Discussion: Rogue Career and CC

[DickNervous]

This all started in another thread where I was asking about chargen. The net result is that the Rogue career uses a single CC for the entire career instead of rotating each term like other careers. In my last post (see below) I came up with an idea that I thought may warrant some additional discussion so I started a new thread with it so that my chargen question don't get bogged down and that this is more visible to the community.

Two things. On your question at the end, I don't really know. In some professions, staying a longer time would make it more likely you'll remain, but in others the opposite is true.

Regarding that character, that's an AWFULLY good set of rolls. The average of your characters rolls is 9.3, extremely high.

One thing Traveller assumes is that the die rolls are "normal". Unlike most incarnations of other RPGs (like D&D), Traveller doesn't let us use alternate dice-rolling conventions. Our characters aren't "heroes" as they are in most RPGs. They're "travellers".

It's these awesome new dice I got that are designed specifically for T5!

But yeah, I rolled that one really good. It's a shame it is just a test roll for me to learn the system. I promise you, I *never* roll like that when it actually counts.

However, your point on the Rogue still stands, because B (11) is a problem even if all the others are 7s (because you get to use it continuously).

It really depends on what the reasoning was behind it. I mean I can't be the first person to point this out so I assume that somewhere along the way someone said "Let the Rogue use the came CC for their entire career because <reasons>" and everyone else involved agreed. Assuming the reasons were good ones, I have some ideas that just popped into my head instead of making the Rogue like all the other careers.

Have the CC chosen impact the available schemes. After all, running a scheme against different careers requires different skills. Some examples off the top of my head...

* Physical CCs (C1, C2, C3)--> Citizen, Scout, Spacer, Soldier, Marine, Agent, Rogue
* Mental CCs (C4, C5, C6) --> Craftsman, Scholar, Entertainer, Merchant, Rogue, Noble, Functionary

Then limit the use of a CC to 2 terms before you have to pick another or that you would have to use all 3 in a "category" before using again.

Or, another thought that just came to me, is to add mods to the R/R rolls based upon the CC and the Scheme. So perhaps instead of limiting which scheme is available, give a bonus when using the "preferred" CC for a scheme. For example, perhaps a Rogue using C6 would get a bonus on the R/R rolls for a scheme against a Noble or Entertainer.

Obviously this needs more thought (I just came up with this as I was sitting here) and play testing, but it sounded good in my head so I thought I would share.

 

[DickNervous]

Okay, so looking at the Rogue career we can perform schemes against every other career. And based upon the fact that the Rogue currently uses a single CC for their entire career is broken, perhaps we can take a look at it from a different perspective instead of just making it like all the other careers. My proposal is that the CC that the player picks for the term should have some relationship to the career that the scheme for that term will be run against, but how do we do this? I mentioned two ideas and have had some time to think about them and flesh them out, so here they are.


Limit Available Schemes Based Upon CC
The first is to draw a relationship between the CC selected by the player and the schemes that are available. The logical way to look at this would be to determine which characteristics are key to each career or simply are logical that someone running a scheme would need to be successful against that career. The "Suggested" column is for ones that I think might apply for various reasons.

Career	Key Characteristics	Suggested CC link
Crafstman	Any,	C1, C4, C5, C6
Scholar	C5	C1, C4 C6
Entertainer	C2, C3	C5, C6
Citizen	Any	C1, C4, C5, C6
Scout	C5	C6
Merchant	C1, C4	C5, C6
Spacer	C4, C2, C3/C6	no additional
Soldier	C1, C2/C6	no additional
Agent	C3, C1	C4, C5, C6
Rogue	???	any
Noble	C6	C1, C4, C5, C6
Marine	C1, C2, C3	C6
Functionary	???	???

I put C1 and C6 in many of them for the idea of the Rogue being able to intimidate/coerce people based upon their Strength or Social standing. If the Rogue looks like "The Hulk" or is a "Duke" people will be inclined to believe what they are saying more than otherwise. So those could, in theory, be used for any scheme.

But let's say that the Rogue picks C4 (Int) as their CC. This would mean they could run a scheme against Craftsman, Scholar, Citizen, Merchant, Agent, Rogue, Noble, or Functionary that term.

The next question that we need to address is rotating the CC that the Rogue chooses. If we are limiting the choices the Rogue has based upon the CC, then there is no need to force them to change every term. There is already a trade-off involved in their choice. By the same token, allowing them to use the same one for the entire career, even with the limitations, can still lead to abuse. So a compromise may be in order. Perhaps something like this:

"The Rogue chooses a CC for their first term. If they fail at their scheme they *MUST* chose a different CC for the following term. If they succeed they *may* use the same CC again. However, they can't use the same CC for more than TWO consecutive terms and must wait at least TWO terms before re-using one."

So let's look at this in action.

Example: Term 1 the Rogue decides to use C3. They succeed. They then have the option of using C3 for Term 2 again or switching. If they use C3 again, they will be forced to switch for Term 3, because they can't use the same CC more than 2 times in a row. So for Term 3 they choose C5 and Term 4 they go with C6. Now in Term 5 they can, if they so choose, go back to C3.


CC Related Bonuses
Another option is to provide a bonus on the reward roll for a particular scheme based upon the CC chosen by the Rogue. So using the same table from the previous post, perhaps it would go something like this:

Rogue chooses C6 as their CC. They get a DM on the R/R and Payout rolls for schemes against careers that are "susceptible" to that CC. You could even have schemes that a particular CC is "weak" against, so the DM would be negative to the Rogue for the R/R, though possibly a higher payoff if they do succeed.

Example: Rogue chooses C6 as their CC. They roll on the scheme table and end up with Noble. Well, a Noble would be more susceptible to a scheme being run by someone based on their C6, so the Rogue would get a DM of 2 for the Risk, Reward, and Payoff rolls.

As I am writing this I realized that really, this should/could be part of the first idea.... Combine the two.


Thoughts?

 

[Ackehece]

weird --- it should not override the general character creation rule.

pg 73: top level rule:
"Note the Series of Characteristics Available. The
Character picks one of these Characteristics (any one anywhere
in the sequence) and it governs Risk and Reward for
the current Term. This Characteristic cannot be used again
until all of the others in the sequence have been used"

so yes it should be errata'd or meant to be OP!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


another question: (this is errata) is the new payoff system supposed to reward so high?

SCHEME PAYOFF
P = V x (1 + CC + Mods - R).
P= Payoff
V= Scheme Value
R= Reward Die Roll
CC= Controlling Characteristic
Mods= Reward Mods
Payoff is a multiple of the Scheme Value based on the
Reward Roll.

so your scheme value would be like 500,000cr x1d for noble
you cc is 7
the payoff according to this formula would be

500,000 x ( 1+7+ (range of [-2, 0 , 2] as per page 73 ) -R)

so the roll is now a - modifier to the value

that means if I choose bravery (+2 )
I would roll cc -2 for success
so 7-2 = 5 - so roll 5 or less on 2 dice

then the reward roll would be

500,000 x ((1 +7 +2 )-r)
500000 x (10-r)

so a high roll here would be horrid - not! still stupidly profitable (even with a 6 a person would make 2,000,000cr
if they had a cc of A or > they can't do worse than 3,500,000
It actually grants MUCH higher rewards with the new errata system than the original
since if you run one of the schemes you can run it again without rolling into it or if you enter from another career it is automatic entry.

so noble than rogue is the order of character creation... no need to roll to determine scheme

this is broken as much as the Controlling Characteristic is broken. but it might be functionally equivalent to a ship share.. (if a scout is 8 shares and it costs 100mcr then ~12,500,000 cr investment per share)

 

[exedore6]

I don't think the 1CC repeat is broken. Just different (and not even out of sorts with the other variations on the career process.

Risk/reward is Mod + Terms, so you've got to pick if you're playing it safe or not (like the other risk/reward lifepaths)
Lets take the Rogue with a CC of 12 for an example.

First term - Risk/reward will be 11/13 (so either guaranteed to not get caught or guaranteed to succeed.

The perfect criminal, playing it safe, will see a steady decrease in their success the longer they're in the career.

Same crook, playing risky, will have the successful jobs go up, always worrying about the law catching up with them. Probably spending a great deal of time in prison