How hard can it really be to join the Armed Force of your choice?
Judging by the throws indicated in the Traveller universe, I'd say not as easy as one would think!
That's why
I like random chargen!
Yes, random chargen is the bomb. Just like you can't control where a character will be after the game begins, CT chargen takes it a step further.
Oh, players do have some control over the directions their characters take. But, it's more like real life. You attempt a direction (by picking a career and skills tables), but life (the die roll) sometimes gets in the way (it also sometimes unexpectedly helps you when the die shows that cross-training into the commandos or a promotion you weren't expecting).
Many people in RL go into the Navy and want to be pilots. Not all of them get to be pilots. And, of those pilots, most of them want to fly jets--but not all of them get to fly jets.
I think Classic Traveller chargen models this nicely.
If you have a player who's adverse to random chargen, then do what I do. (It's really fun! And, it actually starts the game off on a great note!)
Games Session One is character generation. Except, it's not a chore. Everybody is gathered around. And, we
role play through character generation.
I'll have everybody roll stats real quick. Then, I usually have some background information about their homeworld. Typically, all PCs will come from the same homeworld, but I will sometimes create details on a few. My last campaign, I created details on four homeworlds, then had a skewed D6 roll each player would throw to see where their character was from.
Code:
1-3 Aramis
4 Patinir
5 Natoko
6 Pysadi
So, you sit there, first game session. You've got your stats. You know some important detail about the homeworld you grew up on. And, now you're able to role play.
I'll say, "OK, you're 18 years old. You've lived on Aramis your whole life. Since Aramis' only city is Leedor, and its in a cave beneath the surface of the world, you've never spent any time out on a world with an atmosphere hospitable to humans. You've read about it, though, and seen it in the holofliks. What do you want to do?"
I run character generation just like I do a regular game. The bare bones 18 year old with no skills and some homeworld background
IS the player's character. What happens next is up to his decisions and the roll of the dice.
We're
gaming now. Instead of boring old character creation, we're actually role playing. Except instead of the game being broken down into 15 second combat rounds and 15 minute space combat rounds, we're going the other direction. We're meta-gaming. A "round" could be a year or a four year block of time for the character.
Every player I've taken through this process finds Traveller character generation
FUN! Why? Because it's not work. It's gaming!
We follow the character generation rules just like we'd follow the rules of a space combat round. Do this, then do this...then do this.
The player
grows with his character. He learns about him, and about the world and universe his character will be playing inside.
I sometimes drop adventure leads and things via news and stuff the character may hear while doing chargen. Then, when the actual game starts, I'll say, "Remember that ship you heard about years ago--I think you were 22? Well, this is her Captain...."
You get the idea.
My point here is that Traveller is unique in that you can really make character generation
work for you. It can support the game you're playing and accomplish a lot of goals you might have as a GM early in the game (getting the players to "know" the background that the character knows; getting the player emotionally attached to his character; having the player feel like he lived with his character the character's entire life instead of just getting to know the guy at whatever age he is when the game begins, etc).
That second point above--getting the player emotionally attached to his character--seems to magically happen a lot when I do Traveller chargen this way. I think it is because I do run chargen like a game session and not a mechanical/mathematical chore the player has to endure.
And, talk about the "chicken factor". When I start enforcing the original Survival Rule, and the player is attached to his character...I definitely see the chicken factor pop up during chargen.
From my experience, there is really no other way to run character generation. I don't think I'll ever change when I run a CT game. There's too many benefits that come from running chargen as a meta-game.
Try this next time you run a game. You'll be amazed at the results.
And, like me, you'll probably never go back to the sterile old way of rolling up a character.
