CT Only: Player Career Choice

[kilemall]

Well, for instance, task for combat guy is to interact at SOC-10 event. No Liaison and negative DMs for too low a SOC should work out to a no-skill mod, his CUF check would the general task of interacting at the event, a fail means something going wrong and possibly 'losing cool' dealing with the fail, or causing it.

 

[Ulsyus]

This is an intriguing idea. Knee-jerk reaction to the last two posts has me thinking that when under stress and trying to accomplish a task you roll a check to see if you keep your focus on the job at hand. The check modifier matches the skill modifier you're working with. So an engineer trying to keep his cool while repairing the jump drive during ship combat may very well have a positive bonus to his focus roll (as he knows exactly what needs to be done and has years of training working on this drive), that same engineer facing a boarding party amidships might be facing a stiff negative penalty to stay focused and fight or run to a safe location. (In the latter case I would work with the player to determine the character's action if the roll failed, such as fleeing in a random direction or freezing as his mind tries to sort through options).

Yeah, it's not meant to be about succeeding at a skill check, but seeing if someone can keep their cool and stay focused on the job. I was basing it on the idea that someone well-trained has a lot of knowledge about how to do that job, so are less likely to get flustered in situations relating to that task. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't become agitated or disheveled at some point, but the more skilled and experienced they are, in that situation, the greater I reckon their chances would be of keeping their cool.

 

[whartung]

"Stay and fight" simply tells me that the character has full rationale control of his faculties and can do whatever he decides to do.

This is different from "enraged, turn on berserker mode" and go in with guns blazing.

 

[khadaji2002]

Well, for instance, task for combat guy is to interact at SOC-10 event. No Liaison and negative DMs for too low a SOC should work out to a no-skill mod, his CUF check would the general task of interacting at the event, a fail means something going wrong and possibly 'losing cool' dealing with the fail, or causing it.

Yep, this is what I was thinking of when I made my first post. It's easy for me as a player to say my character keeps his cool when the character is really out of his depth. So what I'm thinking of is (using MgT1 rules) you have a level 2 or higher in the skill at hand, regardless of the situation you don't have to make a roll to stay on task. The engineer doing damage control, the Marine in a firefight, the diplomat in high-level negotiations for mineral rights woth billions of credits. None of them would have to make a CUF roll if they have the primary skill needed for the task at level 2 or higher.

Now take the Marine and put him in the diplomat's seat. If he happens to have Diplomacy 2, no problem. He's as cool in the boardroom as on the battlefield. If not, he'd need to pass a Diplomacy check modified by SOC to keep his cool. If the rolls fails I'd discuss briefly with the player how they'd like to handle the character's reaction to a stressful situation they weren't trained to handle. Then we'd go from there.

I've been reading the Alexandrian blog, and I like his premise. When you start the game you lay out the end goal and you make the assumption the PCs are going to achieve that goal. So failing a CUF roll like above does NOT mean you're screwed and are going to die. It means things just took an unexpected left turn and now you need to recalculate how to achieve the objective. CUF gives another opportunity for players to role-play those left turns. I'm interested to see how it play-tests.

 

[Ulsyus]

I vote another "unwanted die roll in combat." I am not a fan of reaction rolls. I let the human player figure out what they are doing, not the die roll.

How would you handle it if the die roll says "stay and fight" when the actual human player wants to find a safe place to stay out of the way of bullets and assorted other incoming stuff?

One of the things I really like about RPGs is they give us a chance to live a story that is only ever going to be a fiction for us. Traveller is one of the apogees of that whole concept.

So when we play a game, stuff can happen that we're just not going to react to in the same way people do in real life. Bad stuff happens, dangerous stuff happens, and scary stuff too, and people don't behave they way they'd like to.

I remember doing a course one time and the chief instructor had an adage he kept repeating:

People don't rise to the occasion, they sink to the level of their training.

Now, he was talking about the situations we were training for which were a little more stressful than the average disagreement over the optimum colour of toast. Some of those seem to have turned up in scenarios we've played, but I'm really happy to leave it that way.

So, when I consider asking players to make a roll to see if they can keep all their sheep together long enough to make a skill test, it's about them being in an unusually stressful, or potentially outrageously dangerous moment when anyone would struggle to focus on the task at hand. Where they are likely to sink to the level of their training.

I agree with you insofar as don't think every stressful situation demands a reaction test like that. And I agree that reaction tests slow down role playing at times when we want the tempo of the game to be high, that they shouldn't be de rigueur but only when the ref requires it as a mechanical element that can provide another indicator to the players of what's happening to their characters. But I'm not really for characters standing and fighting, or calmly fixing the jump drive, or whistling Bach (the elder) as they try to rapidly drop their badly-holed almost-empty-of-bodily-fluids companion into the emergency low berth so they can be delivered to medical help before they arrest, when that's just not what would be seen in the real world. If Traveller is meant to be hard sci fi, then there's got to be mechanics to allow for some of that real stuff in it.

That shouldn't stop you from doing any of that though, 'cause your game's happening in YTU. Plus it's just a game, so we should all run it the way that's going to provide the most enjoyment for ourselves and our players. I just wanted to run through my reasoning and after seeing it in pixel-and-white see if it still made sense.

 

[mike wightman]

There is a die mechanic staring us in the face for this sort of thing.

The MgT boon/bane...

If you as a referee looks over the character and note their training (skills) and experience (prior career) would make them wobbly in a critical situation then impose bane to the roll.

Roll 3D instead of the normal 2D and keep the lowest two numbers to resolve the throw.

Note that this works very well for a CT like saving throw only during critical situation resolution system (trust me on this) as well as the standard MgT (or even MT) task system.

If a player can role play a reason why their character should not suffer from this penalty then you have a win win situation.

 

[Ulsyus]

There is a die mechanic staring us in the face for this sort of thing.

The MgT boon/bane...
...
If a player can role play a reason why their character should not suffer from this penalty then you have a win win situation.

I never got around to purchasing the MgT rules, just some of the supplements, but that sounds like a fair idea. It also keeps it generic, maybe a little like a Flux roll in T5. I wonder if that could be adapted for those purposes...

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that a player should role-play their way through a situation, with reaction rolls only needed if if they're defaulting to roll-playing.

In a CoC campaign years ago a character I had ran into a spot of bother with some nasty beasties, lost too much SAN, and went temporarily insane. When he came out of it, the Ref and I negotiated about the consequences, and he accepted my idea of making the character an alcoholic. I'd nominate the % of ensozzlement and that would be both added to SAN and subtracted from all skill rolls. That way I was able to play the character in a manner that caused me to make a choice between keeping his marbles or falling down snoring just as the Hounds turned up to feed. We didn't have any reaction rolls in that campaign because all the players role-played their characters quite fairly.

Going back to your point though, have you used the boon/bane thing before?

 

[mike wightman]

I can't stop using it lol.

When MgT released the playtest version of it my group gave it a try - they loved it (the boon/bane) mechanic - and I noticed an increase in player description of their actions.

When I went back to my default - which these days is the CT saving throw system - the players wanted to keep the boon/bane dice rolling - they like rolling dice - and since I liked the way it encourages them to role play a bit more we kept it.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I was gonna mention Boon/Bane. But this thread's title said CT Only.

 

[Ulsyus]

the players wanted to keep the boon/bane dice rolling - they like rolling dice - and since I liked the way it encourages them to role play a bit more we kept it.

That's pretty encouraging. I've got one player who's pretty reluctant to get into character at times - a real introvert who's used games for social interaction. I might be able to get him to do a little more using this.

I'm still keen to see if I can somehow use T5 Flux for this though - just have to play around with the maths a little.

 

[mike wightman]

Total aside.

I think Marc missed a trick in not making a version of flux the core mechanic of T5.

1Dvs1D flux gives results from -5 to +5, but where it get's interesting is a flux roll of 2D vs D2, a range of results that goes from -10 to +10. This will oddly be less swingy than the 1Dv1D.
3D vs 3D for a range of -15 to +15 may actually allow ship combat range bands and sensors to be resolved...

 

[Supplement Four]

Total aside.

I think Marc missed a trick in not making a version of flux the core mechanic of T5.

Plenty Traveller fans encouraged Marc to use a 2D6, higher is better system, but he wouldn't listen. He liked the T5 mechanic too much.

That said, I'm not a fan of Flux. It's too clunky.

It's OK for a side mechanic, but I wouldn't like it at all as the main task mechanic.

 

[pendragonman]

Plenty Traveller fans encouraged Marc to use a 2D6, higher is better system, but he wouldn't listen. He liked the T5 mechanic too much.

That said, I'm not a fan of Flux. It's too clunky.

It's OK for a side mechanic, but I wouldn't like it at all as the main task mechanic.

Flux is very useful for the personals and for the QREBS, but I struggle with it otherwise.

Let us return to the CT side of the discussion.

 

[mike wightman]

Ok, back to CT.

Flux has been there behind the scenes as task resolution since the guidance to dice throws in The Traveller Adventure.

In that section the referee was encouraged to roll 2D to generate a target number for a dice throw if they couldn't come up with a number themselves.

Referee - rolls 2D

The player then rolls their usual throw on 2D

Player - rolls 2D

So you have 2D vs 2D - sound familiar?

 

[Supplement Four]

Ok, back to CT.

Flux has been there behind the scenes as task resolution since the guidance to dice throws in The Traveller Adventure.

In that section the referee was encouraged to roll 2D to generate a target number for a dice throw if they couldn't come up with a number themselves.

Referee - rolls 2D

The player then rolls their usual throw on 2D

Player - rolls 2D

So you have 2D vs 2D - sound familiar?

But, that's not quite flux. The TA suggests the Ref roll a random target number on 2D, then the player roll 2D to beat that number.

Flux would be a roll of 4D, where two of one color are subtracted from two of another color, giving a 12 to -12 result, skewing towards zero.

 

[mike wightman]

I may be being a bit thick but isn't that still a roll of 2D vs 2D?

I'll wait for the penny to drop... :devil:

 

[Supplement Four]

I may be being a bit thick but isn't that still a roll of 2D vs 2D?

I'll wait for the penny to drop... :devil:

Well, under the TA method, if the Ref rolls 8, and the player rolls 11, then the player succeeds with a result of 11.

Under Flux, if the Red Dice roll 8 and the Blue Dice roll 11, then the result is -3.

A different animal with no pennies left in his bank.



With TA, the Ref is comparing totals. Which one is higher? The skew is based on the number of dice thrown and can be independent of each roll.

With Flux, the totals are subtracted from each other to get a result that is skewed towards the center at zero.

 

[mike wightman]

Well, under the TA method, if the Ref rolls 8, and the player rolls 11, then the player succeeds with a result of 11.
Under Flux, if the Red Dice roll 8 and the Blue Dice roll 11, then the result is -3.
A different animal with no pennies left in his bank.
With TA, the Ref is comparing totals. Which one is higher? The skew is based on the number of dice thrown and can be independent of each roll.
With Flux, the totals are subtracted from each other to get a result that is skewed towards the center at zero.

The referee rolls the blue dice and the player rolls the red - does that help?

Flux combines the antagonists and the proponent into one roll of 4D which is no different to a roll of 2D vs 2D. If you really can not see that there is pretty much nothing left to say.

One last try.

Under TTA the ref rolls 2D and the player rolls 2D.

If I use flux as a resolution mechanic in T5 then the player rolls all 4D - 2D vs 2D

By the way, I hope you don't mind the drift from the original intent of your thread. I do like to discuss stuff like this with you.

 

[Supplement Four]

Flux combines the antagonists and the proponent into one roll of 4D which is no different to a roll of 2D vs 2D. If you really can not see that there is pretty much nothing left to say.

They are two different animals, with different skews.

I'm not sure what the break down here is. It's pretty simple.

Flux can be used as a modifier to a roll, or as a roll itself. The same cannot be said of the TA "REF sets target with a 2D roll and player rolls 2D for the task to beat it."

By the way, I hope you don't mind the drift from the original intent of your thread.

Threads drift. It's what they do. It never bothers me.

In fact, a lot of times, if threads don't drift, then they die.

I do like to discuss stuff like this with you.

Likewise!