Game query

[Hopeless]

Now I've been in the throes of setting up a game of Traveller using a modified spinward marches background.

Now so far the players have gone for;

Scholar/Field Scientist, Scientist and finally a scout for 1 tour this is the only character so far completed only using the pocket handbook alone.

Sword Worlds Support Marine: originally a ground assault marine who changed this option to support since it seemed to have a broader option of skills to select from.

Psion/Adept: So far done two tours thanks to the skills available her character has awareness, telepathy and telekinesis around +2 to +1 mark

The last character hasn't gone beyond a brief background being from the Sword Worlds and was seen as a scholarly character, this was before the first player got into the details of creating his character (the first one above).
The thing is he is rather off put by the fact characters in Traveller tend to be limited in what skills they have at a certain point in their career.

I have already stated characters start at 12 rather than 18 as a form of apprenticeship given the backdrop for the game where such training was needed as events have made life very difficult in the Marches.

My question is should I wait for the book for scholars or should I continue as is and simply hope to resolve things the best I can?

 

[locarno24]

The thing is he is rather off put by the fact characters in Traveller tend to be limited in what skills they have at a certain point in their career.

As in the level of skills (as in "he feels he should be Engineer (M-Drive)/3 by this point"), or the number/type of skills (as in "why can't such and such a career ever pick up Persuade?")

My question is should I wait for the book for scholars or should I continue as is and simply hope to resolve things the best I can?

I'd just sort it out as you see fit. Remember the universal rule of RPGs - in any case of disagreement between rulebook and GM, the rulebook is wrong. Also applies to players, but you sometimes have to be more diplomatic about it....

 

[Matian]

Seconding what locarno24 said. Is this a matter of him thinking he needs more/higher ranks of skills, or does he want skills that his character would have, but are unavailable in the career path?

I offer all my players a free 1-level skill of their choice and a free 0-level skill of their choice (the only thing off-limits is Jack of All Trades). Sometimes this means you end up with a scholar with battledress (because that was what they had to wear while they were retrieving bodies for identification during a war) or a four-term army grunt with an English degree.

Depending on the type of roleplay and flavour you can work the above pretty well, although if it's a matter of one player needing to be more "uber" than everyone else I'd handle it with more caution.

 

[Hopeless]

Part of the changes I placed was that each player received their homeworld skills automatically and that it didn't count as part of the bonus they got from their education score with a limit that they could only increase a skill to a maximum of +1 before starting their characters chosen career tour.

Currently I'm the only one witha copy of the pocket handbook and when during the xmas period the traveller starter kit was free to download I forwarded a copy so they'd have at least some idea behind the Traveller rpg even though its a little different from Mongoose's own Traveller rpg.

Have yet to hear back from the fourth player I mentioned from what he mentioned he's sees his character as more of a polymath in nature however he has yet to develop his character any further so I'm waiting for his response before going any further.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Don't forget the Connection Rule. That gives each Character several Level 1 skills in anything they want...

Also, if it is a how skillful I should be kind of problem, remind them that a person makes a nice living with a Level 0 skill.

99% of us have Driver (Wheeled) 0, not anything higher unless we have taken special driving courses or are professional drivers or stunt drivers.

Someone with Engineer (Electronics) 1 is a skilled electronics person with years of experience working with this stuff. It is NOT a low level skill. By Level 3 they are one of the best on the planet.

Hope that helps.

 

[Jericho]

I have to say I agree with Rikki Tikki Traveller, a +1 on a 2d6 standard difficulty roll is a big boost, add in a stat modifier and the chances of success are even greater.

 

[CosmicGamer]

I have to say I agree with Rikki Tikki Traveller, a +1 on a 2d6 standard difficulty roll is a big boost, add in a stat modifier and the chances of success are even greater.

Not disagreeing.

I'd like to point out that 2d6 is not linear though; the effect of a +1 varies depending on the difficulty of the task.

For an average task with a +0 dice modifier it makes the roll required go from an 8 which is around a 42% chance of success to a 7 with a 58% chance of success.

An average task for a professional would be a failure about 1 out of 4 times at 72% so I can understand why players might think they need characters to be skillful, especial if a GM has a lot of rolling instead of role playing.
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99% of us have Driver (Wheeled) 0, not anything higher unless we have taken special driving courses or are professional drivers or stunt drivers.

Re: "professional drivers" I used to think people over inflated their drive(wheeled) ability but now I question what peoples perception of professional is. In Traveller terms I believe we can agree that a race car driver or stunt driver could be considered a professional. How about
A taxi driver, bus driver, tractor trailer driver, tow truck driver.
Someone making a living as a delivery driver.
Driving many miles every day from location to location doing on site service.

I've done delivery work once when right out of high school and again later in life for additional income. In college I had a summer job driving new cars back and forth between parking lots and prep locations. I once had a job driving cars from the parking lot through the auction block and back to the parking lot. These were all jobs that required me to do pretty much just one thing all day - drive. All that was required was a good driving and criminal record. None of these jobs required any special training other than simple and short safety classes of less than a day. I've taken longer and more in depth driving courses to lower my insurance rates.

Many people probably have worked in a profession where driving was a portion or all of their job. Does this make them a level 2 "professional"?

EDIT: This might be taking the thread a bit off topic. Started a new thread: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46107

 

[Hopeless]

Don't forget the Connection Rule. That gives each Character several Level 1 skills in anything they want...

Yes, the first player has a connection with the psion thats yet to be worked out but the fourth has already a connection with the first player in his background history.

The way that was worked out is that the first player owns his own lab ship which was modified so it could refine fuel as a means of keeping up with the repayments however the game was supposed to start with the first player inheriting his late uncle's mining vessel of whose crew the fourth player was part of.

The third player has only got as far as being involved in the Sword Worlds invasion of Wardn so it might take a while before they're ready!

Also, if it is a how skillful I should be kind of problem, remind them that a person makes a nice living with a Level 0 skill.
99% of us have Driver (Wheeled) 0, not anything higher unless we have taken special driving courses or are professional drivers or stunt drivers.
Someone with Engineer (Electronics) 1 is a skilled electronics person with years of experience working with this stuff. It is NOT a low level skill. By Level 3 they are one of the best on the planet.
Hope that helps.

My problem so far is that they seem to want as many people as possible with the Medic skill, then again when I ran the intro traveller game I ignored the fact they could survive being hurt until all three attributes (Str, Dex & End) reached 0 and made it only the 1 ability score so maybe thats more my problem!

 

[Matian]

A lot of characters with Medic 0, Pilot 0, and Engineer/Mechanic 0 are not bad things. Medic 0 is basically an intensive nurse course or combat medic training*, so it fits depending on the background. Pilot 0, like the Drive example above, is something you'll pick up if you have to take over piloting every now and again. Engineer/Mechanic is more specialised, but depending on the background/personality there's no reason a character wouldn't learn how to fix their own ship.

My current group of (wonderful) players lean towards a moderate amount of skill overlap/redundancy. Three of the four players have Pilot (one at 3, the other two at 1), two have Recon 1, three have Medic 0, and I'd need to look at the sheets to see what else overlaps. This works well for me. The party can split without me worrying that one side is critically disadvantaged, if a character gets injured and needs to recover then there are multiple people who can take over the job (and thus add to the RP), and listening to characters pull rank about Tactics (military) is great fun for all involved.

I'd tell them they can relax on the Medic and that you're planning on running combat significantly less deadly than you were in prior games. If they still want some overlap on Medic to make them feel better, I don't see the harm. You can always tweak or add to the skill packages to ensure they have all the skills they'll need, and overall extra 0- or 1-level isn't going to break the game.


*My reasoning comes from the many, many military support careers that tend to gen Medic 0 but no higher. YMMV.

 

[DFW]

How about
A taxi driver, bus driver, tractor trailer driver, tow truck driver.
Someone making a living as a delivery driver.
Driving many miles every day from location to location doing on site service.

"Each rank represents several years of experience using that skill. A character with Level 2–3 in a skill is a skilled professional in that field."

In any technical field it would require formal training AND years of experience. Training or experience alone isn't enough.