an observation

[Claybor]

The vast majority of NPC's and example characters throughout most of the books have very high attributes. There are few if any under 6, and most are more in the range of 8's and 9's across the board. Having rolled up quite a few characters, there is no way these are a sampling of 'actual' rolled characters. This is not in any way a complaint, it's just someting I looked at wondering whether I should be more generous in attribute generation with my players.

 

[Custodian]

Have you considered that they might have been generated using a point-based system?

 

[Infojunky]

Note the point based system in the TMB results in characters with higher Attributes and skills....

 

[Claybor]

Ooops I had not looked at the point based creation that closely, and I guess I foolishly assumed that the method would create PC/NPC's of a similar power level to those rolled by the random method.

The one pretty unique thing about traveller that I have allways enjoyed was the random generation (which I usually do not care for in games), so the point based holds little interest to me.

Thanks for the assist.

 

[CosmicGamer]

What if If the NPC is a high ranking officer in the military, the leader of an archaeological expedition, a shady broker selling stolen merchandise, the best surgeon in the system? NPC's sometimes have a specific role and need some specific skills/abilities which often can not be left up to a random character generation.

 

[Infojunky]

What if If the NPC is a high ranking officer in the military, the leader of an archaeological expedition, a shady broker selling stolen merchandise, the best surgeon in the system? NPC's sometimes have a specific role and need some specific skills/abilities which often can not be left up to a random character generation.

It's called GM Fiat.....

 

[Vile]

For the Spica Nemesis book, I generated NPCs completely randomly and according to the rules in the Mongoose Main Rulebook and Spica's Character Book 1. The dice did come up with quite a few low stats, but none of the NPCs ended up as unplayable. Mind you, I did generate the stats for 10 characters first and then assigned them to the NPCs as I saw fit. Obviously captains would normally be better than gunners (except at gunnery).

With player characters it's more an issue of personal taste. If the referee and the players want better PCs, there are numerous time-honoured ways of cheating ... er, tweaking the rolls to get higher results.