The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[payn]

As I recall, that was a Marine, so what else they got wasn't much better. Probably a gun-1 or -0 of some sort. And the point was that he wasn't necessarily going to look any better than one of the other characters who had gone an extra term or two and had other skills to boot. So there was always that passive pressure to stay in for about four terms if you could. And that upped the risk of the survival roll having failed you out somewhere along the line non-trivially.

It was just hard to ensure you'd get that. After all, while you chose the table, it was still a random roll, and if you didn't have an above average Education, one table (with some of the more consistently useful skills) was unavailable.

It's also overstated that failing a survival roll is detrimental. Having multiple career terms doesn't make you multi-class, or worse off than other Travellers. The character might have less money and gear, but that goes away quickly once play starts. I understand the some players might have envy, and the system is very press your luck, but the gap between characters is very small in comparison to D&D editions. Also, there are opportunities in play to close the gap sooner than later. You never will in D&D for example.

Honestly, I thought it was worse than D&D in some ways in that regard (because I was comparing it to OD&D while everything had so little choice in many ways in character gen, there was less of it you were rolling and it meant less). They were both games of their time, of course, so its not entirely fair to object that they didn't have less random generation when almost everything did. I'm far less tolerant of modern takes on it that stick to that (since I otherwise think there's still some sound design there--I've use d one or another version of their animal encounters tables to get the basics for other SF games for example).

Mongoose Traveller 2E has updated chargen just a bit to round off the rough edges, but maintains the spirt and mechanics, IMO. Though, I dont have much experience with modern games that use random chargen.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

TIL that there is an argument between at least some wiccans and Shakespearean scholars about what the ingredients the Weird Sisters in Macbeth were putting into their brew. Either they were weird and creepy ingredients intended to titillate Shakespeare's patron James I and his audiences more generally, or they were actually nicknames for common herbs that the audiences would have recognized and understood to be ordinary plants.

As a DM, this just means double the ingredients for me to use to flesh out a witch's cottage adventure.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's also overstated that failing a survival roll is detrimental. Having multiple career terms doesn't make you multi-class, or worse off than other Travellers. The character might have less money and gear, but that goes away quickly once play starts. I understand the some players might have envy, and the system is very press your luck, but the gap between characters is very small in comparison to D&D editions. Also, there are opportunities in play to close the gap sooner than later. You never will in D&D for example.

You're correct about gear of course, but I'm afraid to most people in most campaigns I ever saw, the training system might as well not have existed because it was so slow (for relatively valid reasons, but still meant you weren't going to see it in play much), so when it came to attributes and skills, what you came into play with was probably what you were going to end with.

Mongoose Traveller 2E has updated chargen just a bit to round off the rough edges, but maintains the spirt and mechanics, IMO. Though, I dont have much experience with modern games that use random chargen.

Cepheus Deluxe is actually my go-to for a modernized Trav clone; its gotten rid of almost all the mandatory random elements in char gen (and you could likely skip the remaining special-events rolls and still have playable characters, though ones with a little less texture. MongTrav does also have some less-random options in its Trav Companion, but as I recall I was kind of unimpressed (its one of those things if you want a random and non-random system for character gen with an RPG ir really helps to develop them both at the same time).

 

[dragoner]

Well, my feeling on that is "If you're constantly building the same character, that's probably revealed preference on what you like. Barring really pathological examples (trying to shoehorn concepts into campaigns where they really don't fit), its not the system or the GM's job to force you not to do that. And if you don't like it as a player--that's easily fixed if you're serious about it."

(This is assuming the system isn't stupidly biased toward some very specific constructions for certain purposes--but even in those, I don't see a virtue in having some people be able to get there because they're dice were cooperative and others not).

I think the virtue is there that it would not exist otherwise. Also I think if one has perpetually the same optimized character, it leads to the same mode of play.

I mean as that said, I do have point buy in my rules, it just doesn't seem that thrilling, though I know people like it. Power level always remains flat anyways, even handing out points for skills or stats at milestones doesn't appreciably change that, a gauss rifle still will do the damage it does.

 

[Ryujin]

Its been too many years for me to have the nerve to argue with you, but that wasn't the impression I had at the time.

Once creation was done you ended up with hp, skills, and some derivative stats that meant you really didn't need to consult the ability scores much anymore, except for CR rolls (INT, Bravery, etc.). It made it easier especially if, like I did, you ignored the fatigue/wind thing.

(And yeah, never was a big fan of how overly random and dead-on-arrival Traveler had either; only Traveler version I really like is Cepheus Deluxe for just that reason, though I respect some other design elements of the original).

The whole concept of created a dead character is inherently wrong to me. I'm creating the character TODAY, so how could he have died YESTERDAY? Then there's the other SF game, whose name escapes me, in which I created a Predator-like alien as character, who was to be a heavily combat skewed PC. During character creation it was determined that he had acquired a respiratory illness, that resulted in him being a physical lightweight.

OTOH a friend ran a horror themed Cyberpunk campaign and used a random life events table during character creation. Rather strangely everything aligned in such a way that my character (Fixer) had a mental illness that manifested as thinking that he was an avatar of God. This sort of removes the concept of fear of death from the table so I played him that way. Through the whole campaign he never failed a fear based roll, for anything. Succeeded at wildly improbable tasks. The whole nine yards, based solely on random chance.

 

[prabe]

Unrelated to the discussion of Traveler ...

I see why y'all are continuing to argue so hard, and though I agree with you I gotta say some people you just can't reach--in this case, probably because they pretty clearly don't want to be reached.

 

[dragoner]

I agree with Thomas Shey, point buy has to be built in, it's a poor fit as a bolt on. Traveller is also a square peg in the round hole of D&D, power level is flat, there is no build up. Though one can start in the middle and forget all that so in many ways refreshing if one can key into the way it plays.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the virtue is there that it would not exist otherwise. Also I think if one has perpetually the same optimized character, it leads to the same mode of play.

It may well--but again, that doesn't seem something a game should be forcing someone not to do.

I mean as that said, I do have point buy in my rules, it just doesn't seem that thrilling, though I know people like it. Power level always remains flat anyways, even handing out points for skills or stats at milestones doesn't appreciably change that, a gauss rifle still will do the damage it does.

See, I don't expect character generation to be "thrilling". That's what play is for. The only way character gen is liable to be "thrilling" to most people is if it creates winners and losers, and that's waaay to high a price far as I'm concerned.

 

[Thomas Shey]

OTOH a friend ran a horror themed Cyberpunk campaign and used a random life events table during character creation. Rather strangely everything aligned in such a way that my character (Fixer) had a mental illness that manifested as thinking that he was an avatar of God. This sort of removes the concept of fear of death from the table so I played him that way. Through the whole campaign he never failed a fear based roll, for anything. Succeeded at wildly improbable tasks. The whole nine yards, based solely on random chance.

There's some value that can be had by randomization that actually says something about a character. The problems are usually two-fold: 1. Most games that do it force it on you whether you want it or not, and 2. They often provide more swing than I think is actually healthy for the dynamics of a game group.

 

[dragoner]

It may well--but again, that doesn't seem something a game should be forcing someone not to do.

Maybe not, though if it becomes repetitive ...