AlphaStrike
Mongoose
Just curious really - how do people handle advancement and character development in their Traveller campaigns?
Advancement in Traveller?
- Thread starter AlphaStrike
- Start date
My campaigns usually have a lot of "off time" between the adventures,
which gives the characters an opportunity to improve their skills, and I
have a house rule system for various types of training for this.
As for other kinds of advancement, I use the SOC value as a base. The
characters can increase or reduce their SOC value through their actions,
and social and other positions require a minimum SOC value to give the
character a chance to be elected or promoted into them.
which gives the characters an opportunity to improve their skills, and I
have a house rule system for various types of training for this.
As for other kinds of advancement, I use the SOC value as a base. The
characters can increase or reduce their SOC value through their actions,
and social and other positions require a minimum SOC value to give the
character a chance to be elected or promoted into them.
I use a combination of down time for skill training (what ELSE are you going to do for a week in jump?) and ad hoc assessments. If a character makes a point of reading technical manuals at every opportunity, after a few (in game) months of this, I may allow them to take a technical aptitude test on a planet and gain Mechanic 0. Similarly if they have a string of good rolls (11s and 12s) in one skill, I may rule that their knowledge is increasing and bump their skill up by one.
Overall I prefer the ad hoc approach, although it depends on whether your players are more into role play or roll play (and now I feel old for referencing the split).
Overall I prefer the ad hoc approach, although it depends on whether your players are more into role play or roll play (and now I feel old for referencing the split).
AlphaStrike
Mongoose
No, no - don't feel old, feel experienced. 
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
I tend to stick to the "learning new skills " section fromn the MgT core book, which makes skill acquistion quite time consuming. This is deliberate, as want to get away from the obsession with levels, experience points and skill development that bedevils many rpgs.
Not sure about doing a lot of learning in jump, the crew will be seeing to the maintence of ship, passengers and cargo, on a warship the time will be taken to run drills and dry exercises. Tend to rule that if you are going to learn a new skill, you must spend weeks doing so, while staying in pretty much the same location.
I know that this opens up the can of worms about how some skills are more difficult to learn than others, but lets not go there on this thread!
Egil
Not sure about doing a lot of learning in jump, the crew will be seeing to the maintence of ship, passengers and cargo, on a warship the time will be taken to run drills and dry exercises. Tend to rule that if you are going to learn a new skill, you must spend weeks doing so, while staying in pretty much the same location.
I know that this opens up the can of worms about how some skills are more difficult to learn than others, but lets not go there on this thread!
Egil
The problem with this is that if you have players coming from a system that uses that type of progression you have to really work to change their attitudes about what "character progression" actually is. I had a group of D&D players who refused to get off the ship until they'd spent close to a year in-game raising their skills to what they deemed suitable levels. If you have players that are the type to obsess, they'll find something in their stats to obsess about.Egil Skallagrimsson said:
This problem can be circumvented by having players describe their character without using game terms, and then generating character sheets that only the GM sees, but that's derailing the thread a bit so I'll stop there.
Matian said:
Didn't they run out of fuel (even if they never jumped, the ship needs fuel for the power plant, and fuel costs money, which needs to come from somewhere)? Not to mention being hunted down for not paying the ship's mortgage, which would force them to actually do things.
GamerDude
Cosmic Mongoose
Ok, I'm tired of beating my head on the desk when I hear about "randomness kills what I want to play".opensent said:
To me, this is just a bunch of BS... merely people who don't get that life offers no guarantees, that you don't always get what you want, that each individual is 'random' in how their parent's gene's came together (unless your believes include the higher power, intelligent design etc.)
Wahhh I didn't get my Jack 3, and my Science (everything) at 'five'... I won't go anywhere until I train them up!
I have no idea when this concept of "No matter the system, I must be more 'uber' than the 'most uber possible character in the game' " crap came from.
This is ROLE-playing, take the rolls and work with them. Let me guess, everyone just re-rolls all their mishaps, their skill rolls, their events rolls until they get what they "WANT" instead of being a slave to the randomness of the dice.
Y'know what? if you don't like the dice rolling, that randomness... use the stinking point buy system and make the exact character you want! Oh wait, the points given won't let you get the skill levels you want and wahhhh you don't want to take more terms (making an older character). Pfftt crybabies all.
Here's a challenge for you: Play a Traveller char or D&D char with 'average' stats. Meaning take all "10s" in D&D and all "7s" in Traveller. Now ROLE-play that character. I've done it... 15th level human fighter in 3rd Ed I gave him all "10s" (after the ability bumps for 4th, 8th, 12th levels) and ZERO magic items. Rolled all his hit points even first level. Yet my character was the one who defeated the gargantuan black dragon! How? you ask? because I think, I role play, and 'PARLAY!' is in my vocabulary while everyone else was playing "ohh, let me run around showing off special abilities even though this thing is twice as big as anything we could hope to kill".
Yeah I hear ya.. gawd forbid you actually take on the challenge of playing a 'sub-par' character and making the best of it... yep, gawd forbid.
:lol: lol :lol:
I'm sure there are small subsets of people who like paying (this is not an inexpensive hobby) for the privilege of playing subpar characters. You appear to be one. But a lot of people don’t.
And I think most modern forms of gaming skew toward the later point of view my friend. In Halo, you play a Spartan. In Call of Duty MW2, a SAS Trooper (or Marine). In Black Ops, you play CIA SAD contract operative.
But hey, I hear they have guys like you covered in the next version:
http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/
I'm sure there are small subsets of people who like paying (this is not an inexpensive hobby) for the privilege of playing subpar characters. You appear to be one. But a lot of people don’t.
And I think most modern forms of gaming skew toward the later point of view my friend. In Halo, you play a Spartan. In Call of Duty MW2, a SAS Trooper (or Marine). In Black Ops, you play CIA SAD contract operative.
But hey, I hear they have guys like you covered in the next version:
http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/
GamerDude
Cosmic Mongoose
Ahh yes, the small mind who sees "computer shooters" as the exact equivalent to "role playing characters" In acutallity, your little computer characters are 'ubered up' because you can't handle playing real people. And then the next game needs bigger badder adversary's but wait! That means bigger badder characters to play.opensent said:
It's the never ending cycle of power creep. You see roleplaying as "underpowerd/sub-par", because you see the computer games characters as being 'on par' which they are not, they are way above par. You can't play "normal", you can only play totally overpowered non-realistic characters that are expected to dominate. again a never ending cycle fueled in part by your inability to deal with anything but the highest levels of power.
Why do so many men go out and buy "big equipment" (in anything they do?) To make up for a lack of big 'equipment'. My equipment is just fine thank you, and I'm a ROLE player, not a over powered compensation for male inadequacies.
Rikr Strumpf
Mongoose
AlphaStrike said:
We started with the Core Rulebook system - found ti too gamey. Then I tried my own system - too "real." Finally I settled on the Living Traveller point system - I like awarding the PCs with adventure points so they can improve as they will. The PCs like it and so do I as they don't become gods but steadily improve . . . . BTW, despite not using the Core Rulebook rule, LOVE Mongoose Traveller.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Yeah, I can see how there might be a need to "retrain" some players, esp from a D &D background. To be honest, if they wanted to spend a year sitting in their ship send someone in to throw them out (port authoriteis? ship repossession for non-payment of mortagage etc).Matian said:
Traveller offers a very different view of roleplaying than most rpgs, and computer games. Some players, IMHO the more mature and intelligent, will enjoy that, others will freak out and rush back to a system with comforting levels of "+5 vorpral flamebrand giant killing mittens". (Yes, and I played a lot of AD&D when I was a spotty teenager, now find that rather bland and uninteresting)
Re: GamerDude. Agreed, excellent posts!
Egil
"Subpar characters" ...opensent said:
My aim in roleplaying, and my way to have fun with it, is to create an in-
teresting story ("series of adventures") with an equally interesting back-
ground ("setting"). Most of my inspiration for this comes from real world
history, where almost all of the "heroes" were average people with ave-
rage abilities ("subpar characters") who usually faced their problems with
rather inadequate means. That they managed to succeed despite all of
their shortcomings is what made them "heroes".
For me, a "super character" with "super skills" and "super equipment" who
is almost guaranteed to defeat whatever a setting may throw at him is a
most boring character, because there is no player brain sweat required to
roleplay such a character, and his "triumphs" feel stale, because a child
would have achieved the same with such a character.
So, yes, I would prefer one of those "subpar characters", because his suc-
cess would most probably be the result of my skill as a player and my abi-
lity to roleplay him well, and not the result of a couple of numbers on a
character sheet ...
rust said:
So you need a game system that does that for you? :roll:
The last character I made (using TW2013 - a system MGT could learn a lot from in the play-testing and editing department) is a competent military Special Forces medic, who has PTSD, suicidal tendencies; he's an alcoholic (in Afghanistan no less), who also tends to snap when under fire.
He’s a unique character because of the choices I made, not random, asinine choices the game system made for me.
There's nothing inherently nobler about role playing a loser as opposed to playing someone who is actually competent at what they do.
Maybe someone wants to play an 'Unforgiven' type character, or 'Preacher' from Pale Rider (or Josh Wheadon's rip-off). This system very rarely gives them that chance.
A "loser" character is defined by his lack of success, either because of badopensent said:
decisions by his player or by bad luck, but not by the numbers on his cha-
racter sheet, and even a most competent character can easily be turned
into a "loser" by a fumbling player. So, whether a character becomes a
"loser" has not much to do with the way he is created or the skills he has,
but it has a lot to do with how well he is played.
CosmicGamer
Mongoose
um, isn't this the same as what you are complaining about; an inability to handle the randomness of peoples posts and just deal with it and move on?
I see this more as a problem with the GM/Players not being on the same page. If a player has a specific type of character in mind, the random rolls definitely can play a huge factor. "I want to be a scientist." Oops, one failed qual and you never get the chance.
Exactly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using one of the alternate chargen methods so that there is less randomness.
The point limit is up to the GM. And as always, whatever skill or stats the PC's have, their oponents can still be as good or better or more numerous or... being GM can be fun.
Perhaps I do want to play a sub par character but the random rolls make them far from it? Complaints about randomness are not always about being supermen.
I've seen GM's make players use premades or make a new player use the character left by a player who left the game because there is a character with specific skills/characteristics is needed to fit the adventure.
Indeed. For my next campaign, a historical fantasy one, I will give theCosmicGamer said:
players some background information on the setting, a theme for their
characters ("young noble, recently knighted") and a pre-generated cha-
racter as an example of what a "standard" character of that kind would
look like. It is then up to the players whether they generate their cha-
racters randomly, with a point buy system or by reading the tea leaves.
I will accept every character that does plausibly fit into the setting and
does not contradict the rules.
