Mongoose Character Generation for Dummies - Comment Thread

[CosmicGamer]

Welcome to the discussion thread for Mongoose Traveller Character Generation for Dummies.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=36346

Please stay on topic and try not to discuss alternate Character Generation systems.

Please do add comments and discuss the rules we are using. Often there is wording that can be interpreted in different ways. Your opinions and suggestions for how you would apply the same rule would be helpful.

In the main thread I will be following the rules in the book as close as possible. I am in no way saying that the rules in the book are perfect as is. I have my own House rules that I normally use during character generation and I will be discussing them here. Go ahead and talk about your House rules too.

Again, I ask you to please not discuss character generation from other games. These two threads are for owners of Mongoose Traveller and there is a good chance they do not own the game you are mentioning so your references will be useless to them. Create your own thread to discuss such things.

Thank you.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Comments on step 1.

CHARACTERISTICS
As per page 40, referees are encouraged to customize characteristics.

Some people throw out Social Standing and use Charisma instead.

Although I've never done it, I have considered adding personality characteristics such as Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism for determning a characters reaction to a certain situation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

One of my house rules when rolling characteristics is that if you do not have a plan ahead of time you fill in the characteristics in the order they were rolled. If you know before rolling what type of character you are going to play you can rearange stats to fit. So a military type could move that high 6th roll over to End or Dex. If you are going to try and become a doctor you can use that 11 you rolled for Edu.

What are your house rules?

CHARACTER NAME
There are many ways to name a character. Here are a few ways I've named characters and NPC's in the past.
- Flip open a phone book and point to a name
- Use a special die with the alphabet on it to determine the first letter of the name
- Variations of famous names from books, movies, TV and such
- Sometimes it just pops into my head
- Do research on different languages. For instance, if a character has a high dexterity their last name could be Ingambe [French for nimble].
- Use a random name generator like http://www.behindthename.com/random/

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Personally, I like the idea of letting the player decide many of those traits. Once they start coming up with the personality, they need to stick with it, even if it means doing something that the player doesn't necessarily want to, but is in keeping with the personality of the character that they created.

Charisma is the exception. Some people got it, some people (like me) don't. Having met several people with what I would consider High Charisma, I can understand its affect.

 

[-Daniel-]

Personally, I like the idea of letting the player decide many of those traits. Once they start coming up with the personality, they need to stick with it, even if it means doing something that the player doesn't necessarily want to, but is in keeping with the personality of the character that they created.

I agree. I have never liked when games try and "roll up" personality elements of the character. That is what Role Playing is for. The player takes the character and gives it life by playing a person with various traits.

Daniel

 

[Xoph]

When we rolled up the characters for the game I'm currently running, I used a combination of the rules with the goal to have everyone making up a character they realy want to play:

Stats: Roll 10 times take any 6
Skills: Pick unless the chart has a stat increase or Jack of All Trades in it, then the player would have to roll.
Survival: I used the marginal success rule for skill rolls here; the Navy Pilot in our group had recently been promoted to Officer and then failed his survival roll by 1. I told him he could survive if he gave up his commision.

It was everyone's first time playing Traveller and first time rolling up MGT characters. I tried to run character creation almost like a board game to make it more fun, which took a long time (6 hours) with seven players. I was mostly successful until the 5th hour. It took about an hour per term.

The characters might be a little more powerful then some made the strict rules, but it seems to just compensate for inexperience.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Comments on Step 2

One possible house rule is to allow doubling up on homeworld skills.

Example: Your homeworld is Low Tech and Poor so you would get Survival and Animal skills at level-0 but you have 2 more background skills available (+1 DM on EDU). You choose Drive-0 from the Education list but decide to double up on the Survival skill. This produces background skills of Animals-0, Drive-0, and Survival-1. I would not allow skills to be 'tripled up'.

 

[-Daniel-]

Comments on Step 2

One possible house rule is to allow doubling up on homeworld skills.

Example: Your homeworld is Low Tech and Poor so you would get Survival and Animal skills at level-0 but you have 2 more background skills available (+1 DM on EDU). You choose Drive-0 from the Education list but decide to double up on the Survival skill. This produces background skills of Animals-0, Drive-0, and Survival-1. I would not allow skills to be 'tripled up'.

I do not think this is needed. Mongoose Traveller already gives a lot of skills between the creation, the connections, and the skill package. I do not think another one is needed.

Daniel

 

[CosmicGamer]

Comments on Step 2

One possible house rule is to allow doubling up on homeworld skills.

Example: Your homeworld is Low Tech and Poor so you would get Survival and Animal skills at level-0 but you have 2 more background skills available (+1 DM on EDU). You choose Drive-0 from the Education list but decide to double up on the Survival skill. This produces background skills of Animals-0, Drive-0, and Survival-1. I would not allow skills to be 'tripled up'.

I do not think this is needed. Mongoose Traveller already gives a lot of skills between the creation, the connections, and the skill package. I do not think another one is needed.

Daniel

Either I'm misunderstanding you or you are misunderstanding me.

I did not give any extra skill, in a way I took one away.

Instead of taking a 4th level 0 background skill which was what would normally have happened, the character improves one level 0 skill to level 1.

 

[-Daniel-]

Either I'm misunderstanding you or you are misunderstanding me.

I did not give any extra skill, in a way I took one away.

Instead of taking a 4th level 0 background skill which was what would normally have happened, the character improves one level 0 skill to level 1.

Ok, let me put it another way. Level 0 skills are no bonus skills. They take what the dice give. They also offer great starting points for future improvment if you wish. But level 1 skills give a bonus. I believe that there is no need to add yet another way for a character to gain bonus giving skill level skills. Leave the starting background skills as zero level IMO.

But again, this is just my opinion and I realize as such it does not make me "right". :wink:

Daniel

 

[AKAramis]

Either I'm misunderstanding you or you are misunderstanding me.

I did not give any extra skill, in a way I took one away.

Instead of taking a 4th level 0 background skill which was what would normally have happened, the character improves one level 0 skill to level 1.

Ok, let me put it another way. Level 0 skills are no bonus skills. They take what the dice give. They also offer great starting points for future improvment if you wish. But level 1 skills give a bonus. I believe that there is no need to add yet another way for a character to gain bonus giving skill level skills. Leave the starting background skills as zero level IMO.

But again, this is just my opinion and I realize as such it does not make me "right". :wink:

Daniel

The rules also state that two level 0's do not equal a level one, so you ARE right, and he's wrong.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Either I'm misunderstanding you or you are misunderstanding me.

I did not give any extra skill, in a way I took one away.

Instead of taking a 4th level 0 background skill which was what would normally have happened, the character improves one level 0 skill to level 1.

Ok, let me put it another way. Level 0 skills are no bonus skills. They take what the dice give. They also offer great starting points for future improvment if you wish. But level 1 skills give a bonus. I believe that there is no need to add yet another way for a character to gain bonus giving skill level skills. Leave the starting background skills as zero level IMO.

But again, this is just my opinion and I realize as such it does not make me "right". :wink:

Daniel

Thanks for clearing that up. I understand your point now.

Even though Aramis is obviously on the fence about this, I bet deep down he agrees and would also not adapt this house rule.

To tell you the truth, I have never used this myself. Just threw it out there as a possibility to get people to think.

I'm trying to give one alternative for each of the steps as I go through them in the main thread to try and get some conversation going.

I like that people seam to think the rules are pretty good so far and are defending them.

 

[serene_muse]

Enjoying the main thread, thanks much and keep at it! 8)

I'd suggest keeping as much By the Book as possible, since I see the thread as a good guide to this new game. Both for complete Traveller newbies and those familiar with other versions. I've already pointed some new players generating their first Traveller (or first Mongoose Traveller) characters here.

Once the thread's complete it'd be a good candidate for a sticky IMNSHO.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Mustering Benefits

Theoselk Q: Are you allowed to add options to the mustered weapon, and if not, can they be retrofitted with personal cash later?
A: I don't believe the book specifically states if equipment received as a mustering out benefit can include options so this would be up to the referee.

Options can also be added later.

I take things on a case by case basis - I might even disallow certain choices (a character who was a citizen or drifter choosing a TL16 Plasma Rifle). In general, if a player can roleplay (using their career and events - not some fanciful story) how their character obtained the item and options I would allow it.

 

[-Daniel-]

Mustering Benefits

Theoselk Q: Are you allowed to add options to the mustered weapon, and if not, can they be retrofitted with personal cash later?
A: I don't believe the book specifically states if equipment received as a mustering out benefit can include options so this would be up to the referee.

Options can also be added later.

I take things on a case by case basis - I might even disallow certain choices (a character who was a citizen or drifter choosing a TL16 Plasma Rifle). In general, if a player can roleplay (using their career and events - not some fanciful story) how their character obtained the item and options I would allow it.

THis makes sense to me. I mean if the scout character wants to select a shotgun witha laser sight, I would be much more open to it then if he wanted a smart FGMP. One seems to fit into his career, the other just does not.

Daniel

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Theoselk
Q:I'm unsure whether I get 2 advancements, or whether the event automaticly succeeds my advancement/commission roll
A: The event makes the attempt for advancement or commission automatic. It would not allow both. I dropped the second advancement and skill. Here is the adjusted term for Lance.

Actually, the event is separate to the advancement roll, it doesn't abrogate it. So Lance would be commissioned to Ensign from the event, and then gets promoted to sublieutenant in the same term. I believe (though I could be misremembering) this was confirmed by a Mongooser somewhere on here.

In fact, on commission, Lance receives Melee (Blade) 1, and then through the promotion to sublieutenant gets Leadership 1, and then on top of that the skill from a successful advancement.

Doing it this way makes it possible (though reasonably unlikely) to be a Capt. Kirk, and get a cruiser command by age 36.

 

[Xoph]

I had this happen in character generation with one of my players and let them do both like Klaus Kipling said.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Theoselk
Q:I'm unsure whether I get 2 advancements, or whether the event automaticly succeeds my advancement/commission roll
A: The event makes the attempt for advancement or commission automatic. It would not allow both. I dropped the second advancement and skill. Here is the adjusted term for Lance.

Actually, the event is separate to the advancement roll, it doesn't abrogate it. So Lance would be commissioned to Ensign from the event, and then gets promoted to sublieutenant in the same term. I believe (though I could be misremembering) this was confirmed by a Mongooser somewhere on here.

In fact, on commission, Lance receives Melee (Blade) 1, and then through the promotion to sublieutenant gets Leadership 1, and then on top of that the skill from a successful advancement.

Doing it this way makes it possible (though reasonably unlikely) to be a Capt. Kirk, and get a cruiser command by age 36.

I would certainly go by what mongoose intended. Point me to the post if possible.

It does not say 'You gain a promotion or a commission'. Why the extra 2 words? My interpretation is that there is no need for the word automatically. To me, it refers to the future attempt for advancement or commission and indicates the roll is not necessary - it is automatic. Of course it also does not say 'Your next advancement or commission is automatic.'

Definitely room for personal interpretation [when in doubt who is right :arrow: the referee] and I'd luv for a definitive word from Mongoose as to their intent.

As for your Capn Kirk wana be, passing your first commission roll and then getting a promotion each term results in Captain somewhere between the age of 34 [the age your character is at the start of term 5] and 38 [character age at the end of term 5] without needing the event to assist.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Sorry I can't remember where the post was. It was a query from someone about just his thing, and I think the reply was 'official', tho I can't be sure. Not very useful....