Character Balance

[allanimal]

I tried searching but didn't find anything, so I hope this hasn't been discussed to oblivion already...
Anyway, I will start running Traveller for my RPG group in the near future, and it is new to everyone (except I played CT many years ago), so we don't have personal experience to fall back on.

At any rate, I love the char gen method in the core book - it gives really flavorful character background filled with interesting events, rivals and allies. That's cool, and I want to keep that, but I worry about the randomness making characters of vastly different ability.

I envision a low to average statted character who failed survival and advancement rolls several times, starting the game with only a minimum of credits and low skill levels. Then, on the other hand, the guy who inevitably rolls way above average abilities, made every survival and advancement roll with super events starting with a starship and megacredits to burn, with skill levels out the wazoo.

It is Roleplaying and this shouldn't be a huge problem, but during play I worry that the former will rarely make the skill roll or have the tech to do the job, while the latter always will, which means the 1st character doesn't contribute as much, bringing the fun level down for that player.

I know that probability makes it very unlikely to see a 222222 who failed at wandering, but it could happen. In D&D, we'd have a criteria that says a re-roll is in order. I don't want to go with the point buy system, because I feel you miss out on one really cool and unique part of the game. Does anyone have house guidelines for when a character should be scrapped? I imagine it should happen once at stat rolls time and then perhaps another gate later.

Perhaps if the sum of all characteristic DMs is negative at the initial stat roll, reroll.
What about later? Allow a re-roll of an event, mishap, injury? Allow a do-over of a term?
???
Any house rules in practice for this?
Or, in the end, is it not really a problem?

 

[rust]

In our campaigns the players decide which kind of character
they want to play and which role that character should have
as a member of the party (e.g. Navy background, now ship's
engineer). Once the character concept has been determined,
the character gets the number of terms required to learn the
basic skill(s) he needs for his role in the relevant service (e.g.
Navy, to pick up Mechanic and Engineer-2), and then all other
terms and skills are determined randomly. The character now
has his individual niche where he is the best of the player cha-
racters (e.g. the only one with Engineer skill) and can get his
guaranteed spotlight, and when each player character has a
niche / unique role of his own, it does not matter much whe-
ther others have more or higher skills elsewhere.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Before getting into house rules, there are alternate chargen rules in the book. Some people like "select skills" so that they get the characters needed to fit the game and group needs instead of a random character. The select skills method includes the personal development table where you can beef of poor stats.

Yes, you could be able to role play whatever you get and it is a RPG. Maybe the group crashes on an isolated world. Here, several spacer characters may be fish out of water with no apparently useful skills while the lowest most useless (based on skills in space) character now leads the group. How does the captain handle not knowing what to do? How does the 2nd engineer (the one with survival skill) handle their new role? On the other hand, I've roleplayed that my character did not fit in the group and left then I created another character. Do you really need 2 astrogators and no pilot?

There are several house rules for limiting a low stat char.
- Re-rolling stats if their sum is less than a certain amount
- re-roll 1's
- re-roll 1's AND 6's if you really want characters that are more balanced
- pregenerated characters
- all characters start with all 7's for stats
- all characters get a set number of stat points to distribute as they wish between their stats

For helping balance skills, I believe the book already discusses setting a term limit. I've seen GM's put twists on this. RL. Got to go so can't expound.

 

[BP]

The idea that an 'average Joe' could be caught up in adventure is believable - that he would seek out such, is less so. A player may want to play a dumb or weak PC, but many don't.

Don't forget that chargen allows stat increases.

But, the random nature does mean that Player's with unlucky rolls all around, could end up with drastically limited characters.

RE: Stats

For more control - split the difference between point pick and random. Six stats using 2d6 ranges from 12 to 72 points. So...

Give say 24 points for allocation as desired: max 6, min 2 per stat, player's choice.
Player rolls 2d6 and takes half value, rounded up to add to stats as desired (giving PCs 1/2 pt nominal edge on NPCs).

Thus, a conservative Player starts with 444444 and ends up 666666 (low average +0 DMs) in worst case, but 888888 (upper average still +0 DMs) in median case.

PC's would tend to be above average, but CCCCCC is not possible. The only way for a PC to have a C (+2 DM) is by choosing an initial 6 to a stat and he can thus only have 3 stats make that - at the expense of others maxing out at 8.

Tweak the initial points and caps as desired to allow >12 or less than 4 - whatever your style of Players and game calls for.

AS for skills and playing rolls - allowing Players to pick off skill tables after a roll will generally allow them to get the skills their PC needs, without any further tweaks of the system.

 

[GypsyComet]

Careful use of different numbers of terms can also help, at least with skill quantities. Stop the young hotshot at 4 terms and let the unlucky guy go to 5 or 6 without sweating the enlistment rolls if he wants to switch careers.

Remove one of the unlucky guy's Muster Out rolls and replace it with TAS membership. Chances are the young hotshot was aiming for a ship and doesn't have TAS. Now the unlucky PC has a resource he can play to, and an income.

The Campaign skill set is another balancer. If the hotshot got everything the campaign calls for, he'll get very little benefit aside from another + here and there. The unlucky guy can potentially expand his skill base quite a bit.

The experience system may favor the unlucky guy if he has that many fewer total skill ranks, and that's with no house ruling at all.

 

[DickTurpin]

Also keep in mind the ability to train skills during play. A character coming out of CharGen with high (randomized) skill totals will take a long time training a new skill while a low skill character will be able to train skills of his choosing at a much faster rate.

Taken to extremes you could train many less important skills to zero without increasing your training time for the critical skills you want at high levels which you get around to them later. Character survival might be more challenging in early play but in a long campaign the character could do very well indeed.

This was taken advantage of by a player in my last game; he selected only stat boost tables in CharGen and entered play with minimal skills but high ability scores. After a few months of game time he was getting roll DMs just as high as the other characters. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the game had lasted longer.

Other ways to beef up an unlucky character would be by using the Connections Rule on page 8 of the core rule book and by allowing the lowest skilled player to select first from the Traveller Skill Package on page 38.

House rules to mitigate low rolls are also possible. In one game the GM allowed a player with horrid stats to roll another d6 and add it to his lowest score until the total DMs for all scores was non-negative. In one case it took the player three extra rolls to finally get there.

 

[Pyromancer]

House rule:
Your highest skill value is also your negative modifier for unlearned skills.

That doesn't help with attributes, but gives players with low skills a small advantage.

 

[allanimal]

great ideas everyone. I will have to think about this and decide which ones will work best with my group.

 

[Moonstruck]

I use many types of Character building rules. Depending on what I am doing. From point buy to random draft, forced enlistment and blends. It all depentds on the game and players. I am very open to what the players want to play and try to work with them.

The last game I ran was at the end of the 5th FW. With the post war moveing around of fleets and trade needing to be encouraged in Imperial fringe. I started them on Aramis and the group wanted a "good" ship. So I let them get a 55 year old type T Cruiser. That had been converted to a small Subsidized Liner and Postal Union Courier. They had nice sandbox to play in.

I do not care for the JoT. But I do like 0 level skills. So IMTU JoT gets you 5 extra 0 level skills. I allso let them pick from all 4 skill tables, after the die roll. So they had 4 options to pick from if their Edu is high enough. No one opted for point buy and rolled their stats, with results of 1 being rerolled.

They could have unlimited 0 level skills. But the total of all others skill levels was limited to Int + Edu. Allso they could only have a single skill at level 3 or higher. All other skills needed to be level 2 or less. In game training of skills where encouraged. It worked out ok and character balance did not become a problem.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Normally use the RAW, though usually allow a complete re-roll if more than 3 stats score below 6, if the player wants to, and will allow return to most careers after failing a survival roll (but you need to pass qualification, start again at rank 0) if the player wants to (though it tends to reduce their options rather than strength their skill appreciably). At one time, during the skill rolls, if the roll was gained through promotion, I allowed the player to choose from the relevant tables, rather than roll, but found that the random element made the characters much more interesting. The connections rule and the skills packages are great for filling in gaps, and should be used to the full (though if someone ended up with no skill other than Vacc suit 4, I would be flexible).

And the random rolls have produced some very interesting characters, a 676BA7 who wanted to spend one term in the navy, then pursue a merchant career, ended up making a series of very lucky rolls, and at least one "you must carry on in present career", ended up doing 4 terms in the navy, commisioned then promoted every time, and getting good events, ending up with excellent space farer skills, and (less usefully), long blade 2. Another player wanted to try an "Inara" type character (which didn't really fit in with the rest of the group), on 6C8872, we decided that Entertainer (performer) was near enough, but with one thing or another, she ended up doing terms as a rogue (thief) and drifter (wanderer) as well. with two connections skills and two from a skills package, a number of contacts and enemies, and 110000Cr, a much more interesting character, with more varied skills, and much more suitable to work as part of the group.

We experimented with the points system, it works, but seems (oddly) to lead to quite sameish characters.

Egil

 

[Morningkiller]

I love Traveller character generation but I agree it could be smoothed out a little.

Many events give you a skill level while comparatively few mishaps do the same. A more even spread here could be good. After all there is no reason not to learn when the going gets tough.

Promotion nets a player significant benefits. A single promotion roll can mean 3 skill points (the extra table roll, a rank benefit and a possible skill at mustering out due to the extra benefit roll). Perhaps if failing promotion was rewarded moderately then things would be less swingy. Contacts or Allies would be a natural result of staying in the same position. Additionally you could say that the character gains a level in the first skill rolled in the career if they are not promoted in the first two terms. If you are stuck doing the same job you should get good at it.