Prior History - please help!

[MetalBard]

Hey, I've got the T20 rulebook, gm stuff and the Gateway Domain book, mostly based on an awesome con game I played a while back. I'm looking at running the game for my group, but I can't figure out how the prior history works.

Can anyone give me a run-down and an example of it? Maybe even one for the career track and then another for the education track?

Thanks in advance!

 

[jasper]

The Odyssey of Machinegun Frank

STEP 1) Create a first level character.
He is a human, mercenary, from a Hi-tech, Non-industrial planet.
Str 14, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12, Edu 10, Soc 10
As a first level, human, mercenary with Int 12, he has these skills:
Driving +4, Intimidate +4, Spot +4, T/Mechanical +4
Home feats and skills Feat Vessel Grav T/computer +1 T/ communications +1 t/electronics +1
(The home world skills / feats aren’t important for Prior history, except that he did NOT take Connections/Underworld and any feats did choose would be consider class skills/feats)
He is ready to go at age 18.
Feats Light Armour, Vac Suit, Combat Rifleman (CBR), Medium armour, Marksman,
Plus 2 feats one for class one human, Weapon Focus Machine Gun, Point blank shot.
What are they teaching in his high school??

STEP 2) University
a) Getting in: Frank makes an INT check with a DC of 12 (22 minus his EDU score). He rolls a d20, gets a 12, +1 for his INT bonus so 13, he gets in.

b) Graduating: He then rolls another DC 12 to see if he graduates, this time he rolls 8+1= 9 so he flunks out.
c) Results: he gets 1500 exp. Points and so is now 2nd level, and now is age 20.
d) Choices: since he is second level he must decide which class he leveled up in.
PERMITTED:
Mercenary: already a member of this class
Professional: has multiclass entry requirement Driving +4 or T/Mech +4.
Traveller: there are no requirements to multiclass into Traveller
FORBIDDEN:
Army, Navy, Marines and Scouts are forbidden since he is not in the Service Career.
Merchants: he is not working on a starship so can’t multiclass in.
Belters/Barbarians: no one may multiclass into these classes.
Rogue: he does not have Connections/underworld, so can’t multiclass in.
Academic: his Edu is too low.
Noble: his SOC is too low.

Since Frank is a street-fighting man, he decides to level up in Mercenary and leaves the university as Mercenary level 2
And choose skills and feats Feat Sneak Attack (Frank believes a fair fight is one he wins), Skills 4 (3 for level 1 for human) Move Silently +3 Gambling +1
STEP 3: First Term
ENLISTMENT: he can enter Army, Navy, Marine, Scout prior history because they are Service classes for which he meets the requirements, or he can enter the Mercenary career because he has at least 1 level in the Mercenary character class. Frank joins the Army.
CAREER: He undergoes basic training and gets 1000 xp. He then gets a garrison assignment, survives, gets 4000 xp more, and gets promoted to Corporal for an additional 1000xp. He adds the 1500xp he previously had to the 6000 xp he got for this term, giving him a total of 7500 xp, making him a 4th level character. He fails his re-enlistment roll and musters out with a low passage.
LEVEL CHOICES: He has gone from 2nd to 4th level. He may rise in Mercenary, Professional or Traveller (for the same reasons as above) or he may take his levels in Army, since he is now in the Army Prior History Career. Since this is his one chance to do so, Frank chooses Army levels and comes out as a Mercenary-2/ Army-2. He is 24 years old.
Feats (3 +1 for being human gives 4 feats. Some of Army basic feats he got as a Mercenary PMOS Cook, Brawling, WP Laser, Weapons specialization Machine Gun, Skills (10) Gambling +7 (the max skill due his level leaving him 4 pts) Pilot +2 Driving +6
He gets an ability increase +1 to Dex for being fourth level.

STEP 4: Second Term
ENLISTMENT CHOICES: he can enter Navy, Marine, Scout prior history because they are Service classes for which he meets the requirements, or he can enter the Mercenary career because he has 1 level in the Mercenary character class. He just left the Army so can’t go back. He decides to go for the Mercenary career.
CAREER: He gets a Security assignment, a commission, promotion and an ESXP bonus, for a whopping 9000 xp this term. He once again fails re-enlistment, but because he is O2 rank, he gets 2 muster out rolls: an SMG and 10,000 cr.
LEVEL CHOICES: he will become a 6th level character and has the choice of leveling up in Mercenary, Traveller, or Professional (see step 2 for reasons). He picks 1 level of Mercenary and 1 level of Traveller (looking to the future). He leaves the Mercenary company as an ex-First Lieutenant, Mercenary-3, Army-2, Traveller-1, age 28.
Feats 1 for human, 1 for traveller class he already has the others, and None for Mercenary
Jack of All trades +2.
Skills (3 for mercenary) Move Silently +5 Gamble +8 (7 skills for traveller) Driving +9 Pilot +6

STEP 5: Third Term
ENLISTMENT CHOICES: he may enter Navy, Marine or Scout Services, or the Traveller service, since now he has a level in the class. He might also return to the Army, since a term has passed since he left the service.
CAREER He decides to enter the Traveller service. He gets a job as a corporate troubleshooter (i.e. company goon) and gets bonus xp, for a total of 6000 xp this term. This brings his total to 22,500 xp. He is age 32 and his player decides to muster him out before he faces the Age Effects at age 35. He gets one muster out roll and gets a “vehicle”, and picks up a jeep.
LEVEL CHOICES: he has made 7th level. He may choose from Mercenary, Traveller or Professional, although he was in the Traveller service, busting heads is his game so he takes his final level in Mercenary.
3 skill pts Intimidate +7

FINAL RUN RESUME:
“Machinegun” Frank Urlock. Human, Age 35
Mercenary level-4, Army level-2, Traveller level-1
2 years at the university of Saramid (failed course in General Arts and Sciences),
1 term in the Imperial Army, final rank corporal,
1 term in Traytor’s Raiders mercenary company, final rank First Lieutenant
1 term in Ling Standard Products Security Department
Possessions: Submachine gun, Jeep, Low Passage, 10,000 credits. Dave nelson

Str 14, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 12, Edu 10, Soc 10
Feats Vessel Grav, Light Armour, Vac Suit, Combat Rifleman, Medium Armour, Marksman, Weapon Focus SMG (machine gun), Weapon Specialization SMG, Weapon proficiency Laser, point blank shot, precise shot, Brawling, Sneak Attack, Jack of Trades +2, PMOS cook,
Skills T/computer +1, T/communications +1, t/Electronics +1, Driving +9, Intimidate +7, Spot 4, T/Mechanical +4, Move Silently +5, Gambling +8, Pilot +6

 

[MetalBard]

Thanks! This example gives me a better idea of how the process works. Using this, I'll have to go back through my T20 book.

 

[Klaus]

I'm assuming you're already familiar with D20 style chargen?

Essentially Prior History in T20 is a way of pc's earning Experience Points before starting play, so that veteran characters with a history can be generated.

This replicates, as far as it can, in D20 terms the method of chargen in previous iterations of Traveller. There, characters earned 1 or more skills, rolled randomly from lists, for every 4 year term they served before mustering out and beginning adventuring. This was how skill levels were earned, based on what career the character followed.

In T20, Class, and Prior History, are distinct things. Class is the D20 element. Classes have corresponding Prior Histories, but you don't have to always take a level in the Class whose Prior History your character is following, and earning XP from.

The education and career track can be intermingled. For instance:
An 18 year old human takes Professional as her first class. She has already rolled her planetary background. She assigns her feats and skill points from her class, level 1*. Before commencing her career she opts for some higher education. She goes to university: in her case for 3 years, earning 3000xp and the other benefits. She's now level 3.

*not compulsory, see below

Now she assigns her feats and skills for her next 2 levels. She has already picked C/Underworld as one of her feats, so she decides to multiclass into Rogue for level 2, gaining more feats and class skills, and then go up to level 2 in Professional for the third one.

Now she begins her career. She has a choice over which Prior History to pick: Professional, Rogue, or even Traveller, which is open to any class at any time. She picks Rogue, rolls Freelancing, makes her survival roll, makes her XP roll, and even makes her Cash Bonus roll. She gains 7000xp and 10Kcr, becoming Character Level 5. Currently Professional 2, Rogue 1, she ups Rogue and takes a level in Traveller, for some spaceship skills.

Now she is Prof 2, Rogue 2, Trav 1, with 1 term of Prior History, and a BSc, at class lvl 5. She is 25

She rolls to continue employment (re-enlist) in the Rogue PH, and makes it, but then fails her survival roll for smuggling. The group is broken, but she escapes, effectively discharged after 1 year. She can roll 1 benefit on the Rogue tables when she musters out

Now 26, but still lvl 5, she embarks on the career/PH of Traveller, earning 4000xp and a benefit roll on the respective tables. With 14000xp total, she is still only lvl 5. She opts to go back to college for a post-grad, making all the rolls. Now with 15500xp, she is 6th level. She takes another Rogue level (for BAB), becoming Rogue 3, Prof 2, Trav 1, 32 years old, with a post-grad. |(Call it MA Xeno-Archeology, and with her shady background, she's like a slightly younger Vash from ST:TNG etc.)

She has 2 mustering out benefits, one for each term of Prior History. She rolls for cash on Rogue, getting 30Kcr, and Material for Traveller, wow, gaining a ship, probably a Type S.

*you don't have to spend skill pints as you gain levels; you could do it all at mustering out. However, this should be up to the Ref, as Intelligence gains during PH will affect the final number of skills points. ie: a pc has int 15 at level 1, then at lvl 4 it goes up to 16, eventually mustering out at lvl 8 - applying skill points as you go, he gets 14 bonus skill points for lvls 1-4, and 12 points 5-8, total 26. If you count up after the Int gain, he'll get 33 bonus skill points. Discuss how you're going to run this before play.

Some classes work differently. The Service classes require you to serve a term in the relevant PH. You can only gain levels in these classes while in their own PH. However, it doesn't stop you multiclassing into another class (non-service).

In Classic Traveller, one CG system had a series of schools that characters could attend during Prior History, if they rolled right, such as Intelligence School, Commando School, Specialist School. You could replicate this in some way by allowing a serving Marine or Navy character to take a level in Rogue, Mercenary, and Professional respectively.

Belters and Barbarians start PH at 14. It may be possible for someone to be a Belter 14-18, serving one term, then joing the Imperial Navy and serving a career there.

In T20 players can develop whatever skills they want. Prior History in no way confines which skills and feats can be chosen. This is one of the places where T20 diverges from CT/MT in spirit and tone

I hope this has been helpful. I don't have the time right now for a fuller exposition of Prior History. Just be aware that is quite a bit of give, or conversely, vagueness, in how to impelment PH. Probably best to run it as a mini game (as it was back in the day), discussing it with your player as it goes on. Helping him/her decide which skills and feats would make sense, developing a background as you go, that will feel lived in, rather than tacked on.

It prevents every party being a bunch of wide-eyed 18 year olds.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Jasper,

Just an FYI, you gave him Starting Feats: "+1 for Human" twice. But that gave me a much better understanding, too.

Thanks,

Dameon

 

[MetalBard]

Alright, I went back to my book and ran through the process again. I've got it down now. Thanks so much everyone! I'll probably refer back to this thread once I get other people in my group developing prior histories as well.

 

[MetalBard]

Sorry, one more question. I ran into a snag with the benefits. You earn benefit rolls and choose whether to roll for cash or material benefits, I get that. But how do you actually roll for benefits? It's a table with 7 entries. I must be missing something, because I cannot think of a die roll combination that has seven possible results.

 

[mike wightman]

You get a +1 bonus for achieving a certain rank - O5 and above.

Look at page 126, just under the second table.

 

[MetalBard]

Ohhh, so those benefits at number seven are only open to those who get +1 to their benefits rolls. I saw the benefits bonus but it didn't occur to me that that was the case. Thanks!

 

[Rover]

Also, you get a +1 on the cash table if you have gambling skill

Rover

 

[Laryssa]

Wonder why they don't have prior history in D&D? You could start with a 10th level fighter or a 15th level wizard ready to take on the minions of Hell!

I think the best way to gain prior experience is to start at 1st level and have the GM give you a 1st level adventure and allow your character to accumulate experience points and advance your character.

Starting off with an accomplished character sort of takes some of the fun out of it.

Is the reason because Traveller T20 is a killing field at 1st level, and most characters don't survive? Well its a challenge for the GM to come up with a first level adventure that does not kill off the character before they advance. Are any GMs up to this task? If not, then its not really plausible how a character could have had a prior history that brough him to midlevel unless he was very very lucky.

Earning experience points while sitting in college and taking notes at a lecture seems rather improbable to me.

 

[princelian]

I'm guessing here, Laryssa, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but you never played CT or MT, did you? Prior History is a STAPLE of Traveller, going all the way back to the Little Black Books (let them be praised).

The very concept was groundbreaking at the time: "We're playing experienced veterans who know what they're DOING? Amazing!!!"

There's nothing that stops you from playing out pieces of the PCs' careers, although that will require some uniformity of background. For example, you could role-play out the characters' term in the Imperial Army, which you as GM require that all of them take for their fifth-from-the-last-term term. You can create a little mini-campaign centered around the time their unit was dropped on <Frozen Hellhole>/Rhylanor/Spinward Marches and their support ship was destroyed so they were on their own for three months during the Fourth Frontier War. Army unit is nice, because you have a cast of extras to have the armored polars bears eat. (In Star Trek they're referred to as "red shirts," but they're all expendable monster/trap demonstrators.)

I'm making this up as I go, but you can see the drift, I hope.

Then you could go on to the rest of their careers as they went their disparate ways, and then bring them all back together after Prior History: a 20-year reunion of the survivors of Frozen Hellhole, but then <PLOT HOOK> happens and one of the surviving officers (the beloved Colonel Turns-out-he's-a-red-shirt) is found murdered in his hotel room.

In fact, this approach answers one of my problems in Traveller campaigns - even RPG campaigns in general - why are these people with such varied and disparate backgrounds adventuring - even owning a ship if you use the system in TNE - together? In D&D, you have the "adventurers gathering at Ye Ol' Inn," or variants, but they get old.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Laryssa:
Wonder why they don't have prior history in D&D? You could start with a 10th level fighter or a 15th level wizard ready to take on the minions of Hell!

Actually, AD&D did have a section of the DM Guide that went into how to create high level characters to start a game or campaign without slogging through all those low level adventures.

As for the rest princelian pretty well sums it up.

For my part, his idea of the 20 year reunion is the one I prefer for the conundrum of why are these guys together and so trusting (generally) of each other?

When setting up games in my favorite setting, the Marches post 5FW, I usually just played the ref card and presupposed that at one point they ended up in some action together and became a fast band of brothers then looked each other up after the peace for a reunion.

D&D was always looser and less concerned with why the group was together or what they wanted to do, since none of them had any history or (too often) personalites. Instead they had "alignments", which some seldom seemed to play. They were usually just the first unknowns to answer some random call for help and stuck together out of necessity. And the main goal always seemed to be "kill things to go up a level" which always bothered me as rather pointless.

Traveller always seemed a step or several above this. The characters HAD "character" and usually some idea of what they wanted to do, which almost never involved "kill things" for whatever motivation. It was like D&D was the juvenile game of make believe heroes battling evil while Traveller was the mature game of dreams of real people of the far future in space. Not that there's anything wrong with the first, it just grew tiresome after a time and I could never find a ref that seemed able to take it to another level.

Doing some D&D "prior history" or using the DM Guide method of high level party building wouldn't change the basic tenet. You'd still have a hack-n-slash game of "kill monsters to go up a level" game. The only difference would be the monsters would be tougher (your minions of Hell) and the level attained would be higher. You have to decouple the whole "levels" and "experience points" from D&D to change the game. While Traveller (at least for some of us who've been around) even in T20 with it's levels and experience points remains grounded in its roots. I suppose that could be quite different for those coming into the game fresh through T20 and expecting a rollicking kick ass adventure game like D&D. And again, nothing wrong with that kind of game, though T20 isn't really set up for it with the lethality of combat and lack of simple good vs evil ideas.

I dunno, now I'm just rambling, 'nuff old codger muttering, fer a while

 

[princelian]

far-trader:

Traveller always seemed a step or several above this. The characters HAD "character" and usually some idea of what they wanted to do, which almost never involved "kill things" for whatever motivation.

It was - and is - exactly that reason the Prior History system is so wonderful. As I've posted elsewhere, my 14-year old son generated some T20 characters with me while I was getting familiar with the system. His favorite character and the one he wanted to play was a noble. At the time, I believed you had to take levels in the class that matches the Prior History career, which is NOT the case, but there it was.

Anyhow, this character had great stats and my son rolled pretty luckily for outcome. He ended up a full Count and with three "yacht" benefits (so he had 50% of it paid off; he actually chose to have an old, paid-off ship after he found out what the payments were), and he really, really wanted to play this character when the campaign actually gets going.

And at first, I thought it was because of all the stats and goodies and such; typical munchkinism that I'd expect from a younger player like him.

But that wasn't it at ALL. He'd rolled some close calls (barely-made survival rolls) as well as different types of service - Grand Tour, etc. - and he had already started making up a character story about what the noble had been doing, his motivation to impress his father, etc.

He was focusing on the character, not the combat ability or stuff! I have adult players who don't develop their characters as much as my son did in that hour or so of Prior History generation, and that's where Traveller stands so very far above other RPGs.

That's where it was always superior, and T20 is actually better in many regards than CT for Prior History, because your class levels aren't completely bound to your career choices.

 

[mike wightman]

The thing I like most about T20 prior history is th ability to change careers. It allows for a much more rounded character.

 

[stofsk]

Your first term in the Scout class: do you get to roll on the XP bonus?

 

[far-trader]

Nope, pg 124 Basic Training (for Army, Navy, Marines or Scouts) specifically prohibits the XP bonus (among other notes) for the first term. You do get an automatic 1000XP bonus for Basic Training though.

 

[stofsk]

And the 4000 XP for survival? Just so we're clear.

 

[far-trader]

Yep, 4000XP basic if you make your survival roll, and another 1000XP bonus if you make the roll exactly for a work related injury (getting hurt teaches faster ) but no Purple Hearts in the IISS, that's for those wussies in the Army, Navy and Marines who have to show they got hurt with some medal. Personally I think the PH award should only happen if you make the survival roll exactly while in a combat assignment.

 

[stofsk]

I'm working on the prior history of one of my players. She wants to play an engineer and general Ms Fix-it, and took the belter for her first level.

She thought it meant that she had to take a career term in Belter first, before anything - including university. I'm an amenable Ref, so I was prepared to shrug and say "Whichever you want, uni or career first" - she still chose the career.

Anyway, she made the survival roll so she got 4000XP, ergo after her first term she's 3rd level and 18 years old. Those three levels; are they all put into the Belter class?

University; she studies a bachelor in Engineering/Applied Sciences. Graduates, with honours. 4000XP, she's 22 and 4th level. This level up, again what class can it be put into?

She joins the Scouts (because it's a scout campaign and I want at least ONE of my players to be an active or detached scout, goddamit), does a term including basic training, which garners her 5000XP. Unfortunately she's 2K short of clvl6, but that's ok, it's all about role playing. Her fifth level is Scout, obviously.

So my question to you (because she asked me) is what other classes beyond at least one level of Belter and one level of Scout can she have? She wants to have a level in Professional (Engineer after all), which I'm happy with - but she asked me what the break up would be, and I confess I'm not too sure.

Belter 3, Professional 1, Scout 1? (I have a feeling this is the way the rules say it *has* go)

Belter 2, Professional 2, Scout 1? (One extra feat, can't say no to that, this is the optimal break up)

Belter 1, Professional, Scout 2/2, or 3/1 or 1/3?