Noob questions

[darthphil]

Greetings fellow gamers!

I recently bought T20 and the Gateway to Destiny campaign book in my local game store after glancing through a friends copy the evening before, I was that impressed with it. I role play every Monday night with a small group of 5 other players and at the moment I am running some Feng Shui. However, as this game isn't geared towards long term campaign play I was after something else for when we finished. Last year we played a bit of Fading Suns which has a fantastic background but dreadful rules system. I'm not the worlds greatest GM but I found it a very difficult game to run. The game universe doesn't cater for the type of game I wanted to run very well. In the future I will probably return to it but for the time being I want to do something else.

This is where T20 comes in. The freedom of travel, something which Fading Suns lacks, is a joy. The style of game I am going to be running is a merchant game with the PCs being the crew of a Far Trader. I am going to start with the Linkworlds Cluster campaign from the GM screen and take it from there. I was inspired by reading through that material as well as Firefly (the DVD of which is currently doing the rounds among our group). I'm going to pregen the characters as this will save time particularly as I only have one rulebook. It would take a whole session just to create the PC and I'd rather skip that.

Anyway I have a couple of questions regarding chargen.

1) During the Prior History phase can a character leave one service, such as the Merchant prior history, enter another Rogue for example and the later return to the Merchant prior history. If this is the case (and I'm not certain it is) then a character need never make reelistment rolls.

2) A Merchant 1/ Rogue 2 has earned enough experience to go up a level. He decides to become a Merchant 1/ Rogue 3. Are the skills for the Merchant class regarded as cross-class skills or class skills for the purpose of spending skill points?

It has to be said that I initially found the chargen system a little confusing but the examples and discusions I found in the archives proved very useful.

Thanks in advance. If I think of anything else I will be sure to ask here.

 

[veltyen]

The chargen is a little on the complex side. These days I somewhat streamline it.

As for your questions:

1) Yup. Though each time you muster out. This cuts down on the possibility of lots of rolls for ships at the end of an illustrious career. I've seen failed survival rolls as far more common ways of leaving a career then re-enlistment failure. If you're aiming at trying to be an former navy O5 then swapping arround really isn't going to help you.

2) Merchant only skills are cross class in this case. This can make high level starting characters interesting to fill in the skills for. Some have to be done during prior history (for example gambling and prospecting) but most of the time it is easier to draw up a matrix at the end.

Currently I use prior history as fluff and give my players an experience total that is only partly dependant on their history. Most players still roll out prior history, even though it isn't connected to the starting character as much. As for ships, since most games are going to have a ship anyway, I allow players to forgo mustering out rolls in favor of more shares in the eventual vessel. The more shares the better the ship.

 

[mike wightman]

Just one thing.

A merchant character, using the merchant career table, can take levels in any relevant class.

So even though you are in the merchant service you can take levels in
academic - if qualified by having a bachelor's degree or an Int of 12+ and an Edu of 14+
merchant
professional - provided you have 4 ranks in a relevant skill
rogue - provided you pick up the connections/underworld feat
traveller

So you could have a character serve seven terms in the Merchants, pick up 40,000 experience points, begin play as a ninth level character.

Those levels could be
merchant3/rogue3/traveller3
or other combinations of your choosing.

 

[darthphil]

Right, that answers those questions. Thanks!

Next: Starships

I will be using the Grendelsbane (great name, the reference clicked straight away) as the ship of choice. I also want to using the rules about owning ships and whatnot but I'm a little fuzzy on them.

The mustering out benefit gives the character a ship to play around with. I am assuming it is up to the GM decide how old it is, what the mortgage is like etc. Using the information presented in the THB I came up with the following.

Type A2 Far Trader costs MCr68.138
If we assume that upon mustering out Captain Anybody recieves the Grendelsbane as a second hand ship this knocks the price down to Cr61,324,200 (90% of the original price). Furthermore if the ship is second hand then it will have aged a little bit. I've guess that it will be about 20 years old. This knocks 20% of the original price (Cr13,627,000) leaving the price of the ship as CR47,697,200. With 40 years of monthly payments Captain Anybody has to find CR99,369 a month and a 20 year old ship which might start falling apart if he is not careful...

Does this sound resonable?

 

[tjoneslo]

This does sound reasonable.

I'd up the age a bit. The economics of the Traveller universe are such that things are built to last a long time. I'd make the ship approaching 100 years old, but with the same price discounts. A 20 year old ship shouldn't be falling apart unless really badly treated. A 100 year old ship has gone through two mortgages and probably several owners. Makes for a more interesting background.

 

[darthphil]

That sounds cool. One of the incentives for the Linkworlds campaign is the Kursis Mail LIC (what does that stand for?) will pay for a complete refit when the contract is complete. I couldn't see the sense in having a complete refit on a new ship which is why I aged it. I think I'll age it some more however...

 

[mike wightman]

The first time a character receives a ship benefit on the mustering out tables it is assumed to be new, with a forty year mortgage to pay off.

Each additional sihp result on the mustering out tables is taken as ten years worth of payments made, but the ship is ten years old, and so on.

According to T20 a secondhand ship starts at 90% of full value, and costs an additional 10% less per ten years of age.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Don't forget to give the ship some quirks to make it a unique vessel. Little things like having to hit the main engineering console on engine startup to get the system to work, or blasts of cold water in the freshers every time the ship makes a maneuver to port. Joss Whedon said that he wanted the Serenity to have just as much character as the actors and actresses in Firefly, not a bad idea having the ship be another NPC for the players to interact with.

 

[jasper]

if you search for my campaing log you find some quirks.

 

[darthphil]

I think it's a personal thing but I'm not fond of the idea of a merchant mustering out a receiving a brand new ship. I suppose however it depnds on what sort of campaign you are going to run.

 

[darthphil]

Interestingly enough I've just been glancing through the pages of T20 Lite (which I have at work-the main book is at home so I can't check that).

Under the Prior History section for benefits from mustering out the Free Trader ship is described as:

"The character owns a small and elderly merchant starship. The ship is bascially spaceworthy but showing its age. Subsequent receipts of this benefit reduce the remaining forty year mortgage by 10 years each, but also increase the age of the ship by 10 years"

 

[Spinward Scout]

Just to answer a question not answered. As far as I can find, LIC started as Livestock Improvement Corporation Limited. But is now Limited Interim Clearance or Limited Import Corporation. According to Google, you have to be a lawyer to know what those mean. hehe

I always had a heckofa time doing Prior History in T20. I'm told it should be easier when The Player's Guide (or whatever the name will be) comes out.

Dameon

 

[RandyT0001]

LIC stand for Limited liability Imperial Charter. IIRC

 

[BetterThanLife]

I do believe not having the players roll their own characters to be a mistake. (One I recently made.) It is one of the things that keeps Traveller from being just like all the other RPGs. Your character isn't just experienced, they actually have a history and background story easily pieced together during the rolling. If the players roll through prior history they are more attuned to their characters. Don't worry about you rolling up the characters that you already rolled, they will serve as fine NPCs and recurring antagonists/friends.

Just my Cr0.02.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I also recommend letting the players role up their own characters, even if you have to help them because the group only has one book. In one of the gaming groups I'm involved in, I'm the only one with a T20 book. I helped everyone else roll up their characters.

Prior history makes rolling up characters in Traveller a fun and entertaining experience. And it gives you, the Ref, so many adventure hooks. Don't cheat your players and yourself out of that experience. It is one of the things that makes Traveller, Traveller, and somewhat unique among RPGs.

 

[darthphil]

I was having a think last night while generating the numbers for the stats. The prospect of generating the number of characters I need is a bit daunting at the moment on top of everything else I want to prepare.

I shall still generate a few characters to get a better feel for the system however.

 

[veltyen]

A man cannot step in the same river twice, as the second time it is not the same river and he is not the same man.

I've found that an entire group deciding on what the character does can be quite entertaining, as well as giving the players a more in depth experience of the universe. If the characters are also supposed to know each other well then it works even better. While the player should have primary control of the character construction certain factors can easily be left to other players, for example asking the player for how gung ho they are feeling about a term, but having another player set the survival target in accordance with the first players response.

It should also give the group an idea of what can happen, what good and bad things can befall.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Darth Phil:
I was having a think last night while generating the numbers for the stats. The prospect of generating the number of characters I need is a bit daunting at the moment on top of everything else I want to prepare.

I shall still generate a few characters to get a better feel for the system however.

Something that I have gotten in the habit of is farming out the homeworld creation and NPC creation to the players themselves. It gets them directly involved with the game, gives them a chance to learn the rules, and is nice for a night of just sitting around instead of gaming. Just make sure that you tell them that these NPCs, worlds, animal encounters, etc are going to be used on ANOTHER gaming group and not them. Its more evil, I mean fun, that way.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Once the PCGen stuff for Traveller is done then this would make life so much easier for T20 GMs. In the mean time I recommend 76 Gunmen (TA #4) for the antagonistic NPCs you need enmasse or on the fly. I took 76 gunmen, an 8 sided die a map of the area the characters were in and a random name generator (Inspiration Pad Pro) and created 30 Mercenary recruits in an afternoon. (Personality included.)Are they fully detailed? No, they can be developed as time goes on. Are they super soldiers? No, they aren't the stars of the unit the PCs are. Will I get really pissed when some of them die? No, because I didn't spend hours on each of them.

(And since there are now templates for each of them in Klooge, creating new ones is as simple as a random name generator, a map of the area that the players are recruiting in and a dose of imagination for personality.)