Prior History/Fate Points

[princelian]

First off, greetings to you all. I've recently received my copy of T20 and it's *mostly* what I always wanted Traveller to be. I've played the game since 1978 or so and have faithfully followed it through its many incarnations.

My post has to do with character creation. In CT, I instituted a system called "Fate Points" for background. Each character had one to start out and got one per term (so could use 2 on Term 1). These FPs could be used to reroll one 2D roll - stat generation, enlistment, survival, promotion, whatever (furthermore, the person could just accept a roll of 7, which was handy, if they chose to do so before the roll).

This produced stronger characters and was very helpful for players with a strong background in mind. For example, if you wanted to play a Naval hero of the Fourth Frontier War, and you blew reenlistment on Term 1, that made it a little more difficult for such a background.

(That's not always bad - my best character, as a player, of all time was [unfairly through betrayal] forced out of the Navy into the Merchant service.)

Anyhow, as years went on, I decided that players got a flat 7 FPs and had limits on how many they could use when - 2 on stat rerolls, 2 per term, unlimited for mustering out.

My question for T20 is this - would such a system be too unbalancing in the d20-based system? It was never a problem in CT/MT, and led to more experienced characters which fit in my preferred Heroic PC's style.

Thanks!

 

[tjoneslo]

I would say no. The Prior history system itself is unbalancing from a D20 perspective, because it allows characters to start at different levels. The ability to tailor your prior history path is a good idea, and will go a long way toward making the D20 people like it more.

 

[opensent]

Yeah, people it seems, like choice. Who knew?

 

[Spud]

When we were playing CT in the late seventies, we allowed two rolls on each table for skills and developement, But! if you roll one new skill and one you already have, you must go with the one you already have. (figure the Imperium doesn't want you to have a bunch of skills at -1 or -2.)

 

[princelian]

Thanks for the input. The system might be Advantage: Min/Maxers, but they seem to always get the advantage anyhow....

One of the things I was happy to see with the new system was that High Guard/Mercenary character development wasn't evident. There is an advantage to a service career - more xp from decorations, for example - over the non-service ones, but it's not night and day as it was in CT with the High Guard/Mercenary/Merchant Prince rules....

(That's just my 2 centicredits.)

I loved the more powerful characters you got from the military books, but not that the other backgrounds didn't have the same advantage...

 

[Rover]

We use a system we call luck points. Characters Get 1 point per level. They can be used to change an outcome. Kind of a get out of jail free card. They can elect to use it during character generation or during play. It can change an outcome. During play luck points can turn a hit into a miss, or vice versa, make a hit into a critical, make a save etc. During character generation it can any survival, promo, commission or decoration roll or allow a re-roll on a mustering out table.

Once expended, luck points do not regenerate. You only get a new one when you go up a level. The only other restriction is that characters cannot use luck points to resolve conflicts between themselves be it combat or rolling to see who gets to own the nifty alien artifact.

It takes the edge off Character gen and makes for a less deadly game, but at some the character’s luck will run out.

Jim