Leif's DISCONTINUED GURPS Traveller Game OOC01

[Insight]

OK, guys. I have my "action" character created and his name is Colin Lewin. The crew rescued him (and perhaps others) from a derelict ship that was drifting in space. Colin has proven himself valuable around our ship and is handy from time-to-time when things get rough. He also seems to know what people are thinking... and wasn't that cup over there??? hmm...

I'm going to hold off posting him to the RG until all of the "regular" characters are posted.

 

[Leif]

OK, guys. I have my "action" character created and his name is Colin Lewin. The crew rescued him (and perhaps others) from a derelict ship that was drifting in space....

Of course, it's up to individual players what the precise origin of your 'B-Team' characters shall be, but as many of you as would like to do so may have been discovered along with Colin Lewin.

And just to re-iterate (and to inform Shayuri, since she hasn't been participating in our emails) the 'B-Team' characters should be built using 115 character points. So that's one 'A-Team' character built with 210 CP, and one 'B-Team' character built with 115 CP. Some are making their 'B-Team' characters more combat- and physically-oriented, but this is in no way a requirement of any kind.

 

[Shayuri]

What is the difference between A team and B team?

besides point level.

 

[Leif]

What is the difference between A team and B team?

besides point level.

A Team are the characters that we originally planned to use. B Team are 'other warm bodies' that might be needed sometimes to handle certain crew duties. Or maybe catch that pesky stray bullet, I don't know. A Yetsabl Class Courier has plenty of room, and if the crew doubles-up in staterooms, you'll still have some room left over for passengers, too. If you'd rather just concentrate on one character and not bother with your B Team member, that's ok, too.

The B Team was also intended to be a way for the players to get a feel for running a different sort of character than they usually play. Like Insight has a mercenary-type bruiser planned for B Team, I think, that should be a nice foil for Doc Hannigan. If Insight has a moment of uncontrollable bloodlust, he can "vent" with his B Team character and keep Doc from being labeled a murderer and ruining his medical reputation.

Gruffle, Insight, Scotley, if you have anything to add, please do so?

 

[Insight]

A Team are the characters that we originally planned to use. B Team are 'other warm bodies' that might be needed sometimes to handle certain crew duties. Or maybe catch that pesky stray bullet, I don't know. A Yetsabl Class Courier has plenty of room, and if the crew doubles-up in staterooms, you'll still have some room left over for passengers, too. If you'd rather just concentrate on one character and not bother with your B Team member, that's ok, too.

The B Team was also intended to be a way for the players to get a feel for running a different sort of character than they usually play. Like Insight has a mercenary-type bruiser planned for B Team, I think, that should be a nice foil for Doc Hannigan. If Insight has a moment of uncontrollable bloodlust, he can "vent" with his B Team character and keep Doc from being labeled a murderer and ruining his medical reputation.

Gruffle, Insight, Scotley, if you have anything to add, please do so?

Well, I was intending for Colin to sub for Doc when we have to go into combat, but now I'm not so sure. Taking 85pts away from him is going to cut just about everything interesting off and make him little more than a meat shield. If that's what we're doing (and that's fine, I just need to know what we're doing), then I'm going to shelve my character idea and just make a standard issue grunt on 115pts. I like my "Colin" idea enough not to squander it on someone likely to die in the first combat.

 

[Leif]

Yeah, let's cut them back to 115 points. Still a good chunk more than a beginning GURPS character, but nowhere near as good as our "star" characters in the game.

 

[Insight]

My only concern is that Doc is going to completely useless for long stretches of the game and I'll be stuck with a lesser character during that time. Maybe that's my fault for making a combat-inept character.

At this point, Doc is looking like a better choice for back-up character, since his skills are far more useful during very short periods of time. What I envision is that Doc appears in one scene, fixing someone up or providing advice, examining evidence, whatever, and that takes like one or two posts. Then we spend the next month of real time playing out a combat scene in 20, 30, 40 posts.

Or am I expecting more combat than I should be?

 

[Scotley]

I don't expect my character to be particularly combat worthy either. Still there are ways to stay busy in combat. You can do some colorful roleplay from the sidelines and I get the impression that GRUPS combat is very deadly, so I expect we'll need Doc's services to keep going. I would not describe Leif and a particularly combat oriented gamemaster. In the game we run together he usually saddles me with running most of the combats.

 

[Leif]

My only concern is that Doc is going to completely useless for long stretches of the game and I'll be stuck with a lesser character during that time. Maybe that's my fault for making a combat-inept character.

At this point, Doc is looking like a better choice for back-up character, since his skills are far more useful during very short periods of time. What I envision is that Doc appears in one scene, fixing someone up or providing advice, examining evidence, whatever, and that takes like one or two posts. Then we spend the next month of real time playing out a combat scene in 20, 30, 40 posts.

Or am I expecting more combat than I should be?

Yes, you're expecting WAY more combat that I plan to have. And Doc's skills will be highly useful, imho. I guess I may be required to have some combat to keep the others satisfied, but GURPS combat is extremely deadly from what I can tell (which includes NO actual experience of playing the game). I'm wanting to have a more cerebral game with puzzles to solve, etc. Very heavy on the role-playing. So Doc looks just perfect to me.

I don't expect my character to be particularly combat worthy either. Still there are ways to stay busy in combat. You can do some colorful roleplay from the sidelines and I get the impression that GRUPS combat is very deadly, so I expect we'll need Doc's services to keep going. I would not describe Leif and AS [edit by Leif] a particularly combat oriented gamemaster. In the game we run together he usually saddles me with running most of the combats.

Yeah, Insight, Scotley has pretty much nailed it!

 

[Scotley]

Speedaribad 'Spider' Bandiopadia

Sitting in a chair with his legs drawn up in a half-lotus and arms warped around a comm unit the dark Zhodani's tall spindly form creates a ball of limbs studded with knees and elbows. Add his signature headset with dual microphones on stalks in front of his mouth and the nickname was inevitable.

Still working out the details of my character, but there's the name and a sense of his appearance. He'll have enough beam weapons skill not to shoot himself in the foot, gunnery, comms and computer skills and Psi power to communicate with electronic equipment such as comms gear and computers directly with his mind. Minor skills with electronics repair, perhaps robotics and anything else that looks like it fits. Is there a precedent for Shadowrun rigger type drones in Traveller or GURPS? I can see him having some little robotic minions.

Disads will be some duty, the usual Zhodani traits, poor social skills and perhaps a little more.