This didn't bother me my first time out, it's crept up on me since then. It now seems like injury/stat damage in character creation is no big deal. Take "permanent" stat damage, buy it off at 5000cr a point. But there's no real choice to be made there: everyone buys it off and moves on. At which point, why bother going through the motions?
Possible medical debt, but in many campaigns that will only last to the first real payday, probably the end of the first adventure. Could run longer in a street level Traveller game, but a campaign with a ship can probably clear it from any job that pays for the attention of a group with a ship, or just from side trading in speculative cargo. But really I've never seen it get that far, anyone tracking medical debt has always taken a couple of rolls on a Cash Benefits table.
Without having it seen it come up, the medical debt angle is suddenly intriguing. Could lead to debt collectors breaking your door down, debt collectors with odd jobs acting as patrons, player-driven schemes to make money by Gambling, some kind of long con, or some straightforward breaking and entering.
If I really ran with that, I could up the cost. To get some actual game play out of it before they bought it off and moved on without it. But that should have the knock-on effect of upping the cost of medical care in play. Unless I broke simulationism and decided it just didn't change in-play costs, that the char-gen cost rolled in other associated costs.
Another way to go would be to make it real and permanent by removing medical care before play begins. Say that your one or two points of stat damage doesn't represent only one or two points of in-play damage, but only what was left after other treatment, so it doesn't have to normalize against how it works in campaign.
This has the effect of encouraging players to muster out and enter play instead of rolling into old age. But since I already set a term limit in character creation that's more of a plus than a minus for me. Quite probably I would pair it with rolling stats on 3d6 drop lowest though, so it wasn't too punitive. Or I could even make it optional, roll a character as normal or roll stats on 3d6-L but stat damage is permanent.
So my first question is, is my premise off - has stat damage or medical debt ever played a role in your games? Second question, is there something I'm missing, some other fix or approach I've missed? Third question, feedback on the last two possible house rules?
Possible medical debt, but in many campaigns that will only last to the first real payday, probably the end of the first adventure. Could run longer in a street level Traveller game, but a campaign with a ship can probably clear it from any job that pays for the attention of a group with a ship, or just from side trading in speculative cargo. But really I've never seen it get that far, anyone tracking medical debt has always taken a couple of rolls on a Cash Benefits table.
Without having it seen it come up, the medical debt angle is suddenly intriguing. Could lead to debt collectors breaking your door down, debt collectors with odd jobs acting as patrons, player-driven schemes to make money by Gambling, some kind of long con, or some straightforward breaking and entering.
If I really ran with that, I could up the cost. To get some actual game play out of it before they bought it off and moved on without it. But that should have the knock-on effect of upping the cost of medical care in play. Unless I broke simulationism and decided it just didn't change in-play costs, that the char-gen cost rolled in other associated costs.
Another way to go would be to make it real and permanent by removing medical care before play begins. Say that your one or two points of stat damage doesn't represent only one or two points of in-play damage, but only what was left after other treatment, so it doesn't have to normalize against how it works in campaign.
This has the effect of encouraging players to muster out and enter play instead of rolling into old age. But since I already set a term limit in character creation that's more of a plus than a minus for me. Quite probably I would pair it with rolling stats on 3d6 drop lowest though, so it wasn't too punitive. Or I could even make it optional, roll a character as normal or roll stats on 3d6-L but stat damage is permanent.
So my first question is, is my premise off - has stat damage or medical debt ever played a role in your games? Second question, is there something I'm missing, some other fix or approach I've missed? Third question, feedback on the last two possible house rules?
