Iron Man Chargen

[Supplement Four]

Oh yeah, and I played in a game one time where the GM wanted to discourage re-rolling characters. So, his rule was that, if you bricked survival, your character was dead. You had to keep your lowest three scores and re-roll the three highest scores.

So, if your character was 5B6A8A, and he failed survival, you'd have to keep your 5 STR, 6 END, and 8 EDU, re-rolling your DEX, INT, and SOC.

Given my rolls above, the next character would look like this: 546987.

If that character dies in chargen, I'd have to keep the...

5 STR
4 DEX
6 END

...and re-roll your other stats.

Which would make the third character 546552.



This is not a bad system at all. The player doesn't get any "pick the best of" throws in the beginning. And, the incentive to not brick survival lies in the fact that the player will probably get a character that has lower stats since the lowest three are kept.

 

[rancke]

This is not a bad system at all. The player doesn't get any "pick the best of" throws in the beginning. And, the incentive to not brick survival lies in the fact that the player will probably get a character that has lower stats since the lowest three are kept.

Of course, some players might feel an incentive to play some other game. I know I would.


Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

This is a Favored Way of going through CT chargen for a campaign...

Of course, some players might feel an incentive to play some other game. I know I would.

We try not to play with those people.

Seriously, though, people game with people of like minds, yes?





Here's another take on chargen that I've used in the past. What I would do is alter other things (not stats) about your character each time your started a new one.

For example, there may be five homeworlds from which PCs can come from:



5 - Pysadi C4766D7-4 Agricultural. Non-industrial. Gas Giant in system. Imperiallines Station.

4 - Vanejen C686854-5 Rich. Imperial Research Station.

3 - Natoko B582211-8 Imperial Naval Base. Non-industrial. Low Pop. Gas Giant in system. Naasirka Stationl Tukera Station.

2 - Patinir C000632-9 Asteroid Belt. Gas Giant in system. Imperiallines Station. Non-agricultural. Ancient Site.

1 - Aramis A6B0556-B Imperial Naval Base. Imperial Scout Base. Non-industrial. Subsector Capital. Akerut Station. Tukera Station. Naasirka Station. Desert World.



I (the GM) would limit certain careers based on where your character was from. For example, Imperial Naval and Marine personnel would have to come from either Aramis or Natoko--the two naval bases among the five homeworlds.

Scouts could come from only Aramis or Patinir. Aramis has a Scout base, where as Patinir has a small Scout station that monitors the Ancient Site.

Army personnel could come from any of the homeworlds, except Patinir (because it's an asteroid belt), but those Army personnel would be limited to the world's TL unless the world also had a Naval Base. So, if a player wanted his character to join the Army, the best place to do that woud be Aramis (because it's high tech and has a Naval Base). Army personnel from Vanejen, for instance, would be limited to TL 5 (no ACRs, PGMPs, or other modern day weapons).

Given these five homeworld, the best place to be from, technologically and career-choice speaking, would be from Aramis, where all careers are possible, and the highest TL is seen.

As the game started, I would allow each player to have a character from Aramis. We'd roll chargen per the book: A single 2D6 throw for each stat, and we'd follow the hard Survival rule.

If a character failed Survival, the player is free to completely re-roll stats for a new character. But, this new character would be from Patinir. This would mean some career choices are no longer possible (Army, for example, is not possible on Patinir, and neither is Scouts) and the character would be from a lower TL background.

If this second character failed Survival, a new one would indeed be generated, but this one would hail from Natoko.

Character number four, if there is one, woud come from Vanejen. And, if a player had killed of four characters or more, he'd have a character from the worst homeworld with the least choice: Pysadi at TL 4.

 

[rancke]

I used to think it was very important not to let a player get away with anything. Nowadays I'm a lot more easy-going and think it's more important that everybody have fun than to force someone to play with a character he doesn't want to play with.

Mind you, I also think it's important that PCs aren't wildly disparate (except in rare cases with player groups that are prepared to play with characters of wildly disparate capabilities), that normally they should be reasonably balanced against each other, so I don't let a player do just anything he wants. Characters have to work with the campaign and each other. But I do think it's important that a player doesn't actively dislike his character.


Hans

 

[aramis]

We try not to play with those people.

Seriously, though, people game with people of like minds, yes?

No. Most of my friends share neither my religious nor rules tastes; I game with my friends, and we have many lively, and even heated disagreements over game rules, ruleset choices, whether to use house rules, politics, religion, and even food choices. I think it a stretch to say that my current crop of players are of like, nor even vaguely similar minds; that does not preclude them from being my close and dear friends, nor from running a game that they can and will enjoy, and that I won't hate. I've two players who love MT, one who won't play anything Sci-Fi-ish (Modern is a maybe, but even shadowrun is a no-go!), and one who can't get past a stupid CT GM in 1978 while he was in the USN, so he's got some very serious misconceptions of the OTU....

 

[Supplement Four]

I used to think it was very important not to let a player get away with anything. Nowadays I'm a lot more easy-going and think it's more important that everybody have fun than to force someone to play with a character he doesn't want to play with.

I admit, I'm a bit spoiled by the players I usually play with. When someone new comes into the group and is upset that his character doesn't excel in some area (no matter what game we're playing), I (actually, "we" do, there are several in my group that feel like this) do look at him as if he's not as advanced or skilled (or doesn't quite "get it") in role playing.

To us, it's not about playing the super hero, although I know, to many, it is.

We're into playing "character", no matter what the stats are.

In one of my campaigns, a player rolled extremely bad for his physical stats, ending up with 222. Did he kill him off? Nope. He embraced the guy, made up this incredible background about this disease he had when he was a child, and, always being around doctors, became a doctor.

The player reasoned that the character never really had a childhood, so he would put these pecurliar quirks and sounds into this guy's speech when he acted in character.

Physically, the character was odd, too. He was half asian, half black (played by a white male), with almost albino skin (picture a black albino, frail, then slap some slanted eyes on him, and you've got the idea).

Although he's much better than he was as a kid (mostly bed bound back then), the character had this grav chair custom made for him. As the game moved on, the character had a laser pistol installed and muscled up the generator in the grav chair.

You'd think that this character would always be in the back during fights, but he wasn't. He'd take that grav chair, raise altitude, and scout all the time. There was plenty of time he'd go out and get into trouble away from the party--always using his grav chair to haul ass out of trouble when needed.

I'll never forget this character. You'll see him in some of my fiction, as well. His name is Dr. Too Nemerani.

This character became so memorable--so much more than a standard character with "good" stats--that I always think of him when I see someone get pissed off and kill their PC when low stats are rolled.

It's a missed opportunity.

 

[Supplement Four]

No. Most of my friends share neither my religious nor rules tastes; I game with my friends, and we have many lively, and even heated disagreements over game rules, ruleset choices, whether to use house rules, politics, religion, and even food choices.

That's too bad. My group is the exact opposite of that. We rarely have fights, and when we do, everybody agrees that my word is law. I make a ruling, and we move on, enjoying the game. My calls rarely get questioned--probably because I strive to be fair. I'll even ask player input sometimes, putting them in my shoes, explaining the situation from all sides. Almost 100% of the time, they agree with me, and we move on. When we don't agree, I've changed my stance--sometimes the player's input makes sense and is an angle I haven't thought of. I have no problem changing a rule or a call when the players have a good point to make.

People have come to play with us before, and, at the end of the night, remarked, "I can't believe there wasn't one fight all night."

That's because we did our fighting back when we were young. Now, we're mature gamers. We know that we need and appreciate the GM. He's not out to get us. He's not on a "side". He's there to adjucate the game and have fun, the same as rest of us.

 

[aramis]

We almost never fight during game. But we love to argue and debate; it's probably the only mental trait my entire extended group of players share. It's also why we know our minds don't match... we all truly make a point of letting others know. Now, when rules disagreements happen, they are hashed out after session, not during. Heck, of my group, only my wife and daughter are not experienced GM's, too.

 

[rancke]

This character became so memorable--so much more than a standard character with "good" stats--that I always think of him when I see someone get pissed off and kill their PC when low stats are rolled.

It's a missed opportunity.

I used to think the same when I was a Young Turk of a GM. But nowadays I don't force players to play dyslexic cripples with multiple personality disorders if they don't want to. Some people excel at that sort of roleplaying challenges, and the best of luck to them, but why shouldn't the shallow superficial players be allowed to enjoy themsleves too?

Life's too short to play characters you don't enjoy playing.



Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

...but why shouldn't the shallow superficial players be allowed to enjoy themsleves too?

That actually made me laugh.

I guess my answer to that is that I don't have any shallow superficial players playing in my games. When, every once in a while, someone new comes along that fits that description, we don't invite them back.

Seriously. I've done that before.

I've also got a rule that everybody show up to every game. There's none of this, "Hey, let someone else play my character this time...I can't make it because of blah, blah, blah." If that happens in my game, I hate it. My regulars hate it. And, we just move on without that person--not inviting them back.

See, role playing is too much of a challenge. It takes so much time from our busy adult lives. I can't tolerate people who don't respect it--players who would rather do something else than come to the scheduled game.

It's a sacrifice to role play. It takes several hours each time the group meets. Those that don't want to do it--who aren't craving for the next game--aren't invited to play with us.

They bog the game down. So, we just cut 'em out and move on.

I can tell you, our games, full of people serious about role playing, are better for it.

 

[rancke]

I guess my answer to that is that I don't have any shallow superficial players playing in my games. When, every once in a while, someone new comes along that fits that description, we don't invite them back.

Now you're confusing me. You tell of various ways to prevent players from killing off their characters in char-gen in order to get better characters (for shallow superficial values of "better"). Then you say that you don't play with the kind of players who do that sort of thing. Then why the rules? If it's to provide the players with a rich, rewarding role-playing opportunity, why not just let them reduce the stats of their characters by whatever amount they feel is necessary to get a proper roleplaying-worthy character? That way they won't have to go to the trouble of killing off enough characters to get the Pysadian quadriplegic they long for.

Seems to me that if you need rules to prevent a player from doing something, then it's something he wants to do and also something you feel the need to force him to refrain from.

Me, I'd look at the character with the poor stats and judge if such a character would fit into the PC group without spoiling things for the other players, then ask the player if he wanted to play it (so as not to miss such an incredible opportunity for some real roleplaying, of course).

It may be shallow and superficial of me, but it seems to work for my players.


Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

Now you're confusing me. You tell of various ways to prevent players from killing off their characters in char-gen in order to get better characters (for shallow superficial values of "better"). Then you say that you don't play with the kind of players who do that sort of thing. Then why the rules?

I haven't used those rules in a long, long time. I've been playing Traveller a long time--since 1982. There have been times in the past when I've used those rules. And, if you read closely, you'll see that not all of those were my rules, but rules from GMs where I was a player.

With my current group, we don't use any of those rules. We play Traveller straight out of the book, and I haven't once had a player try to kill a character just because his stats were low.

Now, sometimes new people do come and play with us. In one Traveller campaign, not too long ago, I had two new players (and I used the change homeworld rules with those guys).

But, with my core group of players--the guys who played with Dr. Too Nemerani--that type of thing isn't necessary.

If it's to provide the players with a rich, rewarding role-playing opportunity, why not just let them reduce the stats of their characters by whatever amount they feel is necessary to get a proper roleplaying-worthy character?

They do a pretty good job with characters with high stats, too.

In fact, because I run thing "by the book", using the hard survival rule, rolling once for stats, etc., characters that actually turn out well are highly regarded. Where Too Nemerani was weak stat-wise and strong character-wise, we had another character, Daeus Jacks, that was strong in both stats and character.

Me, I'd look at the character with the poor stats and judge if such a character would fit into the PC group without spoiling things for the other players, then ask the player if he wanted to play it (so as not to miss such an incredible opportunity for some real roleplaying, of course).

It may be shallow and superficial of me, but it seems to work for my players.

Well, it's not bad-good-fun. If that works for your group, that's fine. It wouldn't work in mine, but don't use my group as a measure of how to play in your group.

Some people like to play uber muncking characters, too. If they don't have an 10+ in each stat, then they're not happy. If they don't have a Skill-5 in their favorite skill, then they're not happy. If the enemies are a bit too hard, and they're not "winning", they don't like the game.

There's nothing wrong with this type of play. I've seen players like that before, but that type of person would not fit in with us.

He would need to go find some rpgers that like that sort of thing. We don't (and, yes, we don't respect that type of play, either).

As I said, we play CT by the book. You play what you roll and make the best character you can out of it.

I typically adapt the story around the characters, not the other way around, the way you do. I'll have a story in mind that is morphed after chargen so that everything fits.

 

[rancke]

Some people like to play uber muncking characters, too. If they don't have an 10+ in each stat, then they're not happy. If they don't have a Skill-5 in their favorite skill, then they're not happy. If the enemies are a bit too hard, and they're not "winning", they don't like the game.

You do realize that it's not either/or, I hope?

Incidentally, if one runs character generation by the book (allowing players a chance to get rid of undesired characters the way the rules provide for), there's not a chance in a million that they'll wind up with 10+ in every stat.

As I said, we play CT by the book. You play what you roll and make the best character you can out of it.

You do realized that by preventing players from attempting suicide during char-gen, you're not playing strictly by the book, right? I guess that by 'by the book', you actually means 'by the parts of the book you approve of'.


Hans


PS. Ahh... "By the Book". That brings back memories. I was in a campaign like that once. We played the trading game like a Stradivarius and wound up with 3 billion credits before that palled. And we utterly comfounded the referee by treating NPCs with scrupulous honesty instead of trying to cheat them. Great fun, in its own way.


Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

Incidentally, if one runs character generation by the book (allowing players a chance to get rid of undesired characters the way the rules provide for), there's not a chance in a million that they'll wind up with 10+ in every stat.

I was exaggerating/emphasizing munchkins.

You do realized that by preventing players from attempting suicide during char-gen, you're not playing strictly by the book, right? I guess that by 'by the book', you actually means 'by the parts of the book you approve of'.

You must not be reading my posts, but skimming them. I said, with my core group, I run the game by the book. The opportunity is there to trash a character and start anew, but my players (thank God) don't do that.

The rules I suggested were ones I've either used myself or come across when playing with other GMs in my 27 years of Traveller gaming. I don't use them in my Traveller game.

PS. Ahh... "By the Book". That brings back memories. I was in a campaign like that once. We played the trading game like a Stradivarius and wound up with 3 billion credits before that palled.

Your ref has control over this type of thing, so maybe he wanted to run a game where the players got loaded?

You sound like you like larger-than-life characters (again, nothing wrong with that--it's just not our cup of tea when it comes to Traveller). Maybe your GM keyed in on that and allowed what he thought the players would enjoy?

 

[rancke]

You must not be reading my posts, but skimming them. I said, with my core group, I run the game by the book. The opportunity is there to trash a character and start anew, but my players (thank God) don't do that.

The rules I suggested were ones I've either used myself or come across when playing with other GMs in my 27 years of Traveller gaming. I don't use them in my Traveller game.

So as long as people don't use the rules you disapprove of, you play by the book? It's only if they want to play by the part of the book you don't like that you add the house rules?

Your ref has control over this type of thing, so maybe he wanted to run a game where the players got loaded?

You sound like you like larger-than-life characters (again, nothing wrong with that--it's just not our cup of tea when it comes to Traveller). Maybe your GM keyed in on that and allowed what he thought the players would enjoy?

Depends on my mood. I'm very fond of the L. Sprague de Camp and Jack Vance type of hero (Which, in case you don't know them, is a perfect match for Traveller-type heroes). I'm also fond of the Anderson/Heinlein/Piper type of hero (Which is a better-than-average-but-in-no-way-over-the-top Traveller-type hero). And I like Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin (very-near-over-the-top-but-he-manages-to-pull-it-off ), but I haven't tried running anything at that power level. Maybe you've gotten the wrong impression from my recent posts about adapting Traveller for Space Opera. The fact is, I've played and reffed (mostly reffed) Traveller for near 30 years without needing to work out rules for larger-than-life Traveller characters. Now I'm toying with the idea of getting my feet wet in that genre.

You seem to have interpreted my statements to mean that we're munchkins (I know, nothing wrong with that; you just don't respect that sort of gaming) because we don't jump at the chance to play half-crippled characters (yes, I think scores of 222 is a handicap next to average Traveller characters). I think you should know that it's perfectly possible to play differently than you and your group and still not be a munchkin.

Your ref has control over this type of thing, so maybe he wanted to run a game where the players got loaded?

That's just the point. He didn't have control, because he played by the book. If the rules didn't cover a situation, common sense had a chance of prevailing, but if the rules said something was so then it was so. The campaign began going off the rail when we arrived at a world with a population level of 4 with a hold full of multi-million computers that we'd bought at the lowest possible cost (40% of list?) and the dice told him we could sell every last one of them for 300% of list. There was nothing in the Book about wondering where a world with 50,000 inhabitants got 250 million credits to buy computers with.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

Incidentally, if one runs character generation by the book (allowing players a chance to get rid of undesired characters the way the rules provide for), there's not a chance in a million that they'll wind up with 10+ in every stat.

Actually, the chance of rolling a 10, 11 or 12 on 2d6 is 6/36, so the chance of doing it 6 times in a row is (6/36)^6 = 1 in 46,656 ... far better than 1 in a million odds (and that doesn't even consider ability improvements during the career).

As a point of interest, a world of a billion people would have over 21,400 individuals with all abilities of 10+ (assuming adventurers are 'average' people at age 18) or 214 individuals with all abilities of 10+ (assuming adventurers are the top 1% of the population).

 

[Poppyseed45]

The campaign began going off the rail when we arrived at a world with a population level of 4 with a hold full of multi-million computers that we'd bought at the lowest possible cost (40% of list?) and the dice told him we could sell every last one of them for 300% of list. There was nothing in the Book about wondering where a world with 50,000 inhabitants got 250 million credits to buy computers with.


Hans

Hehe, now that's funny! Haven't had something like that in years. As a GM I'd veto it, unless I'd already figured out how I wanted to get rid of their money (or the computers). Or just made them a constant handicap...more interesting that way...but super-rich in Traveller can be an issue (unless the players are making a mercenary army, in which case 250 million is a very good start).

 

[Poppyseed45]

Actually, the chance of rolling a 10, 11 or 12 on 2d6 is 6/36, so the chance of doing it 6 times in a row is (6/36)^6 = 1 in 46,656 ... far better than 1 in a million odds (and that doesn't even consider ability improvements during the career).

As a point of interest, a world of a billion people would have over 21,400 individuals with all abilities of 10+ (assuming adventurers are 'average' people at age 18) or 214 individuals with all abilities of 10+ (assuming adventurers are the top 1% of the population).

Which is another reason why I don't mind high stats in Traveller. SOMEONE can have them, right? And the dice give the chance so...why not? Why not a PC? As you have shown, the chance of, say, an entire group having them is pretty damn low. What can it break, really, in the end? A guy with high physical stats can stay in the firefight an extra round; big whoop.

Back on track - I used to do the iron man back when I played CT, but I have found with the group that I just rolled characters with that they very much enjoyed the mishap table, for themselves or watching others go through it. We had a group of 6 players so it took a while for character creation but they really enjoyed things with it. One guy expected the iron man thing though because he'd done it in T20.

But I think the mishap thing is better (and why spend all that time on a character just to watch him die BEFORE you start playing?). Though, as some of you have raised here, it's interesting to use the iron man thing to force certain choices (the chief one being, continue in this career or die?).

 

[aramis]

Really, the odds for AAAAAA or better are not skewed much by totally random rolled characters... as in random pick of table, and random roll on table. In CT, that is between 10 and 25% chance per roll, and average of about 1.6 rolls per term for about .2 stat points per term, with a relatively modest 80-90 year life expectancy...

18 terms means about 4 additional stat points, most of which are lost due to aging.

 

[rancke]

Hehe, now that's funny! Haven't had something like that in years. As a GM I'd veto it, unless I'd already figured out how I wanted to get rid of their money (or the computers).

There was nothing in the rules about doing anything like that.

(Please understand that we were all quite young. Nowadays I'd never treat an inexperienced referee the way we treated poor Peter, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.)

Or just made them a constant handicap...more interesting that way...but super-rich in Traveller can be an issue (unless the players are making a mercenary army, in which case 250 million is a very good start).

When we had earned 3 billion and didn't want to play the Merchant Game no more, we set up personal accounts for each of the four PCs with a quarter of a billion apiece -- a little nest egg in case we lost the rest of the money. We then (at the referee's suggestion) invested a billion in a small country on Algine. The Imperium had just lifted the interdict, although the Scouts kept up various restrictions to protect the natives. In return, we got noble titles that, essentially, gave each of us a vote in the oligarchial government with 50-60 other oligarchs. The last billion we kept for operational expenses.

The ref had worked out the various factions in great detail and was all set to make sure we wouldn't actually get any real influence, being so very outvoted as we were. So we set about studying the briefs and selected the factions that we thought we could best work with and best influence through the investments we made.

The nation had half a dozen neighbors, also worked out in great detail, and most of them wanted to conquer us. So we set about improving the military defenses. The locals were TL4 and the Scouts restricted imports to TL5. That meant that the locals had single shot rifles (because that's one of the explicit examples of TL4 technology) whereas we could import spitfires, because they were pre-1939 inventions. We also taught our locals to make Browning Slide Repeating Rifles (a TL4 workaround that allowed rapid reloading of singleshot rifles). Since Peter hadn't heard about them before (it was a very obscure weapon because true repeating rifles appeared very soon after) the locals had never invented them either.

The Imperium also restricted the number of off-world mercenaries that we could hire to 1000. So we decided to recruit one 600 man regiment armed with imports, two 150-mand cadres that would be filled out to 600 man each by locals, and 100 specialists (pilots and artillerists mainly). So my character, Don Alduc[*], went to Porozlo and started recruiting according to the rules in Mercenary. When we were nearing a full complement, Peter demanded that we provide him with UWPs for every mercenary we wanted to hire. So Lars wrote a neat little program for his Sinclair that generated officers and men. (The full-blown mercenaries (a little over a hundred of them) I actually generated by hand; I enjoyed that sort of thing).

By the time I was sketching out training programs for the troops (using characters with Instruction-4 to train men with Useful Skill-3 to Instruction-3 so that they could teach Useful Skill-2 to the men[**]), JTAS#9 came out and Peter announced that the Fifth Frontier War had just broken out, so my character promptly went to see the local top Imperial military bigwig and offered the regiment and the two cadres as volunteers, earning all four of use Imperial knighthoods for our services to the Imperium. That's when the campaign fizzled out.



Hans


[*] Hey, I said we were young!


[**] (Actually, my memory may be playing tricks with me, but I seem to recall planning to train the men to skill levels of 3; perhaps we got one with Instruction-5. I know we got one with Tactics-6 ))