Player Books

[Adam Dray]

Two ideas here. I suspect other people have already done this, but I haven't seen it anywhere.


Player Jumpstart Books

Has anyone created player books for jumpstarting play?

I'd like to put together something that encapsulates all the rules a player needs to generate a character for one career as a small PDF. Each booklet would lay out the steps for character creation through that career in an intuitive way. Players could print out one or two of each book and then pass them around as they create characters.

The value-add on top of the core rules:

1. Separating the careers into different booklets lets everyone at the table create a character at the same time, without owning a copy of the core book.

2. The chargen rules in the core rulebook are explained in a very generic way. This would explain the rules in a very career-centric way. Roll on THIS chart for your skill training. Roll THIS survival roll, and go to page XX if you fail. Choose promotion or commission and make one of THESE rolls. Roll on THIS event chart.


Simplified Careers

Yeah, yeah, the chargen rules aren't that hard to understand. But they are. I've been gaming since '79 and I've done some professional game editing and even I had trouble understanding the MgT chargen rules, which made me jump all over the place to understand what to do next.

I think that the MgT chargen rules could be greatly simplified without making play any less fun. Here's what I'd do with it.

1. Choose a background from a list. Get a few skills at 0.
2. Choose a career (e.g., Navy). You're level 0 in that career.
3. That career offers you 6 standard characteristic arrays. Pick one or roll.
4. Gain background skills for that career.
5. Level up. Repeat until you reach the appropriate level. The referee will tell you what level character to make: probably 3 or 4.

The level-up process:

1. Add 1 to your level.
2. Choose a career path (e.g., Crew / Engineer / Gunner / Flight / Officer) for which you qualify (based on characteristics and skills).
3. If it's your first time in that career path, gain one path background skill at 1. You choose from a list.
4. Roll d6 on the skill training table for your path and add the number of times you've taken that path prior to this time (+0 the first time). Certain advanced skills for that path start at 7 on the chart. That adds +1 to a skill.
5. Roll on a 2d6 events table for that path. Each event adds color to your life and offers you a choice and a skill. Some might offer characteristic bonuses.
6. Roll on a 2d6 benefits table, too. Don't wait till the end to do this.

Hey, you can also use this level-up process for continued play. At certain story milestones, the referee can let everyone level up, but it might not make sense if you're Navy and you are no longer in service.

So we add rules for multi-classing. You can switch careers but it costs you. Basically, you spend your level-up to gain level 0 in a new career, but you get only one of the background skills for the new career, not all of them.

Now your ex-Navy 4 (Crew 2, Officer 2) can multi-class into Freetrader 0 class (total levels = 5). At level 6, he is Navy 4, Freetrader 1 (Captain 1).

 

[Adam Dray]

I just checked the Traveller SRD and I see that the career write-ups are not Open Content. That certainly makes this more difficult to do commercially. Oops.

Time to start writing my Freetrader RPG.

 

[Timerover51]

I have put together booklets of my house rules and rule modifications, but never a "jumpstart" booklet for new gamers. That would prove to be quite useful, and I will need to give it some thought.

 

[Adam Dray]

Lately I've been running games at cons, and I'd like to do chargen at the table but not take up the whole session doing it. A jumpstarter booklet for each player would help a lot.

It shouldn't be hard to compile for personal use. It just can't be a commercial thing without Mongoose's permission, as the career charts are not Open Content.

 

[aramis]

Two ideas here. I suspect other people have already done this, but I haven't seen it anywhere.


Player Jumpstart Books

Has anyone created player books for jumpstarting play?

I'd like to put together something that encapsulates all the rules a player needs to generate a character for one career as a small PDF. Each booklet would lay out the steps for character creation through that career in an intuitive way. Players could print out one or two of each book and then pass them around as they create characters.

The value-add on top of the core rules:

1. Separating the careers into different booklets lets everyone at the table create a character at the same time, without owning a copy of the core book.

2. The chargen rules in the core rulebook are explained in a very generic way. This would explain the rules in a very career-centric way. Roll on THIS chart for your skill training. Roll THIS survival roll, and go to page XX if you fail. Choose promotion or commission and make one of THESE rolls. Roll on THIS event chart.


Simplified Careers

Yeah, yeah, the chargen rules aren't that hard to understand. But they are. I've been gaming since '79 and I've done some professional game editing and even I had trouble understanding the MgT chargen rules, which made me jump all over the place to understand what to do next.

I think that the MgT chargen rules could be greatly simplified without making play any less fun. Here's what I'd do with it.

1. Choose a background from a list. Get a few skills at 0.
2. Choose a career (e.g., Navy). You're level 0 in that career.
3. That career offers you 6 standard characteristic arrays. Pick one or roll.
4. Gain background skills for that career.
5. Level up. Repeat until you reach the appropriate level. The referee will tell you what level character to make: probably 3 or 4.

The level-up process:

1. Add 1 to your level.
2. Choose a career path (e.g., Crew / Engineer / Gunner / Flight / Officer) for which you qualify (based on characteristics and skills).
3. If it's your first time in that career path, gain one path background skill at 1. You choose from a list.
4. Roll d6 on the skill training table for your path and add the number of times you've taken that path prior to this time (+0 the first time). Certain advanced skills for that path start at 7 on the chart. That adds +1 to a skill.
5. Roll on a 2d6 events table for that path. Each event adds color to your life and offers you a choice and a skill. Some might offer characteristic bonuses.
6. Roll on a 2d6 benefits table, too. Don't wait till the end to do this.

Hey, you can also use this level-up process for continued play. At certain story milestones, the referee can let everyone level up, but it might not make sense if you're Navy and you are no longer in service.

So we add rules for multi-classing. You can switch careers but it costs you. Basically, you spend your level-up to gain level 0 in a new career, but you get only one of the background skills for the new career, not all of them.

Now your ex-Navy 4 (Crew 2, Officer 2) can multi-class into Freetrader 0 class (total levels = 5). At level 6, he is Navy 4, Freetrader 1 (Captain 1).

You're reinventing 13mann's Liftoff, Adam...

 

[mike wightman]

I wrote this is 2006, if any of it is useful please take it.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=10884

Warning - the formatting is all over the place and double posts abound.

 

[Adam Dray]

I'll have to go look at Liftoff again, but I'm pretty sure this isn't what I saw in the early documents. Anyone have a link to the current docs?

 

[Disco Soup]

I'm considering making a selection of small books that do something like this. They're designed to be combination of Dungeon World's playbooks with MgT-style careers. I know that the careers aren't open content, so instead I would create my own. They would be similar, "Soldier" instead of Army and so on, with very similar skills, but different benefits, events and mishaps. All of my events would give you a choice of what to do, instead of simply stating "You commit a crime, how do you get out of it?"

Each book is made to be filled out for a single character. Each event and mishap has a "serial number" that you read back to the ref as you generate. This serial number links to a secret about what "really happened" during that event, and ways the ref can use it in the story to reward or complicate the character's life.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Each book is made to be filled out for a single character. Each event and mishap has a "serial number" that you read back to the ref as you generate. This serial number links to a secret about what "really happened" during that event, and ways the ref can use it in the story to reward or complicate the character's life.

Very cool! I'd like to see that.

I don't understand why MgT character creation is so hard for some people, tho. There's a really nice checklist on page 5 in the Core Rulebook.

 

[infojunky]

Not since TNE, I took the playtest files and cobbled together Character creation, tasks and skills and the basics of combat. Then added the campaign introduction. Unfortunately creation was a hybrid process between digital and manual with all of the paste-up for reproduction being manual. So I can't point at a copy for y'all to look at.

I did have a GURPs GM do something simular but his books where all Handwritten and photocopied as well....

 

[Disco Soup]

I think the problem people have is conflicting information. The play examples tend to not line up with the RAW.

 

[Adam Dray]

Each book is made to be filled out for a single character. Each event and mishap has a "serial number" that you read back to the ref as you generate. This serial number links to a secret about what "really happened" during that event, and ways the ref can use it in the story to reward or complicate the character's life.

Nice touch.

 

[Adam Dray]

Very cool! I'd like to see that.

I don't understand why MgT character creation is so hard for some people, tho. There's a really nice checklist on page 5 in the Core Rulebook.

Oh, I totally understand the checklist. It's when you get into the little details that I get confused.

The skill groups / specializations combining with 0-level skills and instances that grant you a new skill get confusing. Do I get a second 0 in a specialty, or do I get to advance a 0 to a 1 in one of my existing 0-level specialties? If I remember correctly, I found one place where the example character contradicted the rules in this regard.

 

[Disco Soup]

Technically, you may describe the process of creating characters, including characteristics, but you have to do it under another OGL. Hyperlite details the process of creating characters and characteristics, as does Outer Veil, IIRC. Doing this would preclude you from using the Traveller compatibility logo, though.

 

[Shonner]

I think the problem people have is conflicting information. The play examples tend to not line up with the RAW.

Game examples rarely get updated when rules do, unfortunately. The flowchart for CharGen has issues in my printing of the core rules.

I need my players to all have the core book if they are going to be making characters. If I hand out pre-gen sheets to players, they don't need the book and I can tell them the die rules and they catch on in about 15 minutes of doing sample rolls.

 

[Disco Soup]

Yeah, I've decided that the ones I'm doing are going to be a standalone product.

I'm calling it BDH: Big Dang Heroes, and it's going to have new versions of standard careers, with more logical events and mishaps. Some skill results are going to be variables, based on what era of game you're playing. For instance, "Ranged X" would mean that if you're playing a medieval game you get archery, if it's a contemporary game you get slug rifles and in the future you get your choice of slug or energy.


Each career gets one or more "Heroics", which act to differentiate careers by more than just skills. A Military: Army character might get Signature Weapon that comes with extra options, whereas an Explorer could get a facility with native customs. You get a Heroic at term 2 and then an advanced one if you make it to term 5.

 

[aramis]

I'm calling it BDH: Big Dang Heroes, and it's going to have new versions of standard careers,

You might want to pick a different name... Big Damn Heroes Handbook was a Serenity RPG product, and product confusion often results in nastygrams and/or low ratings, and that's close enough to cause product confusion.

 

[Disco Soup]

Good idea. I was trying to be a little tongue in cheek with the title.

The system is for creating folks with a power level a bit higher than your average joe, with mechanics for giving each character the spotlight.

In a sci-fi game, it'd play like Farscape or Doctor Who. In a modern game, maybe 24. In a medieval setting, it'd be like a chanbara movie.

All sorts of things, all optional. A "power stat" rule where you get to roll 3d6 and keep 2 for the stat of your choice. Automatic qualification for your FIRST career if you have sufficient stats or education, kind of like with Nobles.