So, you've failed your survival roll...

[RobertFisher]

I was wondering if anyone ever came up with some charts to randomly determine the results of a missed survival roll.

Maybe something along the lines of...

2: Honorable discharge
3-6: Dishonorable discharge
7-9: Injury
10: Severe injury
11: Loss of limb
12: Death

& you could have subtables to determine some details.

(& yes, just making it up works beautifully, but I was wondering if anyone had done anything like this.)

 

[RobertFisher]

I was wondering if anyone ever came up with some charts to randomly determine the results of a missed survival roll.

Maybe something along the lines of...

2: Honorable discharge
3-6: Dishonorable discharge
7-9: Injury
10: Severe injury
11: Loss of limb
12: Death

& you could have subtables to determine some details.

(& yes, just making it up works beautifully, but I was wondering if anyone had done anything like this.)

 

[Malenfant]

T20 has tables for all its careers like this.

Again though, I boggle that any sane game designer would actually put the option of dying into character generation. "I know! Let's have players rolling up characters for half an hour, and then have them waste their time at the end of it all because they randomly rolled that their character was dead, and they start again! Won't that be a lark!"

(sorry. Got a thing about that )

 

[Malenfant]

T20 has tables for all its careers like this.

Again though, I boggle that any sane game designer would actually put the option of dying into character generation. "I know! Let's have players rolling up characters for half an hour, and then have them waste their time at the end of it all because they randomly rolled that their character was dead, and they start again! Won't that be a lark!"

(sorry. Got a thing about that )

 

[clementk]

My favorite part of the Gurps Traveller main book allows for random chargen death by rolling a d6. If you get below a 3 the character sheet is pitched.

At least Call of Cthulhu waits until *after* chargen is done.

I would not have such a chart be totally random, say modified by how badly the survival roll was missed.

The chargen section on Traveller Central has some other examples. They're not much of an improvment IMO from base CT.

I used the Entertainer chargen for a CT pbem that never took off. I could not get a street entertainer, as in musicians and the like I *think*, character past chargen without losing more than one limb or dying. So faced with choosing between playing a blackballed dead street entertainer missing two limbs, a drunk semi-famous pianist, or a circus entertainer with some space skills but no fame or credits I went with the latter.

Oh well, Asu turned out ok enough. ^_^

Casey
[EDIT]Added last 2 paragraphs, rephrased 1st[/EDIT]

 

[clementk]

My favorite part of the Gurps Traveller main book allows for random chargen death by rolling a d6. If you get below a 3 the character sheet is pitched.

At least Call of Cthulhu waits until *after* chargen is done.

I would not have such a chart be totally random, say modified by how badly the survival roll was missed.

The chargen section on Traveller Central has some other examples. They're not much of an improvment IMO from base CT.

I used the Entertainer chargen for a CT pbem that never took off. I could not get a street entertainer, as in musicians and the like I *think*, character past chargen without losing more than one limb or dying. So faced with choosing between playing a blackballed dead street entertainer missing two limbs, a drunk semi-famous pianist, or a circus entertainer with some space skills but no fame or credits I went with the latter.

Oh well, Asu turned out ok enough. ^_^

Casey
[EDIT]Added last 2 paragraphs, rephrased 1st[/EDIT]

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

IIRC, I kind of liked the way the T5 playtest document was going to handle the survival rolls...if you blew it you actually determined which stats were injured and if the injury reduction was permanent. If it wasn't permanent no problem, if it was, after a certain amount of permanent damage, you would be required to take a disability muster out. Still requires a little GM oversight to keep things 'cool' but it was a neat variation on the idea.

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

IIRC, I kind of liked the way the T5 playtest document was going to handle the survival rolls...if you blew it you actually determined which stats were injured and if the injury reduction was permanent. If it wasn't permanent no problem, if it was, after a certain amount of permanent damage, you would be required to take a disability muster out. Still requires a little GM oversight to keep things 'cool' but it was a neat variation on the idea.

 

[Malenfant]

Still, why have survival rolls in the first place? The whole point of chargen is to make a character that you can play - if he's dead, then you can't play him!

(Though I'd argue that the point of chargen is to make a character that you want to play, but it's not like you have any choice about anything in CT chargen since it's entirely random).

 

[Malenfant]

Still, why have survival rolls in the first place? The whole point of chargen is to make a character that you can play - if he's dead, then you can't play him!

(Though I'd argue that the point of chargen is to make a character that you want to play, but it's not like you have any choice about anything in CT chargen since it's entirely random).

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

True...and one of the first things I've ignored since day 1 with traveller is the whole 'sorry, your character just died, please start over' deal. As you've stated, its just plain silly.

On the other hand, if you are using the character generation system to give your character a past, it makes sense to allow for the possibility of the character having been seriously injured at some point in their past.

When using the purely random chargen from CT I usually play a little fast and loose with it...things like: it won't kill a character unless the player wants it to and allowing the player to pick the table the skill is coming from after they make the roll. The skill selection tweak still ends up with characters who aquired odd skills during their past while allowing the player to better steer the character in the desired direction.

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

True...and one of the first things I've ignored since day 1 with traveller is the whole 'sorry, your character just died, please start over' deal. As you've stated, its just plain silly.

On the other hand, if you are using the character generation system to give your character a past, it makes sense to allow for the possibility of the character having been seriously injured at some point in their past.

When using the purely random chargen from CT I usually play a little fast and loose with it...things like: it won't kill a character unless the player wants it to and allowing the player to pick the table the skill is coming from after they make the roll. The skill selection tweak still ends up with characters who aquired odd skills during their past while allowing the player to better steer the character in the desired direction.

 

[Wayne]

I have never had a problem with the survival roll. It gave me and my fellow players an idea how deadly the TU was.

As to the reason for having survival rolls. I've always thought it was to get the players to end char gen before the max term limit, the aging crisis also helped with this. Other wise, at least with the people I played with, you end up having a bunch of 50+ year old pc.

One nearly failed survival roll, and most of my fellow player end char gen and start to play the game.

 

[Wayne]

I have never had a problem with the survival roll. It gave me and my fellow players an idea how deadly the TU was.

As to the reason for having survival rolls. I've always thought it was to get the players to end char gen before the max term limit, the aging crisis also helped with this. Other wise, at least with the people I played with, you end up having a bunch of 50+ year old pc.

One nearly failed survival roll, and most of my fellow player end char gen and start to play the game.

 

[Wayne]

To add to my above post.

Survival rolls came with the char gen which had a limited character types path (military service, merchant, and 'other'). Of the 6 original character types, all but the merchant have a risk of death to them in the 'real world'. Add in the 'working in space' factor and all the carries have a risk of death.

Now the survival rolls for some of the character types brought in Sup 4 CotI seem silly to me.

 

[Wayne]

To add to my above post.

Survival rolls came with the char gen which had a limited character types path (military service, merchant, and 'other'). Of the 6 original character types, all but the merchant have a risk of death to them in the 'real world'. Add in the 'working in space' factor and all the carries have a risk of death.

Now the survival rolls for some of the character types brought in Sup 4 CotI seem silly to me.

 

[Malenfant]

Yes, but while the risk of death is there, presumably the characters that are being played should by default have been the ones to survive. Anyone who died isn't going to be available for play, obviously.

It's kinda like knowing there's a star system in a hex, going through the process of building it system, but then finding that through random rolls there aren't any stars there at all. Which means you just wasted your time for nothing. Obviously, the fact that a system is there on the map means that there's a star there. It's the same with characters - if you want to play a character, you know he can't have died during his creation.

 

[Malenfant]

Yes, but while the risk of death is there, presumably the characters that are being played should by default have been the ones to survive. Anyone who died isn't going to be available for play, obviously.

It's kinda like knowing there's a star system in a hex, going through the process of building it system, but then finding that through random rolls there aren't any stars there at all. Which means you just wasted your time for nothing. Obviously, the fact that a system is there on the map means that there's a star there. It's the same with characters - if you want to play a character, you know he can't have died during his creation.

 

[Ranger]

Two observations.

First, the "real world" aspect. The game was designed in the late 70s by a guy who was an Army Officer in Vietnam after graduating from college. In that enviroment, survival roles make perfect sense. Even excluding casualties from Vietnam, the Navy was running a 25% fatality rate of it's pilots in the course of a 20 year career in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Second, the game aspect. CG was a "game within a game." It was fun to do even if you didn't play the character. I can remember a bunch of us just sitting around seeing what kind of characters we could generate. It's not overly time consuming either. With basic CG you can crank out half a dozen characters in an hour without any problem. There is also the, 'hey, this character sucks, I guess I'll try the scouts and hope he dies, and if he doesn't I might get a ship out of it' factor (not that I ever thought that more than a couple of times).

 

[Ranger]

Two observations.

First, the "real world" aspect. The game was designed in the late 70s by a guy who was an Army Officer in Vietnam after graduating from college. In that enviroment, survival roles make perfect sense. Even excluding casualties from Vietnam, the Navy was running a 25% fatality rate of it's pilots in the course of a 20 year career in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Second, the game aspect. CG was a "game within a game." It was fun to do even if you didn't play the character. I can remember a bunch of us just sitting around seeing what kind of characters we could generate. It's not overly time consuming either. With basic CG you can crank out half a dozen characters in an hour without any problem. There is also the, 'hey, this character sucks, I guess I'll try the scouts and hope he dies, and if he doesn't I might get a ship out of it' factor (not that I ever thought that more than a couple of times).