Iron Man Chargen

[fiat_knox]

In CT, and with Mongoose' Iron Man chargen alternative option, if a character fails the survival roll you start afresh with a new character.

Has anyone ever thought of starting afresh ... only using a character that has, remarkably and against all the odds, the exact same name, homeworld and starting characteristics as the previous decedent?

It'd certainly save all that tedious mucking about with 2d6s to roll up characteristics again, wouldn't it?

Or would that be cheating?

 

[Supplement Four]

Has anyone ever thought of starting afresh ... only using a character that has, remarkably and against all the odds, the exact same name, homeworld and starting characteristics as the previous decedent?

It'd certainly save all that tedious mucking about with 2d6s to roll up characteristics again, wouldn't it?

Or would that be cheating?

I don't know about MGT, but I wouldn't allow it in CT.

If someone gets lucky on the rolls and gets stats that are all above average, he'll want to keep that character...or try again with him.

One of the "controls" of the CT Survival Throw is to protect those nifty stat rolls if you, indeed, rolled them. So, you might not go another term, knowing that you'll risk the character.

If the GM allowed the same stats to be used, then it diminishes the power of the Survival Throw. It's not as scary. Why not go ahead an go another term, because, if you fail surivival, you'll get to keep those awesome throws and risk little.

OTOH, enforce the hard surivival rule and the player knows his next character is likely to have stats that aren't as good.

 

[samuelvss]

Or would that be cheating?

In a word, yes!

For reasons S4 put forth well enough.

 

[Icosahedron]

Depends on who you think you're cheating.
Perhaps I've been fortunate in not having uber-munchkin players to date, but I generally go with a loose points system, so having someone pick the same characteristics again wouldn't be a problem for me - but then I wouldn't enforce Iron Man chargen to start with.
Everything depends on what style of game you all agree to play.

 

[Psion]

It's only cheating if every else doesn't know about it and aren't operating by the same rules. Otherwise, whatever the GM says, goes!

 

[fiat_knox]

Me, if I were Referee and I just watched a player flush the life of their five term veteran down the pan on a lousy survival roll, I'd ask them "Lose the last term and jump right in, or start afresh? Your choice."

Me, I wouldn't have time for starting afresh, not after the aging rolls start kicking in and my character's got a healthy body of Skills and benefits accruing and a fair idea of what his career as a Traveller will shape up to be.

But it's good to see the diversity of opinion on chargen styles being represented here. This is what discussion's all about. Thanks, everyone. And carry on, if you wish.

 

[CosmicGamer]

In CT, and with Mongoose' Iron Man chargen alternative option, if a character fails the survival roll you start afresh with a new character.

Has anyone ever thought of starting afresh ... only using a character that has, remarkably and against all the odds, the exact same name, homeworld and starting characteristics as the previous decedent?

It'd certainly save all that tedious mucking about with 2d6s to roll up characteristics again, wouldn't it?

Or would that be cheating?

I often used the Iron man rule to kill off a character that had low initial rolls. I wouldn't like being forced to keep the original characteristics. Initially I used the Iron Man rules when generating MgT characters, but I found that the characters ended up being too powerful because you could just kill them off until you get your supermunchkin. Also, some of the mishaps are pretty interesting and you miss out on that with Iron Man.

Allowing a player to keep characteristics when re-rolling could result in numerous iteration if you rolled good stats because a player keeps killing the character off until they get the skills they want.

So, because of low characteristics and high characteristics, I think it might be a bad idea to keep them when regenerating a character. I see no reason for not reusing a name. I usually don't name the character until after chargen. Definitely no reason you can't reuse the home world.

I read a post once that indicated they allowed re rolling a character, and not just because of Iron Man (maybe you didn't like how the character turned out). I don't recall the details, but there was some penalty to the characteristics that accumulated each time you re rolled the character.

Regarding "tedious mucking about with 2d6s to roll up characteristics", I have 6 pairs of different colored dice that I can roll all at once. If you don't have the dice, there are dice rollers online that will generate characteristics with a click of the mouse.

 

[far-trader]

I often used the Iron man rule to kill off a character that had low initial rolls. I wouldn't like being forced to keep the original characteristics.

So did our CT group, way back when it was just called Traveller and all our books still had that freshly printed smell

Initially I used the Iron Man rules when generating MgT characters, but I found that the characters ended up being too powerful because you could just kill them off until you get your supermunchkin.

And that never happened in our CT generation. For two reasons, which I suspect are missing from your MPT play.

The first was an additional house rule (which I think predated our Traveller games and came from our D&D games. "You roll it, you play it." Which actually spawned the idea of killing off bad characters via Scouts. An option we never had in D&D (but we had others).

The second was that reenlistment roll and only one career choice. Those are missing or nerfed in MPT right? (I haven't gotten too far into my copy yet, I started in a few weeks back but then got sidetracked). So once you missed that reenlistment roll in CT it was muster out time and see what you had to buy for your character. Yes, sometimes even that sickly character you tried to kill by signing up in the IISS made it through a few terms without dying and then being told to pack their bags.

I agree, rerolling the characteristics is trivial. And in reply to the original question I'd have to also chime in with would you force the players to keep the low characteristic scores too? There's no doubt your player with the high scores will want to keep them when they reroll the career of the just killed character. I doubt they'd be so quick to be asking for this dubious rule if they had to keep the low scores

 

[CosmicGamer]

The first was an additional house rule (which I think predated our Traveller games and came from our D&D games. "You roll it, you play it." Which actually spawned the idea of killing off bad characters via Scouts. An option we never had in D&D (but we had others).

Without iron man rules, it essentially is the same unless the GM allows unlimited terms and you keep rolling until you die from aging.

The second was that reenlistment roll and only one career choice. Those are missing or nerfed in MPT right? (I haven't gotten too far into my copy yet, I started in a few weeks back but then got sidetracked). So once you missed that reenlistment roll in CT it was muster out time and see what you had to buy for your character. Yes, sometimes even that sickly character you tried to kill by signing up in the IISS made it through a few terms without dying and then being told to pack their bags.

There is no reenlistment roll in the careers within the Mongoose Core Rulebook, but you can get kicked out if your advancement roll is low - I won't go into the details of how this works here other than to say, personally, I don't care for how it is done other than it reduces the number of die rolls.

 

[aramis]

Without iron man rules, it essentially is the same unless the GM allows unlimited terms and you keep rolling until you die from aging. There is no reenlistment roll in the careers within the Mongoose Core Rulebook, but you can get kicked out if your advancement roll is low - I won't go into the details of how this works here other than to say, personally, I don't care for how it is done other than it reduces the number of die rolls.

I will. because retention is roll > terms on advancement, it sets a hard imit of 12 terms, and an up or out for senior ranks.

 

[Supplement Four]

Without iron man rules, it essentially is the same unless the GM allows unlimited terms and you keep rolling until you die from aging. There is no reenlistment roll in the careers within the Mongoose Core Rulebook...

Wow. Item #387,426.5 on the list of reasons I don't care for Mongoose Traveller.

 

[far-trader]

I dunno, the retention roll thing as aramis describes it sounds alright. Given the law of averages it should fairly near create the same career length as CT if I read it right (and I've yet to get there in the book to actually read it myself ).

You haven't forgotten that MT did in fact have no term limits of any kind have you S4? Barring survival and aging rolls, and with the Anagathics rules and Brownie Points and Poltroonery you could make that really work

 

[aramis]

We'll ignore everything else (IE, Survival), and do dan's implied math, using a 4+, 5+ and 6+ CT reenlistment numbers.

Term  -------------- CT-------------------------   ------MGT-------------
No.    4+   Cumul.   5+  Cumul.     6+    Cumul    Roll Chance  Cumulative
1     11/12 91.67%  5/6  83.33%    13/18  72.22%     1+     1    100.0000%   
2     11/12 84.03%  5/6  69.44%    13/18  52.16%     2+     1    100.0000%   
3     11/12 77.03%  5/6  57.87%    13/18  37.67%     3+   35/36   97.2222%   
4     11/12 70.61%  5/6  48.23%    13/18  27.21%     4+   11/12   89.1204%   
5     11/12 64.72%  5/6  40.19%    13/18  19.65%     5+    5/6    74.2670%   
6     11/12 59.33%  5/6  33.49%    13/18  14.19%     6    13/18   53.6373%   
7     11/12 54.39%  5/6  27.91%    13/18  10.25%     7+    7/12   31.2884%   
8     11/12 49.85%  5/6  23.26%    13/18   7.40%     8+    5/12   13.0368%   
9     11/12 45.70%  5/6  19.38%    13/18   5.35%     9+    5/18    3.6213%   
10    11/12 41.89%  5/6  16.15%    13/18   3.86%    10+    1/6     0.6036%   
11    11/12 38.40%  5/6  13.46%    13/18   2.79%    11+    1/12    0.0503%   
12    11/12 35.20%  5/6  11.22%    13/18   2.01%    12+    1/36    0.0014%   
13    11/12 32.27%  5/6   9.35%    13/18   1.45%    13+     0      0.0000%

Note: Odds are for passing the reenlistment roll at the end of term X, and for MGT, no career switching.

 

[Madarin Dude]

Generally I would have them reroll the stats. Iron man is good because you can weed out the weak by making bad career choices. I don't think you should make your players stick with a set of stats if they can roll new ones. In the end in traveller stats do not matter as much as many other game systems.

Cutting your players some slack is not as bad an idea in traveller anyways. It is not D&D where you cut your players some slack and they come back with an ubermunchkin death gawd who can destroy armies with his pinky and can take a nuclear blast to the groin without flinching. No matter how awesome the traveller character is a blast from a FGMP 15 will at most leave a human scented mist in the air and will hit the character so hard it will heal his mothers stretch marks and erase their picture from the high school yearbook.

Do what works for your players.

 

[Supplement Four]

In my CT game, since I enforce the hard survival rule, and my players don't try to kill a character in chargen just because he's got low stats--they usually play whatever they get, regardless--there is a real respect for high stats and high skill levels.

When someone gets a Skill-3, the other players look at that character as if he's extremely competent (which, in CT, he is). If someone gets skill higher than that, people usuall sit back in awe.

Same thing with stats. Very high stats garner the respect from the other players/characters the same as they would in real life.

We like that sort of thing. It's not a bunch of characters, all of them with at least one stat F among them.

It's much more like ordinary people getting caught up in fantastic events.

 

[saundby]

I had a group get casual about CT survival roles back in the early days--using them to kill bad characters or for character cycling until they got what they wanted.

So I changed the death roll into lose a limb, halve one physical stat, out with no muster-out. Just a medical discharge, a cheap suit, and 500Cr. (And no prosthesis.) Suddenly I was getting a lot of players taking the survival roll seriously, and a lot of good one to three term player characters. Not to mention more time actually playing.

I went back to normal rules eventually, but these stood me in good stead for as long as I used them.

 

[Supplement Four]

I had a group get casual about CT survival roles back in the early days--using them to kill bad characters or for character cycling until they got what they wanted.

So I changed the death roll into lose a limb, halve one physical stat, out with no muster-out. Just a medical discharge, a cheap suit, and 500Cr. (And no prosthesis.) Suddenly I was getting a lot of players taking the survival roll seriously, and a lot of good one to three term player characters. Not to mention more time actually playing.

I went back to normal rules eventually, but these stood me in good stead for as long as I used them.

Not a bad idea at all.

I don't really have a problem with CT players trying to kill their PCs if they don't like their stats. It's CT's way of "giving the player what he wants", kinda.

I've seen players try to kill off CT characters, and then fall in love with the PC before the deed was done.

And, I've seen the reverse, where players have re-started chargen a couple of times, finally getting some stats that they like, but failing survival during the first term.

One method that I've used in the past (that is pretty much the "official" method, just rolled out of order) is to have each player roll up five sets of stats.

I write them all down. Then, the player gets to pick which set of stats he wants to use. Now, he can't arrange stats to taste--what he rolled for STR will be what he gets for STR. But, the player can chose from one of the five stats.

Naturally, the player will pick what he thinks is the best set of stats.

Then, we go through the chargen process, using the hard survival roll.

I've found that this makes players take survival very seriously because they know what the upcoming stats will be. They're using the best stats now--so they want to keep the stats.

If they fail survival, then they get to pick one set of the remaining four for the next character. And then, we go through chargen.

The promise of a better roll for stats on a character doesn't exist if the character bricks survival.

I've found this to be a good mix of getting the player a good character to play and having the players respect the Survival rule.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Partial quote:

If they fail survival, then they get to pick one set of the remaining four for the next character. And then, we go through chargen.

That certainly helps 1) a player not getting stuck with a first set of unlucky roles and 2) prevent the killing off of a character just to re roll stats.

To the OP, I believe there is no place that specifically states that the rules have to be used, as written, with no variation. As you can see, people do house rule things. I believe some areas for possible modifications are even acknowledged in both CT and MGT, so it isn't 'cheating' if you decided to do things your way. Don't be afraid to try different things out - and then post here! We can learn from your mishaps and benefit from your successes.

 

[Supplement Four]

Partial quote: That certainly helps 1) a player not getting stuck with a first set of unlucky roles

It does and it doesn't.

2D6 is a wide enough range to provide a lot of variation in between characters.

For example, I'll roll up five quick lines of stats, using real dice:

1 - 5B6A8A
2 - 497552
3 - 677A77
4 - 752867
5 - 767487

Now, obviously, the first line of stats I rolled is the "best", unless you're dead set on having higher STR (which can be brought up during chargen if rolled).

The player looks at these stats and decides to use Set 1. Now, I rolled all these numbers by hand and didn't doctor any of them. I'm glad it turned out this way, though, but it really shows my point.

The player using Set 1 will be very careful of any Survival throw he has to make because he wants to use those high stats. He knows, if he bricks a Survival throw, that he'll be using one of the other sets.

Therefore, this will guide him not only in the type of career he takes (a healthy respect for Scouts appears in the player), but also in how many terms the character goes--each term giving him another chance to kill that good character and go with the lower stats.

It's a pretty good system, I think, bringing balance to the game. The player has a higher chance to get better stats because he's throwing five different sets, picking one.

But, the player can also roll bad and brick the 1st Term Survival throw.

It all balances out.

And makes CT the game its supposed to be.

I sure like this...SO MUCH MORE...than I like what Mongoose allows, arranging stats to taste. That's moronic, imo. Chances are, everybody's SOC is their lowest score, except for the player who wanted to play a noble.

To the OP, I believe there is no place that specifically states that the rules have to be used, as written, with no variation.

I dunno about MGT, but CT does address this in a couple of places. CT actually expects the GM to alter rules to his tastes. There's a section in Book 0 that guides the GM in making house rules.

 

[Supplement Four]

It does and it doesn't.

2D6 is a wide enough range to provide a lot of variation in between characters.

For example, I'll roll up five quick lines of stats, using real dice:

1 - 5B6A8A
2 - 497552
3 - 677A77
4 - 752867
5 - 767487

A variation on this--something I've used in the past, too--is to allow the player to pick the first set but have to random roll the second set if the first character dies.

I don't like this method as much, but I have used it in the past.

For example, I would have each player roll up 7 sets of stats:

1 - 5B6A8A
2 - 497552
3 - 677A77
4 - 752867
5 - 767487
6 - 95A683
7 - 568757

For his first attempt at a character, he gets to pick one of the seven sets. Let's say he picks Set 6.

He'll go through chargen with that character, but if he fails survival, then his next character is generated with a random roll from the remaining stats:

1 - 5B6A8A
2 - 497552
3 - 677A77
4 - 752867
5 - 767487
6 - 568757







Another variation I've used (again, I like the first method I displayed in the other post above the best) is to limit the player's choice of stats, but he always picks from two sets.

So, the first character would pick from:

1 - 5B6A8A
2 - 497552

Let's say he goes with Set 1. If that character dies in chargen, then I have him roll another set of stats, and pick from the two.

1 - 497552
2 - 677A77

I don't like this method because I find that players are always hoping that they'll roll good for the second throw. And, I'll sometimes see them try to kill the character in order to get another shot at the stats.

I've found it's best if the player knows what stats he's going to get. Knowing that, players seem to respect the Survival rule as it should be respected.