Starting Age

[kristof65]

Ok, one thing that's always bothered me about Traveller is that when every PC has a starting age of 18, the PCs almost always wind up the same age, or in blocks of four years apart. With that in mind, I thought I'd try something to kind of randomize the starting ages. Here is what I came up with:

Traveller Starting Age:

2D6	Starting Age	Notes/Comments
2	15	Not eligible for Draft or Military Service. Automatic entry to Rogue career if desired.
3	16	Not eligible for Draft or Military Service. Automatic entry to Rogue career if desired.
4	17	Not eligible for Draft
5	17	
6	18	
7	18	
8	18	
9	19	
10	19	Carousing 0
11	20	Edu +1, or Carousing 0 or Persuade 0
12	21	Edu +1, or Carousing 0 or Persuade 0

DMs:  
+1 if from Rich or High Technology world (not cumulative)
- 1 if from Agricultural world
- 1 if from Poor World

Feedback welcome.

 

[GypsyComet]

Under some prior editions, Barbarians and Belters started a term earlier.

 

[steelbrok]

Also I don't see why family based Free Traders shouldn't start a term earlier but not be eligible for any commission or promotion in that term

 

[rust]

I see no reason why you could not change the starting age, as long as
you keep the four year terms it does not matter whether a character
starts at age 14 or age 22.

 

[lurker]

Never tested, here are some of the different ideas I've had in the past, and just now. Some of these ideas came at different times and are not meant to work together.

Someone is smart so they finish school early and can start certain careers at an earlier age.

Someone is not so smart and not well educated so they do not finish school and can start certain careers at an earlier age.

Someone is not so smart but educated. They take longer to finish school and start their career at a later age.

Players can decide to start their characters careers early but they get an amount subtracted from their education. If players elect to start their career late, they get an addition to their education.

You can start as a drifter at any age between, lets make it 15 and 21.
Let the player decide or create a roll for it. Example
2 = 15
3,4 = 16
5,6 = 17
7 = 18
8,9 = 19
10,11 = 20
12 = 21

If a characters Qualification roll succeeds by more than a certain amount you started the career early. Maybe 1 year early for rolling Qual +3 and 2 years early for Qual +6 (after DMs)?

The characters stat for qualification in their first career determines starting age
DM / Age
-2 / 20
-1 / 19
0 / 18
+1 / 17
+2 / 16
So a character with an endurance of 9 (+1) could start an army or marine career at 17.

Roll 2d6 and apply the 'DM' to the characters starting age before starting char gen.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I figure that in a Fantasy campaign you can start at 14, and at that age you can be eligible for military service...

Of course, this is why I prefer to do CharGen's survival, life/career events and skills by year; if you fail a survival roll at term 3 year 3, you muster out at 29 instead of 30.

 

[mhensley]

easy enough to do -

starting age = 15 + 1d6.

 

[Woas]

Here's what I've done: if a character leaves a term because of a failed Survival check, the player rolls a d4. The result on the d4 is how many years of that 4 year term it took before the mishap happened.


And that way, assuming characters get a mishap or two, their ages are different, even if it's only a couple years.

 

[Solivagus]

I'd just go for 16+Edu-Int, with any results of less than X (12 or 13 maybe) resulting in the character being an escaped illegal clone subject to accelerated growth and having a "physical" age of 16+d6 years.

 

[Ishmael]

I have a variant I found on the net a while back that starts the character genertaion at birth and tracks it through highschool to 18 where the player then enters a career.
It handles all stats and certain skills.
I'll try to find a link for it when I get home from work.
If I can't find it, I can at least give out a name for who made it.

I'll get info before I get to bed tonight.

 

[Stormraven]

WRT to exiting terms due to failed survival rolls, I see no reason to assume that the character 'recovered' on a four year cycle. Roll a d4 if you like, to determine when the character was available again, and continue Char Gen from there. Added to a more random starting point, you'll get a lot of different ages.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I just assume 2 years for failing a Survival roll.

 

[AKAramis]

I just assume 2 years for failing a Survival roll.

I used 1d3 years...

 

[saundby]

Something I did once, and may do again since it really did work out well:

The characters all start out as kids, 8+1D6 years of age. EDU is age-5. Soc is treated as their family's SOC, not their own. Physical attributes are scaled by age, at about 45%, 50%, 55%, 60%, 70%, 75%. Run them through an adventure, their only skills are their homeworld skills. Some sort of "Three Investigators" or "Nancy Drew" type mystery for about half a dozen sessions or so. Let them establish their characters as kids.

Then, let them figure out how many terms they're going to allow for. Let them adjust attributes to the full original rolls and start their terms at 15+age roll years old.

They've all been called together from their various professions to the deathbed of some adult from the childhood adventure, and a big secret is revealed...

Gives differing ages, and some interesting background. Like Janey, who always said she was going to be an Imperial Marine, but washed out when she applied and ended up a merchanter instead. Jimmy, who was so big, strong, and athletic, who was crippled in an accident while working on a jump drive. The little chubby guy who was always trucking along in the gang's train is now ramrod straight with a chest full of medals.

Lots of fun.

 

[dayriff]

As long as everyone makes the appropriate number of aging rolls for the number of terms served, surely precise age is a cosmetic matter? It's no different than hair color or height. I'd just tell the players that they're welcome to figure their age as they see fit, keeping in mind that each term represents approximately four years and that they have to start making aging rolls after three terms.

 

[kristof65]

As long as everyone makes the appropriate number of aging rolls for the number of terms served, surely precise age is a cosmetic matter?

Yes.

It's no different than hair color or height. I'd just tell the players that they're welcome to figure their age as they see fit, keeping in mind that each term represents approximately four years and that they have to start making aging rolls after three terms.

And I've done it that way in the past, and for the most part, it's worked. I've also ran into problems where because I've been flexible, certain players try and abuse it by trying to get concessions out of me.

I thought this time around I'd simply head things off, and "codify" it into a rule/table. Since I was doing that, I tried to kind of match the "flavor" of the rest of the MgT char gen system and add some differences to it if you get a high/low roll.

I find it interesting that all sorts of alternate ways were suggested by people (all of which seem perfectly viable), and no comments were made about what I had posted.

 

[Jame Rowe]

easy enough to do -

starting age = 15 + 1d6.

Or do it as 13 + 1d6.

 

[Ishmael]

I found the "youth in Classic Traveller" variant.
by Russell Borogrove

http://www.estarcion.com/kaleja/youth.html

Just juggle the starting years for each player ( baseline 1d6-1d6 ?)
They'll enter careers at the same age, but some will be older and some will be younger because of differing birthdays.

 

[rust]

I find it interesting that all sorts of alternate ways were suggested by people (all of which seem perfectly viable), and no comments were made about what I had posted.

Sorry, but since I use a very different pre-enlistment system (see the
post and link in the "OC and NOTC" thread), I had nothing useful to say.