I agree it was great!
New Careers?
- Thread starter ShapeShifter
- Start date
I agree it was great!
ShapeShifter
SOC-13
STAY TUNED for more on the Xeno-Archaeologist!
Last edited:
ghashsnaga
SOC-10
Third Imperium Fanzine Issues 2 and 11 have the Justice Special Branch and the Assassins careers.
ara
ara
ShapeShifter
SOC-13
Thx for info on the 3I fanzine. I wonder how many more are out there...
One of the problems I have with careers in CT is separating a person's training from their day to day "job".
For example take capt. Reynolds from the Firefly series. In viewing the videos (and I have not finished them all) he was brought up a rancher and joined the separatist movement (read CT army career path). Therefore trained as military.
After the war (5 or 6 years before the series) he purchased a firefly class ship and became it's captain. In the series his day to day job, is merchant/smuggler, rogue, criminal type activities.
How would you create a character like this? Pre-career skills as a rancher, several years in the army, and then maybe merchant/smuggler/rogue for a few years?
Indiana Jones is a good example too. He's a professor in an ivy league college and therefore presumably schooled as such. Also if the "Young Indiana Jones" videos are "canon" (another argument) he has had military experience. Therefore, he'd need some college type track with history / archeology type skills and some military track for service in the army and such. So would you do military and scientist combination?
But day to day (at least in the movies) he's more of a rogue career type.
My point is that the CT career system is not really fixed by creating a ton of career tracks. I prefer a method of picking one or two tracks and then just adding skills. So my solution to Indy would be to do something like Army for one term scientist for two terms and then just add a skill "archeology +3" or something.
Instead of creating a career for "firefly captains" I would just do pre-career skills for farmer, add a term or two of army and then maybe a term in merchant. Or just give him things like barter, pilot, streetwise as needed.
For example take capt. Reynolds from the Firefly series. In viewing the videos (and I have not finished them all) he was brought up a rancher and joined the separatist movement (read CT army career path). Therefore trained as military.
After the war (5 or 6 years before the series) he purchased a firefly class ship and became it's captain. In the series his day to day job, is merchant/smuggler, rogue, criminal type activities.
How would you create a character like this? Pre-career skills as a rancher, several years in the army, and then maybe merchant/smuggler/rogue for a few years?
Indiana Jones is a good example too. He's a professor in an ivy league college and therefore presumably schooled as such. Also if the "Young Indiana Jones" videos are "canon" (another argument) he has had military experience. Therefore, he'd need some college type track with history / archeology type skills and some military track for service in the army and such. So would you do military and scientist combination?
But day to day (at least in the movies) he's more of a rogue career type.
My point is that the CT career system is not really fixed by creating a ton of career tracks. I prefer a method of picking one or two tracks and then just adding skills. So my solution to Indy would be to do something like Army for one term scientist for two terms and then just add a skill "archeology +3" or something.
Instead of creating a career for "firefly captains" I would just do pre-career skills for farmer, add a term or two of army and then maybe a term in merchant. Or just give him things like barter, pilot, streetwise as needed.
ShapeShifter
SOC-13
I agree with you completely.
...but don't let the inhabitants catch you saying that in this, the Grognard subsector.
I'm new to CT and my attitude is one that embraces flexibility and inventiveness, a philosophy regarded as heretical in these parts. 
o:BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Ah, but some of us "grognards" (and yes, I fit the old definition of "grumbler" quite well) like doing things that way also.
I've been doing the "career switch is easy" chargen thing since 1984.
I've been doing the "career switch is easy" chargen thing since 1984.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
...but don't let the inhabitants catch you saying that in this, the Grognard subsector.
Heck no. You've misinterpreted the responses. And you're not alone in that but at least you haven't gone totally insane in your own response to it as some have.
The Grognards aren't saying you can't play the way you want to. In fact if you ask them that directly they'll say absolutely you should. That's the way the game was designed.
The issue is when someone asks for opinions they'll get them. Then when the opinions they asked for don't conform to what they wanted to do (but didn't say) they get all defensive and claim they're being repressed, their creativity is being squelched, etc.
ShapeShifter
SOC-13
@fartrader: My advice to new RPGers (whether with CT, D&D or what you may please) is "RPGs are a DIY hobby. Make it your own. Adapt. Change. Expand. But under no circumstances let anyone convince you that you must follow the rules at all times as if they were Holy Writ graven in marble tablets. If you don't fancy something, change it! Don't be afraid to customise it. And most importantly: don't let grognards, those irritable, grey mutton-chops, boss you around!"
YMMV.
YMMV.
@fartrader: My advice to new RPGers (whether with CT, D&D or what you may please) is "RPGs are a DIY hobby. Make it your own. Adapt. Change. Expand. But under no circumstances let anyone convince you that you must follow the rules at all times as if they were Holy Writ graven in marble tablets. If you don't fancy something, change it! Don't be afraid to customise it. And most importantly: don't let grognards, those irritable, grey mutton-chops, boss you around!"
YMMV.
The corollary: Don't claim to be running the OTU unless you follow as written the rules and setting (jointly) for the edition you claim to be playing. (by which measure, I've not run the OTU since 1993 except for the MGT playtest.)
Mixing and matching invalidates the warranty. (in other words, MT canon often contradicts CT canon; TNE contradicts both; T4 is wholly off in left field; GT is a deceptively close but still much more defined {and sometimes defined contrarily to 3rd party official materials for CT & MT} variation, and MGT has said "It ain't official, it's original", ignoring; and T20 suffers from muddle because of CT, MT, TNE, T4, and GT incompatibilities.)
Canon is for Authors. I posted a rant about this to the TML about this, twice. I could probably turn it up if I really wanted to, and post it here. If you are not an Author, Canon has no meaning or use to you unless you want it to.
As far as "playing in the OTU"... once something happens at any level in your game that isn't documented in the Canon, you are no longer playing in the OTU. Period. At best, you are playing in a 'parallel universe' whose history as documented was indistinguishable from that of the OTU/Canonical universe. That, arguably, includes the mere creation of your characters.
Grognard though I may qualify to be called, I hold to the Talmudic view of the rules - there are the Written Rules, and there are the Unwritten Rules. Where I depart from the views of such 'sages' as E. Gary Gygax and Kevin Siembada is in which of these is paramount; it has been held that these 'sages' deny the Unwritten Rules entirely, whereas I hold that chief among all of the Rules is an Unwritten one, to wit: "An ye like it not, change it.". Remember that, and go forth and play.
As far as "playing in the OTU"... once something happens at any level in your game that isn't documented in the Canon, you are no longer playing in the OTU. Period. At best, you are playing in a 'parallel universe' whose history as documented was indistinguishable from that of the OTU/Canonical universe. That, arguably, includes the mere creation of your characters.
Grognard though I may qualify to be called, I hold to the Talmudic view of the rules - there are the Written Rules, and there are the Unwritten Rules. Where I depart from the views of such 'sages' as E. Gary Gygax and Kevin Siembada is in which of these is paramount; it has been held that these 'sages' deny the Unwritten Rules entirely, whereas I hold that chief among all of the Rules is an Unwritten one, to wit: "An ye like it not, change it.". Remember that, and go forth and play.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
FreeTrav the rule is written!
The same rulebooks people call canon also indicate that you should use your imagination and other science fiction resources to make play more interesting. Perhaps people who are non imaginative and feel they can only use 'canon' are the ones not following the rules? But no, if that's the setting they want to play in, the rules support it too.
Granted, this comes from MGT but I thought I'd point it out because the wording is more clear than the section titled 'A Final Word' on the last page of LBB3. I recommend Canon/OTU police re-read this section of the CT rules.
The same rulebooks people call canon also indicate that you should use your imagination and other science fiction resources to make play more interesting. Perhaps people who are non imaginative and feel they can only use 'canon' are the ones not following the rules? But no, if that's the setting they want to play in, the rules support it too.
Last edited:
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Funny... from the original D&D rules of 1974 on, EGG repeatedly stated, in rule books, magazine articles, interviews, on-line discussion fora, and in person, that "the DM's word is final", and "the rules are what you find works for you and your group. What I (we) have published here are guidelines, to be followed or revised as you see fit"!
He did say that the more closely you follow the written rules, the more easily players & characters from different campaigns can fit in, therefore following the rules is generally the best way to go, but he always... always, supported making changes you feel need to be made for the good of your campaign.
More than one of his editorials in Dragon, however, criticized not playing by the rules.
