Failing Survival

[Supplement Four]

Let's talk about the Survival throw in CT CharGen and alternate ways to handle it.




First off, I'm considering changing the definition of the Survival roll. In CT, it's taken literally. It means, "If you fail this roll, you fail to survive. You character is dead. Roll up another one."

This rule seems to be one of the first most CT GMs throw out or modify.

I'm looking to modify it.





And, the first thing I'll modify about it is its definition. I'm thinking that it should be used as a metaphor, meaning, "If you fail this roll, something has happened in your career so that you no longer 'survive' in it. Your character must be put into play at this point."

See, instead of using it as a roll to see if the character dies, I'm looking to use it as a roll that, if failed, induces mandatory closure to character generation. When a Survival throw is failed, it signals that the character cannot continue with CharGen and must muster out to begin play in the game.




That's not to say that I don't think failing a Survival throw if the character is in the military or other dangerous career also means the character was injured.

I want some method where it's easy (or at least a 50/50 shot) for characters in military careers to be injured. But, should it be automatic? Aren't there other reasons for discharge?

And, when the Surival throw is failed for civilian careers, it should typically mean the character was fired from his job or some other force lifestyle change. But, I'd also like a small change that the character was injured as well. Heck, maybe he was hit by a grav car.




And, if failing a Surival Throw means the character is injured, how is he injured? CT rules allow the character to fully heal. I've seen a House Rule I like where failing the Surival Throw means the character must throw on the Aging Table, possibly losing stat points.

Thoughts?

 

[Supplement Four]

Let's talk about the Survival throw in CT CharGen and alternate ways to handle it.




First off, I'm considering changing the definition of the Survival roll. In CT, it's taken literally. It means, "If you fail this roll, you fail to survive. You character is dead. Roll up another one."

This rule seems to be one of the first most CT GMs throw out or modify.

I'm looking to modify it.





And, the first thing I'll modify about it is its definition. I'm thinking that it should be used as a metaphor, meaning, "If you fail this roll, something has happened in your career so that you no longer 'survive' in it. Your character must be put into play at this point."

See, instead of using it as a roll to see if the character dies, I'm looking to use it as a roll that, if failed, induces mandatory closure to character generation. When a Survival throw is failed, it signals that the character cannot continue with CharGen and must muster out to begin play in the game.




That's not to say that I don't think failing a Survival throw if the character is in the military or other dangerous career also means the character was injured.

I want some method where it's easy (or at least a 50/50 shot) for characters in military careers to be injured. But, should it be automatic? Aren't there other reasons for discharge?

And, when the Surival throw is failed for civilian careers, it should typically mean the character was fired from his job or some other force lifestyle change. But, I'd also like a small change that the character was injured as well. Heck, maybe he was hit by a grav car.




And, if failing a Surival Throw means the character is injured, how is he injured? CT rules allow the character to fully heal. I've seen a House Rule I like where failing the Surival Throw means the character must throw on the Aging Table, possibly losing stat points.

Thoughts?

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Supplement Four:
First off, I'm considering changing the definition of the Survival roll. In CT, it's taken literally. It means, "If you fail this roll, you fail to survive. You character is dead. Roll up another one."

Nope. There has been an optional rule around this for a looooong time. I think only the very original runs didn't have it. And frankly most folks ignored it anyway.

-Optional Rule: If the referee or player so indicates prior to character generation, then failure of the survival roll can be converted to injury. The character is not dead, but instead is injured, and leaves the service (after recovery) having served only two years of the four year term. CT Book 1, page 10


Hunter

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Supplement Four:
First off, I'm considering changing the definition of the Survival roll. In CT, it's taken literally. It means, "If you fail this roll, you fail to survive. You character is dead. Roll up another one."

Nope. There has been an optional rule around this for a looooong time. I think only the very original runs didn't have it. And frankly most folks ignored it anyway.

-Optional Rule: If the referee or player so indicates prior to character generation, then failure of the survival roll can be converted to injury. The character is not dead, but instead is injured, and leaves the service (after recovery) having served only two years of the four year term. CT Book 1, page 10


Hunter

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Note that it reads, "...referee or player"!

I like the aging table idea though.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Note that it reads, "...referee or player"!

I like the aging table idea though.

 

[far-trader]

Yep, it's only the first printing of the rules I think that insisted a failed survival equal roll a new character. Each edition after at least included the official option of failed survival equal end career generation and begin adventuring.

My feelings on it...

Career generation lost something when the optional rule was adopted. We played for a good while with the hard fail equal death rule, and those were the most memorable characters for me, even the ones who died, or should have

We also played that you played the character you rolled, until they died. We had a lot of marginal and downright sad UPP characters join the Scouts. Why? Because of the low survival rate and almost guaranteed reenlistment roll.

"Oh, that's some bad luck there Dan, nothing higher than 6 on the UPP and two 2s. So, Scouts again?" And a few short rolls later... "Aw, another Scout dies in service to the Empire. Roll a better UPP this time ok?"

It played equally well when we rolled great UPPs. You had to balance that small chance of failing the survival roll against the desire for one more term for skills, promotion, and muster benefits.

And of course there was always the curse of failing your enlistment roll even with a great UPP and getting drafted into that death sentence of a career, the dreaded Scout service, du du du dooom! So you'd have this great UPP and chicken out of the Scouts after one term, great UPP but not much in the way of skills or gear.

Ahh, fun times I tell ya, you youngsters and your wimpy survival of the scardiest rules Give me survival of the fittest any day

That'll sort the brave from the cautious and make real heroes of the foolhardy who live

 

[far-trader]

Yep, it's only the first printing of the rules I think that insisted a failed survival equal roll a new character. Each edition after at least included the official option of failed survival equal end career generation and begin adventuring.

My feelings on it...

Career generation lost something when the optional rule was adopted. We played for a good while with the hard fail equal death rule, and those were the most memorable characters for me, even the ones who died, or should have

We also played that you played the character you rolled, until they died. We had a lot of marginal and downright sad UPP characters join the Scouts. Why? Because of the low survival rate and almost guaranteed reenlistment roll.

"Oh, that's some bad luck there Dan, nothing higher than 6 on the UPP and two 2s. So, Scouts again?" And a few short rolls later... "Aw, another Scout dies in service to the Empire. Roll a better UPP this time ok?"

It played equally well when we rolled great UPPs. You had to balance that small chance of failing the survival roll against the desire for one more term for skills, promotion, and muster benefits.

And of course there was always the curse of failing your enlistment roll even with a great UPP and getting drafted into that death sentence of a career, the dreaded Scout service, du du du dooom! So you'd have this great UPP and chicken out of the Scouts after one term, great UPP but not much in the way of skills or gear.

Ahh, fun times I tell ya, you youngsters and your wimpy survival of the scardiest rules Give me survival of the fittest any day

That'll sort the brave from the cautious and make real heroes of the foolhardy who live

 

[redwalker]

IMHO, if you can die in character generation, you should be allowed to code a dice-rolling program with preferences so as to allow mass generation of characters.

 

[redwalker]

IMHO, if you can die in character generation, you should be allowed to code a dice-rolling program with preferences so as to allow mass generation of characters.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by hunter:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Supplement Four:
First off, I'm considering changing the definition of the Survival roll. In CT, it's taken literally. It means, "If you fail this roll, you fail to survive. You character is dead. Roll up another one."

Nope. There has been an optional rule around this for a looooong time. </font>[/QUOTE]Although I didn't point this out specifically, I mention this when referring to "injury" above.

Also note that Supplement 4 doesn't include the option "offically".

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by hunter:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Supplement Four:
First off, I'm considering changing the definition of the Survival roll. In CT, it's taken literally. It means, "If you fail this roll, you fail to survive. You character is dead. Roll up another one."

Nope. There has been an optional rule around this for a looooong time. </font>[/QUOTE]Although I didn't point this out specifically, I mention this when referring to "injury" above.

Also note that Supplement 4 doesn't include the option "offically".

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by far-trader:
"Oh, that's some bad luck there Dan, nothing higher than 6 on the UPP and two 2s. So, Scouts again?" And a few short rolls later... "Aw, another Scout dies in service to the Empire. Roll a better UPP this time ok?"

You know...I never thought about it this way, but maybe the orignal Suvival Rule was meant as a game mechanic.

Modern games might say something like: Total your stats, and if they're lower than "X", you may re-roll the character.

Maybe this is Traveller's way of ensuring a character with stats 222222 isn't played unless the player wants to.

That definitely sheds new light on the rule...at least for me.

See, this is why I love this forum. It's like a bunch of Trav GMs sittin' around, having a beer, discussing minutia like this. I love it.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by far-trader:
"Oh, that's some bad luck there Dan, nothing higher than 6 on the UPP and two 2s. So, Scouts again?" And a few short rolls later... "Aw, another Scout dies in service to the Empire. Roll a better UPP this time ok?"

You know...I never thought about it this way, but maybe the orignal Suvival Rule was meant as a game mechanic.

Modern games might say something like: Total your stats, and if they're lower than "X", you may re-roll the character.

Maybe this is Traveller's way of ensuring a character with stats 222222 isn't played unless the player wants to.

That definitely sheds new light on the rule...at least for me.

See, this is why I love this forum. It's like a bunch of Trav GMs sittin' around, having a beer, discussing minutia like this. I love it.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Ahh, fun times I tell ya, you youngsters and your wimpy survival of the scardiest rules Give me survival of the fittest any day

That'll sort the brave from the cautious and make real heroes of the foolhardy who live

Very convincing argument. Maybe I won't change it after all.

Or, maybe the player will get the choice...Failed Surival means death (if he wants to re-roll a low stat character) or mandatory muster out via the Optional rule with a trip by the Aging Table to see if any stat dropped.

See...I believe that if you change a rule, you should look real hard at why you're chaning it. I always lean towards playing a game as written. Sometimes you just need to get your noggin thinin' in the right direction. I'm not so convinced the rule needs changing (either the main rule or the Optional Rule) anymore.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Ahh, fun times I tell ya, you youngsters and your wimpy survival of the scardiest rules Give me survival of the fittest any day

That'll sort the brave from the cautious and make real heroes of the foolhardy who live

Very convincing argument. Maybe I won't change it after all.

Or, maybe the player will get the choice...Failed Surival means death (if he wants to re-roll a low stat character) or mandatory muster out via the Optional rule with a trip by the Aging Table to see if any stat dropped.

See...I believe that if you change a rule, you should look real hard at why you're chaning it. I always lean towards playing a game as written. Sometimes you just need to get your noggin thinin' in the right direction. I'm not so convinced the rule needs changing (either the main rule or the Optional Rule) anymore.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Red Walker:
IMHO, if you can die in character generation, you should be allowed to code a dice-rolling program with preferences so as to allow mass generation of characters.

Ah but you'd miss all the fun

And that was the point, roundabout and confusingly hidden, in my previous post.

There was a whole game before the game in the game of character creation. It was so unbelievably cool to have your character's life flash before your eyes... and then start adventuring!

The reason it worked so well was because of the gambling nature of it due to the hard survival rule primarily, and the aging table secondarily.

Like all gambling games the more risked the greater the reward when won. That was largely lost when we started playing the soft survival rule. No longer was there a risk to character generation and everybody typically generated their character until they failed a reenlistment roll*. It became a simple boring act of dice rolling robbed of the vital interest. And almost every character created came out the same age, no longer was there a great spread of experience and mostly youthful characters. Now everyone was almost always 5 terms plus.

* which is a third tertiary gamble, and if you fudge the rules here so the character can go on to a second or third career generation path after failing to reenlist that's one more chip off the game core

In some ways it became just a drawn out way of creating a character that could, as suggested, be just as well and quicker done with a computer program. And in fact that's what happened a lot of the time. We wrote our own, or typed in ones we found in Basic and then hit "run" and looked for a character in the results that would do.

They were zombies though. No more animated than the typical D&D character at first level. Soulless shells looking for definition in the adventure unlike previous characters who entered the game at varied ages with a living history and a head full of dreams for the future.

So, am I saying you should play with the hard survival rule? No, that's up to you. What I am saying is that I think everyone should give it a fair shot (at least in playing CT) and see what happens. I think you might be pleasantly surprised with the results when you manage to roll a character with a nice UPP through a few terms and live having actually sweat through the survival rolls.

The one thing I don't recommend is trying it with T20. Character generation in T20 is too long to make the game worth playing for such high stakes, which is a pity in a way. The added detail of the character creation process coupled with the angst of hard survival could be very very cool. I'm tossing an idea around in my head for a streamlined T20 character generation process where you could make all the dicey rolls with hard survival in shorter time for "the gamble" and then apply that to the details to flesh out the character's skills and feats and such. Should work but I don't have time at the moment to more than ponder it

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Red Walker:
IMHO, if you can die in character generation, you should be allowed to code a dice-rolling program with preferences so as to allow mass generation of characters.

Ah but you'd miss all the fun

And that was the point, roundabout and confusingly hidden, in my previous post.

There was a whole game before the game in the game of character creation. It was so unbelievably cool to have your character's life flash before your eyes... and then start adventuring!

The reason it worked so well was because of the gambling nature of it due to the hard survival rule primarily, and the aging table secondarily.

Like all gambling games the more risked the greater the reward when won. That was largely lost when we started playing the soft survival rule. No longer was there a risk to character generation and everybody typically generated their character until they failed a reenlistment roll*. It became a simple boring act of dice rolling robbed of the vital interest. And almost every character created came out the same age, no longer was there a great spread of experience and mostly youthful characters. Now everyone was almost always 5 terms plus.

* which is a third tertiary gamble, and if you fudge the rules here so the character can go on to a second or third career generation path after failing to reenlist that's one more chip off the game core

In some ways it became just a drawn out way of creating a character that could, as suggested, be just as well and quicker done with a computer program. And in fact that's what happened a lot of the time. We wrote our own, or typed in ones we found in Basic and then hit "run" and looked for a character in the results that would do.

They were zombies though. No more animated than the typical D&D character at first level. Soulless shells looking for definition in the adventure unlike previous characters who entered the game at varied ages with a living history and a head full of dreams for the future.

So, am I saying you should play with the hard survival rule? No, that's up to you. What I am saying is that I think everyone should give it a fair shot (at least in playing CT) and see what happens. I think you might be pleasantly surprised with the results when you manage to roll a character with a nice UPP through a few terms and live having actually sweat through the survival rolls.

The one thing I don't recommend is trying it with T20. Character generation in T20 is too long to make the game worth playing for such high stakes, which is a pity in a way. The added detail of the character creation process coupled with the angst of hard survival could be very very cool. I'm tossing an idea around in my head for a streamlined T20 character generation process where you could make all the dicey rolls with hard survival in shorter time for "the gamble" and then apply that to the details to flesh out the character's skills and feats and such. Should work but I don't have time at the moment to more than ponder it

 

[far-trader]

Or... maybe it's impossible to put that genie back in the bottle and once exposed to the soft survival rule there's no hope of recapturing that feeling

But I do believe I'm going to give it a shot if I can get a face-to-face* game going again

* possibly another impossible task at this stage in life and circumstance but I can still dream of the day

 

[far-trader]

Or... maybe it's impossible to put that genie back in the bottle and once exposed to the soft survival rule there's no hope of recapturing that feeling

But I do believe I'm going to give it a shot if I can get a face-to-face* game going again

* possibly another impossible task at this stage in life and circumstance but I can still dream of the day