Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
So, real life.
How to let players generate the characters they want without letting them min/max?
- Thread starter Konrad
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MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Yeah. If I wanted to "play" at real life, I'd go hire a lawyer to screw Me over. lol
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Have you considered marriage?
It would be legal, then.
It would be legal, then.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Learned that after My first wife. lol
Edit- Must have rolled crappy on My Life Events. Changed an Ally into a Rival. lol
I'd like to point out that stats are not quite as obvious as some think. Having a low Int does not mean the character is necessarily a moron. It means that they don't do well at improvisation, creative skill use, and dealing with uncertainty. I have some friends who are very bright who really struggle with situations where they don't have as much information as they want. That could easily be reflected as low INT, high EDU. Give them complex problems with good data and they'll do extremely well. Too much uncertainty and they drop off fast.
Or someone like Barliman Butterbur, who is scatterbrained (always distracted and not good at focusing on a single task) but who Gandalf says can "See through a brick wall if given time".
Certainly you can play your 4 INT character as a moron if you would find that fun. But you don't have to jump to that conclusion from the stats if you don't.
Or someone like Barliman Butterbur, who is scatterbrained (always distracted and not good at focusing on a single task) but who Gandalf says can "See through a brick wall if given time".
Certainly you can play your 4 INT character as a moron if you would find that fun. But you don't have to jump to that conclusion from the stats if you don't.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Cosmic Mongoose
My experience is that any group has a significant chance approaching unity by the time it reaches 6 to have an idiot. Doesn't matter what the characters ability there is an idiot.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
In any group of 6 players in any RPG, there will be That One Guy/Gal who doesn't fit the group dynamic. They'll be the guy who doesn't like planning sessions in a group that thrives on them, or the guy that has to control everything in a group of very independent minded semi-anarchists. They're the guy that insists on playing monk in a d20 game.
Back to the basic question, there are two ways I've found to handle UPP generation in Traveller:
1. Point allotment. Everybody starts with 7 points across the board. They may allot 6 points to any characteristic. No starting characteristic may exceed 12. They may reduce any characteristic to 4 to apply those points to any other characteristic. After this is done, we go to the career tables.
2. VERY simple point allotment. Divide 70 points among all characteristics, every characteristic with a minimum 5 and maximum of 12.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Even with a crappy stat roll, I'd advise a player to go through the whole creation process. Had a player roll a big set of 3,4,5,6's, with a single 9 who decided to stick it out. chose thief as a profession. Didn't do great in skill rolls, got absolutely trashed by the Events and Life events tables, but just kept hitting on the survival and promotion rolls. Ended up with a fairly dull skill selection, despite a 6 term career. But then mustered out...
6 rolls for terms, 3 more for rank, and 1 from an event....all at +1. He rolled 7 5's (which became 6's for rank)...ended with 47 ship shares, and suddenly became the rest of the groups (who had 5 combined) best friend.
You can get away with being only semi-useful when you're captain.
6 rolls for terms, 3 more for rank, and 1 from an event....all at +1. He rolled 7 5's (which became 6's for rank)...ended with 47 ship shares, and suddenly became the rest of the groups (who had 5 combined) best friend.
You can get away with being only semi-useful when you're captain.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Cosmic Mongoose
You can get away with being only semi-useful when you're captain.
Why take on all that work and responsibility when you can instead be Owner Aboard and give the Captain the orders and leave it up to him to make them work?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Mutiny, if it's Vargr.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
It's a 'Reorganization' or "Realignment of Executive Responsibilities' if you're a well-educated Vargr.
Or... The ship might not be streamlined, but the executive management team is... or was... no heat shielding, so, well, sorry, should have asked for that golden parachute.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Or, an unscheduled trip out the airlock.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Another thing I do is let the player select the table they roll a skill from...
For example:
- Bob is eligible for a skill. Bob rolls a 3 on the die. Bob can select any 3 result on the Personal Development, Service, Advanced Education, or Branch Skill Tables.
This allows Bob to manage their skills such that they have a better chance getting a desired skill while still keeping some randomness in the process.
For example:
- Bob is eligible for a skill. Bob rolls a 3 on the die. Bob can select any 3 result on the Personal Development, Service, Advanced Education, or Branch Skill Tables.
This allows Bob to manage their skills such that they have a better chance getting a desired skill while still keeping some randomness in the process.
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Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Works best if the tables are constructed so a 5 doesn't get you the same skill across most of them.
I mostly did that with the Storm Knights careers for Spinward Extents, but I also suffered from alphabetization and stat-order fetishes, so a 1 will tend to get you Admin or STR+1... which is at least somewhat of a choice of how to deal with administrative matters...
Absolutely you can get that report through the audit with a fine argument well presented or by page count and hope they don't get to page 268 which was the point you realised you didn't actually have a point to make
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
So you could also pair up STR+1 with Computer Skill as alternative choices . . .
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Very true. OTOH, that's a risk you take. WE [refs and players] didn't generate the Skill Tables and unless we want to rewrite all of them, we have to take the good with the not-so-good.
Yeah, not a bad house rule. My only concern would be the larger number of high skill characters that would likely generate. Having recently wound up a long running campaign that had a Broker-4 and a Medic-4 both backed by INT and EDU +2, it can get a bit boring when the players want to use their skills. I find Traveller runs best with Skill-1 or 2 and Stat +1, and a wider range of skills.
I do think there's usually enough choice points where you can tweak things. Mustering out will almost certainly give you stat and skill points.
I do think there's usually enough choice points where you can tweak things. Mustering out will almost certainly give you stat and skill points.
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