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CT+ Careers

robject

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MT consolidated LBB1 + Citizens nicely, with something like 18 career types, right? If we stay with that philosophy, perhaps CT+ chargen is simply MT basic chargen. The simplest and easiest solution.

A variation on that would be to add in elements suggested by folks here, such as:

* Sigg's "special duty roll", which provides additional benefits at increased risk.

* T5's chargen-wounding rule (instead of death), which can provide wound badges and medals for military players wounded during service.


Also, I'd like to consider if Life Pursuits can trim down the total number of umbrella career types. Just as skills in CT are broader than skills in MT/TNE/T4, perhaps careers should be broad, too. Life Pursuits give players the ability to specialize their characters within a career umbrella.

I showed how T5 conceptually breaks careers down into specializations at:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/cgi-bin/Trav/CotI/Discuss/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000100;p=1#000014

A wilder (perhaps cooler) variant would be to take the Burning Wheel route, and have sub-careers which a player can traverse her character through, and which may have various dependencies on characteristics, skills, or previous sub-careers. This is actually an extension of the "Advanced Education" concept from CT, so it is not completely foreign to CT.


At any rate, the careers I recall being in CT/MT are:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Scout
Merchant
Marine
Army
Navy
Other/Rogue

Barbarian
Belter
Bureaucrat
Diplomat
Doctor
Flyer
Hunter
Noble
Pirate
Sailor
Scientist</pre>[/QUOTE]...plus a couple more, I think.


The old T5 draft (the new T5 draft list is different) career list (which uses careers more like clusters or umbrellas) is:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Noble
Rogue
Entertainer
Scout
Merchant
Army
Navy
Marine
Agent
Scholar
Functionary (NPC role)
Citizen (NPC role)</pre>[/QUOTE]My current preference would be to group careers into cascades. But the sub-careers almost become too narrow, shrinking down into single skills or titles:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Noble
- bureaucrat
- diplomat
- ambassador

Rogue
- pirate
- barbarian
- ?

Entertainer
- steward
- performing arts
- ?

Scout
- belter/surveyor
- xboat duty
- xenoambassador

Merchant
- liaison
- ?
- ?

Soldier
- vehicle ops
- combat ops
- strategic

Agent
- diplomat
- spy
- mediator

Scholar
- scientist
- instructor
- sociologist

Functionary
- bureaucrat
- diplomat
- liaison

Citizen
- colonist
- doctor
- hunter</pre>[/QUOTE]
 
If you then add the T4 careers Entertainer, Agent, Scholar, three more would get you a nice round twenty four careers.

You've mentioned Colonist, Functionary , and Citizen...
 
Yes. It feels like "career bloat" to me, but it would certainly follow naturally from the Citizens supplement.
 
It would only take up eight sides of paper...

{plus four sides to explain character generation, four to explain benefits, two for tasks, nine to explain skills, and a page or two for an example of character generation - all of which assumes LBB size, halve it if the size of a normal book}
 
IMHO we should use LBB1+Citizens for basic chargen, and (consolidated) LBBs 4-7 plus an expanded version of Citizens (which will have to be built; Fritz88 has a Law Enforcement one and I have a Belter one, the rest will have to be designed from the basis of Citizens).
 
See, Sigg? I told you it would be Career Bloat


The more careers we add, the more dilute they become. We'd be hard-pressed to come up with 24 expanded careers that are "unique enough" to be worth the effort. The 18 CT+Citizens careers are stretched as it is.

LBB1 had six careers and 20- or 30-odd skills. I suspect that the ratio of career count to skill count (1:5) is important. MT had eighteen careers and 100+ skills. I suspect that in order to have properly delimited careers, MT requires around 100 skills -- the 1:5 ratio. T5 posited 13 careers and 75 skills -- again that 1:5 ratio pops its ugly head up.

That ratio might be artificial; might be a coincidence. But I don't think so.

If we have 50 skills, then I think about 10 careers will be meaningfully unique. The rest will start to look a bit... well, non-unique.

Assuming I'm right
, my choices would be
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Scout
Merchant
Marine
Army
Navy (incl. Flyer)
Rogue (incl. Pirate, Barbarian)
Noble
Scholar (incl. Scientist, Instructor)
Functionary (incl. Bureaucrat, Agent, Law Enforcement)
Citizen (incl. Colonist, Hunter, Doctor)
Belter (maybe)</pre>[/QUOTE]
 
I wouldn't have expanded character generation in CT+.

Assignment tables could be added easily enough to add fluff - but I'd do it in an expansion to the core rules.
Decorations could be linked to special duty and promotion rolls - exceed your target number by four or more and roll on the decoration table.
But again, I'd keep it for an expansion.

Now about the careers to skills ratio - I can see your point.
But, LBB1 and Supplement 4, with 17 careers total - or 18 if you still count other ;) - has 41 skills taken from LBB1, 4, 5 plus some new ones.
LBB6 added four new skills, LBB7 two more, and LBB8 two more, for a grand total of 49.
 
Sigg - yes, I realized that the whole of CT has 17 careers, yet only around 50 skills (ratio 1:3). Since they were building on LBB1, they hadn't much wiggle room, and I think this probably makes Citizens rather dilute.

Obvious dilutions are where a single skill is stretched into a career. Hunter, Doctor, Bureaucrat, Scientist, even Flyer. It's difficult not to end up with slight variations on existing themes -- variations which don't justify the effort.

On the other hand, the 17/18 careers are already done for us, so it's no effort to paste 'em in. Well, except perhaps for one thing:

Anybody want to revise the skill sets for 18 careers?

It's not as much effort as one might think, but it does involve making sure the skills for each career are in our CT+ skill list, and substituting where necessary.
 
If we have 50 skills, then I think about 10 careers will be meaningfully unique. The rest will start to look a bit... well, non-unique.
(jumping in) the names of the careers fix one's perception. for example when one reads "army" one doesn't normally think "jihadist" but it would certainly be a similar career path in terms of skills. and differentiation can be had not only in skills but also skill access. an imperial marine commando may not have much in the way of liaison, but a jihadist could be highly skilled in that.

the ct careers are strongly oriented towards imperial service and, being limited, have strong differentiation. "citizens of the imperium" begins to break down that differentiation because the six career types are not in fact unique. the difference between a bureaucrat and a naval officer with mostly admin and liaison is a matter of emphasis and the careers begin to look the same because they are the same, but the strong type names - "navy" vs "bureaucrat" - continue to imply a difference that may not exist.
 
robject wrote:
Scout
Merchant
Marine
Army
Navy (incl. Flyer)
Rogue (incl. Pirate, Barbarian)
Noble
Scholar (incl. Scientist, Instructor)
Functionary (incl. Bureaucrat, Agent, Law Enforcement)
Citizen (incl. Colonist, Hunter, Doctor)
Belter

Seems quite good for me - changing all the Citizens careers into sub-careers/branches is a good idea. I'd put Barbarian as a Citizen, though, as he is far more of a low-tech Hunter than a Criminal; I'd probably also put the Agent as a Rogue, as he is usually nothing but a government-funded rogue with a badge (if this is the kind of an agent I have in mind).

And I'd make Law Enforcement and Belter into seperate careers as we already have their chargen systems ready. Belters could also be a branch of Merchants, atleast their Corporate types, as they are zsimply part of a megacorp's production branch rather than the transport/sales branches which appear in Mercvhant Prince.
 
And in fact, Flykiller, the difference could be described as one of Life Pursuit: a Naval Bureaucrat, versus a Civilian Bureaucrat. Or perhaps (stretching the metaphor a bit) a Rogue Combat Engineer versus a Marine Combat Engineer.

Okay, then, modifying my draft list with y'all's suggestions.

Agent is a poorly-defined category, representing anyone carrying authority on behalf of an organization. Ambassadors, liaisons, spies, informers, infiltrators, channels official and unofficial. Perhaps it doesn't exist as a career, but rather only within certain skills (liaison, diplomacy, stealth, etc).


</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Scout
Merchant
Marine
Army
- sailor
- flyer (pilot skill)
Navy
Rogue
- pirate (spacecraft skill)
Noble
Scholar
- scientist (science skill)
- instructor (instruction skill)
Law Enforcement
- Bureaucrat (admin/bureaucracy skill)
- Agent
- Repo
Belter
Citizen
- colonist
- hunter (hunting skill?)
- doctor (medic skill)
- barbarian</pre>[/QUOTE]
 
My take on it (BOLD denotes changes to Robject's list):

Scout
Merchant
Army
- sailor (Vehicle [Watercraft] skill)
- flyer (Vehicle [Aircraft] skill)
- Marine
Navy
Rogue
- pirate (spacecraft skill)
- Mobster/Fixer/etc (Streetwise skill)
Noble
Scholar
- scientist (science skill)
- instructor (instruction skill)
- doctor (medic skill)
Law Enforcement
- Agent
- Repo
Belter (Prospecting skill)
Civilian
- Diplomat (Liaison skill)
- colonist
- hunter (hunting skill?)
- barbarian
- Bureaucrat (admin/bureaucracy skill)
- Technician/Mechanic/Worker/etc (Mechanic/Electronic/Computers/etc skills)
 
It could simply be eleven career types, and they wouldn't be specifically mentioned at all. Life Pursuits would make them implicit in the chargen process.

Or, the subtypes might be specifically mentioned, as sub-careers, or as sub-tables, or as special duty sections.

Or something else.

Again, we ought to come to a consensus on this, and that involves being considerate, and maybe some compromise.
 
The simplest solution is to stick with the MT character generation tables, and just slightly rejig the aquired skills table to reflect the reduced skill list.
 
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