Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8465312" data-attributes="member: 42582">My Classic Traveller rules uses the 6 Book 1 professions (with "Other" rebadged as "Drifter"), the 12 from Supplement 4 (but with "Scientist" rebadged as "Tech" to better reflect their actual skill set), and 2 homebrewed: "Face" which is adapted from an old Dragon/Ares "Cleric" profession and also a "Journalist" found in a MegaTraveller supplement; and "Security" which is adapted from the "Law Enforcement" service found in MegaTraveller.There are 40+ skills on my charts, which are adapted from but not identical to the original ones: the skills from the original (1977) Book 1, plus several from Books 4 to 7. But not all: I don't use Gravitics (Engineering covers it) nor Legal (Admin covers it) nor Trading (Broker covers it). To accommodate the extra skills in PC build, I use the MegaTraveller "Special Duty" line on the Prior Service table, with a minimum throw to get an extra skill roll and with a throw that is 4 higher than the minimum allowing either two extra rolls or a choice of any single skill.For weapons and vehicles I use a mixture of Cascade and Included that is adapted from the various Books (1 to 7 plus Supp 4).I don't like the MegaTraveller skill list, as I think it (1) has too many Cascade skills, overly diluting the random rolls, and (2) has too many skills - especially knowledge and social skills - that for me don't fit comfortably with the system. We use EDU to determine knowledge, with the PC backstory plus development in play being used to help get a sense of what sort of specialisation the PC has.The Survival rule I use is that a result of exactly one less permits survival if the player desires, but with a short term of 2 rather than 4 years, no Mustering Out benefits gained for that term, no chance of a position or promotion, but the normal base skill gained and also a throw for Special Duty with a -1 DM. When we did PC gen for our current game, we had one death in 9 PCs (a Belter, of course) and another one of the 9 forced out by injury in her first term (ie missing the throw by one).I agree with [USER=6588]@pogre[/USER] about PC gen working well as a group activity. But it's tricky to interweave PCs' backgrounds during the process in Classic Traveller, because until it's all finished you don't know who has served how many terms and hence who was at what point of their career when, relative to the other PCs. We do find, though, that the lifepath process suggests a relatively "thick" backstory for individual PCs, and makes it fairly easy to drop in NPCs that relate to that implied backstory.There is a system for points-buy Traveller PC gen in one of the old White Dwarf magazines - The Self-Made Traveller in WD 25 (1981). I think I might have used it once or twice back in the mid-80s. But these days I regard the random lifepath system as pretty core to the Traveller experience.</blockquote>

Verification