1,001 Characters -- are the characteristics a little low?

[apoc527]

I'm just wondering what everyone thinks--compared to the basic NPCs in the Core Book, many of the NPCs in 1,001 Characters seem to have very low stats, especially the military types. I see a lot of 5s and 6s, so is this typical for chargen or is it low?

Thanks!

 

[The Chef]

maybe they played it the way they rolled it???

 

[Treebore]

I think they generate those on average rolls, and don't make any assumptions on modifiers that would occur through full character generation.

Personally, those things are templates, and I modify them to be whatever I want.

 

[BP]

I see a lot of 5s and 6s, so is this typical for chargen or is it low?

If one generated these values by a computer- that doesn't sound at all unusual. The mean average of a random range of numbers 2-12 would nominally be 11/2 or 5.5.

This would happen if one used a computer to generate the (psuedo-)random number between 2 and 12, and didn't take into account the fact, that in the RW, that range comes from using 2 die with a range of 1-6 each.

With 2 die, this would actually be 7, IIRC, since it has the greatest number of unique possible combinations (1+6,2+5,3+4,4+3,5+2,6+1) and would be the median (most common) average.

 

[hdan]

I see a lot of 5s and 6s, so is this typical for chargen or is it low?

If one generated these values by a computer- that doesn't sound at all unusual.

Though I would hope anyone writing a computer program to generate Traveller (or any nD6 probabilities) would generate multiple 1-6 values and sum them, it is worth noting that in CT, many characters with less than 7's appear in both the patrons book and the "stock characters" included with most adventures.

 

[BP]

... I would hope anyone writing a computer program to generate Traveller (or any nD6 probabilities) would generate multiple 1-6 values and sum them...

:lol:

Haha - one would hope that computers capable of billions of operations per second would be instantaneously responsive... You can keep on hoping - if using a modern OS you'll have plenty of time

... it is worth noting that in CT, many characters with less than 7's appear in both the patrons book and the "stock characters" included with most adventures....

I seem to recall some 'low skill level' BASIC programs from GDW at the time

Of course, it is also human nature to focus on the lower numbers and see them statistically in an inaccurate light. Stats less than 7 should be just as common as stats above 7.

If the number of characters is low, this does not have to be even close to holding true - since we are just talking statistics, which can easy be invalidated, especially in low sample counts.