Payn's Ponderings Traveller Chargen

[Mezuka]

Traveller is the one system I for sure love doing chargen together. It's also the only system I like random chargen. It can be kind of a beast and take a full session depending on number of players. The first time I ran it, the players just made Travellers simultaneously. It was entirely chaotic with books flying around and a million questions. So, I ask ahead of time that the players take a peak at the careers and think about their character before session 0. I'll also ask that they do stat rolling ahead of time too. This helps dive in and save a little time.

I have also full heartedly given into the Traveller connection rule. When a player hits a life or career events, these are great ways to spontaneously generate connections for the party. I also love that they give me both helpful and rival NPCs to add to my campaign custom built for the Travellers. Not everybody gets into this level of detail but I think its fun going around the circle and experiencing the Traveller coming to life together.

I barely recall the only Traveller session I played, in 1981. It was great fun but the GM could not follow up with a second session. He fell into the rabbit hole of trying to design a complete futuristic city for us to explore. He kept postponing week after week. We got tired of waiting and played AD&D instead.

 

[payn]

I barely recall the only Traveller session I played, in 1981. It was great fun but the GM could not follow up with a second session. He fell into the rabbit hole of trying to design a complete futuristic city for us to explore. He kept postponing week after week. We got tired of waiting and played AD&D instead.

I hope you have an awesome return to one of my favorite RPGs!

 

[pemerton]

Traveller is the one system I for sure love doing chargen together. It's also the only system I like random chargen.

I like Traveller's random PC gen. I see that as part of the Traveller experience.

 

[payn]

I like Traveller's random PC gen. I see that as part of the Traveller experience.

I have a player right now and we are going through a one shot to try Traveller out. They are all new to the game I to speed up the experience I made pre-gens. I told them if they really like this single adventure, I' run a campaign and we would do chargen.

One player loves collecting systems and digging into the details. He has been looking at chargen and is kind of freaking out. He wants a point buy system because hes worried about getting randomly screwed by dice rolls. Also, this guy is very big into making backstories but the Traveller system does that during chargen.

This might be one of those times I have to use my heavy GM hand and just ask the player to let go and experience the system as is. There is way too much D&D baggage weighing down on him.

 

[pemerton]

One player loves collecting systems and digging into the details. He has been looking at chargen and is kind of freaking out. He wants a point buy system because hes worried about getting randomly screwed by dice rolls. Also, this guy is very big into making backstories but the Traveller system does that during chargen.

I don't want to judge your player, not knowing him except from what you say here. But my thought was, Why have different systems if they're not different? So maybe try and sell him on the "It's part of the Traveller experience" aspect?

 

[payn]

I got a new question. Looking to do chargen for a new campaign next week. I am thinking about stat gen. I am thinking about having the travellers roll their stats as usual, but also offering them a referee array as an alternative. That said, what would you offer as a referee stat array?

My array now;
11, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5

 

[Mezuka]

I got a new question. Looking to do chargen for a new campaign next week. I am thinking about stat gen. I am thinking about having the travellers roll their stats as usual, but also offering them a referee array as an alternative. That said, what would you offer as a referee stat array?

My array now;
11, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5

I gave my players: +2 (12), +1 (10), 0 (8), 0 (7), 0 (6), -1 (5)

 

[payn]

Rolling Travellers tonight, cant wait!

 

[aramis erak]

I got a new question. Looking to do chargen for a new campaign next week. I am thinking about stat gen. I am thinking about having the travellers roll their stats as usual, but also offering them a referee array as an alternative. That said, what would you offer as a referee stat array?

My array now;
11, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5

Rather high, actually.
I'd offer 5's across plus 13 points, or 4's across plus 20, rather than an array.

Or, alternatively, an array of 12 dice - assign 2 to each stat: [6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1] or [6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1]

 

[payn]

During the latest round of chargen, I noticed something about the connections rule from MGT2E. I have three players and two of them were able to create at the same time. The third met up a day or two later to roll their Traveller. The connections rule is a lot easier to manage when chargen is simultaneous. My players where painstakingly trying to connect in ways that interested them that also aligned chronologically. I told them that timing doesn't really matter to me, but it really did for them.

In any event, I do like the connections rule and find it extra fun when the events are specific to the campaign (running Pirates of Drinax). I hope Mongoose continues looking into player options for campaigns and beyond. I know the generic events are suitable for most games, but its fun to have additional connections to a campaign to draw the players in. YMMV.