Slower character generation skill gain

[Kautsu]

Hello,

I have suggestion making the skill level descriptions more accurate to time spent getting those skills during character generation. I am sorry for writing a long text as I am writing out my axioms and reasoning behind these changes:

First: I assume the first tour 6 skill special training is combination of two elements: 1 year of basic training in school and 1 skill basic training during first term. This 1 year basic training seems to be something simulating the schooling before age 14. In this way the system would be consistent with basic training given on latter terms: 1 skill to 0.

In order to make higher skill levels harder to get, we need new quanta of skill development. Lets call this quanta Skill Point. As skill descriptions for levels say, each level is harder to learn than previous level, thus I use simple first attempt for cost to advance skill: 1 SP per level. (More complex / accurate system would take skill level 0 into account when moving from 0 to 1). Assumption is that 1 roll you get to career represents 1 year of training due working. 1 benefit roll indicates material benefits from one year of the term. The 3rd year learning roll is the advancement roll. If passed, you get 3rd year learning as random skill. Getting contact or ally seems to give the 4th possible "benefit" combined with rank bonus benefits.

I would add additional roll after survival roll to balance a bit slower training speed. The first term of the character might be the exception for this.

When you roll a skill on table, you get 1 SP to it, not whole level. This same applies when exchanging rewards to skill levels. This would remove the need for skill cap during character generation as getting skills to rank 4 would became significantly harder.

Thus the skill table:
Level: Cost:
1: 1 SP
2: 2 SP
3: 3 SP
4: 4 SP
5: 5 SP
And so forth.

What would you think of this? It would make older characters more skilled and allow better judgement how skilled certain level NPCs are (combined with my renowated skill improvement suggestion).

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I'm not a fan of points in RPGs. Hit-points is the most I'll handle. Luckily, they are used on animals and not on my Travellers (which already have characteristic points, technically).

 

[Kautsu]

I'm not a fan of points in RPGs. Hit-points is the most I'll handle. Luckily, they are used on animals and not on my Travellers (which already have characteristic points, technically).

I would rather use "training weeks" and use same system for character generation skill advancement and post-character generation advancement. I just have to get the in-game advancement tweaked to work properly before I can do that.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

So in a nutshell, what do you want changed about Traveller chargen?

 

[Kautsu]

So in a nutshell, what do you want changed about Traveller chargen?

Make skill progression more accurate to description by requiring more terms to acquire higher skill levels. This would lift the requirement for rank 4 limitation as skill progression will become slower or slower. I would also want character generation "simulate" game play terms with random representing story and difficulties during the game.

Thus 1 term during character generation should give roughly as much skills and wealth combined as 4 years in game play. Original Traveller had no character development thus the game should be aimed for people wanting to roleplay experienced people who does not need to learn new things. This is unlike average fantasy RPG 16 years old level capability, but fast character development during the play.

 

[allanimal]

Make skill progression more accurate to description by requiring more terms to acquire higher skill levels. This would lift the requirement for rank 4 limitation as skill progression will become slower or slower. I would also want character generation "simulate" game play terms with random representing story and difficulties during the game.

Thus 1 term during character generation should give roughly as much skills and wealth combined as 4 years in game play.

This would mean a re-write of both the character generation rules as well as the skill progression rules, result in characters with much fewer skill levels after character generation, and take longer to get them afterwards. Characters will be less versatile this way.

It would be much harder to have small adventuring group - heck my regular game with three PCs barely has enough skills to go around doing all things that need to be done... They would either need to hire NPCs or play multiple characters to be able to crew a small ship. I personally don't want that as a GM.

I actually like the char gen rules as they are. There are a few warts that are being looked at, but in general it results in decent characters with reasonable skills. Granted, in my games, players tend to muster out their PCs after 3-5 terms, I suppose if you went on for several more it may seem like characters are "over skilled" at the start.

Original Traveller had no character development thus the game should be aimed for people wanting to roleplay experienced people who does not need to learn new things. This is unlike average fantasy RPG 16 years old level capability, but fast character development during the play.

I don't think we want to make this "Original Traveller". Because that game already exists and is still quite playable. Mongoose is trying to make a new Traveller game, not because they are nice people, but probably because they want to make money on it. Making it desirable to as many people as possible would be one way of doing that. Making it too much like "Original Traveller" would just be pointless, because just about everyone that wants to play "Original Traveller" is already doing it.

Having character development during play is not a bad thing, and is desirable to more than just the 16 year olds. (I am well, well beyond 16 and I want some form of char development). And lets face it, it is a part of most modern RPGs. Fixing the skill development during play to make it comparable to the rate of development during char gen would be better than slowing down the rate during char gen.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Thus 1 term during character generation should give roughly as much skills and wealth combined as 4 years in game play. Original Traveller had no character development thus the game should be aimed for people wanting to roleplay experienced people who does not need to learn new things. This is unlike average fantasy RPG 16 years old level capability, but fast character development during the play.

Classic Traveller, and fantasy zero-to-hero 16-year-olds. I block those two images out of my head when playing Mongoose Traveller. Characters that have skills in everything are kind of boring to me. I'm not a player that trains his characters after chargen, even though The Traveller Book and Mongoose Traveller have rules for it. -3 DM is a nice challenge to role-play with. Jack of all Trades is there for players that need to decrease challenges. Much simpler than re-writing chargen rules.

 

[Major Tom]

Classic Traveller, and fantasy zero-to-hero 16-year-olds.

Very off-topic, but playing an 18 year old in a Traveller game can be a lot of fun if you can convince the GM and other players to let you. Having one of the other characters as a relative does help from a logic perspective, but I ran a character who was basically an apprentice Scout on his first term sent out with a semi-retired scout and his friends.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Classic Traveller, and fantasy zero-to-hero 16-year-olds.

Very off-topic, but playing an 18 year old in a Traveller game can be a lot of fun if you can convince the GM and other players to let you.

Yep. A lot of movie characters are 18 years old. I allow 15 year old Travellers if a player is 15 years old, because they think 18 is "that is too old!"