CT Chargen attempts thoughts

[knirirr]

There's a house rule for rolling stats that I use that might be of interest to CT/MT players. I don't know where it came from - perhaps I made it up, or read it somewhere, or got it from another ref. Anyway, it involves rolling a long string of stats - I usually allow enough to go across the top of an A4 sheet, like this:

764987683A2579B324C774938...

The player must then select 6 consecutive numbers for their UPP without re-arranging the order. So, a player who insisted upon playing a noble character and had the above rolls could choose 87683A, A2579B or 9B324C, for example.

 

[Whipsnade]

The player must then select 6 consecutive numbers for their UPP without re-arranging the order.

Knirrir,

Oooo... I really like that!

I wish I'd heard of it years ago!


Have fun,
Bill

 

[casquilho]

Just when you think you have heard of all the various ways folks come up with stats someone tells about one you don't know.

Thanks for sharing.

Daniel

 

[jawillroy]

That is good.

The one fiddle I used to do was to allow the PC to swap their SOC with one other characteristic: generally, this resulted in a higher education or intelligence at the expense of potential nobility. I don't remember anyone doing it the other way 'round. Yes! I want to be a blithering idiot noble. Actually, I'd love to play a Bertie Wooster type in the 31, or a PTU.

Bertie anders into bridge of the Jump Yacht Drone, sits at command chair, rubs hands together with relish.
"Aha! Jump drive enGAGE!"
Presses the engage button for the yacht's drives to no effect.
"Erm. Ah. EnGAGE!"
Presses the engage button, waits, then hammers at it repeatedly.
"Oh blast the bally thing. JEEVES!"
"Sir?"
"AAA! Oh there you are, you do drift up on a fellow. I must bell you like a cat."
"If you must, sir."
"..."
"Did you wish anything, sir?"
"OH! Right. This, th, the lantha, someth..."
waves in the general direction of the drive controls
"...the thing's got it in for me I'm telling you."
"If you would pardon my asking, sir, but what do you wish to do?"
"We're going to Bleen III, Jeeves. Bleen III. Smashing place."
"Very good, sir. If I might suggest that informing the ship's computer of your intended destination would aid it considerably in the endeavor?"
"Jeeves, I'm not at all sure that you aren't being impertinent with me. Are you being impertinent with me?"
"No, sir."
"Ah? Good then. Glad to get that settled. I'll tell you what: you have a good chin-wag with the infernal machine, and I'll go prowl after a gin & tonic."
"Very good, sir."

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Pfft. If you're going to do that, you may as well let play some point-buy system! And I should know - I've played and GMed lots of GURPS!

Let's try this again. I'll go through it all, then paste the finished character in blue at the end.

We'll call her Jenna Hotspur.
Stats, 46A884
Wow! This woman can only do about two push-ups, but can run for miles, has read a lot and is somewhat smart, pity she's low-class, but what can you do.

Let's enlist her in the Navy! You don't need muscles and class for that.

First Term: Enlistment (Navy) 8+... roll 10. Tired of being picked on for being weedy and low-class, Jenna decided at 18 to join the Navy, where she hoped to obtain a commission and be the one pushing others around for a change.

Navy, Per Devp, roll 1, +1 Strength
Navy, Service, roll 3, Fwd Obsvr +1

In the first year or two of her first term, she screwed up a bit on Recruit Course and had to do lots of pushups. As many as 10 in a row, she was amazed! They trained her in the direction of artillery. Then she tried out for a commission.

Commission 10+... roll 4. She was rejected.

Survival 5+, DM+1 if Int7+... roll 11. She did nothing dangerous. Still hoping for a good career, she went for a re-enlistment.

Second Term: Re-enlistment 6+... roll 7. Accepted!
Navy, PersDvp, roll 3, +1 End
Navy, Service, roll 5, +1 Edu
The Navy saw how fit she was and entered her in inter-service marathon competitions, where she got fitter still. After her daily six hours training she had a lot of reading time and did a few general education courses. She couldn't understand why Education wasn't important in the Navy, and resented that only Social Class mattered.

Commission, 10+... roll 10. Commissioned as Ensign Hotspur
Advanced Education, roll 1, Vacc Suit+1

Promotion, 8+, DM+1 if Edu 8+, roll 7+1 = 8, promoted Lieutenant.
Advanced Education Plus, Navigation+1

As a newly-commissioned officer she became competent in the use of Vacc Suits, and a decent Navigator. Well-pleased with her performance, she applied for re-enlistment.

Survival 5+, DM+1 if Int7+... roll 4+1 = 5. Close! Only her wits saved her that time. Could we tie that in with her promotion and/or skills gained? Let's say that at some point an engineer - we'll call him "Dutchy" - was working outside, and caught by a minor micrometeroid storm. Jenna went out in her own vacc suit and saved his life. It was then she was promoted Lieutenant.

Third Term: Re-enlist 6+, roll 10. Accepted!
Navy PerDvp, +1 Social
Navy Service, Ship's Boat+1
Now excited to finally be among important people who respected her, Jenna spent more time socialising and developing the connections which would improve her position. While her speech still reflected her low origins and would never allow her to be truly accepted, still things were improving for her. She was assigned to in-system duty and became competent at driving small ships.

Promotion 8+, DM+1 if Edu 8+... roll 6+1 = 7... just missed out. Her time socialising, and away from superiors' eyes in interplanetary work, kept her from the promotion she deserved.

Survival 5+, DM+1 if Int7+... roll 11+1 = 12. She never even went into Jumpspace in this third term, what could possibly go wrong? She wanted more, though.

Fourth Term: Re-enlist 6+, roll 4. Rejected! Now fully out of sight of anyone of influence, Jenna couldn't even get another appointment, and at the age of 30, reluctantly packed her duffel bags to leave her tiny cabin. What did she have to show for twelve years of her life given to the Navy?

Mustering Out: (3 for 3 terms, +1 for Lt)
Navy Benefits, roll 5, Travellers' Aid (1x High Passage every two months) - perhaps Dutchy was connected?
Navy Benefits, roll 2, Int+1 - she's matured as a woman.
Navy Benefits, roll 4, Blade - got as an officer.
Navy Cash, roll 5, 20,000Cr - she saved her pennies.

____________________________
Jenna Hotspur
Navy-3 terms, Lt (ret), 30yo
56B995
Forward Observer-1, Navigation-1, Ship's Boat-1, Vacc Suit-1
TAS membership (1 High/2 months), Blade, 20,000Cr

____________________________
So in the end what we have is a young woman who came from very humble beginnings to seek a good life in the Navy, who worked hard and was ambitious. After taking some time to prove herself, she rose quickly, and won promotion and eventual TAS membership when she saved Dutchy's life, but then had bad luck with deployments and so fell into obscurity. She always carries with her the ceremonial sword granted her as a sign of her commission. She's got no idea how to use the damn thing off the parade ground, but she's proud of it; maybe when she settles down it'll hang on the wall. Now she can spend a year or two at leisure, as she has a High Passage every couple of months and 20,000Cr to keep her going. In this year or two she'll find her new destiny, perhaps as a pilot in-system somewhere.

 

[jawillroy]

Neat character! I like her. But why do the survival roll after skills? I always rolled survival first each term, then promotion/commission, then re-enlistment... doesn't make a difference if she dies dead in chargen, but using the optional rule, she shouldn't get skills for a partial term.

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Neat character! I like her. But why do the survival roll after skills?

Well, strictly-speaking, if they die during the term it doesn't matter what skills they had so you can save yourself the rolling... but if you're looking at the character generation as a bit of roleplaying in itself, it's worth it. How did she die? What happened during that term that might have killed her? Dying after she got Forward Observer skill and dying after she got Ship's Boat skill suggest perhaps different deaths.

It's also good practice for developing the backgrounds of the characters who survive the whole process.

 

[knirirr]

Thanks! I've been using this for so long that I've forgotten where it came from, but it seems to work well in practice.
I should have added that for non-standard characters there are slight modifications. For example, for vargr I'd have the players select 5 consecutive digits for the UPP, then modify the physical stats (+1 dex, -1 str/end I think) and roll charisma on 1d6. Charisma goes up and down during chargen and play so this worked acceptably. If they needed a psionic character (e.g. for a Zhodani or 1248 Jewell campaign) then 7 consecutive numbers could be selected and a penalty applied to the last (psi) depending on when the referee judged that they have been trained. For Classic era non-Zhodani games I would make players roll for psionics separately, though.
Although I'm mostly using CT I like to use corrected versions of the MT chargen tables as these often allow cascade skills, and the choosing of skills from a set is something the players prefer to just being assigned one.