How to let players generate the characters they want without letting them min/max?

[Geir]

Not something I do, but something that could be a nice change in a new version:
The mustering out stats are almost always INT and EDU. I sort of get why (at least EDU). Maybe make it Any+1 with a limit of raising it to 10 (A for those of us who still think hexadecimal) - but to prevent mustered out sergeants becoming Nobles (or wait, wasn't that sort of an AotI thing? Um, special case) - maybe 12 max except for SOC?

Unrelated rant-like addendum: In the Traveller Companion (new, but also old) There's also a serious disconnect between training effort for skill and training for characteristics that makes characteristics ridiculously relatively expensive. Especially since a Traveller could take 4 years off to go to the university and get a skill at 2, a skill at 1, and EDU+2. That's 4 experience points for the skills, but for a starting EDU of 7... 34 experience points. For a military academy graduate you'd get 9 experience points for skills and 16 for Edu (on average for 7->8).

Of course I would argue that that 'you can't fix stupid', so maybe the fix would be to treat EDU like STR/DEX/INT and INT costs double. Though even that is high cost. Maybe make it (the basic cost) equal to the next value, but apply the current characteristic DM as a modifier to cost, so easier to get up to 6, harder to get above 9.

And enforce the rolled racial maximum and above by making it +3 no matter what (so a characteristic originally rolled on 1D would cost 8 points to get to 6 (the current 5 is DM-1, then +3 for maxing out, so 6 -1 + 3 = 8) For a baseline human that would make 11->12 = 12 +1 +3 = 16 points, or 32 points for INT. Certainly makes it harder to get out of a couple of standard deviations...

Yeah, now it's getting complicated. Maybe it belongs in the Companion. But maybe it belongs in a Core Blue Box... Or since Blue Boxes are for clarifications and special cases (and for Travelling in both Time and Space?), then maybe optional rules should get a Green Box? There's no experience or training rule at all in the new Core book, as far as I could find...

 

[Condottiere]

I prefer points, but that requires the character generation system to be based from the onset on it, not just added post facto, usually post haste.

The best compromise is life paths.

 

[rinku]

Letting players get physical stat points from mustering out might mess with the incentive to clear out before old age kicks in too badly...

I disagree that you can't fix stupid, sort of. Yeah, if the character is actually brain impaired or has an intellectual disability, they have limits.

But as was suggested a couple of posts ago, stat values may be what they are for several reasons. Someone that starts with low INT might not be unintelligent, just someone who needs a while to work through a problem. Over time, with training and maybe therapy, such a person might well get faster (INT goes up). Or it might be someone from a very sheltered or regimented background who is initially just not used to thinking for themselves, but once out in the wider galaxy finds their own abilities.

Some of that applies to EDU too. You can be a college graduate and still have low EDU (potentially as low as 4. EDU 2 would need to roll 8+ to enroll and then make an INT roll to graduate, ending up with +2 EDU. Hardly impossible). Was it nepotism? Luck? Or sheer hard work by a guy who had a dream and wasn't going to let crippling dyslexia get in the way?

 

[Condottiere]

If you know mostly low quality candidates will sign up for that particular career path, you rig personal improvement tables.

 

[rinku]

I see you're familiar with the Navy...

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

If you know mostly low quality candidates will sign up for that particular career path, you rig personal improvement tables.

Or you need more people than are available if you restrict your entrance to who you would like to have and arrange to work on building up people to those standards.

 

[Saladman]

... something that could be a nice change in a new version...

There's this whole category of stuff I think is reasonable and good as house/campaign/setting rules but needs to be kept far away from the core rule book. I've been thinking that for a while, and haven't wanted to single any one person out... so now I'm stuck seeming to call one person out, but it's multiple. But this strikes me as one such case.

Letting players get physical stat points from mustering out might mess with the incentive to clear out before old age kicks in too badly...

If you know mostly low quality candidates will sign up for that particular career path, you rig personal improvement tables.

These two points go together. Physical stats are harder to get later, but there's a mechanism to try for them earlier, Personal Development. Or you can get many but not all of the benefits of physical stats by training Athletics.

I feel the core rulebook system hangs together better than it's given credit for. It's just it hangs together at a meta-game level not a simulationist level. Just jumping straight in with simulationist fixes piecemeal is missing the forest for the trees.

On Int and Edu.

What I do is a character is only dumb as the higher of those two stats. High Int low Edu, quick-witted and cunning. Low Int high Edu, absent minded professor type.

I do wish Intellect (note the name isn't intelligence or IQ, by the way) had been described differently, without using intelligence as the first word. I spin it as quick wits, animal cunning, force of will, and sometimes street smarts (but not Streetwise). Which for me draws a sharper line between it and Edu.

 

[Saladman]

On reading my post, it's still harsher than I intended. What I could wish for was more discussion in the rules of dials and settings, rather than immediate changes to the rules. Somewhat similar to what Savage Worlds does, with its assumption that every campaign will adjust for setting and genre.

Examples: there could be a short sidebar saying a limit on terms is a pretty common house rule, don't be surprised. The package based char-gen method in Companion (which I otherwise like) could have used a note saying it returns strong characters, and maybe could have the final steps lopped off to balance against 4-5 term characters. Psionics might have a line saying characters who can do other things plus get a couple psionic abilities in reserve work out pretty well, while just trying to make a "single class" psionic may turn out weaker than expected... many others.

 

[rinku]

Yeah, there's always room for stuff like that, especially if a particular style of campaign is being set up, but I agree the core rules hang together very well.

I had an epiphany about player "strength" in Traveller the other other year. Ultimately it does not matter much, aside from the occasional delicate ego of a particular player that HAS to be the best. And they'll probably be an issue regardless of what method is in play.

When I started my recently finished campaign nearly six years ago, I had a range of Traveller veterans and novices. I was using 2016 MGT2e, but had only had it for a little while and wasn't fully across it. One of the players had a MGT1e character from an older campaign, so I let him use that one, with +2 years. I let all the players choose what compatible character generation system they wanted to use that I had access to - Classic, Mega, MGT1e, MGT2e (TNE wasn't on offer, but I could have been persuaded. It's not an impossible conversion). Advanced character systems were allowed, though I don't think anyone bothered - aside from the legacy 1e character I think they all used 2e anyway. (Edit - now that I think about it we had to convert some of the others from 1e to 2e skills, so they must have been rolled up with 1e. Planning for the campaign probably happened just before I got 2e)

And I'd stand by that idea. How the player arrives at their UWP and skill list, and starting cash and benefits really isn't that important. Traveller PCs aren't in competition with each other, and stat blocks are not as strongly linked to game ability like they are in, say, D&D or Champions. A Pilot-1 with DEX 6 gets the job done. A character with average stats and Gun Combat 0 aiming a pistol at you is a credible threat.

Characters are asymmetrical - that's been a feature since 1977 Book 1. Overall statblock and skill level count means less than specific ability.

And... there's a hard cap on how powerful a naked character can be. MOST tuning revolves around equipment, and very little of that comes from character generation anyway. Sure, you can operate battledress and fire a fusion gun... but you don't have either of them, and obtaining them is going to be Adventure.

 

[Condottiere]

When I created the CAVARLY career, I looked over the current range of Traveller default careers.

Since anyone can join, I trimmed the number of tables, and very carefully crafted Personal Development, to upgrade characteristics, which is why I knew that the tables can be rigged.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

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?

Just because the owner insists on being called Captain, doesn't mean he actually gets to touch any of the controls

 

[boggo2300]

Designed characters is one of the reason none of my favourite games are point-buy systems, To me play what you roll with some tweaking is much more interesting.

 

[rinku]

Champions works because you're designing unique gods anyway. The lack of random variety is made up for in superhuman power scope.

 

[Sigtrygg]

In all the years I have been playing and refereeing Traveller I can count on one hand the number of characters that a player has wanted to design rather than randomly generate.
That said we have a few guidelines/houserules:
1 - generate three characters and pick the one you want to play
2 - generate as many characters as you like in your own time, bring them to the table, they may get used as NPCs contacts and the like
3 - in the event of a character death a player can switch to a contact or NPC
4 - I often let the player roll the die for a skill and then select the skill table if I want to give them more control over their character skill set
5 - characters are sometimes generated for a specific scenario so I impose some skill rolls

The vast majority have been generated completely randomly though.

 

[MasterGwydion]

In all the years I have been playing and refereeing Traveller I can count on one hand the number of characters that a player has wanted to design rather than randomly generate.
That said we have a few guidelines/houserules:
1 - generate three characters and pick the one you want to play
2 - generate as many characters as you like in your own time, bring them to the table, they may get used as NPCs contacts and the like
3 - in the event of a character death a player can switch to a contact or NPC
4 - I often let the player roll the die for a skill and then select the skill table if I want to give them more control over their character skill set
5 - characters are sometimes generated for a specific scenario so I impose some skill rolls

The vast majority have been generated completely randomly though.

I just let people pick what they want and then limit the max skills to level 2.

 

[Sty0pa]

I give the players 3 'chargen points'.
- they to be spent to give you a -1 on a roll, a +1 on a roll, or a complete reroll
- you spend them immediately after you roll (ie you see a result you really don't like) - exception: you may also spend them after all your stats are generated but before any further generation is advanced; ie if you have a DEX of 4, you might want to reroll that.
- they are only useful during chargen; they are gone when play begins. Therefore usually players who've saved them end up spending them on mustering out rolls.

It gives them some agency without really controlling enough to minmax.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

I used to love playing a flawed character in D&D. My favorite was a wizard with a 3 constitution. Played him as a heavy smoker who couldn't keep up with everyone else. Even self imposed a one round inaction period, if the party had been moving and suddenly ran into a situation.
Drove the other players nuts when they where expecting a spread of magic missiles, but their mage mage couldn't quite gasp out the verbal component without a short break.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I used to love playing a flawed character in D&D. My favorite was a wizard with a 3 constitution. Played him as a heavy smoker who couldn't keep up with everyone else. Even self imposed a one round inaction period, if the party had been moving and suddenly ran into a situation.
Drove the other players nuts when they where expecting a spread of magic missiles, but their mage mage couldn't quite gasp out the verbal component without a short break.

I had a cleric with a 9 wisdom and 4 dex. Worshipped Tyche Goddess of luck. He had the luckiest rolls I have ever seen. He only ever miscast one spell and that was off a scroll of a level above what he could cast and he had no side effects (that was very lucky). When he let the other characters persuade him on just ONE more adventure even though it violated his oath to Tyche to retire at that point (7th level) his luck vanished. When at the climax of the adventure things looked dire he called on Tyche and renewed his vow, just let him save his friends - his luck came back.

When I say luck for that character I'm talking EXACTLY that. No bonuses given to him just pure lucky rolls. He once fell down a flight of stairs at JUST the right moment to knock a invisible assassin that was after HIM into a fall of over 100', killing the assassin and giving him a die roll to catch himself (on 3d6) he made that roll the high dex assassin failed his.

On the other hand I had a couple of thieves who couldn't back stab. One of them succeeded ONCE and that success did minimal damage but released a defensive spell that almost killed HIM. Three different multi classed wizards who missed understanding all the major attack spells except magic missile and sleep up to fourth level. Good thing they had thieving to fall back on or they would have been nigh useless.

Luck can be fickle but sometime you have wonder if it isn't playing favourites.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I have played many flawed characters over the years, but almost always because I designed them that way. When I play an RPG, I have a character in mind to go with whatever campaign is being run. Usually with a full backstory that will get altered as needed to fit other party members in to it if they wish to have prior connections. Traveller makes that impossible. Traveller requires you to roll up a character and then figure out what story goes with the character. I write the story and then figure out what kind of character goes with that story. So, I never actually use the Traveller creation system as written.

 

[rinku]

Everyone has their way.