I know it was from a long while, but "steer towards" the career you want was how I described character generation in Traveller. In most other games, I could just pitch a concept like "You're all members of a crew who operate a tramp freighter as you attempt to make some scratch and eek out an existence in a hostile universe." Players could then choose specifically, "I'll be an engineer," or "I'll be a physician." It doesn't work like that in Traveller. I could pitch an idea but the player who wants an engineer character might end up like me with a knife skill of 3 and a Steward skill of 4. I just find it difficult to plan a campaign as I normally plan them.