non-human player characters
- Thread starter flykiller
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MThompson016
SOC-12
I haven't, but in a couple of sessions of GT, two guys were running Vargr.
It was generally successful. One of them had a thing going with the Solomani Captain of the damaged Far Trader.
It was generally successful. One of them had a thing going with the Solomani Captain of the damaged Far Trader.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Sorry, I don't have the time or desire to type out a summary of 4 or 5 different campaigns, wherein I played Aslan, Vargr, a dwarf (see the Dragon Magazine article (#70 Feb 1983) by Roger E. Moore about "dwarves in space"), and a couple of other house-ruled aliens (both based on Andre Norton's aliens - a Zacathan and a member of the species of the protagonist of the novels Forerunner and Forerunner: the Second Venture).
In games I've ref'ed several players have played many different aliens - Vargr, Aslan, a near-psychotic solitary K'Kree, a heavyworld human (see Anne McCaffery, modified from the Traveller human template), a Zacathan, and a couple of other custom-built alien species.
{Edit: forgot the one Droyne PC in a game I ref'ed.}
In games I've ref'ed several players have played many different aliens - Vargr, Aslan, a near-psychotic solitary K'Kree, a heavyworld human (see Anne McCaffery, modified from the Traveller human template), a Zacathan, and a couple of other custom-built alien species.
{Edit: forgot the one Droyne PC in a game I ref'ed.}
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Me? In Traveller? Not since High School as a player. (And then, it was a blob. A semi-intelligent blob, who managed to get a commission in the Army... with Int 1 and edu 0. And later, a Droyne Scout.)
As A GM, most of my groups have had a recurrent non-human NPC.
Several have had non-human PC's, including K'kree, Hiver, Aslan, Vargr, Virush, Newt, Dolphin, Geonee, and Droyne. Several more have had variant humans with CGen differences (Sollies, Human Aslan, Vilani, Zhodani, and Jonkereen.)
Vargr player here as if it could not be deduced from my writings and art submissions.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
At the beginning, I started with an Aslan mercenary character, which was basically a rubber suit for me. Even later trying to imprint a Sengoku ambiance didn't make them interesting enough, as Aslan tend to be self righteous, disappointed with humanity types.
Vargr looked like a joke, until I discovered how much fun you can have with them and their culture(s). Who's a good ol' boy?
Vargr looked like a joke, until I discovered how much fun you can have with them and their culture(s). Who's a good ol' boy?
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I tried it once as a Droyne, it did not go well.
ran a vargr npc, alternating control of the character with various players. imtu vargr are not part of the imperium and are seldom encountered as anything but raiders and opponents. the players ... treated her as an odd human. from time to time I would emphasize the fact that she was not human, but this never seemed to generate any kind of curiosity or response from the players. she was just there. not human of course, but just one of them, like a pack member. one of her players once thought to use her superior sense of smell in a situation, but this never came up again.
she had medic 2 for humans, was highly skilled and practiced at traumatic first aid. only one of the players ever wondered how that came to be, and that only in passing.
she had medic 2 for humans, was highly skilled and practiced at traumatic first aid. only one of the players ever wondered how that came to be, and that only in passing.
No one in my groups ever played an alien or expressed interest in playing an alien. The closest any player got to an alien was in playing a Darrian.
Just as with my groups' lack of interest in playing nobles, I firmly believe never having an alien PC was our loss. I say that despite agreeing with Dave Nilsen's "Alien PCs/NPCs are nothing but a rubber suit" opinion and despite my oft-repeated opinion that Traveller aliens are not alien enough. I think it still would have been fun to try.
I peppered my adventures and campaigns with plenty of aliens, mostly as "scenery" and less often as NPCs/patrons.
Just as with my groups' lack of interest in playing nobles, I firmly believe never having an alien PC was our loss. I say that despite agreeing with Dave Nilsen's "Alien PCs/NPCs are nothing but a rubber suit" opinion and despite my oft-repeated opinion that Traveller aliens are not alien enough. I think it still would have been fun to try.
I peppered my adventures and campaigns with plenty of aliens, mostly as "scenery" and less often as NPCs/patrons.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Well, the backstory was he was pilot of a scout (smallest K'Kree jump-capable type, thus crew were chosen for ability to withstand cramped (for K'Kree) quarters and a small herd. His ship was damaged in combat (in Crucis Margin sector), with the airlocks jammed and the rest of the crew dead. He survived (barely), with rotting corpses fouling his air, until he managed to reach an inhabited system ( by the time he had managed to (with the aid of the ship's computer) restore the jump drive to functionality, he had begun hallucinating that his K'Kree superiors were out to get him for the deaths of his crewmates, so he headed away from The Two Thousand Worlds).
He found another starship, and by the time they got his airlocks unjammed, he didn't care that he could smell meat on their breaths - it smelled sweet compared to what he had been smelling for weeks. In order to keep his air breathable he had had to cut up his crewmates into small enough pieces that they could be run through the disposals - by the time he was through he knew he could never stand the sight of another K'Kree. He also knew that they would subject him to years of "corrective mental adjustment" for his "deviant behavior", and feared that they would decide he was irreparable and either lobotomized or executed.
Thus, he headed into Terran space, where he sold his scout to the TCN* and used the proceeds to have a new ship built - the chief architect was a Droyne who retired from his job after the ship was complete, and became the K'Kree's engineer.
{edit: I probably should mention that he no longer suffers from his fear of open spaces like he did when first freed from the scout - and that he only rarely now sees his deceased crewmates come galloping up through space on the bridge screen to blame him for their lack of a proper burial.
}The player tried hard to make the K'Kree NOT a "rubber suit" - he worked at making his actions and reasonings match those of a strongly neurotic herbivore who feared his own kind more than carnivores (he considered himself as a depraved criminal for having dismembered his crewmates), but who also had herbivore-like reactions and outlook.
I have a copy of AM-2 K'Kree, which he read thoroughly as a guide.
* My timeframe is in an alternate universe where the Vilani Imperium didn't collapse after the Terran Wars, so instead of the 2nd Imperium followed by The Long Night, there is a period of "Cold War" between the Terran Confederation and the Vilani Imperium, which is followed by one last intense war that collapses them both into The Long Night. The games are set about halfway through that 'Cold War" period.
Vilani-Terran spheres with Neutral Zone
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heh, how 'bout a vilani? no primitive beginnings of feeling part of nature, just they themselves alone ....
great backstory. but how did the player and the character do in the game?
really like that setting.
I wonder how much of the "rubber suit" is really just what we're able to see and comprehend. it's amazing what humans just don't perceive.
Feeling part of nature? Vilani? From a world whose biochemistry they barely "fit"? From a world that had active warbot and other dangerous Ancient devices and installations scattered about through a big chunk of their pre-history?
Those Vilani? They're tree huggers?
And they themselves alone? The human race who has known that multiple sentient aliens exist longer than any other?
Seeing as Traveller's aliens do not actually exist, the "rubber suit" is everything.
no, I meant the opposite. their primitive beginnings would be based on isolation from nature. that would make them quite alien to terrans.
I meant in terms of themselves. most tribes never quite get over their origins. in any case until the arrival of terra just how many worlds would they find that fit their biology any better than vland?
The proto-Vilani weren't isolated from nature, Fly. They were just as connected to the nature of Vland as the proto-Sollies were to Terra, albeit in a different way. In fact, I'd argue that the proto-Vilani were more consciously "in tune" with Vland's nature than the proto-Sollies were with Terra's.
Whether eating pigs and potatoes or being eaten by leopard and listeria, the proto-Sollies were part of Terra's "food pyramid". Hominids subconsciously knew that they could forage/scavenge/kill their next meal anywhere they went between Tierra del Fuego and Tasmania.
The proto-Vilani didn't have that luxury. They had to keep an eye out for those few plants and animals they already knew they could process into food. The proto-Vilani had to pay far stricter attention to the nature around them and consciously husband those resources they already knew could sustain them.
There would be no "slash & burn" agriculture on Vland. No routinely setting hunting fires to drive and kill more game than the tribe could eat in a decades. No hunting or harvesting known food sources to extinction.
Who is more isolated from nature, Fly? The Sollies subconsciously taking the abundance of nature of Terra for granted or the Vilani consciously husbanding the miserly offerings of the nature of Vland?
Canon does mention a "Best Human Homeworld Candidate" prior the Solomani Hypothesis being accepted. The name escapes me, but it has baleen whales among other things and is experiencing an ice age.
As for the question of which worlds prior to Terra fitting Vliani biology better than Vland, the answer is every Human Minor Race homeworld the Vilani contacted prior to contacting the Terrans. That's a majority of the HMRs too.
Think about it for a minute. Did any of the HMRs or even the Zhodani have the same food/biosphere issues the Vilani had? Every HMR else "fit" their homeworlds better than the Vilani "fit" Vland and the Vilani themselves "fit" those HMR homeworlds better than they "fit" Vland.
yeah, see what you're saying, but I don't think aggressive management attention equates to unity, rather it would engender a feeling that "we're not part of this, we have to make this work." so yeah, they practice conservation, because they're in survival mode, because they're not at home and they know it, whereas the terrans, feeling at home and feeling like it all fits together, practice it less. and I thought this would make the vilani fundamentally alien to terrans.
I think it's in the lbb library supplements.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
There is a very obvious source of food for the proto-Vilani... each other.
I wonder if they were cannibalistic?
As to aliens - I prefer a lot of the T2300 alien races to the canon OTU offerings and so have adapted them to MTU.
As to playing them I, I played an Ithklur once and have had players take on Aslan, Vargr, Hivers, Ithklur, and Droyne.
No one has attempted to play a K'kree.
I wonder if they were cannibalistic?
As to aliens - I prefer a lot of the T2300 alien races to the canon OTU offerings and so have adapted them to MTU.
As to playing them I, I played an Ithklur once and have had players take on Aslan, Vargr, Hivers, Ithklur, and Droyne.
No one has attempted to play a K'kree.
Human reproduction is the wrong type to make cannibalism a practical non-ritual practice; the body is better used for making compatible microbe pile...
*grabs the stick*
Back on path...
Played in 2 play-by-mails here in the forum, rolling up 2 Droyne.
Both games seemed to fade away, one of which has me wondering to this day if I may have over-did my character for the latest one.
I had specific goals in mind for my 2nd character, but the first two died in generation too early, and the third one suddenly decided to be immortal...
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Gallery/images/4908/1_DroyneTASForm2.jpg
Back on path...
Played in 2 play-by-mails here in the forum, rolling up 2 Droyne.
Both games seemed to fade away, one of which has me wondering to this day if I may have over-did my character for the latest one.
I had specific goals in mind for my 2nd character, but the first two died in generation too early, and the third one suddenly decided to be immortal...
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Gallery/images/4908/1_DroyneTASForm2.jpg
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