Book 10: Cosmopolite - Now on Drivethru

[8thseadog]

I think the specialty tables for pillar of the community on page 18 may be mixed up as the arbiter, being the legal specialist, does not have advocate as a skill that they can obtain without advanced education, while the agitators specialty skill list seems more in tune with a lawyer. The representative's specialty list also seems a little strange as they lack diplomacy, and have survival and recon as part of the specialty. Not trying to nitpick, they just seem to be a little odd

 

[GypsyComet]

Two things I noted:
Page 103: Cr10 for a ruler? A TL5 Slide Rule, maybe, but a ruler should be Cr1.
Careers: Several of the Specialist skill tables are the same, when this should be the primary reason for creating a bunch of new Specialties in the first place. Functionary and Pillar of the Community have the same Specialist skill tables. Academician and Field Researcher only vary by one skill in those same three tables, and Medical and Wild Card only vary by swapping Life Science for Science (any).

 

[Saladman]

OK, I have read through the careers and I have a couple of questions related to how a certain type of citizen would fit into this system.

1. A Cab Driver (ala Die Hard 4)
...

1. Drive (any) or Flyer (grav)
2. Mechanic
3. Navigation
4. Streetwise
5. Persuade
6. Drive (any) or Flyer (grav)

At rank 1, Drive or Flyer 1, at rank 3, Navigation 1, at rank 5, Streetwise or Persuade 1. Done, except for life events. I don't know about Die Hard 4 exactly, its been a while, but for cab driver I speak from experience.

It occurs to me to wonder how many people make their own careers, but I should maybe take that to its own thread.

 

[sjmiller]

I know I am a little late in commenting about this book, but I just got a copy.

The content of the book looks interesting. It looks like it will expand on character creation for both Citizen and and Scholar careers, and the expanded Life Events Table will, I am sure, contain all sorts of twists and turns to make characters more interesting. Overall, lots of things well worth adding to my upcoming game.

I do have to say that the appearance of the book, over all, makes my eyes hurt a little. Just paging through the pdf it appears to be more of a 80 to 90 percent rough draft as opposed to a final release. It looks so minimalist in formatting as to appear unformatted. Here are a few things I noticed:

Two pages, 3 and 112, are missing page numbers. That happens to everyone, and is an easy fix.

There is no back cover. Every other Traveller book I have from Mongoose Publishing has a back cover, why not this one?

The front cover is very small. If I print out this book, which I usually do with my Traveller books, this cover will look very pixelated and out of place with the others.

There is no index, which makes this a rather frustrating book. I know how much of a pain they are to create sometimes, but man are they useful!

There is an incredible amount of blank space in this book. Looking through the book I found at least 23 pages that were between almost and more than half blank. Granted, some were at the end of sections or chapters and the new section starts on the next page, but that is still a lot of white space on a page. Many of them looked like they were awaiting artwork or something. It makes me think that with some careful editing the book could easily drop to almost 100 pages instead of the 114 it currently has. I am not sure a book should have 20% of its pages half blank.

I can deal with the odd looking font. Not sure what I do not like about it, but it looks off for some reason. Can't say that I like it, though, that is for sure.

That is about all I have to say right now. I guess I am a little disappointed with all the white space. It makes me feel I am getting less than what I would otherwise have gotten.

 

[RobM]

Didn't Mercenary already add University and Medical School?

Or is this different

No, they are the same - we included the rules in this book too because a) not everyone wil lhave Mercenary 2, b) they do not take up much space and c) we want to start standardising rules like this across all supplementary books and for the sake of two or three pages, this seemed like a good way of doing it. Eventually, this information will end up in a core rulebook down the line.

Which one is correct? Mercenary 2nd ed or Cosmopolite? Upon graduation in Mercenary 2nd ed you get a +1 added to your education, in Cosmopolite its a +2.

 

[alex_greene]

Didn't Mercenary already add University and Medical School?

Or is this different

No, they are the same - we included the rules in this book too because a) not everyone wil lhave Mercenary 2, b) they do not take up much space and c) we want to start standardising rules like this across all supplementary books and for the sake of two or three pages, this seemed like a good way of doing it. Eventually, this information will end up in a core rulebook down the line.

Which one is correct? Mercenary 2nd ed or Cosmopolite? Upon graduation in Mercenary 2nd ed you get a +1 added to your education, in Cosmopolite its a +2.

Civilian and military types get different benefits on graduation. Bear in mind that military characters gain warfighting training and experience during their term on campus, and often the Education increase is just a step towards getting access to the Advanced Education table; whereas for a Scholar, the Education increase is the goal.

 

[RobM]

No, they are the same - we included the rules in this book too because a) not everyone wil lhave Mercenary 2, b) they do not take up much space and c) we want to start standardising rules like this across all supplementary books and for the sake of two or three pages, this seemed like a good way of doing it. Eventually, this information will end up in a core rulebook down the line.

Which one is correct? Mercenary 2nd ed or Cosmopolite? Upon graduation in Mercenary 2nd ed you get a +1 added to your education, in Cosmopolite its a +2.

Civilian and military types get different benefits on graduation. Bear in mind that military characters gain warfighting training and experience during their term on campus, and often the Education increase is just a step towards getting access to the Advanced Education table; whereas for a Scholar, the Education increase is the goal.

Hold up. Military Academy is included separately from University in Mercenary 2nd ed and covers the Warfighting training you speak of. From what I interpret from msprang's comment the intent was that University education is standard between the two books. This is not the case. They are almost identical word for word except the +2 Edu graduation benefit from Book 10 as opposed to the +1 Edu graduation benefit from book 1 2nd ed. For reference page 4 Book 1 2nd ed. Also page 4 book 10. Since the goal is to standardise these rules my question remains which one is correct?

 

[Infojunky]

Hold up. Military Academy is included separately from University in Mercenary 2nd ed and covers the Warfighting training you speak of. From what I interpret from msprang's comment the intent was that University education is standard between the two books. This is not the case. They are almost identical word for word except the +2 Edu graduation benefit from Book 10 as opposed to the +1 Edu graduation benefit from book 1 2nd ed. For reference page 4 Book 1 2nd ed. Also page 4 book 10. Since the goal is to standardise these rules my question remains which one is correct?

Which one has the later Publication Date? Take the newest one.

Or, pick the one that fits your game best. This is the one I am going to use....

 

[Mithras]

Sounds like a nice book, with lots of uses. But I'm not sure about the name ...