Saladman said:
You're underestimating the compatibility of 1e and 2e. You can use the original career books with 2e with very little problem, and deal with any skill discrepancies on the fly.
What do you mean by "unviable characters"?
I just had a 'fun' experience Chargenning a Mongoose v1 PC, I was doing it for an online play-by-text game so every part had to be done via dice roller and logged and sent as PMs for each term. As such it takes about twenty minutes to finish just a term. Here's the logs:
Term 1
Branch: Scavenger - Wrecker
Qualification Roll (if needed): Automatic
Basic Training Skills: Athletics (any)-0, Mechanic-0, Melee (any)-0, Streetwise-0, Recon-0, Vacc Suit-0.
Term Skill: Pilot (Space Craft)-1
Survival: END 7+ FAILED
Mishap: You are forced to leave to help a friend. Gain an Ally.
Term 2
Branch: Scavenger - Tomb Robber
Qualification Roll (if needed): Automatic
Basic Training Skills: Stealth-0, Investigate-0, Any Science (any)-0, Security-0
Term Skill: Recon-1
Survival: FAILED
Mishap: You run into a dangerous criminal syndicate. Gain an Enemy.
Term 3
Branch: Scavenger-Salvage Expert
Qualification Roll (if needed): Automatic
Basic Training Skills: Sensors-0, Computer-0, Mechanic-0, Engineering-0, Space Sciences-0, Broker-0
Term Skill: Electronics-1
Survival: FAILED
Mishap: You are forced to leave to help a friend. Gain an Ally
Term 4
Branch: Scavenger - Tomb Robber.
Term Skill: Security-1
Survival: END 7+
Event: Crime: The character commits a crime, is accused of a crime, or is the victim of a crime. Lose one Benefit roll or reduce your
Social Standing by 1. -1 SOC
Advancement: DEX 7+
Advancement Skill (if advancement passed): Stealth-1
Ageing: No Effect
Term 5
Branch: Specialist: Wrecker
Qualification Roll (if needed): Automatic
Basic Training Skills: Advanced - Specialist: Wrecker
Term Skill: Pilot-2
Survival: END 7+
Event: Disaster! Roll on the Mishap table but you are not ejected from this career.
Mishap: You run into a dangerous criminal syndicate. Gain an Enemy
Advancement: FAILED
Ageing: Reduce one physical characteristic by 2, reduce two physical characteristic by 1
You can see the problem.
The repeated failures in terms 1, 2 and 3 meant that at that point I had had gained 3 skill points. Knowing I was going to fail I pushed on, trying to get at least a few more.
At term five I had 7 skill points but had lost 5 statistic points.
Now, I love my Traveller and I've been playing it since 1980. But frankly, the character generation system is nothing more than poor game design. You will hear legions of 'but I love that mini-game!' Fine, have your min game, but don't use it for something like character generation, I'm in this for the role playing.
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Rolled Statistics
Yes, they were designed when the hobby was new. I know The Traveller Companion has a point-buy system but it's odd to think that it took forty years. The real problem is that they've married random statistic system with a random survival system. So if you get good stats you may well lose them shortly later. It's a bit like an abusive relationship
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The 'Survival' Roll
This is the one I used to doggedly defend. But, from a design viewpoint it makes absolutely no sense. As it's always said you might be wasting your time and the likelihood of you failing increases with the amount of terms you have.
That's their idea of how to limit terms? Why not just say 'max five terms' instead of 'start again'?
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Events Table (Mongoose 1&2)
This I like, but it's placed
after the survival roll. Most of the careers are fairly flavourless without this so this is what you look forward to, but if you had the situation like I just had where you fail three survival rolls one after the other you end up with one skill, no benefits and no texture to the PC.
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Short Terms
I know everyone scratches their head on this one. When LBBs came out skills were more like an area where you were exceptional, so while everyone had gun Combat-0 your skill in Derringer-3 showed you were remarkable on this. However, from MegaTraveller onward skills became skills and getting two skills in four years suggested you may have severe learning difficulties.
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Losing Statistics
This one flat out defies understanding. Looking back at my unfortunate PC who didn't survive three times straight. I had three skills so I persevered into term five which netted me a total of seven skill points, but due to ageing and a mishap I lost five statistic points. Now, this right there is a failed system. I was once a hard-as-nails GM but I can't see the point in actually damaging a player's character before the game even starts. I'm surprised getting a terminal disease isn't possible (although you can get a starship that falls apart in heavy wind!)
Now, that's actually the only part of character generation I don't like. So here is:
ChalkLine's Character Generation House Rules.
- Optional Point buy of 45 points. Otherwise use the Mongoose point buy system that is a bit more complicated
- Two Year duration terms
- No survival rolls
- GM mandated term limit
- Two skills automatically each term. Roll the first, choose the second
- Roll for commission/promotion as normal but do not allocate skills
- Muster out as normal.
