D&D like Char-Gen for Traveller?

[Blue Ghost]

Okay

Roy signs onto the Stellar Princess, a fat trader out of Regina. Each week he earns something 3 Exp for manning his engineering station.

Then while in politically gray space the Princess is jumped by a Vargr corsair. Fortunately said corsair is battered and low on maintenance, turning this into an even fight. Using basic CT starship combat rules the Princess comes out on top.

Normally Roy would only get a handful of Exp for the entire run. But because he was in an encounter, he gets some bonus Exp. Maybe a few hundred, maybe a few thousand depending on how fine a gradation is desired to get to the next skill level.

How about that?

 

[mike wightman]

How does Roy know what all the pretty lights on the fusion control station mean? How does he know which buttons to press?
Is the interactive training manual enough for him to learn the basics?

I just watched the Microsoft presentation of the new bots, digital assistants and augmented reality stuff they have coming along.

By TL9 the machines can probably teach you how to use them so you can learn on the job.

 

[MCutter]

You can use MgT for an adventure of teenagers (19 years old).
Each character gets three background skills on a level of 0.
Each character is in the first year of his career and get six
skills of basic training on a level of 0.

Workers, corporates, colonists, wanderers, scarvengers, journalists,
dilletantes, thiefs, enforcers are not bound to a strict organisation and
career plan. Their adventures can happen between jobs or after a time
as a trainee.
Physicians, Advocates, Diplomants or Scientist could give up after the
first semester or can think it over on an adventurous journey.
After a military service, (basic training for every citizen), the adventurer
is still young (19 or 20).

I think it is not appropriate to give a character of 19 years a skill on a level of 1, except
he was trained and has earned money for 2 or 3 years with this skill. (Trade, Mechanic, Drive)

I think a good idea to improve skills is to give every third meeting a skill on level 0 or to give a bonus of +1 on one Skill. I explain it with an example:

On a desert-world the characters drove a tanker truck into the outback.
The co-driver earned the skill drive(wheeled)-0 and the driver earned a permanent bonus on his drive(wheeled)-1 in the context of a tank-truck.

After the first meeting the codriver had drive(wheeled)-0 tank truck-(street,plain,flatdesert)
After the second meeting the codriver had drive(wheeled)-0 tank truck
After the third meeting the codriver had drive(wheeled)-0

After the first meeting the driver had a bonus +1 for drive(wheeled) tank truck-(street,plain,flatdesert)
After the second meeting the driver had a bonus +1 drive(wheeled) tank truck (Desert)
After the third meeting the driver had a permanent bonus +1 drive(wheeled)-0 tank truck.

With this rule a character gains a skill-0 or a permanent skill bonus in a context every third meeting. Several Bunus do not stack!!

 

[welsh]

I can't see someone with say a 3 in sword fighting keeping that skill level if they never use it. With time they'd fall to a default of 1 in it.

This is the flipside of experience -- we should be taking away or degrading skills not used. And just as it is relatively easy to gain skill-1 as compared to skill-5, it ought to be difficult to maintain skill-5 without constant practice, but easy to maintain skill-1.

Now, as to sword fighting ... I was a competitive fencer at 18 but haven't fenced in cough-mumble years ... still confident I can still beat any rank beginner. I think.

Bonuses could be given for success in doing more difficult tasks toward that skill. An engineer that fixes a badly damaged system successfully gets a much bigger bonus towards skill development than one that just does routine maintenance.

This is my preferred route for bonuses. No bonus to Roy just for being in combat with the pirates ... but when a lucky shot damages the power plant and he has to repair it using a stick of chewing gum, a multi-tool and an old MacGyver DVD, that's a whopping big bonus.

I think it is not appropriate to give a character of 19 years a skill on a level of 1, except he was trained and has earned money for 2 or 3 years with this skill. (Trade, Mechanic, Drive)

An 18-yo character could have substantial skills in some areas, if he had the appropriate background. Returning to the mists of my past, I recall that one Luc Rocheleau was national foil champion in Canada at 14. That's a bit of an extreme example, but kids on farms learn to drive young, etc. Plenty of 18-yos today probably rank as Computer-1. There's a vid on my Facebook this morning of some teenager out in BC who built a travel mug that recharges your phone when you fill it with coffee ... not a revolutionary idea by any means but certainly not no-skill.

Starting 18-yos as blank slates works for the game, else everyone would want to concoct a background to give his character more skills. But for the player who chooses to put himself at a disadvantage by playing a know-nothing kid, I have no problem levelling the playing field by giving him a skill or two.

 

[Terquem]

A thought experiment

So - maybe it doesn't have to be 18 year olds, exactly. Say you wanted to game (using classic traveler) a situation like the one described in Alan Dean Foster's "Icerigger" trilogy

Sure you would have a standard mercenary soldier in Sku September, but the rest of the cast is made up of a well educated teacher, a well travelled salesman, and a well to do socialite (there might be one or two others, it has been a really long time since I read the books).

By the end of the trilogy all of the characters have learned new skills, and become "heroes" in their own right.

I've always thought that this sort of group, with one or two "experienced" individuals, and two or four "rookies" makes for an interesting game.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, one of the things I tended to gripe and moan about D&D's exp/level system, was that a veteran swordsman, to my mind, was no less skilled than a swordsman who had killed a couple of mythological beasts, including orcs and goblins.

So for Traveller I thought maybe an Exp / Skill-level system that was different from D20 might be the right method to reflect a slight variance in skill proficiency in characters, but without creating the huge "heroic" schism that distinguishes a level-1 D&D character from like a level 5 or level 8 character who, not only has bonuses for detecting traps or hitting with a weapon and so forth, but for some reason has more hit points.

And that's really what's always kind of bothered me. But I haven't gone through T20 since it was first published, and my last game was a few years back (CT, not T20), so maybe my thread is actually irrelevant.

But, like I said, my other concept was to get younger players involved. My friend bought me Starter Traveller, and the combination of presentation of the game booklets, the map for the two adventures that came with the game, the superb cover art, and the fact that you could game in spaceships and shoot guns, was a real hook. The down shot was that you had to generate a character who had already had a previous life which you could not play out.

So, I thought it might be cool to offer younger characters for younger players who wanted to play an adventure with someone closer to their age that they could connect with. I don't know.

 

[SanDragon]

Here ya go...

Put the character through college or technical school.

On graduation day, they're approached by a patron who wants to hire them... to work at SpaceBurger!

 

[Blue Ghost]

You people are killing me.

Seriously; I seem to recall a TAS or Challenge article about starting characters as young as 10 or 12, and how to add stats and skills as they matured. Some kid who flipped burgers or delivered pizzas might actually get something like a vehicle-1 or vehicle-2. A child soldier in Africa or the Middle East might actually have a Combatrifleman-2 or something.

 

[aramis]

Seriously; I seem to recall a TAS or Challenge article about starting characters as young as 10 or 12, and how to add stats and skills as they matured.

Traveller's Digest 15 had one covering Humans, Aslan and Vargr. Pages 34-37.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Hmm, I think I sold that in the big Gaming selloff of 1992 ... I may still have it somewhere. I'll have to have a look.

Is it going to be archived on CD (or has it been)?

 

[kilemall]

The HP thing in my opinion should be construed as technically skill and experience in dodging X attack magical or otherwise and/or an exuded power that alters outcomes, call it karma or life force or what have you (since it IS a magical environment).

 

[Blue Ghost]

The HP thing in my opinion should be construed as technically skill and experience in dodging X attack magical or otherwise and/or an exuded power that alters outcomes, call it karma or life force or what have you (since it IS a magical environment).

That's pretty much what I figured for D&D; i.e. avoid sword and spear slashes, or being able to turn what would have been a mortal wound into scratch with some kind of combat move. Which, to me at least, made D20 / T20 even more perplexing, since how exactly do you "dodge a bullet" or gain HPs to reflect skill in a fire fight? That was my "other" objection to T20, and why I never read much of it, but bought the book just to have.

I guess I need to really read the whole the whole thing.

 

[GypsyComet]

That's pretty much what I figured for D&D; i.e. avoid sword and spear slashes, or being able to turn what would have been a mortal wound into scratch with some kind of combat move. Which, to me at least, made D20 / T20 even more perplexing, since how exactly do you "dodge a bullet" or gain HPs to reflect skill in a fire fight? That was my "other" objection to T20, and why I never read much of it, but bought the book just to have.

I guess I need to really read the whole the whole thing.

Or at least the part on hit points. T20 characters get better at surviving bar fights as their level increases, but guns are still easily lethal.

 

[Timerover51]

Yesterday I purchased the Keith series of books from DriveThru, and the package included "Wanted Adventures" by Gamelords. The booklet does have a section on the Learning Exchange for increasing skill level in it. I also have it in hard copy, so I knew what I was getting. That section could be used as a starting point for some form on increasing skill levels based on a player character's performance in the game.

Side Note: When playing the Morrow Project, I did have my demolitions card and a couple of versions of FM 5-25 Explosives and Demolitions with me, so the GM figured I should have a reasonable skill level in Demolition work, rather than using a whole demolitions package to blow down a door, along with most of the house or front of the building.

If a player shows up with that sort of material, I would be inclined to award him or her some skill levels based on that. That would include having the material on a computer. Hard copy is, in my view, better for field work.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, to the run up to getting your majority, you can live through four and a half terms.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The thing is that for basic D&D I don't recall there being much assumption of your character's training. I think for AD&D (all editions) there actually is some kind of background that's encouraged.

But for either system it's encounters that dictate experience. If you're walking with your party in the wilderness, then you don't get experience for following a deer path in the forest, or walking over dunes in the desert and so forth.

True, it's a different system altogether, but it is D-20ish. Again, I need to break out my T20 book and brush up on char-gen etc.

 

[aramis]

The thing is that for basic D&D I don't recall there being much assumption of your character's training. I think for AD&D (all editions) there actually is some kind of background that's encouraged.

But for either system it's encounters that dictate experience. If you're walking with your party in the wilderness, then you don't get experience for following a deer path in the forest, or walking over dunes in the desert and so forth.

True, it's a different system altogether, but it is D-20ish. Again, I need to break out my T20 book and brush up on char-gen etc.

You are VERY rusty on T20...
There are adventure awards, awards for time spent working...

Each week is at least 5 XP just for staying alive doing NOTHING AT ALL...
and 15 XP per week more for working full time.

Adventure completion is the major chunk... using the standard 4 types of traveller adventures.
Patron Encounter (like any in 76 Patrons or 760 patrons) 1,000XP x the average party level
Amber Zone 2,000XP x the average party level
Short Adventure 3,000XP x the average party level
Full Adventure 4,000XP x the average party level

Good RP is 10-50 per session.

 

[Leitz]

Two different comments. I'm already older than many PCs retire as, and my life is still moving forward and I'm learning things. And adventuring.

Second, I'm playing in a low age game; the PC's started in Year 1 of Term 2, CT.

A third comment. No reason a character's skills start at 18. I know kids who are smarter than I and can do marketable stuff. If a PC can start their enlistment at age 18 with an EDU of 12, then college equivalence can happen before that age.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Two different comments. I'm already older than many PCs retire as, and my life is still moving forward and I'm learning things. And adventuring.

Second, I'm playing in a low age game; the PC's started in Year 1 of Term 2, CT.

A third comment. No reason a character's skills start at 18. I know kids who are smarter than I and can do marketable stuff. If a PC can start their enlistment at age 18 with an EDU of 12, then college equivalence can happen before that age.

Which is my whole point; I think a new "era" in char-gen and possibly even play can open up if char-gen can start earlier, or, as per basic D&D, just kick the kid out of the house at a yong age, or sign him up to an apprenticeship, and see where life takes him.

At age six I was already firing hunting rifles. I could also fish, hike and climb, but I couldn't hit a baseball if my life depended on it. I could do some basic tracking, and survive outdoors, even find my bearings in a forest. I haven't done it in over 30 years, so my outdoor skills have degenerated, but in their place I can build my own computers, work on some cars, and have a knack for writing and martial arts (I've spared against the top TKDists from Kukiwon Korea, and continental champions for Asia and Africa). And all that before I was 22. In fact, when I was 18. And I raced yachts and did solo sailing here locally.

Those are my useful Traveller skills. Non-Traveller skills; mathematics, physics, chemistry, some limited engineering. Maybe some "construction" (I hate tools and construction ... but that's another story), and so it goes.

But, like I say, before I shoot my mouth off anymore (and I'm sure people are sick and tired of me), I've got to bone up on my T20 char-gen and see what it says about starting char-gen before 18.

I think introducing kids or youngins to Traveller not just as players, but as characters, might be kind of what the game needs, and could be a lot of fun for veteran gamers who have families.

 

[Leitz]

I'm re-reading some of "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning", and I recall many of the notes from "The First 20 hours". Let's toss in "Fluent in 3 months" for complex topics and the "10,000 hour" rule.

Here's the truth. It takes 20 hours or less to learn the basics of a skill. With a desire to learn and the right tools I could teach someone "Gun-0" in a weekend, and that would cover pistol, rifle, and shotgun. Some academics, a little range time, and helping build confidence, and presto! We have a shooter. Go look at EdX or Coursera classes. 6-8 weeks, 2-4 hours average per week. Presto, we have a Computer-0/Entrepreneur-0/Whatever-0.

Why the title "Fluent in 3 months"? As the author explains, there's nothing magical about the 90 day mark, it's how long you can get a tourist visa in some places. If you want to learn a language, immersion is a great tool. Language fluency is a great deal of memorization. If your skill requires that then maybe you spread your hours over time and cut your objectives to a reasonable level. I didn't need "Italian-3" to order a decent meal or buying vegetables at the stand.

Ever hear of the "10,000 hour" rule? It's not for learning a skill, but for mastery. If you want the basics, 20 hours, If you want to compete at olympic levels, then 10,000 hours.



So, take your young kids and give them some background skills. Let them find a competent mentor, and balance game time investment with reward. It's a little harder with PbP as one adventure month might last 1-3 years in real time. Figure out how to reward the players and characters and it'll be a blast.