"Traveller character creation question." Topic

I've never played the game or looked at the books so I really don't know anything about it. I have seen a lot of comments/posts about it in the last few weeks. So much so I have been trolling sites looking for information about it.
You can die in character creation!

I've even downloaded a character generation program… that didn't generate anything. :(

So I am begging the someone here with time to roll up a new basic character here explaining the process as you go.
Too many people have said they had as much fun making the characters as they did gaming them to not see what all the hubbub is all about.

If anyone knows of any websites where this is done I'd appreciate it as well.

Do you have a specific edition in mind?

I don't have any of my old books or I'd happily comply! My buddies and I used to sit around and make up characters just for fun. *L*

The basic process, if I remember correctly, goes something like this:

You roll for your basic attributes.

You pick a career path you want to follow (Scouts, Marines, Army, etc. – all have different advantages and specialized skills).

Then you roll to see how your first term goes(I can't remember if this was two or four year terms). You'll get some sort of skill, attribute bump, and/or advantage out of this – or you could die or be forced to retire. If you weather this okay, you can make a roll to see if you get a second term. You repeat the process till you either get kicked out, die, or opt to "Muster Out."

When you Muster Out, you get to roll to see if you come out of your service with any special benefits (like Traveller's Aid Society membership) and find out what your yearly retirement income is. I seem to recall you can get some starting gear, too, and things like starship tickets.

Once retired, your life of adventuring begins! This has the nice effect of making most Traveller characters older than your usual 16 to 18 y/o RPG starting character. Since age stopping drugs (anagathics) are available, starting out at age 38 isn't so bad . . .

It really is a great way to do things – but, be warned, it requires a lot of imagination. The results of character generation are pretty prosaic. It's up to you to imagine the interesting events that led up to them.

Hopefully someone can give you a more complete run-through (and not based on memories dating back to the 70s)!

-Shawn.

Do you have a specific edition in mind?

I'm assuming that when people are talking about the game wistfully they are referring to the earlier editions so;
Classic or Mega preferred. Do all ed allow for death in creation? "

Shawn, is there are reasons to not try and "Muster Out" after your first Term? How many terms can you do and how long can a person live? Do you gain skills ingame to show progress to what came before?

Most editions will get a good reaction from someone. The original edition, now known as Classic Traveller (or CT) has a straightforward character generation method that also applies to the edition that followed (MegaTraveller or MT) and is the basis for most of the others. Only the Licensed Editions (GURPS Traveller, Traveller Hero, T20, and the fan conversion to Savage Worlds) change it significantly.

A character will typically try for four-six terms of four years each before mustering out into play. In many editions, a failed survival roll stopped that process. Early on, failing that roll meant death in character generation. So sad. By the end of CT, however, it was already an accepted house rule by many that it would instead dump you into play without some or all of the benefits you would have gained from that term. The current edition from Mongoose (MGT for short) uses it to force a career change, which the player can use to either try a new career or enter play. A failed Survival roll in MGT does deprive the character of the Muster Out roll they would have gotten for that term, but allows the other benefits of that term to occur. Near death experiences can be very educational, after all.

Quick and dirty, from the original CT Book 1 "Characters and Combat".

Roll two d6 for stats six times
10, 4, 12, 8, 5, 5
Taking them in order or assigning is up to the Referee, really. We'll take them straight.
STR 10
DEX 4 (clumsy!)
END 12
INT 8
EDU 5
SOC 5

With stats like that, we look at the career chart and see that the low DEX won't be a big hindrance if we go with either the Marines or a Merchant career. Living dangerously, we'll pick the Marines. The STR and INT of more than 8 each give our blank slate a +3 on the roll to enlist, meaning we need to roll a 6+. (Roll = 12) We're in.

First Term. Starting Age 18.
Roll for Survival. The base roll is 6+ but our END gives a +2, so (Roll=6) we're good for the four years and are now 22. We need a 9+ to earn a Commission, and our EDU is not high enough to help, but (Roll=9) we are apparently seen as promising anyway. The four years offer opportunities to advance, and (Roll=10; we needed a 9+) we do. At the end of four years we hold Rank 2.

By getting through the term and being commissioned, we have earned two skills automatically: Rifle-1 and Cutlass-1 (the Imperial Marines are strong on old traditions and still teach a bladed weapon). In addition we will be making three rolls on the skill tables: one for the term, one for the commission, and one for the promotion. We cannot use the second Advanced Education Table, as it requires an EDU of 8+, but we'll roll once each on the other three. (Roll=6, 2, 2) and get another level of Blade Combat, a level of Vacc Suit, and a level of Mechanical. The Blade Combat needs to be defined, and our fellow decide to expand his expertise and takes "Blade", which is somewhere between a dagger and a short sword.

At the end of the Term: Cutlass-1, Blade-1, Vacc Suit-1, Mechanical-1, and Rifle-1

We love the Corps, and roll to re-enlist, and (Roll=8) are successful. On to Term 2!

Repeating the rolls for a Term (except that Enlisting and Commission are once only), Survival is (Roll=4) barely made, while Promotion is (Roll=9) also just achieved. The further rank does not give any automatic skills, but does provide another roll on the tables, giving us two for the Term. Sticking to the skills tables, we get (Rolls=1, 2) Vehicle and another Mechanical. Vehicle is another skill that must be defined, and we pick Grav Belt (we are from the future, after all), which will, according to the skill description, also be useful for other gravitic vehicles.

End of Term 2: Cutlass-1, Blade-1, Vacc Suit-1, Mechanical-2, Grav Belt-1, and Rifle-1; Rank 3 (Force Commander); Age 26.

We love the Corps, and roll to re-enlist, but alas (Roll=5) are not successful. Apparently there aren't many slots open for mid-range officers in the Cav Motor Pool.

Very well, we shall take our skills out into the rest of the Imperium and make a go of it. Our two terms and Rank 3 give us a total of four rolls on the Mustering Out tables. Up to three of these may be taken as Cash rolls. We'll split ours evenly.
Cash (Rolls=1, 4) we tucked away for retirement comes out to Cr12,000. Enough to live on for a little bit, but a new job is going to be needed soon.
Benefits (Rolls=3,5) include a bit of an education despite ourselves (EDU+1=6) and the real jackpot, a membership in the Traveller's Aid Society! This normally costs a cool million, so we were probably awarded this for…something… we did that we can't be visibly thanked for. It means we get a luxury starship ticket every two menths, which we may use, accumulate, or sell (at Cr10000). Assuming we don't need to travel, we're set for beer money for life.

Now off to the TAS lounge to see if any of the other members need a mechanic with command experience…

Yes…just like that!

There are options and chances to try other services depending on the GM and rules version also.

More recent editions add to, tweak, or otherwise modify the above process. Weapon skills also get a bit broader later. Under MGT, for example, his weapon skills would be interpreted as Large Blade, Small Blade, and Slug Rifles, and he would have a zero skill level in most other hand-to-hand weaponry and personal firearms.

Even in CT, zero skills will accumulate as makes sense. Note that zeros are not a lack of skill, just a lack of bonuses. They represent the rest of the career skill set that you absorbed but didn't actually excel at. Our hero would probably have Gravitics-0 (mechanical skill for grav systems) because he's a tinker and can fly the things, and Electronics-0 because, well, not everything can be fixed with a hammer but that doesn't mean he's good at it. He'd be lost in an engine room, however, so I can't see any ranks in Engineering, and he's clumsy enough that the heavy guns were probably off-limits, so none of those skills.

When all is said and done, he looks like this:

Our Hero, Marines 2 Terms, Rank 3 (Force Commander)
A4C865 Age 26
Mechanical-2, Vacc Suit-1, Rifle-1, Cutlass-1, Blade-1, Grav Belt-1
Gravitics-0, Electronics-0
Cr12,000, TAS

Traveller is also the only RPG I know of where a PC can randomly start the game as a minor nobleman! One of my favorite characters started out as a duke . . . of a very minor region of a very minor planet, with no political authority or wealth, but still!

Mechwarrior (at least the first two editions) allows you to start as Minor nobility too….one of our players started as a Baron, i think it was, in charge of his own merc unit

Battletech started as a variant of Traveller, at least in-house, so that is not surprising.

> Battletech started as a variant of Traveller

Strange – there is no similarity at all in the systems used in the two games (OK, they both use dice).

Mechwarrior RPG might – but that was such a mess that I did not even finish reading it.

At game last night the GM announced that our Deadlands campaign is drawing to a stopping point and we started discussing what we'd like to play next.
I tossed out Classic Traveller as an option because I know at least one other guy likes it and knows it well… but our other GM started in on a rant about how he has 'never felt connected with any Traveller PC because of the way character generation works'… which surprised me. In the end it's just a set of numbers with a few tags to hang a personality/history on… fuel to the imaginative fire for me and hardly a straighjacket.
I'm guessing it's the lack of 'optimization' you can do with CT.. it's takes too much control out of the player's hands for some tastes (the way most all older games did).
I dunno… it doesn't bug me at all… but I guess that keep it down from getting played.

> Battletech started as a variant of Traveller

Strange – there is no similarity at all in the systems used in the two games (OK, they both use dice).

Specifically, they both use two d6. The Pilot and Gunner ratings are notationally flipped, but are still basically the same mechanic: roll high on 2d6. Battletech was originally an in-house Traveller game at FASA, the biggest of the early Traveller licensees. By the time it reached print it had changed enough to be unrecognizable, since only the basic skill mechanic remained and it was well disguised.

All of my Traveller characters died during character generation.

…Just kidding.

It IS fun just rolling up Traveller characters, but WHY O WHY after 16 years in the Interstellar Imperial Navy does my character only have 'Cutlass-6' is beyond me…

GypsyComet describes the process well but even in CT there were more detailed career paths described in books 4 & 5 (Military and Naval respectively, link ) ; along with the less official FASA supplements ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASA ) in the case of my copies printed by GW……

The grerat thing about Traveller though was that it still played well without any of the supplements!

Dying during character generation was part of the game. It was always worth keeping 'failed' characters to use as NPCs though.

When we played we had the option if a character died during creation to either use him as is at that point, or start a new character. Probably a few times the GM let the player ignore the death and continue creating the character, particularly if it was shaping up to be an interesting one. Like all things, that rule was made to be broken sometimes, we never got hung up on it.

> When we played we had the option if a character died during creation to either use him as is at that point

If I recall correctly, that became the official line later on. Instead of dead the character was just forced to start the game at that point.

even in CT there were more detailed career paths described in books 4 & 5 (Military and Naval respectively, link ) ; along with the less official FASA supplements ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASA ) in the case of my copies printed by GW……

The more detailed career paths in Book 4 (Army and Marines), Book 5 (Navy), Book 6 (Scouts), and Book 7 (Merchants) also generated, on average, a higher number of skills, causing GDW to cap skills at INT + EDU. While they are good for producing more detail in a character's past, they were also produced during the period when the skill list was evolving. Some of the skills were too specific, and others too general.

I don't recall FASA doing any careers, unless there is something I'm forgetting in the magazine(s). A few appeared in Dragon/Ares, White Dwarf, Adventure Gaming, Space Gamer, and Different Worlds, as well as GDW's Traveller-specific Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society. Paranoia Press added a few careers, and were also the first appearance of the survival variant that would later become the standard and the Poltroonery/Heroism rule that allowed you to add mods on the survival check in exchange for reversed mods on the Promotion check.

"but our other GM started in on a rant about how he has 'never felt connected with any Traveller PC because of the way character generation works"

Hmmmm…what does one say to this?

Roshambo?

:)

Finishing up a Deadlands game and looking for something else eh?…

I would offer a version of Morrow Project with the system of your choice…characters are either career Marine or Army types (I recommend hard chargers that made it through the ranks…senior enlisted or warrant officers) with multi-tiered skills of weapons, field medicine, tactics, and a specialty such as communications, mechanics, electronics, etc.

or

contracted science types with top secret clearances, several doctorates, extensive experience with secret government projects, and all with considerable physical fitness…runners, swimmers, rock climbers, etc.

or

Officers from any service with specialties involving engineering, medicine, technology, etc., all have a doctorate or 2-3 BS degrees…I would look to those who are grounded, so most would have some enlisted or civilian experience…ranks 04, 05, 06

*****

All are stored in an experiment dealing with long term affects of cryogenics…that is all they know…in reality they are stored away just in case.

Insert your choice of Oh Sheet! to the Earth, let some (I say a fair amount) time pass, and the timer goes off…the payers wake up…all their equipment is there ready to go, a couple vehicles of a recon-ish nature, plenty of survival supplies and tools, water, etc.

…and that is it…they know nothing else…in fact I would not tell them anything…let them make modern characters for a modern game…take a break for pizza or Thai…then let them know that they are to be part of a cryogenics experiment…

dun dun duuuuuuuuuuu!

*****

World without Man?

Moorlocks?

Planet of the Apes?

Mutant Hordes?

Human hating machines?

Aliens terraforming Earth?

Insert whichever flavor of fun you like.

*****

Oh yeah…Roshambo that Traveller hating player…make sure to go first!

"characters are either career Marine or Army types (I recommend hard chargers that made it through the ranks…senior enlisted or warrant officers)"

I reread this…of course elite from any service would fit right in…

:)

Yeah characters can die in character generation (I think the mongoose version changed that to add an 'event' which added a bit of flavour to the character).

But anyway, we always either ignored the survival rolls, or interpreted the result as a 'near death' event that was used to give the character a bit more history. What's the point in spending all that time generating a character only to have to start all again because of a random dice roll. That seemed like an utter 'fail' on behalf of the game designers.

And random skills ????? Why ???? Again, we always allowed players to select their skills.

Zardoz

@28mmMan… your description of The Morrow Project reminds me of the setup for Living Steel… elite troops coming out of stasis into the chaotic aftermath of an alien invasion. Like The Morrow Project it also has a set of mechanics I'd likely want to swap out for something else (Traveller wouldn't be a bad fit).

Regarding my 'Traveller hating player'… he's a nice guy, it just bugs me that he (seemingly) can't possibly enjoy playing a character he doesn't micromanage min/max every step of the way.
It's not that I think all character generation in every game should be random… it's just one flavor among many.
Random skills seem fine to me given the military background where (I assume) you don't always get to pick and choose what you're doing… and I'm happy to put my imagination to work explaining any anomalies or mishaps that occur.

I think science fiction isn't a good fit for our group anyway… we'd never get past the discussions/lectures about why the physics/computers/weapons are 'wrong'. Another reason why fantasy games are more popular I suspect.

*Only* Cutlass-6? If it's backed up with some good Dex and End, that's about the best swordsman in the Imperium!

Now I've got to bust out the LBB Reprints, and make some stuff…

And random skills ????? Why ???? Again, we always allowed players to select their skills.

Another common variant, and specifically included in Mongoose's edition and T4, the standard in Traveller: New Era (TNE), GURPS Traveller, T20 and Traveller Hero, and a not uncommon house rule in other editions.

The randomness represents not what you trained in, but what stuck after four or more years of active experience your character probably had much less control over than he'd ever admit later.

Part of Traveller's charm to many of the older players is that it is a game about experienced but otherwise ordinary people, who aren't always going to be optimized for the task at hand. Just folks, with starship.

GypsyComet, It has been a long weekend or I would have thanked you sooner for your walk through. It was very interesting to read as it progressed and I can see the allure to just want to roll some more up to see how they progress.

I quite liked what I saw and think that some of the concepts will be borrowed in future projects!

"But anyway, we always either ignored the survival rolls, or interpreted the result as a 'near death' event that was used to give the character a bit more history. What's the point in spending all that time generating a character only to have to start all again because of a random dice roll. That seemed like an utter 'fail' on behalf of the game designers"

I suspect this is why I do not remember seeing anyone die…we just ignored the death rolls…but the old school little black book games we did have characters with a missing/dead eye, loss of fingers/hand arm/leg/etc…these were replaced with prosthetic versions that were not advanced, simple replacements…surely these were due to the death rolls.

*****

"And random skills ????? Why ???? Again, we always allowed players to select their skills"

One of the most common house rules…we would roll and slide up or down to offer a better fit.

*****

"I think science fiction isn't a good fit for our group anyway… we'd never get past the discussions/lectures about why the physics/computers/weapons are 'wrong'. Another reason why fantasy games are more popular I suspect"

Well then…I offer these approaches…

Traveller rules in an "Outland" (movie) setting…it is basically a Western story on a far flung mining station…the facility director is in deep with gangsters/drug cartel…a classic gunfight at sundown or actually on High Noon…with hired guns coming into town to gun down the interloping tinstar(s)…keep the tech level marginal with travel only within our solar system, no aliens (though I would reconsider this as a new frontier…perhaps the mining is on a certain moon covered in ice and the effort is to get down to the water-sea/ocean- miles below), no wiz-bang magic tech.

Fairly easy to control the science aspect with this.

or

Open the flood gates…Traveller + Fantasy…go with classic D&D or the ones your guys are familiar with (humans, elves, orcs, hobbits, elves, and half versions)…allow a balance of magic with science,but more so that the magic powers or allows the science to work…maybe the spell casting has fallen to the wayside and wizards are quite rare, favoring technicians with focused magical talent/training?

or

Star Wars/Star Trek with Traveler rules…again tone it down…a pocket universe with a lucky 13 races from Star Wars or an early setting within the Federation where travel was not hours but usually weeks or more.

or

Dune with Traveller rules…

etc. etc. etc.

Traveller does provide a basic platform that you can easily manipulate to match your given setting…let the setting dictate the standard of science or lack there of, this should help with the debates…unless they just like to argue…then I suggest falling back to Roshambo.

*****

Venus it does sound like you have an interesting group…but at least you have one :)

unless they just like to argue

That's more the case… a couple of the guys have a burning need to tell us what they know so we know that they know it.
Star Wars would seem a good option… but one of those same guys is a huge Star Wars fan.

The group isn't bad… I've just been cranky about them lately.

"I've just been cranky about them lately"

Right? I am cranky about them and I have never met them!

:)

Sorry, just to return to the random skills issue – I'm fully on board with the 'realistic' reasoning for why they should be random. But, we allowed players to select skills so they could get to play the characters they wanted to play, rather than some high specialised +6 swordsman !

Random characters are fine for 'one shot' scenarios, but there's no way in hell I'm going to play a character I've no love for for a whole campaign. Normally, in our campaigns, the GM outlines the background and the players then spend a while (weeks sometimes) thinking up characters they would like to play.

Z

The random aspect does offer a slice of military life…you do not always get to choose your career path…often the direction is chosen for you.

But yes, agreed, players represent a high tier percentage, and in that process most would/should be a bit more in control of their careers.

The random process is a good quick starter…add a handful of picked skills to round the character out.

A balance of the two :)

We used a house rule on skills (which may have come from White dwarf or something similar) where weapons skills were grouped and any weapon skill in that group gave a secondary skill at a much lower level in the related weapons of the same tech level. Sort of …its a rifle…I don't see a bolt so what does this lever thingy do? Hmm I squint down the barrel these thingies must be the sights. Ok I think I can use this…after a fashion. That added some flexibility along with a critical failure rule for attempting to use weapons from outside your skill and tech level.

As for the seeming harsh to learn skills you might not need. Remember this is the army (marines navy etc) you learn what we need you to learn not what you want. It adds to the challenge. To offset that we introduced a training skill that allowed a charachter to train others in his own skill set subject to a cap of the lower of his skill in training or the skill he was teaching and adjusted by the trainees education and intelligence.

weapons skills were grouped and any weapon skill in that group gave a secondary skill at a much lower level in the related weapons of the same tech level.

Must be an early variant. Even Mercenary grouped weapon skills pretty liberally, and most subsequent editions allowed for grouping of like weapons. Slug rifles are slug rifles, and your skill in firing one is going to translate to others once you've figured out the little differences (safety *there*, ejection port *there*, recoils up and slightly left, that ping noise means one more shot, etc), especially in a setting like Traveller where a huge variety of sources is going to be an assumption in training.

The thing about dieing was the same as any other gamble. I have had 4 good terms, and have a good skill set, do i gamble for one or two more terms and perhaps lose it all, or play it safe and quite? Made the decision to go on or not a bit of a nail biter. But I always liked it.

Same with the random skills. can you make it with the strange set life has given you or will you fold up? Cettainly not for everybody. But very cool for some.

Owen

I don't recall FASA doing any careers, unless there is something I'm forgetting in the magazine(s). A few appeared in Dragon/Ares, White Dwarf, Adventure Gaming, Space Gamer, and Different Worlds, as well as GDW's Traveller-specific Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society. Paranoia Press added a few careers

Paranoia Press added an Assassin, an earlier Merchants advanced track, and careers for Zhodani spies.
Judges Guild also had a magazine, Pegasus, that had advanced generation tracks for Air Force and Wet Navy types.