Death during Character Generation

[Supplement Four]

I just gave him a "Youthful Adventurer Bonus". I just raised his ENDURACE by 1 point.

How about using the Age Table as a guide?

If the character is 22 years old, then he can roll on the age table...and if successful, he gains a +1 DM on each of his successful throws (instead of losing a point).

If the character is 26 years old, he can roll on one stat to increase it from the age table.

If the character is 30 years old, no Age Table rolls are allowed.

If the character is 34+ years old, then the standard Age Table throws apply.

 

[Maladominus]

That works too. And it pretty much achieves what I was getting at: giving incentives for players who are willing to play characters who Muster Out young.

Basically, it uses an 'Inverse' effect of the existing Aging Tables. And yeah, I'd say that for a game like Traveller, the age of 30 would probably be considered a reasonable Median Age. Any terms after that, and PCs will start feeling the pressure to muster out. Any terms before that.... has been traditionally considered "too young to leave the service in order to start a life of wanderlust Travel and Adventure".

What age did Luke Skywalker "muster out"? Age 18 or 19? He had fairly worthless skills at that point. He was a mediocre, amateur pilot with informal training at best. And maybe he had home-learned skills such as Moisture Farming-2 and Hobbyist Roboticist-1.

But he did have one thing.... he had The Force! (uber psionic talents)

 

[Supplement Four]

What age did Luke Skywalker "muster out"? Age 18 or 19? He had fairly worthless skills at that point. He was a mediocre, amateur pilot with informal training at best. And maybe he had home-learned skills such as Moisture Farming-2 and Hobbyist Roboticist-1.

Depends on which version of the Star Wars rpg you're playing. :smirk: If you're playing d20 Star Wars, you're right. He was a 1st level character, and, I guess, rolled a 20 when he blew up the Death Star.

If you're playing D6 Star Wars, then he used the "Concentration" Force Power, which can help you, even innately, focus your attention and give you bonuses on the throw for whatever you're concentrating on.

I'm more partial to the D6 version, myself. o:

 

[Golan2072]

And, all the PCs start to look like 30-34 year olds.

Actually, from my CharGen tests using the Optional Rule, the average age was 26.9 and there were many of 22-years-olds.

But he did have one thing.... he had The Force! (uber psionic talents)

That's exactly one advantage of young CT characters - PSI declines with age and a young character could have almost their full PSI-potential.

 

[aramis]

I never require the death rule in CG. But a failed survival is "Done with prior service"... you begin play having just come out of the hospital.

 

[JAFARR]

I use wounds. Each point you miss your roll is a wound. Each 5 wounds is a major wound and you loose a point from a physical stat. But then I consider that at TL 12+ your life span begins to increase. If you have access to TL 15 medical care you adventuring days might extend to age 100+. Conversly if you are at TL 3- you might die of old age at 30. Besides I am smart enough to figure a way to offset your super lucky roller. Yes, you do have C+ for all your stats, but you are covered by the longest body hair you ever saw. As a result you sweat excessivly giving you a major BO problem.

Be reasonable about and I don't mind a slightly stat blessed PC. Just don't over do it.

 

[far-trader]

Many interesting little fudges to the rule here, it's got my own mind pondering, especially Andy's wound idea, coming on the heels of Mal (...can we call you Mal? Now that Mal the 1st is not here... ) and S4 collaborating on an aging throw/bonus thing...

How about failed survival is like an aging crisis (roll on aging table, maybe on the age 66 column)? Think that would that be enough of a risk to play a significant chicken factor?

 

[mike wightman]

Now that most house rule systems and most official systems allow high stats a high bonus to tasks then the possibility of playing the youthful high stat character has more potential than back in the old days when lack of skills meant that you could have 12 in every stat but be almost useles in the game.

Keep death to make players understand the risks...

 

[far-trader]

Mike! Long time no see. Misjump did you?


Welcome back, though you were giving me faint hope of catching you in the post count

 

[LordVan]

Character Death

I like the risk, it makes life fun, because like the rest of us our character can risk death at anytime during his life. Although I only had one character die during character generation. (Try rolling nothing but ones on the survival roll and mishap roll and see what happens, ick.)

 

[Supplement Four]

How about failed survival is like an aging crisis (roll on aging table, maybe on the age 66 column)? Think that would that be enough of a risk to play a significant chicken factor?

Nope. I think the hard Survival Rule must be enforced. Players get attached to their characters during chargen (espeically the way I role play chargen using the meta-game approach), and the fear of losing that character and having to start over from scratch is what leads to the chicken factor.

Risk of death has to remain.

What I was going for, though, is a dis-incentive to scratch a poor character. Let's say a player rolls extremly bad for stats--not a stat over 5. Well, chances are that player is going to try to get that character killed so that he can re-roll his stats.

I want a disincentive for him not to do that--instead to spend the character's career improving his stats on the tables.

I want the incentive to be that the player will keep the first character he rolls up, no matter what the stats are.

 

[aramis]

See, that "Role-play" of character generation is the big difference. My players don't roleplay through it, but board-game through it. They don't try to connect to characters until after the character is done.

And, by not allowing promotion/commission/special duty (I use MT) for short terms, the short term only grants 1 roll, and no MOB's, so it's a minor gain for losing half a term. Having had a 6 month campaign cover more than 8 years before (mechantile game), aging has mattered...

And even allowing a skill roll for the short term isn't essential. Also, since every edition post-CT has made short term the default, and short term was added during the CT era as an option, it would appear that GDW felt it worthy, as did DGP and IG, and MWM. And Mongoose as well. And all of them kept death as an option.

In my experience, the chicken factor is far more often aging save related than death related. My players have only rarely said "cool character, I'd better stop before he dies" but often said "Hmm, it's not worth losing 3 hit points for 2 more skills and an extra KCr2/year..."

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

The char death rule has its drawbacks. It discourages people from wanting to play Scouts, one of the coolest and most archetypically Travelleresque classes.

I just rolled up 3 x 5 three-term Scouts on Signal GK. It's butchery, man.

 

[deniable]

I was testing my CT character generator and couldn't get a Scout past four terms. I got about one in five that failed reenlistment rather than dieing. Most of them died in the first three terms.

 

[Antony]

Never kill a character during character generation unless there is something fundamentally wrong with it. In years of GMing with lots of players I have never found a player who liked this. It frustrates the players and annoys me as GM that we have to start again wasting valuable playing time.

Do the mid term muster out for medical reasons. Which also gives the character some interesting background material. Why was the character mustered out? Was it really an injury or something else?

 

[Supplement Four]

I just rolled up 3 x 5 three-term Scouts on Signal GK. It's butchery, man.

Early morning. Coffee. Read this (emphasis, mine). Coffee comes out the nose.

Sometimes, it's the little, off-hand, remarks, ya know?

 

[Supplement Four]

I was testing my CT character generator and couldn't get a Scout past four terms. I got about one in five that failed reenlistment rather than dieing. Most of them died in the first three terms.

You've got a CT character generator that uses the official rules? If so, it's the only one of its kind (no other character generator I've found on the net uses the official rules as listed in the LBBs).

If that's the case, I want a copy!

 

[Supplement Four]

Most of them died in the first three terms.

Spoken like someone who's used to not using the hard Survival rule! :devil:

Yep, with many Traveller careers, there is less than a 50% chance that the character will survive through Term 3.

This is the chicken factor we've been speaking of. This isn't a bad thing. This is how Traveller characters enter the game at age 22 or 26. This is how you get a young character!



Let's say you really want to play a pilot, but your GM is me. You already know I'm not going to fudge it. You'll start at 18 years old, make your choices and make your rolls. And, we'll both cross our fingers that you get what you want.

So, getting the Pilot skill is important to you, yes? It's not automatic. I won't just slap it your way to make you happy. You've got to earn it in chargen.

OK. So, chargen begins. You're accepted into the career of your choice. You roll your term, and, damn, you miss getting the Pilot skill.

You want to go another term? Sure, you do. Let's try it again.

Back we go through the term. You make survival. And, what do you know! You're a Pilot! Yippeee! You did it, man! You did it!

Good for you! Excellent!



Now... The big question is... Do you want to try to reenlist? If you do, you've got to face rolling Survival again, and if you brick survival, then its bye-bye Mr. Pilot. Hello, I've-got-to-try-again-to-be-a-pilot character.

Do you wanna, huh?

Do you wanna?

I wanna, but do you wanna?



Chicken Factor. You want to play the Pilot. You've got a pilot. You're 26 years old. But, you've beat the fates twice.

Do you want to really risk your pilot when your next character might not become a pilot (because it ain't easy to roll a pilot).

This is the chicken factor.







And, on the flip side, how much do you think this character will value his pilot? Had I just given him the pilot skill, then there's no real appreciation at all. Heck, the GM will give me what I want to keep us all happy.

But, no, when it comes to Traveller, I'm strict. I play it by the rules. You want a pilot? You've got to roll it. Otherwise, you don't get a pilot.

You want a lot of skills, ok, but you've got to survive past the Survival throw, or your character is tits-up.

How much are you willing to risk?

You get real lucky on stats. They're all very high. How many terms are you going to go with him, risking death each term, before the chicken factor kicks in.

And, the flip side of this happens too. You roll horrible stats. Let's get this guy killed so you can start over with someone you like.

See, this last part tips its hat to the character-point-builders out there. If you don't like what you start with, there's a good chance you can kill him and start fresh.

That's kind of a built-in mechanic that ensure player characters are a bit better than average joes.

You've got one physical stat a 2 and another at 3? Let's kill this guy and start fresh with some better stats.*






*As a neat side note, when this has happened in the past with my gamers, we would keep track of any characters who were killed off this way. Then, we'd use them as family members of the final player character that was used in the game.

The killed off characters could be parents, siblings, or someone down the family tree. One time, I had a player with a Solomani character, and we worked out this neat background for him where one of the killed Army characters was a participant in the US Civil War! That was kinda neat, and it added some good background depth to the PC (knowing his family history for a couple thousand years).



**And, I would always keep the killed off characters and use them as NPCs later in the game. I may tweak 'em a bit to fit my needs in the game, but I didn't waste that work. I kept it in a box, and sometimes when I needed an NPC on the spot, I'd quickly flip through the sheets in the box, pulling out a fairly-fleshed out NPC for use in the game immediately.

 

[Colonel Mac]

Strickly speaking, since there are no saving roles in standard chargen for CT, and if you are using books 1, 4-7, if you miss your roll you are DOA. But there is an option in CT (for Merc and High Guard chargen) that might prevent immediate death and add to the depth of character. It is not always a guarantee but it is worth effort.

That option can be found in issue #10 of the JTAS on page 31 which is entitled "Poltroonery, Court Martial, and the Imperial Code of Military Justice". I never roll without it.

 

[Supplement Four]

Strickly speaking, since there are no saving roles in standard chargen for CT...

Since second edition CT came out, there's the hard Survival rule you're speaking of, but there's also the optional Survival rule that many people use.

,That option can be found in issue #10 of the JTAS on page 31 which is entitled "Poltroonery, Court Martial, and the Imperial Code of Military Justice". I never roll without it.

I'm glad you brought that up. But, I would only use it for military careers. I wouldn't use it for, say, a doctor rolled up using Supplement 4.