Announcing: The Open Playtest!

[TrippyHippy]

My players are less than satisfied with the skill improvement rules. One guy said under those rules it would take him 20 years for his character to go from Computer 4 to Computer 5. He wants to see more actual improvement in his character. Now, I understand that with the skill system as is, you don't want characters leaping up at rapid rates since the difference between a 1 and a 5 is extreme...but there still seems to be an issue here. This is the only part of the game so far that they don't like. They love character creation (one guy dubbed it "the best character creation system I have ever used"), they love the combat system and the initiative rules, especially once they grasped the hasten action concept and how interrupting actions worked. They're just not keen on the extreme slowness in which characters improve.

Allen

Yeah,I haven't really tested this out, or discussed it with players, but my gut instinct is that getting an increase from level 4 to 5 should be a major ask for any character.

I agree that the better thing for players to do is diversify to more lower based skills. As to the 'realism' of it all, I dunno, but skill systems are always something of an abstraction anyway. I'd say that very few people would be able to achieve a level 5 skill in a normal lifetime. Moreover, the incremental increase in 'probability of success' slows down after Level 3 anyway, so is it worth spending all that time increasing it, you have to ask?

 

[weasel_fierce]

the thing I dont agree with, is adding 1 to each skill, to factor the skill total. I'd just count actual skill levels, and ignore the 0 level skills. Otherwise, I do think it'll be way too slow.

I think a way around it may be just to let each person pick 2 or possibly even 3 skills per session to get the month of training, if it was used, instead of just 1.

Actual training time still progresses at the normal rate


EDIT: Of course, being based off Classic Traveller, we should be happy the advancement system takes less than 4 years

 

[Mongoose Gar]

The skill advancement system will probably end up being a bit more generous than career advancement, but only because of the bonuses for using the skill in play.

While I'm posting, I'd like to thank everyone that's replied so far. The amount of feedback (and better, _useful_ feedback) even at this early stage is simply staggering.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Learning New Skills:

Hmmm.....not sure, just yet, and trying to do a few calculations on some of the generated characters I have left over from the session.

What I do like is that younger characters, with less experience, learn new skills much faster than older experienced ones. That is how it should be.

I'm not certain that the game can afford to not include Level-0 skills in the calculations, as it would mean that certain characters (particularly low experienced ones) can just keep on picking up level 0 skills with impunity.

Conversely, the other problem is knowing what the cost of learning a level-0 skill is anyway! Level-0 multiplied by any score is still 0 months! Does that mean that anybody can pick up a level 0 score without any training at all?!

On this basis, it might be a good idea to exclude Level 0 skills from the calculations entirely (having them only available from backgrounds or events), so long as the re-jigged calculations do not allow characters to increase rapidly.

 

[pasuuli]

After reading through the outline and TL stuff, I noticed something that no one else has mentioned yet.

TL11: (Early Stellar) The first rue artificial intelligences become possible, as computers are able to model synaptic networks. Grav-supported structures reach to the heavens. Jump-2 travel becomes possible, taking ships off the the one-jump stellar mains.

Emphasis mine.

This statement says that jumping into empty hexes is not possible. Previously Traveller, while being sometimes conflicting, always allowed empty-hex jumps. Is this an intentional change to the way Jump Drives work, or is it just a misunderstanding by the writer that will be corrected in later revisions?

I think this is just sloppy wording that needs to be changed, rather than a statement about the nature of Jump travel. But no matter, your general point still stands: it's a misleading sentence.

 

[Hangfire]

I'll jump in on the skill discussion. My group was not happy with the skill progression format. Couple of reasons for that - including 0 level skills really makes it hard to get any skill up as one of the guys ended up with a character that only had two skills at level one, all the rest were at 0 level. Now for him to train would take 2 years! The other main problem is that there is very little choice it what skills you get, it's all random. This makes it hard to get the character you want, and then when you try and build the character you want through skill development it takes years to get one skill. Everyone also jumped on the fact, as mentioned above, that you could pick up any 0 level skill with no training, and that this fact would also mean that as you did so it becomes more and more impossible to get any other those skills to level 1.

Even though I mentioned that character generation gives very little choice and is mostly random, all the guys loved the system. One of the guys had a bad experience with Traveller years ago and really didn't want to play at all. By the end of the night he loved the system and wanted to roll another character just for the fun of it. Good system. I have more notes from the playtest, and will get them on here asap.

 

[TrippyHippy]

RE: Character generation

Don't forget that you have got the option of points allocation should you want......and if you whisper it quietly, you can always let your players choose skills from the tables, rather than rolling them, if you want. Shhhhhhh.... :wink:

 

[weasel_fierce]

One option too is to treat 0 level skills as half a skill, both for skill totals, and development.

So if I have a skill total of 11, and I want to learn Computer 0, it'll take 6 months, whereas Astrogation 1 would take 11.

(of course, if I use the skill in question on adventures, it'll improve quicker)


Unrelated, when we sit down to play, I'll give players the option that if they roll their stats in order, rather than assigning them, they can add +1 to any one of the stats. Encourage a bit of old school

 

[weasel_fierce]

RE: Character generation

Don't forget that you have got the option of points allocation should you want......and if you whisper it quietly, you can always let your players choose skills from the tables, rather than rolling them, if you want. Shhhhhhh.... :wink:

Points buy is Zhodani Communism.

 

[Allensh]

EDIT: Of course, being based off Classic Traveller, we should be happy the advancement system takes less than 4 years

it took 4 years to get the new level; it took another 4 to keep it

I agree with your suggested changes.

Allen

 

[Hangfire]

RE: Character generation

Don't forget that you have got the option of points allocation should you want......and if you whisper it quietly, you can always let your players choose skills from the tables, rather than rolling them, if you want. Shhhhhhh.... :wink:

Yeah, I guess I could do that. It was very odd that the guy that spent one term as a marine and two terms in the army had Gun 0, in fact all but two of his skills were 0.

 

[Allensh]

RE: Character generation

Don't forget that you have got the option of points allocation should you want......and if you whisper it quietly, you can always let your players choose skills from the tables, rather than rolling them, if you want. Shhhhhhh.... :wink:

Points buy is Zhodani Communism.

But it is awesome for making NPCs

Allen

 

[TrippyHippy]

Particularly Zhodani Communist NPCs! :wink:

 

[TrippyHippy]

RE: Character generation

Don't forget that you have got the option of points allocation should you want......and if you whisper it quietly, you can always let your players choose skills from the tables, rather than rolling them, if you want. Shhhhhhh.... :wink:

Yeah, I guess I could do that. It was very odd that the guy that spent one term as a marine and two terms in the army had Gun 0, in fact all but two of his skills were 0.

Actually, I think this is a reasonable point here.

Why not state "roll or choose (with Referee approval)" for all skill tables in standard generation? It doesn't really alter what tends to happen as a houserule for many groups, to be honest. Also, it's not as if we don't have an 'Iron Man' option for strictly random characters (and the chance of death during generation) anyway.

 

[AKAramis]

it would be nice if the progression on the attribute table was clearly lain out.

Given the current table I extended a bit

  0    -3 ?
 1-2   -2
 3-5   -1
 6-8   +0
 9-11  +1
12-13  +2
14-15  +3
16-17  +4 ?

Also: the CG process listed on page 35 doesn't match the text, nor the table labels, but provides a smooth flow.

Basic character generation uses the following steps:

1. Roll characteristics and determine characteristic modifiers.
2. Choose a homeworld.
3. a. Choose a career.
b. Roll to qualify for that career.
c. If you qualify for that career, go to Step 4.
d. If you do not qualify for that career, then you can go to the Draft or enter the Drifter career.
4. If this is your first time on this career, get your basic training.
5. Choose a specialisation for this career.
6. Choose one of the skills and training tables for this career and roll on it.
a. Roll for survival on this career.
b. If you succeed, go to Step 7.
c. If you did not succeed, then events have forced you from this career. Roll on the Mishap table, then go to Step 5
for your next four-year term, or Step 12 if you wish to finish your character. Optionally, establish a Connection
with another player character.
7. a. Roll for Events.
b. Optionally, establish a Connection with another player character.
8. a. Roll for Advancement, applying your Rank as negative DM
b. If you succeed, choose one of the skills and training tables for this career and roll on it. Increase your Rank and
take any bonus skills from the Ranks table for this career.
c. If you roll a 2 or less, you must leave this career.
9. If you are leaving the career, roll for Benefits.
10. If your character is 34 or older, roll for Aging.
11. Go to Step 3 to choose a new careeer, or to Step 12 if you wish to finish your character.
12. Finalise any Connections with other characters.
13. Choose a Campaign Skill Pack and allocate skills from that pack.
14. Purchase starting equipment and, if you can afford it, a spacecraft.

Note that this has several implications
1) you roll enlistment EVERY term
2) if injured during a term, you must end character prior service or return to the same career for the next term
3) Note that Advancement is DM-Rank according to this table, rather than DM-terms as elsewhere. This is a major difference, and we (My wife, my self, and our buddy Ben)
4) specialization can be changed every term in a given career (This one I'm not so certain I like...)

This chart should be near the front, not at the end, of the Char Gen process.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I don't think the Characteristics scores table needs to be extended, if there is a clear formula presented for calculating the DMs.

As I have argued already, the +3 DM really needs to be set for Characteristics of 15+. But for Characteristics of 0, I'd argue that tests should automatically fail.

The table should represent this formula:

DM = (Characteristic/3) -2, with scores rounded down.

That is:

• (0) = Automatic failure.
  1-2 = -2
  3-5 = -1
  6-8 = 0
  9-11 = +1
  12-14 = +2
  15-17 = +3
  
  (+1 for every increment of 3 beyond this point, in theory at least).

As stated, normal characters should be limited to a -2/+2 DM for Characteristics, in most instances. Which, for previously stated reasons, is how it should be.

Consider that a +3 DM for a 2D6 roll [target 8], is the equivalent of more than a 40% bonus. In D20 terms, that is the equivalent bonus recieved for an Attribute score of 26!

I think it's utterly ridiculous that people can consider a +3 DM for any Traveller characteristic less than 15.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I think it's utterly ridiculous that people can consider a +3 DM for any Traveller characteristic less than 15.

Theres nothing inherently ridiculous about it, other than 15 fits a neat little formula.
14's are almost as rare as 15's (I dont think I've ever even seen a 15 stat in a classic or megatraveller game yet).


Of all the things people can find that they would like to see different, this is something exceptionally minor and ultimately pointless (it wont affect 99% of the games played)

 

[TrippyHippy]

It is ridiculous to have the influence of Characteristics being:

a) greater than the 'professional' level of a skill (apparently now: 2)
b) the equivalent bonus given to that of a superhuman, in D20 terms.
c) mathematically out of kilter with the formula used by the rest of the table.

It's not apparently pointless enough for you to stop arguing against these points, it seems. :roll:

Moreover, high scores of above 12 are possible, with the various bonuses you can get for character developments and racial bonuses. I'm saying that the scores have to be significantly above 12, at 15 or more, to have any further mechanical effect on dice rolls....because it has an unstabling effect upon the skill system as it stands.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Character generation:

Point of clarification: do you have to requalify for a career after every term, or is it automatic with a survival roll?

The rules, and the checklist, are not clear on this point.

 

[Mongoose Gar]

Automatic with survival roll. You only need to roll to qualify the first time you try for a career - after that, you're in the career until you leave/are forced out/fail a survival check.