantee that a character could be employable by (for example) a megacorp, or a referee could guide players on what kind of skill levels were needed to be hotdogs of various kinds Sounds similar to your pre-requisites, except on the employment-side rather than the learning-side.

 

[robject]

I'm hijacking this thread to get some thoughts on Lifepath generation, and if a similar effect can be gotten by retooling MT's advanced chargen rules.

The Lifepath is very roughly akin to the Career concept of CT/MT/T4/etc. The difference is that instead of serving terms in an organization, the character chooses Assignments within that Lifepath. The assignments are very similar in theory to the assignments in MT's advanced chargen -- or T5's Officer Flight School & Officer Commando Training -- though quite a bit less structured. They vary in duration and benefits/skills given, plus each assignment provides a gateway to one or more different Lifepaths -- transfers, in an informal way.

A side benefit of Assignments is that it can take the Freelance worker into account: people who work for themselves can decide when they've had enough, and what they want to do (assuming they can meet the requirements).

The differences, which I think will have to be preserved and accounted for, fall into these categories:

Structure vs Freedom. Traveller careers are implied to be within an institution; transfers don't normally happen. After a formal career has ended, though, mobility is the norm.

Rank versus Title. Traveller careers confer rank, while freelancers only have a current title.

Skills versus Assignments. Assignments seem to fall partway between skills/Life Pursuits and a career 'term'. Whether or not Assignments are compatible with a more traditional Career resolution sequence remains to be tested.

Assignment Bloat. Does this mean there will be an index of 100 (or more) Assignments? And will this lead to rules bloat, or Another Horrible Table?