New Core Book - Errata on Mustering Out and Career Ejection

nats

Banded Mongoose
A - Mustering Out
The revised core book states that you lose the benefit roll for current term only if you fail the survival roll on page 8 and this is sort of reinforced by page 9 Mustering Out Benefits where it says leaving due to a mishap means you lose the benefits for that term only. But on page 34 under Mustering Out Benefits it clears states that you lose all benefits for the whole career if you fail a survival throw. This doesnt sound too unfair to me - its better than dying as you did in the original Traveller. But if you only lose one term of benefits does it make failing survival any worse than failing the advancement roll? I dont think so - makes not surviving pretty lame actually compared to the original Traveller.

So - I would suggest either that the words 'other than' should be removed from this last paragraph of Mustering Out benefits on page 34 and the brackets altered to include survival roll failure as a reason to still get all your benefits for any full terms served, and you only lose the current term's benefits if you fail a survival throw (if you want to have a lame survival failure) OR, (if you want lack of survival to actually mean something), that you just delete the words 'you lose the benefit roll for the current term only' from the Survival section on page 8. I think I prefer the latter myself - this then makes it pretty terrible if you do fail the survival roll and it makes more sense of the mishaps like 'you are found lost in your ship on the edge of space' - you wouldnt get any money or benefits in such a case in the real world as you could have been lost (assumed dead) for years.

B - Mishaps and Ejection
The whole mishap/ejection from career/failure of survival roll thing is a right mess in all the careers. If you fail a survival roll you supposedly roll on the mishaps table and then get ejected no matter what the mishap says. However if you roll 2 on the events table you dont get ejected no matter what the mishaps table says. Then several of the mishaps actually say 'but you do not have to leave the career'. And some of them, such as mishap 5 for the scholar, are downright pointless if you get told you are to leave whatsoever or not leave whatsoever. So what the hell do you do - Leave? Dont leave? God it does my head in! There are very few instances where you are instructed to roll on the mishaps table from events and it doesn't say 'but you dont get ejected from the career' after it.

I guess what has happened is at some point during the rules development, rolling a mishap automatically ejected you for the career unless the mishap told you otherwise. But the way it is now its a right mess.

I suggest that failure of survival roll does eject you from the career whatever the mishap says - as the rules do state. But in the item where you roll 2 on the events table and it says it doesn't eject you whatever the mishap says, I would suggest deleting that last bit of the sentence so you can get ejected if the mishap tells you to. This then at least starts to makes sense of most of the mishaps.

I doesn't help either that some of the mishaps are very vague about whether you lose your job or not. I guess unless it specifically states you lose your job you can assume you don't.
 
I think that the intent of the mishaps table is that you are not normally ejected from your career for a mishap (since you made your survival roll). Failing your survival roll is a special case where you roll on the mishap table (just to see what happened to you) and reguardless of the mishap table results, you are ALSO ejected from the career (since you did fail the survival roll).

[strictly a personal IMTU thing, but I'd let someone who rolled a 2 on the mishap table (after failing survival) to remain in the career as a 'special exception' ... I just like those sort of character backstory details - "Court martialed but granted a pardon and reinstated by Imperial order due to 'special circumstances'."]

No argument that the wording could be clearer, but 'Mishaps' just needs a clarification while 'Mustering Out Benefits' seems a full blown contradiction/error.
 
GypsyComet said:
Needs a flow chart at this point.

I'm sure I saw one... somewhere? Pretty well done as I recall. If only I could recall who or where, or if I'd saved it somewhere (and I might have, but again, where? :) )...
 
The way I see it every tour's benefit roll should be separated per tour so that if they do fail that survival check and get expelled by the resulting mishap its only the benefit rolls for that tour are so effected.
 
Sorry guys that relates to my naval forums which makes sense since Im the head of the Italian Club. Each Nation has a club.
Ray
 
I dont remeber a Swordfish getting the Veneto. But they for sure got another one of the German suckers. Didnt the Brits use a sub to get the Vitorio? Becaause she sure did not come out to do it gun to gun.

Owen
 
The Vittorio was hit by an ariel torpedo at Matapan (actually an Albacore torpedo bomber, but was later attacked by Swordfish too) and the sister ship Littorio was sunk by Swordfish at Taranto... hence my comment... :)

Mainly just trying to rib RC... :)
 
See now, thats where my smaller Edu (or probably Int, I've been to University...) stat has a pro; I can admire the rest of the sig and not worry about the boat :lol:
 
zero said:
See now, thats where my smaller Edu (or probably Int, I've been to University...) stat has a pro; I can admire the rest of the sig and not worry about the boat :lol:
I just googled Vittorio Veneto to see who this guy was that the quote was from. :oops:

... a town in Italy made no sense.
... a class of Italian Battleships seemed the more likely reference.

(I guess that gives me a low Int and Edu, but compter-0) 8)
[curse those aging rolls]
 
atpollard said:
zero said:
See now, thats where my smaller Edu (or probably Int, I've been to University...) stat has a pro; I can admire the rest of the sig and not worry about the boat :lol:
I just googled Vittorio Veneto to see who this guy was that the quote was from. :oops:

... a town in Italy made no sense.
... a class of Italian Battleships seemed the more likely reference.

(I guess that gives me a low Int and Edu, but compter-0) 8)
[curse those aging rolls]

The Quote is mine, VV. is the ship, and the Italian mermaid is what i think about as I sail around the Med. looking for a British ship to sink.
Ray :D
 
rcbecker1 said:
On the subject of Errata has Mongoose put anything out offical in PDF form or anything?

Only for the first revisions of Merc and High Guard I believe which have now all been implemented in the revised publications.

I dont think the Core Rule Book is bad or anything - in fact most of it works really well. But there are a lot of ambiguities that need clarifying by the authors. In fact we could do with a stickied thread on here just for that purpose I think.
 
Well...

There is a reason we have not posted anything on this particular question, or its cousin - what happens when you want to change career specialisation, do you just move or do you en-enlist?

That's because, so long as you are consistent in your own games, it really doesn't matter - it works either way. You are not going to break the game or unbalance a character by making the wrong choice. Because of that, we have been somewhat reluctant to make a firm ruling. On the issues in, say, Mercenary and High Guard, it is easy to come down on one side or the other but this seemed... a bit greyer, if you know what I mean.

So, no definititive answer as yet, and whichever way you are doing it is right (as long as you keep doing it that way!).

Sorry!
 
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